YWBB

Being an Expert


Of all the experiences in the world that a person might covet for his/her resume being looked to as an expert on anything widowed is probably not one many would want. But, in the last few weeks I have begun to realize that I do know a lot of things about widowhood that other people – fresh or isolated in their grief – could use. Not benefit from mind you because I think you benefit or not from advice or resources or whatever depending on something inside you (it’s what you do with the time as it passes as Alicia reminded me the other day). 

I had already decided  to include a blog roll of all those blogs being written by widowed people I either know through the YWBB or their blog or learned of through blog links I found at various blogs. I have included it on my new WordPress site along with the links to a few message sites for the widowed. And I decided to do this for two reasons. First having to do with a woman I met at hospice group named Julie. She is just a year out this last weekend, having lost her husband in a car accident. She has two children in the expressive arts program with Katy though they are older. The first time I met her I was struck by the anger inside, but this last time I was able to talk with her at some length and realized that like me, she is just terribly isolated. She hasn’t anyone to share her feelings with who will understand what they are and where they come from. The second reason was an email I received yesterday from a fellow blogger at NaBloMo who had started reading me and found the link to my first blog at Spaces and requested access to it as it is no longer open to the public. When I denied it, she sent me an email explaining that her request was in order to help a good friend who’d lost her husband a year ago and had asked her if she knew of any blogs written by widows because she was feeling alone. 

Feeling alone. The over-riding theme of being widowed young. 

I wrote  the woman back to give her the link to my new space, and some information about the widow bloggers I read and the sites I have/do visit. I didn’t allow her access to the Spaces site. That site is closed permanently and only I have access. When I first started writing here, I  provided and active link to it but the animosity and curiosity at the YWBB surrounding Rob and I brought too many people here and to the Spaces site. It made me uncomfortable. My first blog is raw and confused and very in the moment. I never self-edited and used it more to think my way through things as they arose. While some people might relate, others could easily take things way out of the original context (because I often didn’t share that) and not realize that much more of what I was going through was actually being written on the YWBB through my posts (though oddly – out of 1600+ posts I only started about twenty and after the first anniversary of Will’s death I mainly posted to share concrete experiences with people and offer advice in the guise of what I learned and what I would do. When I did share my own thoughts – it only caused trouble, so I rarely did.). My posts at YWBB are gone. It’s a good thing too. Although I often got PM’s from people thanking me for things I posted (one woman overseas told me she cut and pasted my “Annie-isms” in a folder because she found them so useful), I don’t think much of what I wrote was original or profound or even helpful but on an individual scale.

So, for anyone who is reading to discover the hidden meaning in widowhood or the possibility of finding Zen within the experience, or anything else, I offer you The Widow Blogs. There are as many approaches to traversing grief as there are snowflakes. I have found many women, and a few men, out there who have much to share and say – and more eloquently than I.

Word Press, Cell phone novels, and Me (again)


Okay, so because I haven’t joined nearly enough blog sites (MSN-Spaces, dot.mac, LiveJournal, Blogger, Blogher, NaBloMo) or have blogs enough, I went to WordPress the other day and started a whole new account and am rebuilding this site essentially at WordPress. A really neat function allowed me to transfer all the stuff at Blogger (which are the same posts as here) to WordPress. I called the site Anniegirl1138 which was my “handle” at the YWBB. In my first post there I explained the story behind the name too. While most people at the widow board tend to create monikers based on their loss, my name was all about me. What an selfish little thang I am, eh? But I saw being there as being about me anyway. Not Will. I was there to see if I was normal (found out that normal is a bit more relative than I had believed it to be) and to rant (as I had no outlet for it in my real time) and I wanted to find people who were coping, internalizing and moving on – which is what I was more than ready to do. Rob was teasing me a bit this morning about naming my site for myself as he is grappling with what to call his on site. I named this site Second Edition because it was the second blog after my Widowed:The Blog at MSN-Spaces, literal name and boring, but I like the idea of my blog being christened with my online persona.

WordPress is a bit more complicated and I am still playing with the free features before I upgrade (which I think I will have to do to get the cool stuff) but I think it will eventually be my permanent – and only – online home. I want to continue this blog there and also have a page for my writing and a page of resources for widowed people – just cause I want to help and I haven’t much of an outlet for that right now.

Cell phone novels are a big Japanese thing right now. I went to look at a couple of blog articles on them and wondered if I could do something like that myself. It made me wonder too if I could, or should, put some of my own fiction online. I used to write fanfic in the long ago. It was fun to get feedback and have an audience that was so immediate. It reminded me of when I was a sophomore in high school and I was writing a soap opera satire that all my friends (and even kids who weren’t my friends) were asking to read it. I couldn’t write fast enough. I love writing for people. How did I lose that? Why did I forget that? Oh, yeah – I was told I wasn’t quite good enough when I tried to go back and get into the Writer’s Workshop at Iowa. Now if that happened I would chalk it up to a problem with the source but then I was twenty-seven and very insecure.

Rob and I have talked more about the Texas move and my working and my writing. I am being silly to worry about what feminist society thinks about my role. Shouldn’t my role be whatever I choose for it to be? I choose to be a writer who does the stay at home stuff. Men are practically applauded for that but women are selling themselves short and up shit creek at the same time. As Rob has pointed out on many an occasion, who decided that career and all its material accouterments were the be and end all? If everyone let fear of failure or loss of status or society’s aversion to living a scaled -down material life get in the way of the pursuit of one’s true talents, interests and dreams what a real shit-hole this life would be.

Optimistic Widow


My horoscope yesterday said that I would encounter many people who were looking at the down side of life and would do their best to turn me to the dark side. It reminded me that this is against my natural inclinations and that they would likely not succeed. I have not been buoyant like this my whole life though. Although I have always returned to the sunny-side, in the past it has taken me longer to rebound then it does these days. Which brings me to my current dilemma. How to give back without undoing my own progress or annoying others. And I have to admit the latter is the minor concern because I am really done apologizing for the road I have taken as a caregiver and a widow.

As we tooled around the city yesterday running errands, Rob and I discussed again the hospice group situation. He is in a place where he feels that he is not interested in adding any more widows to his acquaintance. I see his point. The newly widowed are draining because they dredge up all sorts of memories and emotions. Extra care must be taken when sharing with them to avoid making them feel as though they are grieving incorrectly or that encourages them to believe that grieving is an end in itself. On the other end there is the problem of widows close to or past your vintage who are mired by circumstances beyond their control, or by choice, and see you as a model of all that is *DGI about grieving and grief. I want to continue with the group. I think I have things to say and share that might be helpful as the woman who is leading the group is not a widow and their are things about grief that are specific to the loss. Perhaps Rob is right that this is not the time or place. We are finding our strides more and more and have a big move again and maybe not the energy to spare. What to do. What to do. Think on it and wait and see, I guess.

Personally, I am not sure why I feel like I need to give back anymore. My success with it so far has been decidedly mixed. Sandi, the founder of the WET grief group back in Iowa, thought I was pretty good at offering advice and empathy. She suggested that I think about starting a group of my own when I got to Canada (or maybe Texas now) but the idea is daunting. She is a very religious person which is why, I think, she was able to bring together such a diverse group of women without a lot of drama popping up. I am not sure that is me. My solution to diversity and drama when I was teaching was to simple suppress it like they did in the former Soviet Union. No drama allowed. And haven’t I given back enough? Another question to ponder.

Finally, reading sad posts on the YWBB (or flames) and blogs and listening to grief stories and experiences in group reminds me that I am not there anymore really and don’t want to be. I am somewhere else that is not back where I was before either and I don’t know how to explain to people who need to know the directions to this place how to get here. And on that completely incomprehensible note, I need to get dressed and on with my day as groceries need to be bought and a new pair of hockey skates need to be broken in later this afternoon. Priorities, people.

*DGI – Don’t Get Its is a derogatory term used to refer to the non-widowed when they make inadvertent statements about grief or timelines to the widowed. It is a reference to their insensitivity that is generally unwarranted.