consultation

There's this cute little thing that's been getting up in my face for the last couple weeks and about the fortieth time I see something popping up, I can't help but stop and pay attention.  Consultations... who do you consult with, who do you listen to, who gets a say in what you do?  A fellow widow {fun term!} and I have been swapping progress lately and talking through the considerations we're having at this stage in the game.  It's just so stinkin' bizarre.  See, if you marry young, the vast majority of your decisions were made with your spouse.  You had to agree with them, run ideas by them, decide together, and you really didn't have to consult outside of that person.  THEN, you become a single again and all of a sudden {maybe due to the nature of becoming single}, the people in {and OUTSIDE} of your circle have an opinion on all the things you're doing.  Sometimes not even just an opinion... they feel like they have a stake in it.  I'm not certain how I feel about that.  See, I went through something in 2012.  Something huge.  This choking need to run away and not look back took hold of me in an undeniable way.  The urge to run away and tell no one.  To literally disappear with my children and just be gone.  This involves no consultation.  Another weird thing happened.  In order to not be a psycho, I leaned on people.  I learned to allow others in my life to help me, help my kids, be our support and so much more.  I'm crazy thankful for that.  Not everyone gets that wanted support.  I still benefit in a huge way from it.  My fellow widow has benefitted from that same thing. She's also felt that familiar pull to run.  Here's the thing... where is the line?  Where is the consultation line? We've invited people who love and care for us to come in and help and lend and hold us up, but where is the line of what they don't have a say in?  Can you take the help, but not ask for the advice?  I'm not positive I've done a poor thing here.  I rarely ask for advice; I ask for help; I use people as a sounding board, but I am cautious to make my own decisions, ultimately.  Same for my fellow widow.  Does that mean we won't make mistakes?  Absolutely not.  But I'm opening my eyes and feeling much more like an early 20s person who's not earned the street-cred to stand on her own instead of the mid 30s woman who was forged in flippin' fire and has walked down hallways solo in realities that you haven't even pictured.  You haven't pulled your lifeless spouse's eyelids back because you had to see for yourself that the person you loved and build life on was no longer in that body.  You haven't cried on a bed and decided to labor for a child that you knew you'd never raise.  You haven't picked out caskets.  You haven't had to make a drive home to children, formulating the whole time how to tell them that their parent is dead and knowing that it's you who has to do it.  You haven't sat in rooms with all of your family coupled up and happy and felt that choking burn because you have to keep a happy face and stay thankful.  You haven't examined life from every angle on your couch, by yourself, and wondered what cost you are paying by focusing on your children instead of on beginning to build again.  I could go on and on and on because these moments that I wouldn't wish on anyone happened and I relive them all the time.  
See, it's my life.  And I feel a tremendous amount of weight to do it right.  To not screw up my children.  To not press pause on me because I know how quickly normal can disappear.  To not make rash decisions, but to squeeze the day.  I feel all of those things and I'm so sad right now because I'm not sure that the judgement-free support is intact at the moment.  There's the bottom line truth.  I have written on it before.  The moment I became a widow, I got a momentary free pass.  Upside.  What I'm hoping/wondering right now is if that free pass wasn't really momentary.  I don't want the judgement.  I know me.  I don't act rashly.  I don't make decisions without thoughtful consideration.  I act quickly, but I don't decide quickly.  I operate in wisdom.  That doesn't mean that I don't make mistakes, but trust me.  Trust me.  My life is not your life.  My decisions are ones I have to live with.   
Getting off the widow track, lunch with a lovely friend yesterday drove all these points home.  This lovely friend woke up and realized that she had lovingly invited her family to take part in her life.  It was beautiful.  Living together, vacationing together, helping each other.... it felt so familiar.  Then the shoe fell and she realized that she may have invited them into too many decisions.  Too many pieces.  What was actually hers?  I can't comprehend the painful separation that had to take place to disentangle from the place where too many pieces were connected... into the marriage, into the properties, into the children, into the schedule.  I, thankfully, got to look at this and seek out what I need to do differently.  Who do I consult?  Who gets a say?  Where do I draw the lines and begin standing on my own? 
I am thankful.  Let that be clear in all of this.  I couldn't do the things I do without the tremendous help that I am given.  My children couldn't lead the full, active lives that they do without the help I'm given.  I am thankful and blessed.  My thoughts are limited to the singular piece: where do I begin and the support beams function as support alone?