journey

Rooted in Blessings

Most of my world right now revolves around “green stuff” as Tim calls it. (For those of you who follow me on Insta or FB sorry about the garden overload!) But when I was watching a show I follow on Discovery + called ‘Growing Floret’ the other night it finally clicked as to why, after 23 years in the landscape business, this is the year I’m so passionate about it.

After Fred passed the flight reflex I’ve always had got worse. Way worse. I wanted to be anywhere but home. My mind was filled of thoughts of getting out of Texas, anywhere but here, I didn’t care. Never really realizing that I was running from what was inside. And that no matter how many miles I put between home and those that loved me I wouldn’t be able to ever escape until I stopped and healed.

Cue up today. I’ve always had a green thumb. I will proudly say I got that from my grandfather. But in years past my gardening was to pay homage to him. To be close to Fred. It wasn’t about me. It was about pleasing them, honoring them, missing them. What I have finally realized is different about this year is that the fear is gone. Fear of “doing it wrong”. Fear of disappointing them. Fear of anyone’s judgement if it doesn’t yield, look right, blah blah blah. Something about the changes in me in the last two years have allowed me to do this for ME this year. And to be ok with it being for me. I still look at all my magazines. Watch the green shows until Tim, I’m sure, wants to throw the remote and I soak up TikToks and YouTubes like a sponge. But if it dies? Doesn’t yield like I want? Pull it up and start again. (There is a life metaphor in there somewhere I’m sure.)

This spring in my business hasn’t been any different. In fact it’s been 100x worse. My anxiety, when I focus on it, is off the charts. Panic attacks are a new thing I’m not really fond of. I’m going through huge changes at work. The pressure is intense. But a not so little difference this year? I pull up to the stop sign at the corner each day and my body lets out a breath. I sit at that stop sign for a fraction longer than I have to and I take in my yard. It’s not pride I feel. It’s peace. I’m home. More importantly? I WANT to be home.

As I walk towards my “shades of Caribbean” painted gate along the brick path that I saw in my magazines and Tim made a reality the fear, stress, and worry of the day seeps out of me. The gladiolus are starting to reward me with gorgeous blooms that make me smile. Once I get inside the gate I have to force myself to go inside and say hello to Tim and the dogs before I race back outside to see what changed in the last 24 hours in the garden. (And yah somedays I forget to say hello to them!).

I grab my “f*&% it bucket” as I call it – which houses a skirt with all my tools on it and a wide open space for all the weeds I’ll pull and cuttings I’ll take off if need be – and I head outside. I usually have about 45 minutes after I get home while Tim is still working that I get to be outside in the garden and unwind. Tim worries constantly that I’ve bitten off too much, that it’s too much work, and what I can’t quite make him understand is that it’s a form of medicine that if they ever figured out how to bottle would put the pharmaceutical companies out of business.

Despite having harvested about 10 lbs of squash at this point I squeal like a teenager at each new little “baby” that emerges. I check the cukes and wait impatiently for enough to be ready to start canning. I hover over my tomatoes like a mother bird – so afraid the squirrel is gonna take them again this year. I pore over seed catalogs and sites looking for something new and different I can try my hand at growing.

And I now I realize. Despite my teasing Tim about his travels this summer – I am content to know I’m gonna be home in my garden. I’ve waited a long time to feel some sense of home and hearth again. To be able to open my heart to love and to be loved again. All of those things are the reasons my home and my heart are thriving. Like my beautiful plants God nurtured me through the tough times, watered and fertilized me when I was withering, and now my roots are strong again. I trusted him when I was broken and dying and unable to see the sun and he nurtured me the same way I do any of my plants.

Colossians 2:7 – Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.

I’m thankful. So very thankful. Blessings y’all – Amy

Where’s The Instruction Manual?

When our kids were babies probably more than one of you thought more than once “I have no idea what I am doing – why don’t they come with instructions”? Maybe not. Some people are born with inherent parenting skills or are blessed with a strong familial support system so that they never felt overwhelmed or out of their league. I fell somewhere in the middle of all three (and I really want to meet the person who felt like they had it all together all the time with a new baby)!

I grew up taking care of my siblings so I had some parental instinct. Even still I remember many a time calling my grandma in tears when Em was an infant saying “I need a break please come get this child.” By the time Fred came along Em and I were working our way through the toddler years – and more of those phone calls to my support system. But with the arrival of Fred in my life I suddenly had a teenager and a pre-teen too. Guess what? Their instruction manual was missing too!

As a parent our beacon is to want for our kids either better than we had if we had a traumatic/terrible/less than ideal childhood or to recreate the storybook childhood we had in our minds. Even with those as our very loose guidelines parenting is like feeling your way in the dark blindfolded with your hands tied behind your back. You navigate through the toddler years hoping you don’t lose your mind from saying “no” a thousand times a day, you enjoy the age five to twelve phases when they are curious about everything and you are too cool for words, and you are dumbfounded when thirteen hits and you know nothing and can say nothing right until about twenty-five. A manual would have been helpful especially in that tough last phase…

With God’s grace, a strong support system, and a little bit of luck you get them all to adulthood. You turn out amazing human beings into the world that you are proud to call your own. But get ready. This phase is the most crucial of all. This phase is the one that if you screw it up it is worse than all the other phases combined. And you still don’t know the rules. You are baffled when they don’t call – you once were the most important thing in their lives. When they do call you don’t know how to turn off parenting and not give advice and have no understanding as to why they didn’t heed it. And the quiet in the house will make you miss the days of bickering, blaring TV’s, and overwhelming noise lemme tell ya.

Why didn’t anyone tell you about this phase? How to let go? (Here to tell ya I bombed the test on letting go.) Probably because that damn instruction manual is still missing. You don’t know when to call and when not to. You didn’t know that when your phone lights up and it’s one of them that your heart is gonna do the simultaneous leap for joy and stick in your heart thinking something must be wrong. If they are adults, you are old enough you don’t remember the freedom you craved at their age and how your parents were the last thing you thought about as you made your own decisions and choices. A cruel twist of getting old is you really do forget what it is like to be young. And what it was like to have that confidence that the people who love you most will always be there.

Sitting where I’m sitting now, missing my stand in parents (my grandparents), I think of all the times I wish I’d called more or gone by more. Heeded their advice when it was offered. But also with the wisdom to understand that this circle of life IS the instruction manual. We all do it to the best of our abilities and hope when we’re gone that we are remembered as strongly and as fondly as I miss them. If we are? We didn’t need the manual. We did just fine on our own.

Blessings y’all – Amy

Calendar of Tears

For Christmas I gave Tim a calendar that contained all of the special people in our lives birthdays, anniversaries, important events. I also noted a small heart on days that are anniversaries/days that can be trigger days for me or have special significance.

Talking to Em last week after Mom’s birthday about us being able to take a breath after February I sort of put together in my head why those small hearts on Tim’s calendar mattered. The calendar of my life is marked with days to look out for, anticipate, pray over, and sometimes shed tears. A calendar littered with tears…I’ll explain.

In the aftermath of early grief those days – anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, special memories – they are like a tidal wave slamming into you and taking the breath out of you. What I have found is that as time moves on you don’t quite know on those days if you are going to get a tidal wave or just a lapping at your ankles. Call me crazy but the uncertainty is almost worse.

As I have grown older the calendar has become littered with “seasons” that have nothing to do with the weather. Periods of weeks or months where the bracing for the wave or the splash is just endless. December is a bad one. February is another. And by some odd quirk of dates there is a six week period from April 24th to June 5th that marks off when Mom died (4/24), PawPaw (5/14), and Fred (6/5). The three most important people in Em and I’s lives died within three weeks of each other on the calendar – just different years.

Some would say “why not just ignore those dates if they hurt” (yes I’ve had that said to me). For me that is also the same as saying to me “why don’t you just forget them?” Sounds pretty dumb huh? But it doesn’t work like that. Ignoring pain doesn’t make it go away. It gives it power and strength. Acknowledging them, celebrating them, speaking of them – that’s where the healing begins. It’s allowing yourself to remember they loved you and you loved them.

This last anniversary of Fred and I’s wasn’t special in terms of a big number or any particular significance . He’s been gone almost six years and we would have been married for sixteen. But this year was the tidal wave. Not a bad one mind you – God brought some pretty awesome memories to the day – but a tidal wave nonetheless. It’s hard to miss someone. It’s harder still when life is moving on and you are really happy.

I heard a sermon today that the message was “I’m not done with you yet, there is more to the story”. Move forward, you aren’t finished yet. Those words lifted my heart in ways I can’t yet explain to you. But what an awesome message.

I couldn’t have said this a few years ago but what if all those tears on the calendar are just part of God’s story for me? For my kids? I’ve seen those tears shape all of us in ways I know we wouldn’t have changed on our own. If we think about our pain having a purpose does it make it easier to bear?

I’ll never stop acknowledging those special days. I know there will be additions to the calendar as I age and those that are older still leave me too. But maybe I’ve reached a point I can understand that sometimes we need the tears each year to continue to wash what hurts and clear the path of where we’re meant to go.

Blessings y’all – Amy

Celebrating Love & Friendship

Someone said once that time heals all wounds. I’d be willing to bet that person hadn’t REALLY had loss in their life. Don’t get me wrong. Life is moving on. In so many fabulous ways. But as I stare down the barrel of several memory anniversaries this week I’m a little melancholy.

Turns out…time never heals grief. It eases the sharpness as you struggle to breathe. It dulls the edges in a way that makes living come back in ways you can’t imagine possible in the immediate aftermath. But time does not ever heal grief. Because grief can’t be healed. Each year the calendar rolls dates around that tug the fine hairs under the band-aid you’ve put on the pain. You find ways to brace for it. To get through it. To ask for help. But on those days the pain is very much there.

TimeHop has begun reminding me of the season of life that the kids and I were in this time six years ago. This week on Friday would have been my sixteenth wedding anniversary. As I mull that over…how many years Fred has been gone versus here a knot forms in my stomach. February 4th would have been my grandpa’s birthday.

I can honestly look back and know that these impending dates don’t send me spiraling into the hole they once did. I can proudly say that is because I’ve done the work. I’ve invested the energy in myself to know that I am a survivor. But that doesn’t mean I’m not tremendously glad that when the idea came up to run away this week that I wasn’t completely and totally on board. Spend a week away with a man who loves me and makes room for the days that I’m not quite ok? Yep. Spend a week doing one of the things I love most with friends who are like family to me? Yep. Sign me up.

Add surprising all those friends to the list (my favorite thing to do to people I love) and I’m all in.

We boarded the Carnival Celebration today. To celebrate being loved. Not once not twice but by three amazing men. My PawPaw who contradicted all the crappy awful abusive men my mother chose. Fred who took a broken girl, gave her an instant family, and was patient while she loved too hard and held on a little too tight. And this wonderful man who walks beside me now. Who quietly and patiently lets me know every day that I am worth being loved. That bruised and slightly damaged as I may be I deserve to be loved as hard as I love.

We are celebrating friendship. These that I have made in all the years I’ve traveled. The special relationships I have that I constantly confuse the mess out of Tim because he can’t remember all the names but he loves them all because they make me happy.

Love hard friends. Life is short and precious and can change on a dime.

Blessings – Amy

The Blessing and Curse of Being An Over Thinker

These days most of us know an over thinker. Or are one ourselves (raising my hand over here). By Merriam Webster’s definition to over think is to think too much about (something) or to put too much time into thinking about or analyzing (something) in a way that is more harmful than helpful. However, some very famous people were over thinkers – Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Orville Wright. To my way of thinking, and in my experience, it’s a blessing and a curse.

Starting with the positive – most over thinkers are great problem solvers. This comes from being able to look at most people, situations, and things from all angles (admittedly sometimes too much or too long) and find solutions that others can’t see. The 30,000 foot view if you will. They can rearrange the pieces in a problem like no one else. Some can think on their feet quickly and thrive on the challenge of being able to “fix it”.

The curse of this particular skill? The anxiety and stress when normal people need to do things their way even when the over thinker thinks they can see the disaster (ok maybe “disaster” is a strong word – how about less than ideal outcome) coming at them. When you have an empathic over thinker who wants to avoid anyone else feeling anything other than happy you have a mess. Their deep level of thinking gets them inappropriately called things like “control freak”, “nag”, or “bossy”. In reality – they aren’t any of these things. Their brain just never shuts down so they see all the worst case scenarios and try to prevent them to help the people they love.

Their thoughts are never quiet and they don’t understand the response “nothing” to the question “what are you thinking”. How can someone be thinking literally nothing?!?! What does all that quiet in your head feel like? To them things mean something, or happen for a reason, and everything is a “why”.

Don’t even think about lying to an over thinker. Due to being great critical thinkers, they have the uncanny ability to sniff out lies. Because when something doesn’t sound right to them their mind won’t let it go and they turn it over and over in their head until they pick apart the holes in the story. They are a narcissists worst nightmare because an over thinker can spot false, fake, or ill intention-ed people from one conversation with them. Over thinkers have a deep desire to figure people out and often can’t let go of that uneasy feeling someone gives them. They are great judges of character – their level of sniffing people out is on par with that of kids and dogs.

When an over thinker thinks they have hurt someone they will spend hours and hours going over every minute, every detail, of the situation trying to Monday morning quarterback what they could have done differently. Why they said what they said. One of the most positive traits of an over thinker though? When they apologize it comes from the bottom of their heart – they cannot fake apologies.

Over thinkers are perfectionists. They pride themselves on being great at what they do and strive to do their best. But when they don’t get everything right and come up short, they are their own harshest critic. They have to make lists of what needs done, so they can cross things off said list, and feel accomplished. Sound sleep is a rare thing for over thinkers. They cannot shut the machine that is their brain off – it is constantly swirling and contemplating. And there is always that list running through their heads. 😉

Why write about this now you ask? Over thinking lol. It’s busy time at work and it’s the time of year my brain works extra hard putting out fires and solving puzzles to get everything that needs done done. We’re also doing some deeper stuff in counseling that has me puzzling over why I do some of the things I do – good and bad. So yah – over thinking.

Hug an over thinker in your life and thank them for the amount of time they spend over thinking about you!

Blessings y’all – Amy

A Whale Named Barnacles

My timing is always crazy but as I sit in my steamy beach town my thoughts are on the whale I met in September in Alaska. Hahaha. Maybe because this 2000+ lb whale made enough of an impression on me that we named Tim’s car after her. Let me tell you about our whale excursion and a whale named Barnacles.

The tour we took in Juneau in September was a whale watching tour and my greatest wish was to see an orca. When we boarded the bus our guide said that while it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility he had only seen orcas six times since April (and it was September). But the whale gods were with me. We weren’t on board the boat 15 minutes and the captain got a call that an Orca named Captain Hook had been spotted. Named such because his dorsal fin had gotten caught in something at one point and was curved over in an unnatural way. He was a scout orca for a transient pod – scouting food for his pod while they were safely some distance away. There aren’t enough words to describe the feelings that went through me when my eyes landed on that whale. There were tears and there was a video sent to my baby girl. Like most ocean things whales are OUR thing.

Back to Barnacles. After Captain Hook moved on they took us into a cove a few minutes away and there were numerous humpback whales breaching the surface. Even with many whale watching boats in the area the silence and the majestic-ness (yes that’s a word lol) of being still and listening to these huge creatures blow out of their blowholes was amazing. The air was still, the scenery behind them just stunning, the eagles soaring above them, and these huge creatures closer than you can even imagine was a once in a lifetime experience. The guide had told us to take as many pictures as possible. We were on a scientific type tour where they tried hard to match the whale tails to their records to see which of the whales they had identified were in the area so they can track their patterns, babies, etc.

Never did I ever anticipate that I would get a good enough picture of a whale’s fluke to be able to match one in the book. Mind you, I was using my iPhone. But after an hour of watching these amazing creatures breach and swim around us we headed back to shore. While we did they passed around a book for us to compare our pictures with the known whales in the area. I was stunned to realize I had a picture of a mama whale named Barnacles. (For that matter so was the guide!). She is a 57’ whale, one of the largest in the world, identified in 2007. They didn’t say if she was identified as a baby whale or not but geez that makes her at minimum 15 years old.

I went into the Alaska trip skeptical I would like the cold. Knowing the whale excursion would likely be my favorite. I was wrong on one and right on the other. I can’t wait to go back to Alaska. Made a promise to the baby girl that we wouldn’t go back without her. One I am already chomping at the bit to fulfill.

If you have nothing else on your bucket list – put Alaska on it. It’s worth it.

Blessings y’all – Amy

The Last Frontier

I have no idea why but as I’ve sailed the Caribbean this week my Alaska adventure has been heavy on my mind. Maybe because I’ve been hopelessly cold….the AC works well on this ship. Maybe because of the comparisons I’ve drawn in my mind between the Holland ship I was on then and the Carnival one I am on now. Such different environments and both pull at my heart.

Alaska was….magnificent. As someone who doesn’t like the cold I was absolutely sure I wouldn’t like Alaska. I hate….I mean HATE….being cold. Bundled up like a snowman is my least favorite thing to be. What I wasn’t prepared for was that Alaska would pull at the small town girl that lives in my heart.

We ported in Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan, and alongside an iceberg. All three of the little towns had that straight from a Lifetime movie quaintness that only a Texas girl can fully crave and appreciate. So much so I actually checked out real estate up there for a little while. But did I mention cold? We went whale watching in Juneau. To see bears and bald eagles in Sitka. Shopping and wandering in Ketchikan. The most majestic of those was the hour and a half we spent on a small boat a half mile from an iceberg watching it calve. Seeing the sea lions sprawled on the ice bergs. Listening to the sea lions tussle as they sunbathed. I wish I had the right words to describe that. Even as good as I am with words I just can’t describe it. You have to experience it.

The quiet and calm that reigns in Alaska was perhaps the biggest surprise. Everywhere you go you can just breathe. It’s peaceful. It gives you a sense of just how small you are in a big big world. Floating in a bay with the engine cut on the boat listening to the whales breach the surface was the calmest I think I have ever been in my life.

I have told several people this….I had the absolute most picture perfect Alaska adventure. My first trip to the last frontier couldn’t have been any more perfect. But I literally cannot wait to go back. And take my Em.

Have you been?

Blessings y’all – Amy

But First, Seattle!

As I sit in the airport, headed home from our Alaskan adventure, Seattle seems so long ago!!! Seattle made a huge impression on me – hard to believe it’s only been a little over a week since we landed here. While we didn’t do some of the typical Seattle nods such as the Space Needle or Aquarium we did cover a lot of ground by the market. Like literally a lot of ground – we walked about 15 miles in two and a half days!

We were blessed with a gorgeous day on the first day we were in town. The locals all said it was usually overcast. Seattle being the city with the 7th highest rainfall totals I was expecting to be wet during our time there. But Friday was literally a perfect day. We got up early (read I couldn’t sleep) and headed into the market area. This was the first thing I saw when we came around the corner. Pretty sure I almost got hit by a car stopping in my tracks to dig for my phone. 🙂

My primary mission? To get my first Pumpkin Spice Latte (PSL) of the 2022 fall season at the Original Starbucks in Pike’s Market. Tim had braced himself for the line but we only waited about 15 minutes. The barista working the door said that line can be upwards of an hour and a half and when we saw it again on Saturday I believe him! The door barista also gave me a tip to get my PSL with their “reserve” blend coffee that is only available at the original SB. It was a solid tip – it took away the bitter bite that SB coffee usually has on the occasion I go for coffee. It was well worth the four days wait for that first PSL…and I had no idea that ALL merch from that first stop was brown instead of the traditional SB green. Poor Tim got to carry a bag with him the rest of the day with my goodies.

A tiny sampling of the gorgeous flowers…

We spent all day at the market just wandering. The flowers were incredible and the smell can be a little overwhelming in some sections of the market because there are so many. If I lived anywhere close to the market I would have fresh flowers in my home all the time… They were way prettier than anything I’ve seen at the store and way less expensive! Lots of vendors selling everything under the sun – but to be a market vendor you have to be selling something original – so Tim got worried about suitcase space very very quickly. I think I have more Seattle treasures/souvies coming home than I do from Alaska.

Our second main objective was to find a little hidden speakeasy called Bathtub Gin & Co. I mean, y’all know me right? Bathtub themed? Gin? This little hidden gem was practically calling my name! Tim got a little uneasy when we wound up in a back alley on a sketch side of town but once I saw the bouncer I told him to shush – we were fine. They lead you into this dark tiny place and our seats were a cut in half bathtub! Some locals spotted “tourist” on our forehead pretty quickly and started giving out places to eat and see while we were in town almost faster than I could put them in my phone. The only thing I wish I had done different was connect the mental dots of switching out their well gin for one of the special ones they had on the menu that I like. But the atmosphere was incredible.

Saturday was pretty much a repeat of Friday. We could have gone and done other things but the market just spoke to both of us. We had a chef guided food tour of the market scheduled and for the most part they had a gluten free option for me at every stop. The ones they didn’t Tim just got to have his portion and mine! He had a lot of local perspective and stories about the market that was mingled in with our 2 1/2 hour walking tour. The market atmosphere on Saturday was markedly different than Friday – it was wall to wall people with so many sounds and smells I was quickly in sensory overload.

About 4 pm on Saturday evening we both ran out of steam. The miles of walking, most of which was on hills/stairs, plus short nights and my uncooperative stomach took its toll. We got really lucky though. The restaurant located in our hotel had an amazing menu and a very friendly bartender. We managed to kill our Saturday night there without having to leave the hotel again. It was also one of the few meals of the week that my stomach actually decided to keep. (Traveling sets off my anxiety which triggers my stomach…usually it lets up after a few days but I have been sick the entire ten days this time. It’s one of the few sour notes on the week.)

Sunday we had scheduled a Lyft to the port and other than having a few more hours to kill (I got to do one more walk through the market and Tim finally hit the line short enough to try the donuts) it was time to say goodbye to Seattle. I cannot wait to come back and spend more time in this city!

Blessings, y’all! – Amy

If You Knew Then?

If you knew in your 20’s what you know now would you have done anything different? What about in your 30’s? For some reason as I absolutely thrive in this season of life that question pings around in my head sometimes. I am surrounded by co-workers who are in all the seasons of life and while I miss parts of those seasons I can admit there was a lot about those seasons that were HARD.

Counseling has shown me that what I wanted most in my 20’s was to be loved. To have the security and stability of a family that I did not have growing up. Whether it was from how I grew up or just how God made me – I was always born to be a mother. Em’s arrival in my life, while hard as a single parent, was a season in my life where I knew who I was. It was a role I was comfortable in after how I grew up taking care of my siblings. Fred’s arrival in my life brought a best friend then eventually instant family.

But what didn’t happen was any sort of learning or growth about myself. My identity centered on others. That continued into my 30’s. Paralleled in who I was in the work environment. What I couldn’t see then, that is so clear now, was that I was slowly going backwards in growth, progress, and happiness while everyone else was moving forward. Add in a couple of major losses and…most of you know the end result.

Back to my original question. I’m 44. The four years since I have turned 40 have been tumultuous and packed in at least two decades worth of catching up with the rest of the world. I have been asked if I would do it all again if I had known. The short answer is yes. I think God makes us young and dumb so that as we grow we appreciate the process. We learn to appreciate the stories being told around us and those that learned the lessons so we don’t have to (though in our 20’s most of us need to ram our own head into the wall, right?). We learn to feel the keen sense of loss that happens more and more as we age and we lose people who mean something to us. While I know I would have missed my grandparents if I had lost them in my 20’s I am not sure I would have felt it as sharply as I do now when I want my grandmothers’ slumghetti the way she made it when I was sick.

Aging takes patience. It takes maturity. In your 20’s and 30’s you think you are invincible. You are busy running the rat race of your career and keeping up with the friend group. You are busy surviving the toddler years and teenage years with your kids. More than once you may (if you are being honest) have the thought “how many years until they turn 18”? You are just busy being BUSY.

But your 40’s? You literally finally learn to stop and smell the roses. Partly because your body starts to slow down and partly because you just, for the most part, reach a different time in life. You appreciate those moments when your kids call YOU when they had a bad day and it’s your house they want to seek refuge in. When it’s your fridge they want to raid. You have time to travel and appreciate the artwork that is this world God created. You may have regrets – wish you had slowed down a little and appreciated it all more while it was happening – but you have plenty of time left to do just that now that you know not to take it all for granted. Life is a gift that God gives us.

So would I do it all again? Even now knowing all the loss and pain and heartache that was scripted for my life? Yep. Those things carved me into who I am. They will continue shaping me for the rest of my life. Every bit of my story brought people into my life for a reason whether they were just part of a chapter or part of the whole book. Those etchings on my heart make me appreciate who and what I have now and remind me not to take a precious moment for granted.

We are not promised tomorrow. We can only live in today. Blessings y’all – Amy

Another Year Has Come and Gone…

Another year has gone by…on Friday I’ll be another year older. Wiser? Eh, in ways… The changes in my life between July 1st 2021 and now are too many to list. A year ago today I was in Memphis with Bev. Exploring Graceland for the first time. Learning about Elvis and not having any idea I was interested…left with a hunger to return. Even then not seeing the running I was doing to avoid the work I needed to be doing. Healing from the inside out – looking hard at where you are broken – is time consuming and challenging. But worth EVERY minute of the work. Life is so much bigger when you can look beyond yourself…

Sometime in the last year I found a peace inside that you can’t understand until you find it. Not a mediating yoga statue kind of peace but an I’m ok, life is ok, and everything is gonna work out kind of peace. Is everything in my world perfect? Nope. I miss my son. Always will but am proud as hell he’s living his journey his way. I didn’t learn to do that until 40+ years old. Has life moved on past a point I couldn’t see a year ago? Yep. A year ago I didn’t know who I was outside of Lee & Em’s mom and Fred’s widow. I didn’t have a real relationship with my oldest kiddo. I lived to work before and now I work to live. Sad, really, as I think about it now but I had absolutely no idea who the hell I was. My life revolved around other people. My existence was to serve others. I was used to being the nucleus of other’s worlds. When those roles didn’t exist anymore – not in a full time need to be fulfilled way – what the heck?

What I found, through counseling and prayer, was someone inside that I kind of dig. I found my girls. I found the parts of me I can see in them that I was missing before. I have some cool as hell daughters y’all! I found sunshine again. I found someone to love me who I love deeply. I found a heart that wasn’t broken beyond repair – it just needed some work. I found a heart that can love deeper when it’s healthy than it ever could when it was scarred and traumatized.

But more than all of that I found a voice. I found the wild child inside that wants to drive a Jeep and have crazy adventures and be unapologetic about it. The woman inside who was too afraid people wouldn’t like her if they saw THAT woman. That woman lives forefront now. You may not like all of my decisions but I live by what I believe is right and by what I, me, myself and no one else has to live with. What I think matters. What I have to say may piss you off but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t count. I could light a fire under a lot of people with issues I’ve found I am deeply passionate about.

But back to Friday. Birthdays wig me out. There is some trauma that is still there from childhood (my parents sucked!). But already the love and thoughtfulness Tim and the girls have shown has made this year different. It stinks Tim and I will be apart on our birthday (did I mention we share a birthday?!?)…but it’s been a special day already. I’ve got a big week planned with people I love dearly and that, my friends, is what life is all about.

Live LOUD peeps. Life is too short to do anything but!

Blessings y’all – Amy