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Ask a Widow: Am I Moving Forward if I’m Still Angry?
Answer: Yes. That’s my answer to the question “am I moving forward if I’m still angry?” It’s a question I get frequently from readers in one form or another. So many widows I know – both my friends and people I’ve met online – want desperately to move forward with their lives. (On the whole, most widows say they want to “move forward” rather than “move on,” since the latter seems to imply leaving behind all memory of the person who was lost.) Regardless of how a widow wants to define it, there often comes a point in a widow’s life when you begin to move beyond the initial loss.…
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Widowhood and Breakups
I’ve been thinking a lot about breakups lately, which I guess is super strange since I’m also wedding planning. Let me be clear – I’m not thinking about my own relationship breaking up! But I think being in love (and knowing that I have a future with someone new) has made me reflect on all the times when it didn’t work out. And there were a lot of times when it didn’t work out. I wrote very little about it at the time. I told some of my friends that I was dating, but I was shy about it with most people. I felt judged by everyone, even though the…
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Deserving It
Over the past few months, I’ve been telling my friends, family and online community about my new relationship. “I’m so happy,” I say, honestly, and for those people who can see my face, they know that it’s true. Do you know what people almost always say back to me? “You deserve it!” When I hear this, I always say “thank you” and smile. I know that others are trying to say that they are so glad that I’ve been able to meet someone who makes me so happy. I get it. My dad and many of my friends have used this phrase when talking to me. In fact, I’ve said…
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Being Alone is Scary
One night in early February, as the wind whipped the trees so hard that they seemed to bend sideways, I laid in bed and tried to warm up my freezing toes. Life finally had a rhythm to it, and I was getting used to year three of widowhood. I thought about Valentine’s Day, and how it was around the corner, and I was still without a partner. This year, however, I was feeling a sense of peace about my singledom. I was still dating, but the urgency of finding someone new had abated. As I sat there writing and thinking, Tommy came to my door and then climbed into my…
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Out of the Corner of My Eye
Back when I was happily married, I used to have these moments that made me long for another life. I’d be doing something like picking out eggs at the grocery store while I fed my baby Cheerios, and I’d see something out of the corner of my eye. Maybe it was a magazine with a cover story on European train trips or a newly-in-love couple trying the free samples together. Whatever it was, I’d wish for a little bit of excitement, a little bit of something new. I’d think, I like my life. I am happy. But I just wanted a little bit more. Now I want to go back…
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You Are Alone. Accept That. Carry On. (Part 2)
December has been hard, in a lot of ways. It’s the month when I re-live every painful moment in the hospital with Shawn, it’s the month when I’m supposed to be happy but sometimes just can’t be, and it’s the month when I remember that yes, it all really happened. This life I’m living is really true, not just some terrible nightmare. I was running the other day with my friend Purva, because we are not deterred by freezing temperatures and darkness, and she asked me how I was feeling about my life. I’d just finished telling her about a guy I liked who had recently told me he didn’t…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
