It Just Is…

The other day, I went to a huge flea market. It’s a weekly event where you can find pretty much everything: junk, antiques, brand-new items, toys, clothes, food, fresh fruits and veggies, plants, live chickens… Yes, live chickens.

The place is so big you could spend hours to see all the booths and tables there. I didn’t stay for very long though because I only wanted to buy a couple of plants for my garden.

Memories

Afterwards I stopped by the cemetery to visit my husband’s grave. While there, memories began popping up. Memories of me going to that gigantic flea market on a weekly basis to buy fresh produce and things for the new house my husband and I had just bought. We were so excited about our new place! Sometimes we’d go there together and spent hours there, looking around, chatting, buying this or that, dreaming and plotting our next project. It was a wonderful time.

Life Is So Different Now

Now it’s just me. It’s been just me for a long time. While cleaning up his grave a bit and reminiscing, it hit me how much my life has changed. How my life hasn’t turned out the way I imagined it would back then. How I went from buying food for a full household with kids to only a handful of groceries for one. From being surrounded by life, love, laughter and togetherness to my now mostly quiet, and mostly alone life. From having the love of my life as my partner and teammate to flying solo. (Even if I’m in a relationship now, it’s never going to be the same…)

Surprisingly I wasn’t horribly sad when I compared my life back then with my life now. The thought that came up was: It just is…

It just is…the way it is.

It just is…this different life now, and I can’t change it anyway.

It just is…and it’s okay.

I’m enjoying my life. I’ve accepted that I can’t have him back. Am I still sad sometimes? Do I still miss him? Of course! I still have my ups and downs. Grief never really ends. But right now there’s a weird calmness as I think about my widowed life. It just is…