It Was Highly Unlikely I Would Ever Write Again…

I used to blog for fun.  I wrote funny stories from events in my life, always looking for the good and humorous things that made all the crap in my world stink less.  Then, seven years ago, I decided to go to college and get a degree in accounting just in case my kids ever got to a stage where they didn’t cry outside the bathroom door while I peed. At which point, I might actually be able to have a job.  Besides, I thought, you never know what life will throw at you.  I figured it wouldn’t  hurt to have a skill in case I ever needed a career to fall back on if the unthinkable happened and I found myself alone in this world, raising a family on my own.  Once in school, I no longer had time for funny stories, and life with teenagers became my reality…which, I discovered, isn’t very funny.  In reality, living with other humans who are between the ages of 13-18  is mostly just a white knuckle ride on a very old and rickety roller coaster that you really aren’t sure you or your spine are going to survive…at least not in the same manner of good health in which you were before you got on the damn ride.  Let’s be honest, most people whose oldest child is twelve look pretty youthful and amazing.  Find those same people at their youngest child’s high school graduation and it’s a whole different ball game.  Most of them look like they’ve been taking beauty tips from the crypt keeper.  Only one thing happened during those years.  Teenagers.

Eventually I graduated from college with my highly sought after degree in accounting.  As a homeschooling mother of three, who had time to work?  But work, I did.  I found my first adult job as a tax preparation specialist and I loved it…yes, I’m just that weird.  Writing became a lost dream of the past as I was neck deep in homeschooling, working, striving to raise successful adults who voluntarily used a trash bin to dispose of their garbage, be a loving and supportive wife, and meet the many expectations placed on moms with no real aspirations outside of a good night’s sleep and a clean house…and in a perfect world, less than one load of laundry waiting in the hamper.

As a military wife, I fulfilled the duty of happily moving from place to place for nineteen years in support of my husband as he pursued his career and gained rank. So two years ago, when we got orders to yet another new home, I cheerfully packed up my family with their belongings and dragged them across the country to start over…yet again.  My writing days were over and I accepted it.  My world simply wasn’t cut out for anything other than survival and taking care of my family.

Then, the unthinkable happened.  After a seemingly uneventful deployment, my husband came home severely affected by separation, the horrors of war, and mental illness he had suffered with in silence for years.  Despite doing everything possible to help him, and the psychiatrist assuring me it was highly unlikely that he would ever be violent because he had no history of violence, he took his own life in a tragically violent way, one month and two days after his return from war.

Life, as I knew it, had ended…it died with him on that horrible day.

I have been a widow for less than three months.  A forty-one year old widow.  Too young to be a widow.  Too old to be a bride.  I no longer know who I am…or what I believe…or what I want.  Everyone has an opinion about what the road forward should look like.  People look at me with pity, which I hate.  They cry when they talk to me, which makes me feel worse.  They feel the uncontrollable desire to hug me, which makes me feel like I need a bath. They all care so much and want the best for us, and I am so grateful.  That doesn’t make things any easier.

I sat with my therapist today, a lovely woman who has real life experience and excellent advice. She asked me what I am doing for “self-care”.  Self-care??? I had no idea what she meant.  I have a career, I can support my family financially (thank God for that degree in accounting).  I have a house, and my own car.  I do laundry, cook meals, arrive mostly on time wherever I need to go. I have managed to keep three children fed, clothed, and healthy for the better part of my adult life.  I am a mostly law abiding citizen (does speeding really count?).  Is that not self-care?  “No,” she explained, “self-care is things you do for yourself that allow you to put down your responsibilities and worries for a time and just focus on you.”  After some discussion on the matter, and what self-care means for me, I remembered my sweet sister reminding me of how I used to write and how much I loved it.  We joked about the name of my would-be blog…which I then set up and considered how in the world I would ever manage to put my life into words that anyone would ever be able to appreciate or benefit from.  Sitting there with my fifty and fabulous therapist, I mentioned this idea to her and she declared this was precisely what she was referring to and that writing is the very best thing people dealing with grief can do for themselves!  I’m not sure I mentioned to her that sarcasm is my most bestest friend whom I adore, or that inappropriate comments are my cuddle buddy, although I think she may have guessed at that last one since she very stoically endures our sessions together, inappropriate comments and all.

So here goes.  I would say I hope you don’t judge me too harshly, but if I’m honest, I don’t really care.  This is me…a forty-one year old widow, with three sometimes very unpleasant teenagers, struggling to survive living a highly unlikely life.