Right now, I’m in what feels like a strange and difficult stage of my life.
If my life were a painting, this would definitely be the messy ‘ugly duckling’ stage.
Phil, my amazing husband and our young children’s dad, died out of the blue 18 months ago.
As the waves of grief gradually become a little less sharp, I’m still left facing a future that looks nothing like the one I had imagined. The life I’d been painting in my mind – the one filled with shared laughter, partnership, and family milestones – was erased in an instant.
The paper feels more blank and uncertain again, and the path ahead isn’t clear to see.
In reality, of course, we all live with uncertainty every day. None of us knows what will happen next. But our brains are wired as “prediction machines”, constantly trying to map the future so that we can make choices now and feel some stability. When that sense of predictability is shattered, it’s disorienting in ways that go far beyond the practical.
This chapter of uncertainty has demanded new kinds of strength.
It’s asking me to:
- Learn to look after myself, especially on the inside, so that I can take care of my children the best I can. That means allowing all my feelings (even the ones that feel unbearable) to rise and move through.
- Hold on to optimism. I want to believe in a future where I share life and love with someone special again, where my children have another loving adult in their world, and where our home feels full of joy and connection. I want to hold on to this vision even when I can’t see the route through; I don’t meet many new people in my day-to-day life, ‘the apps’ sound awful and Phil has set the bar so incredibly high.
- Embrace the now. I can’t rush what’s ahead, and for a loss on this scale, it’s still very early days. But what I can do is make space for things that bring me some little bits of joy, and notice the moments of beauty and gratitude that still appear, often when I’m painting.
Nurturing optimism while nursing profound grief is hard. The grief still needs space; it can’t be painted over. But I’m learning that holding onto optimism, even a quiet, vulnerable version of it, helps me keep moving forwards.
I’m choosing to believe that in the ugly duckling stage of life, things can eventually come together again.
