![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I forget how to do this.
May. 17th, 2021 06:15 pmEven in the Midwest, spring birds turn bright as Jolly Ranchers. All their songs, sweet and sticky on each other, save for one lone Robin who day after day attacks his own reflection in my bay window. That stupid fucker. I have done everything I can think of to save him from himself, but he is hell bent on defeating his one true enemy. There might have been a girl, once, to provoke this display, but she is long flown. What remains is is a glass bird. A thunk, thunk, thunk at the window. The level of self loathing is prodigious.
Come June, I will have been a widow for one year.
At this point, this bird at my window is probably the closest thing I have to a soul mate.
There is something no one tells you when you become a widow. No one prepares you for the fact that you yourself just keep on living. At first it felt like I was standing in the middle of a rising river. Today it feels like I woke up and my feathers are brighter, richer than they were yesterday and I can't quite figure out my reflection.
I have a friend, the same age, who was widowed around the same time as me. I see on facebook she just got engaged.. A man was friendly to me at Target the other day and I had a panic attack. I suppose we all have our own speeds of living and not everyone is blessed with the same degree of social awkwardness I have to offer.
See, the problem is, New Year's Eve, I was snuggled in bed with my two best friends because well, driving was not a good plan, and I said, maybe at one year, I will think about dating again. So now I am haunted by this timeline that I made up-- this arbitrary thing. While all the truth is, I am not sure where I will even find time to date again. I am a mother to a teenager and a toddler. I have a career. I am not even sure how I had time to be married for the 20 years before this one. And between the isolation of the pandemic and the ugliness on social media, the truth is I am really not sure there is anyone left for me out there anyway.
Which is to say my heart is still sort of raw and wide open and I don't think it is dumb to save it from further bruising where ever I can.
I keep thinking about the bird, the way I keep thinking about how there is so much more forgiveness in life for being human than I have ever expected. Yet, I am still mad at myself for a thousand different things. The last thing I said to my husband was "get milk" and I said it in an irritated manner, because I was irritated. And I can never take it back. The truth is, looking back at that day, no one would fault me. A thousand motivational posters scream to love well because nothing is guarantied but motivational posters suck. And are glib and not even emotionally intelligent because even in a warm fuzzy moment of living deliberately every one always just goes back to standard human behavior. It's who we are. I am no exception, though
what I am trying to say is this year has changed me indelibly. I am 44. I have never known myself better and I hardly know who I am at all. Funny thing is, I say the same thing about my husband. Since he's been dead, I always know what he will say about something, so I say it for him. From his belongings, I have learned about him in ways I could never see when he was here. Yet, I've also learned in ways I never knew him at all.
So apparently this is the human condition or something like that. I still love it all though, despite everything. I might just need to pour my heart out some before I can make sense of the words again.
Much love,
Come June, I will have been a widow for one year.
At this point, this bird at my window is probably the closest thing I have to a soul mate.
There is something no one tells you when you become a widow. No one prepares you for the fact that you yourself just keep on living. At first it felt like I was standing in the middle of a rising river. Today it feels like I woke up and my feathers are brighter, richer than they were yesterday and I can't quite figure out my reflection.
I have a friend, the same age, who was widowed around the same time as me. I see on facebook she just got engaged.. A man was friendly to me at Target the other day and I had a panic attack. I suppose we all have our own speeds of living and not everyone is blessed with the same degree of social awkwardness I have to offer.
See, the problem is, New Year's Eve, I was snuggled in bed with my two best friends because well, driving was not a good plan, and I said, maybe at one year, I will think about dating again. So now I am haunted by this timeline that I made up-- this arbitrary thing. While all the truth is, I am not sure where I will even find time to date again. I am a mother to a teenager and a toddler. I have a career. I am not even sure how I had time to be married for the 20 years before this one. And between the isolation of the pandemic and the ugliness on social media, the truth is I am really not sure there is anyone left for me out there anyway.
Which is to say my heart is still sort of raw and wide open and I don't think it is dumb to save it from further bruising where ever I can.
I keep thinking about the bird, the way I keep thinking about how there is so much more forgiveness in life for being human than I have ever expected. Yet, I am still mad at myself for a thousand different things. The last thing I said to my husband was "get milk" and I said it in an irritated manner, because I was irritated. And I can never take it back. The truth is, looking back at that day, no one would fault me. A thousand motivational posters scream to love well because nothing is guarantied but motivational posters suck. And are glib and not even emotionally intelligent because even in a warm fuzzy moment of living deliberately every one always just goes back to standard human behavior. It's who we are. I am no exception, though
what I am trying to say is this year has changed me indelibly. I am 44. I have never known myself better and I hardly know who I am at all. Funny thing is, I say the same thing about my husband. Since he's been dead, I always know what he will say about something, so I say it for him. From his belongings, I have learned about him in ways I could never see when he was here. Yet, I've also learned in ways I never knew him at all.
So apparently this is the human condition or something like that. I still love it all though, despite everything. I might just need to pour my heart out some before I can make sense of the words again.
Much love,
