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Living Alone
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Losing a partner and finding ourselves suddenly alone can be terrifying. It feels as if we will die of the pain and loneliness. It would be easy to give in to depression and despair, to say goodbye to life. But instead, we can make the decision to stand up and fight for it because we need to know that we can make it on our own. That our life does not depend on another human being, no matter how much we have loved them, for its meaning.
When we lose our loving partner, everything changes. Everything! More often than not, we go kicking and screaming into the night, trying to keep things exactly as they were. But we soon learn what a ridiculous impossibility that is.
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And gradually we realize that if we don’t figure out how to adapt to our lives exactly as they are, we will die as surely as the man portrayed by Christopher Reeve in the movie Somewhere in Time died from his inability to remain in a former life no matter how desperately he tried.
But, how to do it? Where to begin? We are suddenly displaced persons, perhaps anxious and deeply depressed. Everything that had held us together in the lives we had with our partners has fallen away.
If we are patient with ourselves, gradually, we come to understand that from the ashes of our former lives has come a profound gift. The tragedy of our life circumstances has led to our own liberation. It has made us look within to find the truth of who we really are, what we believe, and what we want for the rest of our lives. When we go from being half of a couple to being alone, we soon learn that we are the only ones who can pull ourselves up and out of the carpet-licking lows and anxieties that come with the upheaval of our loss. We have to sit still and be with the pain, fear, anxiety, depression, anger, and rage. And in so doing we find strength, independence and self confidence, the tools that enable us to forge a new and meaningful life in the center of our own beds.
We learn to become knowledgeable in all the ways we need to, in order to care for ourselves. That means dealing with practicalities, like finances and medical affairs. It also means finding our passion, the things that give us joy and fulfillment and doing them every day. And, in no small way, it means learning to honor the ups and downs of our emotional lives, the terrible days when no matter how hard we’ve tried or what we’ve learned about ourselves, getting out of bed seems an impossible act; and, equally important, not feeling guilty for the days that give us a profound sense of happiness in the midst of our grief.
All of this is a process. It takes however long it takes for each one of us. We cannot rush the outcome. We have to move with whatever is happening inside us on each and every day. Above all, we have to have the greatest compassion for ourselves and the journey we are on.
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