I just want to be alone so much lately. I’ve always been a bit introverted, but I literally haven’t wanted to be around anyone at all lately – and that’s not like me. For me, it can be so easy to just close off from the world. I know it’s one of those things I have to be careful about keeping in check. Particularly as an artist – it is extremely…
Widowed Suddenly
Just Pray
Okay. So I’m probably going to alienate some people or piss some people off with this post today, but you know what? The reason I’m writing it in the first place is because I feel alienated every single day, by the very same people who will be angry or upset by this post. Besides, my intention is not to upset anyone. My intention is, as always, to…
When Sick Was Pretty
This past week, I’ve been under the weather with a mysterious illness. On Tuesday, my lymph nodes started to swell up. By Wednesday they were the size of golf balls and very tender. And then some glands in my cheeks started to do the same. Needless to say, by Wednesday night I looked like I had gained twenty pounds on my face. I actually had no…
Sit With It
Someone else. For three years and a couple of months now, those words and that concept has been one that I simply cannot deal with or even picture. For 3 years, the very idea of someone else, someone other than my husband who I’m supposed to grow old with decades from now, sent me into instant panic. It still does. It still makes me shake and…
Healing with Pride
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about accomplishment, and just how important it has been in helping me to heal and learn to live again. I’m a few months into my third year of being widowed now. Since he died, there have been dozens and dozens of leaps into the unknown. Like most of you, a lot of what I have accomplished I did not have a choice…
The Missing of You
Something strange has been happening lately. Perhaps for about the past month or so, this odd thing has been inside me. It is the missing of you – which, of course, has always been there since that day you died and I died too – but this is different. This is different than it just being there as a part of me. This missing of you is a force. It is…
The Tides of Grief
The past week has been hard. I suppose that isn’t surprising… Coming down from a really incredible week surrounding my birthday. I don’t know if this has happened to any of you, but every so often there is a week or a month in which I feel like someone put me in a giant slingshot and plummeted me into my new life. And not in a bad way…
Choices
Dear Readers, I am warning you ahead of time; this post is going to be a huge, scrambled, all over the place, chaotic, messy, unfocused clusterf**k of nothing. Or something. I don’t even know. But when you’re done reading it, and you say to yourself: What the hell was THAT? – Well, I told ya so. Last week, I wrote in here from the lobby of the…
And I Danced
It turns out I had a couple of big things happen last weekend. Aside from last week’s post, I also met up with my three closest girlfriends halfway between Austin and Dallas to celebrate my birthday. We went out Saturday night to a country dance hall. Now this is the first time I’ve ever really gone to a dance hall since he died. He and I used to…
Rebirth on my Birthday
It is 12:40 a.m. east coast time, on Friday, September 26th, and I am writing this blog piece from the Marriott hotel in downtown Toronto, Canada. I am here for Camp Widow, getting set to give my comedy presentation for the 5th time in a row. Sitting in the lobby where the Wi-fi is free on my laptop, exhausted after an almost 12 hour train ride…
Embracing the After Birthdays
Birthdays. It’s one of the hardest parts. My first birthday in this afterlife was just three months after my fiancé died. I didn’t even want to think about my birthday much less have one. We had decided to go to the Grand Canyon that year for my birthday, since I had never been to a national park. Refusing to spend my 30th birthday in bed, I…
Seasons
The change in the air from humid to crisp, warm to slightly cool – puts a loud ringing bell on your death – as I ready myself for my birthday, then your birthday, Halloween, our wedding anniversary, Thanksgiving, our proposal anniversary, Christmas, and then ringing in another new year without you. This time of year filled with holidays and family…