Stop being sad! No, NOT LIKE THAT!

It's Saturday, and I have nothing I have to do, so of course I woke up at 5:30 this morning. Sigh... Old Kathleen would have had no problem with this: I'd wake up, have my coffee - enjoying the peace and quiet and solitude of the early morning - and then at about 8:00, I'd make a cup of coffee for Doug and wake him by giving him a kiss and telling him that his coffee is on the bedside table.

But there's no enjoying peace and quiet and solitude when they're my constant state rather than a treat. The quiet and the solitude don't feel peaceful now: they feel oppressive; I'm drowning in quiet and solitude. 

I haven't been writing much because I don't really have anything to say - not anything that I haven't already said over and over and over, at least. I told a friend the other day that I never in a million years would have thought I'd have occasion to quote Britney Spears, and yet here we are: my loneliness is killing me. 

I bought a new (to me) car this week. Old Kathleen would not have done that: my Mustang is only nine years old, and it's in perfectly good condition. If Doug and I were planning a long road trip, we would have just rented an SUV. But when there's just you, renting a car becomes a logistical pain in the ass, and since the only traveling I'll be able to do in the foreseeable future is gonna be via road trip (I'm not flying as long as Covid-19 is still hanging around), it made sense to buy an SUV. Ordinarily, this would be exciting, but... not so much. It's really more of a "well, we talked about both of us getting new cars this year, and I'll need something bigger than the Mustang for my trip to the mountains, so might as well." 

Today I plan to clean the kitchen - key word here being "plan," because I plan to do lots of things that never happen. 

Did a look through twitter this morning, and discovered a semi-viral thread started by a young widower whose wife died two-and-a-half years ago; he's now engaged (to a woman he met a year ago), and his fiancee was making cupcakes last night with his three-year-old daughter - to celebrate his late wife's birthday today. And many of the replies are... nothing short of horrifying. A few examples:

• "I keep thinking the new fiancee is celebrating the fact that the other wife died and now she has a ready made family."
• "I couldn't ever remarry after losing my wife. For one marriage is a lot of work it's not a game it's not something you play around with it's a serious commitment to one person..."
• "This dude was cheating on his wife with the now fiancee."
• "i hope my partner doesn’t get married only 2 years after i d*e omg"
• "Bit quick"
• "Honestly if you TRULY love someone that someone being your other half/half your soul and they pass away there's no possible way that you'd even be able to move on that quickly if ever again. I could never because I'm truly in love and if something happened to him I'm done."
• "Not in a bad way just feel like you rushed to quickly but what can we say it's your choice end of the day"
• "Only thing I took away from this is that within two and a half years, you already got over your wife’s death and got engaged to someone else."

Again: this man's wife died MORE THAN TWO YEARS AGO, and people are suggesting he either didn't really love her in the first place, or he's moved on too quickly.

Is this my future? People are unhappy with me now because I'm all misery all the time; if I should get lucky enough to find love again before I'm a senior citizen, they're gonna judge me for that, too? Because... why exactly? What's the acceptable amount of time for a widow/er to suffer before s/he's ALLOWED to be happy again? Please let me know.

Newflash: if you've never lost your life partner, you have ZERO to say about how any of us grieves. PERIOD. If you don't like the way I grieve, tough shit; when it's your turn, you can do it "right." And if I were to somehow miraculously meet someone and start dating NEXT WEEK, that STILL wouldn't change the fact that I loved Doug with everything I had, I still love and miss Doug, and I will ALWAYS love and miss Doug. Yes, even if I find someone else to love.

If someone were engaged to someone new almost three years after their divorce, nobody would think twice about it. But this fella's engaged almost three years after his wife died and suddenly he's a man whore? FUCK that. 

Widow/ers are judged no matter what we do. Too sad for too long? You need to take meds/you should be grateful for what you had instead of sad about what you lost. Angry? You need to get that bitterness under control. Life has no meaning? You need to meditate/exercise/learn to love life on your own (never mind that some of us already DID that and would prefer not to do it again). Feeling lost and tired of grief brain? Manifest the life you want! Find a new partner? You didn't wait long enough/your new partner is too similar to/too different from your dead partner. 

That whole twitter thread really hit me hard. It's a reminder that I'm being judged constantly by people who have absolutely NO CLUE what my daily life is like, and it's likely never to stop. 

Please do weigh in on how long you want me to continue crying every day and suffering before you'll consider it acceptable for me to start looking for a new partner. I certainly wouldn't want to upset any of you who are sleeping happily next to your spouses every night.