BW 184: Stuck In The In‑Between: Hope For Widows Who Feel Forgotten

[TRANSCRIPT BELOW]

In this episode, Emily Tanner (founder of Brave Widow) talks about the “in‑between” season of widowhood: the space between the life you had and the life you can’t yet see. She unpacks why this hidden season is not a punishment but a place of formation, how to wrestle honestly with God without pretending, and a simple 3‑step framework to start moving forward, even when you still feel sad, foggy, or unsure.

 

00:00 – Living In The In‑Between  

01:10 – When Your Old Life Is Gone And The Future Feels Blank  

03:05 – Signs You’re In The In‑Between  

04:10 – Feeling Forgotten By God  

05:15 – Elijah, The Wilderness, And Hidden Seasons  

06:20 – Israel In The Desert & Grief As Lament  

07:15 – Can I Still Trust God After He Didn’t Answer My Prayer?  

08:10 – Praying Through Tears Without Pretending  

10:00 – “Waiting On God” vs Doing Nothing  

11:10 – What Faithful Waiting Really Looks Like  

14:00 – “If I’m Still Sad, I Shouldn’t Move Forward”  

15:05 – Forcing Outcomes vs Faithful Action  

16:00 – A 3‑Step Framework For The In‑Between: Anchor – Act – Attune  

19:30 – What God’s Guidance Usually Feels Like  

20:00 – The In‑Between As Formation, Not Failure  

22:00 – Life Update: Nathan’s Birthday & Graveside Sunrise  

23:20 – Holding Two Truths: Grieving Nathan & Loving Robert  

27:00 – Growing Your Capacity To Hold Mixed Emotions  

31:40 – Final Encouragement For The In‑Between  

 

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• What the “in‑between” is
• Not the crisis moment and not the fully rebuilt chapter
• Signs you’re in it: you can function but feel hollow, invisible, or forgotten
• Why decision‑making feels impossible when you don’t know who you are now
• Hidden seasons in Scripture
• Elijah in the wilderness and God’s slow rebuilding work
• Israel in the desert learning to trust and depend on God daily
• Jesus’ 30 hidden years, David’s years between anointing and the throne
• Why being unseen doesn’t mean you’re unimportant or unproductive
• Wrestling honestly with God
• Confusion when God feels “good” on paper but not in your reality
• Why biblical faith doesn’t skip pain; it brings pain to God
• How stuffing questions and stopping prayer keeps you stuck
• Waiting on God vs. taking action
• Common trap: “If I move, I’m not trusting God”
• What faithful waiting actually looks like: seeking, listening, obeying the next step
• The difference between forcing outcomes vs. taking small, surrendered steps
• A 3‑step framework for the in‑between
• Anchor – simple daily anchors (prayer, Scripture, boundaries, movement)
• Act – identify what you want “more of” (peace, gentleness, stability, purpose) and take tiny actions toward that
• Attune – regularly ask: What brings peace vs. pressure? Where do I sense God inviting me? What lights even a small spark?
• Growing your capacity to hold “both/and”
• Emily’s story of honoring Nathan’s birthday while preparing to celebrate her anniversary with Robert
• Learning to hold grief and joy, past love and new love, loss and hope, without one erasing the other
• Why expanding your emotional capacity makes life feel lighter and more grounded
• Life update
• Visiting Nathan’s graveside on his birthday
• Upcoming anniversary trip with Robert
• A teaser for an upcoming Q&A episode with Robert on dating/marrying a widow

Resources mentioned:

• Elijah: Faith and Fire by Priscilla Shirer
• Just Be Honest: How to Pray When You’re Suffering by Clint Watkins

 

🌱 READY FOR DEEPER SUPPORT?

If you’re tired of feeling lost, lonely, and second‑guessing every decision, Brave Widow Academy is a 6‑month, faith‑based coaching program to help you rebuild a life you can love again.

 

Learn more:

https://bravewidow.com/academy

Book a free no‑pressure consult:
https://bravewidow.com/call

 

💬 If this episode helped you, please: 

• Hit Subscribe 
• Leave a quick rating & review – it helps more widows find this support
• Share this with a friend who’s facing grief or the holidays without their person

 

 

If you’re new here, my name is Emily Tanner. I’m the founder of Brave Widow and Brave Widow Academy.

 

I help widows move from barely surviving their loss… to rebuilding a life they can actually love again without feeling like they’re betraying their person.

 

By day (and for 20+ years), I’ve led large teams and complex operations in the corporate world. 

 

After my husband Nathan died in 2021, just shy of our 20-year anniversary, I took everything I knew about leadership, systems, and change — and started applying it to grief.

 

Since then, I’ve:

Shared my story publicly to make widows feel less alone.

Launched the Brave Widow podcast, now with 180+ episodes and listeners around the world.

Coached hundreds of widows 1:1 and in groups, and talked with thousands more through the podcast, communities, and events.

Built Brave Widow Academy, a 6-month coaching program with a clear framework for moving from deep grief to rebuilding a life you can love again.

 

I don’t teach “just think positive” grief tips.

 

I teach widows how to:

Heal their heart.

Stop waiting on “time” to fix everything.

Take small, brave steps toward a life that feels meaningful again.

 

How I Got Here…

 

2021: My husband Nathan dies unexpectedly. I’m 4 kids in, overwhelmed, and drowning in paperwork, decisions, and pain. Therapy helps, but I still feel stuck with no roadmap.

 

2021–2022: I start devouring books, interviewing widows, trying grief groups, and studying coaching — desperate to find something that actually helps me feel different.

 

2022: I start the Brave Widow podcast, recording episodes while terrified and crying between takes — but determined that no widow should feel as alone as I did.

 

Year 1: I begin coaching widows 1:1. Word spreads quietly. The same patterns and problems keep showing up, so I start building frameworks instead of one-off advice.

 

Year 2: I launch Brave Widow Academy — a structured, 6-month coaching program with a step-by-step path: from deep grief, to stability, to rebuilding.

 

Year 3: Brave Widow has listeners around the world. I’ve personally coached hundreds of widows and spoken with thousands more through consults, lives, emails, and DMs. 

 

Today: My work is simple:

 

Help widows stop white-knuckling their way through each day… and start rebuilding a life that makes them genuinely glad to be alive again.

 

You don’t have to do it alone. 💜

 

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Emily: [00:00:00] If you've ever felt like you're living in the in-between, between the life that you had and whatever life may have in store for you in the future, this episode is for you. By the way, if you're new. My name is Emily Tanner. I'm the founder of Brave Widow and I help widows heal their heart and build a life they can love.

Again. If you want structured support and a plan for moving through grief, you can find out [email protected].

All right, so there is this thing about grief that people don't often talk about or really talk about enough about, which is living in the in-between, between the life that you knew, the life that you had, the old you, the old life that is now in ash, it's gone, and whatever is in store for you for the future.

In the beginning, a lot of times people don't want the future. They wanna go back to the past. They want to go back to the life that they had [00:01:00] before. And so thinking about the future is not appealing. We don't want the future. We don't wanna think about it. We just feel like life is over and then. As you start to heal, as you get your feet underneath you, you start to recognize that you're in this very strange season.

For me, I remember feeling so untethered, so like I was drifting out in the ocean on this tiny boat and I was just riding all these different waves of grief that would come, and I didn't know which way to go. I'm like, how? How can I step forward? How could I even think about moving forward when I don't even know which way to turn the boat?

What if I turn it in the wrong direction? What if this actually takes me backwards? Like it was really unsettling because for the first time in as long as I could remember. I didn't know who I [00:02:00] was now. I didn't know what I would want for my future. I couldn't envision any goals or dreams or things that I wanted for myself, and that was so hard.

Because I'm always been an ambitious person. Very entrepreneurial, very goal oriented, very action oriented. And I always had some sort of goal or dream or thing that I was aiming towards, whether it was getting married or having kids or my career or wanting to start a business or retirement.

Like all of those things were just. Like normal to me to have those. And so now I was in this weird vortex of reality where I didn't know what I wanted. Every dream that I had before was now up for a question like, did I even still want that? And I didn't know. And I didn't know how to figure it out. So [00:03:00] if you feel like, or you felt like you're living in this weird InBetween season, I want you to know that you're not alone.

What is the InBetween? It's not a crisis moment, and it's not the fully rebuilt chapter. It's this middle space. Where you may be grieving, disoriented, and quietly being remade,

how can you know you're in the in-between? Here are some ways you might know. you can function, but you don't fully feel alive. I felt like a hollow version of myself, like a shell of the person that I was before, like a shadow, just floating through life.

And life was just happening around me, but I wasn't really alive. If you've ever been up at night taking care of a newborn who doesn't sleep well, you get into this zombie mode where you're not sleeping well, you, it's really hard to function.

Everything's really foggy. It felt a lot like that. You also may feel like you want direction, but decision making feels [00:04:00] impossible. You might also be praying and looking for clarity, but you feel foggy or you feel stuck.

Here's something that I wish that I knew. I thought I was forgotten. I thought I was invisible. I thought I didn't matter That. I peaked in life and it was all downhill from there and that it was just, I was off everyone's radar. And it wasn't until I went through this Bible study that I realized that when we were in the in-between.

Often people do feel invisible. They feel hidden away from the world, and actually that's on purpose. That's intentional because the in-between isn't a place where God has forgotten us. It's a place where God forms us, recreates us, refines us, allows us to build up our strength. Again, it's a space. [00:05:00] Where formation and transformation happens.

The Bible study book that I read that was really helpful is by Priscilla Shire and it's called Elijah Faith and Fire. And you wouldn't think that Elijah out in the wilderness would have much to do with grief or widow hood, but it actually resonated a lot with me. I, and I would end up ultimately going through that study two or three times.

Because it really spoke to me of how desolate Elijah felt out in the wilderness, how he felt forgotten, and like he just God, just, I just need to die. I'm just, I'm over it. I've, I've done everything that you've asked. I don't wanna live like this anymore. And the things that God did to allow him to rest to rebuild strength to be transformed for the next season of life is very similar to what we go through as widows.

I think [00:06:00] about the Israelites that were out in the wilderness before they went to the promised land in the wilderness. They had daily provision. They relearned how to trust God. They built a new identity and dependence on God.

If we read the book of Psalms, Psalms are not victory speeches. Many times they are grief prayers. They are a lament of faith. That tells also the truth. God is not threatened by your sorrow, your anger. Your confusion or your questions, and one of the tough things about grief is we feel like maybe God can't, not that God can't handle it, but we feel like maybe it's wrong.

It's wrong to bring our questions to God. It's wrong to bring our frustrations to God, or our anger or our confusion. This is one of the top things that. Several widows struggle with that I work with closely in our [00:07:00] academy or in our coaching, is just this confusion of, the Bible says that God is good and he wants things that are good for us and that he hears our prayer, but he didn't hear my prayer.

At least he didn't answer it the way I wanted him to. So is God trustworthy? Is he, can I rely on him? I don't know. We shove all that down inside, we stop praying because it feels disingenuous. We stop singing in church or even going to church because church feels like it's all about joy and victory and how amazing and wonderful God is, and we're just sitting there like I guess God forgot about me

because I don't feel victorious. I don't feel joyful. I don't feel all these things that we're supposed to have joy in the Lord. I haven't felt joy in a really long time, and so it can just build a lot of confusion and I work closely with my clients on, like unpacking the [00:08:00] picture in our mind of how it's supposed to be when we pray to God or when we have honest conversations.

And in fact there's an amazing book called, just Be Honest, by Clint Watkins, that does a much more eloquent and beautiful job at explaining it than me. But it's one of my top recommended books on how to wrestle with grief. How to pray through tears without pretending, and it is a really good explanation and walk through of how we can bring our honest conversations to God and what the difference is between when we have our honest concerns and things that are hard versus just grumbling and complaining for the sake of complaining.

So if you haven't read it, it's really amazing read. I'll put both those books in the show notes. Biblical faith doesn't skip pain. It brings pain to God.

I'm gonna say that again. Biblical faith doesn't skip pain. It brings pain to God.

[00:09:00] Hidden seasons are real seasons. Think about, here are a few examples. When Jesus had, before he had his public ministry, he had 30 years where largely he was pretty much unseen. David was anointed and then had years before he became King, and there were many times that he felt his life was in danger.

Ruth. Story of Ruth. She experienced great loss, survival, and then season where she was working, she was unseen, she was living life, and then she was redeemed. So just because you're in a season where you feel in between or you feel unseen, that doesn't mean that it's unproductive. It doesn't mean that things aren't happening in this in between.

All right, so let's talk about this tension of waiting on God versus taking action [00:10:00] because so many times people will say I'm just waiting on God. I'm just, I'm sitting here. I'm just waiting. I'm just waiting for him to come rescue me, for him to make things happen in my life and my heart really hurts when I talk to widows who like.

They take a step, they schedule a consult, they wanna learn more about Brave Widow or how they can get help, how they can get some next steps and direction. And I've had a couple of people who have said things like I've been waiting seven years. I'm waiting on God. And so I, I just don't know that this is right for me.

I'm just gonna keep waiting on God. Okay, but what if. What if you found me? Because God was sending you a lifeline. God was sending you something to help you, someone to help you. Waiting in scripture often looks like seeking, listening, trusting, obeying the very next step, refusing shortcuts [00:11:00] that compromise.

Value waiting is not always the absence of movement. It's the presence of surrender. It's I am taking these little baby steps forward and I am waiting on God to continue to guide my steps, to bring opportunity to me, to show me the way that I'm supposed to go. Waiting on God isn't sitting on the couch and doing nothing because you think that.

Something magical is gonna happen and one day you're just gonna feel normal and life's gonna go back to the way that it was. There are a lot of common misunderstandings that widows get trapped in, especially in this in-between season. Okay? One misconception is, if I take action, then I'm not trusting God.

The reality is that. Faith moves. Obedience is taking action, taking steps forward. Like when I was looking for [00:12:00] our next personal home, I didn't just wait on God to put a home on my Facebook page. I looked online for different homes, and one that, I could find, and there was one.

I thought that would be perfect. I know I've shared this story before on an episode, but I found this house and I thought, oh, this would be perfect. Like it's right next to the land where eventually we're gonna be building a home. I could drive by every day and see how the progress is happening on the property.

It was big enough. It needed some work done on the inside and a new roof. For the most part, things were, other than the roof, it was very cosmetic. And so to me, I was like, oh, this is great. Like this is the house. This is the one. And we got an offer. It was accepted. We did some more negotiations and ultimately the deal fell through just a couple days before we were supposed to close, like on 4th of July weekend, the deal fell through.

And it was [00:13:00] disappointing and frustrating that happened, but because I believe that God guides my steps as I'm taking action, I sank back into this sense of peace of, okay, that wasn't the one like I was. I'm taking action. I am, taking these steps forward and God will open and close different doors.

Based on where I need to go and the stores closed. Like I had settled in my heart if we could not reach a certain negotiation point that it was just not gonna be a good investment for us and we couldn't reach that point. And then a few weeks later, we would find the house that ultimately we would move into and it was move-in ready and we didn't have to do anything to it.

And it was way less expensive than the other house. Now I'm five minutes from my kid's school, which is amazing. And so even though initially in my mind I thought this other house was gonna be like as closest to perfect as what I had [00:14:00] envisioned, I am willing to wait on God to surrender in the process of him guiding my steps.

But I'm taking steps. I am trying to. Allow things to happen. I'm not just sitting on my couch and waiting for God to bring me the perfect house on a plate. Another misconception people have is if I'm still sad, then I shouldn't do anything. Like I, I shouldn't do anything. And grief and rebuilding can coexist.

So there is a a time. Where I do encourage people to do less, especially in the beginning, to rest, to do less, to lower the expectations you have for yourself to just allow your heart to heal and to survive. Because in the beginning, in that first season of grief, that rawness, we just want to survive.

So there is a season where we do want to rest and just get our feet underneath us. But then in [00:15:00] this season of in between we're in more of a maintenance mode. We're in the isolation or the self-discovery seasons, and we're trying to figure out what is next for us And so we can still be grieving and also learning how to rebuild, learning how to try new things and meet new people and figure out what possibly could be in the store for us.

So what is the difference between trying to force something to happen and taking faithful steps and action forward?

So forcing often looks like we're trying to outrun pain, we're making major decisions to numb loneliness. We're chasing a quick relief, or we're trying to prove that we're fine, we're okay, and so we're gonna push, push, push. We're gonna force and things to happen versus taking faithful action. Looks like taking small steps.

Aligned with wisdom, [00:16:00] peace, and support. It looks like structure that stabilizes your nervous system. It looks like choosing community over choosing isolation, and it looks like making choices that honor your grief and also your future.

Okay, so what can we do in this season of in between? What are the things that are helpful? So I'm gonna give you a quick three step framework that will help you. Step number one, we're going to anchor in our day. So this might be a five minute prayer. It might be reading your Bible and meditating on the words that are there. It might be implementing a boundary that you need to protect your time and your energy, or the people that you allow into your life.

It might be a daily habit of walking or yoga or something that just brings you to a place of peace and mindfulness. Number two, we're going [00:17:00] to act, so what I encourage widows to do and what I help my clients do is when you don't have goals. You don't have dreams. You don't know what you want more of in your life.

We make a list of what it is you want more of in your life, okay? And what I mean by that is adjectives. Do you want more gentleness? Do you want more kindness? Do you want more adventure, more travel, more? Financial security, more structure, more organization like if you were just to set a timer for one minute and ask yourself, what are, what do I want more of in my life right now in this season?

And write down all the words that come to mind. Pick one or two of those words. Every day, focus on that. Take action to bring more of that into your life. So if you want more [00:18:00] gentleness, what are the things that you can build in your life that will bring more gentleness and more ease? For me, it was lowering expectations I had of myself lowering the commitments.

That I would make to other people or for activities, it was doing less. Instead of doing more, it was simplifying my life. But for you, it could look like a lot of different things. But as we decide what it is we're gonna act on, we can look at a goal that we might have or what we want more of in our life that helps us continue to take those baby steps forward.

Okay, so we have anchor. Act and attune

so we can have this routine cadence of just evaluating how. Are we in this in-between season evaluating as we're trying new things, as we're setting up this new life and we're experimenting and we're testing and we're trying different things, is [00:19:00] to just really ask ourselves like, what are the things bringing me peace versus bringing me pressure?

What allowed me to feel more grounded? What has ramped up my anxiety? Where do I sense God is inviting me? To do more of what are the things that light me up on the inside that allow me to feel even a flicker of, oh yeah, I want more of that. Oh, yeah I could really see I felt really good helping someone that gave me a sense of purpose that made me feel helpful.

What are those things that bring up those emotions and how do we do more of that? How do we work more of that in.

God's guidance tends to carry clarity and conviction, not condemnation, not chaos, not confusion. And so as we're in this in-between and as we're taking these baby steps forward and we're considering what might part of our future. God [00:20:00] helps bring that clarity, that conviction, that calm, that peace, that can help be assigned to us that we're moving in the right direction.

Here's how I invite you to think about this season of the in-between. The in-between is not an empty space. The in-between is a space of formation, and God is not only preparing a next chapter for you, he's also rebuilding the person who will live that chapter.

And if you are in the in-between and you want some guidance, you want a roadmap, you want some next steps that you could take or that you could explore, this is exactly why I created Brave Widow Academy. I wanted someone who could help me understand like, what are these seasons of grief? What are the things that I can do to actively rebuild my life?

I was tired of waiting. People kept telling me, just give it time. Just give it time. [00:21:00] If you give it time, you'll feel better, but time was not working for me, was not helping. The pain was lessened. Some. But I still felt hollow. I still felt lost. I still felt like I was just drifting. And I, it's really snowy and icy here.

I felt like I was just sliding across the ice. I didn't have any traction. I wasn't going anywhere. And so if that is you, I wanna invite you to consider the Brave Widow Academy. You can learn more by going to brave widow.com/academy, and I would love to see you there. All right, now I'm going to shift into my life update for my amazing audience members who want to hear about that.

So today as I'm recording this, January 30th is Nathan's birthday. And for those of you that may not know, Nathan was my husband. It was my husband who died July of 2021. He was 40 years old when he died, and so [00:22:00] today is his birthday and he would've been 45. And so as I do nearly every year, I went out this morning to watch the sunrise.

Graveside at his at the cemetery. And I always, I have a playlist where I play some of songs that remind me of him or some of the songs I picked for his funeral service. And just, even though it's cold and it's icy and I couldn't even drive all the way, I had to walk slash slide over to where he, his, headstone is, I still had an enjoyable morning and drank coffee and watched the sun come up, and it was just really beautiful because it was, it's a cloudy day and so I had these special few minutes where the sun came up from behind the trees and was brilliant and had the most rich, gorgeous colors.

It's shone [00:23:00] brightly for several minutes, and then it got caught up in all the clouds and it was gone. And so it was just that window of time. And what I want you to know about the experience that I had today, because this came up in a couple of our groups that I coached over this week, is that part of what we learn to do is to expand our capacity to hold these big emotions and big concepts that feel opposite but true. So for example, I'm out there, I'm listening to these songs. I am being in the moment. And watching this beautiful sunrise and thinking about the 20 plus years that we had together and the four kids that we have together, and just the life and what I thought was new, what I knew at the time, and what I thought our life was gonna be, and all of those things, and how it was so strange now to be in this other [00:24:00] season that I never anticipated, I never saw coming.

While I'm sitting there thinking about, I'm also just observing the fact that on Sunday I am leaving to Mexico to celebrate my second wedding anniversary with Robert. And it was just amazing to be able to stand there and to look at both of these things and to know that both are true. To know that I, I feel them both.

And the fact that I was leaving on a trip on Sunday didn't diminish what I was there to do to honor Nathan's life and to honor the life that we had together, and the fact that I was there to do that. Didn't diminish the fact that I love Robert and I'm so glad that we met and that we have built this life together here, and I'm ready to get out of the cold and go someplace warmer.

Like I was just able to hold both [00:25:00] of those things at the same time without one taking from the other. And so I just wanna encourage you, as you're navigating grief and you're trying to figure out the guilt of. I laughed at a joke, and I should feel bad for laughing because I'm supposed to be grieving.

Or when you're trying to enjoy a happy moment and a wave of grief hits you and then you feel bad, you feel like you can't, you're not allowed to enjoy any happy moments that you can grow. You can expand your heart, you can expand your capacity to be able to hold all those jumbled up emotions and experiences all together.

To feel complete, to feel like that's okay, like that is life. Life is a bunch of jumbled up emotions. There's very rarely times when everything in life is perfect and we're happy and everything is going our way, and it's amazing and it stays like that for months and months and months. Normally something else happens or a [00:26:00] tire goes flat or some frustrating news comes in or whatever it is, like life is full of ups and downs. Life is full of opposite emotions and experiences. And so the more that we can grow our capacity, the more that we can learn how to hold and to acknowledge and honor all of those things just mixed up together.

The easier it is to reconcile that in our minds, the more we can sink into a place of peace, a place of contentment, and feeling grounded and feeling purposeful because we know these moments of happiness are to be savored, and these moments of difficulty are to be worked through and resolved with the knowledge that's not a forever season either.

We're gonna have these different moments or seasons or experiences, and so it was just perfect timing with the discussions that we had in the groups this week around how do you [00:27:00] reconcile those things? How do you grow and elevate your own ability to handle all of that and to not feel like you're juggling it and it's a balancing act and it's one or the other, but you're like, Nope, it's just both.

It's just both. And I love that it's crazy to say that, but I do love that now about my life when I was learning how to do it and how to think about it and how to coach myself through it. I didn't love it so much. I'm like, this is hard. This is, feels really hard. It feels really hard when you are trying to have a positive experience and then something else hits you.

Two years ago, almost three years ago now, actually, on Nathan's birthday, it was one day that I couldn't go out to the cemetery because we were totally snowed and iced in, and I lived in a very rural area, so I couldn't get out. And so I was mad, but while I was being mad and feeling sorry for myself, I ended up finding this beautiful pasture [00:28:00] land that was.

Perfect for my future home build, and I just had an experience that day where I was able to come to a place of peace that eventually I would want to sell that home and build a beautiful home in a place where I could have livestock and donkeys and things that I have now. And so I had that ex beautiful experience.

Of frustration and annoyance and also this very peaceful, like what felt like a gift to me. And then when I went to close on that property, just a couple of months later, I received notice that my mom had died. And on top of that, no one was planning a service. No one was gonna write even an obituary. My mom and I had a estranged relationship for a long time, and so on a day that was supposed to be happy, I was supposed to go close on this land where I was gonna build a home, and it was gonna be [00:29:00] beautiful and it was gonna be amazing.

I was fighting back tears the whole time because I was grieving not only the loss of my mom, but the loss of reconciliation in that relationship, and also the fact that no one else would write an obituary. And so now. That's something that I felt like needed to be done. I'm like, humans deserve to have an obituary, had an estranged relationship with my mom, but she wasn't a bad person.

Like she deserves to have her time here on earth. Acknowledged, honored. And so that afternoon I went home and wrote the obituary and sent it around to my siblings and family and got it turned in. And so again, it's. Happy, wonderful experience and something really hard and difficult to wrestle with. And it felt, at the time, it felt really unfair.

Why me? Why this day? God, you could have pushed it out at least a week. Why? Why am I having to navigate both of these opposite things at [00:30:00] the same time? And so three years ago, it was super frustrating. It felt so unfair. It felt like what should have been a good experience was just ruined.

And I wasn't angry at my mom for dying and ruining my day. That's not how I thought about it, but I'm like, what are the odds? This is just unfair. Can I not just have one good thing in my life? Like those are the thoughts I was having three years ago. But now, when we closed on our house here.

There were some issues with closing on the house because we'd set things up in a trust, but the people didn't do the paperwork right. And so we had a very short amount of time to run to the bank and talk with, a bunch of different people and get things like sorted out. And so that was frustrating too.

I just wanna close, close my house and move in and get all this stuff done. And why is this all so difficult? But as I navigated that. Because now that was a couple years later, I just had a very different experience. Like I was able to coach [00:31:00] myself through it. It was fine. It didn't ruin my day.

I didn't think about how unfair it was. I was just frustrated that I was having to deal with it because of the time constraints. But also it's that's sometimes that's just life. And so now I've just noticed over time, I've really grown my capacity to be able to hold all these, like the happiness and the frustration or the sadness and just hold all of it together and navigate through it, and it feels much lighter and easier to do.

Then when I started learning how to do that in the beginning. That's your additional life update and story. And I'm also gonna drop a little teaser that Robert and I are gonna be recording a podcast episode together. And so I've been asking people for questions that they wanna ask him, and I don't know by the time you all hear this, whether or not we will have recorded it.

But even if we have, if you wanna send some ideas for questions that you would have for Robert. About our relationship [00:32:00] or about dating a widow or marrying a widow he would be happy to answer them. And so I look forward to releasing that right before Valentine's Day, which will be really fun.

So if you are in the in-between, just know that I am with you. I will help you walk through this and there will be a season that is no longer in between. There will be your next season that you enter where you no longer feel like you are invisible, forgotten, unsure, unclear.

That will come and I would be honored to help you move to that next season.