Why I'm Starting TikTok as a 51 Year Old Widow - and Why It Terrifies Me

In a previous life, one that I barely recognise anymore, I ran a successful pet care business.

I had no issue showing up on camera, posting videos to social media, and educating dog owners on how they could bring more enrichment into their dog’s life.

Fast forward a year and there are 2 issues going on. The first I feel and look noticeably older than I did a year ago mainly thanks to grief, and secondly I’m talking about my life, my grief journey and a business I hope to build out of my grief.

Luckily I never had any negativity when posting about dogs (who would be negative about dogs anyway), but had there been negative comments I would have coped. I may have had a good moan about it to my partner Paul who would have reminded me that these were insignificant people anyway.

So starting to share my life (my grieving life) on TikTok does fill me with dread. But I recently wrote a blog post about all the things that I had achieved in year one as a widow (which you can read here>>>30 Things I Did In My First Year As A Widow) and I did add joining TikTok. If it’s written down then it has to be true.

After Paul died I remember feeling like my life had become like a goldfish bowl. I could feel the stares, the pity, the gossip – the gossip still amazes me, and I hated it. I wanted my old life to return and the privacy to return.

Starting on Tiktok is scary stuff.

There are a lot of ‘what if’s’ going around in my head. There is also a lot of self criticism mainly involving the number of chins that I now have.

But I have a business idea that I genuinely believe will help other women who are grieving the loss of a loved one. And because of that I know I have to show up on social media.

There are two worries that I have with sharing my grief life to the world. One that the information shared is personal and is not open to judgement or critique unless it has been asked for, and two in order to reach my target audience of widows I have to enter the world of GriefTok.

I’ve found over the past year these videos to be extremely helpful but I’ve always been a silent stalker and I certainly never commented on any videos. I worry that I will open myself up to absorbing even more grief and I’m not sure how that will land. But you don’t know until you try.

So I shared my first video and the first like was from my son. God I love that boy.

I didn’t overthink the video, I just shared something dumb that grief brain made me do and pressed the publish button.

There is a great phrase from Erin Hanson that says What if I fall? Oh, but my darling, what if you fly? And these are the words I make my head speak to the negative committee when they start their relentless self doubt. What if the first few videos do fall, but what if they don’t? I’m forever hopeful that they won’t.

And what if Letters After Loss helps one widow feel less alone on this journey, or remember what it was like to get a nice piece of mail through the door. It is these reasons that are pushing me out of my comfort zone and whipping out my phone with stories to share.

Don’t get me wrong it took a long while to get to this point. I’d written scripts, gone into nature and recorded videos, added great text overlays and then left them in drafts. These videos, whilst great for a ‘business account’ just didn’t sound like me. They also took way longer than I had intended to create, and when you’re grieving these are the types of things that just aren’t sustainable.

So I decided to record a video whilst out walking. Nothing fancy, no different camera angles and no script. Before I could think anymore of it I had posted my first video, and survived.

The next two videos are already saved into my drafts. Turns out that when a widow has been quiet for a year she suddenly has a lot to share.

The goal that I set at the beginning of March was to get 1000 followers by then end of March. And because I talked myself out of doing it for 10 days I now have a lot of time to make up.

Is 1000 followers achievable in 21 days? Watch this space.

If you’re on TikTok whether as a silent stalker like I was, or as a fellow ‘influencer’ (I use that term with tongue in cheek) and want to help me reach that target do come and say ‘hi’. Just don’t make any comments about the double chin.