The long road somewhere

This has been an interesting year.

My husband lost his job at the beginning of Spring, sending him (and consequently, me) into this uncontrollable downward spiral of isolation that nearly destroyed our family. I couldn't do anything to save him as he became his own little island away from me. I quietly recoiled into myself, shared my pain with my closest friends and then retreated to the guest room to ride it out and see what would happen.

I did my best to maintain an outward veneer of normalcy for my son's sake. Inside I felt like part of me was dying. I didn't ever think that my happy ending would end this way.

In between, I frequently dipped into the well of love and support that my friends brought to me. And while I felt less than awesome and certainly not happy, the one sentiment they all shared was that yes, I indeed was awesome and yes, I indeed deserved to be happy. To be honest, I didn't even like myself. The stress of becoming the primary caregiver for more than my fair share quickly wore me down. And in the middle of all of this, somehow I kind of lost part of myself. I lost my spunk. I lost my fun. I lost my happy. It was just gone.

Well, much has changed. Mr. has a new job, which is challenging him and awakening him out of his emotional hibernation. And he is trying, very hard although sometimes in ways that don't resonate with me, to be the person I thought I was marrying 3 years and 360 days ago. Slowly but surely, I'm getting back to who and where I was before the storm hit and I might even be better for it.

Lately, I can't sleep at night. I've missed out on so much of life for so many months that there is tons for me to catch up on. Last night I stayed up late coloring my hair. I can't remember the last time I cared enough about myself to do anything like that. This is the king of sad for someone who has had a hot and heavy love affair with 30 volume developer and whatever color tickled my fancy for years.

But I'm back. I'm back, my hair is fun again and I'm ready to bring it. I'm back to being the kind of girl that when my feet hit the floor in the morning, the devil says "oh shit, she's up!"

I'm beyond thankful. Thankful for my friends, my Family 2.0, who never wavered in love and support even when I didn't even think I was worth the effort. And I'm thankful for my husband, who figured out how to snap out of it before he completely failed me and our son. And I'm thankful for my pastor, who when I told him I didn't feel that I had anything of value to share with people, said "Oh, but you do" and he meant it. And he may have been right, and even if he wasn't he challenged me enough to dig my own heels in and put the brakes on everything that had gone awry to find part of me that I'd lost. And I'm thankful for my God, who I am sure heard my whining and thought "would you just shut up? I'm trying to do something here" and somehow kept me sane enough to stick around and see what He was up to.

I'm not quite sure what the point of all the struggle was, but I think He was making me fierce. One request though if you read my blog, God...next time, could we do this with a little less drama? KTHXBAI.