Tightrope Walker

Image provided by Sean Benesh @seanbenesh on Unsplash

Have you ever felt like your life as a widowed person has you being pulled and pushed in multiple directions?

Like you are walking a tightrope, but nobody bothered to ever give you any lessons.

It’s a tug of war between responsibilities, loyalties, and things you want.

Honoring that other life.

Living this one.

Grieving , but not staying stuck or paused there for too long.

Feeling joy, but knowing the inevitable hollow sadness will soon follow.

The yin and yang of life after the loss of your partner is complex.

This revelation is nothing new, and is less of a revelation and more of an ongoing, changing observation.

I am always trying to figure out life in the aftermath of loss.

I am not sure there will ever be a finish line to that process.

Life changes. We change. Things keep happening. People weave in and out of our inner-circle.

So we keep re-evaluating.

It sounds strange to say this, but there are times when I miss the days of unrelenting, all-consuming, painful grief.

At least I knew that Id wake up most days feeling like absolute shit, and my focus was pretty much the same for a long time:

Just get through the day.

Once that level of mind-numbing pain wore off to more of a dull roar, actual life had to be lived.

My heart was now on the line.

Hearts get broken. Hearts are fragile.

I had to start figuring out how to handle new joys, new feelings of love, new goals in life.

I am still figuring this out.

I am really tired.

Grief takes so much of your energy and zaps it into this corner,

where it is often really hard to reach.

There are days when my exhaustion is the primary thing that rules my hours.

There are times when I cannot give past a certain amount.

There are moments when I miss life being easier.

Life before tragic loss and trauma.

When laughter was simple, and not a necessary relief from hurt.

When my goals in life were to make people laugh on TV, be on “Saturday Night Live”, get a great acting role.

These days, acting is fun, but helping people through loss is my passion.

I havent figured out how to turn it into something I can do forever, and also make a living.

So the sacrifice is that I get my real estate license, and become more financially stable doing that, so that I can have more freedom to do what I love.

I wish things werent so hard.

I wish that once you have been through a major trauma or life-changing loss,

the world would say: “okay – you are done. The rest of your life will now be easy.”

But that isnt how it works.

And so Im tired.

And happy.

And always, still, deeply saddened by the brutality of my husband being dead forever.

I am forever in search of life balance,

in order to properly manage all the things that make up my world.

It is not easy,

and I dont know that I will ever have the answers.

For now, I will just keep on asking the many questions.

There is never an end to love, pain, or learning.