2 Year Celebration!

2 years!!!!!

Since my little life got flip turned upside down.

Kind crazy to think about-- It feels like yesterday and an entire lifetime ago all at the same time.

I will never stop celebrating. I will never stop feeling grateful for each and every moment I spend in this "new life". I will forever be grateful for all the stones in the road. I am building a castle. (Didn't you hear stones are expensive these days?)

They say you don't find your strength without the struggle. Well, the struggle over here has been realer than real. But it's said for a reason. It isn't until you're 11 hours deep into a shift after pulling an all nighter from doing homework, or trying to find childcare 25 minutes before you have to be at work, selling baby items for gas money that you realize... I'm going to be okay. No matter what.

I'm going to be okay because this is what I want. I chose this. The weight that was lifted, and the security and confidence that came with my choices is worth all the long days, the seriously endless pile of laundry, and the missing picket fence.

My transition from Stay-at-Home Mom and Housewife to Single Mother has been less than easy.

I survived because of endless living room dance parties to "Shake it Off", because of great friends who just asked "What do you need? How can I help". Because of Mimosa's and brunch in the same clothes as last night. I survived because of little baby feet in my face, goodnight texts, hammocks, porch parties, and great neighbors. People I just met believing in me, my PIMA family. I survived because I hit my feet to the pavement over and over, found my passion, found myself. Because of all the people that wanted to see me fail. I saw their faces in the back of my mind each and every time I wanted to give up.

So for that, I celebrate! I try to be grateful each and every day, and I try to remember. My journey won't be easy, but there is a reason behind it and that reason gives me the strength I need when I want to chuck plates at the wall.

Home is anywhere I make it.

Things will never be perfect. I will always have to explain why I can't go with them to Daddy's house. I will always have to explain why we take separate trips. And some day I'm going to have to explain why Mommy and Daddy decided to live apart.

BUT GUESS WHAT!!

My parents did it. Some of my friends parents did it.
I think we're all okay.

"A little messed up, but we're all okay"

& guess what else...

There is life. There is love. There is hot sex. There is laughter. There is peace. There is family.

....after divorce.

Marriage is glamorized. Being a hard working single mother is glamorized.

Nobody talks about, blogs about, photographs the late nights where they're crying and arguing with a spouse, crying because they know they're only going to get 4 hours of sleep, they don't reveal the loneliness that can occur in and out of marriages, the financial and emotional strain that comes with children. Who wants to post about their long DSHS call while their single, childless friends post about how some guy at the gas station was using their tax dollars to buy food, who wants to take a picture of the baby puke that just flew all over them in the middle of the night, the moments that make you question your ability to parent all at the same time, because somebody might call CPS. Nobody posts the thoughts that make them wonder if they're cut out for motherhood. Or the thoughts that make you think you should've just been a stripper....(not my thoughts, I swear.....#ihatemath)...

& that's okay. Because who wants to dwell in that?

Let's celebrate!

#HAPPYTWOYEARS!