The Merriest of Widows

Who would have thought… therapy

August 29, 2024

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So I lied…. I am not the merriest of widows… I’m factually not a widow (deceased partner, makes me an ‘alien’, not sure what the official title is… ?) In these days of giving everything and everybody a label, maybe I should think of one?…. ‘Widow’ gives connotations of a woman dressed in black…destined for a lonely like… I don’t want that label.. In fact I don’t want any label really – unless it’s ‘millionaire’ or ‘Olympian’..

So back to the title (or label) of this particular post. Therapy, I’ve tried it once (and the therapist disappeared with no reason, now this doesn’t do your self esteem much good!). So I waited a bit… found someone else and I’m into week four. I am also guilty of labelling people (and judging people, boy can I judge people). I just thought I was someone who can deal with most/everything life chucks at you. I didn’t anticipate losing the two most important people in my life within 11 months of each other. Both immediate and unexpected, both to the same fatal cardiac arrest… I couldn’t reach them in time – distance in one instance, fucking covid restrictions and a mad dash to the hospital the other… wow, when I actually write this down….. I’m surprised that I’m not leaning into a bottle of wine every night…

I wanted to write about grief, in a way that gives anyone going through it, hope, help, a view (that isn’t the 5 stages of grief or what ever number of stages of grief there are or deemed should be – grief is individual and unique, don’t let anyone tell you anything else). I wanted to add humour, a dark, sarcastic observational humour, that people tell me is funny… yet when I reflect, the humour is hard to come by…. the futureless future, still stretches ahead of me, with no plan, no map, no journey (isn’t everyone now on a journey?).. yet it has led me to seek ‘guidance/help’ whatever we call therapy or counselling or whatever label I chose to give it.

It still feels (though not as often) that I am living someone else’s life and I feature in a really bad drama.. looking from the outside in. This weeks challenge was to start writing again… so here I am. Rambling from a non-labelled individual, who still desperately misses her past life and is still searching for her new future. As long as that’s not a life of continuous waiting for change… that is my choice… change x

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If it wasn’t for the Dog….

July 3, 2024

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So I said I’d do a little writing but often… not quite got the nack of this. I would like to make the following excuses.
1. I have such a packed social life, I just don’t have time (lie)
2. I spend a lot of time on my fascinating hobbies, such as crafting, art and antiques (lie)
3. I’m busy wild swimming (lie, but would love to)
4. I fall into the habit of coming home from work and ‘doom scrolling(fact)
5. My Dog gets all my attention (fact)
So I can categorically blame the dog… For what? for saving me a million times over. She is the reason I get up and out, rain or shine. She is the reason, I smile, when there’s no one around to make me smile. She is the reason I find myself in beautiful surroundings, from coastal walks to waterways and woods. She is the reason I have minimal disposable income at the end of the month, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So I need to describe one of the few dates I have been on… He liked the Dog more than me. He booked a restaurant where I could take the dog (and was disappointed, when I didn’t bring her), he bought her presents and generally spent most of his time, looking at the Dog… now I would love to meet someone who, indeed likes dogs as much as I do. In fact that’s a necessity, however we come as a package. Like me like my dog.

It didn’t work out, his need to go into minute detail about his day (he’s semi retired) and his obsession with the weather, his atrocious dress sense (sorry, I know you shouldn’t judge, but when he turns up in a handed knitted jumper, I just cannot help myself). He was just a little bit DULL for me. Dating is ‘new’ to me, the first time in 19ish years, losing Mike was and still continues to shock me to my core. Grief hits you when you least expect it, and dating someone (or trying to date) is a phycological head fuck. You cannot help but compare and that’s not fair on who you are on a date with.

So for the time being, its back to being The Dog and me and what a good place to be…
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If you do a little of it often, it becomes a habit….

June 11, 2024

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The above is a take on what a well know ‘influencer’ says. He actually talks sense and doesn’t post photographs of his breakfast… so he’s alright by me (how Yorkshire!).

The comment can be taken in many ways… dating (no quite enough specimens to date ‘often’ and writing… the latter I intend to do more often, if only to get my constant rage out on written form). When did I become so angry, not at life, just at the morons I come across on a regular basis…? they seem to be multiplying at an alarming rate, the older I get, the more morons I seem to encounter.

Enough ramblings, I have gone ‘off piste’. So let me tell you a little about my first ever date, since Mike… A very kind neighbour, asked if I would like to be introduced to someone she knew on a works basis. As this was a much better option than meeting some middle aged man, from one of the worst dating sites, I have ever encountered ( the first one, actually, but since then I have encountered various others and they all have the same theme…. men with fish, straddling motorbikes, in the bath, selfies in the kitchen/living room/bathroom, all wearing the same clothes and obviously taken on the same day… please gentlemen, try and find a friend or postman who can take a photo for you).

A couple of Whats Apps were sent, a bonus, he could actually spell and use punctuation (unlike the specimens on line). Seemed OK. A photo was exchanged (fully clothed, no fish or motorbike was evident). A time was agreed, Friday night… then my gut instinct kicked in (which I sort of ignored). Warning light No 1…. “I don’t want to go too far away from home”… why was this, did he have a sick relative? A manic Labrador? (no wait, that’s me!) A bladder issue? A fear if the dark?… I will never know.

Warning light No 2… He chose the worst hotel bar I have ever been in… think motorway service station, but with less atmosphere

Warning light no 3…. He asked me to read the prologue to a book he has written, whilst he went to the loo.. I tried, I really tried, but I didn’t have my reading glasses and the content was about local football. Oh and it was on his iPhone. And was totally self indulgent (the little I read through squinted eyes..).

Final Warning light …. as a final drink, I suggested a glass of red wine. He suggested we share a bottle (how civilised). So far so good… He showed me the wine list (I had suggested we share the bill before this point). He COVERED up the bottom of the wine list, with his tiny hand and said “you can have anything above my hand, the others are too expensive”……

NEXT!!!!

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Starting again.. Dating

May 29, 2024

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Where do I start?

So, its been 3 years and I feel like a need to poke my head out of my proverbial shell and look around a little and start living… a lot. So what does this look like? On my ‘up’ days I want to grab life, travel, see the world, meet new people and be this ‘independent’, ‘insta’ woman… on my ‘down’ days I want to sink into the sofa, with a large Merlot and Gogglebox, me, Mildred and the cat… a strange but fitting family unit It’s the stomach lurching loneliness that hits you, when you believe you should be ‘living your best life’. For me that’s a Sunday afternoon or a Monday Bank Holiday, when I realise, he’s just not here and hasn’t been here for so long now….

So I could spend the rest of my life, wishing for what was my past life and now just a memory of a future that will never be, or I could get off my 50+ arse and start living… So I have chosen the later. And I have begun to date… Dating in your mid fifties, when you are held together by HRT patches and a view on the world that is pure sarcasm, is a potent mix and not for the light hearted… then there’s the poor buggars who I have dated (2 so far this year). The first was a blind date via a neighbour…. again for another day. Lets just say it only lasted 2 dates and the second date was arranged when I was 3 Peroni’s and half a bottle of Merlot down… The second was someone I ‘used’ to know in my late teens (think 1980’s Dynasty Dresses and enough Insette hair mousse to use your hair as kebab sticks). Meeting men in their early 60’s is not quite the same as dancing round your handbag to The Cult, whilst pissed out of your head on Hooch or Merrydown Cider….whikst being a carefree 18 year old…

So I’ve tried to meet new people and I promise I will keep trying…

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Is this it…?

February 27, 2024

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Some days I’m waiting for everything to become ‘normal’ again, not this continuous, sad documentary, which would fit nicely onto a FreeView channel at 3pm on a Wednesday… Then reality kicks in and I realise this is the new ‘normal’. I’ve read a lot about grief, the various stages, the endless memes and posts that I follow, looking for a solution to my grief, looking for a connection, in that I’m not losing it, or going mad, in this chaos of a world, where I feel like I no longer ‘fit in’.

But who does really ‘fit in’? Endless ‘influencers’ are telling us what to eat, what to wear, where to eat, how to look, what to buy… its wallpaper for the lonely and some days that’s ok, other days its time to switch off.. But I don’t want to switch off, as then reality hits…

Over the 2.9 years I have learnt a lot. I have learnt that you should never ‘save things for best’ – wear those shoes, spray that perfume and eat the M&S treacle pudding (always). Don’t put things off… I know get a labrador puppy, 4 months after you’ve lost your soul mate… that’s a great idea.. It was an amazing distraction, as I picked up the worst poop (think Bisto gravy), sleepless nights, always wondering what the hell she was eating in the garden and succumbed to endless nippy biting as well as continuous stealing of anything she shouldn’t have… but it was the best distraction, as she has now become my world and has saved me a hundred times over..

So this isn’t necessarily ‘it’, it’s just a moment in time. Mildred and me have adventures to go on, places to see and people (hopefully, not just the 80 year old man, who smells of spam… its a dog walking thing.. I have a dog, he has a dog… so we always speak…but that is for another day). I just need to get my ‘it’ back

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Get a Dog they said, it will be great they said….

February 4, 2024

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And you know what they were right! In oh so many ways, the sudden impulse (well it was years of procrastination and Mike and I promised ourselves we would get a dog when we retired… you may notice a theme here? one of let’s wait until….) to get a dog. It was six months into losing Mike…. I did my ‘research’, in that I wanted a breed of dog that ‘usually’ can get on with cats. You see, I already had a pet, Arnold, the long haired, ginger rescue cat, who was found wandering the streets as a kitten. We adopted him and Mike taught him how to box…. To say Arnold has a feral streak in him, is an understatement. He can purr lovingly into you, then literally bite the hand that feeds him. Mike thought it was hilarious to have a cat with such an attitude…. So I decided on a labrador, a ‘proper’ dog and one which would get me outside walking (a lot), was a largish size (the resulting labrador I have is back breakingly heavy).

Mildred arrives, all doe eyed and with rampant diarrhoea for the first 4 weeks. I was still in total shock and messed up with grief, despite being back at work full time I thought this was a good idea.

And you know what…? I was right.

No one explains that having a puppy will consume your entire days and weeks – from training, to endlessly goggling what they can eat, what happens when they eat compost (Milderd loved a flower pot of two), what happens when they eat stones/sand/mud/gloves etc… But no one warned me about the evil chewing of most things, but especially glasses (the ones you use to see, not the ones you poor wine into) and TV remotes. Amazon made some serious money, endlessly supplying replacement remotes.. And before anyone asks, I usually remembered to put it somewhere high, where she couldn’t get it, but obviously not always… the final straw came when she ran out into the garden with my I-phone, the day before I was due to go away on a holiday….

However, despite the endless “Mildred, drop it…” and “Mildred, leave Arnold” I would not be without her. She has literally ‘saved’ me… She gets me out in all weathers, wether I want to or not… I’ve seen local places I would never have walked to alone, I meet endless fellow dog owners, who instinctively chat … about dogs. But most of all, she gives me the reason to get out of bed and go…. It’s a strange thing, suddenly finding yourself totally alone (yes, I have friends and family – though family live 100 miles away). I realise that some people would love that opportunity to ‘get away’ from things, but this is different. It wasn’t my choice, it wasn’t planned and shit, I wasn’t expecting it. So like a sudden sledge hammer, when it hits you… and with no idea or plan, you have to start to re-navigate your life and that dear reader is why I’m here, trying to re-navigate my life… find a new road, look for new reasons to ‘be’ and most of all try and get my head (even after what is coming up to 3 years) around this bloody hideous ‘journey’….

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The Weekend

January 28, 2024

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So, weekends, what do I do? I can’t bring myself to watch crap Saturday night TV, I have become a regular ‘doom’ scroller and can waste 2 hours just reading insignificant crap about various things… health hacks, how to become the best version of yourself, by working out 3 hours a day, eating couscous & beetroot, sleeping a good 9 hours (I’ve never done that, even before ‘this’), how being in your 50’s is the best time for ‘you’, how to look after your skin… they obviously don’t realise, that on a weekend one of my 5 a day, is a bottle of Merlot !! My favourites are how to build an outfit from 5 pieces – all of which average £100 each.. Yet I still avidly read these posts, whilst realising, its all ‘fluff’ that is just back ground noise..if you let it.

Its coming up to the ‘3 year’ mark soon and I still cannot believe he’s gone. Time has a way of sitting you in a suspended animation of your past life, yet putting you through the paces of your current/new life. I know I need to form a truly new life, yet I’m not so sure what that looks like. What I don’t want to do is spend another 12 months procrastinating and over thinking. Oh, god, I am so good at over thinking. I can give you 100 different scenarios to one event, 99 of which would probably never happen. It’s almost a hobby now.

So back to weekends. Sundays are the hardest, it was when we always did something different, went somewhere, walked somewhere, ate, and drank somewhere different. I now pick a dog walking route and walk, and walk and walk. I see ‘ladies’ of a certain age walking their beloved mutts and I think, is that me soon, will I be scowling at the current version of me, because I haven’t put the mutt on a lead as we approach (the mutt is amazing with other dogs, basically ignores them, just like her mum ignoring other humans!). Will I be wearing ill fitting trousers with elasticated waistbands for comfort? will I be dressing purely for comfort because its just me and the dog? When does this happen? Will I just give up and smell permanently of wet dog food? When do I decide that I will no longer dye my hair or indeed have it cut ever again? These are the things that fill my head at 3am!! I have only myself to please (some would say how lucky I am), I can do whatever I want. But what the f@@k does that look like? still trying, thinking, procrastinating and keeping myself in suspended animation…. but for how much longer?…

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Still here… still grieving..

January 17, 2024

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So, January continues to be the longest month of the year and the obvious start to a ‘new’ year… yet here I am, suspended in memories and still wondering ‘what the hell happened?’. I feel guilty for mentioning Mikes name, as though I should be ‘better’ or should have ‘moved on’. God how I hate that phrase, makes it sound like I’ve been speed dating and can’t quite get over the bloke with the big nose and halitosis, and I really need to ‘move on’.

I’m ‘trying’ internet dating, but that is for a later chapter.. The bird droppings and remnants that I currently appear to be attracting, are just too much to condense into this quick mid week ramble. I haven’t put ‘widow’ on my profile and alien would only attract more weirdos than I currently am ‘attracting’….. Can I have a time capsule please, so I go back 22 months?..

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“You should write a book”…

January 7, 2024

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This wasn’t in my ‘life plan’ … blogging about death. I have always wanted to write a funny, creative, laugh out loud book. Just didn’t ever get around to it… If procrastination was an Olympic sport, I would have a gold medal in it! I could have gone for a romantic novel, a butt clenching thriller or a gritty crime novel… but no, I haven’t got that in me.. However… life has a way of making changes for you….

It’s about time we faced up to the much misunderstood and often hidden, ignored, ‘don’t want to face the subject’ of grief and the uninvited ‘journey’ anyone can find themselves on. Let’s face it, everyone is going to lose someone or something (pets.. which is another heart wrenching experience) they love at least once in their lives.

So I thought I’d try my hand at writing about the unenviable role of being a middle aged, menopausal ‘widow’, trying to navigate her way through, what I can only describe as a shit show of emotions, unplanned circumstance and general fuckwittery of a life. Firstly, I need to explain that I am in fact an ‘alien’, I’m not technically a ‘widow’, in the fact that Mike and I never married (just procrastinated for 16+years), so I am not ‘recognised’ or in this label fixated world, I don’t actually have a ‘label’ for who/what I am… So here I am, almost 3 years into ‘the journey’ (god I despise that description, as I didn’t set off on any bloody journey, I don’t have a sat nav and my sense of direction of dreadful…) so its me, wondering what the hell has happened… so, hold onto your hats, the ride will be bumpy, but hopefully ‘insightful’, if nothing else I hope that my dark sense of humour and experiences will want you to read more..

Becks

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