Widowhood – year 3

What a fucking year. 

It seems that July 4 is my new marker for a new year and a new season, so it’s my time to reflect. 

As is increasingly normal for me, it’s been a lot of change of late. 

I’ve said goodbye to Aurora and she’s joined Bruiser and Jordan in the great beyond. I miss her every day, but I do feel lighter with the weight of deciding when to let her go behind me.

I’ve also said a bit of a goodbye to Krudler, who has moved in with the generous folks over at Thermodognamics for their  foster boarding program. He’s going to get the support he needs to be adopted, and I’m so grateful that he found a place to land while I continue to focus on my own healing. 

Pinto and I are adapting to our new normal. I haven’t had a solo dog since Jordan and I adopted Aurora in 2010, and it feels really odd just having one. He’s been adapting ok, a little understandable sadness but he’s starting to lean into all the individual attention and special treatment. I’m looking forward to bringing him more places and enjoying his easygoing company in more situations. 

I’m learning daily at work lately, which has been both invigorating and also exhausting. At the start of the year I wasn’t sure how AI was going to impact my career prospects long term, and my role in the more immediate term. But as we get into the second half of the year I’ve learned a lot about applying AI to both my role now, and also how to build hyper-specific tools, a skill that will serve me well in any future roles. I know the discourse around AI is complex, but I’m grateful that my employer has provided the runway for me to upskill in a way that makes me feel that I’ll continue to be able to expand my career in the space between human and machine on the web. Really leveled up my pussy on this front lately. 

I’ve also been taking improv classes since March, and I just started level 3 this last week – which is kind of insane? I went into my first class hoping to challenge myself and to explore a different side of myself in the performing arts (something I’ve never done before), and I ended up loving it. I’m not fully in the cult, but my classmates bring me joy, and class has ended up being the highlight of my week – even on days that I cry on the drive over. I really didn’t expect to enjoy it so much, nor did I expect to keep going this long!

I’ve been up to some other things too – spent a week in Indianapolis catching up with Stacey (watch out for a post with photos on that), got a new car, read a bunch of books, refreshed a lot of my house, trying to stay busy and positive and whatever. 

But in the end – I miss my husband. Every day, every minute, every second feels emptier without him. Every day I confront my existential loneliness. Every day I get frustrated that I don’t have him to bounce ideas off of, rely on, or just fucking hug. In the last year I’ve also lost a huge number of connections (common for widows), and while I know why and I know they were not necessarily connections that were supporting me, it has not been helping with the loneliness. I often feel isolated and weird, unable to be truly genuine and honest in my expression of my grief a majority of the time. Holding back to keep my remaining connections from eroding further, perhaps unnecessary but still an impulse that I struggle to overcome in light of my last few years. I have a few folks I feel safe being raw with, but it’s fewer than I’d like.

I also revamped the blog, if you didn’t notice. I’m hoping to start to use it as a replacement for social media and get more photos/videos up in a short form. Content ownership matters, social media is a wasteland infested with the realities of capitalism, etc. etc. So hope to be posting more with this shiny new design.