Finding Myself

So, it has been a bit since I have posted anything and I awoke tonight at 3 am with a new found love of myself and a new fresh idea and direction as to where I now want to focus all of my blogging efforts. My last post was extremely depressing and rightfully so since I had discovered that I had been in fact dealing with depression. However, over the last couple of months I have taken time for myself, learned to put myself first, and have found a new happiness. I woke up tonight feeling happy about where I am in life, my friends and family, my marriage, and for the first time in months I can finally say that I think I have fallen back into love with myself. I feel that the depression has lifted and with it I have discovered myself.

Overall I think that the depression had started after my previous break up two and a half years ago and has been slowly evolving. The stress of life finally had caught up to me and I was not able to deal with it in a healthy way. Moving out on my own for the first time, passing my nursing boards, starting my first RN position at a very stressful and high paced hospital, and losing my first love took some time to catch up with me. I have gone through a ton of life altering moments these last couple of years and although I don't regret any of them, I do wish that I would have been able to handle the stress better. Specifically I feel like I had envisioned a life for myself with certain people going a certain way, and when my life started to change it was hard for my mind to adapt and form new dreams. The stress of not being able to adapt to my changing surroundings slowly ate at me and made me question or doubt myself. I lost sight of who I was and let the stress of the world and other's opinions of myself define me. I let other people that don't even know me or have never met me into my thoughts and started to see myself as a monster instead of the beautiful person that I am.

These last couple months my husband and I have been working towards my health and self care. We have been spending more time together, fighting less, and building new dreams for us to focus on for our future. I am now able to envision my life as it is and have realized that life isn't the perfect vision I had built up in my mind, but it doesn't have to be in order to find happiness. I had always dreamed that marriage would be pure bliss 24/7, but I'm learning that marriage is not always going to be rainbows and butterflies and takes a ton of work on both parts in order to be successful. Marriage is an adjustment and one that I did not fall into easily. Up until recently I self sabotaged everything which I am realizing is a common problem in newlywed relationships. I wouldn't allow myself to be given the love that I deserve and the love that my husband was willing to offer. Even though we lived together for a year and a half before getting married, marriage is a whole different ball game. I have realized that the problem is not necessarily with everyday living and cohabitation but with combining your expectations, goals, and dreams. It was extremely hard for me to adjust to the fact that breaking up is not an option and that we are in this thing for the long haul.

I have made some life changes these last couple months as well that have allowed me more time to focus on myself and build myself up. My husband and I had realized that I had been working too much overtime and that our schedules did not allow for time spent together. My husband works day shift 6am - 3pm full time while going to school as well, while I work 12 hr night shifts 7p- 7a. Because of his crazy work and school schedule and me picking up overtime, we were never home at the same time or if we were I was always sleeping and recovering in order to saddle up for my next shift. So we did some schedule rearranging, him working more hours on the days that he works to allow for three days off a week and I took a weekend contract position. My weekend contract position allows me to make extra money by working Friday and Saturday nights so that our finances are comfortable and I do not have to pick up overtime. It also allows me to have somewhat of a set schedule so Charlie and I are able to plan out our days off. I no longer am required to work Sundays which helps us be able to spend Sundays as a family, enjoy family gatherings, and attend church every week. I used to feel like a zombie when up in the daytime because of working night shift, but now I am able to spread out my work days so that I am no longer working three nights in a row. This change alone has made me happier, less tired, and increased my productivity.

With our new schedules we are able to spend more time together and go on more dates. Because of this I have fallen back into love with my husband all over again, and in doing so we have found new passions and activities that we now enjoy doing together. Charlie is unable to sit still and up until now it has always annoyed me that he is unable to spend more than a couple hours at home before wanting or needing to get in the car and go do something. However, I have found a new passion for travel and we enjoy spending at least one day a week experiencing new things together. This had always stressed me out up until recently because finances have been tight and travel is expensive, but together we have been able to do more research and experience new things without spending a lot of money. With this I have found a new love of photography. Honestly, I have never been much of a fan of taking pictures or even looking at ones of me, but I now enjoy photographing our experiences together and filling the walls of our home with our memories. I have also become more comfortable with myself and with my new self confidence, enjoy taking pictures of me and indulging in new makeup, jewelry, and fashion.

Up until now my blog posts have been anonymous, but now I don't need to hide who I am because I am proud of the person I am. I have struggled in my life and will probably reflect and post about those experiences later on but I am a stronger person for it. I want my blog posts from now on to be personal and I want to share my life and experiences with others. I want to be able to help others that may be struggling and focus on empowerment. This is now going to be a personal blog with me sharing my life, love, experiences, and marriage trial and errors. Writing has helped me sort out my feelings and change my life around so I am going to continue to endulge in the things that make me happy and hope that by sharing me with you that the world becomes a little brighter.