You needed both for comfort…like the saying “ people come in to our lives for reason or season…” but you learned so much about yourself, you’ve grown… right here on Substack we’ve watched you grow confident and brave and bold! That’s the happy ending, Ames… self love! ❤️🙃🤗
I am remiss. I'm just now editing. And I can't. I always forget about that in this particular sub category of the platform. I know I spelled your name right. I hate auto correct and spellcheck anyway but when it does that to a name .....
I completely agree. For me at least, if I am mindful that the cosmos is spinning as it should things turn out great. When I am absent that mindfulness, try to manipulate the cosmos for my own self absorbed benefit, things go sideways.
I love your narrative and perfect choice of word, Joann!
Grief and growth can work together to bring insight and joy. You show that every day in your work and your life. And no, you haven’t been overcrowding my inbox. Take your time. See you when you get back. ❤️💕🥰
You always lift me up Mary, thank you so much. I'm so inspired by your work, and always look for your new stories to devour when you post. I'll be hanging around in the comments. XOXO 🥰😍❤️
Amy, you are a huge inspiration to me and to your growing community of readers. Your passion and courage keep me hopeful. Thank you for sharing the painful parts of your story along with the joys. You are the best. 💕🙏🫶🥰
Well, I'm grateful that all of this led us to connect. Personally, I find it refreshing when a story of grief and growth doesn't get wrapped up in a pretty little bow of "here's my new relationship." And anyway, stories keep changing. Look at Liz Gilbert for example - she found new love at the end of Eat, Pray, Love...then she got divorced...then she met someone new...then that person died. It's always evolving. ❤️
I was thinking about Eat, Pray, Love, and how the traditional happy ending helped make the book so popular. But Liz was in her 30s back then, and that's what the happy ending looks like at that age (for better or worse). I think women in our 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond are looking for something different. Many of us have already had that happy ending and you're right, it isn't an ending at all. It didn't make our whole lives happy either. I'm like you, interested in exploring what's next, and wondering what my next evolution going to look like. So happy to know you my gorgeous friend! I can't wait to see what's next for you ❤️😍❤️😍
I just saw this btw - for some reason Substack isn’t alerting me when people reply to my comments! Anyway, yes, totally, I don’t think the book would have been that popular without the happy ending, and yes, I think a more complex, mature truth is what middle-aged women are craving.
Amy I loved this because what you’re saying is that there is no ending, to anything. To your grief, to your exploration of new relationships, to your coming into your center. I can’t wait to read this memoir.
Amy, this is a great post! I'm sorry for the grieve you have gone through/going through, and I love how you ended this post: that maybe not getting the guy is the point. Congratulations on your memoir writing. I find writing to be cathartic. I love when you say, "I connected with other like-minded creators, and for the first time rather than shrink who I was, I doubled down and became more of who I was always meant to be." Creative pursuits are key.
Thank you Beth! I really was stuck wondering how do you end a grief odyssey on a sad and lonely note? It's really a change in perspective, and challenging what "happily ever after" looks like NOW.
I think we all know that in reality there is no happily ever after - life is messy, and wonderful, there's both pain and joy. Still, I think hope is important. I recently read an inspiring quote by Rebecca Solnit, "It [hope] is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency."
Hope is not something you hold onto, it's something you use when faced with unimaginable pain. It's learning to see that with every ending, there's a new beginning, and like a muscle, it gets stronger with consistent repetition.
While reading this emerged: Amy, to live and seek love is courageous. To dance through grief and create art through it is an evolution of the heart. We are braver than we think raised on these fairytale dreams! Super grateful for your friendship and your writing. All is ever in motion. Even the earth is not static. The sun rises and sets. Embrace what is. Love you as you are. Tender care of your own heart and cultivate joy for you. See you on the interwebs. 💛🌟💛
More gorgeous writing from you in the comments, I love it. I am grateful to have met you too, and look forward to reading your next poem, or whatever comes down the pike for you. You have such a generous heart, I'm really lucky to have you in my life. I'll be seeing you on these interwebs, that's for sure 🥰🥰🥰
Thank you my darling Mesa! I feel my eyes leaking as I realize this part of my grief odyssey is over. I'm taking you with me wherever I go next (virtually or irl), so buckle up beautiful, you never know what's coming next 😍🤣🥰❤️
I've got some pictures you'll really like. They're not mine I can't remember the artist nothing untoward. True art. If I can find them, I'm going to DM. After 9000 pictures, I'm understanding the handiness of those things called "album" 🙈
Amy I loved reading every moment of this one. The double standard for women, the learning and unlearning of romantic partnerships. Of self love. Everything you reflected here hit home so deeply. Thank you for holding up the mirror, my queen. ❤️🪞
Thank you K for always being your wonderful self. I’m both happy and sad this piece resonated with you and many other women. Happy that my writing connects us together, but sad at the circumstances that bind us. It’s exhausting being a woman, and we usually put our other roles first, wife, mother, daughter, employee etc.
Amy this is so insightful and incredibly well written. I believe you and I are close in age from our stories. I’m not a widow, but understand grief and loss from a personal and also my work perspective. There’s something very appealing about a woman who’s already lost a massive love and who doesn’t want to necessarily get married again or have children. In my case that ship has sailed and I have a lot of fun while looking for the next great love of my life. I also know when to walk away. Peace to the Marcos of the world.
Thank you so much Kristin for this incredibly generous compliment 🥰. By the time women have reached our 40s and 50s we've known one type of loss or another. Most likely multiple losses. I've found dating without the "end goal" of marriage and children to be very confusing. Maybe it's part nature and nurture for cis women to envision partnering with a man will follow a specific trajectory? Now that I'm 57 I'm not sure what I want.
There is a feeling of safety within a committed relationship, but I always found the trade off was giving up part of who I was to make the relationship "work". Or maybe it was just that all the emotional labor, on top of the mental and physical load, used up my time and energy so there was nothing left for me? It's scary to think about because by all conventional measures I had a great husband: financially secure provider, sensitive, thoughtful, loving, very involved father, etc.
However, like most men, he didn't have the awareness that emotional labor is necessary to keep a relationship healthy over time. I'm not sure women are conscious of it either, but that's just what we do. We make sure our emotional connection is strong, but it's so much work when men don't know how to express their feelings.
All this to say, I'm done carrying the emotional load alone. It left me with little energy and motivation to follow my own creative pursuits. I'll either find an incredibly evolved man, or I'll stick to having fun along the way, as you said. Indeed, peace to the Marcos of the world, we've got stories to write, people to meet and places to go. We are unstoppable 🥰😍❤️
You’re quite welcome. It’s so nice to see and be seen isn’t it? I may have to sit with this and send you an epic response to your epic reply to my comment in a day or two. For now just wow and xoxo!!
Agreed. I like to think when things don't work out it's because they weren't meant to. You got out of it what you were supposed to, in the time you were given, and it wasn't perfect so you wouldn't linger. I've had relationships where I KNEW, we were supposed to be together. The guy ended up enforcing the break up-- and at the time I was devastated, only to learn later it was the right thing to do.
I I think the positive in all of it is you're still young enough to do what YOU want. Whatever that may entail. I think you're on the right path and I know you're going to accomplish whatever you set your sights on.
Thank you so much Renee. I am grateful that we met, and I value your opinion as someone with decades of experience in the publishing industry. I agree that people come into our lives for a season and a reason that only becomes clear in hindsight. It's almost impossible to make sense of things while we are grieving and heartbroken, but eventually we can make meaning out of those difficult lessons. XO 🥰🙏
Oh. Amy. So much here. I see your grief and I see your pain, but what really shines through is your heart and your courage.
I think you are amaxing for getting through the grief and loss of your husband, first through a sensual, creative outlet of your own choosing. Then, facing these last two years head on, without men, sex, alcohol or more lingerie, is true badassery. 💪🏻
Rom com movies and romance novels have really messed with women’s (and men’s, to a lesser degree) expectations in relationships. Not only do they create a desire for something largely fantastical, but also, unhealthy.
We are taught to look for indications of “love” through over the top, love bombing behaviors. Also. The pretend stories always end where in real life the true intimacy just begins: when life gets messy and you find out who you’re in relationship with and if you two work well together.
In my open marriage, I dated a married man-he was *not* in an open marriage. For years, he was my kryptonite. We’d only met for sex once, but oof, the emotional intimacy and connection felt deeo and rare. I was convinced he was the only man I could feel that with. It was hard for me to let him go. I broke up with him several times. He always let me know he’d welcome me back, and he did. So dangerous. Only after some time in sobriety and working on my love addiction issues, have I been able to truly let go of him. Blocking helps, ha. I need the firm boundary-for myself.
Go you for cutting off that relationship, even if it was imperfect and self protecting. Post separation and lots of dating. I’ve ended numerous relationships first, both to avoid pain, but also because I knew that the relationship wouldn’t meet my needs. Those men & those relationships thogh were both a bridge to my current relationship, but even more so, a bridge to a more authentic, stronger me.
You are a wise woman Rosemary, and I can't thank you enough for opening up to me. As I read your comment (multiple times 😍) I kept saying "Yass!" So many truths here. The way we bend ourselves like pretzels, mold ourselves to fit into whatever shaped container a man is offering his "love". The parts of ourselves we are willing to compromise could break my heart, but we didn't know any better.
Badassery is one of my favorite words, and to have that used to describe me is a true honor. There's a collective enlightenment happening among women in our 40s, 50s and 60s that marriage to a man, even a "good" one, requires us to compromise parts of ourselves to make it work. We do the emotional labor that's required within any lasting relationship, on top of the mental and physical labor required to run a household and raise children.
I am not beating up on all men, they were never taught to please anyone but themselves the way girls are taught to please everyone (ourselves last of course). There's got to be a better balance, but I haven't seen it yet. I'm not sure where that leaves us, but the awakening is the first step.
Maybe if we knew going into marriage (with a man - even a good one) that so much more would be required of us to make it "work", we wouldn't be so angry and disappointed? Would we still want marriage if we knew that we would have to sacrifice parts of ourselves to stay together?
I had a good marriage, and a very loving and devoted husband (he was the best dad too), but I did give up more of myself to make it work. I'm not sure if I was entirely conscious of it, and I'm sure I told myself that it was a "normal" part of being in a long-term committed relationship. It's only now that I see that we equate women's sacrifice as normal while it isn't for men.
I don't know where we go from here. Do we raise the next generation of girls/women to know that the they will be responsible for the emotional labor required to make marriage to a man work because that's always been our job?
My son is 12. He's a sensitive and empathetic kid, but as he's on the threshold of puberty I see how much society and his peers will influence the man that he becomes. I am no match for the messaging he receives the importance, or lack of, emotional intelligence. Honestly, my focus is on raising him to see women and girls as people and not just a means to fulfilling his needs.
Okay, I'll stop here. Thank you again my friend. I may need to write another book!
I love it when the stars align and I find exactly what I need to read at exactly the right time. I'm so happy when I have the honor to do that for someone else. Thank you for letting me know 🙏🥰😍
You needed both for comfort…like the saying “ people come in to our lives for reason or season…” but you learned so much about yourself, you’ve grown… right here on Substack we’ve watched you grow confident and brave and bold! That’s the happy ending, Ames… self love! ❤️🙃🤗
Joan, you understand me in a certain way like no other. You are such a rockstar, and I'm happy to be one of your groupies. XO 🥰😍❤️🤣
I am remiss. I'm just now editing. And I can't. I always forget about that in this particular sub category of the platform. I know I spelled your name right. I hate auto correct and spellcheck anyway but when it does that to a name .....
I beg your pardon. I sincerely apologize.
I completely agree. For me at least, if I am mindful that the cosmos is spinning as it should things turn out great. When I am absent that mindfulness, try to manipulate the cosmos for my own self absorbed benefit, things go sideways.
I love your narrative and perfect choice of word, Joann!
Grief and growth can work together to bring insight and joy. You show that every day in your work and your life. And no, you haven’t been overcrowding my inbox. Take your time. See you when you get back. ❤️💕🥰
You always lift me up Mary, thank you so much. I'm so inspired by your work, and always look for your new stories to devour when you post. I'll be hanging around in the comments. XOXO 🥰😍❤️
Amy, you are a huge inspiration to me and to your growing community of readers. Your passion and courage keep me hopeful. Thank you for sharing the painful parts of your story along with the joys. You are the best. 💕🙏🫶🥰
Well, I'm grateful that all of this led us to connect. Personally, I find it refreshing when a story of grief and growth doesn't get wrapped up in a pretty little bow of "here's my new relationship." And anyway, stories keep changing. Look at Liz Gilbert for example - she found new love at the end of Eat, Pray, Love...then she got divorced...then she met someone new...then that person died. It's always evolving. ❤️
I was thinking about Eat, Pray, Love, and how the traditional happy ending helped make the book so popular. But Liz was in her 30s back then, and that's what the happy ending looks like at that age (for better or worse). I think women in our 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond are looking for something different. Many of us have already had that happy ending and you're right, it isn't an ending at all. It didn't make our whole lives happy either. I'm like you, interested in exploring what's next, and wondering what my next evolution going to look like. So happy to know you my gorgeous friend! I can't wait to see what's next for you ❤️😍❤️😍
I just saw this btw - for some reason Substack isn’t alerting me when people reply to my comments! Anyway, yes, totally, I don’t think the book would have been that popular without the happy ending, and yes, I think a more complex, mature truth is what middle-aged women are craving.
Spot. On. !!!!
Thank you for your perspective.
A couple of thoughts I had reading: Sometimes people are bridges not endpoints, and growth often (usually) occurs during our most difficult times. 🌷❤️
I love this Susan! I’m so glad we connected. You’re one fine writer and photographer! XO 🥰🙏
YES! In every single one of the worlds symbolic written form languages, the EXACT same symbol for "crisis" is used for the word "opportunity."
That's so cool, I had no idea.
Isn't it? The best part? It's true story....🤣🤪🤣
Amy I loved this because what you’re saying is that there is no ending, to anything. To your grief, to your exploration of new relationships, to your coming into your center. I can’t wait to read this memoir.
Thank you Tanmeet! I hold you and your writing in such high esteem, I appreciate your confidence in me 🥰🙏
Amy, this is a great post! I'm sorry for the grieve you have gone through/going through, and I love how you ended this post: that maybe not getting the guy is the point. Congratulations on your memoir writing. I find writing to be cathartic. I love when you say, "I connected with other like-minded creators, and for the first time rather than shrink who I was, I doubled down and became more of who I was always meant to be." Creative pursuits are key.
Thank you Beth! I really was stuck wondering how do you end a grief odyssey on a sad and lonely note? It's really a change in perspective, and challenging what "happily ever after" looks like NOW.
I think we all know that in reality there is no happily ever after - life is messy, and wonderful, there's both pain and joy. Still, I think hope is important. I recently read an inspiring quote by Rebecca Solnit, "It [hope] is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency."
Hope is not something you hold onto, it's something you use when faced with unimaginable pain. It's learning to see that with every ending, there's a new beginning, and like a muscle, it gets stronger with consistent repetition.
While reading this emerged: Amy, to live and seek love is courageous. To dance through grief and create art through it is an evolution of the heart. We are braver than we think raised on these fairytale dreams! Super grateful for your friendship and your writing. All is ever in motion. Even the earth is not static. The sun rises and sets. Embrace what is. Love you as you are. Tender care of your own heart and cultivate joy for you. See you on the interwebs. 💛🌟💛
More gorgeous writing from you in the comments, I love it. I am grateful to have met you too, and look forward to reading your next poem, or whatever comes down the pike for you. You have such a generous heart, I'm really lucky to have you in my life. I'll be seeing you on these interwebs, that's for sure 🥰🥰🥰
Thank you, Amy. 💛
Best happily ever after ever ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Thank you my darling Mesa! I feel my eyes leaking as I realize this part of my grief odyssey is over. I'm taking you with me wherever I go next (virtually or irl), so buckle up beautiful, you never know what's coming next 😍🤣🥰❤️
I’ll follow you anywhere!! You’re stuck with me now ❤️❤️❤️
What a beautiful "ending".
Thank you so much David! Welcome to my Stack 🥰
Wow! Deep and highly personal. The strongest kind of courage exhibited here. Good on you!
Thank you so much Hudson! This one took me a good long time to figure out.
I can only imagine. to share and work through one's insecurities in broad daylight, in front of your God and everyone is bold!
"Victory, a reward of the BOLD. To the victors go the spoils."
Gaius Julius Caesar
I do have standing on this topic. I have more baggage than the average Coastal Starlight Amtrak excursion.... just between you and me, of course.
LMAO
I've got some pictures you'll really like. They're not mine I can't remember the artist nothing untoward. True art. If I can find them, I'm going to DM. After 9000 pictures, I'm understanding the handiness of those things called "album" 🙈
Amy I loved reading every moment of this one. The double standard for women, the learning and unlearning of romantic partnerships. Of self love. Everything you reflected here hit home so deeply. Thank you for holding up the mirror, my queen. ❤️🪞
Thank you K for always being your wonderful self. I’m both happy and sad this piece resonated with you and many other women. Happy that my writing connects us together, but sad at the circumstances that bind us. It’s exhausting being a woman, and we usually put our other roles first, wife, mother, daughter, employee etc.
Amy this is so insightful and incredibly well written. I believe you and I are close in age from our stories. I’m not a widow, but understand grief and loss from a personal and also my work perspective. There’s something very appealing about a woman who’s already lost a massive love and who doesn’t want to necessarily get married again or have children. In my case that ship has sailed and I have a lot of fun while looking for the next great love of my life. I also know when to walk away. Peace to the Marcos of the world.
All this makes us fearless and unstoppable. ❤️❤️
Thank you so much Kristin for this incredibly generous compliment 🥰. By the time women have reached our 40s and 50s we've known one type of loss or another. Most likely multiple losses. I've found dating without the "end goal" of marriage and children to be very confusing. Maybe it's part nature and nurture for cis women to envision partnering with a man will follow a specific trajectory? Now that I'm 57 I'm not sure what I want.
There is a feeling of safety within a committed relationship, but I always found the trade off was giving up part of who I was to make the relationship "work". Or maybe it was just that all the emotional labor, on top of the mental and physical load, used up my time and energy so there was nothing left for me? It's scary to think about because by all conventional measures I had a great husband: financially secure provider, sensitive, thoughtful, loving, very involved father, etc.
However, like most men, he didn't have the awareness that emotional labor is necessary to keep a relationship healthy over time. I'm not sure women are conscious of it either, but that's just what we do. We make sure our emotional connection is strong, but it's so much work when men don't know how to express their feelings.
All this to say, I'm done carrying the emotional load alone. It left me with little energy and motivation to follow my own creative pursuits. I'll either find an incredibly evolved man, or I'll stick to having fun along the way, as you said. Indeed, peace to the Marcos of the world, we've got stories to write, people to meet and places to go. We are unstoppable 🥰😍❤️
You’re quite welcome. It’s so nice to see and be seen isn’t it? I may have to sit with this and send you an epic response to your epic reply to my comment in a day or two. For now just wow and xoxo!!
There is only one real ending, and it is what it is. Not much one can do about, except to make the most of this finite present moment.
Simply and beautifully stated. Thank you 🙏🥰
Agreed. I like to think when things don't work out it's because they weren't meant to. You got out of it what you were supposed to, in the time you were given, and it wasn't perfect so you wouldn't linger. I've had relationships where I KNEW, we were supposed to be together. The guy ended up enforcing the break up-- and at the time I was devastated, only to learn later it was the right thing to do.
I I think the positive in all of it is you're still young enough to do what YOU want. Whatever that may entail. I think you're on the right path and I know you're going to accomplish whatever you set your sights on.
Thank you so much Renee. I am grateful that we met, and I value your opinion as someone with decades of experience in the publishing industry. I agree that people come into our lives for a season and a reason that only becomes clear in hindsight. It's almost impossible to make sense of things while we are grieving and heartbroken, but eventually we can make meaning out of those difficult lessons. XO 🥰🙏
Like I said, things happen for a reason 😉
Oh. Amy. So much here. I see your grief and I see your pain, but what really shines through is your heart and your courage.
I think you are amaxing for getting through the grief and loss of your husband, first through a sensual, creative outlet of your own choosing. Then, facing these last two years head on, without men, sex, alcohol or more lingerie, is true badassery. 💪🏻
Rom com movies and romance novels have really messed with women’s (and men’s, to a lesser degree) expectations in relationships. Not only do they create a desire for something largely fantastical, but also, unhealthy.
We are taught to look for indications of “love” through over the top, love bombing behaviors. Also. The pretend stories always end where in real life the true intimacy just begins: when life gets messy and you find out who you’re in relationship with and if you two work well together.
In my open marriage, I dated a married man-he was *not* in an open marriage. For years, he was my kryptonite. We’d only met for sex once, but oof, the emotional intimacy and connection felt deeo and rare. I was convinced he was the only man I could feel that with. It was hard for me to let him go. I broke up with him several times. He always let me know he’d welcome me back, and he did. So dangerous. Only after some time in sobriety and working on my love addiction issues, have I been able to truly let go of him. Blocking helps, ha. I need the firm boundary-for myself.
Go you for cutting off that relationship, even if it was imperfect and self protecting. Post separation and lots of dating. I’ve ended numerous relationships first, both to avoid pain, but also because I knew that the relationship wouldn’t meet my needs. Those men & those relationships thogh were both a bridge to my current relationship, but even more so, a bridge to a more authentic, stronger me.
Can’t wait to read your memoir.
You are a wise woman Rosemary, and I can't thank you enough for opening up to me. As I read your comment (multiple times 😍) I kept saying "Yass!" So many truths here. The way we bend ourselves like pretzels, mold ourselves to fit into whatever shaped container a man is offering his "love". The parts of ourselves we are willing to compromise could break my heart, but we didn't know any better.
Badassery is one of my favorite words, and to have that used to describe me is a true honor. There's a collective enlightenment happening among women in our 40s, 50s and 60s that marriage to a man, even a "good" one, requires us to compromise parts of ourselves to make it work. We do the emotional labor that's required within any lasting relationship, on top of the mental and physical labor required to run a household and raise children.
I am not beating up on all men, they were never taught to please anyone but themselves the way girls are taught to please everyone (ourselves last of course). There's got to be a better balance, but I haven't seen it yet. I'm not sure where that leaves us, but the awakening is the first step.
Maybe if we knew going into marriage (with a man - even a good one) that so much more would be required of us to make it "work", we wouldn't be so angry and disappointed? Would we still want marriage if we knew that we would have to sacrifice parts of ourselves to stay together?
I had a good marriage, and a very loving and devoted husband (he was the best dad too), but I did give up more of myself to make it work. I'm not sure if I was entirely conscious of it, and I'm sure I told myself that it was a "normal" part of being in a long-term committed relationship. It's only now that I see that we equate women's sacrifice as normal while it isn't for men.
I don't know where we go from here. Do we raise the next generation of girls/women to know that the they will be responsible for the emotional labor required to make marriage to a man work because that's always been our job?
My son is 12. He's a sensitive and empathetic kid, but as he's on the threshold of puberty I see how much society and his peers will influence the man that he becomes. I am no match for the messaging he receives the importance, or lack of, emotional intelligence. Honestly, my focus is on raising him to see women and girls as people and not just a means to fulfilling his needs.
Okay, I'll stop here. Thank you again my friend. I may need to write another book!
This is exactly what I needed to read today. I’ve been working on being completely happy and completely complete without being in a relationship
I love it when the stars align and I find exactly what I need to read at exactly the right time. I'm so happy when I have the honor to do that for someone else. Thank you for letting me know 🙏🥰😍
<3