Where do you find encouragement?

[Hgadams]

I recently decided to try and start a blog to channel some of my feelings. The link is positivelywidowed.wordpress.com. My thought was if we could all share something that has helped us whether it is a blog you have created, a blog you follow, a word of encouragement, something someone shared with you, an encouraging article whatever helps you here that it may find its way to help someone else. I realize there is a section for this but I am most interested in what has helped the newly widowed and how you are using it on your journey forward.

[SoVerySad]

A wonderful member here, Wifeless, replied to one of the first posts I made. He told me to remember that I wouldn't always feel the way I did then. I made it a mantra of sorts. When it all felt too much to keep trying, I would repeat those words to myself. He was right. The jagged edges of the pain has dulled some and I now get brief respites from it. I'm hoping those respites will continue to grow. Many thanks again to Wifeless and his wife, Bluebird, who was so encouraging when we met in person.

 

[Julester3]

My personal mantra is you never ever have to like the situation BUT you need to accept that it did happen so you can move on. It has helped me and the kids.

 

The greatest help to myself was simply writing. I have a personal electronic journal where I write talking to my husband. I share my feelings, worries, vent, anything that comes to mind. My youngest wants to read it but I told her someday as I am not ready to share. I have thoughts of sexual frustration in there and she's too young to read that stuff.

 

I am also writing up separately our love story for the kids. I am finding the older I get, the less details I am starting to be able to recall. I am only 41 but I have been with my husband since we were 19. Also, we are collecting photos of my husband so we can make his scrapbook. I have spent the last several years whenever I had free time making scrapbooks for our vacations, holidays, and kids but I never made one just about my husband. That is my own regret for not taking the time to make one for him but I felt we as a couple and family were integrated in our scrapbooks.