Seven Year Ache

It’s different than the “seven year itch” – that’s the moment when a marriage allegedly hits a wall. The thrill is gone. Feeling restless and dissatisfied, without really being able to define exactly why, spouses stray.

But the seven year ache is different. Seven years into widowhood (as of the 24th), I find myself acting out in ways I don’t understand. I’ve worked so hard to get healthy, losing a significant if still inadequate amount of weight, eating well, bringing my blood pressure down.

But now suddenly I’m pissed of–angry about the limitations life has “imposed” on me, and the ones I’ve imposed on myself. Eating stuff I shouldn’t. Drinking beer and regaining weight I can’t afford to put back on. What the hell is wrong with me?

Seven years is a significant amount of time. The “ache,” I think, is regret over wasted time. All the things I should have done, but didn’t.

My repainted rooms and furniture are looking tired. I had to spend money on a new boiler and a new roof. My front flower garden is still a work-in-progress. I finally got the baby grand piano I’ve craved for 20 years, to take up the space that has waited for it in front of the big picture window in the living room, but I won’t have enough time to really practice and regain any skill, not that ever had much, in playing it. And I’ve formed no new significant relationships, of either the friendship or romantic variety.

I’m afraid I’ve reached the “ah, fuck it” stage; I’m so sick of assigning importance to the number on the scale in the morning, and of wrestling with irrational fears. I gave up caring about what I wear, other than how I look from the shoulders up on a computer screen, the minute the pandemic sent me home to work.

I manage to slap on some makeup once in a while, and I still follow my never-be-seen-without-lipstick rule, but mostly just so I can stand seeing my face in the mirror.

Is that all there is? Am I trying desperately to “keep dancing, break out the booze, and have a ball, if that’s all?”

This isn’t life. I want to be joyful, and grateful, and one of those people who makes others feel good about themselves. Someone you’re happy to run into.

I have never been that person. What makes me think I can transform myself into Pollyanna now? (My mother, in one of her very frequent fits of crankiness, when I suggested she could look on the bright side more often, snapped “I’m no Pollyanna!” at me).

It’s a phase, I tell myself. Just ride it out, get it out of your system. Tomorrow is another day. As God is my witness, I say to myself, cancelled Scarlett O’Hara style, it’s not going to lick me, this loneliness, this feeling of time slipping away away. I’ll keep forcing myself to grin, when I see my mother’s resting bitch face with the downturned corners of the mouth in the mirror every day, when smiling feels idiotic.

I joined a chess meetup group. I thought, what the hell, maybe meet some nice nerdy people. Played, and predictably quickly lost, three or four games. Not sure I’ll go back, to have those nice nerdy men be polite to me as they set and spring a trap that results in my swift defeat. Checkmate.

Mike was a very good chess player, a runner-up in statewide tournaments. Did I think that going to play would somehow give me a jump start out of this languishing? I’ve got several other upcoming events planned, from a pub crawl to a coffee klatsch, the latter deliberately chosen to foster more conversation and that chance to actually get to know people a little.

Plus I’ve got something like 40 hours of paid volunteer time off built up, a benefit of my current and no doubt last, full-time job. Maybe packing food for hungry people, or bags of books for kids who own none, will jolt me out of this unhealthy focus on dissatisfaction with what, objectively, is a very good, if lonely, life.

Help me out here. Give me some suggestions for getting past my seven year ache. How do you overcome the blues? What do you do when you notice you’re treating yourself badly? How can I be more accepting of my life as it is, instead of perpetually dissatisfied with what it isn’t? And between Maui and Hilary, am I even allowed to feel depressed?

Open to suggestions, up to and including just yelling at me to snap out of it, I remain,

your suddenly looking and feeling like a “get off my lawn” old crank, when I want to be a positive presence,

Ridiculouswoman