Where Have I Been?

 
(Big ... no, make that HUGE ... sigh)  Where do I start?  I've been away from blogging for about two years.  Well, serious blogging where I'm actually writing and not just posting videos or quotes.

(Queue long silence ...)

Two years.  Yep, two years. Two years?  I can hardly believe it as I'm hammering out the words on my keyboard.  I would have been back sooner, but quite honestly, even thinking about writing about the past few years had been painful.  I had been struggling to figure out how I could explain it without sounding too negative, incriminating others, hurting people who had hurt me, getting myself in trouble, and destroying relationships.  Whew!  That was a lot to consider and work with.

You see when I moved to New Zealand over five years ago, when I said 'if not now then when', when I decided to change my life in a big way, I took a huge leap of faith.  I took a chance on love.  I thought that was it, that I'd found my rest-of-my-life partner.  I was happy, and life was great!  At least for me.  I just wished I'd known that he wasn't happy.  And in the words of Forrest Gump, that's all I have to say about that.

Why am I writing about it now?  Because to just pick up and carry-on with this blog and leave a two year hole in history seemed dishonest.  This blog is about changing one's life and all that comes with it when we make the choice to remove ourselves from the comforts of home and live in another environment ... the good and the bad, the adventures and experiences, the joys and heartaches, what we learn about ourselves and others.

In the last two years, I met an interesting journalist from Australia who really  inspired me.  We got on really well and spoke about how we got where we were.  I explained that I was struggling to keep writing because I was concerned that the recent circumstances of my personal life were influencing my writing in a negative way.  She encouraged me to continue writing regardless, because even if my writing came across negative, it would be genuine and real.  She told me that people want to read about how things really are, and that by sharing, I may actually help others.

So where have I been?  I think maybe I was going through hell.  Winston Churchill said, "If you're going through hell, keep going."  And that is what I did, I kept going.  I just didn't blog about it.

So here's me now ...