Alone

Like so many young girls, I dreamed of getting married. Oh, there were many other dreams as well: librarian, author.... but I wanted to be married.

At the age of twenty-four I married.

At the age of thirty-eight I became a widow.

I am alone.

Alone is a multi-level kind of thing. There is the knowledge that I go to sleep alone every night. That's a given. No dates for me. (I won't turn my kid's childhood into a revolving door of strange men. Dating is only a band-aide at best.)  Next is realizing that every decision is now made by myself alone. All of the burdens of every aspect of my life and the life of my four children- mine to do alone.  Now let's go to a deeper level of alone; my future. Sure, I'm planning the next step of everything constantly. Alone.

Now, there are many people almost forty who have never been married. It was never in my game card, though. I feel as if, overnight, my career choice vanished. Not just a pink slip one day at the office- off to find a new job with some other company. Not at all. Overnight, my job vanished from the face of this earth. There was no life to which I could return.

I started over. Moved. New house. New vehicle. And ya know what? It's all alone. There are no friends who are equipped to help with something as broken as this. All of the myriad  of counselors have only sat mute. No text books have the solution to this sort of problem. So alone each day I pick up my family and move forward into their future.

I read somewhere, recently, that parents  need to live a life outside of their children in order to show their kids something. I don't know what, really. I don't have that luxury. I'm all they have.

I'm naturally a Pollyanna about life. I'm not a bitter person.  I am alone, though.

Sorry about the run of less than happy posts.