Chess Pawn (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

Widowhood sometimes feels like a game of chess. I studiously ponder a move, only to be knocked out by the rook I hadn’t seen coming on my left.

Someone told me that in widowhood, there are no rules. Life does seem to have taken on a boundless quality since M died. All previous assumptions have been upended, there is a sensation of free-fall. Tabula rasa. M’s death has changed every area of my life, from the TV programmes I watch, to the food I eat. But I have discovered that there are rules of engagement, even in the realms of widowhood. Hierarchies form, those with tenure arbitrate among the newcomers. But how can thoughts and feelings be arbitrated?

This blog is probably the most audacious of moves I’ve made so far – exposing the King, as it were, to the onslaught of the other pieces. Yes, my King is masked and anonymous, but he is exposed all the same. To some, this exposure may seem crass and inappropriate  – but then, so is sudden death.

As with everyone who comes careering into this new, unbidden life, I am feeling my way; blundering through the darkness, grabbing on to anything which resembles a lifeline – be that a rogue plumber or a clumsy Easter Egg metaphor. If I have infringed the boundaries of what some deem as acceptable by expressing my own grief in my own terms, so be it.