Things are hard. Life is hard. Sometimes I am convinced that life is much harder for some than for others. Sometimes it feels like I can never get a break. Sometimes it feels like I will always struggle and things will always be really hard, and that is just how my life will be. I dont know. None of this is fact. Just feelings. …
Shaken, Foggy, Shocked
Yesterday, I was driving to my Soaring Spirits Widowed Social Group meetup that I co-lead. We meet 2x per month, at various coffee shops and restaurants and such. We provide friendship, support, and a place to safely be our widowed selves, whether thats crying, laughing, venting, or anything in between. Yesterday we met at a new…
Nobody Remembers (Repeat)
Kelley Lynn is out of town this week and is not able to post her weekly Friday blog, so we went back to a post she wrote 5 years ago about the weight that comes with making sure our loved ones are remembered. Even five years later, we’ll bet that many of you can relate to her words… If you are widowed, and you are reading this, then you know…
Trauma Return
Yesterday something happened at a doctors office that sent me straight back into 23 years ago, when I just barely lived through a traumatic event, and joined the ranks in becoming the 2-words that I would grow to absolutely loathe ,and feel shame about for a very long time: rape victim. After awhile, I began shifting from using the term…
Tightrope Walker
Have you ever felt like your life as a widowed person has you being pulled and pushed in multiple directions? Like you are walking a tightrope, but nobody bothered to ever give you any lessons. It’s a tug of war between responsibilities, loyalties, and things you want. Honoring that other life. Living this one. Grieving , but not staying…
National Widows Day is a Thing
Today is National Widows Day. There is also something called International Widows Day. The purposes of both of these days is to A: acknowledge widowed people B: be kind to widowed people C: spread awareness about how widowhood affects a persons life, and how, in some parts of the world, widows are even looked down upon or in danger. So, I do…
Things That Matter
Since becoming an involentary widow almost 8 years ago, I have changed in many positive ways. I am more empathetic. I am more sympathetic. I am less judgemental of people’s lives and situations and circumstances. I listen better. I stop to talk with people more. I find more meaning and beauty in very tiny things. I exist in the moment…
Grief Mistakes
Soon after the sudden death of my husband, almost 8 years ago now, I began trying to navigate my new reality and world that I never asked for or wanted. I didnt know what the hell I was doing. There are no guidelines or handbook for how to “widow” properly. I hadn’t even put away all of our dishes and kitchen items and gifts from a few years…
Closer
Lately, Im feeling a strangeness that is stranger than my normal daily strange. I keep finding ways to make you feel closer. Its like, I cant seem to find a way for you to feel close to me, nearby, present, in the way that I want. Maybe it’s because Im in a happy and loving relationship, and Im feeling delayed thoughts of guilt for that. Or…
The Guessing Game
Sometimes I get tired of playing the guessing game. The guessing game of what really happens after we die. Knowing there is never an answer to the thousands of questions I have, and the only way to actually know for sure, is to die myself. And even then, there is no guarantee I will know what happens after death, because if the answer is…
It Never Gets Old
Being a widow – it gets old really fast. There are days and weeks and hours where I want to scream out to the universe or whoever cares: “IM SO OVER THIS!!! WHEN WILL THIS WIDOW THING END???” But it wont end. He will always be dead, so I will always be his widow. And truly, it is my honor, because it means we are forever connected. But…
It Gets Softer
When I first became widowed, I remember asking someone who had been a widow much longer than me, if the pain would ever get easier. Her response was: “Not easier, but softer. It gets softer. ” I didnt really understand what she meant. It has been almost 8 years since my husband Don’s sudden death. In the beginning, and for a very long…