Surrender to Being Alone

I can’t help but notice that many women my age still have their husbands. I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have the opportunity to be grandparents together with Blaine. I dream of the opportunity to take off in the plane with him and travel to other countries like we had planned. He was my best friend. He was always beside me. Now I spend a lot more of my days in my house alone. Sometimes I am busy doing things. I find things that I enjoy doing and it makes me happy.  Sometimes in the evenings, as I am going about my routines alone, I imagine my friends and family sitting down to supper together in their own homes. They are watching TV together or just recapping the day. I think about when I had that with Blaine. I thought we would have it for so much longer than we did. Sometimes I think about people who have never ever had someone. I realize I was so fortunate to have a best friend for over 35 years. It still doesn’t make it okay that he is gone.

I feel like I have done a lot of amazing things in the past two+ years.  I have done as much as I possibly could to make Blaine proud. I have lived my life more fully in his honor and live a life doing things that bring me happiness and joy. I have put my heart and soul into healing myself,  taking care of  myself, being there for my family and serving others.  I hear and receive the kind words, the support and the encouragement I get from my online community, my family and the dear friends that have chosen to continue to support me through this journey. I am so grateful to have many that support me in what I do. Because I have spent a lot of time online building a community and making connections, I have made dear friends all around the world. So many have been a tremendous help to me. Who knew that these people who were strangers just a couple years ago would be such amazing, supportive, friends? Thank goodness!! What would I do without you all?

Yet there is something about having someone you can talk to that is in your physical space that I dearly miss. I miss a special someone that is always there for me. Every single day. Sure I can do most things alone. I am here for myself. It’s all possible. Some of it is even very enjoyable. Yet I can’t help but think some of us are perhaps made to have a soul mate. We are meant to live this life in partnership. We are meant to have that special person by our side who just gets us. One who can make us smile and laugh.

I am on many Facebook groups where women talk about their second chapters. Some of them say they can never imagine themselves with anyone else ever again. Some of them are dating a few months or even weeks after their loss. We are all over the map and I have come to see that it’s all okay even though our society tends to be quick to judge no matter what we do. We all cope with our loss in our own unique ways. 

I have always known deep down that for me, it was most important to learn to be really comfortable with being alone and embracing the opportunity to learn more about who I truly am now and what makes me happy. It has been a lot of work, I have shed a lot of tears and through it all I have actually learned to appreciate my own company. I find little projects to do. I take myself out to dinner. I go shopping or visit my kids. I camp. I travel. Yet at the end of the day or week I still sometimes find myself looking for that friend who I could just recap the day with. Someone in my physical reality who I could just spontaneously call on wherever and whenever I needed or wanted. That’s what I had with Blaine. I can’t help but wonder if I could have it all back, how much more would I appreciate it?

I also know that feeling alone is valid and normal after my profound loss. Being alone can be and has been quite challenging at times. Even with my family and so many friends nearby, I can still feel very much alone.  I also know that the only way to navigate this emotion, when it arises, is to continue to face it head on. This healing journey is cyclical. Things will come around for healing more than once. Each time we go a little deeper. I have learned that facing emotion, as awful as it feels sometimes, is freeing.  I have learned that if I am looking for some solution from the outside world to help me feel better, well, I am barking up the wrong tree. Numbing that pain just won't work. I have no control over the fact that my life has changed and I am alone. Sure, there are others that can acknowledge and sympathise with my situation and bring me ice cream and chocolate cake. That does help some....actually it helps a lot - for a while. Yet, in the end, no one can fix the fact that Blaine is gone. I can only surrender to this situation I find myself in and allow it to be. Resistance to what is only causes more suffering. Do I like it? Nope. After I have cried my tears and ate my cake, I have to eventually make the choice to be okay.  No one else is going to do that for me. The acceptance and surrender to what is is the only way to be free of the burden of the story of being alone that continues to want to play out in the mind again and again.  I know at the end of the day I need to continue to surrender more and more to this present moment and remember I am okay. I can create my future, whatever I want that to be. I will ask spirit to guide me as I find my way.  I will continue to embrace the opportunity to dream. I will continue to allow the feelings of being alone wash over me and I will also embrace happiness, joy and gratitude as I spend time with others.  I surrender to it all knowing I am guided, protected and loved. And so are you!  Lots of love, Angela.