The last year.

I guess the title of this post has two meanings. The first: the last 365 days of my life. The second: the last 365 day of my life as I and everyone in it would know it.

I am gay.
I define myself as Queer.

Yes, my parents know. Yes, Shawn knows. Almost everyone I wanted to tell before I came out to the mass public has been told personally. If I didn't get the chance to call or tell you, I tried or wanted to. I just couldn't.

I'm ripping off the band-aid and putting it out there.
To answer some questions that have been posed to me and that you may find in your mind as you read this:

No, I "don't prefer dick anymore."
No, it is not hormones.
No, it's not because of anyone or anything that happened.
No, this is not a joke.
Yes, I am sure.
Yes, I have had experience to know I am sure. Even if I hadn't... how are you sure about your own sexual orientation? Yeah.

Yes, I know this hurts and changes my family forever.

But I cannot go on living as half of myself anymore. So many things make sense in hindsight and the relief of being honest outweighs the grief of the situation... most of the time. I am sorry for the pain this has caused those who love me and my family but I will never be sorry for who I am.

Shawn and I are separated and working toward a divorce, not that it's anyone's business. But I have nothing to hide, so there it is. We no longer have enough of what the other needs to keep our marriage going and I think it's responsible that we are honest about that with each other.
Our number one priority is our daughter and always will be.

The last 4 weeks have been the most vivid and difficult of my life. But I know one thing after living through a moon cycle of this new change:
I am fucking ALIVE.

In every sense of the word... I feel electric. I see signs everywhere from the universe that I have finally found the Path. My Path.

I take one day at a time now like I have always wanted to. I love myself in my entirety.
And someday it will all be okay.

I have never had to rely on others like I have before this last month or so, and I have found the true colors of the people I thought I knew. Some for the better, less for the worse. I know who loves me and how and how much. I have never felt so free in my life.

Any prayers and thoughts for my family and myself are appreciated.
Thank you for reading, if you did.

Love.

Overwhelmed... in a good way, mostly.

Time is going by so fast. I have so many thoughts running through my head; each one deserves its own blog post but I'm so overwhelmed by them all that I haven't been writing them out. I have one whole post in draft about how mothers both seek validation from other moms constantly via the internet, as well as about how parents outright shame other parents about their choices they make for their own children. It makes me sad and I don't do it because I would hate to have it done to me. We don't make choices for our child to slight anyone, we just do what we think is best for our child and I hope everyone else would do the same. No one will ever know enough about anyone else to make a choice for them and their family and anyone who thinks they would be able to is absurd. I do support and encourage that parents base their choices in research and scientific facts, especially when it comes to health choices. Basically, if they are informed choices I support any decision any parent makes for their child when it comes to things like circumcision, vaccines and what their kids eat and when they eat it.
We are all so similar that it baffles me why we waste time trying to separate ourselves from others by nitpicking our parenting styles and choices. I believe that no one is an expert on raising any child but they can be an expert at raising their own child. Shawn and I know Bernice like no one else and we consider ourselves Bernice-experts. If I ever offer advice (only when it is asked for) it is always from my own experience with her and I don't even know if it will be helpful or used and I don't expect it to be the end-all be-all of general parenting advice. Hell, my kid is only 3 months old. I don't know hardly anything yet, so the advice I have to offer when asked for it is already limited by that as well.
All I know is that I read everything, research everything, and thus know enough collectively that way along with my Bernice-knowledge to comfort myself when she has green poop, sneezes more often than usual, or cries for different reasons. If I'm still unsettled I call her doctor.
One piece of advice that is always good: go with your instincts. You have them for a reason and they're usually right.

I'm becoming a good mama bear. Like my dad said, "You're a mama-bear now. You're tough. If someone doesn't like it, tell them if they want something warm and fluffy to go hug a squirrel."

Just when I thought I knew anything...

It's really hard to grow up. And it's really hard to be a woman.
And it's really really hard to grow up strong enough of a woman to be a mother.

When you want to see the best in people, they show you their worst. A side you never knew was even possible to be seen. It's a cold, hard fact that some people are just mean.
This fact took me 8,936 days to learn and I'm still having a hard time swallowing it down today on day 8,937.
Part of the difficulty I have had in learning this is completely my fault. I give more credit to people than they are worth and I have too high of expectations for people based upon how I conduct myself. People are not me, they are people, and they are all very, very, puzzingly different. Makes the world go 'round, I suppose. But this is hands down the hardest lesson I have learned in my human life so far: some people just suck.

No matter how much of yourself you share with them, no matter how much you give or care, some will never be moved by that. And I must accept that, spend no more time poring over it and move on.

I just have to remember that even though I am forced to work with some of the meanest people I have ever met and will meet (I am sure) in my life, it must not become me; I must be unmoved by them as well. There is nothing wrong with me, dammit; I am nice. I am loving and full of rainbows and unicorns.
I hope I can adequately learn from this and use it to increase my strength. It's going to take a lot of strength to be a good mother one day; this can only be work done towards that.

If you don't like my blog, don't come read it.

Anyone who thinks I give two shits about how much you "know about me" from this blog is missing the point...

This is a personal blog. It's personal. It's all about me and how I feel and what I think.
If you don't like it, don't come read it. I'm not changing and this is a perfectly appropriate platform to say whatever I want because it is MINE. If you choose to take on bad karma and use anything "against me" you should know that I consider that your problem. I wouldn't put anything out there on the PUBLICK INTERNETS if I didn't want it to be known. Duh.
I'm choosing to live my ONE life openly: with an open heart, open mind and open mouth. If you have something to say about my innnermost thoughts and feelings, get your own blog and bitch away. I'll applaud from the sidelines.

Three things are for sure though: I don't judge; I don't care what you think; and I'm glad you're here if you want to be.


Rock and roll on.

"Let's put that on the fridge..."

Remember a while back when I was mad?
I said I had an issue owning up to the fact that things I create and do are amazing and dynamic; like everytime I shared news or a creation I perceived that it was received with a "Oh, that's nice... let's put that on the fridge."

No more.
A couple of days ago I was finishing my yoga with a relaxation/meditation and tried as I did, I couldn't keep thinking about this issue of mine. This was one of those times that being just the right amount of crazy like I am really helped me: I started a conversation with myself.

"Self, why do you think people feel like that?"
"Because everyone else's news is just so legit all the time."
  "How is it more legit than yours?"
"... I guess it's not."
  "Oh. So you feel like other people don't take your news as seriously because you don't take your news as seriously?"
"...I guess that is why."
  "Well that's enough of that then, isn't it?"

Out loud: "Yes. Yes it is quite enough of that."
In my head: "All of that; including the talking to myself bit."

But really. I can go back in my memories and correct that issue I had and it seems so obvious now. The wedding was a big deal: look how many people came just for us, how many people helped to put up decorations, how many things people took charge of and did just for us.
THAT was a big deal; still is. So they must have thought so, and still do.

DUH, Hillary... just... duh.

I have decided something...

While talking to my mom yesterday we discussed that my goal for sharing our Baby Journey on my blog is to express how I feel throughout openly and honestly. I blog what I feel, what I think and what I have to say. I don't want to change that now, and I already talked about why. I promise not to share anything personal about anyone else but myself; but it's going to be the good, bad and ugly of me... so I have decided to add a 'jump break' to posts that could be TMI for family and sensitive readers. This will change the way my blog looks in feeds, readers and email subscriptions. If you want to read these posts in the future, you'll just click on the link to go to the entire post. Thank you for your support and love; it makes a world of difference!

Testing, Testing, Oh! It's on!

via

It has come to my attention via Blog Stats that I am gaining traffic via Bloglovin's Facebook app. This, to me, is exciting--and frightening... my blog can get purtttty personal, sometimes borderline TMI. Although I'm very open, there's some people I just don't want sharing in this exciting time of our life... I've learned that there are people to not include.
So while I am concerned that people will not be respective of my privacy and will choose to share whatever news I have whenever I have some, I cannot change myself for those people. And that is just another reason they are missing out on how awesome our family is and will be; they'll only get to experience half of it, as I do not share my everyday life with them.

If you choose to include yourself in this journey starting officially (OMGZ!!!) tomorrow, welcome.
This is gonna be awesome.