Nick and I are going through a divorce.

Things have been hard for awhile now, but we came to this decision somewhere just before Christmas time last year. Since then, we have been slowly putting things into place for a joint divorce filing, and for the sale of our beautiful home, here in “the Hollah.” We will be listing our house in June, and hope to be on our way to our individual new adventures somewhere around August. (local friends – I will be reaching out for your help in keeping your eyes peeled for possible pet-friendly living situations for me and my Autumn kitty! More on that later!)

Once the dust settled on the reality of things, I told Nick that it would mean a lot to me to post publicly and let everyone know what is happening. After all, we did invite everyone on planet earth to our Facebook Live wedding, and many of you have been so supportive of our wedding/marriage/and in following our story over the last 7 years that we have known each other. Nick has also been to Camp Widow with me 3 times now, and he has made friends in the widowed community too. It didn’t feel right to me to leave you in the dark about a change this enormous.

To my friends in the widowed community who have found HOPE in our love story, let me say this: do not let the end of our marriage be the end of your hope. Please know that even through my sadness, I still believe in love. I have faith in new beginnings, and I believe in living life to the fullest. Just because our story did not turn out to be “forever” – doesn’t make it any less of a beautiful story. Love is always a risk, and it takes great courage to put your heart out there and feel great love for another human. Never would I regret for one second taking the opportunity and the honor of giving and receiving love. In each relationship, we continue to learn and grow, and as people, we keep evolving. I hope that our relationship helps to give you the courage to consider keeping an open mind and heart, to the idea and the possibilities that love brings.

As we go through this very hard time, please know that there is still great love between us. There always will be. Personally, my hope is that by ending our marriage, we will eventually be saving our friendship. Right now, this is all very emotional and incredibly sad for us both. And also, I hope that one day in the not-too-distant future, we can sit down with each other to reflect, remember, and revel in our story.

“Remember that time that we met on a dating site, and chatted for hours and hours into the night , and then met in person like a week later? And remember how there was a rainbow under us on our second date and I screamed ‘YOU JUST GAVE ME THE ENDING TO MY BOOK!!!’ because I took it as a sign that Don finally came to me as a rainbow? And remember all our road trips together? And how we knew it was love immediately? And how you accidentally met my parents on our first date? How about when i was randomly bedridden for weeks with some weird bacterial thing, and we both thought i was dying? Or when you had a double-bypass and scared the life out of me? And how about that one time we decided to get our own apartment together, and then THE DAY we moved in, a worldwide pandemic and a state-wide shut-down happened? Remember how we were stuck together 24/7? Remember when you sort of proposed that we get married, and I told you if that was your proposal, you should really do it again, because it sucked? And then you did it again, and dropped the ring and then said ‘Here – YOU put it on!’ Remember that time we had a private wedding during the pandemic on New Years Eve with everyone invited on FB??? What about that time we bought an amazing house with a pool and a property that looks like a resort? Do you remember? Do you remember all of the love? I do. I always will. Remember all those times we shared being US together, Breakfast and Rock N Roll on Sundays, so many concerts and one really bad play, and so many other wonderful, unforgettable things?”

Remember that?

That was EPIC.