Just Stop and Think.

People ask me how I am doing.  That is a perfectly normal question to ask someone in this situation, but I also think it's too simple of a question for such a complex issue.  What do people expect me to say?  I suppose there are two answers people would probably like to hear.  First, that I'm doing just plain awful because some people need to see pain and drama in order to recognize the severity or depth in this particular situation.  Other people wait for me to say that everything is fine, thus I suppose assuaging their own pain and lending to a feeling, albeit false, of relief and comfort.  Relief and comfort for whom?  Them?  Me?

I bear no ill feelings toward anyone who asks this question.  Quite the opposite, really.  I understand that it's hard to know what to say and that this simple question just seems to lead the parade of words that emit from one's mouth when the conversation begins.  It goes like this:  "How are you doing?" and then all eye contact is avoided during my answer.  Maybe a squirmy, uncomfortable, awkward silence will follow too.

So, to answer that question:

Stop and think back to when you had been married 20 years, give or take a few.  Remember that feeling?  Or remember when you were a newlywed or when your children were young and required full time care. Remember how that time in your life felt?   Imagine a beautiful life, full of love and fun and happiness.  Put yourself right there in the middle of that and think of the history that had to go into making that life.  Think of the trials and victories that went into creating deep, meaningful memories.   Think of an entire world, created by and lived out by two people. Remember all of the feelings that you felt from living that beautiful, hard, full life.  Really, really try hard to remember how it all felt.  Then, erase one of the people.  Poof.  Gone.  Not gradually, but suddenly.  Just gone.  Here today, gone tomorrow.

That's how I feel.  Alone and uncertain.

I still have our children.  That makes me happy. We're all here together and we're all healthy.  That is good.  I have the life that he wanted us to live and worked so hard to provide for us.  That makes me happy too.  So I guess you might even say that I am happy.  But what is missing in it all is Bill and the security he provided to our family. That makes me unhappy.  Understand?

For the past 20 years I have been a wife and a mother.  I have been raising our children, caring for our family and home, and been the perfect wife to Bill.  (shhhh--don't burst my bubble here)  We chose, together, to live the way we live.  I would stay home to take care of things and school the kids and Bill would work outside the home to generate the income necessary to fulfill our needs.  Suddenly I'm faced with the need to make decisions about our future that I never imagined I would have to make.  At least not right now.  I have a child perched on the threshold of adulthood and college but I also have a child who is barely kindergarten age.  I have a child who needs his dad to finish teaching him about sharpening saw chains and where to drive wedges in the tree he's falling.  And another who needs his dad to show him how to throw a curve ball and how to sit back and wait on that curve ball when he's up to bat.  I need someone to tell me, again, his family history so I can pass it on to our kids.  I need someone to show me, again, how to change the filter in the pump house.

So, how am I doing?  I'm trying to figure out in what direction my future is headed. Alone.  How can I support my family?  Am I even capable of such a thing?  After all, my skills of bread baking, homeschooling, and stain removal are hardly marketable.  What potential employer even cares that I've successfully potty trained 4 children?  That I know how to grow and preserve my own food?  That I know how to teach a child to read?  That I can manage a large household with relative ease?

Still wonder how I'm doing?  I worry about how my decisions will affect my  kids.  They don't need or deserve anymore changes in their lives.  Can I balance everyone's needs all by myself?  Seriously, all by myself?

So there is the answer to the question.  I'm doing fine, considering.  But if you really, truly want to know how I'm feeling, put yourself in my shoes for a moment and consider how you would be doing without your best friend at your side, pulling and pushing, encouraging and admonishing you, to keep on going.