The Blog

     It’s been a long time coming, me getting back to blogging that is.  I started my first one around November of 2005, weeks after my late husband was diagnosed with a blood cancer called multiple myeloma.  It was an easy way for our friends, who were spread out all over the map, to stay up to date with what was going on with his health.  I knew not everyone wanted to reach out and ask, so giving them the opportunity to check in when they wanted to just made sense.  After his death in March of 2010 I had a hard time going back to it.  Too many memories.  Despite his cancer being terminal, his passing was sudden and unexpected. Looking backwards was hard when I was trying to figure out how to move forward.

     I tell people all the time that I will never fix my lips to complain about what happened to our family.  I felt like we had almost 5 bonus years with my husband because we could have lost him back in 2005.   The past four years without him have been – interesting.  A time to establish a “new normal”.  Becoming a young widow and raising our two sons alone was something I knew was a possibility when he was diagnosed.  I couldn’t comprehend the magnitude of the task until it actually happened.   I went in to operation “Just-Keep-Going” mode.  That meant doing what I thought was best for our sons well-being, figuring out what I was going to do with my unraveling world, and making sure I stayed involved with the cancer community that was now like extended family to me.

So what will this blog be about, you ask?  Pretty much any and everything under the sun.  Lord knows my life has been filled with some of the most random, poignant and even entertaining moments as I’ve “adjusted”.  When you’ve seen what I’ve seen and experienced what I’ve experienced your perspective becomes different.  And that’s putting it mildly.  I used to tell people that becoming a widow at the age of 37 didn’t change me, but boy was that NOT TRUE!  Oh, I’m different alright.  I equate it to a butterfly coming out of a cocoon. A butterfly with a hint of pit bull now, I might add, because my tolerance level for nonsense plummeted after March 24, 2010.  I guess that’s the byproduct of having the rug snatched from under you unexpectedly.  You learn to appreciate the good in your life and dismiss the bad so you can make MORE room for good that just HAS to be on its way.  I mean seriously, more good is coming, right?!  Call me an “eternal optimist”.  Always looking for the bright spot…or trying to be the bright spot, both work for me.  So with that in mind… WELCOME!