Living For Me.

I stopped being one for writing directly about my life on here a while ago, but I feel like in the past 5 years there’s been so much change and growth that’s been undocumented – I might as well lay it out there.

I entered a phase of life where I couldn’t write, but it wasn’t a bad thing. There was this point in my early 20’s where I decided that I was going to be who I am and stop worrying about what other people want me to be. As long as I continued to be happy with myself and my decisions, then that’s all that mattered. Dating didn’t matter anymore. Going to school for a degree I didn’t want didn’t matter any more. Pacifying friends – didn’t matter any more. What did matter was living my best life for ME.

I started spending more time out with friends and meeting new people. Usually I’m a home body – still am to this day – but I wanted to be able to connect with new people and explore my city with those people. I made some of my closest friends through doing this. I also met my husband. While entering this phase of life I had decided that not ever getting married would be just fine by me. I loved my life as a single woman. I had a routine for every day of  the week and could do whatever I wanted, a full life that I was so content with. But of course not everything can go the way you plan it to. He was the most pleasant surprise – and the thing I am most thankful for from this time period. I started a new job in an industry I never expected to be in, doing accounting – something I also never expected to do. (I’m sure my Papa in Heaven is SO proud though, taking on that family trait.) This job was everything I could have needed to start out in a career. They encouraged growth in more areas than I could have hoped for and gave me more skills than I knew were in me.

Of course this time of life wasn’t all hunky dory. Me choosing to do what I want, rather than what some of my family wanted, caused some friction. Still does. It caused some anxiety and frustration that I had to defend my decisions – even though they weren’t bad ones. Some fights that didn’t need to be had. But overall, this was coming of age. This was my time to become the adult I wanted to be.

My husband and I dated for 4 years before getting married a year and 5 months ago. We thought that was the “biggest” change we had coming our way, but the past year and a half has brought some surprises. My husband lost his job unexpectedly only a few months after we were married due to his company, a small third party IT company, deciding to close their doors. It was a dramatic and stressful time, but he quickly found a new job. About 5 months later, I also lost my job at the company that pointed me to my career, and was jobless for several months near Christmas. It was a whole new level of anxiety and depression for me. My husband was the rock I needed and did everything he could to help me stay positive. We added a family member, our dog Hank. He is the best dog now, but that was probably one of the hardest transitions we could have had. He was 4 when we got him and had some insecurity about a new home. He didn’t seem to want to get close to us. We were still living in an apartment – and he’s a high energy dog. It was rough. But so worth it. He’s our booger butt. (Definitely a mama’s boy though.) And the best of all – we moved into a house! We’re renting for now to save more, but it’s such a nice change from an apartment.

We’re getting close to entering our 30’s and I am SO excited for what the future holds. Maintaining that living my best life for me with the best partner I could have chosen.