Take A Deep Breath

It’s been awhile since I generally updated you on my life, hasn’t it? Sometimes life just sort of snowballs on me and then suddenly I realize that I haven’t updated you on certain things in a while. So, I guess it’s about time that I catch you up on a few things!

The Boy Child has been out of his intensive therapy program since June and he is doing wonderfully. He is right on target developmentally with all the other kids his age. Never in my life did I think I would be so happy to have a three year old boy tearing my house apart, but there is nothing that I love more than the normalcy of a destructive toddler. He has some residual sensory processing issues that we are dealing with, but I am nothing but optimistic about his future.

He is currently in preschool and already has a girlfriend. Yikes that boy, I’m going to need to keep my eye on him! Because we live in farmland he has become enthralled with tractors. Being harvest season, we spend much of our time outside watching them harvest the fields. Before you have kids you hear phrases such as "falling in love with it through a child's eyes," but until I had kids of my own I never really grasped how deep that concept runs. I now find myself squealing with joy when I hear the tractor engines roaring, knowing that my Boy Child is going to be thrilled, and I am going to be thrilled watching him be so happy.

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The Girl Child is the one that I am the most astounded with though. I’ve only briefly talked about her medical issues on this blog, but she had a REALLY rough start in life. She has a genetic disorder that truly threatened to derail her future and just like my Boy Child, I really never thought she would get to the point in which she is at now. Before she was even two weeks old she was readmitted back into the hospital and for a while, I really wasn't sure what the outcome would be.

Four months old and even her father was getting nervous.

All of that changed when we finally got a diagnosis for her and were able to treat her condition appropriately. These days you would be hard pressed to find any evidence of her condition aside from looking at her DNA. I manage her condition holistically and with her diet and while some might squawk at the idea of that, she is healthy, happy, and that is all the proof I need that what we are doing is working.

Now, she drives me nuts with the attitude of a 15 year old stuffed into her 38lb body. She is in first grade and absolutely loving it. Her teacher says she is ahead of the class scholastically, but she talks too much, works too fast, and can’t sit still. I have absolutely no idea where she gets that from….none at all....

She sees the school psychologist once a week and I think it’s been really good for her. As she gets older she is trying harder to grasp the concept of what happened with her dad, a concept that as an adult I don’t even fully understand. It’s been hard to watch her struggle and so I did the best thing that I could do and I found someone who could help her in ways that I can’t. I see her learning how to verbalize things that have been stirring around in her for a while and I know I made the right choice.

That girl though, she is a class act all of her own. She loves to dance, perform, sing, and has more play dates than I can handle. (Seriously, does every kid in her class have a birthday party like every freaking week? Give me a damn break here!? Who is Owen and why are we going to his party??)

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In other news, if you remember from the post “I Didn’t Win The Battle” I had come to the realization that cleaning houses (or any work that I was qualified to do) was going to be a financial death sentence for me. I was working myself to the bone and not gaining any ground, just like many undereducated single mothers. In that post I explained that in an effort to not spend the rest of my life living below the poverty line, I was going to take a leap of faith and leave my job in pursuit of doing something that not only was I passionate about (starting a nonprofit for domestic abuse victims), but that might also lead to a career and stable future. I’m extremely excited to tell you guys that the nonprofit is up and running and to say that I am surprised at how easily it all came together would be the understatement of the year.  

I’m not drawing an income of any kind from it, but as you guys must have noticed from my articles on other sites, I’ve been very blessed with the opportunity to take on some freelance work that makes up for the income I lost when I stopped cleaning houses (in full disclosure I do still clean one morning a week). I think I am finally starting to see a light at the end of the financial tunnel and last week, for the first time ever, my basic needs/bills budget worked out perfectly. (yayyyy!!!!). We are still living below the poverty line but if I can continue with the freelance work that I’ve taken on and if my ex follows through in paying child support, homelessness will not be an imminent threat for us anymore. I can’t predict what the future holds and I still struggle with the fact that I rely on food pantries and whatnot, but I'm doing better then I was before and I'm happy to be moving in the right direction.

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Speaking of my ex finally paying me, that has been an unfortunate and ongoing saga that really does deserve its own blog post, but we will just get into the cliff notes version here. You see, when my ex signed the settlement papers I really was holding out hope that maybe, just maybe, he would follow through.

Surprise, surprise, that did not happen.

It’s been several months now and after a series of events, on Halloween he finally made the first full payment of his court ordered child support. I don’t know how long he will continue (what with him being so reliable and all), but to be honest, I just need to hang onto hope right now because if I get any more bad news in relation to him, I’m going to burst into tears.

Denial land, here I come!

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The Nutcases officially sold their house and the new neighbor has moved in!! It’s been so cold here that none of the neighbors have been outside to meet them, so I’m currently debating on how weird it might be if I actually showed up on their doorstep with a cake or a plant or something. Curiosity is starting to get the better of me, so I’m sure some totally embarrassing story will come of it soon enough. Either way, can we just take a moment to dwell on how amazing it is that they are GONE!??

They had three moving trucks. THREE. We live in a townhouse. I can't believe my walls weren't bowing from the sheer amount of things they had crammed into that house.

LIKE REALLY, TOTALLY, TRULY, GONE!! I think Mrs. Nutcase still lives in the area while she sorts out her custody issues so I guess there is the potential for a run-in, but as far as I am concerned she is not attached to my house anymore so SWEET DEAL.

Look how close we were! Our garage doors were like two feet apart!

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Aside from running into my mother at the grocery store, all has been silent from the family I no longer have. For a while I really thought I was going to need to get an order of protection against my brothers, it was getting that intense, so I'm glad that has calmed down. 

I actually find it very odd that I don’t run into them more often. We don’t live that far apart, I only live 15 minutes away from one of my brothers, and yet I’ve never even run into him anywhere. In fact last weekend at church my best friend’s mom pulled me aside and practically hissed at me “Eden, I just saw your mother!!” (My mother hasn’t gone to my church in years but suddenly reappeared that morning). I did not see her and I was all over that building that morning, so yay for that! The friend's mom then went on to tell me that she hadn't been able to resist, that she had walked right up to my mother, in church mind you, and said “oh your grandchildren are so adorable, I just love spending time with them!” knowing that my mother is dying to see my children. I looked at her as if she was insane and then she said “I’m at church. Jesus will forgive me if I had to rub it in her face a little bit. He knows what she has done.” I might need a little forgiveness myself for the evil little chuckle I let out after that, but really now, that is pretty funny.

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I get a lot of questions asking how the long term results of my rhino-septoplasty went. In short, it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. It’s been ten months now and I feel great! The surgeon had told me that the shape of my nose would continue to “define” itself over the course of the next two years and it really has continued to slim down and define. I would have been thrilled even if it had stayed exactly the same as it was two months post op, but as time goes by I continue to be pleased with the ever changing results. Unfortunately as he also warned me it does swell with drastic temperature changes and where I live that means I’ve woken up a few times with a rather puffy face. The other day I walked into the chiropractic office I clean and the receptionist said “Um…you look different today. I can’t figure out why, but I think your eyes look smaller.”

No my dear, my eyes didn't get smaller, my face got bigger.

Fun times.

I also had a septoplasty done at the time of the rhinoplasty and the change is undeniable. I actually think I can breathe less through my nose now, which I wasn’t anticipating, but he must have still done something right because I haven’t had one sinus or throat infection in ten months and before that I was sick near constantly.

Even beyond the physical effects of the surgery has been the emotional impact it’s had on me. I used to start every morning like most girls do, standing in front of the mirror, doing my hair and make-up, but at the end instead of feeling ready for the day, I just felt defeated. I have my own body issues like most people do, I have stretch marks I have learned to accept, scars I have learned to be proud of, but my face, I really struggled with that. Not because it was a bad face, just because it wasn’t supposed to be my face.

I am so happy to wake up every morning and know that the face looking back at me is the one I was supposed to have. Trauma's are not typically something that you can erase or go back and prevent, but having the opportunity to release one of them from not only my skin but my soul, it’s been priceless.

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So that pretty much sums up my life, the kids, work, the family I don’t have any more, and life these days. Nothing too exciting but I’m kind of thankful for that! I’m ready for some boring in my life! It's strange to me when I look back and realize how much has changed in my life. I tend to get so caught up in the day to day trials that I don't always realize how far I have come from my past. 

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Don't forget that life is an ever changing, ever evolving journey. Where you are now is not a permanent situation. We, like the earth, are designed to grow and change with the seasons. 

Who you are now is not a reflection of who you will be forever. Humanity has been evolving to adapt to new situations since the creation of our existence and you are no exception from the rest of the population. 

Do not let the drudgery and trials of today cloud the view you have of the future. You are changing and growing whether you realize it or not. Every breath you take is an opportunity for a better future.

If you don't like where you are now, take a deep breath and move on to the next one.

From my front porch