2017 was a record year for me and my writing, especially here. I wrote more on this blog in 2017 than I did any other year I think. I loved it! Everything else was a mess but I was writing and I was loving it. I look back at those blogs and I'm very proud of them.
About a month or so before my last blog there was an issue with a blog of mine. The what's and who don't matter as it's in the past. But it kind of put a kink in my love of writing in my blog. I wrote a couple of more blogs but it wasn't easy and there was this issue of what if someone doesn't like what I said again. So after my last blog in 2017, I decided I was going to take a month or 2 off to regroup. Well before I could get back to blogging, life got crappy. March 9th we found out my Uncle's kidney cancer had spread and there was nothing else they could do for him and a few days later he went on hospice. He died April 1st. I feel like I went into survival mode at that point.
We were trying to help my grandma with his estate, with going through all of their stuff because she had decided to move up here with us, and just dealing with the fall out from the death of a loved one. That and look for a new house for all of us was all we did from April until the end of June and then we all had to move into the new house my grandma bought. I thought once we got moved in, we could start to find our new normal. But then we had a dog who was sick and ended up being diagnosed with diabetes, another who had cysts that had to be removed, and another we couldn't figure out exactly what was wrong with and he unfortunately suddenly died towards the end of September. We seemed to get the other 2 doing well and I thought, finally things are going to get better. Then came November 1st and we were all hit again. I'm not going to discuss what happened but I ended up being away from home to deal with this for 3.5 months. I've now been home for 5 weeks. 2.5 weeks ago my sister and her family moved 5 hours away! I've never lived that far away from them. So that's been hard. That's a very compressed version of what my life has looked like in the last year.
I've struggled to get out of survival mode. For me, survival mode is literally I'm just trying to survive from one moment to the next. There is no thinking about the future. It's just getting from one moment to the next. I'll also add I feel like I'm constantly waiting for something to go wrong. It's just been one thing after another and I don't see why or how that could change now. I know some of that is just my anxiety.
I've continued to journal in my private journal a lot. I felt like I didn't really have any one to talk to about what was going on and my feelings. There were things that I couldn't talk about. I even found that I've been posting on Facebook less. I've really just withdrawn even more(which I didn't really think was possible lol). Part of that withdrawing was from this blog. I tried a couple of times and even did post a blog in January about one of my dolls(I still need to do one about my other doll) but I just didn't feel like I had the mental energy before now to really pour into a blog like I like to do. But this time I managed to keep journaling and I'm glad I did.
But I feel like I'm slowly starting to step back out and I'm ready to start writing in this blog again.
So how am I feeling? I'd say I'm feeling mixed up. I'm glad to finally be home but I'm struggling to find my new normal. I feel like I'm struggling to figure out how to process everything that has happened not just in the last year but in the last few years. It sneaks up on me from time to time and just clobbers me. I feel kind of lost. I'm not sure what's next or what I should do.
I think that's what I've struggled with the most is trying to think about the future and make plans. I just feel sorta frozen. I just feel like every time I try to think about the future something goes wrong and I have to go back into this survival mode and put all of that on the back burner.
I'm sad that Winter is over. We had a 3rd Winter with very little snow and I'm not happy about it lol. But I'm hoping to plant some flowers and some vegetables. I've always wanted to have a garden. One of the best things about our new house is our big backyard and we have a big patio. I'm really really wanting to get a table for out there. I want to eat out there and color out there and write out there and read out there and I want to have lots of flowers and pretty things to look at. I think that would be good for me and my mental health. I guess we'll see what actually happens though.
I keep trying to find something positive to end this blog on and nothing is coming to me lol. So I guess there is this, I'm alive! My heart is beating and my lungs are filling with air. I might have felt like I couldn't make it through things in the last year but I did. I've learned a lot about me and about life in general. I've seen my circle shrink and people have left my life but I'm living without them. Tomorrow is a new day and there is still hope that one day I'll be where I want to be with the people that are supposed to be in my life.
I hope to keep writing in this blog and I hope I can get back on track to write like I did in 2017 but I make no promises. It's taken me 2 full days to write this blog, it's just hard to know what to say and it's hard to put everything into words but it feels good to be doing this again, so hopefully I can keep it up!
Here are some quotes and songs I'm loving right now:
