Many of you know, in my “chapter two” or whatever we’re calling it… I relocated my life from Texas to Ohio last fall, to start a new beginning with Mike and his 9 year old daughter, Shelby. This summer it will be 4 years since Drew died, and this is the first relationship I’ve been in since that horrible day in the summer of 2012. There…
new life
Dreams Coming True
In my first post for this year I spoke about setting my goal for 2016. In this piece I wrote, “I’m sick of treading water, I want to start swimming again in 2016. I want to propel myself forward and feel like my life is moving ahead again. So this year I’ve chosen ‘growth’ as my mantra. It took me a while to settle on this word, because…
The Remnants of a Life
I recently wrote about my decision to move out of our family home and into a smaller apartment, better suited to my ‘single’ lifestyle. It will be a month or two until I actually make the move, however this week I started packing away things I want to put in storage and sorting out un-needed items to donate to charity or just throw in the…
The Home That Doesn’t Quite Fit Anymore
In the past two years and eight months since Dan died, I’ve toyed with the idea of moving out of our house a number of times. We bought our dream home in January 2013. We were married in June 2013 and I lost him to depression only six weeks later, in July. It’s a large, two-story house with enough space for a big family. It’s definitely too big…
One More Phone Call, Please?
Sometimes the tears sneak up on you. Sometimes you are just going about your morning, having a cup of coffee, watching the news, having no thoughts in particular to the past or about missing anyone… and suddenly something goes right into that wound and touches it. Touches the loss in a way that makes you erupt in tears. This very thing happened…
Into the Woods
Patience. I’m trying my hardest to have some lately… with myself, with change, with pain. It’s easier said than done. I am beginning to realize that it is going to take a lot longer to adjust to moving somewhere so far away than I’d imagined. Especially while carrying my grief on my back wherever I go. No matter how much good there is…
Connecting the Dots
It’s been about 3 weeks since I moved to Ohio… and I finally hit my first big trigger. A few days ago, I was listening to some country music when a song called “My Texas” came on. The lyrics wandered through familiar places… Enchanted Rock, Luckenbach, and my hometown of Corpus Christi Bay. Instantly I had images flooding my mind of all the…
The Big Move
I’m writing this somewhere between Nashville and Louisville, on the big move from Texas to Ohio to be with Mike. We’ve been on the road since yesterday, and while today has been a far better day with more feelings of excitement, I wanted to share the really raw feelings I wrote out yesterday… because this is a very real and painful part of this…
On the road again…
I’m writing this from my parent’s home in Virginia…the house where I grew up, so many thousands of miles from where I now call home. In the past week I’ve also spent time in Austin for a business convention and New Orleans to visit my stepdaughter and her family. I am glad I could work in a visit to my folks while I’m on the…
Coming Home
I suppose no matter who you are, if you have a chance to escape, take a break, travel, take time off…that moment when you return to your regular life (assuming it was a good break of course) can be a bit of a letdown. For me, being widowed, my recent trip brought up so many additional feelings I think I will be sorting them out for a long time.
The Interview
As this posts I will be on my way back to my little grass shack in Hawaii from my adventure in the UK. I planned to have things posted so I needn’t worry about posting from who-knows-what wifi I will have while I am away. But I can only imagine what I will be thinking about when I return.I feel impelled forward into this strange, new life. I feel…
A Big Little First
This weekend has been amazing. Challenging, scary, exhausting, sweet, beautiful, silly, and bursting at the seams with love. Mike and Shelby have been here now for 3 days and this afternoon they head home back to Ohio. I can scarcely even put into words how amazing and terrifying all this has been. After countless hours of Skype calls – to meet her…