I am strong. That is my daily mantra. I set the intention of having strength every day. And I’m going to brag a bit and say I do a pretty good job on most days.

Enter global pandemic. That strength I’ve been holding so tightly to has sailed away like a ship in the night. You see, in real life, we are constantly on the go between kids, friends, sports, school, eating someplace other than the kitchen, errands and other such things that make our lives an actual life. Put that life on hold, and us recently unfortunately widowed folks are left to actually have to deal with our feelings. So thanks for that, raw bat eater. I’ve got a couple of hand signals for you.

I selfishly took this past Saturday, and aside from working out, did not leave my couch. I let my children play outside, I gave in to too much screen time and too many video games. And I parked my ass on the couch and didn’t really move. Other than to blow my nose because I let myself basically cry all day long. It is not my proudest day in history, nor my strongest day in history. But maybe it was my most necessary day.

I recently complimented myself on not having a day where I laid around and drowned in self pity. I guess I planted the seed in the recesses of my mind. And that seed sprouted and turned into this past Saturday. I watched romantic comedy after romantic comedy, which was quite the idiotic move because do you know what life is not? If you said a romantic comedy, you would be exactly right. But it did unlock feelings that I guess I’ve been holding onto for far too long and I finally let them out.

The problem, you ask, with letting them out? Once they start, I’m not sure how to make them stop. There is so much shit, in the world, in my own personal life, that sucks right now. And if I’m completely honest, I’m having a hard time finding the bright spot. Yes, my children are a bright spot, we have our health and each other and all the other shit you’re supposed to say that you’re grateful for (and I am grateful for it) but I also have all of these other negative feelings and self doubt and pain that are overtaking everything good that I know I have.

And there’s really not anything to be done about it, which would drive Ash crazy. He was always a fixer, not great at the listening and just being there. If there was a problem, yo, he’d come up with several ways to solve it. There’s no distractions to push away the painful feelings. There are no friends to give hugs and love and feed me wine and tell me I’m pretty. (That’s a joke.) It’s just me. And the boys. And the dogs. Trying to pretend like we’re ok.

My poor kids, every night, something makes me cry, generally at the dinner table. My sweet Jack always asks if I’m alright and my sweet Colt always answers she’s just missing daddy. And that is true. I am missing him. But there’s so much more to it than that. So many things, that I, myself, do not understand and do not know how to navigate through.

So, for now, I guess I’ll just let the water works flow. Because what else are you supposed to do when your husband dies and then the world fucking stops?