Did Aubrey Plaza move on 'too fast'? I asked myself the same question

When I woke up to the pregnancy announcement about my favourite star of The White Lotus, Aubrey Plaza, I thought, “That was quick!” The social media comments confirmed what I suspected: everyone has an opinion about how the 41-year-old actress, whose husband Jeff Baena died by suicide last year, should grieve.

Plaza and Baena separated several months before his death, and she is now expecting her first child with new partner Christopher Abbott .

But I’m the last person who should be judging another widow’s decision.

When I was 34, I spent Valentine's Day in a hospital bed, two curtains down from my husband Erik's.

I was hospitalised for losing too much blood while miscarrying our baby; he was there for what would become a terminal cancer diagnosis.

When he died 18 months later, I looked out over the infinite blank canvas of my future and saw nothing.

The seedlings of the life I had built were ripped out, and there was no Plan B.

During my first dinner out with friends, I realised it was a set-up: I was on a date.

The man was an aspiring filmmaker with dusty blond hair and long lanky limbs.

Over tinga tacos and Pacifico, he detailed his latest European adventure on a tour van for an indie-rock band.

He, like me, had just landed in New York for his next chapter.

He, unlike me, appeared unhoused and unemployed.

In my before-widow life — start-up founder, company of over 100 people, 30-year mortgage — I would never have considered him.

But in my before-widow life, I wasn't cracked open and raw to the bone.

So I flowed into whatever felt right: into his red flannel arms, into art museums and zoos, improv comedy cellars and late-night beer gardens, and then all the way to California, where I decided to buy a house and move for good.

During those early years after Erik's death, I felt torn between two worlds: the one that knew me as a widow, and the new one that demanded daily reinvention just to survive.

I could feel the quiet judgment from my old world.

But I saw my new world, even in its darkest moments, as a playground for understanding myself more deeply.

Then, just before my 40th birthday, I met Carson.

His grounded energy was laced with flickers of edginess and I loved it.

Learning he had three children might once have scared me away — but my new self told me to stay.

I wrote Carson a note that night and delivered it next to him at Erik’s gravesite the next day.

I told him that since Erik's death, I had vowed never to take a rare connection for granted — to listen more closely, embrace curiosity, say yes.

I told him that while I would always treasure my marriage to Erik, grief had cracked me open in ways that made this love feel bigger and truer than anything I had known before.

As Carson stood beside Erik's grave, his eyes welled with tears and he told me he loved me.

Six months later, on the small island of Ischia in Italy, we eloped and I became stepmother to his three young children.

I grieve every day for Erik, and for the life we lost.

And yet throwing myself into the chaos of moving forward was the bravest thing I've ever done.

The love I have with Carson feels hard-earned in the best possible way: I love harder, and sometimes fight harder, because I know what it took to get here.

Whatever anyone else thinks about my choices or timeline doesn't matter to me.

Who is Christopher Abbott?

Inside Girls actor's romance with pregnant Aubrey Plaza
Aubrey Plaza pregnant a year after husband's death
What your favourite Greek island says about you
Choose the right education path for your child
And as for Aubrey Plaza — none of us know what's happening behind the scenes of a life that's lived in front of millions of eyeballs.

Her external story tells us nothing about the true journey she's on.

I suspect she already knows that — and I hope she brings us along for the ride.