{"id":38150,"date":"2023-04-01T00:01:02","date_gmt":"2023-04-01T07:01:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=38150"},"modified":"2026-06-06T05:52:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T05:52:14","slug":"widowed-and-lonely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/widowed-and-lonely\/","title":{"rendered":"Widowed and Lonely"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"widowed<\/a>
Lots of people, including a dear friend, were at the Palace of the Legion of Honor for the exhibition, “Sargent and Spain.” Here, Sargent’s “La Carmencita.”\u00a0When I’m out with people I pretty much forget that I’m widowed and lonely. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’ve been avoiding the topic. I’ve put off writing about it for weeks and months. I’ve written about all kinds of emotional challenges since my husband died two years ago. But not this one. This topic has been too personal — too embarrassing.<\/p>\n

I’m not talking about sex here. I’m not talking about my ever-advancing age or the extra 15 pounds I’ve been carrying around lately. I don’t even mean the condition of my perineal muscles (which is not bad, btw. Just so you know).<\/p>\n

Touchy subjects, all. But for me, not shameful.<\/p>\n

What is hard to cop to, what I’ve been circumlocuting for the past two years (and for the past three paragraphs) is . . .<\/p>\n

I’m lonely.<\/p>\n

There. I’ve said it.\u00a0 The cat is out of the bag. I’ve written it down. The truth has been let loose into cyberspace. Now you know it. My friends know it. My kids know it.<\/p>\n

Maybe even I am ready to know it.<\/p>\n

I’ve been doing a lot of weeping in recent weeks. I get sad easily. And I’ve started to wonder, is this grief I’m feeling? Am I missing Jon? Or is this something else?<\/p>\n

A Life That’s Too Darned Quiet<\/strong><\/h5>\n

It’s Jon, yes. But it’s also something else. and that is, I’m lonely. I’m a lonely widow! My life is too darned quiet.<\/p>\n

I do most things alone now. I spend my days tending to my to-do list, checking off things like “pay taxes” and “get gutters cleaned.”<\/p>\n

But even when I do stuff with other people, I do it alone. I’ve been invited to a seder next week, for example. I’ll show up by myself.<\/p>\n

I met a friend at the Sargent and Spain<\/a> exhibition at the Palace of the Legion of Honor yesterday. I made the drive across San Francisco alone.<\/p>\n

I invited friends over for dinner and a movie (“The Fabelmans”). I chose the wine without benefit of a second opinion.<\/p>\n

I’ve done a pretty good job of reaching out to friends over the past two years.\u00a0 I joined a knitting club, not for the knitting, but the chatter. I’m considering Ikebana classes. I like flowers, but what I really like is being in a room with a bunch of talky women.<\/p>\n

My friends have done an even better job of reaching out to me in the months since Jon died. A niece came and stayed the weekend. A cousin brought lunch. A neighbor suggested joining her garden club. Another neighbor brought me crab cakes.<\/p>\n

My friends have done everything friends can do in a situation like this one, and I’m still lonely.<\/p>\n

That’s because there’s nothing quite like a live-in partner, someone who either wants to know how your day went or does a good job of faking it. Someone who knows your doings, trivial and catastrophic. Someone who’s there<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Widowed and Lonely<\/strong><\/h5>\n

I’m not the only woman who’s ever lost a husband. There were 11.61 million widows in the US alone in 2021, and 3.58 million<\/a> widowers. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person who’s widowed and lonely.<\/p>\n

Why then have I been so reluctant to admit to my loneliness? Why have I kept this big, fat secret? Why this elephant in the room?<\/p>\n

Because I don’t want to scare my children and my friends. I don’t want them to worry about me. I want everybody to think I’m doing just fine, even though I’m not.<\/p>\n

After months of writing about everything but loneliness — Roe v. Wade<\/a>, \u00a0\u00a0my extra pounds<\/a>, \u00a0\u00a0Volodymyr Zelensky<\/a> — I’ve decided to bite the bullet. Tell the world.\u00a0\u00a0Acknowledge the loneliness. Go public with it.<\/p>\n

See what happens.<\/p>\n

What’s happening is . . . I feel better already.<\/p>\n

Thanks for listening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"widowed<\/a><\/p>\n

I want friends and family to think I’m doing just fine, even though I’m not. The truth is, I’m widowed and lonely.\u00a0 Don’t miss.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[34,655,2685,2274,2686],"class_list":["post-38150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-widowed","tag-dont-miss","tag-friends","tag-john-singer-sargent","tag-loneliness","tag-widowed-and-lonely"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49064,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38150\/revisions\/49064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}