Widow's Voice

Word of the Year

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In my very first post here I said I’ve never been a New Year resolution kind of gal. I still maintain that I am not. For me, the resolutions are too specific and confined that make me feel destined to fail. As a lifelong perfectionist failure is way outside my comfort zone.

Over the last few years, I’ve noticed a new trend where people chose a word for the year. So, after hemming and hawing over it I decided to jump on the bandwagon for 2023.

The word I have chosen for myself is PRESENT.

Life comes at us in so many ways and there are distractions at every turn. I want to be more intentional with it.

Notecard to remind myself

I want to be more PRESENT with my children. Listening with intent to their stories of school and friendship. Even when they are regaling me with tales from a Fortnite battle.

For myself, I want to PRESENT for myself and my healing journey. Making space for my grief without wallowing too long. Being intentional with my time. Stop counting down the time during a massage and just enjoy each moment.

When I’m spending time with friends and family, I want to PRESENT for that too. How many times do we look around the room and see people on their phones? The insta-face-page likes and even the texts can usually wait.

If I am more PRESENT in my life, I think I will find joy in the small moments and support in the heavy ones. I get to decide who we spend our time with, and we know too well that time isn’t a limitless resource.

Even though I am a perfectionist, I do not expect to be perfect with my intentions. I know there will still be times when I will shut down the video game talk from my boys. Try as I might, I will never care about the new character that was released. There will still be times when I’m spending time with friends and hop on my phone to text someone else. But if keep PRESENT at the top of mind, maybe I can be more intentional about it.

Kids and me on NYE

Anyone else hop on the Word of the Year bandwagon? I’d love to hear your word for 2023.

About Emily Vielhauer

My name is Emily Vielhauer, I am 44 years old and have 3 knuckleheaded sons who are between the ages of 9 and 14. My husband, Tony, and I were married for 14 years and despite how things ended we built something great together.

April 19th, 2021 was the last day of my ‘before’ story. The day before I became a widow, before I was a solo parent to 3 boys, before I knew my love was suffering in silence, before suicide rocked my world, before I had to break the hearts of my children and all our friends and family, before I planned a funeral and delivered a eulogy, before I knew the true depths of my love for Tony and the way that love would be expressed through grief, so many befores.

My hope for this blog is to take you along with me as I navigate my life in the ‘after’ and that my words help someone else out there, whether they empower you or just let you know that you’re not alone out there.