Life is hard. Widowed life is hard. Sometimes things happen in life that really have nothing to do with my widowhood, but they are just “life” things that happen and that are stressful, and because I am widowed, my perspective on these things and how I handle them and cope with them is different – I see everything through my widowed eyes, and this is neither a bad thing or a good thing – its just a thing.
Sometimes there are things Im going through that are really really hard and really pretty bad, but because I lived through the sudden death of my husband, I have this weirdly fierce confidence that I will get through this, and part of that is the knowing that while this is definitely really bad, I have been through the absolute worst already.
Things are not great right now. I cant post details here (I am sorry that I often say that here, but when problems involve people other than myself, I have to protect my family members and loved ones privacy), but its a stressful time, and I dont know whats going to happen or how it will resolve or if it will resolve, but Im trying to stay hopeful and reasonable and focus on the things that I can control, because there are many things I cannot control about this situation. And whenever things suddenly change or feel as if they might fall apart, it is certainly a grief trigger back to that ordinary Wednesday in 2011 when everything DID fall apart. My heart goes into panic mode, and then my mind reminds me that this is not the same thing, and that maybe things wont fall apart this time. Maybe. And even if they do, today, right now in this moment, there is still time to possibly repair this. When Don died, there was ZERO “time” for anything. He was alive, and then I woke up on a Wednesday, and he wasnt. Boom. Life changed forever.
During challenging times like this, one thing that helps me greatly is to find some kind of sanctuary, and go there and be at peace. It can be a physical place, a piece of music, an activity such as gardening for some people, or anything at all. Something or somewhere that brings you peace, and that allows you to STOP thinking about all the things just for an hour or two, or some days, like today, only about 45 minutes but that is way better than nothing.
For me, this place of sanctuary has become our pool. The house we bought last September has a gorgeous inground pool, which is something I have always wanted and never thought I would actually have. Now, here I am, 50 years old, remarried and a first-time homeowner, and I have my pool. The pool is a lot of work to maintain. But I have found a strange rhythm in cleaning the skimmers, vacumning the pool, leaning up the patio area, and doing my pool workout routine, and then some light laps, and sometimes, just floating around in there and not thinking about anything. The water makes me feel weightless, and my mind also becomes weightless, and I just breathe in and out and watch the blue sky above me and listen to the sound of the birds and the life that nature has built.
Sometimes, this is what gets me through my day, when things are really hard.
That, and the knowing that I have been through worse, and I will figure this out too. Eventually.