Home, Sweetest home of all...

It has been a month that in some ways has felt like an emotional roller coaster from here to the moon,
but
in other ways it feels more like a tidal wave that was quietly building and it has swept over me
now leaving me feeling clean, fresh, invigorated--alive!
Visiting Utah for the first time since moving away was just as emotional for me as I should have expected...but I didn't.
I was distracted by other things up until the very moment I arrived there.
Mostly, it was wonderful to be surrounded by friends and family who love me, and whom I've missed very much.
And partly, it was hard to be there without my sweet husband.
But really...it just brought a lot of realizations under the glaring stagelights on the theater in my mind.
It started a domino effect, setting into motion a jarring of my perspective as I was forced to examine my life and my choices.
I'm not gonna lie...it was scary.
I wouldn't say I ever regretted my decision to move with the kids to Maine, but I had to feel my way through it all over again, groping in the dark. I came out the other side with a smile on my face, though, and the sure knowledge that I have done the right thing. Like I said, it isn't so much that I regretted my choice, or even doubted it. It's just that...I don't know. Maine has been hard. Utah is easy. And I was feeling like it was all just too much. I realized, maybe for the first time, just how much I had given up in order to move here--and it made so many things make sense at once that I practically imploded.
So once that tidal wave passed, I spent a week at home and then hopped in the car with two friends from high school and we drove through 10 states to visit my best friend who is another friend of ours from high school. We had an amazing time--and most of that trip is another story for another post, but the part relevant to this post is that I finished this leg of my self-discovery journey. I realized that I have been sort of wallowing and stagnant. I reached a point where I am ready to press onward--including, but not limited to: exercise, writing, and a whole new course of study for my ever-elusive bachelor's degree!
See...my whole life, the only solid goal I had, and something I sought after with every cell in my being, was True Love. I know...I'm kinda pathetic. But that's just the reality: I didn't have anything else motivating me but finding my True Love. And now that I have found him, my entire being has had to realign itself. It has been a beautiful ride, although bumpy at times. The end result was this: without a life goal, without a driving force, I was somewhat depressed--lost. I am now rebuilding my outlook on life, and reconnecting with the person I was during that last era of my life, the one in which I was miserable but cool. Now I'm happy and frumpy. Heh. It has left me very off balance. Trying to form a new identity, not based on surviving a relationship that was painful and awkward-fitting. Now I get to just be myself and it is.....unfamiliar at times.

So......therapy with Lisa. Yipee.

I'm stoked for summer/spring to be here, and stoked to be spending time outside, moving my body.
I'm looking forward to carving out little slots of time for my Self--writing time and exercise time.

Here is the best part of that trip I just returned from last night: while I was gone, my boys were taken care of. I don't just mean someone was here with them and their needs were met. I mean my husband--my heart-meltingly wonderful husband--loved and nurtured them while I was gone. He is a pro at the parenting thing. I left lots of food and meal ideas, and that was it--he did everything else on his own. He took them to baseball practices, took them to get cleets, made sure their homework got done, and had such a good time with them that they hardly called or texted me. And when they did? There was no sense of urgency, no sense of panic, like when they spend time with their dad. When they come back to me from him, they are like wild animals--their behavior shows me all sorts of things about how they've been treated (and how they've been ignored). When I got home last night? They were happy to see me, but they were the same boys I left a week ago. They were happy and well-rested and clean and well-fed. Their behavior had...ahem...I'm embarassed to admit it...IMPROVED! I'm beaming right now. I married the best man who ever lived. I already knew that...and I already knew he was an awesome Dad. But my whole chest cavity is filled with warmth when I think of what I have just learned. I have learned that for the first time in my life as a mother, I am not alone as a parent. I have a partner who loves my kids and is not only committed to raising them well, he is able to do so in a way that works for me. I needed someone I could look to for guidance, someone I could trust to see the big picture when I'm blinded by immediacy.

I feel like I just found the fountain of youth or the secret of life.
I am so full of love for that man and joy that I can hardly contain it all.

Now I get to push the reset button on myself and let the universe carry me along on its swift current.