This Messy Life— Navigating Sharing Kids, Divorce, Dating, and Blending Families

I realized that, after today, I’m 3 workouts away from completing my first program in over 18 months (I’ve started countless, completed 0).  ✔️𝘊𝘖𝘔𝘗𝘓𝘌𝘛𝘌✔️ I had lost faith in myself that I could complete something start to finish.  I remember back to when I first filed for divorce. I kept thinking, every day will get easier. Things 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 get better. I will feel joy again.  And in lots of ways they have gotten better. And in other ways, they’ve not. It is how life is for me. Some of it I accept, and some of it I fight hard against every damn day because I 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 better.  I watched the first episode of Fuller House with my kids last night 🤪. And there’s a scene where DJ (she lost the father of her 3 children to a fire I think) is speaking to her infant about how she’s scared, and doesn’t know if she can do it alone. She was crying in the scene and I felt tears spring to my eyes, and my heart begin to ache. I 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 don’t know if I can do it alone. I 𝘴...

  To my sweet babies, I hope you always know how loved you are. For every hard minute, hour, day or year I’ve experienced, when I see you both smile, or hear you giggle, I 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 things are right with the world. I was happy before you, but now I know that my heart was open, waiting for you both all along. I love the little, and very different people, you are growing into. Please take pride in yourself and all that you offer the world. This place is just so much brighter and better with you in it. Mama loves you to the moon and back and back again. All the numbers in the world my two greatest loves. Love, Mama

  “Love should make you feel both loved and free”. Glennon Doyle It’s been one year. ONE YEAR. Since we signed the papers and made our divorce official. This has, by far, been the hardest few years of my life. I have cried, sobbed, hurt, laughed, loved and lived.  I made a choice no one ever wants to make. Divorce is not easy. It’s not a decision that one comes to easily. But sometimes, it is the ONLY decision.  I do not pretend to have done everything right. I was not the perfect wife. I was not blameless. But I tried. In the end, it wasn’t enough. But I was, and still am, deserving of love.  It has taken me years to realize this. And to know that, like Glennon says, love should make you feel both loved 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦.  That is what I bring today. Me. I am not perfect. I am trying every day to be the best version of me. To be a good and honest mother, friend, daughter, lover. But most of all, I am striving to be honest with myself. To stop betraying ME. And to...