Will the sky fall in?

 

 

I'm going to try a new morning routine.  Good thing my cats will be around to share it.

New goal: check in with myself before I check in with my TV and Internet.   Ever since 9/11, I have turned the TV on first thing in the morning.  Ah, phew!  The world is intact.  Then, last week, when Hurricane Sandy severed my electrical and cable connection, I was completely in the dark.   Yes, my generator gave me heat and hot water.  This was good.   What I really missed, however, were talking heads in the morning.   Talking male heads.

News pundits must be added to my list of surrogate spouses.  Oh, no. I can see myself getting to the end of my life and having not my life, but morning TV, flash before my eyes.

Stop the TV.  Stop the Internet.  Stop the world - I want to get off.   I want my own input first thing in the morning.  By this time I ought to be able to face the loneliness without someone to talk to when I wake up. 

One can hope.

How can somebody have this much stuff?

Enough is enough!  Which sweaters should I hold on to?  I'm not talking about my own.  I mean his.  I gave away most of his sweaters, shoes, coats, jackets, vests, PJs, slippers, belts, hats, gloves, boots and old electronics by the third year.  Now I'm holding on to just a few special items...

Every time I try to let one more garment go, paralysis sets in.   Can't I hold on to the option of seeing his clothes if I'm lonely?   They're not in a closet I use anyway.

I have to confess I'm eyeing that space for my own use. 

Someone said you have to create empty spaces in your closets, for someone else to enter.  Nice thought, probably true.  However, to me empty space is like an ugly bleeding gash that taunts me.  I'm alone.  Alone.

I'll deal with this later.  Close the door.  If and when the times comes I will make the space for somebody else; evidently not a moment sooner.

What do you think?  Keep those last few things of his or clear them out? 

I choose...

Every moment of every day I can live without shame and pain from being alone.  I just had an exquisite lobster meal on a restaurant's deck, overlooking the international ferry that transports travellers to/from Canada.   Earlier today I feared a rainy mood on a rainy day.  But morning yielded to a sunny day and magnificent meal. 

That's my lesson for this day. 

If I live expectantly, willingly, and gratefully, abandoning my regret and embarrassment at my aloneness in a world of couples, families and groups, great joy and innocent delight emerges.  I share that freely, with waitresses, with other diners, and it is returned in kind. 

It's not the families and groups I miss being part of.  It's the best male friend, united in body, soul and mind that I miss.  Not my husband.  It's the unknown lover who is at this moment traveling, active yet lonely, lover and friend of the earth and sky, and ready to reach out.  In his absence I have my own dear friendship.  Today is so welcome, so loved.  I draw nourishment from the sky and the sea, in this quiet place where land changes name from United States to Canada, if one but takes a ferry with a wish for more.

What man would touch me with a ten foot pole?

When I look at myself, overworked and overwhelmed at times, what have I left to give a beloved?

I'm used up.   With projects I adore and with projects I have to get done.  I've thrown myself into surviving, first from necessity, now with a healthy dose of defiance.  I am going to thrive.   Widowhood isn't going to leave me half alive.  I'm doing two people's work to manage the same household.   Where's the free time for a special man?
  
"Step into my world",  I have said into my romantic void.   "Help me.  Hold me.  I'm pretty.  I'm healthy.  I'm faithful.  I'm loving.  I have a wonderful relationship resume!  No heavy baggage.  No bitterness.  Just peace.  Gratitude.  I have a magnificent home by a pond.  Come play.  Come stay.  Come be my love."

 Me.  Me.  Me.  It's all about me.   With a Pygmalion fantasy.

Until I come up with free time and a free heart for a man on his turf, on his terms, sometimes, I'm not serious about connecting with a real human being. 

Are you having trouble moving on, too?

Enthusiasm

Yeah.  I remember enthusiasm.  Definition: 1. intense and eager enjoyment, interest or approval.  2. a thing that arouses such feelings.

Friends and family enthuse over their interests, and their enthusiasm is contagious, or at least a joy to watch.  If they go on too long, though, I feel sad, out of the loop.  My own enthusiasm is weak.  It has not roared back to life.  In fact, I had more when my husband first died, because I was still going strong with his love.  My priorities were obvious to me.  In the fifth and sixth years, it dribbled away quietly, when I least expected it to.

I embraced my future. I have opened so many new windows in my life to offer lifelong pleasure.  I took up bicycing, running, swimming.  I build new projects.  I continue to garden, travel, camp, eat out, play piano, attend concerts, visit family and friends.  I created a new home that I and my guests truly love.  I've dated and fallen in love (didn't last) and taken a lover (grew tired of just that).  I participate in community both off and online.  However, my enthusiasm has not roared back to life.  I have faith that I'm on track, but a deep loneliness permeates my life.  I need the twinkle in my eye.  Can something  I haven't tried be the answer?  I can't fit another activity into my day.  I would love to fit another mate into my day, but the fact is, not every wonderful and deserving person finds an appreciative mate.  One thing I haven't tried is an expectations adjustment.  My life doesn't have nearly the color and enthusiasm it once did, and perhaps I'm tormenting myself by asking it to. 

Close your eyes.  Clear your heart.  Let it go.




 

Under Whose Wings?

Will a desirable man take me under his wing?  I wouldn't mind a little shelter from the storm, a little back up, a little relief when I'm on overload.  Though I have enough faith in God's love to meet my fear,  it isn't enough to ease real time overload and erase my loneliness as a woman.  I need people.  I need a central love relationship.  I'm trying to get along without it, and it's darn hard.

The help I need now is light years away from the type I needed in widowhood's  first years.  Remember Maslow's hierarchy of needs?   I've been addressing these from day one.  Had to.  Physiological needs - settled.  Safety needs - settled.  Love/belonging needs - in process.  Esteem needs - in process.   Self-actualization needs - in process.  At best my last three needs are met sporadically.  How do I make do with the sporadic connections of single life?   I want the consistency and sex and the give and take of a primary relationship!   So much for shelter by a desirable man.

Instead, I find my own wings are healed enough to offer shelter.  I invited neighbors over last week for my first dinner party.  My fear of being a capable enough hostess was allayed with enough preparation to actually enjoy the company.  Cleaning the house was number one.  A good enough meal was number two.  Enough wine was number three.  Can I grow into being a decent hostess?  I hope so!  I hope that hospitality may be a way of addressing my need for love and belonging. Goodness knows dating isn't.  Maybe someday...  In the meantime, family fits the bill for love and belonging, without the sex.  Neighbors fit the bill as well as they can.  They are less transient than most group activities I'd be a part of.  I really don't want transience.  The pain from the transience of my husband's life was more than enough for a while.

Life is transient.  Shelter, anyone?    

If it's only me now, am I OK?

I don't know. It's not me and him anymore.  I feel OK most of the time about his absence.

He was the yang to my yin, and the yin to my yang.  I was the spark plug.  He was more social.  Being a spark plug is really handy post widowhood.  Being an introvert who is happy with her own company is much less handy, and a downright handicap when taken to extremes.  Which I tend to do.  I'm a spark plug with solitary projects.  Yes, I have family and some friends I love.  But I occupy my house by myself.  Only occasionally do I invite people in. 

I don't want to live a solitary life in my home.  I end up feeling irrelevant and unknown to others.  Hostess is a new identity I want to grow into.  It's time to insert myself into people's lives by inviting them over.  Just take a deep breath.  I guess it's like starting an exercise program.   It needs reinforcement to become habit. In time it becomes absolutely necessary to one's well being.  Do I use the carrot or the stick to become more social?  Both, I expect.

I have to do this in my own way on my own terms or it's not going to work.  I've acquired other new identities and interests since my husband died.  Widow. Athlete. Handywoman.  They felt ill fitting at first. When I saw these new identities mirrored in other people's eyes I'd wonder 'can I really be this person they see?'.  Eventually I grew into them.  I'm still tweaking them.  More athlete. More handywoman.  No more Widow.  I'm single and I'm OK.