RADIO SILENCE

If you are reading this I won't lie, I am amazed. After almost two years of silence you kept me hanging around? Wow, you are a good friend indeed!

I don't really know how to describe why I went "off the air" per se, without really putting a lot of myself out there so I will most likely do that because I know I want to have a record of it all. But today I will begin with a summary.

The past two years of my life looking back was a sad time, or maybe it's better to say I was sad a lot. I've never really gone through sadness like it before and I had a hard time handling it off and on. I wouldn't say I was depressed, but I had some bouts of it for sure with the Summer of 2015 being the worst of it all. I was blind to a lot of the joy around me and felt like I was trapped in thick, deep mud. I wasn't sinking, but I wasn't going anywhere either. I just sat in my sadness, helpless and unable to move but wanting out so badly. I think that was the worst part, wanting to be happy but just having a deep hole in my heart that I couldn't fill and no one could fill for me.

The year 2015 seemed to host a sadness that would never end. In January, Greg unexpectedly lost an uncle to a massive heart attack. Upon hearing the news his uncle's mother passed away only 18 hours later. We attended our first and hopefully last double funeral. In June, my father's best friend was tragically killed in a tractor rollover accident and our family grieved again. We are still wrestling with the loss of Gary, he was the closest thing my Dad had to a brother and it has been hands down the hardest death for me to cope with ... ever. In August, we lost Greg's Grandpa Don. His health and memory had been declining over the last year and while it was incredibly sad to say goodbye we were both comforted knowing he spent a wonderful 92 years on this Earth. Finally in January of this year we lost my last grandparent, my Grandma Mary. That one is still hard for me, she was one of my very favorite people but she got to spend 96 years here and I am convincing myself I can't be sad about that.

While death seemed to punctuate 2015 in an all too regular way for us the real heartache for me was life, or rather our inability to create it. That being said, I probably should backtrack a bit. On January 4, of 2013 I made a rare journal entry. "Today is the day Greg and I decided to start our family!" That year I was quite certain we would have a baby in our arms to share with our families for the Holiday's. Months passed and it became clear that would not be the case for us, but my attitude was pretty good overall, I knew it was God's plan for us to have a family one day so I was in pretty high spirits. By August I thought I may need to see a doctor to talk about potential hiccups that might be preventing our family from starting, I wanted to know if there was anything we should be doing differently. I went to a super popular OB-GYN here in town and had the worst experience with a doctor ever. I left the office in tears feeling like my struggle was not a struggle at all and that I was a fool for even showing up only 8 months into trying. My prescription was to "relax and have a few glasses of wine". In fact this appointment affected me so deeply that I would shake off any desires to see a doctor for almost the next 14 months for fear I was imagining that we weren't getting pregnant and that there were other people out there that were REALLY struggling.

2014 came and my frustrations amped up a bit. We were officially through one full year of trying to start a family. Much conversation ensued and together we decided to keep trying without medical assistance. I think this is where my feelings of inadequacy and uncertainty probably began. Were we not supposed to be parents? Why did we want it so bad then? We were created to do this, why is it being withheld from us? We wouldn't begin to find out the answers to some of our questions until the Fall of 2014. More on that to come ...