Getting Started

She is making the brave choice to live beyond the boundaries of who her inner critic has told her to be.

Morgan Harper Nicols

This blog was supposed to start in 2020

I had big plans when I registered this URL at Christmastime, 2019. I felt ready to make a cute little corner of the internet my space. A space to share bits of my life, recipes, and local restaurant reviews.

And then – 2020 hit me, and the world, like a freight train. I think all human beings have been affected by the tumultuous news cycle and a global pandemic in still-undiscovered ways. We’ve experienced trauma both universal and deeply personal.

There’s no way around showing my pandemic battle scars to anyone who asks. When friends who haven’t seen me in nearly two years ask “how was covid for you? Did you do okay?” I can’t really answer with anything other than the truth: my dad died and my marriage ended. That alone is enough to leave them dumbstruck and I don’t usually get into details. Honestly, the details are not that important.

It’s enough to simply relate what happened. My decade-long marriage dissolved fairly early and quickly in quarantine. My Papa also died at the same time.

Fast Forward

All I could do for a while was hold onto the hope that ‘better days are coming. It’s what I said to myself late at night and what I said to everyone who was, understandably, concerned about my wellbeing in the early Grief days.

“I’m just going to hold on and hope for better days”.

I held on and better days came. Better days are here. I’m so unbelievably lucky and I take none of it for granted. 18 months after Papa left this world and ~20 months after the initial shock of my marriage falling apart, I am happy, healthy, and moderately well-adjusted. My children are well, I enjoy my day job, I’m in a beautiful new marriage, and enjoy fulfilling friendships and family relationships.

Not That Simple

It would be so easy to tell you this story in that way. But then we’d have no story at all. The truth is, there were a lot of different facets of my grief and healing is not a linear journey. It’s messy and wild and beautiful and painful all at the same time. I don’t want you to think this will be a story about how I got through it. Life doesn’t come with an instruction manual.

This is the story of how I tried, am still trying and how you are not alone in your trying to grow through it all.

Thanks for being here. You’ll find a few recipes, some restaurant/activity suggestions if you happen to live in Utah, and bits of my story told in the form of _{(mostly bad)} poetry and wonderings of my brain.