Well friends, here is my 2nd attempt at a blog post. We’ll see how it goes…😂 because truthfully, I am still figuring out how this whole ‘setting up your own blog space’ thing works, but that is just par for the course these days, as I am also still shamelessly figuring out a lot of other things too. Namely, who am I?
Who Am I Now?
I don’t know why that thought seems so elementary and profound to me all at the same time, but there it is. I mean, I named this Blog space “Family 2.0”, because I immediately realized that we, as a family unit, needed to figure out who we were. I quickly made the comparison that as a family, we were like any newly reorganized business team. I understood and even explained to my girls that we would be going through the stages of team development: Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. And that as such, we would have a few hiccups, and a few disagreements along the way, but that we would keep pressing on, and that we would, by the grace of God, emerge stronger and more resilient together. 💪🏼❤️
But for seem reason I didn’t expect to feel so lost myself. Sad? 😢 Yes. But lost? That was a surprise to me. But I think it’s a valid place I find myself sitting. Afterall, I have been Jamey’s girl for 22 years and his wife 💍 for almost as long. (We had a fast and furious courtship & engagement. 💞 ) But who am I now??? I am not entirely sure.
Everyone tells me ‘Don’t make any major decisions for a year.’ But the last time I checked; the world hasn’t come to a sudden halt for anyone but me. Life goes on, and decisions still need to be made. For example, I contracted to have a tree 🌳 cut down recently, and I bemoaned to a girlfriend, that I felt like I was ignoring the good advice of waiting to make any major decisions for a year, but that I felt like the tree should come down, mainly because I just didn’t think I could manage having it FALL down. I started justifying it to her, by telling her how Jamey and I had actually discussed whether we should invest in having the tree cut down in the past, because it was leaning over our house in a rather menacing way, blah, blah, blah. She quickly shushed my justifications and reasoned that just because it FELT like a major decision to me, because it was the type of decision Jamey would have ultimately made, it was not actually all that major. It was just part of my new role as CEO of our new Family 2.0, a role that I didn’t apply for, but was promoted to against my will, like Joshua was promoted after Moses passed on, a role, he too neither applied for nor wanted. (At lease if he did, I missed that part in the scriptures.) But decisions like that keep coming at me fast, just like a Nationwide commercial.
At this point you may be wondering, “Well in your limited amount of hindsight & reflection so far, do you think you are making the best decisions all the time?” And my response would be a hard no! And to make matters worse, I so miss being able to talk to Jamey about my missteps and receive his wise counsel for future improvements. For example, am I happy with the medical insurance I switched our family to after reviewing the 16 different possible plans I could have signed us up for? H to the N! But am I thankful that I get a do-over come Open Enrollment in October? Yes 200%! Have I learned something? Yes! Have I learned how to fix a disposal? No! Did I try? Yes! Do I love the new quilt I ordered to replace the comforter that had come to represent cancer and sickness to me? Yes! Do my girls? No! LOL! 😂😂
So, you see, I am most definitely a work in progress. I am having some successes, and I am finding many new opportunities for improvement.
So, I imagine it is going to take me a very long time to figure out who I am now. And maybe the even bigger question is “Who do I want to be?” I anticipate wrestling that one in the coming days, weeks, and months to come. However, I am not totally lost at sea. I do know who I still am at my core. I am still a child of God. I am still a mom to two beautiful girls and one precious fur baby (& maybe 2 fur babies come Spring.) I am still the woman who fulfilled her wedding vows to the best of her ability and loved Jamey to the bitter end & will forevermore. And because of Jamey and Jamey’s love, I know I am stronger, more confident, (maybe sometimes with some misplaced confidence, lol) than I would be otherwise, but who Dany 2.0 is, is still undetermined. 🤷🏼♀️