Well hello again. Yes, it has been a while... On one hand it feels like a lifetime ago that I was sitting at this computer, typing my first blog; newly married and on a tropical island across the globe from everyone I knew. And on the other hand, it doesn't just feel like a lifetime ago, it actually was a lifetime ago. I don't want to spend too much time in the past but sometimes that is a little necessary. So here is a quick recap to answer some questions that may have been floating around in your wonderful heads for the past couple of days, er.. weeks, months? ok ok...years.
Yes, Corey and I have, well, I sure hate that word so I'm not even going to type it. (I even check 'single' on any documents I have to fill out instead of the aforementioned word I won't type). I think my blog description does a decent enough job describing why I am writing a whole new blog... and a whole new story. Corey is deployed to Africa again and well, that's his story....
I am no longer here to write about his story and how it relates to my day to day adventures. That was my life, a time ago... or a lifetime ago... however you wish to say it.
I am here to write a new story. And not just a new chapter to a story. But a whole new book. The past two years have been, well bluntly put: a shit storm. I have reached the lowest low I thought possible and managed to surround myself with new friends that met me at the depths of the River of Desolation and sat with me when I needed to sit, and walked with me when I needed to walk, and climbed up rocks with me when I needed a physical activity that scared me so much that I couldn't even think about the shit storm I was in.
On the day that the courts were given the opportunity to tell me that my relationship was over, (I can't even remember the judge's name who let me know I was now, ah hem, single), I didn't go to the court house... but instead had been lucky enough to call into the courthouse from a peak I had climbed with my two trusty companions. I didn't even realize until weeks later that the peak we had climbed is called Rainbow Peak. But life has a silly way of lining up, even when we are too upset to pay any attention.
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| Top of Rainbow Peak |
But I digress and like I mentioned earlier... I'm not here to tell that story. I'm here to tell a new story and it began , I feel, on a day in Hatcher's Pass, a fantabulous place north of Anchorage. I had gone there to go climbing (a new hobby of mine that I will be talking about in a future post). I was taken to a place called Independence Mine and after a somewhat sketchy scramble up the side of the hills we made it to the climbing zone... After a few hours of intermittent sun and rain, a fellow climber explained, "Well, there must be a rainbow around here somewhere. Oh look! There it is! Down there..." and sure enough, we were Over the Rainbow. This was a rainbow, and a moment, that did make me smile and breathe deeply and the scramble down to the car felt different. And life feels different.
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| Not THE Hatcher's Pass rainbow... but a Hatcher's Pass rainbow |
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| This is Hatcher's Pass |
Just as I was excited to share stories from my previous lifetime with you... I am equally as excited to share new stories with you from my new place Over the Rainbow. I spent many, many days over the past couple of years, desperately, wanting to leave Alaska. I decided, not too long ago, that I will be staying in Alaska. And instead of having one foot out and one foot in, I am going to be fully present here and see what this beautiful state has to offer me and what I have to offer to her. I figured when it's time for me to move on, the transition will be one of grace and not an experience filled with stressful moments of desperation.
On a particularly messy day, I remember finding this gem and I read it often... and you can feel free to do that as well, if it speaks to you the way it spoke to me.
We are here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and Fabulous. There are no diamonds out there made by sitting a piece of coal out in the sunshine. They are squished... and saturated in darkness... and squeeeeeeeeezed with immense pressure until they felt like they just couldn't take annnnyyyy mooooorrrreeee....
And on the other side something beautiful and highly valued appears. I know I'm not the only one out there who has roughed a shit storm. I know that each and every one of us as a piece of coal at our beginnings.... But the important part is: We Began Again.
Cheers to us!
