I’ve been on two awkward “let’s-meet-on-a-specific-date-at-a-specific-time-at-a-specific-place”.  They were supposed to be friends catching up.  Granted, it felt good for someone(s)….whom I already knew… to pay attention to me.  But, I immediately  felt miserable.   I felt as if I was playing a game.  This was fun when I was 19.  Let’s face it.  I am too old to play games.  And the hardcore truths are, “My heart is  still ‘twitterpated’ for my deceased husband” and “I don’t believe I’ll ever get over him”.

                                                A few weeks back I had an ah-ha confirmation!

                                            I.  DON’T.   WANT.  TO.  RE-START.   MY.  LIFE!  

But you need to know, there is this VERY REAL spoken AND unspoken expectation that I should NEED to “move on”….to “start over”…as if there is something WRONG with a widow who doesn’t!!

The vivid alone-ness, and, yes, very much missing all of the perks of marriage,  is NOT propelling me towards the pursuit of finding another….

Instead, I’m discovering I’m finding “my own new life” in the EXACT place where I experienced a full, meaningful life with Loren:

• Sleeping in our four-poster bed, the exact bed we slept in for 37 years.
• Sitting in his oversized leather chair and driving his commuter car to work.
• Working at his oversized desk, now moved into a different room and re-arranged in the way I need it to be.
• Enjoying the house we designed and built. Still admiring and protecting the cedar logs he cut and milled for those seven years.  Appreciating the floors that he milled and laid.  I pass through the doorways and look through the windows and their beautiful trim that he milled and mounted.  I sit and look upward at those amazing purlins and tongue and groove ceilings that he milled…those beautiful cedar decks he milled.
• I view  the out-buildings that I designed…that he then cut and milled the lumber before he built.  What a gifted, hardworking man (there’s very few men like him)!
• Everything on this land revolves around memories. Fun times and very difficult times but those honest memories represent the 23 years of being good stewards of the land God had allowed us to own/manage together.
• I’d be a fool to leave!  Together, we pioneered this place from the ground up  (and the truth is I also am not ready to grieve one more time…….). 

I’m going to forge ahead, continue on, and make progress.  I am stronger.  I am gaining self-confidence.  I’ve ‘got’ God, my gun, and my family and I’m not afraid to live by my self.  I now see,  I am growing thru grief!