Living in the Middle

I saw an ad this week for a widow’s cruise coming up in the next month. I thought to myself, that would be so awesome for a couple of friends that lost their husbands this past winter. A great way to connect with others going through the similar journeys in life.

There was a post earlier in the month talking about national Widow day. Really there is a day that I never knew existed and really wished I didn’t. When Kip died I heard everything from what does she care they were separated anyways, to it doesn’t matter love is love.

I live a life in the middle I am not a normal widow but I am not a normal divorced person either. Kip and I separated because he had a drug addiction and he had mental health issues and most importantly because Kip wanted a different life, a life that I could not give him being married to him. Kip struggled his whole adult life with being trans-gendered. I finally had to say, I love you as a person, but you need to figure out how you are going to live.

That does not mean that I stopped loving him, I didn’t. In fact for two years after his death I still blamed myself, if I hadn’t of pushed him to make a decision, if I had just continued to accept the life that we were living would he still be alive? No, his drug addiction took its toll on his body, he was 80 lbs and his heart had nothing left to give.

I was left in the middle, I was the grieving wife that had to grieve in silence because so many people didn’t understand what I was walking through because it was a life in the middle. I took back my maiden name, I don’t talk to my father in law, I do talk to Kip’s cousins and Uncles. I had to chose who I shared my story with in the first couple years of Kip’s death because it was hard for people to understand. People understand drug addiction, they understand the abuse. People didn’t understand mental health issues and trans gendered.

I share my story, now because May is mental health month, and Kip struggled his whole life with Mental illness, and that bleed into my life whether I wanted it to or not and Kip’s death created Mental health issues for myself. I will always live in the middle, I will never feel comfortable in a group of traditional widows, but I know that there are people out there who need to hear my story and I will continue to tell it,to tell them they are not alone in the middle.

Until next time,

Juli