Struggling in Year Two as a Widow

     

     If you are not in the mood for a post like this, I will take no offense. Skip on over and hopefully another day I'll be a bit better spirited. This is for me really after another challenging weekend trying to cope. I'm really struggling in this second year of being a widow. Maybe it's the season; this should have been our first summer to really enjoy the extra time together. He was to have retired Labor Day weekend last September, and we'd be spending nights going to music by the park events, weekends and my days off either on an adventure or at the cabin, happily tooling around in the boat that he waited decades to buy. I can't stop thinking about the wasted opportunities when we had them and took time for granted. The planning for my own retirement almost sickens me to see the unused financial sacrifices he made to secure our future. 

      I focus on my kid's happiness but they each seem just as stuck, but in different ways. I know they will be happy or not, satisfied with life or not, independent of me. I don't want to be a burden to any of them. Irrational thinking clogs my brain frequently. Maybe them being stuck is because they see me struggling and I'm supposed to be the matriarch now, keeping things floating. Instead, we seem to all be treading water and I feel like none of us can catch a break. 

     I'm lonely all the time-even with people. I feel like a 3rd wheel, a fifth wheel, a unicycle. I really don't like being around his family, but I will when decorum seems to require it. No-not decorum, because what is proper as a widow? I join them because I don't want anything to reflect poorly on my husband or my children. I'm even going to join my kids when they spend a long weekend at the cabin, but honestly, might make a Saturday exit as the throngs will descend by Friday night. I'll make a day trip only to the lake for the 4th of July. I feel like the extra around my family too, but not as badly because too many of my sisters have experienced widowhood and aloneness. They don't seem to expect that I've moved on, or as my mother-in-law says, "keep on" as in, " you just need to keep on."  I've felt critiqued by her almost from day one of meeting her, but I even feel like she's critiquing how I mourn. This is likely another irrational view I'm holding, but when she literally does not say his name or changes the subject if I do, I can't help it.  

     I feel enough on my own like I'm widowing wrong and should be making headway learning to live as myself. I read blogs by others that seem to be doing so well. They run businesses, nurture gardens, care for grandchildren. I just sit in my own mind too often. I don't know if it will really help, but there is some reassurance when I read or hear from others that yes, the second year can be just as awful. This article, Grief for Widows and Widowers Can Prove Harder after the First Year was spot on in so many areas to what I've been feeling and dealing with. I've had uncontrollable crying jags, and moments where I feel tears welling up for no apparent reason; something in that moment reiterated the loss. Poor Sobhan in the UK, I've used her as an email pen pal, no key board therapy more like it, probably too much. But I sometimes have felt she is the only one that understands what I feel-and we've not even met in person. We have joked, no that's not the right word, pondered, that our emails could be put together as content for a grief experience book. 

     I can't wait to go to bed each night, and at least the few hours of sleep I can get. I don't have any facade to keep up and no happy face to put on so others are not uncomfortable around me. Yet, each morning I must get up. When I am in bed I'm lonely too, but I'm able to be lonely in complete privacy. 

     In time I'll figure out what is important to keep, what no longer needs to be part of my life. The boat may prove to be a bigger hassle than it's worth. I've said I'm going to give it this summer and next to see how much use it gets, then with the kids make a decision that's right for us all. I'll remember my kids are adults and I can't do anything but offer a safe landing place. I deal with whatever is slung my way for work and continue putting plans in place for next summer.  

     I try and take joy with the dogs, the visiting kitten, the sunshine with a cool breeze. I'll keep hope that after my knee surgery and commitment to physical therapy, I'll feel better. There's no medical intervention to manage the physical (it's a continual ache in my stomach and head) and mental pain I'm dealing with in my grief. I guess it's time and trying each day to lean into the life I have right now, even though it absolutely is not the life I wanted. There is no alternative.