Facebook can be an incredible tool: thanks to Mark Zuckerberg, I reconnected with a high school friend I’d known as Lisa Crozier. At the time, she was a young widow with two small girls, grieving the loss of a husband she deeply loved and trying to be a good single mom. Even better than us getting back in touch, Facebook reconnected Lisa with an elementary school friend, who she married. She’s recently started blogging about her experience, and I thought this post about change was ideal for Newvine Growing.
Ever since my first husband died, I have embraced change. Change to me meant moving away from grief and moving toward the future, whatever that might hold. And change I did.
Escaping the memories of the house was the first step. My girls were 10 months old and 3 years old so not only was I exhausted as their only parent, I was exhausted from the grief and shock of losing their dad. So twice a day, I loaded them into our little red wagon and hauled them around our small town for two miles. This activity allowed us precious time with each other and helped us to escape the grief that lived in the house, if only for a few minutes. My journey toward fitness began at this time as I had lost a lot of weight, too much weight. You know it’s too much when you can see your own ribs. Not good.

Fortunately, I had my wits about me (lol, well as much as you can while you psychotically navigate through grief as a young widow) and recognized that I needed to eat a little more.
The next change was to take a five month leave of absence from my job. I used that time off to focus on the girls, get our affairs in order and figure out how I was going to support the three of us. Upon returning to my job, I was immediately given a performance evaluation. Although I had fulfilled all of my job requirements for the entire year prior to my leave of absence, my performance review showed a negative score. My supervisor had said that since I was not present during that time to manage my volunteers, I was given the equivalent score to a “C” grade and a 1/2% wage increase. Ironically, the organization I worked for is one that works to empower young girls, naturally I was shocked that they didn’t support me under the circumstances. It didn’t take long before I decided I would be better off unemployed than to work for an organization that did not appreciate my efforts and soon, another job came along that was just perfect for our needs.
After 8 years of being a single mother and dating what I humorously call members from “The Clown Parade” (read more in my next post ), I officially gave up trying to find my next soul mate and a father for my children. As always, the old adage “when you stop looking, love will find you” prevailed.
Thanks to Facebook, I had started tracking down people I knew from elementary school. I have a dear friend who has been in my life since I was 4 years old and we would often talk about the people we remembered from school, including one particular young man. He was short, had a bowl cut, wore glasses, and had a patch over one eye. LOL Certainly, I did not think of him as a potential suitor!
When I tracked down Fred, I wasn’t sure it was the same person. He was handsome, muscular and had a great smile with a child-like twinkle in his eyes. Turns out, it was the same Fred. And he was engaged…..boo! That’s okay, truly I had not thought of him as anything but a friend for two years.
However, in the Spring of 2011, everything changed. By then, he was no longer engaged and slowly, our relationship changed from one of friendship to one of a deep love for each other. We learned that we shared a similar goofy sense of humor and often, we giggled over the silliest things. We were both active people with a genuine love of nature and the outdoors and most importantly, he loved my girls as if they were his own. The girls adore him
Change is scary, however our fears of it are irrational. Yes, it is a fear of the unknown but how will we know what we want in life if we don’t change? Life is FULL of rollercoaster twists, turns, steep, plummeting drops and achingly long hikes uphill. The ride will ALWAYS be bumpy so settle in and enjoy. It could be the best thing you’ve ever experienced…until the next change.