Forward Motion: 9 Years After

Today is my birthday. No need to go into which one, but let’s just say it’s the 9th one since I was widowed young in 2014. This realization is hitting heavy. Not heavy like a brick, but heavy like an avalanche and I feel like I have inadvertently buried myself alive with emotional baggage cosplaying as healing.

I have dated but realized that even in those pursuits I sabotaged myself in truly moving on by finding the most emotionally unavailable men to date, and even then there have only been a few; one long-term, non-committal, situationship for comfort and 5, one to three dates and finding a reason to bolt. I find myself this morning obsessively searching for the reason I haven’t moved on these many years later and of course; the usual suspects are in the forefront.

The kids, my late husband, and I are the three big reasons that immediately make sense, and not in that order. I am a mother of three daughters, so obviously moving on while they were children was anxiety-inducing at best. Anyone who has watched Criminal Minds understands that, but at this point, they are pretty much adults, so I have no excuse. I can say I was tangibly terrified of my kids emotionally attaching to and losing another person, so that weighed heavy on my decision to bring someone into their lives, and no one particularly wowed me. The dating pool in the age of technology has become rather abysmal, and frankly, I have yet to meet anyone I felt added value beyond what I already had in my life, even on a basic level(Author Note: I have yet to meet Matthew Gray Gubler).

The second reason, my late husband, gets deep. Shortly before he passed Ryan and I spent a rare evening alone without the kids, and he kept saying, “You’ll always be my wife.” In the moment I felt it was romantic, but in the present reality, it has haunted me ever since. It’s like that is subconsciously playing repeatedly in my head. I feel in a way I have been emotionally paralyzed from moving on beyond my present state until realizing this.

My marriage was far from perfect. No marriage is, and in my case, I successfully was able to find forgiveness for everything at his passing. I didn’t forget, and I did ‘my time’ so to speak in that marriage. I met him at 19, when he was an immature 23, and I spent grueling years toughing out growing pains and his childhood trauma playing out through our relationship and his becoming a parent. I forgave, I even felt at times I made a mistake and had to sleep in the bed I made. Marriage was a lifelong commitment to me, seeing as how he has been gone for almost a decade and I still feel some semblance of loyalty to him.

This birthday has weighed on me as I recognize and admit how affected I still am. I put on this mask of the strong widow by conquering one thing after another, and doing big things, while my social life and love life remain in a chaotic mess.

My ownership in this is self-explanatory at this point, but the part of me writing this on my birthday, widowed 9 years, and tired of spending 9 birthdays alone just wants to push the envelope. I want to exorcise the ghosts, write new chapters, and maybe find a new love of my life. I don’t think he meant to trap me with those words, and I feel like he’d want me to not spend the decades left by myself. It’s time.