Facing Up to a New Season of Life

Source: Fabrice Villard / Unsplash

I wrote recently about how the change of season affects my grief, but I’m coming to understand that I also have entered a new season of life.

The loss of a longtime partner can feel like the world has been set spinning at warp speed, like the changes that might have happened slowly, one falling leaf at a time, have instead happened suddenly, like a blue norther blowing in overnight.

Granted, life changes merely with age. Many things would have changed for me even if Tom were alive.

Professional identity might drop away

For example, my professional life is the merest shadow of its former self.

In my 30s, I wrote for the local newspaper, a major daily, as did many of my friends. Newspapers mattered back then, and we were young and cocky and full of our own importance. People knew who we were, and our friends and peers were among the people who made things happen in our city. Even after I left my full-time job at the paper, I continued writing well into my 50s, for magazines and newspapers around the country.

But it’s been a very long time since I’ve said my name to a stranger and seen it register on the person’s face. And many of my peers have retired, moved away, or died. All the moving and shaking has been passed on to the next generation. I may know who those people are, but I don’t know them personally, and they don’t know me. Even newspapers don’t matter anymore. My past career is a file cabinet full of yellowing, crumbling clips. I’m not retired yet, but I’m no longer making noise, just a little money.

That kind of thing happens. One generation steps back while the next steps forward. It’s nothing special. Everyone lets go of their professional identity sooner or later.

In bereavement, we lose our shared identity too

But the secondary losses surrounding Tom’s death have stripped off another layer of my identity, and I’m only just coming to terms with it.

I’ve spent most of my life around musicians. My brothers played in bands, many of my friends played in bands, and Tom played in local bands up until the day he died.

I wouldn’t call myself a groupie, with all that implies, but I was a friend and a loyal fan, and when I married Tom, I became a band wife. I went to our friends’ shows and, of course, to Tom’s. Some of my favorite memories are sitting around after the show with him and often one or two of his bandmates, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, and breaking down the evening. I was an insider, privy to the band dynamics. Tom and I even wrote songs together: my words, his music. Tom and his music were a large part of my social life and my identity.

It’s entirely possible that Tom would no longer be playing music at this point; many of our friends have hung up their instruments as, at our age, gigs are harder to come by and late nights less appealing. But a few friends still play, and I go to their shows. These are generally pleasant social events, but they also make me sad, as reminders that I have lost my place in that world. For years, I belonged there because Tom belonged there. Now that he is gone, I am welcome, of course, but an outsider.

In some ways, I’ve been thinking about my life as it always was minus Tom and trying to live that way, which is, of course, impossible and even a little ridiculous. Just as the high-profile professional season of my life is over, so is the band wife season of my life.

I’m not even a wife anymore.

Change is inevitable

This is not easy for me to accept. Like wearing flip-flops as the temperature drops, I’ve been trying to cling to a past season, shivering in the uncertainty of this new season. My identity feels foggy, and my place in the world is no longer clear to me. I get up every day and do what I have to do, staying engaged in life even if it all feels a little haphazard. I don’t look forward to much because I don’t know where I’m going or even where I want to go.

What happens next? No idea.

Perhaps, then, this is the season to wrap myself in a blanket and sit by the fire and wait for spring. Hopefully, if I’m patient, life will blossom again someday. I can’t imagine what that will look like, but springtime always brings new possibilities.