Solitaire
I attended the wedding of a friend …. retired and a few years younger than me. Our circumstances of singleness are different – divorced versus widowed. As I watched her excitement and joy, I thought to myself, “I can’t even imagine life in another relationship.”
It’s been two years since Bill’s death and the reality of singleness is fully present to me. I’m as comfortable being “just me” among couple-friends as with single friends and I’m content in my home and with the activities of my life.
I realized this week that the ever-present “our” reference in relation to grandchildren and great grandchild had slipped into “my”. My subconscious mind has now acknowledged my present self-identity as a singular pronoun.
It had occurred to me recently while talking to a new acquaintance that using “our” might seem strange since she had never known Bill and knows me only in this singular state.
I guess the two situations together just demanded an adjustment to some dissonance in my inner self-identity for the sake of reality.
This morning when i saw that I had written “my great grandchild,” I felt sadness and the acuteness of Bill’s absence. I don’t want to feel his absence. I want to feel his continued presence with me through our family and our memories of Bill. (from 9/6/2022 CBB)