Now That Hes Gone

start. Now it's time to turn to other matters, like tackling life on your own.
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Chapter 2 – On Your Own, But Not Alone
    By now, you might have already experienced it: the empty feeling that hits the pit of your stomach when you realize he's really gone. And you're really on your own. For some women, the feeling lasts just a day or two. For others, it lingers stubbornly and they fear it will never go away. It's not a pleasant feeling, but you can deal with it positively and constructively. You can make it better, starting right away.
One in the Back Seat
    Whether you're on your own because of death or break-up, the fact is you're no longer part of a couple. Even if you wanted your man to be gone, once he is, you're flying solo in a society that greatly favors people doing things as couples. Chances are, most or even all of your friends are couples. Understandably so. When you were a couple, you naturally sought out couples with whom you had something in common so you could do things together. That's pretty much the standard arrangement among people who have reached their middle years.
    Suddenly, for you, all that has changed. If you're fortunate, you'll have friends who want to spend time with you and include you in their activities. As thoughtful people, they realize you're going through a tough period and they want to help. So they ask you to join them. But now when you go out together, you're by yourself in the back seat. This is not a bad thing, it's just not the most common situation and it's uncomfortable for some people. In time, it begins to take its toll. Here's how.
    After a while, your well-meaning friends begin to think twice about calling you to get together. Nothing personal, it's just easier, less awkward and more fun to call another couple. So the phone calls start to diminish. Your coupled friends slowly drift away. On top of the loss of your man, you begin to experience a loss of community.
Building a New Community
    The loss of community can be devastating, especially if you were highly social and active as a couple. This loss is not final, however. You can—and in fact, I say you must— build a new community for yourself. And it's never too early to start. Yes, but where do you start, and how?
    I suggest you start with other single women who share the same experience you're having. That is, they've gone through or are still going through the loss of their man. Such women know how you feel. They've weathered the storms of emotions you're trying to navigate through, and they've survived to help you and other women survive too. Let me tell you about one such woman. Me.
Always the Smart One
    One of the first of the Baby Boom generation, I grew up in a middle class family in a small industrial Michigan city. My father was a doctor, my mother a traditional, 1950's-style housewife. I had two sisters and a brother. I was the middle sister of the three and we were always known as “the pretty one, the smart one and the funny one.” I was the smart one—or so I was told. Early on, I got the message, mainly from my father, that I was intelligent, capable and could accomplish whatever I wanted. He encouraged me to be bold and confident, and so that's what I became.
    When I went to college, I chose an academically challenging major: mathematics. I loved the logic and the mystery of math. I liked that, no matter how much I struggled with a problem, when I finally found the answer, it was definite. Very little else in my life was that sure.
    I started college at the University of Michigan and quickly fell in love with a handsome pre-med student. We married when I was 19 and moved to, of all places Hollywood, because my husband wanted to do his internship “somewhere that's cool.” He thought Hollywood was cool. So he worked 36 hours on, 12 hours off for an entire year while I went to UCLA. When the year ended, we moved to Cincinnati where my husband pursued his specialty in psychiatry.
    I was shocked by his decision to become a “shrink.” Whereas in mathematics I could find definite answers, in the murky world of Freudian psychology, nothing was definite. But that didn't seem to bother him. At that early point, we had already begun to grow apart.
    When I finished my degree in mathematics, I applied for technical, statistical and analytical jobs at large corporations. Yet despite my excellent grades, I was turned down by all of them. The reason: my husband had enlisted in