Hello, lovelies.

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Nearly a year since I wrote a blog post from start to finish, more time than I would like to admit. Event after event, thought after thought passed. I made mental notes, sometimes physical notes, drafting out what I wanted to say, but I couldn’t quite get in all down: the right words in the right order to say the right thing. Putting sentences together so that they are good (and not bad), so that they fall almost like a conversation between us sitting at my dining room table.

I had posts I wanted to write about dear creatures I lost, but sometimes it feels like I speak too much of the loss that gets wrapped up in this kind of life and not enough about the beauty, even though so often they feel like one and the same. I wanted to write about some of the goodbyes.

I wanted, too, to write about some of the hellos. The new fur friends out here, who came to us either by chance or breeding. About the joy of watching baby llamas prance in the front pastures. About my infatuation with the trio of potbelly pigs I named after Shakespearean characters. About the foster dogs who have come and gone on their way to their forevers. About the one I kept.

I wanted to tell you that I got engaged. That I got married. That the boyfriend I mentioned from time to time has upgraded to husband.

Every time I sat down to write something new, it felt like I wouldn’t be able to catch you all up. That too much had happened. That I had been too lax in reporting this almost farm life.

Maybe I was right. Maybe I let it go too long. Or, maybe, I need to extend some grace to myself for not doing everything, all the time, during one of the busier seasons of my life. Maybe I need to thank you for the grace you are offering by coming back, by reading, by sitting down for one of these one-sided conversations after all this time.

I’ve missed this. I’ve missed you.

I suppose, now that I’m sitting here again behind this computer, I will have to settle for catching you up in bits and pieces. Fits and spurts. And I’ll start here.

<<<>>>

John and I got engaged and planned our wedding over the course of about 5(ish) months. Engaged in July. Married in December.

We did it all quickly to squeeze the wedding it in between his last two semesters of college, allowing him, as my spouse, to use some of the free credits I had earned in my years as an adjunct professor at same college. John had planned to propose to me after graduation, but it made sense to move everything forward to put us on slightly better financial footing as we started our lives together.

So I planned a wedding in five months.

In the meantime, I decided to finally take the leap into yoga teacher training, which has been calling me for years.

I guess that’s how I found myself living in one of the busiest times of my life. Farm and work. Wedding planning and yoga teacher training. And while I was living that, John worked through engineering college and held an engineering position as well.

I’m (finally) feeling things slow down.

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A few weeks ago, a dear friend and mentor reached out to me to suggest that I attend a writing workshop she is hosting in the fall. I told her I was interested. That I would need to think on it. Talk to John. Research flights.

She told me, in the most loving way, that she “got this feeling you [I] need to keep writing.”

I sent in a deposit.

I have this theory–I’m not sure I’ve shared with you–that when the same message comes at you from three different directions, it’s a message from the universe. (I’ve had it happen several times, perhaps the most notable when three people asked me, in as many days, if I had considered the possibility that my ex husband was cheating on me. The day after the third repetition of the question, I found his texts to his mistress.)

This time, however, it was a reminder to write, coming from three unconnected people within a week or two.

“Have you been writing?”

“When are you going to finish that book?”

“I’ve got this feeling that you need to keep writing.”

The truth is, I’ve had the same feeling. Not because this blog is wildly popular (it’s not) or because I think what I have to say is a necessity for anyone else (I don’t), but because I feel more “right” in my own skin when writing is part of my routine. It helps me make sense of the stuff in my head, the words I write helping me untangle my thoughts the way you might untangle yarn knotted up by a playful kitten: slowly, methodically, and without judgment.

Plus, the universe told me to do it, so there’s that…

<<<>>>

It’s interesting. All in all, things in my life are good and steady in a way that they weren’t for a long time. I’m grateful.

This is a truth.

Also, it’s easy to let the things we love just…slide.

That is also a truth.

Life gets in the way. Things get busy. God knows the laundry doesn’t stop.

I rationalize: This can wait. That can wait.

Then, suddenly, I realize that it’s been months since I’ve written in anything other than a journal. My riding boots have gotten dusty, sitting unused, while I worried about cleaning stalls. I spent so much time stressing about doing things “right” that I fail to do them at all.

Even in all the good, there is still this search for equilibrium. For balance. For a set of scales that allows me to love and be loved and love myself in equal measure.

Life is tricky that way.

All of this to say, I’m writing again. I’m going to try to keep at it because it is something that I love.

And, I hope, as you read this, you find yourself pulled towards grace and loving yourself…and maybe to that thing that you haven’t picked up in a while.

Maybe the universe is reminding you, too.

Either way, I’m rooting for you.