Evolution

Widowhood brings a certain touch of insanity that never entirely disappears.  At first it touchs every part of your life in a bewildering ride of rocketing emotions, from stupor to hysteria. After a while, after some years, most of us function rather well, may have found love again and done things once unimaginable. Still, there are those moments that feel like madness.

 

I mean, how normal can it be to yell at a dead man? We b***h, we resent and cuss out the stupid selfish b******s who up and died, leaving us to manage everything.   Having children adds its own dimension of misery, and the dead fathers catch hell for that, too.  

 

It has been more than three years since my husband died suddenly, leaving us stunned and blinded. The children were almost 8 and 10 years old, children of a second marriage with nieces and nephews older than themselves.  We are well into adolescence here at Chez Moi, although my trip down this road is a little faster the second time.  It felt like adolescence, those first two years, although with generally better skin. Who am I, where do I fit in, how will I spend my life?

 

I've lived most of my life out of sync with the group, doing things as circumstances and whim carried me.  Illness brought an end to my career and I've been at home for more than ten years. I returned to school five years ago with a plan to redesign my life and build a job for myself. That plan blew up and I was further sidetracked by a year off for a grueling medical treatment. I'm still trying to figure out a place for me and a means to an income, but have another year of school and it's possible I may end up employable, just as my peers are able to retire.

 

Then there's dating.  Even with better skin and the confidence of a woman too old to be intimidated, it's no more fun than it was as a teen. As then, I seem to be invisible to all but the most unusual men. I'm drawn to men of intelligence and curiosity, those with an interesting history and wide variety of experiences. There are dismayingly few such men in the world, and none at all at the moment in my life.  I've had some dates, some lovers, some long distance friendships, but met no one I could imagine joining my life.

 

The evolution from raw devastation to recovery is uneven, with periods of growth and contentment, and times of bleak uncertainty.  I'm one of the lucky ones. I have family including the stepfamily far away; I have courage, strength and intelligence; I had the guts to find friends online who have become family I gather with around the country a few times a year. I wasn't broken by this. 

 

If you know someone who has lost a mate, do not expect them to get over it and get back to normal. There is no normal anymore, and no getting over. If you try to show understanding because your parent or pet died,  just don't speak. If you think you can relate because you've been divorced, don't speak.  You do not get it. This is a club that no one wants to join, and only we know the password and the secret handshake.  We can be very harsh when we talk amongst ourselves about such people, but if you have to join, we'll be at your side.  And we know just how normal it is to have those moments of madness, when someone takes up too much space in our heads.