Starting Over Is Okay!

Starting over...what does that even mean?  What does that even look like? I have contemplated these thoughts over & over the past few year's & it is honestly one of the toughest choices I've had to make.

This is a story of my starting over & why now it is so important to me.  In 2015, I lost my Mother, my person, my art partner in life.  She was my biggest critic & my biggest Fan.  Less than 3 month's later, I lost my Father...Then the summer following that, I became the sole care giver for my Mother's Mom, my Gramma Kimmi & Grandpa Andy.

My Husband commuted between Las Vegas & Boise for nearly 3 month's until my Gramma took her last breath within hours of him retuning on that last trip back from our home in Idaho.

I don't remember much of feeling anything at that moment because I was solely responsible, as an only child, to prepare my Grammas departure from earth. I do vividly remember writing her obituary & eulogy. Picking out the flower's, casket, food, programs, memory mark's,  her clothes, her Urn, & everything that's involved in prepping for a funeral service viewing for 100 or so people as well as saying goodbye before they took her to be cremated so I could send her ashes back home to Japan to her Family.  I did have a gravesite prepared & laid some of her ashes to rest there.  To this day the Funeral home of which made many mistakes along the way has yet to provide me a final photo of her gravestone plaque. 😢😭

That was the beginning of the end for my own personal creative art journey.  The moment my Gramma passed, I literally became numb. I was already grieving the loss of my Mother & then all of a sudden the Grandparents who were an integral part of my life were gone too. That was 3 year's ago this coming October. 

The May following her burial, I had a heart attack. The cause they said, was broken heart syndrome. The grief was so palpable. I kept it all inside. I didn't talk to anyone, nor really live if that's what I was supposed to do. Then this past May of 2019, I had an Occipital Lobe Stroke causing Homonymous Hemianopsia aka partial blindness.  

At this point despite outwardly trying to make everything seem my life was fine, the truth of the matter, I just fell into a pit of personal pain & despair that I'm slowly learning to crawl out of.  

I've no idea how or why or when but I knew that if I didn't seek help, there was no way I was going to survive what seemed like an insurmountable amount of loss & personal health.

I've been in grief trauma therapy for the better part of two years now. This past Thanksgiving of 2019, I was able to travel back to South Dakota, my Mother & Stepfather's home. Also the place where I met my adoring Husband.  I spent that time with my In laws & Family. While I was able to find some measure of closure over loosing my Mother & much needed quality time with Papa (My Step Dad), I wished I'd of done so sooner.  I sure could of saved myself year's of sadness & inner turmoil. 

So while this post is a gist of why my absence is been so long...it still doesn't help ya'll to know why it's taken me so long to start over in my creative space.

Well that's a story all of it's own. 😂  In the midst of my grief, I literally allowed all of my site's to lapse.  It took nearly 5 year's to restore all of this history & while some of my past posts have lost photos due to the age of technology advances & how we share & interact with one another... you can still see I'm kinda in the old school mode with my site coding etc.  It's a work in progress. 

Due to my new found disability from my stroke. It takes me longer to get thing's accomplished from creating an inspirational quote to taking photo's to doodling, journaling, & making handmade item's.  However, I can promise you...I'm Okay!  I finally gave myself permission to start over.  I needed to trust in myself that I could.  Even though it took a better part of over a day to fix some links, coding, website domain issue's, verifications etc.  It only took me a little over an hour to create Creatique Candy's first starting over graphic inspirational quote. So there is that! YAY.

So while I'm using an app now to provide posts & content to you. My hope is I'll be able to learn how to upgrade to a cleaner look & more robust text type of post engagement just to use as a journal of sorts.

My plan is to perhaps start selling my own creations into prints.  I will also keep creating handmade item's & sharing them some of which will be for sale, as well as my photography, inspirational graphic quotes & of course more of everyday life.

I realize now more than ever that it doesn't matter what or how I start, I just needed to do it...If for anything for myself, my health, my Family & my heartistry.

HUGS

xoxo