Widowed 27th Dec 2023

Widowed 27th Dec 2023

I was 51.

Young… but not young.

Old… but not old.

Confused, yet clear.

Uncertain, yet sure.

Fearful, yet trusting.

Guarded, yet still open.

Broken… yet quietly rebuilding.

And oh… so deeply grateful for the life I’d had.

I didn’t fall apart.

I began.

I began to notice…

that joy hadn’t left me.

It was just… hiding.

In the outdoors.

In long walks.

In challenges that stretched me.

In hobbies, friends, new places…

In plans I wasn’t ready to give up on.

A quiet refusal to believe… this was it.

There have been more losses.

More days of winging it.

Of hoping big.

Of braving the things I feared the most.

But still, joy keeps finding me.

Softly.

Unexpectedly.

Alongside the sadness… the silence… the space.

Not instead of it.

But beside it.

And maybe that’s the point…

We don’t move on from the hard.

We learn to hold it

while still letting the light in.

My future isn’t fixed.

It’s unfolding.

One day at a time.

And I’m still here… choosing it. xx

Michelle ❤️