Bite In

Last night was up down up down.  I am definitely having difficulty balancing my varying levels of emotions.  During one of the ups I realized what an amazing group of widow friends that I have acquired.  I spent about 45 minutes on Twitter last evening joking around with these women about travel, Camp Widow (did you know I’m presenting a workshop on Blogging & Grief there with Fresh Widow??) and life.  The best part?  We could talk about things other than our loss and still be connected.

When I lost Kevin, I felt very alone and isolated in my situation.  I knew no one had ever been through my identical loss, but I was unwilling to see that others had been through similar loss.  I wanted to be alone in my grief, to be special in that, to own it all by myself.  What I have learned is that, yes, my grief is my own, but my grief is reflected in many other widow stories that I have now been privileged to share.

I don’t walk alone anymore.  I walk with others who have lost in various ways: husbands, wives, children, divorce, pet loss, financial loss, tragedies of many kinds.  We share a common denominator: something that once was, is no longer.  We are not alone in that.

While everything in my life continues to whirl around me at a frantic pace at times, and at a snails pace at others, there is a constant relative: people.  People whom I thought I could count on are gone, unable to handle my journey, choosing to walk their own instead.  I’ve become O.K. (just ok) with that.  Others have stepped up to the plate with hugs, wine, more wine, food, friendship, and companionship I never knew I could find in complete strangers.  Where did they all come from?  Why do they want me?  I don’t know and I don’t care, they just are, and they amaze me.

I have a great crowd of people in my life who just want to be here and share these journeys with me, whether I keep going up and down, down and up, over and out.  They’re here, and they are happy to be.  So where am I?  Am I giving back?  What am I doing to enrich their lives, as they have my own?  I’d love to change the focus of my life to blur out the negativity that has entered in-the things I expected that never came to fruition, the losses, the frustrations, the changes in plans, and instead embrace the opportunities, the cool things I still get to do, the doors that have opened, the relationships that have been born out of this.

So hey, thank you.

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