This last week was Love the City week at church. What that means is they spend a whole week serving and loving on the city and its people. It is a magical experience. At the end of the week is the Love the City party. It is a huge celebration to bring everyone together and celebrate. I went up to my pastor and congratulated him on the party. He said it isn’t about the party, it it’s about the journey to the party. He said look at you. You came and went all in! He was right! Yes, the party is fun and exciting, but the journey is everything. The journey is what shapes us and makes us the people we are.

This interaction made me think on my own journey. When you are in the in between stage, it can feel heavy. It doesn’t feel sunny, and sparkly. Some days you question your sanity and if it will all be worth it. IT IS ALWAYS WORTH IT! The struggle and the joyous moments are what shapes and prepares us for other experiences in life. Can you imagine what life would be like if we weren’t pushed out of our comfort zone? If we didn’t experience extreme happiness or sadness? I think life wouldn’t be worth living if we just went about our lives with no emotion or excitement.

I have been in so many beginnings, in-between’s, and endings. Sometime simultaneously. Each time it has been a unique experience. Some beginnings were exciting, some were scary, and some were just a beginning.  The endings have been the same. But those in-between’s, oh man that Is where the magic happens. That is where I learned that I am capable of more than I can imagine, that I am resilient, strong, driven, smart, and ever evolving. I truly believe that God allows us to experience certain things because he knows that we are going to need to pull from those experiences. To remind ourselves that we have gone through hard times before and we triumphed at the end.

I am in an in-between stage right now. I know that I want to start a beginning, but for some reason I am scared. I don’t know why, and I know that I need to just jump. In fact, just writing this is helping me to realize that I can do anything! Plus, what is the worst that can happen? I have survived harder times. I am also nearing an ending. I can feel that my current career is ending. I am not sure what the next chapter looks like, but I do know that it is time for a change. I am embracing this season because I know that this is where the magic happens! I am excited and ready for it!

“It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”

~ Ernest Hemingway

xoxo,

April

The daily grind of being a single mom is exhausting. It is easy to get lost in all the tasks that lie ahead of you. A normal week for me looks something like this:

Monday’s: Dance Practice: 6:15-8:30; Cheer practice 6pm-8pm

Tuesdays: Dance Practice: 6-15pm-8:30pm then Single mom’s group from 6:15-7:45

Wednesdays: Dance Practice from 4:30pm-8:30pm; Voice lessons- 6:30-7; Cheer 4:30-8:30pm

Thursdays: Cheer Practice 6pm-8pm

Friday: FREE DAY! Insert happy dance:)

Saturday- Cheer Usually two games

Sunday: Every other Sunday we all serve at church from 745am-12:45pm

Honestly writing this schedule out exhausts me and it doesn’t even contain my two work schedules, ortho appointments, and other obligations that come up. There are times when I get overwhelmed and I want to cry. I did not envision my life as a single mom, but the decisions I made led to this life.

Now 95% of the time I look at my life and feel overwhelmingly grateful. I seriously have the best kids! Emma is smart, empathetic, caring, talented, kind, funny, wise, determined, beautiful, and strong-willed. Jolie is incredibly funny, witty, smart, kind, empathetic, artistic, quirky, beautiful and outgoing. Charlie is calm, kind, the baby whisperer of the family, empathetic, creative, smart, funny, handsome, and lover of dance. I am not sure how I got so lucky to have such amazing kids, but I am so grateful for them. They are 15, 13 and 10 and are at the age that we all enjoy similar activities. We seriously have the best time together. I can’t imagine what life would be life without them.

My kids have kept me grounded. I have a gypsy heart that wants to be wild and free. It isn’t always easy to be grounded when I want nothing more than to be traveling from place to place, but I realized that it is good to be anchored in one place. To have a home base and to have something bigger than myself to focus on. My kids have motivated me to finish school, strive for a better career, and to give them experiences over things. Every year we go on a long weekend vacay to a new city. We explore, enjoy each other’s company and eat good food (finally they all now enjoy food haha).

Now single mom life isn’t what I envisioned for myself, but honestly, I am not sure that I would have it any different. All my experiences have shaped me into who I am today. I think I am Badass! I am continuing to grow and learn more about myself. I believe that we have choices in life. We can choose to play the victim and blame our situations on anyone or anything, or we can choose to look at our part and do better. Learn from our mistakes and our wins.

I do know that having a tribe of besties makes this single mom journey 1000 times better. I wouldn’t be able to do this life without my tribe.

“Mom:

Emotional, yet the rock.

Tired, but keeps going.

Worried, but full of hope.

Impatient, yet patient.

Overwhelmed, but never quits.

Amazing, even though doubted.

Wonderful, even in the chaos.

Life changer, every single day.”

~ Rachel Martin

Xoxo,

April

Today my kids and I came home from a night away. I made dinner, which is something that I don’t always do. I hate cooking but when I do make dinner, I feel good about it. Afterward I started laundry, cleaned the laundry room, caught up the dishes, cleaned my room and bathroom, and went through all the mail. I felt so accomplished. As I was doing the chores, I was thinking of what my goals are for the rest of the year. I have career goals, relationship goals, health goals, and financial goals.

About a month ago I was introduced to a business coach through one of my friends. I was interested in talking with her because I want to start my own business but wasn’t quite sure where to start. Unfortunately, she was quite a bit out of my price range. I started manifesting for a way to work with her. The funny thing is I wasn’t actively manifesting for this, I just knew it was going to happen. When I saw the opportunity to work with her and it fit my budget, I jumped on it.

The program that I am doing is going to help me overcome the mental shifts that I am still working through. I have overcome a lot of limitations, and emotional experiences but my finances are where I still struggle. It always seems that I have just enough. It doesn’t matter if I make more money, something will come up that my kids need, which in turn keeps me at just enough. I have journaled about this and tried to figure out where the “just enough” belief has come from. I can never quite figure it out. I realized that I need to enlist some help. I am excited to have her guidance and to see where I am at after her course. I’ll keep you all posted for sure!

Back to the top…. So, after my chores were done and the last couple loads of laundry were going, I realized how good it felt to be productive and ahead of the game. It is interesting to me that I(we) stay stuck in areas of life that don’t feel good because it is just easier to not put in 5% more effort. I am going to start changing that. I am working on routines which will create new habits. I am a single mom to three kids. I don’t have time to not have a schedule or a plan. I am not perfect, and I know that I may falter from my goals, but I will not give up. I will give myself grace to keep going.

You can never go wrong with investing in yourself. You will never regret it. Investing in yourself looks different for everyone. We all have different dreams, experiences to work through, and goals but we all are responsible to make those things happen for ourselves. I am excited to take this next step in investing in myself. Realizing that I needed help to overcome my career/financial struggle felt liberating. Asking for help does not diminish who you are as a person. In fact, I think it makes you even more badass. There is no way to be experts in all areas of life.

“Invest in yourself. It pays the best interest.”

Xoxo,

April

Love: 1. A strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties. 2. A warm attachment, enthusiasm, or devotion. Love isn’t logical. It’s an emotion. You can’t measure it, graph it, or predict it. There are many types of love. There is love you have for your family, children, friends, and your person. I believe love is felt differently for everyone. The feeling I get when I truly think about my love for my children is slow at first. Love starts overflowing from my heart and then I can feel it fill every part of my body. It brings tears to my eyes. I think about how blessed I am to have such amazing humans as my children. I can’t imagine life without them.

Romantic love is like fire in my soul. It’s exciting, unnerving, giddy, fiery, tingling, butterflies in the pit of my stomach and takes my breath away. I believe love should be felt with your soul. It is something that we all look for and desire but are not always willing to sacrifice the pain that can come with love. It is easier to play it safe. Stick with the predictable choice. Less collateral damage that way.

My love experience is an interesting one. I would say that I have had four loves in my life as of right now. They vary in depths. I am going to work backwards. The most recent one was that of illusion. He was my first true relationship after my divorce. I liked the potential of what my life could look like with him. I wanted to love him, I kept telling myself that I did. There was never that spark, or fire. I remember my friends talking about these rose-colored glasses that people get in the beginning of a relationship and I didn’t have them on. After a brief 6 months I knew it was time to part ways.

My third love was my ex-husband. I met him shortly after my engagement ended with my daughter’s father. When I met him, he seemed to have a stable career and had a predictability about him that was comforting. Fast forward to after we got married things slowly started to unravel. The stability and calmness were gone, and I realized that what I thought was love at the beginning may have been something different. I stuck it out because I never wanted to be “that couple” that got divorced. In the end I think we both realized that we didn’t have the compatibility or the true love to make a marriage work.

My second love was my daughter’s dad. I met him freshmen year of high school. We became good friends, and then started dating in 10^th grade. I clung to him because I was the new girl freshmen year and didn’t have the easiest time making friends. I missed my old friends terribly and it made me reluctant to try to make new friends. Being shy doesn’t help with that either. We dated all through high school with one breakup in there somewhere. We ended things again right before we graduated. I was devastated. About a week or so later we started talking again due to me reaching out for support when my brother had alcohol poisoning. It was a scary time and I just remember that I needed to call him. We got back together and about a year after graduation we found out we were expecting. Who knew you really do have to take that birth control pill at the same time every day? Our relationship became that of comfort and fear of causing collateral damage. We trudged on and ended up having another daughter. We got engaged in Italy. How romantic right? I can’t speak for him, but I remember that day so vividly. I knew that I needed to say no, but we had a toddler and one on the way. I had to say yes, and it was ok because I wasn’t miserable. As time went on, and the wedding date drew closer we kept skirting around the breakup topic. We eventually said what we both were thinking and ended things. He was more ready then I was but looking back I knew it needed to happen.

Now to my first love. The love that you think is just a little kid thing. I remember every bit of him and how he made me feel. We broke up for silly reason’s and went about our lives. I moved away, and always would think of him. We would run into each other randomly throughout our lives. I remember when Facebook came around and I would search for him every so often to see if he created a profile. One day we had found each other. I can’t remember if he found me or I found him. I do remember feeling excited and relieved that we had found each other again. Our lives both went on parallel from each other and we would probably check in or comment here and there. Then one day we ended up meeting for coffee a few years ago when he was in town. Seeing him again was like time travel. I went through our entire history. I felt as if we had been in each other’s lives forever. Unfortunately, timing wasn’t great to see if a romantic relationship could evolve, and we continued to remain friends. I am not going to lie and say I wasn’t heartbroken over that decision but logically I could understand it. Once again, we remained connected through social media. We celebrated each other’s happiness. Our paths crossed again, and we were able to connect over breakfast again. This time the feelings were intensified. My heart was pounding, my chest felt heavy, and I couldn’t stop looking at him. It still felt as if time stood still and that there weren’t years between seeing each other. I could feel the tension between us. I think it took us both by surprise.

Now I am person that throws caution to the wind and if something is worth it then I only think of all the ways it can work. I also believe in signs and listening to what God or the Universe (whatever your beliefs) tell you. There were signs all over the place that day. I truly try to evaluate those things as objectively as possible. I don’t want to skew them towards what I want them to mean. Timing is a fickle thing. There are some major obstacles that don’t necessarily work in my favor.

I knew that this was going to be an emotional experience for me, and I was willing to risk it so we could connect again. I have no idea what life has in store for each of us. I am quite sad about everything, but I am a firm believer that things will happen if they are supposed to. I also try to learn from every experience. I do know that it felt good to feel the fire in my soul again. It has been a very long time since I have had those feelings. I am going to continue to live beautifully, authentically, and passionately. I am going to hope for a little stardust to get sprinkled on this situation. It’s always ok to have a wish.

“There are all types of love in this world but never the same love twice.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Xoxo,

April

I was in a funk this last week. I really couldn’t put my finger on what was going on. I was traveling more with my second job and juggling my main gig was becoming a bit more difficult than usual. I am quite the positive person. It really takes a lot to bring me down, but every so often I get in these funks that make me feel like Eeyore.

I started to self-reflect as to why I was in this rut. I realized that I am wanting a change in my career. Don’t get me wrong, my job is great! It allows me to do my second job which is my LOVE.  It is not challenging anymore. I have realized that I have outgrown it. This first realization was great, but I still couldn’t shake this funky feeling. I have learned that it is best to let these feelings run their course. So that is what I did. Luckily life was aligning me the opportunity to rest and to serve others.

I had an event in Portland, Or and then flew to Austin to visit my cousin.  First, Portland does something to me. I can’t say that I have ever had a city that makes me feel the way Portland does. It doesn’t even really make sense because its grey and rainy most of the year there. I am a sun person through and through, but Portland is calling my name. I will live there one day. Second, my visit with my cousin was relaxing. We chatted, ate good food, drank tons of coffee, and caught up on each other’s lives. It was restful. When I got home Sunday afternoon, I crashed on my couch. I caught up on sleep and felt 10 times better Monday morning.

Exhaustion is an interesting thing. It can really mess with your emotions and mental well-being. I am not exactly good at this part of my self-care. I stay up way too late and wake up too early. I am trying to get in the habit of a 10pm-6am sleep schedule. Let’s just say that it is a work in progress.

Anyways, back to volunteering, which is the title of this post anyways. Volunteering is good for the soul! I have been part of the organization for Sportscamp through my church. It has been a lot of work, and quite stressful at times. It was more intense than what I expected. I honestly was questioning my ability to take on this much responsibility. This week was the week of Sportscamp. I was excited to see all our hard work come to fruition. I was pumped to see kids from all over experience this camp. Volunteering pushed me totally out of any remaining funk that I may have still had. It is truly rewarding to give your time to others. I recommend it to you all! I was looking around and felt so much gratitude for the volunteers, the sponsors, and a dear friend of mine that made this camp amazing. I am truly grateful to have so many amazing friends and to be apart of something much bigger than me.

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” ~ Gandhi

xoxo,

April

I am exhausted! I have hit a wall this month. Busy is an understatement for my life. I am working both careers a ton, volunteering to the max, raising three kids and having very little free time to just be. I have been a yes girl for as long as I remember. April, can you do this? Yes! April, can you do that project? Yes! It is in my blood really. My mom is also a yes girl. Basically, we take on way too much thinking that we can do it all. I imagine myself at times holding a plate that is crammed full of all the commitments. The perk of juggling all the things is that I have proven to myself that I can really accomplish a lot, but at what cost? 2019 is when I decided to create boundaries for my yes. I have gotten a lot better. I have said no to commitments with friends but haven’t been so great at saying no to work or volunteer opportunities. This month it has really hit me, and I am slowly fading. I am not able to fully invest in all my obligations and I feel terrible. The last couple days is when I realized that enough is enough.

August has been non-stop, and September is looking to be the same way. It is mostly work mixed with a bit of fun. I am working on what I can change regarding my schedule. I have some big goals that I want to reach financially, so for right now work can’t change. I need to set boundaries in the other areas of my life and do better at scheduling self-care into my calendar. The beautiful part about knowing how to self-care is that it doesn’t take long to bounce back. I am a rockstar at it. It’s quite amazing how life can subtly change. One day I am flying high, then slowly the exhaustion sets in, and there is one more thing on my calendar which then leads to ten more things. For the rest of this year I am going to protect my time. Time is something that we can never get back or make more of. Time is precious and we need to do a better job of protecting it.

Due to my busy schedule I have realized that I have not been taking care of myself very well the last couple months. I am always tired and sluggish. My goal is to set a schedule. If anyone knows me, they know that I am not a list girl. I like to fly by the seat of my pants in most situations. I am going to get out of my comfort zone, make lists and schedule my days out so I can maximize my time.

This post is kind of all over the place so bear with me haha. August has been my month for the last three years. A lot of big things have happened in August and this one is not any different. I can feel change coming. I have finally reached a point where I am ready to take the plunge into starting my own business. I am not going to give too much away as I am in the very beginning process of it. I am excited and I know deep in my heart that this is what I was meant to do. I am looking forward to sharing more with you as time goes on.

I want you to remember that it is ok to say no. Do not over commit yourself if it is going to cause harm to your emotional and mental well-being. Self-care is so important. It allows you to pour into your cup so when the time comes you must pour into others you have a full cup to do so. I can’t wait to spend a little time with myself to fill my cup back up.

“Rest and self-care are so important. When you take time to replenish your spirit, it allows you to serve others from the overflow. You cannot serve from an empty vessel.” ~ Eleanor Brown

Xoxo,

April

It’s another week and another travel adventure. Coffee and airports have a way of making me pause and self-reflect on the beautiful life that I have. If you would have told me that I would have two careers that are fulfilling and allow me to live a great life I would have said I sure hope so, but I can’t see it.

The thing with life is that you can have everything it is that you want. Six years ago, I was still in school, working full time and figuring out what my single mom life was going to look like. I knew that I needed to create a better life for my kids.

• Getting my bachelor’s.
• Figure out what my next career looked like.
• Relocating to a city that was better educationally for my kids but also filled my city cup.
• Pay off debt
• Build my own business
• Volunteer

Education was my starting point to make that want a reality. I signed up for classes and started working on my bachelor’s again. Education is very important to me. It is one thing that nobody can take away from you. I learned so much about myself and business from pursuing my bachelor’s. It was a very long road and there were days that I truly didn’t think I was going to make it. I had to take it one day at a time. I reached that finish line in August of 2017. It was the most rewarding moment of my life. Not only did I show my kids hard work pays off, but you can accomplish anything you set your mind too.

Figuring out what my next career was going to look like was tricky for me. I was never one of those kids that knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. About a year before I finished school I was feeling really stuck. I wasn’t happy with my job and where I was living. I could feel myself going down emotionally. I knew that I needed to change my career and relocate. My oldest daughter was in 6^th grade at the time. I knew that I needed to move the summer between her 6^th and 7^th grade year because after that it would be too hard to relocate my kids. I started applying for jobs like it was a job. I was manifesting for a career that would support my family financially, give me the flexibility to participate in my kids sports and school and allow me to help people. The next thing I started to manifest for was finding a place in East Lansing that would fit all our needs. I put in the work, I applied for jobs, looked for places to live and worked towards those goals. Within months I found my career that I have now, and I found my current apartment. I have never been happier in a career or in my living arrangements.

The next thing I tackled was how to give my time to serve others. When I was done with school in August 2017, I knew that I wanted a second income coming in but needed flexibility and wanted it to involve helping others. I was introduced to a non-profit that would allow me to travel and serve others. It was perfect and I have fallen in love with it. A year ago, I joined a church and dove right in. I joined the dream team and have been giving my time with my church. I love it! Giving your time to others is one way to fill your cup. It has been game changing.

Now to knock off the last two bullet points. Paying off debt has been a huge obstacle. I realized that I was self-sabotaging myself in finances. I kept making decisions that kept me in debt. This year is when I fully realized that I needed to get my shit together. I was referred to this amazing financial advisor that is giving me the tools to pay off my debt and to live a debt free life. I am so excited to have met her!! Now to build my own business which is going to be a life coach. I am excited about starting this adventure!

Life has its ups and downs. It is also too short to live great! Pursue your dreams, put in the work, and be fearless. Be the Badass Butterfly that you are meant to be!

“A driven busy gal who strives to achieve her goals in life while attaining a beautiful glow both inside and out.”

Xoxo,

April

I was all set to follow a timeline for this blog. I was going to write the journey of the last 6 years in order and try to have you caught up to where I am now. I decided that was too much work. I have laid the foundation of where I have been, and I decided that it would be more fun to write what was on my heart for the night. So, ladies and gentlemen…. here it goes….

What is on my heart tonight you ask? Well it is the question of why people are trying to convince you that they are completely healed? Trust me I am way more emotionally healed than I was 6 years ago, 4 years ago, and even 2 years ago. I believe that we are always on a journey of healing, growing, and self-evolution. I don’t want to be perfect. If I were than there would be no sense of living. So, what triggered this question you might as. It was an email that I received this morning from an ex. He asked if I hated him…. Anyone that knows me knows that I don’t have the ability to hate anyone. I do my best to empathize with the person and why they did what they did. I responded to this email with a simple No. This person proceeded to say that how can this be that we are no longer going to be in each other’s lives, not knowing what each other are doing. He wanted to resolve the ending we had and make it more amicable. He was happy in his life and had moved on with someone else. He didn’t want to feel this bad vibe when he looked back at the way we ended things. He stated that he was completely healed from his past and that this was something that he wanted to resolve.

I question this statement of being completely healed for a few reasons. One, someone who is emotionally healed doesn’t feel the need to convince someone that they are. Two, a person would be able to look back at a situation, understand why things transpired the way that they did, learn the lessons and move forward. It was also a very one sided reason as to why he wanted and needed this ending to change to an amicable one.

I will give you the back story of the ending. At first things ended that we would be friends. I thought I was ok with that but realized that I needed to close that chapter of my life. I reached out to him and said that I would rather not be friends. I wish him all the best, but I wanted to close this chapter on my life. I didn’t feel that it was necessary to continue a friendship. He was not very happy with that which in turned led to a disagreement. Unfortunately, we did not end in the most amicable way. I realized that I had to be ok with that ending because that is how he chose to respond. I am only in control of my actions. I have moved on and learned from that experience. I am forever grateful for that relationship with him because I learned some valuable lessons. I learned more of what I needed from a relationship and also what my kids needed.

Ladies and Gentlemen…It is OK to not want to remain friends with an ex. You must protect your bubble of energy. One of the most valuable lessons that I have learned is that I gave myself permission to say no. Say no to commitments, dates, and potential; friendships. We can’t take on everything that comes our way nor does everything that comes our way serve us in a positive way. I have worked so hard to protect what energy penetrates my bubble, and I am getting so much better at setting boundaries with others. This life we have is too short to not live your best life.

“It’s so empowering to say, “This isn’t serving me” and walk away in peace.”

xoxo,

April

Oh, the things you see and experience when you start to date. I remember my first bad date. I met this guy on Plenty of Fish. Not my most favorite dating site to say the least. His credentials seemed great. He was my age, a doctor, wanting a relationship and outgoing. A little insight before I start the story; I met him when in the very early period, so I was not experienced at leaving a date early of things weren’t going well.

We decided to meet at Buffalo Wild Wings. It was a summer afternoon. He arrived a bit before I did. I greeted him at the booth and then sat down. We started talking and realized that we had the same birthday and year. My first impression of him was that he was nice, chatty, and overly eager. It was about 40 minutes into the date when he looked me up and down and said I like what I see, and I want to be in a relationship with you. I am pretty sure my jaw hit the floor and I said nothing. He asked if I wanted to go for a walk in the park that was in the next town over. I said yes. I didn’t want too, but at that time I was too reserved and shy to state my true feelings. So, went on this walk. I cringe just thinking at how dumb this was haha.

We get to the park and it was busy because the weather was beautiful that day. We head to the trails and start conversation. He is asking all sorts of questions; like do you want more kids, where do you see yourself, are you ready to meet my parents etc. I am shocked at how forward his questions are for the first date. I told him that I didn’t want more kids. He proceeded to tell me that I can get a hysterectomy. I was shocked. He was bold and blunt. As we were walking along the trail, he put his arms around me. and I became a little more nervous. I directed the walk back to our cars because I was ready for this date to be over.

We get to our cars and he asked when he can see me again. He wants me to meet his parents and I just stared at him. I was saved when he got a page for work. When he returned I politely said my goodbye and drove out of there faster than you could blink. Needless to say he was still quite persistent after that until I said there was no future.

It is so crazy to revisit these memories because I never would have let a date go on that long nor would I have gone on a trail walk with a guy that I had met for the first time. I love revisiting my past. It makes me realize how far I have come and how different I am from that woman who went on that walk.

“Isn’t it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back everything is different.” ~ C.S Lewis

xoxo,

April

After the excitement and relief wears off after you start your single journey again, loneliness starts to creep in. Slowly at first. You aren’t even sure that it is there except for the subtle hellos. I remember when I was lying in bed, the kids were asleep, and I realized that I was alone. I missed the touch, the closeness, and the emotional bond with a man. I think it was around the year anniversary from my divorce that loneliness really reared its ugly head that night. I cried that night. It was an ugly cry, but when I was done, I felt better. Relieved almost.

I realized that night that it is okay to be sad and to let those emotions run through you. They may run through you subtly like a gentle breeze, or intense like a dam that just exploded open. I also didn’t rush right out to find a mediocre relationship to soothe the pangs of loneliness. I told myself that this was part of package and I need to figure out how to be one with it. I developed a pretty good system. When loneliness appeared I would watch my favorite love stories, drink wine, and take a hot shower. It worked like a dream. It did not make the loneliness any less, but it made it tolerable. It also made loneliness depart much faster. It now only sticks around for moments or evenings. By morning it has moved on to its next victim.

Loneliness shows up to remind us that we were made to be with others. It is so easy to forget to take time to connect with friends or even date when you are a single parent. I have always had a plate full of activities. I was in school full time, working full time, and parenting full time. Now I am working full time, working a weekend job that takes me all over the country, and taxing my kids to all their practices. There are times where it is almost impossible to squeeze in friend time let alone a dating life. I know that I need to make sure that I try to spend time with friends, and date. I know that one of my top love languages is quality time. In order to fill that part of my cup I make a point to fill in my weekends that I don’t have my kids with friends, and dates as they come.

Learning to greet loneliness as it comes is important because it doesn’t go away when we are in relationships or surrounded by friends. I learned how to fill my cup when those lonely moments appeared. It was one of the best lessons that i have learned. I know myself so well and what I need when certain emotions surface. I wouldn’t have learned more about myself if I didn’t greet loneliness with open arms. Loneliness has also taught me to appreciate the company of loved ones.

“Because I have known despair; I value hope. Because I have tasted frustration; I value fulfillment. Because I have been lonely; I value love.” ~ Leonard Nimoy

xoxo,

April