new normal

The Myth of the New Normal – New blog on Hope for Widows website

My husband has been gone for more than three years. I should be used to living as a widow and existing in my “new normal.” But today I realized, no matter how long I exist without him, I’m not sure this will ever really feel normal.

Sure, my life is on an even keel and I’m doing okay, but this is only year three of living alone in comparison to twenty years living as half of a couple. For twenty years, I was a married woman sharing a life with someone else. For twenty years, I lived with a man I loved and we spent as much time as possible together, enjoying each other’s company. Of course, we weren’t completely joined at the hip. When we met, we were individuals in midlife. He had lots of hobbies and interests, and so did I…

Read the blog on the Hope for Widows website.

 

About the author

Katherine Billings Palmer is a technical writer, poet, and essayist from Garden City, Michigan. She’s won several academic writing awards, including first place in the University of Michigan Dearborn Critical Essay Contest for her work about poet John Donne: “‘The Sun Rising’: A Lover’s Boast.”

In 2017, Katherine’s husband, Rick, died of complications from small cell lung cancer. She wrote a series of poems and essays about her struggles to cope with her grief. I Wanted to Grow Old With You is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.

Her latest book, A Widow’s Words: Grief, Reflection, Prose, and Poetry – The First Year was published in January 2019 and is also available on Amazon.com.

Katherine is a guest blogger for the Hope for Widows Foundation and writes about her grief journey at www.TheWritingWidow.com.

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