And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.
This one may take a bit to work through. It’s going to be rambling. I know what I feel, but I’m not sure how to say it.
Two weeks ago, I went on my first date since Michael’s death. I did not write it as my Moment of Happiness. This week, I was supposed to go on the second date with the same person. I didn’t go.
BUT – I have to say here that the man I was with was wonderful. Perfectly nice, charming, attentive, and we had a lot in common. The problem wasn’t with him. It was with me.
And yes, here, the old “It’s not you, it’s me,” is absolutely true.
As the days passed by, moving me closer to the second date, I realized I was dreading it more than I was looking forward to it. For that matter, I wasn’t looking forward to it at all. I was so uncomfortable. So at 3:00 in the morning, ten hours before the date was to start, I texted him.
“I’m sorry, but I’m going to cancel. I can’t sleep for thinking about it. I guess I’m just not ready yet. My husband’s death was really traumatic and I’ve been having a really hard time. I thought going out with someone would help me move on, but it’s just making me feel worse. I’m sorry. I hope you find who you’re looking for.”
He texted back, “I understand!” and that was that.
Though I still felt badly. As I sat and worked my way through this, I realized that I felt like moving on and starting to date was something that I was expected to do. Just who was expecting that, I can’t tell you, other than the usual ephemeral “them” that seems to tell all of us what is acceptable behavior. However, I was simply not ready to do this. It felt wrong.
I can pinpoint exactly when all the wrongness surged up and made me recoil.
He kissed me goodnight. Three times.
I was kissing someone who wasn’t Michael. Who I was married to for 25 years, and who I’d been committed to for 27.
Oh, hell, no.
A month after Michael’s death, I was sitting somewhere, filling out one of those questionnaires you’re given when you’re someplace new. I don’t remember where I was, but I remember the list of words I had to choose from to define myself in the first question.
Was I:
Single?
Married?
Divorced?
or Widowed?
I stared at that final word. Was that me? Was that who I was now?
Finally, I took the pen and X’d out the entire list. Beneath it, I wrote, “Legally, I’m a widow. But I am Michael’s wife. I’m married to Michael. I always will be.”
I no longer feel badly about canceling the date, and really, canceling the possibility that it could go somewhere. I feel sorry, yes. But I was just doing what was right for me. That may change in the future, or it may not. For now, to use a phrase I absolutely hate, it is what it is.
Earlier this week, I was speaking with the very best of friends. In our conversation, she said, “I’m really impressed by how you’re taking care of yourself right now.”
So am I.
Another friend recently posted on Facebook:
“Oh, look. Rock bottom has a basement.”
And I laughed out loud.
Reaching that basement caused my body to start breaking down, when I insisted I was going to prove my strength and keep on keepin’ on, even during the worst time of my life, which sent me to rock bottom and then on to the basement. Which led me to the first step of climbing out – taking a 6-week hiatus from teaching in order to make myself face everything that happened. And to face the reality of never going back to what was my life.
I’ve always hated basements, by the way. Dark, spooky, bug-infested places.
But this basement pretty much forced me to start taking care of myself, or remain in that damp awful place.
I’m not in the basement anymore, and I’m not rock bottom either. It’s been really intriguing how many people have used my own language back at me – “It’s a new chapter, Kathie.” It certainly is, to a book I never dreamt I would have to write. And while I still don’t want to, I am writing it.
But…the Moment of Happiness. I didn’t do what I felt was expected of me. (And I can hear some of you out there saying, “When did you ever?”) In this new chapter, in this new life, I was, for a while, trying to follow a path that seemed to be what I “should” do. Go back to work just two weeks after my husband died. Keep being “strong” when I felt anything but, and with that, refusing to ask for help because strong people don’t ask for help. Thinking I could make myself recover by forcing myself to do so, in a timeline provided by some “them” I couldn’t even identify. Dating. Moving on, whatever the hell that means.
But ultimately, what taking care of yourself means is a unique decision for everyone. And for me, for now, maybe forever, it means still being Michael’s wife. I might even keep checking “Married” on those stupid forms.
Michael and I did not have traditional vows at our wedding, by the way. We never said, “til death do us part.”
And I’m still not saying it.
And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.
