🦄 Unicorn hunting, Tinder and the odd things you miss

One of the things I wasn’t expecting about widowing is some of the things people say ... and some of the things I would miss.

Most comments of them are heartfelt and wonderful but there are some crackers of statements people have made that you can only laugh at, or stand aghast while they work out the slight offensiveness of what just came out of their mouth ... there’s a whole other blog post I could write about the best and worst of them.

One of the crackers I wasn’t expecting to be raised so quickly - just a few weeks after Pete died - was the excited statement: “oh, you can join Tinder now!”

Which, when I repeated it to someone a week later, I got the equally excited response: “oh no, not Tinder, you want to join Bumble... it’s like Tinder but where you get to be in control of contact as the woman - you hold the power ...”

I’m sorry, I was repeating this as a joke.

But its been a funny journey telling people this has been said to me in the last few months.

People’s reactions range from excitement, to agreement, to distaste, to downright dismissal of such a ludicrous idea.

It’s ok - I can laugh because I find the whole idea of it highly amusing at the minute. Mostly because I’d have no idea what to do with online dating when the only way I know how to pick up a bloke is ‘old school’ (at a pub or b&s ball ...) and it scares the bejesus out of me!

But the other thing about widowing is that it’s pretty final when it comes to ending your physical relationship.

So I know why people say it. It’s not meant to be offensive. It’s because there is no coming back from dead. I can’t rekindle my marriage, have a trial separation, go to counselling. He’s gone.

And if I think that’s it, there is no other, then potentially I’m also accepting that I could be celibate for the rest of my life ... before I’m 40.

Some married friends have seen this as an upside to widowing.

And therein lies some new learnings about widowing I hadn’t really contemplated. The loss of physical affection.

I knew I would miss the person Pete was, but didn’t know how much I would miss the support - physical and emotional - that you rely on when navigating such extreme circumstance.

I’m probably guilty of taking for granted that at the end of the day I knew he would always be there helping me work through anything and everything.

He’s been there negotiating all the hard bits of life for the last 19 years with me - job changes, house moves, child birth, child rearing, accidents, dramas, losses, highs and lows - my friends and family knew details of some of them all, but not like he did.

He was my go-to person to work it out ... there for all the tears, the talking, the decisions, and sometimes doing nothing, but listening. For the successes, he was the number one ticket holder in my fan club, the one who shined a light on my wins and was the first one there supporting or congratulating me.

And now that I’m dealing with the biggest and hardest thing of all, I don’t have him.

I don’t have him to talk through all this. I valued his opinion on stuff ... although he would always be quite miffed if I didn’t completely accept his solution to an issue or problem.

But I don’t blame him for not being here. I’m not angry that I have to do this alone.

Not. One. Bit.

Because I know how shattered he would be that I’m enduring it alone, without his help that he offered so freely and generously and lovingly to me.

I miss the hugs.

I have had so many cuddles and hugs from people since I lost Pete, and I have welcomed every one of them.

But they all come from a friend, a relative, someone else’s husband... I so miss being able to being able to be completely enveloped in a hug from someone who is my person, and only my person, who will help make it ok, who is there wholly and solely for me, whenever I need it - right then and there - and tell me that that love me and they are going to help me make it ok.

It’s a lonely second rate cuddle that you can give yourself when you wrap your own arms around yourself.

It’s why in the midst of these ridiculously awful hard parts of widowing the whole Tinder thing has become light entertainment.

I can see that Pete would be fully participating in the conversation if anyone else was in this position so great was his love of a random story or tidbit to run commentary with.

Not so long ago he completely took a family in-joke about me being adopted and turned it into a story that got so out of hand some locals thought my Dad had bought the Conargo Pub and was putting an international one-legged bloke in as bar manager.

With that in mind, some friends have offered to workshop my online dating profile, assist with profile images... it’s all with a laugh, because the reality of my situation is too ridiculously sad.

So now I say that I would require what Pete would refer to as a rainbow farting unicorn: someone between the ages of 38-45, no kids, no ex wife, no baggage, willing to accept me with all of mine ...or in other words, a rainbow farting unicorn.

Someone recently told me they are out there - he’s currently a rocking horse shit salesman.

Discussing what my requirements in another partner would be is not actually serious. It’s laughable. And it’s mortifying. And it scary as all get out ... And I don’t want to do it, because I had one that was just fine: I’ll have that one back, thanks.

So now we have a joke within my friendship group about what we - as a group - would need from this unicorn when we go hunting for him. Because it’s a ‘we’ thing. Not just any old Joe Blow gets to enter my life or our friendship family. We have standards, you know...

One with a farm? A winemaking unicorn would be useful for us all ...

The biggest joke of it all is, that Pete was a unicorn - charming, witty, caring, he could cook...

Any other unicorn that comes along would definitely need to fart rainbows and sneeze glitter.