Where Was I?

How long ago did Open Diary have that little hiatus? I don’t recall, I’d have to ask my sister. It feels like a lifetime ago. I was in the process of reloading all my old entries from a text file when this iteration first showed up but I got so distracted (or maybe I hated the interface, or maybe I felt so disconnected from the community) that I just couldn’t recommit.

[Sister says 2014 was the hiatus.]

I don’t have my old entries on this computer, so I can’t tell at what point I left off.

My divorce was final in 2000, I know I wrote about that, and then allllll the emotional upheaval and draaaammmmaaaaa with a significant relationship, that now I can look back at and realize was so unhealthy. Good grief it was bad, and I was a mess. But then I remember I had met my (now) husband G, and I remember writing about that, but I don’t think I was still writing regularly when we got married, which makes me super sad looking back.

What all has happened — I will expand upon these.

We combined households and moved (or relocated stuff) seven or eight times in a ten month period between June 2007 and August 2008.
We got a dog who was awesome and also a giant pain in the ass. But he was MY giant pain in the ass.
We had a really cool family vacation in the mountains of North Carolina in 2008, which I am grateful for because…Then my nephew’s cancer returned with a vengeance and we lost him in September 2009.
My cat Gus died quite suddenly in 2010.
In 2011, my mother in law died quite suddenly. It took a real … toll. G was so very angry and internalized so much of it. It truly changed him.
General trials and tribulations of raising four boys through the end of middle school and high school/college/jobs that were all aged within 37 months of each other.
In 2013 we got another dog who I adore, but she is secretly a cat (and also a princess).
In 2015 I turned 50… my stepfather collapsed in our guest bathroom two days later and within a week, my mom was a widow.
Eight weeks later, G was diagnosed with Stage IV liver cancer and we were told he had between 6-26 months to live. In the month of November alone, he had five different things that could have killed him. It did not kill him. I would be a liar if I said I’m not holding my breath waiting for that particular anvil to fall on my head.
At this point, G has had some more significant changes to his life view(s) on spirituality as well as other areas that were really challenging.
At that time, my mother also moved in with us, and while I’d like to say that everything was rosy, it was not. It was a very complicated time in my life.
In August 2016 my stepmom died suddenly and I was positively wrecked. This was made all the more awful because my dad (for his own reasons/grief) became so single mindedly emotionally enmeshed with a woman that I feel like I lost him (again) too.
In 2016, my nephew also moved in with me. The stress of having both my mother and my nephew in the house (oh yeah, and the cancer stress, and the loss of my stepmom) very nearly wrecked my marriage. We are truly now just starting to recover.
In 2017, I dove headfirst into being involved with a dog rescue and spent the next four years pretending I was fine even though I was stressed, upset and often significantly hurt by people that should know better. This also did not help our marriage, by the way.
In August 2020, my beloved brother was killed in a car accident. I will never not feel gutted.
In March 2021, our dog Roku died, and it was terrible because I feel like I let him down in his final days.
Scatter in world events and all…. It’s been a tough go.

I have to get back to work, but at least I have somewhere to start.