healing

Alone Again, For The First Time

Deb Zuroski, , , , , 4 Comments

One of the hardest things I’ve learned, still learning really, as a (young-ish, okay middle-aged-ish) widow is how to be alone. Ken and I were a couple for 30 years. Many times in those 30 years, I was alone — obviously — because we weren’t constantly in each other’s company. But I was always coupled. 

I was talking to a friend recently about that process some of us newly widowed go through to figure out who we are. I know who I WAS but that person is gone. She left without warning and I didn’t know that she would never be back. I liked that version of myself and I still miss her. In truth, I wish that someone would have warned me (would I have believed them?) that when my husband died I would also lose the version of myself that I knew best. 

As Ken entered hospice, his oncology therapist called me to see how I was doing. She was wonderful and made me feel safe enough to be honest. I said, “Soon, I will leave my house as a wife and return to it as a widow. That’s how I’m doing.” 

But the act of being widowed is not, itself, the redefining of ourselves as widows and widowers. It’s the impetus, the event that pushes us out of the airplane, not the parachute that allows us to land.  

So, when Ken died, the self who cared for him throughout his illness, that version of me, died too. I don’t miss her much, to be honest. Her life was an anguished misery of perpetual sorrow and bad news and grief. While I’m grateful that I was able to be with Ken through every aspect of his illness, there are very few aspects of it that are, in any way, pleasant to recall. So, no, I don’t miss that version of myself.  

I miss the version of me who died when hope for Ken’s survival died. She’s the person I knew best, the coupled individual who laughed every day and planned her retirement with her husband and knew nothing bad would happen to them and worked too many hours and loved her family with every particle of her being. I do miss her and I know that version of myself will never return. I am forever changed by my loss and grief. 

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that I won’t ever be happy again or that I sit in a puddle of tears, awash in my grief. I mean, I have done that and it’s as messy and wet as it sounds. But those days pass. The frequency of tears lessens. But the work starts as the tears dry. It’s big work, heavy, as messy as those puddles of tears and just as necessary. 

I didn’t even know who I was after Ken died. How could I like myself when I didn’t know myself at all? 

Literally, the last time I was uncoupled, I was 22 years old. Ronald Reagan was still president. (Oh, yes, now you get it. Some of you literally weren’t even alive yet.) When Ken died, I flailed around trying to figure out if I was A Widow, A Single Woman, A Single Parent …. Of course, I’m all of these things, right? But they’re just labels. They couldn’t really help me figure out who I am. 

The first time I was hit on after Ken died, I was absolutely outraged. Really. I was so angry. How dare this man, this stranger  — someone whose name I didn’t even know …. The problem wasn’t that some stranger asked me to get a drink. It was that I didn’t even know who I was. That poor man — by the way, I was friendly in my rebuff, keeping my rage to myself — he couldn’t possibly have known that he started me on my journey of self-discovery. 

I had to learn, in fact, that I was single. I might not have been ready to date — still not, all you well-meaning friends who keep trying to set me up with “I know someone” — but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t in the technical category of SINGLE, ALONE, AVAILABLE. 

So, what did that mean? And what does it mean now, four years later?

After a spouse dies, it’s necessary to spend a lot more time than you’d ever guess on the phone, talking to customer service reps about death. The representatives all have the same script. It starts something like “I’m so sorry for your loss” and continues with requests for the death certificate, address changes, income changes, new beneficiaries, and ends with forms that need to be completed and sent back. 

These forms always require the widowed individual to fill in a box that says SINGLE. The first time, the second time, the third time, maybe even the fourth, I cried. I’m not single, I said through my tears. I’m married. 

About two months after Ken died, I finished making curtains and hung them in the front window. It was the first change I made in the house and it felt terribly wrong not to get his opinion. It was like a violation of coupling. Couples consult on major purchases, changes to the home, cars, furniture, pets, even dinner. Learning how to not be a couple means making changes without input. Curtains — not a big deal, right? But, at the same time, such a big deal because it changed the house from ours to mine. 

For a long time, I really struggled to go to certain places because they were coupled places. Breakfast at Pamelas. Dinners at Eat’n Park. The farmers market. Shopping at Costco. Part of it is the disrupted ritual. Part is the memory of past trips. And part is the process of deciding without input. At Costco, one of us would hold up an object: do we need this? And the two of us would discuss or argue or laugh. Yes, we need lettuce. No, we definitely don’t need a riding lawn mower.

Yes, you all say. Companionship. We know. You’re lonely. No. No. No. That’s not it at all. I am lonely. I miss my husband every day. But this isn’t about companionship. This is a becoming, a change from one form to another — the coupled to the single. 

Maybe a year after Ken’s death, I decided to eat lunch at Eat’n Park and then do a Sunday afternoon Costco trip, all by myself. Do I sound like a toddler? “I can do it myself!” In some respects, I AM a toddler. The new me, the self who is becoming, is only four years old. If that’s not toddler territory, I don’t know what is.  

The trip was so hard. I had a huge lump in my throat, the kind that makes it hard to swallow your Breakfast Smile. I felt conspicuous and ALONE in my uncoupled-ness. I chose to sit at the restaurant counter so I could avoid the question “how many?” And somehow sitting at the counter was an invitation to all the single guys who were also sitting at the counter. “Why aren’t you talking to me? Put down your phone. What’s the matter?” Oh my gosh. I’m trying to figure out how to live without my husband, you intrusive idiots. 

I made it through that day, and the many after it, one step at a time. I learned to stop doing what WE did and start doing things differently. I have some new habits. For example, now, I usually shop during the week, rather than weekends. It’s less crowded and it breaks the coupled habit. I do eat out — when we aren’t in the middle of a pandemic — but I sit at a table now. The ‘how many” question was hard to deal with at first but now I just answer. That person asking really doesn’t care that I’m alone. They just want to find a table for me and move on to the next guest.

There was a social media post recently by a woman who said that she was going to cook herself dinner for her birthday, even though she was alone. Girl, I’m alone A LOT. My kids are busy. I’m alone more than you might expect for someone who lives with two people. My advice — admittedly free and unrequested: Most days, even though you are alone, act like you are cooking for someone important — because you are.

Dinner alone isn’t lovely but it also doesn’t have to be punishment. Part of figuring out who I am is figuring out how to make this new future something I can face with equanimity.  

I refuse to believe that my life has to include TV trays of cardboard dinners circa 1970s. I’ll pass on the Hungry Man meatloaf and gravy.  Earlier this week, I made a very nice chicken piccata and sauteed zucchini. One day last week, I had “excellent boiled potatoes” (sorry, that was a Pride and Prejudice movie quote that I just couldn’t pass up) with some crumbled bacon and shredded cheese. Yes, of course, I smashed the potatoes a bit to make a modified loaded baked potato. I have to say, that was a particularly delicious, simple, dinner and it only took about 15 minutes to make. 

Sometimes, I’ll grill chicken and slice it over a salad or grill a burger and make low-carb waffle buns (literally just egg and shredded cheese in a mini waffle iron). The biggest component of that was giving myself permission to grill for one. “Why would I heat up the grill just for myself?” Because I’m worth it, that’s why! 

Some days, like any toddler, I really want to drop to the floor and scream, kick, cry. Unfortunately, tantrums are exhausting. When they’re over, I still have to face the undeniable reality that Ken isn’t coming back and someone has to take the garbage out. 

Stay safe. Be kind.  

Much love.

Alone Again, For The First Time

Monday Playlist

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

I listen to music while I’m writing. Since I write for six or so hours a day, that’s a lot of music. This morning, my Spotify playlist selected “September,” a song you can’t listen to without getting a mood boost, even if you’re already in a good mood as I usually am. There’s nothing better than sitting down at the computer and fighting with my characters while listening to Earth, Wind, and Fire. 

As I’ve said before, I no longer experience that late Sunday dread that used to ruin half the weekend. Monday is, as it should be, just another day marking the Earth’s rotation around the sun. This particular Monday is cloudy and springtime-warm. My windows are open and birdsong intermingles with the music. 

While out to do the shopping last week, I took some baked treats to my son’s apartment and put them on the porch, wrapped in Clorox wipes. He came to the door and for just a moment, he stood there, while I stood in the street, and we talked — not close enough but almost too close for safety. 

In the early days of quarantine, there was a frantic feel to shopping. Many people were over-buying, their voices shrill with fear. Last week, it was different. The shelves are mostly still empty and there are only a few people in the store. Costco limits the number of customers now so I waited by a cone they used to mark proper distancing until I was offered a sanitized cart. 

In the refrigerated section, a very confused man was trying to select a container of milk from the cooler while his unmasked partner berated him from behind the cart. “The one with the BLUE label, Bill.” She coughed into shared air space several times while I watched from a safe distance, waiting for my turn to get milk with the blue label. She saw me watching her and coughed into her elbow.  

“OH MY GOD, Bill, what’s the problem?” She looked at me. I think she wanted to bond over her shopping partner’s stupidity but I was — and still am — totally team-confused-guy. Not getting the response she wanted from me, she walked around the cart, coughed onto the glass cooler door and picked out a bottle of milk, while making tsk noises at her poor partner. 

“Oh,” he said. “I couldn’t tell which one was the blue label.” I’m still wondering if he’s colorblind or if he didn’t realize that he was in the cooler section where there are ONLY blue-labeled bottles. Did she confuse him by insisting that he get a bottle with the BLUE label when there was no other choice available to him? 

Although her cough was decidedly smoker-ish, with an abundance of caution, once they had passed, I selected my blue-labeled milk from a different cooler. 

Leonard Cohen, “Who by Fire,” just started playing. He was once described by Scott Simon on NPR as having “a growl of a singing voice that seems to simmer and grumble up through the chords, almost like an earthquake.” Isn’t that lovely? 

The rain has started, quieting the birdsong but creating its own accompaniment to my playlist. The sound also reminds me that there’s a clog in one of the gutters. I can hear the splash of water overflowing onto the patio. Either I need to borrow the neighbor’s 30-foot ladder or call someone to clean out the gutters. I hate to put the neighbors to additional risk, which is the only reason I’m not automatically doing it myself. I’ll have to enter their house to get the ladder because they’ve reached the point where it’s too heavy for them to move. I know this because I borrowed the ladder last spring to clear away the ivy growing up our back wall.

Back to the shopping:  They have a table on their porch where I’ll leave food treats (she loves cookies but doesn’t bake much anymore) but when they see me, they insist on opening the door to come out and talk. Inevitably, their older spaniel bolts out the door and drops on his back for a belly scritch. He’s a cutie but I feel like I should stay back to keep them safe. 

When I do their shopping, they’re supposed to text me the list (she’s an enthusiastic texter) and sometimes they do. She’ll text me, out of nowhere, something like “white flour no hurry,” which makes me laugh. It reminds me so much of text conversations with Ken. He used to text a single word and allow the recipient to build the meaning.  

Anyway, last week she insisted on giving me a handwritten list, wrapped in a clorox wipe. Have you ever shopped for someone else?  I used to get a list from my mother-in-law but I’ve fallen out of practice. Last week, I made the mistake of accepting the list without review but of course there were questions: 

  • 2 pizzas. You know exactly what to do with that if you’re shopping for your own family but what kind of pizza does your 90-year-old neighbor like? “No pepperoni” was the texted answer. Turns out there wasn’t much selection left, just lots of pepperoni (stuffed crust, extra cheese, etc) or the last two vegetarian pizzas that weren’t on a cauliflower crust. 
  • 2 apples. First, apples don’t seem to be a big quarantine staple. The store had an abundance of Fuji, Red Delicious, Macintosh, Granny Smith, Yellow Delicious, Kante, and Gala. “Gala,” she answered after a lengthy delay. 
  • Small dog bisc. I almost bought Milk Bone without asking which would have been a big mistake since she wanted no-dye biscuits which I took to mean no red and green Milk Bones. Even so, I definitely got the wrong brand but she texted that Busby is enjoying his new treat.

She says that she too is enjoying her new food experiences. Her poor, long-suffering husband — who she is definitely going to murder before quarantine ends — was apparently in a food-buying rut. Regarding the flour situation: although there’s no flour at our Giant Eagle (Well, that’s not entirely true. You can still buy Quinoa flour. Hehe.), Costco offers a 25 pound bag for about $6; she took 10 pounds of it off my hands. 

That huge bag in my pantry makes me hear my mom’s voice in my head — “Add bay leaves,” she’d say. “They’ll keep the bugs out.” We’ll probably use it all before summer but I’ve already added bay leaves just to be safe. The food shortages have been interesting to watch — I know, I know. Everyone is saying that it’s a distribution problem, not a food shortage problem. You say toMAYto; I say toMAHto. Whatever the reason, the end result for the consumer is lack of product on store shelves.

Anyway, the first week or so of quarantine, there was no ice cream in the store. The next time I shopped, there was no bread, no jelly, no eggs, no packaged luncheon meat/cheese, no frozen dinners, no flour or yeast. Now, there’s no pizza, no fresh lettuce, no meat or chicken, no flour, six packets of yeast(!), very little dairy, but they have ice cream.

Cars lined up to receive fresh produce, frozen food and dry goods from Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank April 6, 2020. Photo Credit: KDKA

If you’re poor, the distribution problem can be life-threatening. Our food pantries and food banks are amazing but it can be hard to connect to people who don’t have access to a vehicle to wait in an hours-long car line for food. I’ve been thinking about the woman I’ve talked about before, the one who showed up as we were cleaning up a food bank distribution years ago. She was late because she had to borrow $2 so she could buy a gallon of gas in order to drive to our distribution site. How is she managing now? Even if her situation has (hopefully) improved, there are many whose situations went from precarious to catastrophic.

Spotify has now served up some Aretha Franklin, “I Say a Little Prayer,” a solid way to end this particular post. If you live in a walking neighborhood, like I do, I encourage you to take a walk around. It’s okay. You’re allowed to go for walks. Look at the empty storefronts of the little businesses in your community — the pizza shop, the movie theater, the diner, the consignment store, the neighborhood bar or coffee shop.

Look at the signs on the doors; as I’ve said before, some will not recover. Believe me; these places are, for some, their family business, their lifelong dream. They’re going to try to be there when this is over.

Those small business owners are losing sleep, just like the furloughed workers. They’re wondering whether they can continue to pay the bills while there’s no money coming in. That cruise line, that airline, that major hotel chain — they’ll be okay. But your neighborhood is going to be forever changed by the loss of the businesses that define it. 

Please be patient. 

Wear a mask if you’re going to encounter other people.

Stay home. Stay safe.

Monday Playlist