Flirting With Disaster

Widowed, not expired.

I went to my local Trader Joe’s the other day to buy a few things, which happens to be next door to the donut shop Jeremy and I loved so much. We used to bring each other treats whenever we’d go shopping.

This Saturday was Valentine’s Day. But it was also anniversary day to me. The day of our first kiss, many years ago. Our original anniversary, before marriage made it official.

This was my second one without him.

So of course, it was time for a pre Valentine’s Day donut.

I did things all week to lean into love. I handmade valentines cards with a friend. I got beautiful flowers. I surprised people with treats, which is also a longstanding tradition Jeremy and I had. We always bought donuts on Valentine’s Day and passed them out to random people who looked like they could use the love.

I also allowed myself to be sad. But I also wanted to celebrate the love I was lucky enough to have by pouring it back out into the world wherever I could.

So I’m walking toward the donut shop with a grocery bag in each hand when a tall guy with a bright smile holds the door open for me.

“I know that look,” he says playfully, nodding toward the donuts.

I laugh, embarrassed, and thank him.

I buy my donuts. Rearrange my bags. Head toward the parking lot. He’s still there, chatting with the security guard. He smiles at me again. His gaze lingers just a beat longer than necessary.

And suddenly I have this strange and deeply unfamiliar thought:

Is he flirting?

Surely not.

I brush it off immediately. So quickly, in fact, that now I want to go back and hug that version of myself and say, it’s okay. You’re still human. You’re still allowed to be seen. You don’t have “WIDOW” tattooed on your forehead. Don’t sell yourself so short.

I drive a few minutes away to run another errand and stop for coffee. And in a truly humiliating twist of fate, Donut Shop Guy is there too.

I try to make myself invisible. What if he thinks I followed him?I get my coffee and head toward the door.

“So which donut did you get?” he asks.

He noticed.

“The chocolate one,” I say. “You?”

“Cookies and cream,” he says, flashing that same bright smile.

“Do you go there a lot?” he asks.

And I realize there is something else in his voice. Hope.

Wait.

He is flirting. I panic.

I say something vague. Wish him a good day. Escape to my car like I’ve just narrowly avoided a small emotional collision. I sit there laughing. Completely disoriented.

I feel like a stranger in my own life.

The truth is, I’ve never been good at reading the room. Even when I was “normal.” Right before Jeremy and I started dating, I was convinced he only saw me as a friend, while he was desperately trying to figure out if I liked him.

I have always been shy. Unconvinced of my own leading-lady potential.

A question for my therapist, I suppose.

Sitting in my car, I realize if Donut Shop Guy had asked my name, I might have said:

You are flirting with disaster.

I’m widowed and barely holding my head above water.

DO NOT APPROACH.

Later that night, I thought about it again.

About all the life I have lived.

All the things I have accomplished. And the things I have survived.

The scars I have earned. The ocean of compassion I now carry for anyone walking through impossible terrain.

And I wondered:

What if I’m a catch?

Don’t I know how to love deeply?

Didn’t I do till death do us part in the most literal way possible?

Didn’t I walk someone I loved completely all the way to the end with love and bravery?

Shouldn’t that make me worthy of love instead of disqualified from it?

Loss has a way of making you feel radioactive. Like something dangerous happened to you, and now it might happen to anyone who gets too close.

And it wasn’t just losing Jeremy. It was losing people along the way. People who disappeared. People who didn’t know how to stay.

That kind of loss rewires you. It makes you question your value. It makes you forget that you are still alive.

But I’m not damaged goods. (I know there is one person in particular that does not feel that I am, but that is a story for another day).

In fact, maybe I’m a fine wine.

All that pressure. All that time. All that breaking down and becoming something else.

Maybe the disaster isn’t me.

Maybe the disaster was surviving, and mistaking survival for unworthiness.

I think the lesson is that I didn’t disappear.

I’m still standing here.
Heart cracked open.
Still capable of being seen.

Which, frankly, feels more dangerous than anything else.

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