WHEN THE "NEW NORMAL"...ISN'T
I don’t know about you, but the first time someone referred to me as a “widow”, it truly ticked me off. I was outraged to be referred to as anything but who I knew myself to be…or, who I thought myself to be. A wife. Now, here was someone pushing me into a demographic I had no desire to be counted in. I hated it. I resisted it. And…finally, eventually…I accepted it. But on MY terms…not theirs. The term ‘widow" conjured up images of “sad”, “old”, “crazy”. And, while I did identify with those feelings, they weren’t WHO I was…who I wanted to be. As I am wont to do, I wanted to push the agenda and “get back to normal” as soon as possible. Little did I know at the time, there is no such thing…not after the devastating loss of someone you love more than your breath. And there’s certainly no hurrying it along.
I had to start embracing change, no matter how much I resisted. Everywhere I turned, change glared at me. There was no one on the other side of my bed. The other sink stayed clean. The toilet seat was always down. There were half the dishes, half the laundry, and way less than half the income. I had entered into the Twilight Zone of the “New Normal”…and I didn’t like it, not one little bit. I tried reading books about grief but I couldn’t relate to them…I couldn’t concentrate on them…I didn’t want to have anything to do with them because it meant I had to admit Mr. Virgo was gone and I wasn’t prepared to do that at the time.
In the wee, dark hours of the fourth night without him…when I felt the most alone even though my daughter was in the bed beside me…it hit me. I was quite literally standing on the edge of a precipice. I did not want to breathe anymore. I did not want to feel anymore. And I certainly did not want to go to my husband’s funeral the next day. I cried out to God in my heart and begged Him to take me, too. “Please!” I begged. “Please bring me home so I can be with him!” God whispered into my heart. “No, my child…it is not your time.” I knew in that moment I was going to have to put something in front of me. Something to look forward to. Something that had the potential of bringing me joy. It was either that or I was done. And…I wasn’t done.
For those of you who are relatively new here and may not know…a couple of weeks after the funeral, I bought a little camper and planned my escape. I needed space…to breathe, to cry, to scream, to mourn. As soon as the snow melted, I took off for a three month journey into the wilderness and backroads of Colorado…alone. It was there that I began to embrace the “New Normal”. “Normal” it is not. “Normal” is when things are the way they’ve always been. We want it all back. Just the other day, I was walking through a furniture store with a friend looking for…something. A comfortable chair, perhaps? A sofa for the farmhouse? I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I rejected everything.
My friend said, “Well, what IS it you want?” How could I describe it? I wanted all my old furniture back…the stuff I sold and gave away when I sold my house. For a moment, I wanted it all back more than I ever wanted anything in the world. I have made peace with the finality of death. I don’t wish Mr. Virgo back anymore because A) I would never want him to come back into this fallen world after experiencing the glory of heaven and B) it isn’t healthy for me to think that way. But the house, the furniture, the things I got rid of? The things we shared? The things that remind me of him? Yeah…sometimes, not often, but sometimes I wish them back. This new normal…isn’t.
“I want my old furniture.”, I said.
My friend said, “I can’t help you with that.”
And that’s the truth. No one can help you with that. You either create a “New Normal” or you stay forever in what Christine Rasmussen refers to as “the waiting room”…the place you sit in till you decide to get up and make a life for yourself. There’s no timetable to go by…no expiration date on grief. This “New Normal” isn’t what we wanted, but it’s what we’ve got. I can either live it…or not. I can either create it…or not. I can be joyful in it…or not. I can embrace change…or not. My choice. ❤️
“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:19 NIV