Ha! I’m so inappropriate and a deeply flawed follower of Christ.
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Everything about widowhood is unconventional. Dating might be the most disorienting part.
We don’t get rules, there isn’t an expected course. There are no charts to guide us. If we’re lucky, we find someone else who has gone (or is concurrently going) through a similar hell.
I find it hard to imagine that one who has not experienced the guilt, pain, joy, bliss, confusion, and occasional crystal clear clarity of romantically connecting after loss could help me in the way my widowed friends have.
I’m trying to find a way to put it all down here. I’ve had more than two years of surprising romantic adventures. I’ve learned a lot and I hope my stories can help those navigating their own unexpectedly single lives.
This is a baby step as I find comfort with my own journey. There are reasons the widowed only talk with each other about these things. I want to break that secrecy to release the subject from taboo. I want to educate those who may want a romantic connection with a widow or widower. I want to be a safe place for the widowed to discuss difficult feelings. I want to share my lessons, mistakes, and moments of growth. I want people to understand how much conflict is within the happiest looking widow or widower. I want people to know that it is never easy for us, that we never “move on,” and that our happiness always feels like it cost too much.
One of the boys in our unschool group refered to us as his “Homeschool Family.”
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It has felt like this in the few months since my friend Brooke and I decided to form a new group for those who felt abandoned by the various communities that collapsed in the wake of Lockdown restrictions.
We set out to have a weekly, unstructured get together for families of all educational situations. We would respect personal health choices, but made clear that we weren’t going to police our childrens’ play or force them to comply with anti-social regulations.
It was a hit from day one. We met many new families and were reunited with some old friends.
The group has grown and through the winter we have continued to meet outside. It has become much more than a weekly playdate. Now we have Time to Build (my Lego club), Pokémon Club, Unskate, and Junior Rifle Club as regular activities we attend. There have also been birthday parties, waterpark getaways, sleepovers, gaming hangouts, sledding, and all sorts of impromptu fun.
Above all of that has been the strength of the bonds formed. Brooke and I have deepened our friendship to official BFF status. Some of us have shared our faith communities and the support we’ve provided and received has been miraculous. I’ve received meals, gifts, childcare, love, and encouragement in a world that seems more interested in fear and coercion.
This group has become family in six strange months. I am forever grateful for my Homeschool Family.
As a widowed father to two children, Supporting Kidds, Inc. has been a critical piece of our healing. They have been creative and steadfast in their support of families when government regulations would keep us apart.
Please consider supporting them and all the families who have suffered loss in Delaware on March 4th.
I got smashed a couple times in the face last night in jiu-jitsu, tapped out when I shouldn’t have, and came home to learn that a friend had passed away in his early forties.
The tears came this morning. I didn’t fight them.
My skin is hot from bruising and the tears are hotter.
This is a picture of me torn between the rest my heart and body are asking for and the passion I have for squeezing the potential out of every moment of this short life.
I’ve started sampling mushroom powders as a change from my coffee habit.
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I tried Four Sigmatic’s Lion’s Mane Mushroom Elixir this morning. I think I used too much water and it tasted like mushroom broth. Good, but too light for this dark roast, black coffee drinker.
Four Sigmatic also makes varieties with coffee, but I wanted to start with a straight, no-caffeine alternative.
The Lockdowns have been difficult on childcare. I’ve worked hard to be creative and curate a supportive group of wonderful families who are willing to help me when I need some time away from my sons.
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This weekend I had the pleasure of viewing Salvador Dalí’s Stairway to Heaven exhibit at the Biggs Museum of American Art in Dover.
Less surrealistic than what I’m used to seeing of Dalí’s work, it is a collection of illustrations intended to accompany Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy.
It was a needed escape to the Museum and into Dante and Dalí’s worlds.
I hold them and let them whisper in my ear. They are full of lies I once needed. I listen and forgive the demon. I forgive myself for birthing the demon. I reach down into the demon for its heart. That’s the survival instinct that keeps the demon alive. I take it. That’s its power and now it is mine. I release the demon and that which does not serve me.
27° F, light freezing rain, and a slight breeze before dawn. I did not want to do my Wim Hof Breathing this morning, but I did. At the end of my second round I felt warmth settle into my muscles and skin.
Each time the wind brought a shiver to my body, I thanked God for my pumping heart and the warm blood coursing to every part of my body. Calm and warmth came back to me. I thanked God for the wind and the freezing rain and the strange sounds of the dark, frozen suburbs.
“Take comfort,” was the phrase I received. It wasn’t consolation, it was command. It was instruction and guidance telling me that in difficult situations I could find my comfort and take it in. God always provides comforts, but we don’t always see them. The cold is a perfect example, especially right out of a warm bed. My body produces enough warmth to sustain and thrive in the cold with little clothing (t-shirt and underwear today). That is a comforting fact of biology that could be ignored, allowing the body to panic and tighten.
The same is with God’s Love. It is always their to comfort us in the darkest times, but we choose not to feel it. We choose our fear and pain over Love.
Today I will Take Comfort.
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