young widowhood

And It’s Friday


I have been feeling a tad charred around my creative edges for a few weeks. I realized that I write everyday and have done so for over two years now. It may not seem like much to anyone right now, but I don’t think I have ever worked this hard at anything in my life. And so, I decided to step back, think and plan. What comes next? That is the question foremost in my mind and on more fronts than just the writing.

As Suzy would say, it’s time for a bit of 10-10-10. I’ve pondered asking her for a bit of an assist, but she has had her hands full this summer as her husband was quite ill for a time. I don’t like to presume on friendships anyway, but I am less likely to ask for help when someone is dealing with things more important than simply career and life goals. More on my plans next week.

So I settled into the mommy life this last week with swim lessons and dog sitting for Edee. The latter of which brought an epiphany. I am not cut from pet owner cloth regardless of how sweet the pet might be.

 I began purging for the hamlet-wide garage sale at the end of the month and found, to my dismay, we still own far too many things we don’t use. This does not bode well for us when Rob’s transfer number eventually comes up in the coming year. We have to be able to travel lighter for the foreseeable future and we are fat.

I jumped another widow hurdle with what would have been the tenth anniversary of my marriage to Will. It was made more difficult by the sense of obligation and my lack of enthusiasm for such obligations and by the fact that I feel inferior because of it. Dee has been especially chatty about her father these days and the older girls have planned a commemorative picnic for next week to honor Shelley’s passing, and I am left feeling terrible because I am okay with not doing these things: talking about the past, creating shrines, “celebrating” anniversaries. My mom is planning a birthday party for Dad at the end of the month. August is a month of birthdays in my family. More family members had August birthdays than any other month and there was always a get-together. 

Anyway Rob and I talked about it and agreed that the past simply is and that it’s unproductive to feel obligated to it unless we derive some sort of comfort from it. I find grief exhausting enough when it is roused from its slumber by random circumstance without purposely poking at it like a child with a stick.

I also had sibling issues and updates. When I told Rob about them his comment was,

“I should have vetted your family more thoroughly.”

But that is a two way street.

I wrote a few 50 Something pieces although I am still unsure about my involvement there and the mom0sphere in general. They are both good pieces. The one on health care is my favorite.

And finally, I need to acknowledge the Lovely Blog award I received from Silverstar. I am rarely honored  with such things. I am not edgy like my friend Lora who gets the coolest awards and I am not charming enough to inspire cuddly awards, nor am I brave enough to ask and receive. I toil away in anonymity with just my few dear, gentle readers for company.

Thank you, Silverstarlovelyblog15.

Conversations about Life After Death … and Sex


We went without the new air-conditioner the other night as the weather has swung hard toward fall. With the a/c and the fans off, we can hear the house creaking and groaning again. The upstairs is far less prone to otherworldly knocking and since Rob and the girls took Shelley’s ashes for scattering in Kananaskis last month, the house has had a psychically empty feel to it.

“How do you want me to haunt you?” Rob asked as he crawled into bed and I nestled into the crook of his arm, my head resting on his shoulder.

“Nothing scary,” I said. “You know I wouldn’t appreciate being scared.”

“No knocking and rattling?”

“You’ll have to think of something else,” I told him. “Something I would appreciate.”

“How about cuddling then?” he said.

“Oh, I would like that. Ghostly cuddles would not be scary.”*

“Cuddles it is then,” he agreed.

“But I am wondering,” I said, “if you are dead and on the other side, what would Shelley have to say about you coming back here to cuddle me?”

“Buzz-kill,” he muttered.

Only we could have a rational conversation like this.

* I realize that it’s a matter of opinion.

Idle Speculation


I don’t spend time wondering about the future I didn’t have with Will. Nor do I wonder much about the person he would be now. But I do sometimes see or hear or read things that I know he would have had an opinion about either positively or negatively.

He would have owned an iPhone, and I think he would have Tweeted too. I am positive of the first because the man had a cellphone addiction. I only ever got a cell in the first place because he nagged me into it.

Will upgraded his phone and switched plans to optimize features and get better coverage and rates all the time. He wasn’t much for the web but mostly because it required him to sit down. If he could have accessed it from his phone, he’d have been all over it like cheesecloth.

The only thing he did on line was play Fantasy Football. I was reminded that the season was starting up when I ran across a Facebook update pleading for FF assistance. A writer on the SVM network had signed up for her first ever season and was wondering what to do next.

I played FF for two years with a bunch of guys Will worked with in the warehouse. I was pretty good. I read the sports sites and Will would bring home the FF magazines from work (yes, there are publications devoted entirely to the play of a make-believe game). 

As I was reading today, I stumbled across an article on MSNBC about NFL players with Twitter feeds in training camp and one fellow with plans to tweet from the sidelines once the season starts. Will would have been beyond excited. Nothing drove him crazier than being away from the television on Sunday during football season. Since he was never physically parted from his phone, the tweeting and Internet access would have pleased him to his core.

Just a random thought track for Sunday.