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fresh-widow · 6 years

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Home Is My Paradice

I am having a domestic weekend with my dogs and cat. Preparing my curried chickpea garden vegetable soup for the week and made bread dough to rise overnight. Went to the art beach with the dogs, now they’re sacked out.

Being a widow is historically shitty and let me tell you despite my being a feminist things have not changed because most of the rest of the world is sexist and ageist and it doesn’t help that I have no sexy witty hilarious best friend in the world to bounce off of and crack me up multiple times a day, therefore I definitely look haunted when I look in the mirror.

What helps is hiking in the woods or beach with the dogs and massaging the cat until he explodes with loud purring and I do that every day. I’m suppose to be creating community but as an introverted feminist person in the middle of her life, my attempts are waylaid by couples committed to their significant others, going to bars with single friends but drinking makes me ill and sleepy for the most part, or as I did last week, what I thought I did was make a friend at the dog park. I had a long conversation with a man who turned out to be my neighbor. His dog made me laugh. He was compassionate about when I mentioned I am recently widowed. After over an hour of conversation I asked to exchange numbers but it turned into me giving him mine so I did not think he would contact me but a couple days later he texted me asking me if I wanted to go to the dog park. I was busy doing an involved project but said tomorrow would work. So last Sunday we met in the dog park and talked for two hours. He is 62, smart, a financial advisor and in reasonable shape, has grown kids, not in a relationship. He does a lot of charitable work helping down and out men with their personal growth and is totally committed to that. He was being very friendly and where this was headed was not where I was ready to go at this point in my mourning- way too soon. Also what struck me is his cultural sense of social norms is non religious but rather prescribed in a way that grinds conversation with me to a total halt. Actually, those that prescribe to normal pretty much sends straight into panic attack mode. For instance I dislike the fascination with spectator sports to the point where I half joke that I was probably killed at a sporting event in my last life. The Christians fed me to the lions, no doubt. B and I cared less about sports, and created our own beauty filled rules-of-nature-based outsider lifestyle.

Needless to say, though this dog park man and I left on an uber-friendly note, neither of us texted the other since. What a relief.

I’m a widow, feeling lost—-in seeking “community” I like male companionship better. I want male friendship and the protection that come with that. But, dating- even if I wanted to, and I don’t- is a freaking house of horrors, and dicks are poison to me right now. I can not deal.

I totally and utterly miss B. I miss my gay best friends. They’re on the East Coast for the season. Platonic friendships with straight men just become stalkers in my life. Seriously, I am old enough to know know my own karmic rabbit holes. The disappointment then lies with myself. Where am I, who am I, what direction am I going in?

#widow #musing #relationship patterns #sexism #ageism #patriarchy

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