Sometimes life just leads us where we are meant to be. Tough to see in the moment? Absolutely. My life was about to take a turn this time 12 years ago. A family tragedy, my heart set on fire.. and it would be another 8 or 9 months before I took the step forward completely outside of my comfort zone to move away from all that I knew. I left the city by the river to a place in Wisconsin that would propel me forward in every aspect of life but mostly in matters of the heart.
“Call it karma, call it fate. You can call it luck or cosmic intervention. Either way..”
I really lost sight of some things for a couple of years. Given my past, much of my early adulthood was one spent feeling just incredibly grateful for every single good moment, good memory, and good person to come my way. There were the moments that still broke me for a time until I could regain my footing and focus but my faith held me strong to my core. I never felt overtaken… until then– Sept 2022. I see the pictures from that time and know the internal battle brewing before it completely boiled over. A battle that was not visible to anyone other than myself and the thing I could not control at the time– my health. And, in the span of one month, I could not see how to move forward in a positive way. I could not see past the current day and how to get through it. I was lost.
I sit here now, in 2025, just incredibly grateful to once again see so much more than the current day. The past 2.5 years have taught me a lot about patience and the value of the slow dance. I say this knowing that I am not 100% where I want to be on a personal level just yet– I guess we never truly are and should be working towards something, but I have my goals for the short term and long term and there is a lot of work yet to do. I used to think that I needed to hold my partner or son up as the reason for the hard work but have quickly discovered that my reason why has to be me or it won’t work.
I have some things to share with you in the future as I begin the work to go through my mom’s old papers over the coming months and take the journey to get to know her inner dialog. I will read them now in a really good place– one of acceptance and forward thinking. Over 2024, I reached out to my mom’s long-term partner after my dad as well. This was something that I had once felt the need to close the door on but as I now work through my own motherhood experience, I found that my needs changed. While awkward and strange in some ways, this has been a positive step for me.
2022 represented a significant pause for me and was one that carried into the following two years, and I hope that 2025 will be one of important steps and growth. I do not leave that difficulty behind me but carry it forward as just one of the many things that have shaped me into who I am meant to be. I will however, leave the darkness behind.
“And as You speak A hundred billion failures disappear Where You lost Your life so I could find it here If You left the grave behind You, so will I”
Well… it has been a moment, hasn’t it? Eight years of building life, moving forward, of highs and lows, and beautiful moments. Life has led me through all the things– marriage, starting a family, moves, promotions, health journeys, my mom’s dementia diagnosis, losing myself and working hard to find myself again. Through it all, I have missed the thing that meant the most to me growing up and beyond– writing.
If you’re reading this, you can expect to hear more from me again here going forward and no matter where this goes, that’s okay too.. because, I just miss the thoughts into nothingness if only to get them down in the way that used to be my salvation growing up. I miss writing.
I can offer an update that while I wrote a lot in the past about my new relationship and the struggle to learn to build trust in another person, I did in fact marry that man and am now mom to one 4-year-old son. You may find that I will want to share a lot around what the parenting role is to me, my journey to find better health after becoming a mom and finding how easy it is lose oneself, and the work I am doing internally to understand and accept my mom’s own health crisis. If any of this is helpful to anyone else, feel free to reach out and comment!
Elephants don’t forget.. or mostly they don’t. It can be a bit of an exaggeration. I have always been highly interested in the concept of how much they likely remember though and the connections they maintain throughout their lives. Elephants can live for many years during which they follow a matriarch. They are far more likely to follow a 50 year old matriarch over a 30 year old one. They prefer to follow one who is experienced and wise.
Last night, I could barely sleep at all. I must have tossed and turned the entire night and when I finally did fall asleep, I woke up early and laid in bed next to him for hours. The whole house was so silent and all I could think about was the burn of a new tattoo on the back of my neck. Something had stirred within me all night.. and my past– my journey– was burned on the back of my neck. I can’t explain it. Through my relationship with him over the past two years, I have had to really stop and confront my demons and it has been so painful at times. Sometimes I even feel ugly for my insecurities or unlovable. For awhile, I struggled with having them at all. I wanted to be perfect, the way I am sure that he thought I was when we first started dating. But I am not perfect and I shouldn’t try to be.. and he loves me anyway. I am learning that too.
And for all of the times that I feel ugly for the anxiety inside as I work through all of the baggage that I’d hidden in a closet somewhere instead of dropping off on the side of the road as I should have, this tattoo is a beautiful picture of that struggle. It’s a reminder.. my reminder.. of all that I have come from and all that I have to look forward to. My experiences only make me stonger.
“Forget what hurt you but never forget what it taught you.”
Twenty seven… I was twenty seven years old and still I had never opened my heart to someone who might break it. I had never even opened my hand to allow in some else’s much less something breakable. Who does that? Mostly those who get hurt and sometimes those who get lucky. At twenty seven, I am independent, I am strong, and I don’t believe in love. Love is fleeting. Love almost certainly goes away in time. I don’t need fleeting. I don’t need love.
And then enters a man who takes everything that I know and turns it upside down. He talks to me; I don’t look at his face. He texts me; I (intentionally) wait an hour to reply. He tells me he’s taking my wall down; I don’t believe him. I have a whole lifetime of research to refer to. He’ll be gone in twenty minutes. No worries here.
But he just keeps coming back, again and again. He doesn’t stopping looking at me, he doesn’t stop texting and he doesn’t go away. Who is this person? More importantly– why the fuck me?
It took so long for me to realize what kind of box I’d placed myself in. I’d spent a good deal of time in my late teens/ early twenties telling myself just how strong I was, and how brave. Look at me! I don’t need a single soul to get by. I have come back from the bottom, taken nothing and made it something amazing. Yes– and yet, here I was in the crappy little box I’d placed myself in and marked in big black letters: DAMAGED. Powerful and strong for me and those who needed me. Too damaged for those who wanted me. I was selling myself and the possibilities so short and mostly due to a fear of failure. I didn’t want to try and then fail so I just didn’t try at all. But not this time. Not with this one.
It’s over nine months later and I’ve not only let him through my wall but so deeply into my life. We laugh, argue, cry (that one’s all me), we kiss and we make up and I’ve only recently stopped looking for him to walk out the door and out of my life. It’s a process. It’s not easy. It never could be. But he makes easier. And that’s all I’ve ever needed.
Freeing Kate 