Tag: houses

Happy 201 and more

Hello friends.

To say “it’s been a while” would be at minimum, disingenuous. I feel like I should begin more along the lines of “it’s been more than two years since my last confession”. As I sit here drinking my morning coffee on an average Sunday, please understand that I’ve never forgotten about you, nor have I abandoned writing.

It’s been hard, these last two years, to do much of anything outside of survival mode. However, I’ve been taking a class recently on self empowerment, and while digging deep into my core values, writing was quietly waiting for me to pick it back up. Since I recognized this, I’ve gained momentum from starting a collaborative project with my mom. She was visiting us from the other side of the country and we had a finite amount of time to start and made excellent headway. But it felt good to sort of stretch my legs, writing with her, while remembering how much I love this form of communication. I’ve picked up journaling once again, and now, I’m back here.

Writing has been therapeutic in many ways, but also truly difficult. There are a myriad of thoughts, feelings, and unknowns that have prevented me from coming back here, at least with regularity, for more than 5 years. I’ve existed, but struggled to live fully, due to unprocessed or buried traumas. I’ve barely scratched the surface of sorting through all that, but I’m also done feeling stuck. Life has thrown some wild pitches, and I keep swinging for the fence. I’m just not connecting with the ball and I’m not going to chase after it.

Since the closure of my business, separation and divorce from my second husband, I’ve moved across the country, moved houses several times, endured a lengthy and languishing pandemic and the after affects thereof, witnessed widespread protesting and violence against police brutality, against our own nation’s capital, against wars and genocide, against each other for our views, faiths, and political leanings. I’ve also had opportunities to learn and grow, become closer with my family, get married and buy a home with my husband, discover unknown depths of my capacity to love, support and cherish moments with my kids (bio and step), explore new communities and meet people who will be lifelong friends, drive long, introspective distances, and survive moments I genuinely believed would have been my last. A whole lot has happened in a little over 5 years.

We’ve all been collectively living through unprecedented times. We’ve all been dragging our asses through history in the making. It’s been real wild, and I think as much as our kids have struggled and lost during all of this, the adults carrying this weight have suffered greatly more than we realize. We are carrying the traumas of our own experiences and that of our kids (even if they’re not biologically yours, most of us have young ones in our lives).

All of this is to recap why I’ve been a ghost. I haven’t felt like I had something meaningful to contribute to the narrative, since there’s been so much fucking noise surrounding us. I’m simply trying to survive myself, with a swirling inside my brain hole. It’s been like a blender in there. Now, it’s a shit smoothie and I’m ready to pour it out. Strap in, kids. I am planning great things and will be back soon, and more regularly. I’m motivated and falling back in love with words, after being estranged for so very long.

Please subscribe if you’re interested in keeping up because I’ll be making some announcements in the coming weeks/months. Thank you for reading and I’ll catch you on the flip side (if you’re young, you probably don’t know that reference- look it up). Finally, this is my 201st post to the page. 🎉

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Bliggity Blog

joy painting brush
Photo by Bekka Mongeau on Pexels.com

Life is funny sometimes all the time. It certainly sucks less when you approach it with a sense of humor.

This week has been challenging and I could have definitely changed how I reacted in a few situations. But I’m human and still learning and growing. I’ve made an internal promise that I will no longer talk to myself in a way that I would not talk to a person close to me. I’ve even done my best to curb the internal dialogue in my head, the one that loves to concoct stories about my worth, which are simply not true. I’ve also fallen short of my goal of four times per week, writing this blog. I am fully aware that I have made a few choices to do something else with my time, and am not beating myself about it, as I would have in the past. Again, human being, with humans in my life that also require and deserve my attention.

In positive news, we here have decided to make some healthy, positive changes to our daily routines. The primary one is getting a gym membership at the local YMCA. I’ve been out of competitive sports for a number of years and I have decided that my sedentary lifestyle as of late, is creating problems in my psyche. I have been using time and childcare as a crutch for why I couldn’t work out, and finances are finally lining up the way they’re supposed to. This Y also has a daycare center onsite, which will be really convenient when my temporary work assignment ends. Additionally, when the weather is garbage in the upper midwest, we will have a nearby place to workout and warm up.

I’m really excited to have something to do in the evenings that isn’t dealing with pets and home and nonsense adult things. Instead, we can be active, and do things that are healthy for our minds and spirits. My partner is potentially less excited than me, but he will live. The kiddo doesn’t even know what it means, but she’s going to the gym to hang out with other kids. And learn to swim. That’s also something I’m very excited about. She needs to know how to swim for so many reasons. We live in a state where “lake life” is a real thing. Oddly enough, after living in a sun state for several years, she still doesn’t know how to independently.

In addition to having a rad place to exercise close to home, we are just doing our best to live our best lives and be good humans. I’ve been doing everything I can to be positive and patient with all things and people who cross my path. Being grateful has helped significantly with all these things. I’ve been listening to tons of audiobooks from the library website, which has added enrichment to my days, and provided much insight into humanity. This habit has allowed me to focus on a number of things that I’m working on. And that makes me happier in general.

Thanks for reading.

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Long Division

How does one separate something that has taken years to build? It could have taken 2 years, or 20, but each day you added bricks and build a foundation, walls, windows… it develops into a fortress to protect you from the world. This fortress is supposed to be impenetrable. It shields all the inhabitants inside. So how, and where, does one even start to take it down? Do you burn the drawbridge? Trebuchet the shit out of the exterior? It’s hard to know, I guess. Circumstances often dictate the destruction of your fort.

But what do you do if you’re not mad, but have simply decided that this fort is shit, and you don’t want to live there anymore? Do you attempt to keep the status quo until arrangements change? Do you still burn the drawbridge and trebuchet the exterior? What about a volatile situation? What then? When inside the fortress is nothing but pure chaos, and there’s fires everywhere? How does one process getting everyone to safety? What does safety even look like, when you’re bed is in flames? Are there really any survivors? Nobody escapes totally unscathed, right?

long_division_8

And there’s the long division. Strangely enough, if you never unpack, it’s easier to move. But now, we must sift through every. single. thing. to determine what belongs to whom, or who gets it in the dividing process. Then, there’s the others in the fortress… what becomes of them? The friends? You know everyone chooses sides, whether or not they consciously chose a side. Even family chooses sides, despite best efforts. It’s like we drew a line, and everyone decides which side they’ll forever stand on.

What I’ve determined is the worst of all, is the feeling of sudden emptiness. Loneliness. You once had a sounding board to share in your trials and triumphs with. Now, there’s friends or family, but it’s not the same. I want to share my joys and sorrows with someone who is in the fortress WITH me. We are fighting on the same side, in the same battles. People outside the fort, they just can’t appreciate the inner workings of your brain and heart, without first having to explain yourself. That is fucking exhausting. Constantly going over the same stuff, all the time. I just want to have my heart safely in the hands of someone I don’t have to “preface” with. New is positively exciting. Electric. But old, it’s comforting, familiar. That’s not to say I want a damn thing to do with this decaying rubble, but there’s something to be said for the familiar.

My heart aches for what it doesn’t have. My mind longs for a simple life. My intuition knows that this has expired and that it’s no longer home for me. Now what do I do with myself?

 

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Happiness Hits Home

The postings about my happiness project and most of my school work have recently been derailed. While incredibly stressful and decidedly an unhappy process, buying a home will increase the happiness quotient infinitely, once we get unpacked and fully settled in. Not only have we just moved into our new home a couple weeks ago, but my dad has been visiting from the frosty North this week too. Talk about stuff going on!

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about posts and things that I want to talk about (that hopefully people want to read about), nevertheless. I’m working on some interviews for this and another blog as well as the weather finally getting more predictable (HOT and sunny!) so scooting will commence quite soon too. I’m really excited about the home buying adventure and how that very difficult and trying period of life has now given way to the joys of feeling more secure and rooted not only in life, but even just in my city. As much as a sometimes hate it here for political, social and various other reasons, I do love it here. I feel just that much more invested in making this city better and participating in it. Hell, I’ve even met the neighbors on both sides of me! We’ve been here 2 weeks! There have been houses that I’ve lived in for years and never met ANYONE! So this is a good start. Meeting and knowing those around us helps us feel connected to one another, invested in the safety and happiness of others. I like that feeling. Before, I’d tel the neighbor if a stranger was at their place, but now… that’s Joe’s house. We’ve got to look out for one another. Or when the pups are at the fence freaking out entirely, I know that’s Kicker (the pretty pit bull next door) saying hi. I already feel like part of this street and part of this community. I get to smile and wave at the people on the block when I go out to get the mail. I’ve never really had that. Yes, I’ve previously owned a house and I loved that house, but I knew one neighbor. He was a long haul trucker and his wife didn’t speak a word of English, plus I never saw her outside. This is already the experience that I should have had before. 

As I mentioned before my dad has been visiting. He needed a place to stay that wasn’t a hotel while he was here, and we’ve got the room. We aren’t quite unpacked yet, but it’s been really great having my family share this exciting adventure. I get to share a cup of coffee with him (like I’m doing now) in the mornings and chat before I start my whirlwind day and then when we get home, we do things or just hang out. We even made stuff since he’s been here!

So, yes, the “formal” happiness project has hit a slight snag, the real happiness has only just begun. We’re so excited for this adventure. :)

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