I have lived alone now for three years after leaving my marriage of seven. I had been a widow for three before that when I decided to start dating. I was sixty and felt pretty good. In 2007 I remarried and in 2014 divorced. Leaving a relationship was my choice and very different emotionally than the enforced loss of my first husband.
Being plunged into aloneness after a death is a shock, destabilising and frightening. Devistated by the loss of your closest friend, lover and partner. Within a very short space of time you realise that the someone in your life who you would share this terrible loss with has died. Your symbiotic other half has been torn from you and the raw wound of grief is open to the elements. At that time I was tossed about by grief, unable to see ahead, crashing against unfamiliar obstacles and unable to recover. Of course I did because we do. I surfed the waves of grief coming up for air enough to survive and begin a new phase of my life after three years.
So here I am again three years alone after a divorce . I know that I am growing into being alone. I have my family next door, a lovely new bungalow surrounded by familiar things. Never having been attached to material possessions starting over for the umpteenth time is not hard, having downsized at every move.
I have learned that I react slowly to the initial change. Floating above what is happening,observing from a distance and it’s only later that the reality sets. In the last ten or so years I have moved house more than five times for various reasons and they say that house moving raises stress to very high levels.
I’m not sure even now if I know what I want from life how strange that sounds even to me at 73. I get ideas about what’s next but the enthusiasm is not enough to trigger a new path. Being alone and everything I do is my choice so it’s all without pressure. I am not forced to do anything and in some ways that suits me.
What now? I am floating again trying to find a clear direction but the ‘trying’ is a trap, an invitation to struggle again. Best just float for a while till life presents its next challange.
Life is like a wild tiger, you can lie down and let it put its paw on your head or you can get on its back and ride it.
