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