Sometimes a hiatus is necessary, even from the things you love.
So, what have I been up to the last few months?
November and December were quite full of the usual holiday chaos running alongside the difficult loss of my boyfriend's mother. Needless to say, life was less about trying new things and more about spending time in the inner circles of our close friends and family.
The circumstances surrounding that situation were heartbreaking in and of themselves, but having lost my own mother added another layer of sorrow.
It broke my heart to watch him and his family day after day, understanding as best as I could, how hard that time was. Our situations were so different. The one thing I understood was losing mom. As Yann Martel wrote in Life of Pi, "To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you…"
Here I was in the most vulnerable, intimate and private part of their lives in the midst of just beginning to get to know them. I had only moved back a few months before. Generally, people take a lot of time to get to know their significant other's family, but time wasn't on our side.
Sometimes I felt like an intruder, but they, in spite of their own situation, were incredibly gracious and open to me. I gained a profound respect for them.
Through it all, it focused us on how incredibly precious time is; there was no time for bullshit or putting things off.
We learned an intensely vivid lesson on what and more significantly, who, is important in life.
Since I moved back in mid-August 2013, there's been a rough series of events in transitioning from the mountains and the constant activity of living where I worked to being back in the place I thought I'd never return to for a million different reasons.
It has taken me nearly 6 months to finally start to calm down and even begin to feel somewhat settled. The stress of everything happening all at once left me feeling particularly doubtful, sad, and vulnerable; which made me feel like an incredible jackass. I wanted to be strong and supportive for my boyfriend, but so often it was him being strong for me.
Thankfully, he is unfailingly optimistic, and in spite of it all, we still managed to find quite a bit of happiness and joy through the months. He has been my rock through everything.
Speaking of happiness, odd as it sounds, turning 30 on January 22 was quite festive and fun- I still feel exactly the same as I did when I was 29. ;)
I am looking forward to my new decade and the new adventures it has to bring.
And speaking of new, one of my new endeavors is another blog called The Little Things, which is a place where you can find, you guessed it, little things that make my days happy. Since I love cooking and finally have a lovely kitchen equipped with nearly everything I could ever need, it is currently a lot of food and recipes.
I recoiled into preservation mode the last several months, but now as I've begun to find my center again, I'm starting to open up and am ready to continue pursuing what I set out to find when I originally started this blog; the things I love. The things that make me happy. The things that make life rich and meaningful for me.
Or maybe more accurately, I should say "more of" those things because the reality is, I already have all of those things in abundance.
Here's to the next 30 years.
November and December were quite full of the usual holiday chaos running alongside the difficult loss of my boyfriend's mother. Needless to say, life was less about trying new things and more about spending time in the inner circles of our close friends and family.
The circumstances surrounding that situation were heartbreaking in and of themselves, but having lost my own mother added another layer of sorrow.
It broke my heart to watch him and his family day after day, understanding as best as I could, how hard that time was. Our situations were so different. The one thing I understood was losing mom. As Yann Martel wrote in Life of Pi, "To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you…"
Here I was in the most vulnerable, intimate and private part of their lives in the midst of just beginning to get to know them. I had only moved back a few months before. Generally, people take a lot of time to get to know their significant other's family, but time wasn't on our side.
Sometimes I felt like an intruder, but they, in spite of their own situation, were incredibly gracious and open to me. I gained a profound respect for them.
Through it all, it focused us on how incredibly precious time is; there was no time for bullshit or putting things off.
We learned an intensely vivid lesson on what and more significantly, who, is important in life.
Since I moved back in mid-August 2013, there's been a rough series of events in transitioning from the mountains and the constant activity of living where I worked to being back in the place I thought I'd never return to for a million different reasons.
It has taken me nearly 6 months to finally start to calm down and even begin to feel somewhat settled. The stress of everything happening all at once left me feeling particularly doubtful, sad, and vulnerable; which made me feel like an incredible jackass. I wanted to be strong and supportive for my boyfriend, but so often it was him being strong for me.
Thankfully, he is unfailingly optimistic, and in spite of it all, we still managed to find quite a bit of happiness and joy through the months. He has been my rock through everything.
Speaking of happiness, odd as it sounds, turning 30 on January 22 was quite festive and fun- I still feel exactly the same as I did when I was 29. ;)
I am looking forward to my new decade and the new adventures it has to bring.
And speaking of new, one of my new endeavors is another blog called The Little Things, which is a place where you can find, you guessed it, little things that make my days happy. Since I love cooking and finally have a lovely kitchen equipped with nearly everything I could ever need, it is currently a lot of food and recipes.
I recoiled into preservation mode the last several months, but now as I've begun to find my center again, I'm starting to open up and am ready to continue pursuing what I set out to find when I originally started this blog; the things I love. The things that make me happy. The things that make life rich and meaningful for me.
Or maybe more accurately, I should say "more of" those things because the reality is, I already have all of those things in abundance.
Here's to the next 30 years.
