An Unwilling Widow
  • Chronicles of an Unwilling Widow

A Bad Interpretation...

3/9/2015

1 Comment

 
When I started this project of chronicling the treacherous path of widowhood, I promised myself I would write about everything that went on.  The bad and the good.  The uplifting and the not-so-flattering.  So that brings me to this not-so-flattering post today.

I was idly watching TV, not really paying any attention to it when the commercial for the dating site FarmersOnly.com came on.   Completely out of the blue I wondered if I should join that.

Even before the thought was finished, my inner voice gasped at it.  What am I doing?  I’m thinking of looking for a date?   I loved my husband so much that a part of me died with him.  How the hell could I even entertain the thought of being with someone else?  The thought nauseated me and scared me.  Was I such a cold-hearted bitch that I could even think of joining a dating site when my husband has only been dead for barely over a month??

So I muted the TV and sat back and thought about what had just happened.  Horrified at how I could even think such a thing.

And that’s when I realized exactly why I had that thought.  I didn’t want someone else, I wanted what I had and lost.  Somewhere in my reasoning, irrational as it is, I wanted to join that site to look for my husband.  Whenever I really thought about finding someone on a site like that, my husband’s picture came to mind.

I wanted the security that he provided me.  I wanted that feeling that together we could overcome anything.  I wanted the love that I felt whenever he looked at me and smiled.  I wanted to have that melting feeling every time he touched me.  I wanted that feeling of being a part of ‘husband and wife’ as we walked or sat hand in hand.

I wasn’t a cold-hearted bitch to have that thought.  I was a normal, lonely, soul-aching widow who would do anything to get back what she lost. 

It’s a natural response.  It’s an instinctive need to regain what was lost.  In the dating world, they even have a term for it: rebound. 

Mothers who have lost a child have had thoughts about having another one immediately.  Widows and widowers seek out others, searching for a glimpse of what they had.  Not to replace, never replace, but to regain some of what is gone forever.  To ease that gaping rift.

And I can understand it.  I have a huge hole in my life and nature abhors a vacuum.  My mind was trying to fill the void that suddenly appeared in my life.

But no one could or would ever take the place of my husband.  And I don’t want anyone to try.  I don’t want someone to replace him…I want him. The very thought of having someone else in my life is abhorrent to me.

So, you see, I really don’t want to join a dating site. 

I just had a bad interpretation of what I wanted.

And I won’t find that anywhere on earth.

1 Comment
m
3/26/2015 04:42:33 am

I'm glad you wrote this. Thank god I'm not the only one blindsided by that. There's a terrible void when your partner dies; like your limbs have been ripped off or your guts torn out. Their partnership is part of you. We become desperate for the person who fit in that role, and in our reaching out and trying to find them, I think we sometimes reach for the role. What I really want is my husband back, because he was the one who fit into that terribly empty place.

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    Beth is an ordinary woman who has found herself to be in an un-ordinary situation.  She wanted to chronicle the journey of widowhood for others who happen to find themselves on the same path.  The good and the bad.

    Past Posts

    All
    01/15/16 Tomorrow's Reality...
    01/27/16 One Year
    02/10/15 What Is A Widow
    02/11/15 On Becoming A Widow...
    02/12/15 Bubble Bubble Toil And...
    02/13/15 On A Pale Horse...
    02/17/15 A Single Cup Of Coffee...
    02/18/15 With Mirth And Laughter...
    02/19/15 Blunt Not The Heart...
    02/20/15 Of Mice And Men...
    02/23/15 To Lay To Rest...
    02/24/15 Sounds Of Silence...
    02/27/15 Partnership Of One...
    03/02/15 O Happy Dagger!
    03/03/15 Perish The Thought...
    03/04/15 We Are Time's Subjects...
    03/06/15 What's In A Name...
    03/09/15 A Bad Interpretation...
    03/11/15 The Fickleness Of Feelings...
    03/12/15 Creatures Great And Small...
    03/19/15 But Thinking Makes It So...
    03/25/15 As Time Goes By...
    04/02/15 More Things In Heaven And Earth...
    04/13/15 The Quality Of Strength...
    04/21/15 Right Inside My Heart...
    04/27/16 Never Simple...
    04/29/15 With Great Love...
    05/01/17 What Do You Know Of Fear?
    05/09/16 The Folly Of Anger...
    05/11/15 A Walking Shadow...
    05/21/15 A Birthday Wish...
    05/30/2015 The World-Wearied Flesh...
    06/02/2015 What God Has Joined Together...
    06/03/15 Lost Possibilities...
    06/10/15 In Spirit Met Thy Well...
    07/16/15 A Broken Unbroken Circle...
    07/28/15 A Love So Strong...
    08/05/15 A Sparrow's Fall...

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