There simply aren’t words for the insane, unpredictable, difficult, and yet, abundantly joyful journey that life has been for my twenty-seven years on this earth. Nearly three years after the hardest days of my existence, life has gotten a whole lot more beautiful. With tears running down my cheeks as I write this, I am elated to share that I’ve remarried, and we are expecting our first little one. Yes, you read that right. Feel free to backtrack and reread, but it’ll say the same thing - I am, indeed, married, and we have a little one on the way!!
Holy mic drop, right? In my years of sharing my heart, my journey, and the ups and downs of life, I’ve never shied away from doing so with raw authenticity. It’s why so many of you have supported me and reached out over the years; you have been able to identify with the honest gamut of emotions I’ve felt or walked through. So hear me when I say, though I am truly overjoyed to share this news, I’ve been terrified. Not because I’m ashamed, but simply because I love Andrew so much, and I know how many of you love Andrew, too. I was never sure if my heart could handle that love being under attack or questioned. I was never sure if I could take someone seeing me happy again and think, “She must not have loved Andrew like we all thought she did.” The thought of that absolutely destroys me. So I’ve been quiet. I’ve been anxious. I’ve been protective — both of Andrew’s legacy and of my relationship with Nick.
To be clear, this blog post is for everyone. For men, women, misogynists, feminists, Generations X-Z, traditionalists, and millennials. Mothers, fathers, CEOs and interns, dreamers, doers and everyone in between. If you know a woman, if you love a woman, if you spend any waking moment with a woman: read on.
On the eve of the second anniversary of my late husband’s passing, today’s post seemed timely. It seemed fitting. It seemed like something I needed to remind myself of. I think it’s safe to say that everyone has a looming scenario in their minds that they are sure they will never survive. The death of a parent, the loss of a career, the divorce of a marriage, the uncomfortable and isolating move away from everything you know... Mine? The passing of my 25-year-old husband after his two-year battle with cancer.
I was recently asked in an interview what I had wanted to be when I was younger. I laughed to myself as the answers came to me: a WNBA basketball player, an NBA basketball player, and a tornado chaser. I was amused at the obscurity and then applauded the boldness of younger me. I love that when I was little, logic didn’t stop me from dreaming.
I am a perfectionist. I am ridiculously hard on myself, and sometimes that takes inner critique and self-reflection to an unhealthy extreme. Lately, that has led me to lying in bed in tears each night asking myself “why?” I have been emotionally drained and exhausted by the weight of drowning in grief, feeling as if I have made no progress in the healing process and am in the same place that I was 18 months ago when Andrew had passed...
Hi, it’s me again. Except it’s not really the same me that you all have come to know through my writings. My narrative is different now, my life looks nothing like what I had expected, and my purpose has shifted...
