I've written before about how ambivalent I am about Valentine's day. https://www.widowbythesea.com/post/happy-pancake-day.
But this year my theme is slightly different. Maybe it's that pancake day was before valentines this year, so I can't encourage you to buy a box of chocolates and eat them all before Lent!
I have probably forgotten most of the things that were said to me in the early days after Chris died. But one of the themes that stuck was how lucky I had been to have had the relationship we did - more than one person pointed out to me that some people never have a relationship as good as ours. Over the last 5 years I have written about platitudes and unhelpful phrases and on this one I have pointed out that having something great and then losing it doesn’t make the loss any easier to bear.
But what I hadn’t realised until recently was that there was a second message I had internalised - that if most people didn’t find that loving, happy relationship and I had found mine - then maybe I could never have that again. I’d had my one, and now he was dead. Maybe I could meet someone else, but it could never be as good.
I have never subscribed to the theory that the grief journey only ends when you meet someone new. A new relationship would be a true test of how well I can carry my grief and my gratitude and joy, and I know it won’t always be easy. It’s also probably important for me to say to people reading this that might be early in their grief journey - I didn’t even consider dating until about 4 years in. Some people are ready sooner, and some people need more time. There is no right or wrong.
At about 4 years in I started to realise that I didn’t want to rule out the possibility of another relationship. As one friend pointed out to me when I was widowed at 45 - I could have my whole life again. Is it realistic to think I would want to spend another 45 years alive but alone?
In the last 18 months or so I have started to date, and to entertain the possibility of meeting someone and maybe not growing old alone. I have also spent a lot of time working on myself, learning to be happy on my own in case that was my only option, making a life that was full, interesting, and fun, and didn’t need a man or a relationship to complete it.
Along the way I have had some interesting experiences, I have travelled solo, met some great people. I’ve conquered a pass at 4900m above sea level, and fulfilled a life long dream of seeing Machu Picchu, and I have expanded my comfort zone.
In dating I’ve found that some people are better just as friends, and if you follow that path without judgement or recriminations you can end up with some really great people in your life.
I also made some mistakes. I learned that if someone tells you they are “not ready for a relationship” they only mean that they don’t want one with you. Dating can be hard after you’ve been widowed. Being rejected, knowing that you were once loved and happy and the only reason that stopped is because that person died, is not only painful. It also triggers such a longing for the love you once had that it’s almost like grieving for them all over again.
I discovered how easy it can be to think that the future is a choice between settling for someone that is almost but not quite right, or growing older alone. And what’s worse is that I felt I couldn’t have or didn’t deserve anything better. I had already had a true love, a near-perfect relationship (or at least one that people said they aspired to) so I just assumed that I would have to settle or be alone. I decided that maybe I would want a relationship, but I couldn’t imagine wanting to live with someone or get married again.
And then I met someone who has made me consider that maybe you don’t get just one shot - and this has made me wonder, what if it’s ok to let myself be happy and feel loved again? It's early days, but this Valentine’s day is a test of whether I have really learned to carry my grief with my joy and my gratitude for the life that I now have.
I tell widows and the bereaved all the time that it's ok that you're not ok. Grief is hard. (And on this note I recommend Megan Devine's book of this title). Now I am asking myself, what if, after 5 and a half years, it's ok to be ok?
For so long I have internalised that I don’t deserve or shouldn’t want another chance at happiness. But what if it’s ok for widows to give ourselves permission to be happy again? If we had a great relationship with our deceased spouse or partner then that is something to cherish and to keep those memories alive. We definitely shouldn’t diminish what we had - but maybe we shouldn’t let it hold us back from another great relationship.
There is no rule book that says you only get one, or that if you had a good one then the next one has to be lesser in some way.
What if… after all the changes that we have gone through in surviving our grief, we get a chance for something new, something right for us in our new versions of ourselves?
What if… we give ourselves permission to live fully and love extravagantly, because we are still here and we still can?
What if… we could allow ourselves to be completely happy and fall head over heels madly in love again?
Wouldn’t we have wanted that for them?
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