Chapter Two - Dating disasters and other delights

31 years is how long I have been married to Claytie today, and it is now 6 since I last saw him…. That is hard. I will always be his wife regardless of who else is in my world, and I miss him in every way. Out of all of the sad anniversary dates that we now have in our world, this one for me is probably the hardest… because it is just mine. The boys know it’s a tough day for me, but for them it doesn’t mean a whole lot – and that’s Ok.

My life right now looks nothing like I had thought it might when we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary two weeks before Claytie died. We had a million plans for all the things that we wanted to do, things that I am now trying to achieve without him here. So much has changed in my world, and he is still the first person I want to tell when anything happens.

This year, for the first time in a while, I have not found myself at the beach to start the day. I had thought I might take my nice new car for a drive to reflect and celebrate, but life admin stuff got in the way. Surprisingly tho, I feel ok about that.

I was telling someone stories about my wedding day not that long ago, and it was so nice to remember some of those details and laugh about some of the silly things that happened. We were super nervous about rain on the day – we had the ceremony and reception in a friends backyard and it was raining the entire week leading up to our big day! Lucky for us it turned into a beautiful winters day!

There was a whole lot of water on the day tho… because I managed to flood the bathroom in the hotel we stayed at for our wedding night. I had put myself into the bath (those who know me well know how much I love a bath, and from memory this was a super big one). I was exhausted at the end of a long and fabulous day as most people are on their wedding day – I was also pregnant. I put in a bunch of bubble stuff and by the time Claytie came in, the bubbles had taken over, burying me and spilling over the edge of the tub, and I was having a nap … with the tap still running!

It’s been really lovely remembering all of the good times. We were so young and naive when we got married… a life time of fabulous things still ahead of us; and it really was fabulous! I got to spend 25 years…. 300 months, 9,125 days, 219,000 hours, 13,140,000 minutes….married to my favourite person, and I feel incredibly lucky to have had that!

And while I am talking about anniversaries, it was unbelievably lovely at the weekend to celebrate two of my friends who just got married. They are also both widows. I met them through the very first support group that I joined and we have been friends since then. I have appreciated their love and support tremendously and wish them as much joy and love going forward as Claytie and I got to have.

So this week is the end of an era for me, and I’m not sure how to feel about it.

For the last 4 years I have been going to Trivia every week. It started as part of an online date. I had been chatting to a lovely and very charming fellow who was a bit cagey about meeting me face to face. He had mentioned that he would be at Trivia, so I contrived to have a girls catch up at the same place, and at the end of the game, he and I had a drink and a chat.

He was not going to be the person for me, but we had a great conversation and are still friends. The girls and I had a lovely time – even though we came dead last, and made sure we came back the following week. The Black Widow’s Trivia team was born, and we have been there in one form or another every Tuesday for the last 4 years.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, our host announced the end of the show. He has family things and plans that are taking him in a different direction, and so that will close this chapter for me. The team are looking at different locations to keep up the tradition, which will be lovely, but it will also become something different in my world.

It’s funny just how much of an anchor our weekly Tuesday tradition has been for me. A small piece of certainty in an otherwise chaotic life, and time spent (for the most part) with other widows. We have laughed and cried, won and lost, pulled our hair out at entirely too many cryptic clues, celebrated birthdays and Christmases, and dressed up on more than one occasion. It has been great and I’m sad that it’s over!

This ending also comes at the beginning of all of my ‘sad dates’ for the year, which is funny timing for me, and a whole lot to process. Maybe this is the universe saying that I have got from it what I need to, and that I can let go of that anchor now. Either way, I wish our host and his family all the very best as they head off onto whatever adventures await them, and I want to say a huge thank you for all of the fun memories I have made puzzling my way through each Tuesday night. I’m sure my general knowledge has improved a whole lot and I know that there are a whole lot of random facts that now have space in my brain!!

Most of this weekend was spent at the coast with a girlfriend for her birthday. It was a really tough day for her because she is now older than her husband ever got to be.

I remember my first birthday after Claytie died. I turned 47 – a number that he missed by two weeks. It was a really hard thing to get my head around. He was older than me, and always should have been… but now suddenly wasn’t. It was a real (pardon the phrase) mind fuck! I just couldn’t get my head around it because that is not how it was ever supposed to be!

In hindsight sight, I feel like I was lucky that for me it happened so soon after he died. My world was chaos anyway, so this was just a little bit more. For my friend tho, it has all happened nearly six years after her person died, at a time when you think that maybe you’ve figured out who you are now. It’s one of those things that unless you have lived it- not necessarily the death of a partner, but perhaps a sibling or a parent, that you have any kind of idea of how shaken it makes you feel.

We ended up having a lovely weekend, with the tears and conversation that you would expect, but also an equal amount of laughing at funny stories and remembering our people. walking through the markets, having a massage, dinner with good friends and my girlfriend getting a tattoo to mark the occasion. We were also lucky to have a break in the rain to go for an early walk (in our pyjamas) and see the sunrise – something I absolutely love to do!

The other fun thing that I did at the weekend, was a pottery workshop with my mum, one of my sisters (the other couldn’t make it) and both of my nieces. We had a lesson in making fairy (elf, goblin, creatures) mugs out of clay. … a super fun way to spend a couple of hours on Saturday morning. It will be interesting to see the finished products in a month or so, once they have gone through their firing and glazing process.

I have some really mixed emotions about the next few weeks. There are some truly fabulous things coming up, that I’m really excited for and looking forward too, but I am also coming up to all of my hard dates. July and August are almost my new year markers now, the before and after dates in my life. There is usually for me, a whole lot of introspection and reflecting and questioning where I am at and how I feel about all of it. It is such a weird mixed bag of stuff! But that’s how the grief /life roller coaster goes… lots of ups and downs, but always going forward at speed.

So for those of you reading along at home, you might remember a few weeks ago when I mentioned a costume party coming up, and that I had been scammed when ordering my outfit on line! I thought I had done enough research when placing my order, and had fairly high hopes…

My hopes were entirely dashed when my parcel did eventually arrive, because what I got in no way resembled what I had been anticipating…

My solution to all of this was a trip to Spotlight (a fabric store for those not in Australia) and a purchase of a whole lot of things to get creative and make my own costume. The expense for all of this as not been insignificant – even with very generous donations of flowers, butterflies and refills for my hot glue gun from a friend. The costume will need to have several outings before I would call it a good investment, but I think in the end I didn’t do too bad of a job!

The party in question happened over the weekend, and was fabulous! Fantasy, Freaks and Fairytales was the theme, and I think I nailed the brief! Happy birthday to one of my very best Gal Pals who has been there for me in a huge way!

It’s been a pretty huge week all around – party included, culminating in another pretty big first for me. At the age of 52 I have bought my first car! That kind of stuff was always Clayties department – I just got to choose the colour, and he did all the hard work. I have found that it’s been a challenge for me! The boys will tell you that I probably haven’t done anywhere near enough research, or shopping around, but I’m actually pretty pleased with myself.

There were tears (of course) because I ended up dealing with a family friend who has been in the car business for a life time, at the same place that my last car was bought at for my 40th birthday as a gift. The salesman from that last purchase came and had a chat reminiscing and acknowledging Claytie. It feels like a really big deal in a whole lot of ways and is not helped with the run up to all of our yucky dates.

But I have to say again I’m pretty proud of myself for navigating another milestone. My patience will be tested cause I have to wait a couple of weeks, but it’s another tick in the ‘you’re a grown up now’ box of life.

So this weekend I realised (again) just how much of a creature of habit I am… when something works in my world I tend to just stick with it and not look too far outside of that – including where I park my car each day, so I don’t lose it, and how I stack the shopping trolley (my early working days were spent as a check out chick at a supermarket, so it just makes sense!). I’ve always been like that I think because in a whole lot of ways it helps me to control my anxiety.

My weekend started with all kinds of planned things including a seafood festival in Manly, which was lovely! We got there early and had a glass of Prosecco overlooking the harbour and admiring all the boats. Thankfully the rain stayed away and it was actually a beautiful day! Then onto prawns and oysters, which we managed to eat a whole lot of between us!

I got an introduction to the world of horse racing and betting – apparently it was a big race day in Queensland with the Stradbroke Handicap being run – something new for me, and yes we did pick the winner! I got to meet some really lovely people (friends of my new person N) who spend a lot of time in the racing world, and were happy to answer my million questions. We ended up at my N’s friends house for dinner and drinks, which then turned into an impromptu sleep over – and this is where my routine got completely thrown!

Since Claytie died, I have journaled about my world every single night before bed. It’s not usually anything hugely inspiring, just kind of unloading my day to get it out of my head before I sleep. When Claytie was working away, we would always talk last thing at night before bed, and for me now the journaling has taken the place of that phone call. So to have an impromptu sleep over meant that I did not have my journal with me (or anything else for that matter), and it kind of threw me a bit. It highlighted to me how stuck I am in my routines, because there was actually a bit of anxiety and panic around not having my things with me, particularly the journal, and not being prepared.

I think used to be much better with flexibility around spontaneous plans, but so much changed and has felt out of control since Claytie died, that the routines help me to feel a bit more in control; and in terms of anxiety, I’ve always thought through situations to figure out best and worst case scenarios to be prepared either way, so to have this impromptu situation come up caused a spike. I’m not too good with surprises and would always rather have an idea of a plan to start with. It sounds a bit silly when I say all of that out loud… but it is what it is!

For the most part. I’m actually pretty ok with having my set ways of doing things.. they make sense to me (especially the car parking and shopping trolley!), but I do think that maybe I can learn to let go a little bit more often and just relax. I had a really lovely time with some new people and I caught up with my journal the next night, with a whole lot more to say that I might have done other wise, and the world kept turning anyway.

This week has been incredibly quiet with me catching whatever this years nasty winter bug is. The boys have all had it too, so it was just a matter of time before I caught it. I have spent a whole lot of time either on the couch or in bed wallowing in misery and feeling very sorry for myself! I get incredibly sick of myself, incredibly quickly whenever I get sick, and it’s always a pity party … haha

I also had a bit of a lesson this week. The boys all went off for the weekend in northern NSW as a belated birthday camping trip. There was a whole lot of planning and excitement around it, tents and swags were purchased and borrowed, eskies pulled out from all sorts of corners and big discussions around who was leaving when.

At about 5.30 on Friday afternoon I got a phone call from one of the boys to say his car had broken down 2 hours from home with an hour to hour to get to the campsite. Poor reception at the campsite meant he couldn’t get hold of the other boys (who had all been drinking by this time anyway) and he was stuck, and a bit unsure about what to do. My immediate reaction was to suggest driving to him, because I have this huge need to fix everything for everybody, no matter that I was incredibly unwell, and that it was the least practical thing I could have done…. The suggestion was (rightly) shot down and I stayed in bed.

He ended up finding a mechanic who could do a a quick diagnostic and very short term patch up, booking a motel for the night and a plan to reassess the following day. Morning saw us come up with a ‘salvage the weekend solution’ of getting one of the other boys to pick him up to go camping, and organising a tow truck to get the car back to Brisbane.

The lesson for me (pointed out to me by my mum) was that the person in question (in fact all of the boys) is actually a fully functioning adult, who is well able to make his own decisions and solve his own problems. Yes he called me for advice, but I need to trust that all of them are able to do all kinds of things without me stepping in. That’s actually quite a hard thing for me to acknowledge and deal with.

I am a fixer… I have this need to make sure that everything is alright for everybody at all times. I’m not entirely sure where that has come from or why, but it is absolutely a huge part of my personality, and letting go of that control can be really hard. I think it has become even more of a thing since Claytie died, not having him here to talk me down and share some of those feelings has made my feeling responsible even bigger.

Anyway, with some help from my mum, that’s been recognised. The boys had a lovely weekend, the car is now with the mechanic and solutions are being figured out around getting to and from work til the car is fixed. I’m trying to step back and let the adults that I have created, deal with the situation. Fingers crossed it’s a reasonably quick, and not too expensive fix!

So this week has come with another couple of firsts for me. It feels odd to keep having firsts, but I guess that’s all part of life.

It’s been a bit of a weird one to be honest. The boys and I went to a funeral, and it was a truly lovely send off for someone who had a huge impact on the community he was part of; but I went from that somber start to the day to then get groceries. It was a very real and visceral reminder that, while for that family the world is now completely different, life keeps going and the mundane things still have to happen. The boys all struggled with going back to the place that we had Clayties service, and with the impact of the collective grief in the room, but I really love how they hold each other up and get through things together.

The last couple of weeks I have also had a million phone calls from my real estate agent selling an investment property for me – another weird place for me and not one I could have imagined only a few years ago. This is another one of those times where I feel like a spectator watching my own life. Technically I am the one making all the decisions, but I feel entirely out of my depth and untethered from it all. It makes me wonder what Claytie would make of it all!?

… and in an even stranger twist, as I wrote that sentence one of his songs stared playing on my (completely) shuffled playlist… so I guess that answers that! … and I absolutely did get goosebumps and started to cry!!

It’s a funny thing how much of a role Claytie still plays in my world. He is part of just about every moment in my life. Something that is both surprising – when I think back on any thoughts I had about grief and grieving before living it, and it’s incredibly reassuring to still feel like I have a relationship with him – albeit a very very different one! His influence is still part of so many decisions that happen every day, from tiny little things to really big moments, and I am super glad I got to feel him with me as I made a pretty big decision.

The other thing that felt big for me this week was meeting my new friends kids for the first time and celebrating his birthday with them. He has met all of my boys and spent time here with us, and so decided it was time. He has two boys who are similar ages to some of mine, and who I had heard a whole lot about. I was a little bit nervous, I have to be honest, stuff like that can feel really big!

We met at his local pub for a relaxed evening of beer, Chicken wings darts and pool. In the interest of full disclosure I wasn’t too bad at darts, but made a much better spectator than participant at pool. It was a fun and easy night and I’m glad I got to meet his kids and be part of it.

So now it’s the start of another week, and I’m interested to see what this one will bring. It’s started with some colder weather – hello winter, and thankfully an end to the rain that’s been with us for the last week or so. It’s my favourite time of year!

This week has been a bit up and down, as most of them seem to be!

Our tiniest human, the Peanut has started daycare this week, and I am reasonably sure that he would not have loved it! He is very much a mummies boy so the separation will be a challenge for him. The Squish was pretty excited for baby brother to also be going to ‘school’ tho, and was very very cute about discussing the fact that the Peanut has his own bag with different things in it.

One of my boys girlfriend’s dad died. He had been unwell for quite a long time, so while it was not unexpected it is still super sad for her and her family and it rocked the boys a whole lot. Death has taken on a whole other meaning in our house, and a dead dad hits especially hard. It’s really nice to see tho how they all band together and look out for each other. They are a pretty strong team and that is something that makes me incredibly happy.

One of the boys has a birthday this week, and I actually find those quite challenging. It’s always a reminder of all the things that Claytie is missing out on. He would be so proud of all the boys and the amazing people that they are. There are so many ‘if only’ and ‘wouldn’t it be nice’ scenarios that I think about all the time. Those feelings are somehow still just as raw as they were at the beginning, and there is almost a sense of ‘why am I not doing better by now’.

I had a conversation along those lines with a couple of widowed girlfriends the other night, feeling like we shouldn’t still be grieving this hard this far down the track. That some days feel like the very first day where you question absolutely everything, and then the next day you’re back to feeling stronger, which is the part that the rest of the world expects and gets to see. It’s really validating talking to other people who completely understand what you’re saying because they are experiencing the same things.

Most of the time I feel like I am doing ok..I have a whole lot of things in my life to be grateful for and happy about, but underneath all of that is a Claytie sized hole that has not shrunk. He is still absolutely part of every single day, and I don’t want that to change. It can be a weird thing to navigate around, so many mixed emotions all the time, especially with new people in my world. I am happy, enjoying a new relationship and I am looking forward to what the future holds, but there is also a constant looking back and wondering what Claytie would think.

That’s life tho, isn’t it!? Just putting one foot in front of the other and trying to make it the most positive thing that it can be. Each interaction and experience builds up to make us who we are, and I’m ok with me right now.

I have once again spent a whole lot of time reflecting on all kinds of things, and had a bit of a moment this week. It was around the widows support group. We had a catch up at the weekend, which I went to, and my realisation was around what that group means to me now.

In the very early days of my grief, the group was so incredibly helpful in making me feel seen and understood. There is nothing like the support you get from people who really, truly understand what you’re going through. Unless you have found yourself in this situation, it is impossible (and rightly so) to fully comprehend how all encompassing it is. It is your past, present and future completely shaken up and changed in ways that you can’t begin to imagine, so spending time with people who have walked that same path was for me the very best thing that I could have done.

Right now tho, I no longer feel like I need the same support that I did at the beginning, but instead have found a kind of purpose in going to the group and ‘giving back’. Seeing people further down the road than I was in the early days, gave me hope that my life could be ok again too, and it really helped me to keep going. I hope that by continuing to be part of the group, and going to catch up’s, I can give that kind of hope to other newly widowed people. That it is ok to look for happiness, and it’s just as ok to be sad. That the people in your world will change and that you will change too. That you’re not cheating or doing anything wrong dating, and that it’s also completely ok if you never want to, and that you’re going to constantly have overlapping emotions. There is no right or wrong way to navigate this new world… there is just your own way, and it is what it is.

The other realisation I had was that this is blog post number 250! It feels like a milestone and I am kind of stunned by that … and by the fact that I obviously have had a whole lot to say about things (I’m sure I have more to say), and that so many of you read and engage with what I’m writing.

This blog started as a way to talk about dating and moving forward in my life without Claytie. I thought I would tell some funny stories – and there have been some doozies, and that it would just be a bit of fun. It is still that- I think- but it’s also turned into a kind of journal of the whole grief process, and my life now and what all of that that has been like for me.

There have been so many moments and firsts (and seconds) in my life since the day Clayton died. It has been beyond overwhelming to navigate all of it and it’s been really cathartic to write all of these things down to process what I have felt. It has also felt kind of important for me, sharing what all of this has been like with all of you; as I said earlier, unless you have walked this path it’s impossible to really know what your world looks like without your person.

Not every week has been profound or exciting, and I’m glad for that too! But to have a record of the time that has passed and how I have navigated it is valuable to me – one day down the track I will re-read all of this stuff (I have not yet) and be really proud of myself for doing it… so thank you for being in my world and being kind about my weekly ‘word vomit’!

So I was having a conversation this week with someone about ‘that’ photo. You’ve all seen it, me topless (or on occasion completely nude) facing into the unknown, hands stretched out. The first time I did it was in Malaysia with a girlfriend while staying in a penthouse apartment in Kuala Lumpur, and I have done it in a whole lot of other places since then as well.

For me that pose and photo has always been about making myself small and vulnerable in the universe. It’s a statement of ‘here I am, what else are you going to throw at me!?’. It’s actually not about the nudity, but rather vulnerability. Being naked in the wild is being vulnerable. You have nothing to defend yourself with and are at the mercy of the elements. It is about accepting that in the scheme of things (very big picture) we are actually completely insignificant, and don’t matter. The world will keep turning and the universe will continue to exist long after I am gone, and I recognise that.

Whatever my issues are, big or small, they are nothing in the grater scheme of things, and for whatever reason, that pose, that photo has helped me to gain that perspective. Sometimes it’s just been for fun, but there have been some significant times that it’s happened for me where I have needed the ‘small in the universe’ moment. There have been moments of grief and anger where it has also been a huge ‘fuck you’ middle finger to the world… a shout of I am still here and still going regardless of what you throw at me.

What I realised the other day tho, after having a conversation about it, was that I don’t think I need it anymore, that I have other ways of gaining that perspective when I feel overwhelmed, and I don’t need to challenge the universe to throw anything else at me!

It was a bit of a startling realisation to be honest. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to have up and down days and things that drag me under, but I do feel a whole lot more resilient, and I know that I can get through the things that life throws my way. As the saying goes, ‘ so far, I have managed to survive 100% of my worst days’ … and I know that will continue.

This whole grief journey has been (and continues to be) an extraordinary thing to go through. I could never in my wildest dream have imagined this being my life. The bubble that Claytie and I had for ourselves was so completely ordinary that I had no room to picture anything else. I know that that’s the case for most people who face the death of their person (whatever the relationship) .. we all think that we are immune and that this stuff happens to other people, or at an appropriate age when we are done with life. The reality of going through it is shocking and isolating and so all encompassing that it takes a massive effort to recalibrate and persevere.

The biggest lessons that I have learned from all of this is that I am far more resilient than I ever thought (and I can’t tell you how much I hated hearing that in the early days from well meaning people on the way through), that grief does not have a time line or goes away, that you can feel a multitude of emotions all at the same time, and that it’s really really hard work to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I am never going to be the person that I was. She died the same day that Claytie did. But I can like and be proud of the person that I have become and will continue to become, and that constant change is the only certainty we have. It turns out that I’m getting better at ok with being a speck of dust in the constantly changing universe