This is My Forties

So much has happened since I stopped writing in 2021. I stopped planning and started DOING in earnest. I landed a BIG job as an Executive Director of a local nonprofit. I am allowing myself to see me as an important and influential person, someone with worth and value to offer my community. It started with some terrified feelings and literal sweating my first few weeks. But now I am nearly 2 years in and loving it. I have grown into the position and didn't quit. I have days where I still question my abilities and the Board for hiring me... but, the impostor syndrome is mostly gone. I have had to face uncomfortable truths about myself as a professional, but I did it without a prolonged collapse or otherwise embarrassing childish reaction. I have grown. With 20 years of marriage down, we filed for divorce. After years of twisting myself in knots trying to be happy with only being who I thought he wanted, I realized it wasn't what I wanted... and that mattered . I realized that h...

I am currently in therapy, have been since August. After I graduated from college I suffered a massive emotional collapse... a crisis of confidence. I felt like I had no value to anyone, was unlovable, a burden and a drain on others, neglected & abandoned. Josh started traveling a whole lot more and I couldn't deal with it in a healthy way because I wasn't connected to him in a healthy way. I had lost a lot of coping skills and COVID blasted everything else out of my life. I tried to pull myself out of it through groups, friends, another job. Nothing ever really worked. The whole idea of self love was not new to me and I toyed with practicing it. I've blogged about it many times. However, it can only last so long if you don't deal with the emotional pain of receiving negative messages that got you there in the first place. They always come back to undermine your progress unless you truly allow yourself to feel everything. I have started the process of experiencing t...

Josh had the presence of mind to book us some tickets at an IMAX to see "Solo" in Vegas on opening weekend.  Other than that we didn't do much of anything at all.   The boys were super excited to see the strip from inside the car, and we felt that was sufficient.  Not our kind of scene... that and we were all vacationed out.  I did laundry and we went to bed relatively early.  We were exhausted.       McCarran International airport is the least international airport I've ever been in.  No help for people who speak other languages on site.  There weren't even signs in Spanish .  The international tourists were treated like complete garbage for not knowing English.  It was nice to be leaving.  The flight out was really cool!!  We flew over the Grand Canyon & The Colorado Rockies, and for the first time ever our connection in Chicago O'Hare was on time!         We made it...

Our condo was part of a ski town, and there was a path and hiking trails that would take us to the tippy top of Brian Head Peak.  Yes, please!  We drove as far as we could, but the road was snowed in.  We kept walking further and further up, but the air was getting thinner and the clouds were looking pretty ominous so we had to turn back.   Do not be fooled by these smiling faces.  Everyone was fighting at this point.  We tried to joke ourselves out of it, but we were just done with all the togetherness I think.  The views were amazing though!  We wanted the exercise and the experience of the park so we picked a trail to take further down the road. Right around the corner from our condo was Cedar Breaks National Monument .  It was the look of Bryce, but with 0 people, a higher elevation, and lots of snow.  The overlook we stopped at boasted an elevation of 10,435ft.  Brennan stopped about halfway and refused to go anywhe...

To give you a general idea of where we were, here's a map.  Our condo was in Brian Head, which was a nice launch point for all the other red rectangles.  As you can see, it lies in the Dixie National Forest, which means roads do not cut through this space so you have to drive around to get to anything on the other side, which really wasn't too bad at all. Something else to know.  We went from dry desert heat to cold mountaintop in one day of travel. When we got closer to our destination we saw snowbanks and were all really excited about it!  Brian Head sits about 11,000ft above sea level.  The altitude seems easier to handle when it's cold and moist air though.  Since I knew we would have such a packed travel day, I left the day after completely empty for recovery.  Best idea ever!! When we woke up it was snowing, which was cool.  It didn't last very long or stick, but it was still fun to see.  We stuck to the condo all day to rec...

First, let me tell you about the day before we left.  Tristan had come home from soccer practice Tuesday and complained his eye was hurting.  We hoped he was dealing with allergies since they had just cut the grass, and sent him to bed with allergy eyedrops.  It didn't feel better the next morning and it looked horrible.  His eye was killing him and we wanted to get it checked out by professionals, but were stuck in airports the entire morning.  We landed in Albuquerque after a long morning of travel, including a time difference of 3 whole hours.  We were all exhausted and starving, having been up since 4am, but it wasn't even lunch time yet in New Mexico.  Josh dropped Tristan and I off at an urgent care by the airport and took the other two with him to check in to the hotel.  As luck would have it, the urgent care was empty at 1030 on a Wednesday so we were seen right away.  Apparently, during his soccer tryouts the day before, he had ...