AKA "The Writing Woman"
Now that I’m retired, I love taking writing courses. They challenge me and make me dive deeper into my feelings – and they also encourage me to make more time to write. In my current course, called “Writing to Heal,” this was one of today’s prompts. What was a time you felt some connection to…
When I was a never-married single mother in my late thirties, I went back to school, hoping to start a career so I could better support my son. Since I loved literature, I took every English Literature class available. I was a hopeless romantic. Things hadn’t worked out with my son’s father, we never married,…
Yesterday I woke up prepared for the worst. It was the eighth anniversary of losing Rick to lung cancer. But I realized that, as the years go by, the major events aren’t as painful as the loss of the little daily things that I miss about being with him. I spend a few days of…
In the eight years since Rick’s been gone, I’ve tried dating and managed to find three men who were potential partners. Yet, here I sit alone again, mulling over what went wrong with each budding relationship. One moved out of town for work. One returned to his ex-wife. The third is an on-again, off-again relationship…
I love creating all the handouts for author events. Today’s delivery included my new business cards (I haven’t had one as an author) and two rack card designs. The first is the handout for those who buy my third Writing Widow book. It has a QR code to a Spotify playlist with the songs mentioned…
As a writer, I spend a lot of time alone, and a lot of time thinking – mostly contemplating life. Tonight, the holiday dinner is over, the kids and grandkids are all off on their merry way, and I sit here pondering how it feels to be alone again in my quiet home. It feels…
Five years ago, I published a book of essays and poetry I wrote during the year after my husband died. The book, A Widow’s Words: Grief, Reflection, Prose, and Poetry is available on Amazon.com. Although seven years have passed in my grief journey, I continue to receive emails from new widows who are reading my…
It’s that time, again. The ten-day period between the anniversary of Rick’s death and his birthday, the day we held his celebration of life. August 13th to August 23rd, 2017: the most painful time of my life. After seven years, it doesn’t hit as hard. Well, at least that’s what I thought. But I realized…
July 12th would have been our twenty-seventh wedding anniversary. In the seven years since Rick died, I’ve gone through many different stages of grief, and I’m a different woman than that distraught widow from years ago. Instead of sadness over his death, I more often look back feeling thankful for experiencing our life together. Instead…
I reported for jury duty a couple weeks ago. It’s probably my tenth time in the past 45 years since I was first summoned in my early twenties. However, this was the first time I’ve served that we were allowed to bring cell phones into the courthouse. Quite a perk! Other years, I was in…