changes

I don't know how to title this ending. Hello goodbye? Never say never, because I might be back? So long and thanks for all the fish? I must admit that I haven't read Douglas Adams or seen Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy but when my kids explained what this meant I loved it. I don't really have it in my heart to blog anymore. I haven't for a while. I still want to write, really want to write about the things that matter to me, issues in healthcare and trying to make sense of how I've gotten to where I am being paramount. I just don't think I do so well trying to search for the answers to these issues, or even just talking out loud (in a virtual sense) here anymore. I want to push out of my box more. Have actual conversations, get feedback, make changes, learn, grow and then go back to people again. I do plan to continue and expand on my boo and the bean blog though so please, if you like my jewelry or just want to connect with me virtually, please keep checking back with me there.

I feel like I've lived so many lives since I first started this blog, way back when Oona was one and my Grandmother had just moved to Pittsburgh. Now I've been nursing over a year and am due to start school again, online through Drexel (I will hold back on the profanity laced vitriol directed against drexelone, their web portal) in April. I'm going to get a master's in nursing innovation, who knows what that will bring. I get so panicky just before starting big stuff like this because I feel like it's such a huge commitment (it is also huge financially when things are frequently stretched a bit thin). I always do an initial freak out once I choose a path, thinking I can't turn back or try a different path. It's never true. My body just overreacts to these things and I'm trying to be kinder to myself.

I am so thankful for the virtual space this provided me to grow and tentatively reach out to a new me really, that was stronger than I realized and who, for the most part, always kept her sense of humor. I have so much hope for the future. There is a man I met recently who, well to give you a wacky analogy, when my daughter woke up last Christmas she was so excited she was shaking, and my mom said 'Get her some orange juice'.  Perhaps using the Dr. Mom logic that she might be so excited that she was hypoglycemic and could very well go into a Christmas morning induced coma? I don't know. I know Oona survived Christmas 2012. And I know, regardless of what the future holds with this man, I'll survive too. It is just really, really nice at forty-four (at any age really?) to feel so happy and excited you're fit to burst. I don't know what will happen in my future (thank God for that!) but I know that walking into the world with my heart open and always hoping that I can make things a little better is the only way that I can really be me.

Thank you so much to all who visited, to those who commented and, especially, to those who commented regularly (you know the two or three of you that I'm talking about). You virtually talked me off the ledge more times than you know, so thank you!

I want to bookend this with the first post so I leave you with Oona and monkey passed out in my bed.   How can I argue with a seven year old that takes such comfort just by falling asleep in my bed?