When you wake up one morning and realize that your world has completely changed, and you are no longer the person you once were. When you feel yourself walking through your day as if you are not really existing in it and you can not seem to find a single reason to make any effort to achieve anything. When you become a widow, this is you.
They say time heals all wounds, well I do not believe that is a true or fair statement. While time certainly goes by and you seemingly move on with time, but healing is a process that never really keeps time. Yes, you go to bed each night and for some of us you cry yourself to sleep, and you endure constant nightmares that never seem to end, and you get up each morning to a new day but that does not mean that anything is new for you.
Some of us may begin to feel as life is getting easier and that we can function a little clearer each day. Some of us may start to move on with our lives and find ourselves beginning to start over, we may even believe we have found the ability to love again, but somehow the world we live in has an uncanny way of slapping us in the face and saying, “not so fast!”
Just when you believe you are finding your strength and learning to manage things on your own, the world starts to laugh in your face for trying to be strong and pick yourself up faster than the world believed you would. It reminds you that you will never stop feeling as if the world is just different now and you can never go back to the person you once were, because you are not that person anymore. You are single, you are alone, and you are suddenly finding you only have yourself to count on now.
Everyone always says, we are here for you, we will help you, but those are just sentiments to make you feel like you are not alone at the moment. Someone tells you they love you and makes you feel as if you might actually be able to move on and feel happiness again and then here comes that great big hand to knock you back down and put you in your place.
Silly girl, nothing comes that easy, you remember the way you felt the first time you felt you loved someone, like you were in this all alone and you may never know if they would notice you or if they would ever feel the same way. So, you just keep moving on and waiting for just maybe those words you were longing for… I love you.
There becomes a place within you where you decide, life can never be the same and shouldn’t be and now, knowing how short life can be, you decide to reach for your dreams in life and not just settle for mediocre. So, you make the choices to step away from your mediocre job and start reaching for the stars, only there It is again, that reminder that life is just not that simple and reaching for such an aspiration is harder than you imagined.
Everything around you is starting to fall apart, household items are breaking, that you are clueless to repair and now you must spend big money to pay someone else to do the job your husband always did, except you are not working and money is minimal, so you ignore those repairs for a while until you can’t anymore and then you scream and shout to the world, “ Screw You!” you become tired and frustrated, angry, and emotional. The tears start to fall, you look around and suddenly you see, you are completely alone, and the tears start to pour out of you uncontrollably and you feel as if they will never stop now.
This is the new life of a widow, one of pain, hurt, anger, pick ups and let downs, one that reminds you how alone you really are and one that awakens you every night to the reality that nothing has changed, and nothing will change anytime soon. No one wants this life, no one hopes and prays for it, it just happens one day without your consent and without you expecting it and you were never given a choice.
Well, I don’t want this life, I don’t want this way of living or these feelings inside of me, I want more, I want better, I want everything I have ever dreamed of, and I want happiness and joy in my life, and I want to love again. I want the life I choose not one that was forced on me and that did not afford me any control over it.
I refuse to let the remainder of my time on this earth be anything less than everything I want it to be! I may be struggling emotionally and financially and even mentally right now but I will not allow this to be who I am. I will find my strength and I will find my happiness and I will live my life fulfilling all of my dreams, no matter how hard that may sometimes seem to accomplish. I will have love in my life, and I will have meaning in my life again.
I am not a widow; I am a wife that lost her husband, and I am a woman who lost part of her soul the day he passed away. I cannot say when because I truly do not know, but someday I will feel whole again. Someday my soul will feel complete and someday my heart will leap again full of joy and happiness. For today my tears will continue to fall, but I will keep going on and I will learn to fight my way through it all until one day life will not hurt anymore.
I know I am worth the fight, and I am worth the effort, and I am never meant to be someone’s second guess, especially my own. I will always be worth more than that.
Life is hard and the hands it deals you can be absolutely miserable, but the choice is ours to make, do we allow those hands to make up our lives and be miserable for the remainder of what is left of our lives, or do we dive into the pain and take our life in our own hands and make it everything we want it to be?
I know my answer, I choose to make my life the best it can be! I choose to fight for me!
So when I wake up, sunshine is all I will see and when I lay down to sleep, sweet dreams are all there will be.
