Beyond 30: The Next Chapters

Oh, hi!  Now, before I launch into the tale that was our disastrous move to St. Louis, I'd like to preface this by saying that we are happy, healthy, and safe living in a cozy town called Columbia, Missouri. See the picture below for proof: Have a picture for the algae-rhythm (Always makes me think of my good friend and tattoo artist extraordinaire HonestBird ). Pictured above are two hams catching some tunes at a local Columbia event called 'ZipperFest'.   Moving is always a lot of work. Whether it's a few miles away or hundreds, the physical and mental toll of moving ones entire life to a new place is never easy. In the weeks leading up to our departure, our schedules were jam packed with love, laughter, tears, gatherings, packing, planning. Whirlwind is the only word that comes close. It seemed that July came and went in the blink of an eye and before we knew it, with our multitude of wheels and our entire lives crammed into the moving truck, we made way.  The first ...

Oh, hello! It's nice to see you. Hard to believe that a year has gone by since we last spoke. Amazing how time flies, isn't it? Let's catch up.  Have a picture for the algae-rhythm. If you recall, last July, Tom and I announced that we would be moving to St. Louis (Missouri) and with one week remaining before our departure, the time has finally come! The house is filled with boxes, the lease for the new place is signed, and seven days stand between us and a new chapter.  Though we are obviously very excited to be going, such changes do come with their own type of heartache. For one, our lives are here. Friends and loved ones have been pouring out their love for us, lamenting how much we would be missed and asking some semblance of the same questions over and over and over again - "Why are you leaving? Why did you choose Missouri? Isn't it hot and humid there?". While it's true that Missouri is indeed hot and humid (and its political climate has us feeling ...

Something occurred to me recently: happiness is a choice.  Though I could certainly offer a thousand or more reasons (excuses) why I've been absent, the truth of the matter is that life happens and along with it, we roll with the punches. Yes, I have been gone and yes, I have been preoccupied with all manner of other things. Such is life. Everyone has a burden to bear and the way that we deal with those struggles is what defines us.  Here's what I can tell you: just like I have always done, I try to make the best of my circumstances. The never-ending journey to self-improvement and choosing to be a better me each day is always on my to-do list. Sometimes, I am not great at it, but I am trying to give myself the grace to be fallible.  Here's one example:  In the fall of 2021, after losing a job that I really loved (or at least thought I did), I made the choice to try something new and pursue a career in writing. Thus far, it hasn't really worked out. Sure, I land...

Strap in! This might be a long one. I promise that if you make it to the end, there is exciting news.  Since our last chat two months ago, a lot has happened and it all started with my absolutely useless immune system. What I originally thought was just allergies actually turned out to be a three-week long severe case of bronchitis and a sinus infection. Talk about a double whammy! Then, as if that weren't enough to deal with, our sweet, dumb, senior dog tore her ACL - well, the doggy equivalent of it anyway. To say that the last six weeks have been uncommonly challening is something of an understatement. We were thankfully fortunate enough to be able to afford her surgery at a staggering cost of $5200 (by which I mean Tom was able to afford it) but we've had to upend our entire lives and routines in a shared effort to take care of her which at times has been draining. Totally worth it. Though I've never so much as entertained the notion of having children, I imagine in s...

Could it be considered ironic that someone who is clinically depressed also considers themselves to be rather optimistic?  It's a new season and I am pleased to say that after a couple of months on a new antidepressant medication, I don't feel like a pile of human garbage all the time! Isn't that keen? As a fairly goal oriented person, I'm also on a mission this year to help de-stigmatize mental health issues. We'll talk more about that soon. David wants to tell you that your mental health matters # It's no secret that I have had a bit of a tough year. Though in recent months I have certainly been less forthright about my struggles, the lingering silence of my life and career as a (hopefully) blooming writer has also been somewhat of an indication. It's hard to interact with others, whether personally or professionally, when one can barely get through the day. In the last year or so, I have struggled significantly to feel happy, to feel purpose, to find dire...

Well, hey friends. It's been a little while. T oday, I'd like to talk about boundaries.  Although there are approximately a thousand things that have happened between May and now, most of them aren't worth discussing and some of them are not my story to tell. Here's what I can tell you: after nine solid months of searching, Tom and I found a new home in Loveland; I picked up a 2nd job working from home; two family members have passed away.  To say that the last three months have been indescribably difficult would be an understatement. There have been more times than not when I was barely holding myself together and as a result of such, almost every part of my life has suffered - home, work, and relationships. All of it. Though I'd like to think that as I've gotten older, it has become easier to manage the unexpected, and at times unyielding, trials of being a person, the truth is that sometimes I fall victim to that burden. The overwhelming complexity of life ha...

I feel lost and stuck and don't know what to do.  Here's the truth: I've spent the better part of the last four  five hours trying to get any actual work done without any actual success in doing so. Trapped in limbo between action and inaction, not knowing the outcome of my future leaves me feeling paralyzed to do anything at all. Though I did at least get a few job applications sent in, because money is running out more quickly than I care to admit (color me deeply shamed - I had to borrow money from my mother), every time I open my manuscripts, I just feel overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy.  What could have possibly made me think that I could write as a career?  I want to believe that I am capable of being successful but the truth is that I don't think I'll ever live up to my own unrealistic expectations about what that means. The life I had envisioned for myself has never once come to fruition. I've always dreamed about living in a beautiful house with a ...

"Slow down, you're doing fine. You can't be everything you want to be before your time." A wise woman recently told me that I've spent my entire life looking ahead toward the future instead of living for the moment, the here and now. The present has always felt  unsettling  because who I am now is not who I want to be. "Future Me" is everything I'm not - beautiful, successful, happy; s he is always ten steps ahead of me. Though I certainly have days where I do feel those things, those moments seem to whisk away faster than they arrive, a brief haze of what could have been if things had worked out or if I'd done things differently, or if I'd made different choices.  Failure to live up to my own unrealistic expectations may in fact be the root cause of my troubles.  Perhaps my utter silence on social media has been a sign but I tend to have a "bury my head in the sand" mentality about dealing with difficult or unexpected situations. N...

I think I'm realizing that I have a food addiction.  The process of writing this novel has, at times, been mentally exhausting, emotionally taxing, and just plain difficult. There are days when I'm working on a scene or chapter and it becomes glaringly obvious that the root of all my troubles is food.  Lately, I've been planning my entire day around it. I'll wake up thinking about breakfast and be inwardly preparing for lunch; sometimes, I'll ask Tom six hours ahead of time what he wants for dinner just so I can plan for how much I want to eat and still hopefully be within my food budget. There's even a new app on my phone that helps me track my calorie intake and exercise; and, on the days when I'm actually trying to be intentional about what I'm eating, rather than avoiding the topic entirely, I obsess over documenting every single calorie. This earnest desire to change my life has turned into an obsession.  Early last year, when I began seeing a thera...

In a time when political unrest is flooding my newsfeed, it feels almost selfish to give attention to other, less important matters. Tom and I have been on the lookout for a new home that would save us money and put us closer to the restaurant for months - and I mean months. I think I started looking for a new place in November with little luck since then and to continue life as normal, as though we aren't potentially on the verge of WWIII, feels like a step towards intentional ignorance. How can one go about daily life and plan for the future when the distinct possibility that it could all come crumbling down around us looming in the too-close-for-comfort distance?  I suppose part of the human spirit is the willingness to persevere in spite of unfavorable odds.  And in that spirit, I have been wildly restless and distracted. Last week, I awoke to a notification from Zillow, one of the dozens that I've looked at over the past four months, with the usual gut feeling that it wou...

Life has been good lately.  Over the past few weeks, I've come quite naturally into a routine of getting up early, hitting the gym with Casey Sue, coming home to work, and spending the rest of my free time in the space of self-care and personal development. It has been revitalizing.  There are days that I feel lost in the "what ifs" of my future, of how this project could ultimately fall apart and I'll dive headfirst back into a pit of self-loathing after long and seemingly futile attempts at fixing myself but, over the past few weeks, those moments have been fewer and further between. Though I don't wish to lay claim that working out has made an immediate and noticeable improvement in my life, the benefits seem to be overshadowing any doubts I have. Lately, I wake up and I want to be doing things. I look forward to feeling good in my body by exercising and I look forward to coming home to tell a story, even if the process is at times arduous and emotionally drain...

The funny thing about writing is that sometimes you'll write out pages and pages of work in an attempt at crafting something beautiful or you know... well written... and end up scrapping the entire thing.  Last week, on my birthday I wrote out a blog that talked about Tom and I catching covid over the holidays, my guilt at not having done any work for three weeks while we were both sick, the feeling of imposter syndrome as I've been working on getting back into the "swing of things", and all manner of updating you about the book in addition to my weight loss progress.  And I scrapped all of it.  Over the last few months, I've taken half a dozen workshops, participated in writers groups and critique groups, and I've learned a lot. Though it is certainly the tip of the iceberg in terms of what I believe I will learn over the next year about the craft of writing a novel, there are things I've gleaned so far.  One is that sometimes you just have to know when t...

It has been just over a month since I last posted and since then, I have spent nearly every day writing, trying to treat the process almost like a full-time job. And despite all the workshops, writers groups, and critique meetings, every single day I feel a little less convinced that I can do this. Though I certainly have my moments of clarity and conviction, more frequent are the days where I've been sitting in front of the computer for three straight hours trying to shape a story into something that is relatable, beautiful, and relevant. I'm trying to write a story that I would want to read. And I feel in over my head.  Earlier in the year when I had first begun therapy in an effort to figure myself out and make better choices for my mental health, one of the things that I learned is that my need for control impedes my ability to start projects. It's turning out to be true that my deep fear of failure has begun to take control of my hands and of my thoughts, coloring ever...

So, you may have read that I am writing a book ( here are the first unedited paragraphs if you were interested ) and so far the process has been a bit..well..intimidating. Over the last couple of weeks, I've taken a half a dozen writing/publishing workshops online and while these have proved very useful, it's evident that I've got a lot of work to do if I want to be a successful and more importantly published writer. It's not as though I was expecting this entire process to be easy because if it were, everyone would publish a book. There is, however, a lot more to it than I originally anticipated. Writers are not merely conveyors of a story; they are, at their heart, marketing gurus (which I am not). Selling a book also means selling your platform, building an audience, and connecting with the core of people that you want to read your story.  So, that's what I'll have to do.  And I kind of hate it.  I am really not much of a social media person. Over the years, ...

It has been almost two weeks since I made the possibly harebrained decision to write a novel instead of going back to work and the results so far are...mixed. Though I've taken a few writing workshops in the pursuit of sharpening up my dusty skills, it's apparent to me that I might be a bit in over my head. The process for publishing a novel is unsurprisingly not as simple as write a book, pitch a book, sell a book and then bang, boom money. Man, I wish it worked that way.  Initially, I gave myself a deadline of finishing up a rough draft by January and as I'm working on this novel, hammering out the rough outline of a story that I think others would want to read, I'm realizing that both my deadline and general plan are starting to look a bit unrealistic. When this idea first came to me, it seemed an obvious path forward: document my journey getting healthy, write the story, find an agent, sell my book. Now, I've taken a handful of writing workshops, penned the firs...