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Key points
- Coming to terms with the way widowhood changes your life is a long process.
- After years as one half of a couple, it can be difficult to rediscover one's individual identity.
- The way other people factor into your life changes as well.
Y’know, I’m starting to think Tom is never coming back.
Yeah, I’m kidding of course. Sort of. But I also sort of mean it. It’s hard to explain. While I'm not in denial—I know what death is—coming to terms with the reality of my life now is a work in progress. It’s not that I really think he’ll be back; it’s just that I still don’t entirely believe that he’s gone.
More than three years in, and my grief remains the elephant I carry into every room I enter. I don’t think most people see it, and I’m not crushed by its weight like I once was, but it’s there. Always.
In one way, grief is the same thing, different day, over and over and over again: Missing Tom, missing Tom, missing Tom. That doesn’t change; I miss him in ways both amorphous and specific a million times every day. Missing Tom is a constant in my life.
In other ways, my grief evolves as the calendar pages turn. The questions and concerns that dog me now are different from what they were a year ago, when the questions were more along the line of How do I get up in the morning? and Why bother?
Bizarre as this may sound, it is sinking in that I have no choice but to let Tom go. No matter how tightly I clutch memories and mementos, Tom is drifting into the past. His relevance in this world is diminishing. When I speak of him, as I often do, it’s starting to feel like history. This feels terribly sad, and it reminds me that I have no choice but to keep moving forward. His story is over. Mine continues.
But I haven’t got a picture of my future now that everything has been thrown up in the air. I have been living for three-plus years in the liminal space of grieving widow, but I can’t stay here forever. I either keep going or throw myself on his funeral pyre.
But closing one life chapter and opening another is not simple, and it’s not like I had time to plan. This all happened very suddenly, and I’m flailing in unknown territory. The questions are deep.
Who am I now?
For more than 30 years I was one half of two. I barely knew where Tom ended and I began. Now, with the amputation of Tom, I don’t know who I am or who I’m becoming through this transformative experience. Everything I do feels like an experiment; everything is open to examination. Do I like it or am I doing it simply because it’s something Tom and I did together? What among Tom’s interests do I want to continue? (Baseball and classic rock docs come to mind.) What do I want to do that has nothing to do with Tom? (Watercolor painting and camping.) Are there things I did before I met Tom that I would like to return to? (Who remembers that far back?) I'm trying this and that and the other thing, and the jury is still out on most of it.
How do other people fit into my new life?
In the loneliness of loss, friendships have become more important than ever. (I have very little family and none nearby.) Since losing Tom, my social circle has both stayed the same and changed. It has grown considerably larger because I’ve worked harder at it. I’ve needed my friends and can’t imagine how I would have survived this ordeal without them.
At the same time, my introverted nature has not changed, and the amount of energy I’ve been putting out socially is starting to fray my nerves. I get lonely and sad if I’m alone too much, but I’m also getting that testy edge introverts get when we’re stretched too thin. What I need is the ease of being alone together with Tom—that deep comfort of being with someone with whom conversation is optional. I find myself feeling annoyed with friends because—as close as I can figure—they are not Tom. I’m not sure what to do about this yet. I’m still calibrating my social life now that staying home means being seriously alone. (Except for the dogs. Thank goodness for the dogs.)
What is my next chapter?
I have been hurled into a new life, and I’m not sure what to do with it. “Anything you want!” people crow encouragingly. To which I suggest they stop and really think about that:
You have a whole new life! You can do anything you want! Go!
What? Where? How? My head spins. This level of freedom feels paralyzing. I want to trust that a path to my future will reveal itself when the time is right, but I have no guarantee of that. I could wake up one day at 80 years old and still stuck in what now?
“Stay in the present,” people urge me, and I do try. But I also must dream. This is an opportunity to re-envision my life, and I can’t ignore that. This question of what the next chapter should be occupies a great deal of space in my brain these days. It’s exhausting. Slightly terrifying. And often overwhelming.
These are existential questions. Like everything else about this experience, they are big and difficult. And I have no choice but to wrestle with them. Apparently.
