Where have I been? I have been asked this several times over the last few months. Why haven't I written anything? I'm always surprised when I am asked this. I am caught off guard in the realization that people actually read my blog. The idea that I give others the ability to think and learn and live outside of the box of their normal every day lives for just a minute is weird. I am humbled, but again, its a weird reality. I guess when I sit here and stare at the computer screen, I feel like it is just me and the computer. I forget the mass amount of people that are out there, who take time out of their busy lives to read my little bit of feelings and experiences.
So, to answer the question. At the beginning of 2014, I actually made a New Years Resolution. I wanted to blog. I was going to blog. I wanted to write often. It was a release for myself. It gave me moment to be in my head and get the chaos that ensues in ones brain out into the vast world of the internet. Blogging for me is like a weight lifted. So, I guess since I failed at blogging, I have been carrying a weight. I could say that I haven't blogged because I have 3 kids! I HAVE 3 KIDS! Yikes! Talk about a whirlwind! I have life, and laundry, piling up all around me and feeling a tad overwhelmed is an understatement. But, my 3 kids are not my excuse. I'm not quite sure how to explain my absence, because I don't want it to come off wrong. I don't want feelings to be hurt. Which apparently is what my blog had been doing. So I stopped. Enough said.
When I began blogging after Steven passed in 2011 (cannot believe it was that long ago), I blogged because I needed an outlet. I needed to vent and I needed to be heard. The person that used to lay in bed next to me at night and listen to me vent was gone. I was very alone. When I lost Steven, I can remember a night that I sat on my parents computer and searched out anything to make me feel like I was not alone. "Dead husband, motorcycle accident, single mom, widow. Widow." That was a word that took me too long to except. (Thats for another blog, because I think there will be more). Widow, widow widow widow. I was a widow. What I found in my midnight google searches, I was not alone. I was not the only widow in the world. There were other widows! There were other young widows! There were other young widows, in their 20's with little kids! There were other young widows, in their 20's with little kids that had just had their entire lives shattered. I was not alone. I read blogs. I read and I read and I read. I needed hope. I needed someone to tell me I would survive because I felt like I wanted to die right along with him. No matter how many times my mom told me I'd be okay, I needed to hear it from someone who knew it. Someone who had survived it. I found blog after blog from widows. Young and old. Trying to piece back together their shattered life. They were surviving. Some barely, but they were out there and they were putting one foot in front of the other and choosing to live. Maybe if they could, I could too. I started blogging.
To be honest, my intention for my blog writing was not for YOU to read it. My intention was to share my story, my loss, my grief and my pain with others who understood it. With others who needed to know that they were not alone. What I was surprised to find was that they were not the only ones reading it. My friends, my family and others who had heard my story were reading it too. My intention of this blog is not to hurt feelings, although feelings have been hurt and I apologize if that was the case.
I have found, and been told, that I am stubborn. Shocking I know. I can be a hard egg to crack. I don't want your help and I want to do it myself. I don't open up to just anyone. I don't make my struggle someone else weight to bare. It is mine. I deal with it alone. Its just how I am. Blogging has broken down that barrier a little and given others an insight into a life that they could not imagine. It has given others an understanding of loss and grief. My blog is for me. It is for me and it is for others who need hope. I write what I feel at that moment and I get it off my back. If it is too much for you to read, then don't.
I hope to get back on the blogging bus. Until then, this is my explanation. No longer MIA.
