Crystal Ball

           I need a crystal ball. Or my palms read. Or a tardis so I can travel to the future, sneak a peek and then pop back into present time and do what needs to be done. I feel I am at a major crossroads. I will be thirty-five later this year and with that I am realizing that some steps need to be taken to assure that I can be where I want to be by the time the kids are leaving the nest. The question is, where do I want to be?
     
           Sometimes I ache for our mountainside with all of its nature and space and farm animals. Sometimes I want to live in a little house by the ocean and live a beach life. Sometimes the hustle and bustle of a major city sounds appealing. Sometimes (a lot of the time) I want to be a gypsy and roam the earth in a funky motor home and see things I've never seen and learn things I didn't know that I didn't know.

           The reality is the mountains get lonely. I know nothing about living near an ocean. A major city would probably freak me out. Roaming with the amount of animals we have is out of the question.

          So the question remains: Where is this life taking me?


          A timely quote that I literally just read, by Brian Andreas
               "Somehow I got to thinking today is a good day to tell you all the things I've learned so far in my life (but without all the endless details that'd make your eyes roll back in your head) & I figured I'd probably run out of space, but at least I could make a start of it & then it hit me I've really only learned one thing & here it is: Life does what it wants & it's a whole lot more fun if you agree with whatever it is. That's all I've got so far"

Years Go By

               It's funny how days can pass so slowly, seamlessly blending one into another. You can feel stuck in a never ending cycle. Then suddenly, one day, you look up and months have gone past, or even years. That's the realization that is slowly dawning in my foggy brain.
             
               We left our tiny mountain town in January of 2013. We left to follow a dream that didn't quite pan out. We left for Colorado Springs. Which turned into the longest, dreariest ten months of our lives. Seriously. I think I have ptsd. My dear friend from high school and her family, as well as my cousin and her family, are the only things that got me through that time. The Cheyenne Mountain Zoo helped. So did drinking. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I never even unpacked more than the necessities. But that's a sad story. and sad stories get you nowhere. I learned a lesson, I internalized what life had to tell me, it's over and done.

              In November 2013 we moved back to Fort Collins. It's been healing in many ways. I no longer feel so much angst about the foreclosure on our home. I can embrace what happened and make it another lesson that was learned. Things have been mostly great here. We've rekindled friendships and made completely new ones. We've grown and changed and made mistakes and celebrated life. I'm not going to tell the back story. I'm only moving forward. Moving through the currents of life like the whales that I hold dear to my heart.

             I'll give you the quick run down on the family in it's current state. Matt and I celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary in May. Four days later, Spencer turned thirteen. Maycee is now ten, Thane is almost six (twenty more days!), and Iris is three. We have some of the same pets, some new ones and they all add up to nineteen animals we care for. There are so many things that make up a family. So many things that make up the individuals in that family. We'll have to explore those as time goes on. I'm going to do my best to start writing again. I need to get out of my own head and writing helps. So buckle in. The ride through my brain can be an odd one indeed.