Making the journey from being "we" to being "just me"

When you've lost your spouse, it often feels like you're alone in a world full of happy, hand-holding couples. Learning to fly solo is tough, but it can be tremendously nourishing for your soul.

The usher, holding a stack of Playbills, greeted me with a smile as the doors opened at a Broadway theater I visited during a recent trip to New York. I stepped toward her, displaying my ticket on my cell phone.

“Hello, folks,” she said, looking at my phone and waiting for me to swipe it and display a second ticket, for a companion.

I corrected her. “Actually, it’s ‘folk.’ It’s just me,” I said, trying to sound brave and not apologetic. Or as pathetic as I felt.

She didn’t respond, simply handing me the Playbill and directing me toward my seat.

I’ve had it happen before while traveling for work, that someone assumed I was the companion of the man standing behind me on some line or other and asked where we’d be sitting, or figured that because I was chatting with a man in the rental car queue, we must have been together, and so the clerk said, '“Can I help you, sir?” Even though I was ahead of that man in the line.

It never used to bother me much beyond a feeling of mild annoyance that people so easily and automatically assumed that a woman almost had to be accompanied by a man. The “hello, folks,” stung more than I expected, because it reinforced that my husband is no longer beside me, an unhappy fact I face every day. That’s not going to change.

But I’m slowly finding a path back into the world, venturing beyond my comfort zone even if it means going to shows and concerts solo when I can’t find a friend available to go with me. The scale of my emotions has tipped from being overcome by fear of going somewhere alone to being determined, no matter what, to attend an appealing show or concert, such as “Jesus Christ Superstar” Sunday night at the Hollywood Bowl. I have Raul Esparza to thank, for that shift in my thinking, and I’ll explain that below.

After my husband Dennis died in September of 2023, I hesitated to go out alone for anything other than grocery shopping or doctor visits. I worked for a few months after he died but decided to take a buyout from the L.A. Times early in 2024. I found I could go days without leaving the house, often without talking to another person. Some colleagues and friends were kind: colleague Thuc Nhi Nguyen would often drop packages of food and cookies on my front step without telling me, knowing I needed solitude at that point. Everyone else was going on with their lives while mine was shattered, and I had a hard time with that. Still do, to an extent.

Visiting New York last summer and again around Thanksgiving brought me back to family and to Broadway. I didn’t mind going to a show alone. It was New York, my old turf, and I could get lost in the music and the story for 2 1/2 hours. Jonathan Groff’s “Just in Time” creates a strong sense of community for everyone in the theater, so I certainly didn’t feel alone there (and yes, I saw it for a second time during my most recent trip. I sat just beyond the spit zone and loved every second of it).

I also saw Hamilton again, enjoying it even more the second time around, and made a first visit to the charming“Maybe Happy Ending,” as well as to a matinee of the hilariously irreverent “The Book of Mormon.”

I actually built the trip around a special occasion: the 50th anniversary celebration of last Sunday for the landmark show “A Chorus Line.” I still know all the words, which I learned while dancing around the living room and playing the original cast album more times than I could count. Watching so many members of the original cast bring the show back to life, joined by current Broadway dancers and other stars, was an emotional experience for everyone in the Shubert Theater, I think. I teared up more than a few times, just thinking of my long-ago attempts to dance and sing like Donna McKechnie and the rest of the wonderful cast. I wasn’t good enough to do that for a living but the love of the music and the chance to dance have stayed with me.

When I got home, I wanted more theater, more music. Thanks to all the theater-related social media feeds I now follow, I knew that “Jesus Christ Superstar” was going to be at the Hollywood Bowl with a stellar cast, led by Cynthia Erivo, Adam Lambert, Phillipa Soo, and Raul Esparza. I’ve been mildly obsessed for years with Esparza, an intense actor and gifted singer whose masterful interpretation of “Being Alive” in the revival of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” stands as the definitive version of that song. I very much wanted to see him perform live. But there were so many reasons I was afraid to go. Getting to the Hollywood Bowl and parking there can be nightmares, I knew. Tickets were expensive. I’d never been there before. How could I navigate it all by myself?

Two former Times colleagues, Gary Ambrose and Bill Shaikin, helped by telling me about the park-and-ride system that allows Bowl goers to park at a specified location and take a bus that drops you just outside the main gate. It would be quick and easy. The Bowl itself, they assured me, was absolutely worth visiting.

And it was.

After buying a single ticket on Friday for Sunday’s performance, I joined a long line at the park-and-ride site and asked a woman who was in line if I was in the right place. Once she learned I was traveling by myself, she told me she’d make sure I got where I needed to go. She did, and I’m grateful.

On the bus, I sat beside a woman who also was going to the Bowl by herself and we chatted about how much we were looking forward to the show. When I reached my seat, I discovered two other woman in my row who also were there alone, one by choice and the other because a friend had been unable to go. We smiled at one another and celebrated each other’s indomitable spirit.

On the bus on the way back, I sat beside another woman who had gone to the show by herself. We marveled at what we had just seen, and I knew I would have regretted it if I hadn’t gone.

So thanks, Raul Esparza, for giving me the motivation to ignore my fears and for providing a memorable experience with an incredible cast. I’m no longer reluctant to say I attended a show by myself. It’s not “just me.” It’s me, tiptoeing back into the world, one ticket at a time.