bad decisions

"When the love of your life dies, grief can make you act in very uncharacteristic ways. He was my anchor, my brain trust, my sweet, caring husband, and so much more. I think there is a defeatist tendency amongst many widows to take whatever life puts in front of you because it might just be as good as it gets in the new normal."

These are the words written this morning by one of the widows I follow on Instagram. She was talking about a relationship with a man that had a lot of red flags but she still entered into it because she was lonely.

Seeing it there in black and white - defeatist tendency, take whatever life puts in front of you, might be as good as it gets - caused a light to go off in my head.

YES! That's exactly how I've been feeling. I've been so close to making bad decisions (and still want to) just because I hate the way things are now and I'm hurting and I'm lonely and I just want something to take away that pain even for a little while. In my head I've been thinking that I'm probably going to make some bad decisions and I don't even know if I can stop myself.

Frankly, I've been thinking I'm going a little crazy and that there's something wrong with me so it feels like validation to hear another widow admit to feeling the same way and that it might be something that's common in recent widows.

When your whole world has been destroyed, and keeps getting destroyed again and again with each new change that comes along, you have the feeling that nothing is ever going to really be GOOD again so you grab at anything that even comes close to feeling good for the moment.

I can't promise I won't make bad decisions because damn it hurts so much, but at least I'll do it with my eyes wide open.