Not Yet Summer


Spring Flowers

Spring Flowers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tomorrow is the first of May. It will mark, or so I have read, the beginning of “occupy” season and the countdown to the end of the school year. The latter being a longer wind-down here than back in the States because – thanks to an interminable number of professional days – school won’t end until Canada Day is nearly upon us.

But, it’s like many things Canada. We have them but for shorter durations and after we’ve waited longer for them.

For me, tomorrow marks the beginning of the death march to freedom from the school year’s tyrannical focus on the child’s schedule. School. Girl Guides. Pottery. Indoor Soccer. Outdoor Soccer. Months where she seems to be on holiday more than she is in school.

Already the days are longer. The sun is up before I am. And I am up pretty damn early. It is only just setting when the child crawls into bed at 9 P.M. By some happy quirk of fate, this year marks an actual early spring, which is not early where I come from in Iowa but normal. Spring should arrive in April or even the tail end of March. Here it shows up in May, usually, and teases until June-ish, which is spring and not summer here.

Outdoor Soccer acts as my countdown calendar. Each game completed brings me closer to the day I don’t have to get up and make lunches, breakfasts and ensure the child catches the bus. Closer to summer.

Summer is an eye blink anymore. In my past, I enjoyed what seemed like endless summer, but here it’s over by mid-August and if we are exceptionally lucky it began in late June though typically it’s July-ish. All told? A month. Ish.

Fall, I will admit is lovely for the most part. Indian-ish.

So, in the season of Not-Yet-Summer, I endure. With more difficulty this year because it’s been hellish wet. Just enough rainy to trigger all manner of my non-allergies and non-asthma which aggravates my real migraines and keeps me trapped in my real indoors. Not enough sun and warmth to warm my imagination or spark my soul for the slog to actual summer.

Perhaps it has been too long since my last vacation?

It has been a while. And it’s been a long winter in spirit if not reality.

The stay-cation in March was not long enough. Our first real chance at a holiday is even longer away than summer thanks to a lot of conditions over which no control can be asserted.

But your life is just one long uninterrupted holiday, you say.

My life is a long serious of obligations and responsibilities, not all of which I find odious, but not all of which I would choose to do for just anyone. And because the setting is still a work in progress and some of the characters require more tending than others and particular characters have been a bit soul-sucking and even exasperating and I am forced to work in the evenings – when I work – I find myself more wearied today than I have been and waiting impatiently for summer.

Dating While Widowed: The Need for More Time


Drawing of Christine of France as the widowed ...

Drawing of Christine of France as the widowed Duchess of Savoy by (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

More than occasionally in my search terms the question of “dating widow/er who needs more time” comes up, and I cringe a little bit when it does. Because I know, more or less, why someone is trolling the Internet in a desperate quest for the definitive answer to this question.

Can a widowed person, who is still actively grieving, date? And fall in love again? And most important of all, move on?

And the answer is yes. Widowed people date all the time. An unsurprising number of them begin to date in the first year of widowhood even. They meet people. Feelings arise. Are acted upon.

It is very possible to date and be in love again while still mourning a dead spouse.

Here’s the caveat though – it’s not a good idea to use the “still grieving thing” to control the pace of a relationship. Getting into a relationship should be something one does when one is ready to go with the flow of it. Asking someone for “more time” is a quasi-controlling thing and it’s not emotionally fair.

I have said before and am saying again, dating is about two people’s needs and feelings. A widowed person is just one of the people in a new relationship and his/her – albeit quite sad and tragic state – doesn’t give him/her a leg up on the non-widowed person in terms of the pace or direction of the budding union. This has to be a united effort with all viewpoints and needs taken into consideration.*

So, if you are a widowed person who is dating and feel as if more time to emotionally ready yourself is in order – take it – but don’t ask someone to wait for you while you navel gaze. Even if you are fairly certain that the object of your maybe/maybe not affection will hang around, help with the lawn or child care and occasionally roll in the proverbial hay with you while you decide whether or not your heart is in it. Be a better person than that. Let him or her go. Your clinging could keep him/her  from finding the unconditional love waiting for your selfishness to step out-of-the-way.

And if you are dating someone who asks for more time? My advice is the same. Let that widow go. You won’t, of course. You are too invested in the idea that a widowed person (and I am really talking to women dating widowers here) just needs patience, understanding and someone to love the grief away to listen to me tell you the truth that your Google search thinks you want, but anyone who is truly in love (whether or not they are still grieving a loss) will not let love lost stand in the way of a second chance.

Some people need a lot of time to recover from the death of a spouse. Some people decide to wait until their children are grown and gone before dating or remarrying again. Some are not looking for relationships but companionship with or without sex. Finally, there are those who only want the sex and a bit of companionship on the side. Regardless, anyone who asks you to “give me more time” is really saying “I am not sure”, and those four words coupled with conflicting actions or what appears to be deliberate drama – are more likely than not to cause more heartache than happiness.

There is that old chestnut “if you love someone, let them go. if they come back then they are yours and if they don’t, they never were”. As clichés go, it ranks right up there, but in all cliché there is a tiny bit of truth. And there is nothing awful about stepping back and thinking things through without the burden of someone else’s expectations.

You can date. love and remarry again while still grieving. Grief is something you do on your own. It’s not a couple thing and a new partner is not your therapist. If you can’t separate things, it’s best to not go there for all parties.

You can date, love and marry someone who is grieving a lost love, but it’s not your job to fix anything or to be understanding or even to make allowances for it. You can. You probably will, but I wouldn’t make it a habit because it’s more than likely to take the focus off building the new relationship.

In the end, most people follow their hormone-driven hearts rather than heeding advice. Sometimes that works too. But own it. Not being realistic or cognizant of how you colour your perceptions of a situation to suit your fantasies rather than your realities has broken more than one person’s heart. So remember, people who are ready to date again after being widowed are those who put actions behind their pretty words. And the words, “I need more time” should be followed by the action of taking it.

*Viewpoints and needs of the couple. I am not a fan of allowing children (of any age), friends, extended family or in-laws having a vote or even a voice. Coupledoms are a convention of two and any more is going to be a crowded mess.

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Rob Told Me Not to Worry


Alberta Legislature

Alberta Legislature (Photo credit: Jeff_Werner)

… but I did anyway. Fretted through the day yesterday as I waited impatiently for the election results. Unlike the elections in the United States, which are parsed and predicted throughout election day via exit polling and punditry, here in Alberta, they don’t start all that until the polls actually close.

A 28 day election cycle AND no exit polling or newscasting hysteria. Seriously, America really needs to look into this. It’s civilized and it feels quite grown up.

When I talked to Rob in the afternoon, he related that the lunch time crowd at his polling station was light, but it apparently had been quite heavy in the morning.

“I filled in my ballot, folded it and dropped it in the bucket,” he said.

“You dropped a piece of paper in a bucket?”

“Yes,” he said. “How did you think I would do it?”

“A bucket?”

“Yes,” he said again. “How did you do it back in Iowa?”

“I would fill in the ballot and place it in the electronic counter.”

“Ah, I see. Well, here we don’t take chances with fraud like that.”

“Folded paper in a bucket is safer?” I am clearly confused now.

“There can be tampering with machines,” he replied and it sounds a bit smug.

“Yeah, well, there’s been a lot more tampering with paper and buckets in the U.S,.” I said. “JFK owed his presidency to a lot of paper chicanery in Chicago.”

“Hanging chads,” he countered.

Check and mate.

The actual reveal of the winner was rather anti-climatic. They called it a bit more than an hour after the results started coming in.

It’s a winner take all in the ridings and as soon as a candidate had a certain percentage of the vote … it was his/hers. As soon as the PC’s hit the magic majority number of 44, they win the government.

Despite the optimism of the Wildrose and to the chagrin of pundits, the PC’s pulled off a comfortable majority. Probably no one was more stunned than the Wildrose than the rest of the provinces, who have Albertans pegged as redneck racists without class or common sense.

And I say “HA” to both of you.

The Alberta I know is not really Texas but colder (though I may joke otherwise). The people are caring, thoughtful and not all wrapped up in themselves and their stuff.

And yes, there are those other kinds of Albertans. Read some of the comments at the Globe and Mail if you want to see what Wildrose supporters think, but in and around Edmonton and in the north and center, people really aren’t all that conservative. They feel that social issues like same-sex marriage, equality, human rights and abortion access are issues that are settled. They don’t believe that the infrastructure should be neglected. They want new schools and health care centres. They don’t think that rebates are more important than putting money into rainy day and the Heritage Fund. They aren’t reactionary enough to blame a brand new premier for the mistakes of her predecessors. And they are interested in the future and not just more of the status quo past. And they do think that Alberta should be a leader on the national stage. It’s time.

Congratulations, Alberta. You did good and deserve that leader position in Canada’s future and you are going to make a difference.