Tuesday, October 5, 2021

Five Years Here

It's my 5th Blogoversary! Thank you for being here!!

I did a pretty good job describing why I blog in last year's blogoversary post.

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Today I had some time (and the emotional bandwidth) to continue rereading my old posts and labeling them. I began where I left off. In June 2018. The summer I moved out of state and the summer my marriage ended. Oh.

It began innocently enough. I moved to an apartment in a new state to finish up my clinical rotations to complete my degree. My husband stayed at his job in our old city where I used to live. I unpacked and decorated and started cooking again for the first time in years. I believe I was really starting to come alive again...

It happened quickly. All of the big and little things that I'd chalked up to the stress of moving never got better after we moved. Everything got worse. I told my husband I didn't want to be married anymore and he didn't try to convince me otherwise. We were getting divorced. I knew I would be taking a break from blogging so I wrote this post on 8/20/18 about life turning out beautifully.

I returned to blogging on 1/4/19 with a renewed enthusiasm for life. I didn't mention my divorce.

I kept blogging like usual for several more months. Then I wrote my annual post for what I call my Survivor Anniversary and that seemed to be the best time to share my change in marital status. Interestingly, it's also the same post where I mention taking my first sewing class.

I shared a little bit more about my marriage and divorce here.
And I shared when the divorce was final here.

Most importantly, I wrote a post when I started taking quilting classes. This was right after the time that my divorce was finalized. After decades of searching, I had finally found my medium as an artist. I find the timing of this discovery to be very interesting!

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And that's where I am with my reflective thoughts... 

My divorce has been final for over two years. My last IVF was over six years ago. So many lives, so many lifetimes ago... I would have predicted NONE of it. Instead, I wrote about all of it. 

It was just too much to carry by myself.

Thank you for reading.

Love, Phoenix


10 comments:

  1. Happy 5th Blogoversary! I love reading your thoughts & your blog!

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    1. Thank you!! I am grateful for your friendship, Klara! :)

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  2. Five years of wonderful writing, of such growth, of wisdom, and most importantly, of support (received and provided) and of friendship. Congratulations!

    I enjoyed rereading your posts - and particularly took notice of something you said in your 4th survivor anniversary post, when you wrote: "I was not very okay for the first three months of this calendar year. ... I am also simultaneously beyond okay; in fact, I am totally kicking ass." That ability to be okay and not okay, to be grieving but at the same time to be fabulous and excited and hopeful. It really sums up the early parts of coming to terms with not having children, to accepting our lives - maybe that's just life? But recognising that we can be both ok and not okay at the same time - that's wisdom, and hopefully, liberation too!

    Happy blogoversary!

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    1. Thanks Mali!! I'm glad I wrote what I did when I did because I don't think I could capture all that in the same way now.

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  3. Congrats on five years of blogging!
    I am so glad we have "met" online <3.

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    1. Thanks! Yes, I am so glad to have "met" you Elaine! Our timelines with everything are so similar. It's almost unbelievable. :)

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  4. Happy blogoversary! I absolutely love this: "So many lives, so many lifetimes ago... I would have predicted NONE of it. Instead, I wrote about all of it.

    It was just too much to carry by myself."

    Thank you for sharing your lives with us! For as much as we can help you carry the load, too carry others by sharing and helping to show that it is possible to rise beautifully from loss. 💜

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    1. Thank you friend.

      Who could've foreseen us writing about our most gut wrenching moments and making it available for anyone to read?

      But yes, it is possible to want to live again. It's even possible to enjoy life again. <3

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  5. Happy blogoversary! I really love reading your blog (even if I don't manage to comment as often as I would like).
    I'm impressed by your resilience and your strength, you definitely are a role model for me :-)
    Love,
    LĂ©a

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    1. Thank you Lea!! Thank you for reading and thank you for commenting! It's nice when you know your words are reaching others. <3

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