Life and Everything Between

witter (ˈwɪtə)
vb – (often foll by: on) to chatter or babble pointlessly or at unnecessary length
n – pointless chat; chatter

COLLINS ENGLISH DICTIONARY – COMPLETE AND UNABRIDGED, 12TH EDITION 2014 © HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

writing life updates

I’ll be honest. It’s been so long since I’ve felt in enough of the right mental space to write (be it blogging or storytelling) that I scarcely know where to begin.

To those of you who follow my more personal posts, you’ll already know that earlier this year I went through another miscarriage. Soon after, we learned that my mom had kidney cancer as well as a spot on her liver. My mindset quickly shifted from work and writing, to family and work in that order. Not to say I don’t always keep part of my heart and time dedicated to my family. But like many of us, it was more background noise. It was part of the day-to-day. Suddenly, at the flip of fate’s coin, my family became as much of my sole focus as it could be.

Publishing no longer became possible for me mentally, emotionally, or financially. But I never stopped writing. I wrote most drabble and dribble over these past insane months. They weren’t the sort of stories I’d share with you, but more of a catharsis and a way for me to process. I wrote almost exclusively on my phone.

During this time, several of my closest friends have also been through their own versions of a hellish year. While it was nice to know I wasn’t alone in struggling, mostly my heart just ached. I tend to feel too much most of the time, so I did my best to shut off a large chunk of my empathy and hone my focus to what I could manage each day at a time.

And then, literally in the middle of the madness, I found out I was pregnant again. I’ll be honest when I tell you how terrified I was. With my history, I knew the likelihood of me carrying to term wasn’t very high.

But…

The other part of me realized that if I was able to carry to term, my baby would be born very near, or on my mother’s birthday.

I said a prayer and saw my doctor and kept going through the motions. And then the miraculous happened.

My baby was healthy. And as a month of “all-day” sickness settled in, I started to hope. Almost fifteen weeks later, and everything that can go right, has. Not only that, but my mom’s surgery went as perfectly as we could have wanted it. They got all the cancer with her kidney, and everything else was benign. And I’ve been healthy enough (and past the icky first trimester bleh) that I’ve been able to take care of my mom after she came home from the hospital.

Best of all, I found out I’m carrying a girl, and the chance of her being born on Mom’s birthday is still very high. My boy is excited to have a baby sister, and my mom has been so happy and already talking about how she plans to take care of me and the baby when the time comes. It’s scary to hope after expecting the worst for so long. But I feel a little bit lighter every day.

And sure, I wasn’t able to publish Blackbriar Cove this year like I’d planned. Some days I wonder if and when I’ll be able to publish again. But that’s not on my list of important things anymore. I’m happy that my family is healthy and safe, and that it’s growing. I’m not sure what the future will bring, or what it will even look like. And I’m strangely okay with that. Somehow, I feel like everything may turn out okay in the end.

I hope you are encouraged at least a little today. I hope you don’t give up, no matter how tough things get. Keep dreaming. Keep believing and have faith. You’re stronger than you know, friend.

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#beinspired

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Goals for this week

1. Write every day.

2. Don’t try to be Superwoman, you’re growing a person.

3. Enjoy the holiday season and give as much love to others as you’re able 🙂

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