I am a sucker for a fancy event to attend and get dressed up for. I have a small section in my closet of dresses I’ve worn over the years. Boxes of heels line the top shelf of my closet that were only ever worn to match a specific dress.

Every December Mike and I would attend a fancy dinner dance event for his police department. We looked forward to it each and every year. It became a tradition with our close police family friends and we all attended together for a good ten years. That same event is still held every December. I haven’t gone since Mike died. I can’t bring myself to go without him and I am not sure if I ever will. Just another loss that stems from the loss of his life. I also can’t bring myself to part with any of those dresses or heels in my closet that I wore with him.

David and I have now attended our share of fancy events together. Some for his work. Some police related where we attend in Mike’s honor and others as fundraisers. Sometimes I splurge and buy myself a new dress and heels where other times I go through the section in my closet of dresses, pull down the boxes of heels and wear an outfit again.

Same dress, different husband.

I could write blog after blog about my life as a widow and a wife. But, there is still so much more. So much more to the feelings behind the section of dresses in my closet or behind the smile I wear daily.  I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface as to truly, in all honesty what this life entails. Maybe that is because I don’t even know how to put it into the right words. Maybe because each day is filled with different emotions of happy and sad all colliding together.

Recently, David and I attended a fundraiser for our kids’ school. It was roaring 20s theme. I needed a dress for the event. I didn’t have time to go shopping and anything I found online wouldn’t ship in time. I ended up wearing a dress I already had.  A dress I wore to one of the yearly police events with Mike.

Same dress, different husband.

One would never know the myriad of emotions I wrestled with over that stupid dress. Memories of Mike that flooded over me made me sad. Excitement for a night out with David made me happy.

Clashing emotions pretty much sums up the heart of a widow who is also a wife. There is this piece of your heart that is broken, probably forever broken, that pumps feelings of sadness, guilt and even physical pain through your whole body. Grief also manifests itself physically and when it does, at least for me, it hits hard.

But the rest of your heart is beating strong and pumping feelings of butterflies, excitement, happiness and love through your whole body. When they all collide it’s more of a beast than I can ever describe.

Same heart, so many different feelings.

Same undying, head over heels, found the love of my life kind of love, two husbands.

This is not the first time I have written about being a wife and widow or finding love after loss. You can scroll through my blog posts or read my book for all the feelings I’ve had over the years of this “new” life of mine.

But for this blog post, for this time writing I want to say this… it may be the same dress worn twice but it’s a different woman who is wearing it. The woman who purchased the dress, who took off the tags and wore it for the first time had no clue what she was really buying that dress for. It wasn’t just for a fancy event.

That same dress worn with two different husbands would serve as another small step in the ladder of grief she climbs. A step that she had to stop, hold on to the railing and catch her breath on. Where her emotions collided and almost knocked her back down a couple more. Yet when she caught her breath again she used the force of the happy memories and the confidence of her love to continue the climb.

She is me. She is you.

Use the challenges you face, the heartaches, the sadness, the happy times, the excitement to grow and learn. To take a step closer to whatever it is that you are striving to achieve at the top of your ladder.

Same dress, different husband, lots of love and so much growth.