We are half way through the year and I'm disappointed in myself in just how much I have not healed. I need to understand that healing is not linear and falling back into an endless cycle does not mean I'm a failure, that it's just part of the process. The thing is I don't blog/journal like I use to where I would brain dump and make sense of things through writing. Without that I feel... lost. Trying to face things without writing them down for me, feels pointless. But at the same time, I don't feel like sharing that much of myself and business out there anymore. Not every "friend" is a friend and not every person who seems like they care and have your best interest at heart, actually does.

You don't heal from shutting yourself off, you heal by choosing who deserves your trust.

I've spent a lot of the first half of the year and bits of the last part of last year in the ER for various reasons. I've been kept overnight almost every single time. I'm being forced to be face to face with a health concern that I've been aware of but never aware of just how bad it was because nothing came up about it until... now.

And in the mist of finding out about that and how badly it has escalated, I was presented with a handful of other health concerns that I'd really rather not talk or think about at the moment. I'll deal with it when it gets here.

That being said, I haven't had much time to discover new favs. Not like I use to. I do miss searching and finding new things to try and love. But I've been too distracted to even think about going out, nor do I have much energy to do all that right now. 

My husband has done more than usual from making sure the kids leave me be on days that are harder than others. Bringing me breakfast on his way home from taking the kiddo to school on days I have to take my iron. Those days are the worst because I end up so drained.

However there are a few things I kept going back to in the month of May, and through it's not some big exciting epic list, it's still things that brought me joy in the month of May.

 I wonder how many of these Hello June blog posts exist on this blog. I do wish I had continued to consistently blog here... but between getting distracted from other blogs on different platforms and being a highly emotional driven person... that just wasn't happening. And I can't beat myself up for that, life is life and consistency in the things we like to do isn't always going to happen. And that is totally okay. Especially when it comes to creating content; content creating is already hard and emotionally taxing as it is, doing it when you're depressed or in a bad place in your life feels impossible. 

Granting myself grace has never been easy, and I honestly have never done it. I always expect the most from myself because I know what I'm capable of... but in the moments where I just can't, I shouldn't punish myself.

This blog generates its own traction of thousands of views a month, I assume because it's been here for over ten years. But whatever it is, I'm glad for the views I do get, especially in the months I don't post anything.

I've told myself for the last 2 years I was going to work on healing and each time those plans didn't happen because I have too big of a heart. I can feel myself reverting back to that person who just didn't care as much as she did, and that's not really who I want to be. I care, naturally. That's just who I am. I'm trying to learn to not let other people's deflections, or their demons define me. I'm trying to learn that people act the way they act because of who they are. There's no reasoning or hoping for change, and change that isn't done for yourself is just a show.

This month I want to focus on healing my nervous system as much as I can. Learn how to move forward without still being angry about what's behind me. I want to laugh more. I want to find more things I love. I want to discover new snacks and foods, because that's what makes me happy. I want to share those or taste test them with my kiddo or my husband because that too makes me happy. 

I want to go back to falling in love with books, stories that move and change me. I want to go back to writing like I'm running out of time. I want to discover more music. Play more games that I find myself searching their hashtags for on IG in the middle of the night.

I want to open a new shop, one that no one really knows or will know about. I want to create art for myself and the people who find and resonate with it.  

I want to keep more about myself, to myself. I've always been a pretty open book and on my blogs, I don't exactly regret that... you don't heal from shutting yourself away, you heal by being more mindful of who deserves your trust and energy. But when it comes to people who know me in real life, I want to keep more of myself and struggles to myself. They've been weaponized by so many people I know in real life that it became extremely discouraging. My husband gave me advice that I still think about today after I had left for the second time: "it doesn't matter how much you cry, beg or bleed, some people just don't care." I don't talk about my husband as much as I should, I use to have him all over this blog. But for someone who's had zero experience with ocd, anxiety and depression... he's good at sensing when something is wrong and he's quick to apologize if he knows it's something he did on accident. I get endless cuddles, hugs and  tickles from him and the babies when I'm sad. He's taught them how to be gentle with me and my heart as well. I'm truly thankful.

I would say I want to start cooking, but I always say that and it doesn't happen. I use to be really into Hello Fresh when I'd get Sunday's to myself and I would cook. Or I'd have my husband cook them. And we've discovered so many good ones through Hello Fresh. 

I want to start blogging my weekend recaps and my monthly favs again. Along with some of the girls favs as well. I want to revamp my motherhood blog and motherhood accounts.

I want to go back to streaming and talking about video games I love. I shouldn't let someone else's opinion define what brings me joy, especially if that person themselves have no idea what the heck I'm doing or even talking about.

This month I want to work on reclaiming my joys and the things I love doing. I'm honestly excited for myself and I can't wait to see where this will take me.

What are your goals for June?

May was a pretty hard month; or well there was a week in it that was particularly... hard. In life people suffer loss, it's just one of those things and no matter how much we prepare ourselves or how much we think we'll be fine, we usually aren't. At least not for awhile. Ever since COVID the weeks and months just start to blur together and it gets hard to remember what I did in which month. Esp since I don't get out as much as I use to and so I don't take as many pictures as I use to either.

The week of Mother's Day Bubba was feeling worse than he had earlier so he took himself to the ER where he did test positive for COVID. He had been coughing for about a week and it was starting to get pretty bad. I had headaches (thankfully not migraines, ironically), body aches, dizziness and a low grade fever for about 2-3 days. Then I just didn't. I never had a full blown fever or coughing and congestion, at all. I retained my sense of smell and taste up until maybe the end of the week for about 2 days. Bubba had medicine and an inhaler to take. I just kept popping Emergen-C gummies and staying on top of my Vit C and trying to stay hydrated by drinking something other than soda all day. 

On Thursday that same week, my cat I adopted as a 30th birthday/post divorce gift in 2015 was having a rough day. She was diagnosed with kidney failure 5 years ago and since moving to TX she's just gotten progressively worse in various areas of her health. She started getting annual ear infections. That moved on to masses growing in her ears and eventually in her eye. She stopped bathing herself. And that's when things started to get bad really fast. The last week she hadn't been eating her medicated food but would eat human food; which she never really cared too much for anything besides cheese, whipped cream, vanilla ice cream and Cheetos. And yet the only thing she would fight you for was the cheese. Everything else, if you offered she would take. But beyond those human foods, she didn't care for anything else. She had also started crying day and night and no matter what we did to help, it just wouldn't stop.

The last time we brought her to the vet they found a mass growing behind one of her eyes, because of her age and her health they told us that they probably would decide against putting her under and taking care of the masses because it would probably hurt her more than help. We were also advised to consider not giving her rabies shots after a point, esp since she was a single indoor only cat.

So on this particular day, I noticed she seemed unable to move. Almost like she couldn't move her arms and legs. She sort of just laid there, like a pancake and hard a hard time breathing. I spent as much time as I could with her petting her and talking to her. Telling her it's okay and she did so good being the most amazing companion a person could ask for. I eventually had to go to bed because I was still recovering from COVID. 

By the time Bubba had gotten up Friday morning, she was gone.

In one week I had COVID and lost my best companion. I still don't really feel like talking to anyone about anything in particular. I'm at least feeling up to writing/blogging again but other than that... I'm just finding it to be too much energy to talk about anything. The house is a lot more quiet and feels a lot more empty without her here. Like something is definitely missing. I haven't lived anywhere in 6 years without her, and while I knew it was going to be hard, I still feel totally unprepared. It took me two weeks to really cry about it and now I just randomly burst into tears; it's like it just opened a whole gate of emotions.

Bub caught me crying one night and I woke up to these flowers and a sweet note from him and Tums.