ABOUT
I never imagined writing for any purposes other than work (which I do a lot of) and during my college years (college was a long time ago). I’m not a journal-er, nor a letter writer, and not very prolific in social media (you’ll find out why in a minute). But, I have been toying with the idea of starting a blog, inspired in part, by a series of unfortunate events.
Let me back track……it all started with the dreaded ‘D’ word…..divorce. My husband (well former, I still have a hard time saying ‘ex’. Sounds so, I don’t know…….bad). We married in 2001 and made it until the summer of 2014. In between, we bought a small wooded acreage in a semi-rural area of Oregon, about 25 miles from our state’s largest city. Post ‘D’, I ended up with the house and the accompanying 100’s of trees on the property. Growing up in Oregon – on 15 mostly forested acres for the majority of my childhood - have made me a lifelong country girl. I love living where I do (even though it’s a 60 mile roundtrip commute to work from my house….we’ll discuss that debacle in depth later) and so it seemed a no-brainer to stay put; I got this! HUH.
I spent the next year-plus thinking I was getting my bearings and adjusting to single life (well single, but with two amazing dogs, who will play a very large part in this blog). I couldn’t have been more deluded. I did everything in my subconscious power to avoid addressing issues, past and present, and learn how to enjoy being alone. Thanks to many bottles of wine and a truly fantastic group of friends, I managed to live in denial about the state of my emotions; I avoided being home alone at all costs and had little interest in my former hobbies of gardening, etc. My excuse was ‘this is normal behavior after you survive divorce’. At this point I was the captain of the spaceship denial….
Unexpectedly, I met someone and we ended up hanging out together regularly – he seemed to love spending time on my property with me (something my former husband had lost interest in being a part of) and that’s when it started happening…..I LOVED BEING HOME when he was there! He usually got to my place before me and was waiting with an outdoor fire (depending on the time of year), a cocktail made and greeting me at the gate of the deck. We’d spend our evenings and weekends drinking too much, talking endlessly, listening to music, going on 4-wheeler rides – you get the picture – he started talking about all his ideas for the property, started “white-boarding” ideas on my windows, said the ‘L’ word (gasp!!), talked about his ideas with my parents and his mom when they came to town for visits, we talked about our impending "corporate merger"……GAVE ME HOPE. Turns out what happened was I wanted hope; he did not give it in the end. Suddenly after a year it was over, just like that. I got the “I need space” request. Then I found out he was suddenly ‘in a relationship’ with a girl nearly 20 years his junior, which probably started during the time frame of this sudden need for space. AWESOME. Found out on social media, no less (screw you Facebook). He never actually once told me “it’s over”. He just strung me along a bit, ghosted me over the holidays, then got himself the greatest Christmas present of all. A 22 year old. SANTA ROCKS!
So now what? Self-esteem? In the toilet. I started following a couple of fantastic blogs, one in particular in an effort to learn how to rebuild myself FOR REALS, YO; too many years in-between had been wasted doing nothing about ME. Inspired by these writers, I gradually started thinking maybe I have something to say or share. Maybe if I put them to paper, it will help me learn to be introspective, learn how to appreciate myself, learn to not give two fucks about someone who doesn’t or can’t. So I thought about it more, bounced the ideas off friends, got a Chromebook. Nothing. Finally, in the words of my sister – quit making excuses. So here goes. My goal is to attempt to share with levity and humor my experiences being a single woman, just turning 50 (are you kidding me???), starting over – starting again, on my little 5 acre plot and beyond. And hopefully learning to love it.
A word of caution – there will be prolific use of profanity laced into some or all of my posts (I’m looking at you, Mom!)