Hello, again.

Hello, friends! I'm back from the unplanned sabbatical I took from writing. I've done plenty of waffling back and forth over whether I'm ready to give writing a try again, but it gives me joy and stretches me so here goes.

In short, last summer my life almost splintered into pieces. Our family almost fell apart, I almost fell apart. I realized I had lost my way, possibly never known my way since childhood. It was hard. It was sad. There was grief and anger and loneliness. In all that, the darkest place, we were given friends to come alongside us and offer hope and experience, professionals to get our feet pointing in the right direction, groups that knew our struggle. Slowly the pieces were not only put back together, but were readjusted to be put in the right places. We got healthier.

That is all the detail I will share, for the story of my family is not only mine to tell. The essence of my part of the story is this: in my darkest place I found hope and understanding and my life was transformed. It has been nothing short of flabbergasting, this complete 180 degree turn. Perhaps the most flabbergasting part is how blind I was to see how dim my life was. It took a crisis to see that I was living in darkness. I had no clue of how bad my condition was, yet anxiety weighed heavily daily, I felt I was never enough, and I was unsure how it was that I could be so dissatisfied when I had all I had ever dreamed of -- a loving husband, a beautiful daughter, a thriving farm.

In just eight months, things are different. Drastically. That's not to say that somehow magically now my daughter never pitches an epic fit (hello, yesterday!) or that my farm animals don't ever get sick and die or that I never fight with my husband or that I never feel sad. But I feel a new perspective and most of all a new sense of support. My support system has never been stronger and, most importantly, I now know how to ask for help. I don't ask consistently or every time I'm in trouble, but I know how to do it now. Every time I have asked for help I have received love and understanding as I never imagined.

So here we are -- a new life of joyfulness and gratitude. A daily refrain of love, understanding, empathy, grace, perspective. The new life is not without difficulty, for that is what it means to be human after all, but it holds less isolation and a good deal more hope. My desire here in this blog space is to begin blabbering incessantly again about the microcosm of life that is our little seven-acre homestead and to share our day to day farm life with all of you.

With that, I will leave you with a photo of a morning smoothie made with blueberries that dyed it a gorgeous royal purple. Truly, I don't get excited to drink smoothies, but they make me feel much better than eating a Krispy Kreme donut for breakfast, which I did the other morning and then heartily regretted! So drink them I do, at least occasionally when I talk myself into it. And then Charlie the cat peeks in the window to see exactly what he is missing indoors (we cannot let him in while there is food to be have, since he turns into a ravaging beast and will eat anything he can get to -- including, recently, a 2 pound bag of baking yeast?!).