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Thanks on Thanksgiving
I’m going to let you in on a secret. I’ve decided that it’s time to end the blog. Don’t worry – I’m not stopping right now! At this point, I don’t know exactly how I’m going to stop writing this blog. But for the past few months, I’ve been wrestling with whether it makes sense anymore for me to write about widowhood. The early, intense months of widowhood are now in the past for me, and even the big changes that occurred over the past 4 1/2 years – living with my dad, raising kids as a single mom, dating, falling in love, the pandemic, getting married and having Chris…
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A New Look for DC Widow
If you’ve been a reader for a long time, first of all, thank you. Maybe you’ve read since the beginning, or maybe since I published that article in Vox about dating that sent a number of young widows to this blog. Or maybe you just lost your spouse and just started reading and if that’s you, I’m sending you a virtual hug. Hang in there. I promise it gets easier. Over the past three-and-a-half years (and over 500 posts!) I’ve learned a lot. I’ve grown up, as a mother and a teacher and a widow and a human, and I’ve gone from writing a blog that’s singularly about me and…
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Now You Just Write Random Things
Dinnertime is where we have our most interesting conversations. It hasn’t always been this way. For many years I just survived dinnertime with small kids, and the year Shawn died I don’t think I had one real conversation over a meal with the kids. But eventually my dad and I settled on a dinner routine. When Chris arrived this spring, he helped cement it even further. Every night, we go around and say our highs and lows for the day, which usually leads us into longer conversations. The other day, I was talking about how I had connected with another young widow and it made me feel good to talk…
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My 200th Blog Post
I remember the first blog post I wrote. I was sitting in jury duty, hating life, and thinking: God, I should text Shawn about the ineptitude of the jury system. And then I remembered that I couldn’t text him, because he had died the month prior. I wrote down what was in my head, trying to describe what it felt like to not be able to text the one person who had always had my back for the previous fifteen years. I found it really difficult to do, but somehow, 800 words emerged. At the end of that post, I wrote this: When we said those words, “for better or…
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How Did You Cope?
Three times a week, I pour out my emotions on this blog and I tell the world exactly what’s on my mind. Last year, I got a lot of texts/calls/emails from friends and family after certain blog posts. But lately, I’ve started to hear more from people I don’t know. I get messages from people who’ve read my articles and found my blog and want to connect. Sometimes I write back, and sometimes I don’t. (If you want to know who I don’t write back to, let me say this: my blog is not a dating site. Please do not write me and ask me to go on a date…
There’s No Handbook for How to Do This
