Update About Me: Looking Forward

*Union and Baker St in San Francisco, the best Instagrammable house in SF

September was full of travel and work and I went to two places that brought forth many memories of my ex and me.  New York and San Francisco.  We met in San Francisco and moved to New York together, so it is ironic that this month is the one year anniversary (if you call it that) of the finalization of my divorce.

Life has been eventful for the past two years and 2019 has taught me so many things about myself that I realized I needed to know in order to have a healthy next relationship and to be a fully happy with and by myself.

It’s been a total of 13 years since I met my ex. We met at a bar in San Francisco and within a month we spent every day together.  Within a year, we moved to NYC together.  My last day visiting SF last week, my friends and I were sitting having brunch and I realized I was sitting across from a restaurant where I had my first date with my ex.  SF still feels at home for me, although I’ve now lived in Chicago, the same amount of time.  I’m a west coast girl living in the midwest and have settled into the fact that most likely I’ll be living here a while for my kids. Traveling the past year has been my therapy and settling in to doing things alone has been a big growth factor for my insides. I used to HATE being alone and now, facing fears alone has taught me to be fearless but to be really honest I’m feeling lonely, not alone, but lonely.

Four Seasons San Francisco – view from our room and the best spot to stay in SF

Reflecting on how many things have changed in 13 years, I had two kids, launched and shut down a business, working on social media full time, moving in and out of 2 homes, and changed my social life entirely because of my blog, I feel like a lot of happened the last few years and in some ways, needed to travel to get out of the shock of change.

*Mazda loaned us this beautiful 2019 Mazda3 Sedan for my trip to Sonoma and San Francisco. Drove like a charm and comfortable inside.

One main thing I’ve learned is that looking forward is the ONLY way I’ve been able to survive divorce, make money, and be positive to navigate this process. And this blog and sharing on Instagram have been a therapy of sort in figuring out who I am, and so many of you have shared your own struggles with me and I’m grateful. I don’t consider myself strong (as many of you have told me), but what I am is hopeful that I will find someone that sees and loves me for me, and I’m ok, I’m better than ok.

One thing a reader asked me was what my real-life struggles were and here goes (as of now).

STRUGGLES: Dating, money, stress, and feeling alone. I wrote about my struggles here and I think they are still the same.

Dating is tougher as a single mom, and I’m no longer in my twenties. I have no patience for stupidity, lack of communication, and the fact that I’ve been told I’m “too much” or intimidating, just makes me annoyed. I make decisions, probably too quickly, if someone is worth more than one date, and I’m tired of how lazy some are in dating.  As women, can we just stand up for ourselves and not accept crappy dates, crappy communication, and demanding a little more?  I do believe men behave this way as there are 100′ s of others on apps willing to go out for much less. In the end, I’ll keep on doing me and someone will want and appreciate my direct, honest, Type A personality that has a side of silliness, openness, and demands it all 🙂 LOL.

Money and stress go hand and hand.  Supporting my lifestyle (which you can see is not cheap :), my kids, life in general with bills makes me WORK HARD. I am not a sit on my butt kind of girl and when I decide to do anything, I move in lightning speeds. This contributes to not sleeping well, my tired face, and not eating healthy. I’ve been trying harder though and cutting back on drinking, sleeping with an app (I listen to Matthew McConaughey on my Calm app 🙂 and breathing.

So for some reason more than ever I have felt LONELY. Although I have thousands of you that watch and people that reach out every day that has the best stuff to say, I feel lonely in my struggles. It’s hard to write, but I think it’s a phase. I filtered out a lot of people the last few years in my life, I love deeper relationships and friendships so I have been putting more thought into who I hang out with. I love listening to others, but it came to a point where I realized some of my “friends” never asked how I was or were even around when I went through my divorce, had to pack and move. A few went out of their way to make my life more difficult, and those are the ones I don’t bother to speak to anymore. I know my Instagram and blog looks fabulous with my travels and posts, but this “lonely” feeling hit me more than ever last week and I think it’s because of my divorce being 1 year exactly.  I am ok being ALONE, so that’s different. I love my ALONE time, it is more so feeling lonely as in craving a partner to be with, the little things that feel warm and fuzzy when you do things together as simply as cooking, watching tv, or the day to day things. Since I live alone and have my kids 50% of the time, these are the little things I miss about marriage.

Things I’m working on are gratitude and positive statements going forward to get me out of this rut. I am moving possibly soon (and so excited to share the news when it happens) and taking steps to be more open to “dating” as I find it a difficult process. I hope you guys know I’m not at all complaining about my life, wow, it’s a great one, but I like to be open and honest about what I’m struggling with and what you see online is just snippets of who I am. Yes, I have the best time, but sometimes, while I sit on my laptop at home, or I’m trying to get through something, I think too much.

I have much GRATITUDE to you guys for following along and enabling me to do this job. Every day, I think this so THANK YOU.