I write a lot about how strange and even unrecognizable my life is now. I can’t explain exactly how I got here, but I can tell you a little about what it’s like, just over three years after my husband died. I wake up every morning thinking of Mike. Reminders of him are everywhere in my house, on this island, and in my heart and mind. So in…
Widowed
A Toast to Drew
Drew, It’s been over a year since I really started getting to know the person you were. Yesterday was your birthday, and as Sarah and I had a beer, we toasted to you. We sat quietly on the couch, tapped our bottles, and watched television for the rest of the evening. I wanted to write you a note about things. There weren’t any big…
A Recipe for Life after Loss
So here we are again, at yet another holiday in the “after” life… only this one for me is very different. Firstly, I’m in Ohio, not Texas. Mike, Shelby and I are up early. The two of them are in the kitchen starting to cook up a feast for Easter while I write this. In about 5 hours, Mike’s family will be over and we will be doing a whole…
Re-claiming a Simple Pleasure
DISCLAIMER: Post about alcohol When Dan died unexpectedly from depression, the PTSD had such an effect on my body, I couldn’t tolerate alcohol. A glass of wine or two and I’d either be catatonic and sleepy or violently ill. This was probably a blessing in disguise at the time because believe me, I tried to drink – I would have LOVED to drink.
How did I get here??
Do you ever get the feeling you’re living someone else’s life? I’ve been having these kind of out-of-body moments when I look around my small world and just for a flash, don’t recognize anything. It’s not any kind of serious psychological break, don’t worry – it’s just that moment when I think…how on earth did I get here?? I think…
The Good, Bad, Ugly, and Everything in Between~
This is a list. Not a gratitude list necessarily, but a list that does include some good shit, nonetheless. And sometimes it’s easier to write in list form than prose form. This past weekend I had a massive, huge, meltdown/purge/nervous breakdown. Included were earthquake size shakes throughout my body, shallow breathing, sobbing, gut-wrenching…
What do You Think?
So I bought a table. It was only forty dollars, and it’s a little round glass patio table. Shelby and I spent an hour or so unpackaging it, laying the parts out, and assembling it. I know this sounds completely mundane, even boring, but bear with me. This table symbolizes something. It’s not sentimental, really. It wasn’t…
Wear Your Damn Watch!
I wanted to share someone else’s story today… one that she shared with me recently that I felt had such a powerful message for us all. I met Tara at my first Camp Widow back in 2014, and I remember having a great conversation with her one night over a few drinks out on the patio. She made an impression on me that night that has always stuck. A…
Ready to Step Up
I’m posting my Widows Voice blog a bit late today. I’m scheduled to publish it at 5pm every Saturday, Australian time, which is midnight Saturday over in the USA (I live in the future, you see!). I’ve been late before but never missed a week, however as my scheduled time rolled around yesterday, I felt so overwhelmed with everything I had…
Trying to Treasure
I’m still working my way back into life on the island from the last two weeks I spent in New Orleans helping out my stepdaughter and her family. Two weeks of helping care for a four year old and a two year old with a newborn there as well pretty much knocks out everything else one might otherwise be doing or thinking about. Having never raised…
The Pulse Beat of Love Over Everything Else~
I have to remind myself, as many of us do, I expect, that this widowhood is, as I learned in AA, a matter of progress, not perfection. Because I, for one, consistently seem to expect more of myself than is realistic. By which I mean, I continually scan my body and mind and heart to see where I am in this grief and why I’m not further along, even…
Perspectives from Camp Widow
Sarah and I have just returned from Camp Widow, in Tampa. This was our third camp together, and our first time returning to Tampa, where we met last year. If you’ve read her sunday post, you know that we had great expectations of what this Camp was going to be like, and for the first few days, it seemed as if everything we had planned for…