To use the words of The Grateful Dead, “what a long, strange trip it’s been.” I started these Ski Sojourns five years ago. It was the retirement my husband had envisioned. Driving the desert Southwest, hiking red rocks and mountain trails, skiing to placate his wife, and maybe some tennis thrown in. It’s been all of that and more. The only thing missing has been Scot.
And maybe there’s been more skiing than Scot would ever have done. I’ve saved significant dollars not eating out had I a companion to share a meal. Yet I have shared many meals with friends, strangers, and strangers who have become friends and maybe some friends who are strange.
Everyone works through grief in different ways. As I look back, I did a lot of grieving—not crying, not hiding in a darkened room, not necessarily going off the deep end—I grieved in my own way. I drove thousands of miles, listened to a whole bunch of audio books, stopped at countless roadside information booths/signs/centers as I followed my truck down the road.
For an extroverted person as I am, I spent hours and hours alone, thinking and not thinking. A person might solve the problems of the world for all the thinking I have done, but problems still exist—for the world as well as for me. This much I have come to understand:
Time Marches On
I was only 64 when I started this journey. I am now on the cusp of 70. Seventy!! OMG, I am so old the Center for Disease Control calls me “elderly”!! Elderly? That’s my mom, my mom’s mom, my mother-in-law’s sister! But me? My siblings (who are all older than me)? My friends? We can’t be elderly. We’ve barely begun our lives! Granted, most of the above are retired from their day-jobs, and if they aren’t retired, they are definitely thinking about it.
This past year I have torn calf muscle and chipped a tibia plateau. I have never had a ski injury or broken bone before in my life! I got a hip replaced. Now, that’s major stuff! OK, I confess, I had major medical issues in my late 30s—like colon cancer and bowel blockages. But I lived through that. I thought I was going to die when I didn’t take enough pain meds for my hip. I rode an ambulance for the first time to get to the emergency room. The pain was INTENSE.
I have lived through it all. And all those things would have happened (probably) had I skied the last five years or not. TIME WAITS FOR NO MAN or woman. And that’s the truth.
Stand up, take a look around you, and go do what you have always wanted to do, because if you don’t, you’ll be elderly either way.
It Helps if You Have Money
I couldn’t do what I have done without a retirement fund that Scot planted. He always put as much as we could into a retirement fund, even in years we had to scrape together enough to pay our taxes. It ended up being a comfortable sum—not rich, not poor. And because he saved for two of us, and now there’s only one, it’s a good cushion for one.
I was never good at worrying about the future. I have pretty much lived for the moment. I can do that now because Scot did worry about the future. He did this even before he knew he had Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. And I thank him for it, and I tend to our nest egg not only for me but for him. A part of me is always thinking about the fact that I can be as free as a bird because I had a husband who set me free when he died. I have a responsibility to be wise in these years I have without him.
Some might think it unkind to describe my life as free when my husband died. And some would find that freedom daunting. So much responsibility, so much life without a partner. Goals and visions change after a major disruption, and death is a disruption of the highest order.
I called Scot my partner more than I called him my husband. We did so much together, but we also did a lot solo. We were both independent souls, and that has helped me these past five years. Marie Kondo, the Japanese minimalist describes downsizing and getting rid of stuff by holding it, appreciating it and then letting it go.
I have done that a million times in the past five years.
Marie Kondo, again
I use the Kondo mantra (at least my version of it): Hold it, appreciate it, let it go. Scot and I spent over 32 years together, growing, raising a family, running a business. More memories than I will ever be able to recount. I appreciate all that he did for me.
I spent many miles of driving thinking about our life together. I thought of both the highs and the lows. I laughed thinking about how he could talk all the way to the lake, all I had to do was nod occasionally and say, “uh huh.”
And then two things happened that made me realize I could let him go. The first thing was when my sister, a year after Scot died, looked at me and my left hand and said, “You’re still wearing your wedding ring.” It kinda hurt, but it also made me reflect on why. Wearing the ring didn’t change anything, but my world had changed.
Then during Covid, a group of couples that supported me after Scot had died were complaining that the only person they had touched for months was their spouse. I didn’t say anything, but I thought, I haven’t touched anyone in two years. I realized I didn’t know if I wanted the rest of my life to be solo. I could test the waters out there.
I hold Scot near. I appreciate Scot. And I have had to let him go.
The Sojourns have taught me I am fine alone. I am the epitome of solo. Yet I have found love since being widowed, and I have lost love…a few times. And it’s ok. I hold the memories, I appreciate what I have learned, and I have let go.
And I don’t know what lies around the bend—perhaps love? Perhaps more Solo Sojourns.
Things Happen for a Reason
There have been many people that have come into my life and made a tremendous impact. People who will be a part of me forever. It’s been that way my whole life. I try to be open to new ideas, experiences, sights, sounds, tastes, textures. And people. I am not one to sit idly by and let life happen to me. I make life happen. And sometimes the people, places and things that I run across make my life so rich I feel as though I am at an all you can eat buffet! There are some things I don’t eat—carbs—but I’m willing to try most everything. But I notice as I have become elderly, I can’t eat as much as I used to, so I have become more selective in what I pick at the buffet. It’s also reflective of life—I have to pick and choose what I do, time is so limited!
Each one of these life enhancing experiences could be considered one-offs. One and done. But each one has forced me to grow beyond who I was pre-sojourns. They have happened for a reason, and one of those reasons is that I have had to form a life solo—partner-less. And it has been good.
Things have happened for a reason, and putting myself into new and adventurous situations has helped me grow as an individual. It has also helped me individuate. I have had to become who I am without a partner, and doing things that Scot and I never did together has helped me become a new person. It has helped me, in the methodology of Marie Kondo, appreciate the past, hold it to my heart, and then, let it go.
Take Time to Reflect
It isn’t all about doing. If it were, it would manifest as running away versus confronting and resolving. My form of reflection has been through my writing. When I write, I must think. When I think, I sometimes come to understanding.
I also have considerable windshield time that I use to reflect. As I drive the miles and miles I drive for each Solo Ski Sojourn I think—of the past, the present and the future. I play scenarios through my mind. I play “what if” games by myself. I have often thought I should know myself better because of all this driving and thinking, but I fear I don’t. I don’t know what I want all the time, I don’t know what I should be doing, I don’t know whether to go west or south as I head out of town. I figure it will all work itself out, and it usually does.
Laugh
I have always loved to laugh. There’s always—and I mean always—something to laugh about. Well, maybe not in the throes of horrible stuff. We first must survive and live through the tough stuff, then we can laugh.
But in the end, I hope I can look back and laugh at the funny stuff, most especially at myself and how funny it is to take life so seriously.
Solo Ski Sojourn V is going to look different than every other Sojourn. Just as every Sojourn was different than the one before. I don’t know where I’m going, whether I’ll have rooms to stay in, whether my hip will support me in my old age, or what other ailment will raise its ugly head and be my demise. I just love to ski. Let them come for me, whoever they are. Just let them try to stop me.
I laugh in the face of danger.
Shared with permission from Elaine Koyama – Check out her other writing at https://elainekoyama.com/
Recent Comments