Surviving Year Two: Week 33

Living with Death & Embracing the Spinster

This is Week 33 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here.

One year and 33 weeks. The roundness of this number sits with me today. As Spring arrives to my part of the world, I watch the new life sprout from death all around me. New flowers burst forth from the dark earth. My kitties bring in fat gophers and leave bloody trails through the house. The flowers on the altar drop their petals. Death is everywhere, all the time, and so is birth and new energies. We cannot have one without the other.

I am more solid in my "new life" as a Spinster Widow. I work. I lift weights. I make art. I call my friends on the phone and hope that some day I will have more energy to go out and do things. I don't date. I cuddle with my two kitties as much as possible. Their furry wildness helps me remember my own animal needs — my own call to the wild. I feel close to going feral myself, which in some ways is the "spinster's greatest fear" — to lose her home and have to survive in the wilderness with no tribe and family to call her own. I feel that call to the wild in the wet, foggy mornings, as I get ready to go lift weights before work. Instead of tearing off my clothes and running into the woods, I grab my coffee and my bags and drive to the gym in the dark. I am choosing to stay here, with the people but the wildness is running through my veins. I am unattached. I am untethered. I am a Spinster Widow.

Thank you for witnessing me. See you next week.