Pink Giraffe Musing

Widow.  Who wants to be a widow?  Nobody.  Not even a 90 year old wants to be a widow.  At the beginning of this journey, I remember hating the word.  I remember promising myself it would not define me at 41.  But, I hated it nonetheless.  The pity, the sad glances, and awkward pauses, it all makes a bad situation worse.  And widowhood, more than widowerhood seems to be riddled with judgement and stereotypes and expectations. In those early days of widowhood, it was like a new name.  I tried it out a few times.  It was always awkward, or shocking to the other party.  You're what?  No one expects someone "my age" to be a widow.  But, I was.  I remember crying before I started my new job thinking how everyone there would only know the widow me, the broken version of the formerly awesome me.  The widow version.  It was hard to think I would be meeting a whole new group of people who would only know me, and never know Michael.  They would only know me apart for him.

Only parenting is one of the hardest aspects of widowhood for me.  Those of you who are married and raising kids probably don't even realize how much you think, discuss, and decide with your spouse.  When your kid is in trouble, or struggling, you brain storm and make decisions together.   Even divorced single parents work to "co-parent" and handle issues in whatever way "together" looks like in their world.  In my world that is all up to a very indecisive me. It's hard, and I second guess myself all of the time.  I guess you could say, I sweat the small stuff.  I have a boyfriend, and he loves my kids too, and while I am sure he could tell you that I do discuss my thought processes with him (again and again and again), in the end, the decision is all mine.  I cannot bare the weight of that sometimes.  Well, I can't but it's hard, and I don't like it.   Last  year, my son started the year in the 6th grade band.  He was enthused and determine