I’m grieving, but that’s not all I am doing.

This is not the post about how I’m also holding together a life and kids and managing day-to-day existence.  I’m doing all of that, too, but that is not what I mean.

Specifically with regards to my husband’s death, I am doing more than grieving.  We all do, I assume.  All widows and widowers.

We all have to find our place in the world.

Trey and I started dating in High School.  We got married as I was graduating college.  We have always been together.  I have never been a single adult.  And I don’t mean ‘single’ in the sense of being unattached or available.  I have never been a single, as opposed to being half of a pair.

My relationship with my kids, and their relationship to each other, is different now.  We are trying to redefine how we work together as a family.  It is not easy.  It is not simple.  It is not that I am now “being both mother and father” the way people say.  As a single mom, I’m not the same mom I was, with added responsibilities.  It’s different.  It’s completely different and I’m still trying to figure it out.  I’m examining what is important to me as a parent, and what issues can be let go.  I’m making determinations on our new schedule and new disciplinary recourses.  (Just wait until your father gets home is no longer a valid response to their shenanigans.)

I am also redefining my relationship with myself.  This is even harder.  Who am I without him?  I saw a movie by myself.  I got a tattoo.

By the way, apparently all GenX widows get tattoos.  I know two other women who have recently lost significant others, and we all have tattoos now.  So there’s that.

I was the shy background player, the soccer mom wallflower.  Now I’m the woman with the fish tattoo driving the neon jeep.  I want to be more than I was.  I want to be active and fun.  I’m not sure what that looks like, though.

So if you see me on Facebook or in town, and it looks like I am unphased by my situation– if it looks like I’m going on outings and pretending that everything is okay — please understand there is more to it than that.  I’m trying to stretch my wings and find my place in the world.  There is less of me now that he is gone, but in a way there is more of me, too.  I am the sole driver in my life and I’m trying to draw up a map.