Widow's Voice

#Hashtag Widow~

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I blame most everything on #deadhusband.

It’s an all encompassing explanation for that feeling inside of me that has just been #off since Chuck’s death.

I no longer have the energy to consider each and every emotion that runs through me on any given day, so it’s just easier to hashtag it.

Also, in my own mind, it makes me sound trendy.

I like the word Staci uses about her life without Mike. #underwhelmed.

It’s funny, really, in an ironic way, that my life looks so colorful and exciting to those looking in. Or maybe it doesn’t and I’m projecting what others think when they see me living out on the road, driving a #pinkcar, towing a #pinktrailer. Also, many people have told me how exciting it must be.

I’m fully engaged, emotionally, in my #OdysseyofLove, but if I’m not #driving, actually out on the #openroad, sharing the story of #whyallthepink, then life itself is #underwhelming to me. There’s a lack of #satisfaction to all of it.

Which then makes me wonder #whatthefuckiswrongwithme ?

Yadda, yadda, yadda, there’s no timeline for grief. I’m supposed to be grateful for life in general, right? Grateful that I’m alive and have my health, etc.

I honestly do laugh quite a bit on a daily basis.

I engage fully with my adult kids and grands and friends and siblings.

I push comfort zones and boundaries and try new things and I get out there and I explore. I’m doing shit I’ve never ever done. I’ve done grief therapy. EMDR. Grief support groups. Specialized classes to learn about grief and how we carry it. I’m in therapy now, again…well, briefly interrupted by #coronavirus. I keep my heart and mind open to life in general.

But life is still just fucking #underwhelming to me and I don’t know how to change the fact that the blood that runs through my veins hums Chuck’s name and his absence continually and consistently.

I’m #confused. What the ever loving hell am I missing?

What more do I need to do?

It isn’t enough to think what I was told early on…. #Chuckwouldwantyoutobehappy. My response to that is that #Chuckwasnottheoneleftbehind. So he doesn’t get a say in how I’m handling living without him.

#Sigh.

I’m getting on with my life, just like most of us do.

But there’s no #fuckingjoy in it, you know?

On the up side, my dark sense of humor is really rather impressive, and I crack myself up with it, often. Sometimes other widows crack up with me. #widowcracked.

Mostly, though, at this point…2,550 days after Chuck’s death…

Color me #missinghimunbearably…

#April #21 #2013

#11:21pm 

#deadhusband

 

 

About Alison Miller

My beloved husband Chuck died while we were full timing on the road. We’d rented a condo for our stay in southern CA, and I had to leave 3 weeks after his death. All I knew at that time was that I had to find a way to continue traveling on my own, because settling down without him made me break into a cold sweat. I knew that the only place I’d find any connection to Chuck again was out on the roads we’d been traveling for our last 4 years together. I knew nobody out on the road, I knew grief was a great isolator, and I knew I had to change the way I traveled without him, to make it more emotionally bearable for me. So I bought a new car, had a shade of pink customized for it, bought a tiny trailer and painted the trim in pink, learned how to tow and camp, and set out alone. My anxiety was through the roof, and all I knew to trust was the Love that Chuck left behind for me. I found Soaring Spirits early on, thank god, and the connections I made through SS helped ground me to some extent. I needed to know that other widow/ers were out there in my world, because I felt so disoriented and dislocated. Through Soaring Spirits, as the miles added up, my rig taking me north, south, east and west, I found community. I found sanity…or at least I learned that if I was bat shit crazy, I was in good company, and realizing that ultimately saved my sanity. PinkMagic, my rig, is covered with hundreds of names of loved ones sent to me by my widowed community, and I know it isn’t visible to the naked eye, but I’ll let you in on a secret…she actually illuminates Love as I drive down the many roads in our country, and I can see it through my side view mirror. Love does, indeed, live on~

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