I haven’t been sure what to write about this week, which is why it’s taken longer than normal… and having another public holiday long weekend has made it feel like I had time to spare too! – not that I have any sort of deadline for this, other than the one I give myself!

I do have a deadline coming up very soon tho, and that is to finish putting together the presentation my friend and I are giving at Camp Widow in a couple of weeks! I had to find some photos to put into our PowerPoint today, and that was actually really hard! So many to choose from, and beautiful memories attached to each one… It has made me feel quite nervous about being super emotional standing infront of around 50 people telling my story and talking about the things that have helped me cope. I’m sure (I hope) once we are there and actually get started it will be ok… but this is me, so tears are a given!

D was sitting on the couch with me when I was looking through the photos, and it was such a nice feeling having him there and knowing how supportive he is. I know I keep saying how lucky I have been – my childhood and the family I belong to; the story I had with Claytie – our boys and the life we had together, and I feel truly lucky to have met D and to be able to forward plan what this new part of my life looks like.

If you have a conversation with anyone who has been widowed, you’ll find that the idea of forward planning is terrifying! We know that life can and does change in a heart beat. It can feel like the universe is laughing at us when we think we can look that far ahead – and by far I can mean a day, a week, a month, a year or even further depending on what we are planning. That thought of looking ahead has been something that has completely freaked me out more than once, and for a long time I just couldn’t do it… I still can’t with a lot of things, but there are somethings that are starting to feel exciting!

D and I have a big trip planned for August… we are going to Singapore, London (catching up with a whole group of widowed friends), a day trip to Paris, then heading to Edinburgh, Glasgow and a road trip around the north coast of Scotland before we fly to Germany to see Hamburg and Berlin. I remember crying buckets when I first put in for my annual leave in August of last year. It seemed like such a scary thing, thinking and planning for that far ahead, and now I can’t wait – and we are already talking about the travel we want to do next year and the year after.. and that is not something I thought I would be able to do again!

Forward planning feels like hope and possibility. It feels like a promise of sorts that things will be ok. It makes me nervous to embrace that completely – I have been here before and then my world turned upside down… but having someone to walk beside me makes that feeling more reachable. So, really – how lucky am I!?