starting over. (I moved!)

Hey, it's me again. It's been a while and a lot has happened since I last checked in. Bring it to me. Saying these words out loud reminds me of the probably 80 or so journals I have found stashed around my house where I start a new journal with the intention of consistently documenting my life but then lose the journal a week later and I'm forced to get another one. This is exactly what happened at the beginning of 2024. I remember ordering a brand new journal with the intention of writing something inside every single day. I ordered it on Amazon, two-day shipping, but by the time the journal showed up on my doorstep within that 48 hour time frame, my entire life was different. I can't believe I'm writing these words. I'm getting divorced was the very first sentence in that journal. The same journal I envisioned writing all my exciting moments I had planned for that upcoming year. Those were the scariest words to not only say out loud but to read and print. After almost 20 years together, five children, 13 years married, we would be no more. And if we are no more, everything changes. And how do I even survive a single day of this when everything is so unknown? For the first three months of 2024, almost every single journal entry ended with, I wish I didn't have to fill this, but followed up with, I guess I have to. I would have these crippling moments of despair every single day and those will leave me desperate to find even the smallest moments of relief. What I discovered during this time was how those dark moments made me more aware of the bright ones and how maybe before I took for granted those good times. Where everything in my life before seemed fine, maybe a little boring and mundane most days, now it was like I was thrown onto a roller coaster. This year I was feeling everything on extreme levels. The anxiety and despair were some of the worst I'd ever had. And in the same breath, those pockets of joy, little moments like hearing my youngest son burst out in laughter, I'd find myself genuinely laughing along with him. And it felt good to laugh again. Before I knew it, winter turned to spring and spring to summer and I had a new routine. I was feeling a little more normal or used to this new life. But every day I'd wake up and wonder, what's next? Because when you wake up at 35, suddenly single and everything you would imagine for your future is now stripped away. You can't help but wonder, what will my life look like next year? Or in six months? Or next month? Next week even? I found out this year that everything can change in a single moment and because I know that's true, I'd remind myself on those bad days, everything can change in a moment. Because isn't it also true that we are all a single moment or interaction or run in a way for the trajectory of our lives to forever change? You could be one hello away from meeting the love of your life. Tomorrow or next week you can meet someone who will change your life forever. But truthfully, we don't know when these encounters will occur. And that's kind of the point. If we knew exactly how our stories would end, it would strip a lot of the joy and excitement away from actually living it. So I have to welcome the bad days as much as the good ones. I know in the dark moments they feel like they'll never end. They do. Don't let those days win. Reading back through my journal this year, I noticed almost all of my seemingly worst days were followed up with extraordinary ones. Ones where I felt I finally got clarity or I had some kind of breakthrough or just a really really good day. Like those dark days were the launching pad for me to experience greater joy and I was more fully able to appreciate the good days because I knew it's opposite. This year I've learned to listen without question. I've rediscovered how the spirit or intuition speaks to me. I get still and I ask and the answer comes and I listen and I trust the answer. I have found myself many times this year visualizing that picture of Jesus holding a bear behind his back. If you've never seen it before, there's a picture of Jesus asking a little girl for her teddy bear and she's hesitant to give it to him. She says but I love it and he asked her to trust him. So she hands it over but what she doesn't see is the gift he's holding behind his back. A teddy bear three times the size of the one she's holding. This was the visual I needed to remind myself almost daily trust, surrender, believe something is great in store for you. That if I'm still here my purpose hasn't yet been fulfilled. Maybe these last 35 years were preparing me for my purpose. Maybe I still haven't found what it is. Maybe I'm on the brink of it. It's October now. 10 months have passed since I thought my life was over but it wasn't. It feels like I'm starting over but I don't think we ever really start over because whatever phase of life you're showing up in right now you're bringing with you experience. Maybe a lot of mistakes, maybe a lot of I wish things were different but a lot of lessons nonetheless. So rather than saying here I am starting over in a new place I guess it's more like these are the last lines written in the 35th chapter of my book but now I get to turn the page so I can begin writing the next. And in this next chapter the home I live in has new rooms that hold no memories but I hope one day will be replaced with some of the best.