Life, has chapters, seasons. And here, this blog, was my home for a while, a chapter. But not my whole story. I'm grateful for it, for what it did not just for me but for some people who read it when they needed it, when they got something from it. But, alas, I've created a new home, one more fitting for all my chapters, past, present, and future. I've written a little post, swing on by to see what it's all about/ The Prodigal Daughter Writes - Hi, I'm Darian

I met someone today. In the smallest of moments that we don't even think about, a moment you see as just an inconvenience in our day, so we rush through it without being present in the moment so in the end, we've missed the moment entirely. We're somewhere else, thinking about a meeting, errands, ourselves, some mundane detail of our lives that always feels more important than the person in front of us. It's a blink. A whisper of a moment. It makes your day look like swiss cheese, with all these blank voids of the day that were missed by not being present in it. I'm an introvert, if you take even 60 seconds to read and learn about introverts you'll find 2 major notable points - one, no extrovert will ever be capable of turning an introvert into an extrovert. Stop that, we don't like that. It's rude to treat us as if we're somehow broken because we don't operate like you. And two, we find superficial small talk very draining, mentally, emotionally...

  That's a thought that's been on my mind lately, and even more so as it seems to be popping up in different interactions with people. Or perhaps I'm simply noticing it more because it's been on my mind, on my heart. But either way, there it is, with a heavy thunk as it's dropped itself into the middle of my thoughts and just stays there, perfectly centered in every avenue a thought could take...can you even tell I'm a Christian? Without being a dreaded bible thumper of older ways, without stuffing down beliefs into your throat so fiercely it actually turns you away from Christ...can a person, even tell? Whether it be through conversation, or watching my behaviors, how I treat people, without diving into my deepest thoughts as they are here, could you even tell? The question has overflowed into all areas, spilling into each thing I do, each thing I read, every sentence, would anyone know.... And the question - hurts. Because to answer it, to be fully transparent...

  I've spent the better part of 2023 being mad at God. Mad because I didn't like how my life was turning out. Mad that I couldn't control that. Mad that He wouldn't heal me, fix me, give me my health back. Mad that I didn't understand why He wouldn't grant me that, to be healed. Mad that for the better part of the last year it's felt cold and lonely, as if a great distance stood between me and God. Only I didn't know if He put the distance there, or I did. I'm not good at a lot of things in life, but I'm good at distance, at building walls. I had to for so long, to survive living with those that were supposed to love me, and once I no longer had to build walls, I can't seem to learn how to stop. So there I was, countless times, laying bed bound, or on the floor about to pass out again, crying out in the darkest of dark, cold, lonely silence - crying out for healing that still hasn't come, for understanding of why my life has to hurt so ba...

  It's been over a year since my last post. Over a year of, per usual, making no progress. Stalling out, making excuses, making more excuses, of knowing what I'm supposed to do but too damn scared to do it. June 24th, 2021 I was baptized, because I wanted to leave that life behind me. Because I wanted to be all in, to fully embrace God and the life He had in store for me, to not waste a moment of this second chance he's given me. In celebration of this moment, a good friend had given me a bracelet that said "I left it in the water." I loved that bracelet, I wanted it to be my mantra, the cute little saying to remind me that I had left my former life, and baggage, behind me. That I was stepping into this new life, this second chance, a new, brave, faith filled woman. But it didn't take long for the luster of possibility and change to wear off, revealing the truth, that I wasn't a new woman, and I hadn't left any of it in the water. Well, maybe I left so...

 Dear diary, It's been countless weeks since I last wrote, I've had everything and nothing whirling around in my head. I feel complete unrest, and total ease. And I'm not entirely sure what to make of that. I said earlier this year that I think this year is the year I learn. Learn about myself in this post-cancer life, learn about who I am as a wife and mom vs who I actually want to be. And I don't mean that impossible vision we all hope to one day be.  But, I've been stuck in this rut. I just can't seem to...can't wrap my head around what I want to achieve, or let go of everything I jacked up along the way. I know with 100% truth that I will never, ever be the wife and mother I wanted to grow up to be. I've got way too much emotional baggage I can't let go of, wasted years of my life in this constant inner battle of  who I really was vs who I was pretending to be; and neither of them were very stellar. Somehow, I ended up being 40, surrounded by bro...

 I'll be implementing a new series on the blog soon "Women of Influence Wednesday's" highlighting, you guessed it, influential women. While you might be sitting there thinking of Rosa Parks or Princess Diana, Kim Kardashian or Bailey Sarian, some famous name that you've read about, someone some little girl hopes to grow up to be like...well, I'm thinking on a slightly different level.  This might not be a woman who has to hide from the press just to run an errand, she might not be found in history books or on the cover of magazines, she doesn't have 1 million youtube followers, it may be a name you've never heard before. It will be stories of real women, a friend or family member, someone from church, that quiet woman you always see on lunch, that super friendly cashier at the grocery store...that women you always remember for the simplest or biggest acts. Because at the end of the day, all women have the chance to be influential.  This thought came to...

  You know, I've never, ever been one to jump on the whole "New year, new me!" bandwagon, or new year's resolutions, or pretty much any steadfast belief that the new year would bring about anything...new. Just by changing the date doesn't create some sort of magical shift in the universe that will undo, write over, or start fresh any of the crap from the previous year. It's just another day, not some sort of "do over" card you throw down to trump all the other cards you've been dealt that you didn't like. Any day is a good day for change, don't wait for some mythical point in the year to do so. That's what I've always thought. So here I sit, at the start of a new year a whole lot of different than I was at the start of last year. Physically, mentally, I feel like nothing and everything about me is the same. At the start of 2020 I couldn't have guessed the ways in which my life would change, both within me and to me. But, I sup...

I went too long without writing. Or talking? Or praying? I went too long without something, and now there's too much noise in my head, too many thoughts rolling around. Like when you walk into a crowded bar, there's music blaring, all sorts of people talking over each other, you hear everything they're saying yet can't decipher anything they're saying because it's all too damn loud. So you just kind of stand there, having no clue what's being said but nodding along like you're in total agreement with whatever the hell it is they're saying. That's my brain on too many thoughts.  Throughout this whole process everyone, including survivors, tells you that you find a new normal. During chemo, you find a rhythm, you find a normal. After surgery, you find a normal. During radiation, you find a normal. After all of it, you find a normal. To that, I'm going to have to call BS. Post cancer normal really isn't a thing. Normal during any phase of ca...

The last few weeks, since my incision closed up and I awaited radiation, it's been like finding pieces of my former life. As if I stand at a battlefield, or demolished city, wreckage surrounding me, and try to assess the damage of what's left. There's the stench of death in the air, while some aspects of me lay dead at my feet, others are still hidden underneath the rubble. Wounded parts cry out for help, to be saved, screaming in fear that they'll be lost to me forever. I know I have to tend to them before they slip away from me, but while I try to save some I know it will cause me to lose other pieces of me. I don't know which to save first. I want to save it all, but I know it's too late for that. There's already so much that's dead, lost, gone forever. The girl I was before this battle started is gone, emerging from the fog and smoke looming in the air is someone who looks like me, but she's scarred now, both physically and deep within her soul...

Ever since I had the last drain removed I've started to feel, almost, normal. During this strange time when people of our state are being told to stay away from others and stay home. My Facebook newsfeed has been filled with people complaining about this time of being trapped in their home. Stuck with their family. Having nothing to do. Where as I have been savoring every minute of this. I've been in this weird stretch, where I feel pretty okay but my incisions weren't quite ready to start radiation. So I've used this time to do all the things I haven't been able to do for months. I've cleaned all the things ever, I've reorganized, I've done some cooking, endless laundry, I've taken daily walks with my son, I've started doing my bible studies again, started writing again. In the middle of all this chaos of cancer and Covid, I have been given a tremendous gift - the gift of being a stay-at-home-mom, if only for a moment. I used to say that I...

The last nine months of my life have been filled with change. Unexpected change, unwanted change, forced change, so much change. For a girl who likes change in small doses in a controlled manner, it's been a learning process. During all of it, I'm trying to listen to God, for guidance and courage to do whatever it is He guides me to. I feel like I'm just stumbling my way through, blind, no idea where I am or where I'm going. I only know that I am in fact, going somewhere, to do...something. I ask Him what I'm supposed to do, then listen. If I'm not sure, I ask Him to be a little louder. Really, I ask Him to slap me upside the head just to make sure I don't miss it. I was once called a writer. Long ago, that was my passion, my job. But life and the world changed and for years I just thought of that as something I once was, that girl I barely remember now, she used to do that writing thing. For a long time I missed it, like an addict needs a fix. But over ...

Before my surgery I had a talk with my son about what he was nervous about, because as it approached you could tell he was pretty nervous. He said that he was worried I would come down sick while my body was trying to recover, and that that would make everything worse. It was a legit concern, I come down sick a lot, my immune system is crap, it wasn't far out of the realm of possibility. I told him how when I get really really sick sometimes, for too long, it does get hard on me. Sometimes I cry a little bit, sometimes I feel like I can't keep going like this, sometimes I get scared. But in those moments of feeling like the weight is too big for me, like I just can't take it anymore, I remind myself to have faith, to trust God, and believe that God will get me through this. That sometimes I will sit and say repeatedly, almost like a prayer, "God, please get me through this," and then I have to remember to have faith, trust, and believe that he will. Then I told ...

I've never really been one to cry. It by no means stems from a lack of desire to cry. Life's handed me plenty of opportunities that I wanted nothing but to curl up and cry. A big part of it comes from how I was raised, and I think my brother would probably agree, even if it hurt to do so. It was just sort of this unspoken rule, you didn't cry. If you did cry, that was shut down real quick. Either by some jackass remark made by dad, or by mom trying to get you to shut up to prevent said jackass remarks from dad. But by the time you were old enough to realize that mom was trying to help you, you had already learned that it just wasn't acceptable to cry in our family. The damage was done. Suck it up, buttercup, no one wants to see that. In the darkest of times, it was a rarity to see mom cry. Or grandma. And I don't recall ever seeing my dad cry. Maybe he did at mom's funeral, but at that moment his feelings was the last thing on my mind. There were times growi...

Day 14 of the hostage situation, despite the best efforts of her mind and body to get her to succumb to just wasting away into a depressed, cookie stuffed, pile of a sobbing mush...the prisoner has escaped 3 times. Once to Hobby Lobby, once to church, and once to run errands with her husband. Daily, efforts are made within her heart and mind to break her down, but as of today, she has not yet caved. Although she did purchase a can of Pringles she has absolutely no intentions of sharing with anyone. We consider this a step in our favor...give in, become sad, scared...cave.... People ask me a lot, how I'm doing, and I always only say "I'm doing okay." I think for a couple of reasons. One, because I am okay. Two, because there aren't many people asking that question that really, really want the TRUE answer. Like, if I just unloaded on them everything going through my mind I can almost guarantee they'd just stand there, staring at me, speechless. Because they ...

So I had mentioned in one of my earlier posts about joining some support groups on Facebook; not so much in looking for support but in seeking to be a supporter. I don't have a ton of support group experience, I absolutely sucked at it when I was younger. Turns out, yup, still suck at it now. I know, I'm as shocked as you are... When I decided to dive into this whole support group thing, I just kind of thought a group was a group. Yeah, not so much. Sure there are some blanket, general, breast cancer/issues groups. But it also seems to be progressive type groups as well. When you're in X phase of the process you're in this group, then you kind of graduate to this group, then this group, then at some point you've been through the whole cancer process - you're officially a support group badass and can pop in and out of any of them sprinkling wisdom as you go. And then there's me...just stumbling my dumbass all the way through each one of them. During th...