A Widows truth...

A young widows truth that only she knows

I think its safe to say everyone has an opinion. Everyone thinks they understand grief, but its not until you are truly living inside it that you understand it.

You could assume that you are prepared for the way you would handle things. Assume that even if you had enough time to mentally prepare that you could brace yourself for the impact that you are about to absorb.

I love the opinions from people that haven't a clue on the life you live. I love the judgements even more, the silent whispers of "I can't believe her." or "How could she?"

Let me tell you something, I had a year to prepare for his death and everything I expected to happen to me, did not happen what so ever. I knew it wasn't going to be neat, I knew it was going to be messy but I swear I thought I knew everything that was going to unfold and I assure you I knew nothing. Grief took me so far out of my comfort zone and placed me in an entirely different path, different mess every single day.

Some of us cry endlessly, some of us don't cry at all. Both are grief, one is simply accepted by society's standards and one insinuates the person grieving didn't care enough. Just be sure if you are a crier you don't cry for too long because that is not accepted by society, at some point around 8 months or a year you are supposed to be over it by now and if your not society will look at you like a broken disaster that needs professional help.

One thing I learned through this journey is that our nervous system will do whatever it is it wants to do. It will take us places we never knew we could go. There is no way to respond or throw opinions until you walk this journey and truly understand how complex our bodies, our minds and our emotions truly are.

Some of us will never date again and some of us will long for a physical connection to another soul. Some of us will hold onto all our spouses belongings and leave a pile of their dirty clothes in the same corner they left them for years. Some of us will keep on our wedding bands and some its too painful to remember. Some of us will shut out the world simply to survive and others will dive into crowds to drown out the noise.

Neither of those choices are a reflection of how deep our love for our spouse goes, nor does it depict how we decide to honor their loss. Society places so many labels or judgements that many widows aren't strong enough to navigate themselves so they begin to shut the world out. Live based off society's standards of what is ok and what isn't ok. So many widows came to me thanking me once I posted that I was seeing someone. I somehow made it ok for them, and gave them a space to drown out the noise of some standards that quietly or most times loudly exist.

We are not cold, distant or broken. We are not strong and capable, or your inspiration and muse. We are simply humans that didn't have a choice to live the life with the hand we were dealt.

I love when people say "I don't know how you do it, you're so strong." That phrase has got to be my favorite. What would you have liked me to do? Abandon my kids, my bills, and leave all responsibility behind? How else was I supposed to navigate a life I never expected?

We are not perfect, we have hundreds of flaws and we have absolutely no idea ourselves how we are making it work. I assure you we are making it work insanely messy. Simply figuring it out as we go without any direction, any guide, or any real support because being a young widow does not come with a plethora of people that have walked in your shoes.

If our grief so happens to make you feel uncomfortable that is a you problem and not ours. It is not our responsibility to make you feel comfortable but maybe if you sit back and watch you can learn a few things about grit and endurance.

We want you to speak their names, ask us about them, share a memory you have with them. You may think it makes us sad but it only keeps them alive for us.

We want to laugh and find happiness again in the small moments without being judged for it and we want the permission to feel guilty because they are no longer here to share that experience with us.

We want to feel normal, like we fit into society's perfect little box, because when you become a widow nothing is normal and there is not a single place we feel we belong, our home was taken from us and it is a scary place to exist in.

We long for solid ground, balance and understanding. We want friends that see us and our grief for exactly what it is and many of us don't have a problem explaining it to the ones that we know will stay and care enough.

Really all we need is less judgment, less opinions we simply need a safe space to grieve what we lost freely.

It never gets easier, we just learn mechanism that help us cope along the way, so that we can fit back into an accepted society. One that doesn't show or share our grief as freely with the rest of the world so that we can make everyone else feel comfortable as we shrink our feelings and thoughts into a box that we hold so damn close to our hears.

We don't need answers to our rhetorical questions, we just need a safe place to go to ask them out loud. We aren't looking for your hugs, your sympathy, or opinions to make us better, the truth is we are the only ones that can regulate what we are feeling not anyone else.

Even another widow can not fully understand another widows journey because it is so damn personal. The only person that could possibly understand what we feel is in heaven and we don't get to share this experience with the only person that could make it better.