Category: Motherhood

Posted on

The Start of My New Adventure

I sit at my desk, my hands on the keyboard of my laptop ready to type. I’m looking around my office, at my daughter’s years of artwork on the wall, my messy desk littered with empty coffee cups, my monthly budget posted on the wall (as if that’s going to keep me from impulse buying) along with the daily affirmations I wrote out years ago to get me through the day, the hour, sometimes minutes.

I take a wine gum from the pack that I opened a few nights ago when I was feeling stressed out about life and look at my dogs curled up at my feet.

This is the start of a new journey for me but where to start? My 20+ years experiences being married to a man with BPD/NPD? Infidelity? Divorce? C-PTSD? Co-Parenting with a No-contact spouse? A spouse’s suicide? Helping your kids grieve the death of their dad? Crisis counseling for children and teens? Starting over? The struggles of being a single mom? Financial stress? Dating? Running a business?…….Phew

You see, I experienced ALL of these things and I’m still dealing with much of it and struggling to cope some days.

It seems like for some lucky few, they know where they’ll be in 5 years, but quite frankly, most days I don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow. I know where I’d like to be – preferably on an island with a cocktail in my hand ha ha…. but seriously, I know I have some insights to share; it’s just working out which of those insights are worthy of being shared with the world, with you, the reader. Right now I’m figuring it out as I go, and on those days when things make sense, I’ll be sharing them with you, hopefully over a glass of wine.

Enjoy.

Posted on

A little more about me…

Born and raised in sunny Brisbane, Australia to lower middle class christian parents, my life was seemingly normal. I didn’t realize that other parents didn’t fight like cats and dogs, didn’t drink too much, didn’t wake their kids up in the middle of the night screaming and being physically abusive. We weren’t even told not to talk about it, we just knew… don’t ever talk about it.

If only I had known what I know now….

I was determined to never be like them, right? We all thought somehow we could escape unscathed, break the cycle – not even realizing there’s a cycle to begin with. We had no tools, no way of navigating, no way of knowing what we didn’t know, praying to God that we could somehow make it different once we grew up. And then we grew up and did the same damn thing. Just different, but in the end the same. Because we were never taught another way.

Flash forward and I’m sitting here, 40 years later, so much wiser but almost wishing I was ignorant of all the challenges I’ve been through. But if I hadn’t made this arduous journey, would I be me? The warrior women I’m so proud to be, victorious at having conquered so much, motivator to others, fierce protector of my children, fierce and fiery, joyous and thriving?

I think not. The things that I’ve achieved, by sheer grit, have made me who I am. An entrepreneur, a business woman, a lover, a fighter, a protector of those who cannot protect themselves, a crazy, hot mess of a women who makes no apologies and who invites all who dare into her world of wonder, to embrace all that can be; because that is where real joy is found; in this crazy dance called life.