ipswitch

I remember realizing when I was older than my husband ever got to be. He died a few months before his 60th birthday. I take Trazadone, too. not sure it helps that much. I cycle in and out of depression (mostly in) and not sleeping well is troublesome. I have toyed with the idea of trying CBD, now legal in my state. Much as I appreciate better living through chemistry, I'm holding off until I see the nurse practitioner. I don't need to make a chemical soup of my bloodstream.

I was never a very social creature. But I sincerely don't know, have never ever heard anyone opine that widows were looking to steal someone else's man. What I think happens more often is people don't know how to include single people in their social circle (maybe TV show "The Unicorn' will help, or since they seem to be such busybodies, maybe not) or they feel, not even think, "There but for the grace of God go I." If you families pull away, I'm sorry. That's hurtful. I'm not close to mine especially, but my siblings have been supportive when needed.

Actually, when I checked my cell phone the next day my brother had called to say he hoped everything was okay. It turned out, he was sure he HAD mentioned it when we saw one another last month. Meh, if I saw something shiny 5 seconds later I might have not registered the offer.

It's only backfired if the food wasn't good.

I think I've been abandoned (kinda) by my family. (Warning: self absorbed whine ahead) Almost ten years ago, when I was widowed, my older brother and his wife started inviting me to holiday dinners. We're not close, but we get along fine. Lucky me, they're all great, functional, nurturing people. The celebrations included my sister-in-law's siblings and her parents. All of them are lovely, all their spouses are lovely. Bro and his wife took great care of my Mom after Dad passed, and I'm sure that Mom enjoyed having all her kids together. (Sister and her husband were invited, too) My Mom died in 2013, SIL's Dad passed in 2017, and her own mother passed away this fall. My younger sister emailed me a couple weeks ago and asked, "Have you heard anything about Thanksgiving?" I hadn't, and neither had she. If Brother had mentioned he, his wife and her sister were tired of hosting 25 people for the holidays and were scaling back, or looking forward to being guests instead of hostesses, it certainly would have been understandable. If she had hosted these huge events because her Mother enjoyed them, and having one after her mother died was just too sad, I'd understand. I get that I'm not owed an invitation, or an explanation. The silence is just awkward. I'm wondering if the only reason I was included was because Mom and SIL''s parents thought *Ipswitch the widow ought to be included.* And her sister, too, because you can't invite one sibling and not the other. And now that I have a man-friend and the matriarch has passed away, I've been b-listed. Or delisted. Sorry for the whine, just wanted to get it out. Cooking a turkey anyway for man-friend and me...grabbed the smallest one I saw in the freezer at the supermarket, and looked today...it's 22 pounds. BTW, I totally get that it's my responsibility to reach out and nurture new friendships and relationships. I just got lazy. Lesson learned.

I asked the man-friend if I should go to work the day of the procedure. "I wouldn't" he said. It turned out the weather was going to be bad the day I had mine. I'd already re-scheduled once (and frankly, had waited 10 years past the date for the initial, baseline one). The facility called me the day before - could I come for a 9 a.m. procedure instead of 2 p.m.? So many people had cancelled, they were closing at noon.

Many years ago (1993) I found out the EE savings bonds were being discontinued. I asked my husband, should I buy a couple. He had worked in banking, and 4% interest wasn't going to roll around again, any time soon. I got the bonds in the mail, and stuck them on a shelf over the kitchen sink. There they sat for years. One day, Husband said, "You ought to put those in a safe place." They were moved to what I deemed a safe place, and I forgot where that was. We moved out of that house ten years later. I packed everything, but didn't see those savings bonds. I *assumed* I had put them in our safe deposit box so didn't worry about it. Much. Over the years I checked the safe deposit box, flipped through the envelopes, didn't see them. Again when Husband died and I pulled out the will. Nada. I periodically berated myself for not taking better care of them, and silently cursed my dead husband for making me move them, since I *had* known their location, *until he suggested I move them to a safe place.* Not an absurd amount of money was involved, but more than I wanted to lose. Yeah, I guess they could be replaced, but I knew it would be a hassle. Around the first of October, I got a registered letter from the bank. The safe deposit boxes were being removed. I needed to go retrieve my belongings. Again, the feeling of dread; I'd look, they still wouldn't be there, and I'd be out that money unless I could successfully prove I'd purchased them, somehow. I had saved a pile of bank statements from that bank, hoping I could find the transaction, maybe. It has been acquired a couple times in the 25 years since I purchased the bonds. I put on my best cheery face for the bank employee, even though the last time I remembered accessing the box was to retrieve my husband's will. I shoved everything into the shopping bag I'd brought and went back to work, without crying. I got home and started going through the bag. There was a commemorative coin set for the year of my birth an uncle had given me. Title for a truck sold about 2005. And envelopes for certificates of deposit. I'd forgotten they actually mailed a paper copy. I opened each envelope and inside the last one was another, smaller envelope. Inside were the two savings bonds. All that angst, all that resentment, and they were where they were supposed to be. Kind of. Inside another envelope. Now I need to find *another* safe place.

Kay, I'm so sorry. Prayers for you and Arlie.

Today, for no particular reason, I realized a couple things. I realized that I have lived longer in my current home than I had in the first home Late Husband and I purchased. We moved in 17 years ago this past February. I also realized that as of some time last year, I've lived longer in this house without my husband than I did with him. I miss my husband, but he was an alcoholic, so really, I miss who he was when we married. I miss my youth. I feel jealous, sometimes, of my younger co-workers. Which is shallow, I know. It will get better, but today was just not a good day.

in a couple months, I will have been widowed nine months. EDIT: this should have read nine years When we moved here, we had plans to renovate. That's going to happen, but later than planned, and when we (new man and I) are done-ish, we'll be moving on. I'm sad. This house is too big for two people, and something smaller, cheaper to heat, less to clean, is a practical move. It's kind of stupid, we didn't have a fairy tale marriage, I'm trying the concept of thanking things as I tidy up. In my timeline, I'm thinking of preparing to sell in five years, when I retire. New man is trying to be comforting, telling me that other people would have given up and abandoned the house. I suppose that's true. I don't know why the thought of moving makes me cry. Maybe just because I'll need to acknowledge getting older by moving someplace warmer. (Someplace yet to be determined. Suggestions welcome!)

My husband's been gone eight and a half years. There is another in my life now. But even so, every now and then a wave of nostalgia, grief, poignancy or whatever comes over me. My winter coat must be at least 14 years old, and needs to be replaced, but it was a gift from my late husband. There aren't a lot of things I've held onto. We didn't have a fairy-tale marriage. We hung in there, but there weren't a lot of sentimental gifts. He was an alcoholic, so the last few years, and there was no extra money. I viewed the cards I did receive with a bit of cynicism, as his behavior changed from one hour to the next. Oddly, I found after his passing, he had saved every card I gave him.

Social worker approves. Boarder has been told his children may visit here. I have absolutely no experience with kids, other than being one. Good thing someone else is responsible!

16 years ago, Husband and I purchased this house. It needed a lot of work. I thought, the day we moved in, 'we're too old to rehab a second house.' The deal was done, though, so no going back. Before we finished the house, Husband's alcoholism took over his life, there were job reversals for both of us (so less $ coming in to renovate) and then...he died. He knew how to do much of the work himself, otherwise we'd have never taken on such a project. I certainly couldn't afford to hire people to finish it, and with his passing, didn't even see the point of trying to do it myself. I considered briefly in the months after Husband died whether a section of the house could be turned into an apartment, but decided the cost may be greater than could ever be recovered in rent. I had never considered a boarder, as who'd want to live in an unfinished house? My new love has lived with me for three years. He has a friend whose life has been turned upside down and needs a safe place to live. He's willing to pay to live in an unfinished room. Part of the problem is that his old house and his old friends were considered 'unsafe' for his children to be around. If the social worker approves of us (eye roll) and our home, his children can visit him here. We were notified last week that she'd be here the 23rd, so we made a Herculean effort to put covers on the outlets, put up sheet rock, find room for *the rest of the boxes of crap that we haven't the heart to throw away* and patch and repair the disintegrating plaster ceiling. There's no tape on the sheet rock, and only a skim coat of joint compound covering the ceiling washer/sheet rock / screening / plaster combo ceiling, but the room is huge and looked better. The plaster wasn't falling on her head, or anything. I'd have never had had the motivation to even try to do this if we hadn't taken someone in. Doing the rest doesn't seem like an impossible task now. Please keep your fingers crossed that a house too big for two people gets to shelter more life.

If Mom makes you the scapegoat to a man you've never met, I guess you can handle that. I would be tempted to say, "Mom, I don't know all the problems that can arise from a second marriage, but a lawyer will." and repeat as necessary. On one hand, at 70 some people would figure they don't have all the time in the world to date. On the other, I'd agree that seeing someone every two weeks isn't enough to judge what living with him would be like. You might mention that men tend to pass younger than women, so if Mom wants to be assured of your assistance when they are both old and frail, it would be to her benefit for her to search for a new home near you. I'm guessing her consort won't care for that, and might move on. I'm cynical, but if Mom has only seen this dude 20 times in a year, I wonder if he's seeing a few other women too, to determine what will work best for him. You can't tell her that, though. Do you have his name? Can you get any independent information on him?

I don't know about pre-nups. Haven't enough assets to worry about. I do think it's vital to keep an updated will, though. A friend of mine was a child of a man's second marriage. His second wife was about the age of the children from marriage #1; friend commented that for instance, he was too old to play catch with her brothers when they started playing ball. He died when she was in high school. The children from the first marriage descended on the house and took almost everything they could carry out. My friend was left without one single possession of his as a remembrance.

This spring we had unusual weather. One day, the letter carrier came by and said our parking lot was flooded. When I went out, the water was just barely up to the bottom of my car. it appears in the weeks since that I dodged a bullet. The thing is, when I pulled in that morning, someone else had parked in the space assigned to me, to I'd parked in another space. Had I parked in my own, water would have come up over the bottom of my door, and my car would have almost surely been totaled.

Polly, life is short. Your daughter will be off to college or out of the house in a couple years. If you were moving in a child molester and your daughter had to leave because living with minors violated his parole conditions, THEN you would be choosing a man over your daughter. it's normal and natural to want someone your own age to spend time with.

Maybe daughters need to hear that the burden of being your closest friends and source of companionship is something they will grow to resent in a few years. Their lives.are just starting out. They will have [love] lives of their own. I still miss my late husband even with a new man in the picture. And truthfully, it was not a great marriage, he was an alcoholic. I haven't forgotten him. Even now, seven years (closer to eight!) years after his passing I think of him every day.

So sorry for your loss.

If I had it to do again, I would not have opted for surgery for my last cat. She likely would have lived as long, but without having to recover from the surgery, or having those staples removed from her belly. That was worse than the surgery. I had decided to not get another cat, but the house was so empty I emailed the shelter and told them I could foster a cat. This may be a foster failure. She has grown to like the man-friend.

I am sorry for your loss. I had to take my cat to a vet I'd never visited before to have her euthanized, but they were very nice. They were the second place I called that morning, The first place I called seemed kind as well, but wanted to do (and have me pay for)a complete exam for a 12-year-old cat diagnosed six weeks before with mammary cancer. If this was your regular veterinarian, I guess you'll be looking for a new one. I'm so sorry.

Over the last few days, Maxine's appetite decreased and today her breathing seemed really labored. We found a vet open on Sunday, and around 1 this afternoon, Maxine went to the Rainbow Bridge.

So very, very sorry.

Forty or so years ago I worked with a woman old enough to be my mother. She remembered in her growing-up years that widows limited their clothing colors to black for some months (Three? Six? I don't remember) and then moved on to include gray and lavender for some time after that. I've never looked at lavender the same way since. Some widowers wore black armbands. We have very few rituals left. Part of me wonders if we wouldn't be well served to revive some of the old customs. We maybe would be kinder, and gentler with one another if we we presented with reminders that other people were dealing with loss.

This, so much. I suspect most people actually do mean well, but have no idea what to say, especially after the first few weeks. The platitudes that seem appropriate early on (he's in a better place) don't work nearly as well (eye roll) later on. Our society stigmatizes and averts it's eyes from the journey we will all take one day.