Life's Transitions and the Widow Infection

http://bluntcard.com/

I feel like I’m in a period of transition which is not unusual for me.  It’s really not unusual for anyone like me, and by that I mean a woman in her 30s.

This year, I will be turning 36 which means that if I were in elementary school, it would be perfectly okay to round up to 40.  But I’m not in elementary school, so it’s not okay.

I don’t mind being in my 30s because I’m starting to recognize it for what it is and I think  lot of my friends are as well.  This is the time of life when we start caring a little less about the trivial and more about the concrete.  We start questioning what we really want, professionally and personally, because if we really want it, we better start working on it now.  

I think for many of us, our social circles start getting a little smaller because we’re starting to identify the people we really want to spend time with.  This is because we’re always so damn busy, working that job or raising those kids.  So we better have a good time with you or that one hour of free time we get every week may be spent elsewhere.

I know that sounds cold, but it’s really not.  As we get older, the amount of effort we put in to be with other people who don’t live with us seems to be greater.  And that’s okay.  Because as we get older we should be around people who make the effort worth it.

The down side to this for me is…well…I’ve completely lost my social life.  Where I used to be the girl who wanted to be around people all of the time…I’ve now turned into the woman who appreciates my couch, a glass of wine, and a good movie on a Saturday night.  And since I don’t think you can be called a “hermit” or a “recluse” until you hit at least 70…I’m wondering if that just makes me “lazy” or “bitchy.” 

And then I wonder…during this time of transition…if that’s something I want to change or something I’m okay with.

As you can tell, I have a lot on my mind.

Transitions with friendships have been going on all of my life.  They started when I was about 5 years old and have continued up until now.  Of course, I didn’t realize it when I was 5.  When Jane stole my Elmer’s glue in the middle of my tissue-paper-butterfly-creation, I didn’t think to myself, “Huh.  I wonder if I should rethink this friendship and possibly revisit it again when Jane has a little more appreciation for what I have to offer as a person.”

I’m pretty self-aware, but I think at that stage in my life I probably just hauled off and smacked her.

The difference now is that I’m older and more experienced.  I can recognize these transitions for what they are and move forward with what life hands me.  Part of that has to do with being in my 30s and part of it has to do with what I’ve been through, which is true for everyone.

I honestly thought, right after my husband died, that I would go through a period where I’d want to look up every friend I’ve ever had who either faded from my life throughout the years or had a falling-out with and reconnect with the mindset that life is too short and I should fix any and all broken friendships.

That didn’t happen.

I went in the complete opposite direction, thinking life is too short so I better spend my time with who I really want to spend time with.  Since my time is more limited now than it has ever been before I had to choose my friendships carefully.  And since I know that everyone on the entire planet is constantly transitioning and evaluating, I had to realize that I might be someone who might fall off their list.  And I had to be respectful of that.

I’ve heard so many widows say, “I have lost so many friends.  It’s like they think widowhood is contagious or something.”  And to be honest, I never thought that.  Never once did I think that by not hearing from people, they actually thought that what had happened to me would happen to them if we went out and had a glass of wine together.  

Of course, I had friendships that didn’t last after my husband died.  Not a lot, but I had a few.  But I looked at it for what it was:  A transition that may or may not have happened whether he died or not.  That could have been the catalyst, but if one little death was all it took to derail it, then it must not have been much of a relationship in the first place.

Widowhood is no more contagious than any other experience in life and I promise you that not one person around you thinks it is.  They’re staying away from you, not because they’re worried it might happen to them, but because they just don’t know what in the hell to do with you.  And because you are the only person who has any idea of what to do with you…it’s up to you to make the effort to communicate it to them.

If, after that, the friendship still isn’t the same, then look at it for what it is:  A transition, pretty much like any other change in friendships you’ve had before.  It’s more painful when you’re going through so many changes in your life all at once.  But it’s also an opportunity.  It frees up time so that you can devote yourself to the friendships that really matter.  It teaches you about becoming the friend you want to be to someone else.  And it opens up a whole new world of possibilities where you might find a person you never even knew existed before.

And who might just become the unexpected champion you’ve always needed.


Widow Chick (aka, Catherine Tidd) is the owner of www.theWiddahood.com and the author of the upcoming memoir Confessions of a Mediocre Widow (Jan. 2014).  She is also a writer for The Denver Post's Mile High Mamas and a contributor to several books on grief and renewal.

Maintaining Friendships: Whose Turn Is It To Call?

I’ve been thinking a lot about friendships lately and how they change and I know that’s also on the minds of many of my widow(er) friends out there.  I guess it’s that time of year...when friends and family seem to get together more than usual, so friendships and how they change are pretty much “in your face” right now.

This is a blog I’ve wanted to write for a long time, but I wanted to write it very carefully.  I don’t ever want to come across as someone who doesn’t understand or who dismisses how hard widowhood can be.  Believe me...I’m not that person.  But I also think there is a different side to our changing friendships that we don’t often look at.

I’ve thought for years how lucky I am that many of my friends didn’t abandon me when my husband died.  I gave them all a lot of credit (which they deserved) for sticking by me when the going got tough.  And tougher.  And even tougher still.  But I think for a long time I wasn’t giving credit to someone who was the most important part of keeping my friendships together.

Me.

I know I’m different from a lot of people. Throughout my life, very rarely would I sit back and wait for someone to come up with a plan or call me.  I was always the one putting parties together, organizing Happy Hour, or just calling to see if someone wanted to go to the movies.  My family affectionately calls me “Julie the Cruise Director” because I’m always the one getting everyone together.

I know this is going to sound strange (and for those people who are supporting friends who have entered the Widdahood, please forgive me if I make you sound like the family pet for a minute), but I think there is a certain training process we have to put our friends through when we lose our significant other.  We have to show them who we are now.  We have to give them time to digest who we’re becoming.  Instead of being upset that they’re not calling...we have to make the effort and call them. 

One of the big reasons I started thinking about this was Memorial Day weekend.  I heard from several people who said they had no plans for the weekend because no one had called and asked them over and they seemed so disappointed.  I started to feel really sad about that.  But then something occurred to me.

No one had called me either.  I had no plans.  And that’s when I got on the phone and called them.

I really think there is a certain amount of time after we become widow(er)s where we almost have to insist that our friends stay our friends.  They don’t know what to do.  They don’t understand that we’re not crying because of something they said...but because there’s a piece of lint on their shoulder that looks like our dead spouse and that just set us off. They don’t know when we want to talk about our significant other and when we want to pretend like all of this never happened.  We’re a really confusing bunch.  I’ve even found myself stumbling over what the “right thing” to do is with newly widowed friends of my own...and I’ve actually been through it.

They need to take their lead from someone and I hate to tell you this, but...we’re that someone.  Many of our friends have never been through this before and many of them haven’t even been through this with another friend.  They don’t know what to do.  We’re the ones who know what we want and need. 

So...why are we waiting around for them to make the effort?

I’ll give you an example:  When I first lost my husband, I had a great core group of friends who really looked out for me.  They would call and check in every once in awhile...you know...kind of the social “mirror in front of the face” to make sure I was still functioning.  But it occurred to me that after a few weeks...I never saw their husbands.  Now, I’ve heard other widows say that their friends are suddenly uncomfortable with the fact that they’re suddenly single and a possible threat.  At that time...that didn’t even occur to me.  What seemed to be happening was much worse.

The husbands just didn’t want to be around me.

It got to the point where I thought enough was enough.  If I wanted my friendships to survive (because, after all, I had been friends with their husbands too), I had to prove to them that they could.  I started putting together small dinner parties at my house when I felt up to it, on my turf, and inviting the couples.  Night after night, I would have people over until setting a table for 5 instead of 6 became more normal.  I would still bring my husband up in conversation (I still do) and after awhile my friends stopped fidgeting uncomfortably in their seats when I mentioned his name.  As time went by, we all seemed to start working together to fill in what was missing the best we could.

I didn’t wait for them to come around.  I didn’t wait for them to invite me over.  I took control.  In a way, I forced my new situation on them until it became their new situation as well.  And dammit...it worked.

What I’m about to say is going to sound incredibly unfair, but I firmly believe that it’s true. 

When you become widowed, you have to make more of an effort to 

be a friend than you ever did before.

This isn’t permanent.  But it’s a fact.  If you want people to be with you...you have to call them.  If you need to talk, you have to go through your entire contact list until you find someone who picks up the phone.  I would say that at the beginning stages of widowhood, if you’re interested in staying close with a few people, the effort to keep those friendships going shifts to about 70% on your part and 30% on theirs.  And I’ll tell you why.

Because they don’t know what the heck to do with you.

They don’t know what to say.  They don’t know how to act.  They don’t know if you want them around or if they’re an imposition.  For awhile, it becomes your duty to be as detailed as possible in saying what you want and need.  You can’t dance around it.  You can’t hint.  And you can’t wait.  You have to call someone, anyone, and say, “I want to go to dinner tonight.  Will you go with me?”

I realize that there are many people in the world who are not like me and being social isn’t their thing.  In fact, for a lot of those people, I’m betting that they lost the more social person in the couple.  Which makes it even harder to think about making the effort and coming up with a plan.

What I would suggest are baby steps. 

And believe me...I know what I’m asking of you.  I’m asking that you, in your exhausted widow state, add yet another thing on your list of things to do.  But I’m also suggesting that you have a little more control of this part of widowhood than you might think.  In good and bad times...no one wants to go through losing a good friend.

 And that good friend...is you.

Burned By Friendships. Wait! Who's Doing The Burning?

Awhile back, I wrote a blog that I felt sure I was going to get blasted for. Back then, I thought I would lose the 2 people who were actually following it at the time. But, lucky for me, I happened to land with a very understanding bunch that may not have agreed with me, but still kept following the blog.

Either that, or they didn’t know how to take themselves off the list.

I’m finding myself in somewhat the same position now. I’m going to write something that may irritate some, but I’m hoping that even if you don’t agree...you’ll understand where I’m coming from.

When it comes to friendship, or any relationship for that matter, and words of comfort...those of us in the Widow World feel like we get burned a lot. A LOT. We can talk for hours about the insensitivity of others and the things we hear from the people we run into every day. I mean...how many blogs have I, myself, written on this subject?

A LOT.

Lately, I’ve been trying to think of our group and what we encounter every day...but through the eyes of the people who are trying to support us. And it started to worry me.

A LOT.

We all know that we run into people who are just plain insensitive. They seem to say things, over and over again without thinking. The ones who compare their traveling husbands to our dead ones and say they think we have it easier. The ones who think they would handle this better than we have (and think it’s appropriate to tell us so). And the people who have just flat-out walked out of our lives.

But this blog is not about them.

This is about the people who may not say what we want to hear, but are doing the best they can to help us and be our friends.

Don’t kid yourself. We’re an intimidating bunch. It could depend on the day or my hormone level how I’m going to take what you’re saying to me. So...at some point along the way...we need to give credit where credit is due. For those friends who have stuck by us, stumbling over their words, fearfully looking at our faces to see if we’re going to hug them or hit them...they’re here. They didn’t leave.

Now, I feel like I can say this because I tend to be part of the problem myself. Sometimes I get so distracted by my own feelings about what has been said, that I don’t look at the intent behind it. Was it meant to hurt me? Was it meant to get a “rise” out of me? Was someone saying they hope I find happiness someday...or were they saying “quit yer bitchin’”?

You have to keep in mind, too, that what they’re saying and the way you’re receiving it is very individual...on both ends. As I’ve said before, what one person finds comforting will make someone else want to run them over. They could have said the same “comforting” words to someone else and totally hit their mark. And then said them to you and you’re ready to put Drain-o in their wine.

(On a side note...if you waste a good glass of wine, that could be enough to get you kicked out of the Widow Cult. I’m just sayin’.)

I’ll give you a little example (and this is a pretty mild one). When I first lost my husband, one of the closest people to me would say over and over, “Oh sweetie. This is awful. Awful, awful, awful, awful, awful.”

Now, you may not think this is so bad, but it just hit me the wrong way. It made me feel like it was so “awful”...I would never dig my way out of this hole. And it made me want to drive my head through some drywall every time I heard it.

I know the person who said this to me was doing her best to be there for me. She was commiserating with me. She was letting me know that she didn’t take this whole mess lightly. It was in fact...awful.

I mean really...it was.

And because I loved this person, I felt it was okay to say to her, “Please don’t say that anymore. I know what you mean and I know you love me. But it doesn’t make me feel any better.”

Was there an uncomfortable moment of silence? Yes. Did we overcome it? Absolutely.

When we’ve been through a loss like this, and our minds and hearts are reeling, it’s hard to think of other people. We hope that others are thinking of us and that they will step in and just...help us for a little while. But we also have a responsibility, as friends, to say what we need. What works. What doesn’t. They’re not mind readers and, as we say ourselves all the time...most of them have never been through this before. If a relationship can’t withstand that kind of friendly honesty...well...maybe it wasn’t what we thought it was. But if it can...both sides will be the better for it.

And if you’d like to know how I know there are a lot of good friends out there...you should see the emails I get. People get my contact info from the blog or support websites and I get messages like, “My friend just lost her husband. I need to know the best way to support her.”

I don’t know about you...but that sounds like a damn good friend to me.

All I’m trying to say is...if this is someone you’ve known for 15 years and has been your closest friend up until some remark...please really look at what they’re trying to do. Look at the people who have walked away...and the ones who are standing there with you. It takes a brave friend to do that. I know I’ve been moody enough in the last 3 years to completely wipe out my entire “friend population” (would that be friendocide?).

Think of your responsibility, as their friend, to tell them what works for you and what doesn’t. Don’t assume they know...they won’t know until you say it. And wouldn’t it be great to have a friend who knew what to say to you when things got really rough?

I hope that, when you read this blog, it doesn’t hit you the wrong way. That you know that I write it with love in my heart and an attempt at understanding what we’re all going through.

Because that’s certainly the way it’s meant.