On January 26, 1999, I was almost 23 years old. I had been married for just over 5 years. I had three children, ages 4, 2, and nine months. I didn't have a high school diploma. I had never held a job.
And on that date, my husband asked me for a divorce. He had fallen in love with a divorcee from North Carolina that he had met on the Internet and told me that he was going there to get her and bring her here.
Um... no.
One would think that I would have let him go then (and I definitely should have, looking back), but I didn't. Without any life experience, I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to care for my kids. So, I made my now-trustless, crappy relationship work. I got two minimum-wage jobs while he stayed home with kids, since, on the day he'd asked me for a divorce, he also quit his very good-paying job with benefits (and had no back-up plan).
Ten years later, he pulled the same crap again, except that, this time, the girl was real and had pretended to be my friend, and I was someone completely different than the scared 23-year-old with three small children.
No, 10 years later, my kids were all teenagers, I was finishing my Master's thesis, releasing my band's second CD, releasing my second novel, and I had just celebrated my 7th year as a small business owner of a thriving web design business.
I'll spare you the gory details of the divorce, but, suffice to say, my ex is a dufus. (For example - and I'm sure there will be many examples over the course of this blog - after getting the quickie divorce he wanted so he could be with the home wrecker - and not even having to pay for the divorce that I DIDN'T want - he spent the next ten months harassing, intimidating, stalking, not paying his child support, and SUING me. He sued me no fewer than six times between August 2010 and January 2011. Nice, huh?)
But, being that he was a dufus, I've learned how to survive, and I have picked up a lot of information and skills along the way.
But the question really is: who am I?
For half my life, my identity has been intertwined with my marriage, essentially fixing his screw-ups (which, I am sure, I will talk about from time to time), surviving, and making sure my kids were cared for. But I never did figure out who I was.
From the time I was little, I have written things, but was I really a writer? I've played music most of my life, too, but was I really a musician? I have several college degrees, but am I really a scholar? I have painted and drawn since I was a child, but am I an artist? My work for the last seven years has been in computing, but am I really all that tech-savvy?
The answers to these questions are not so much answerable at all unless I am able to answer the deeper question: who am I?
Now that I have recently been informed that the ex his marrying his home wrecker and giving her his name, the mystery of my real identity has consumed my thoughts. It feels almost as if he is giving her my identity, even though she is NOTHING like me. But, still, he stole my identity and is giving it to her, leaving me with a blank slate.
Well, not entirely blank, I suppose.
I'm still playing music with my band, playing guitar and piano, singing, still writing songs, still performing, and even learning to play the steel guitar.
I'm still writing, obviously, though I haven't been writing in my books because the stories still felt too close to my marriage, so it's been really difficult getting back into it. But I do write, and part of the reason I am re-launching this blog is to document my writing.
I do have my Master's degree in Communication and Leadership, and I have taught college level courses, and my instructors at college thought I ought to have my thesis published in competitive academic journals... something that shocked me, because I was writing my thesis while going through my divorce and I barely remember writing it. How could something I barely recall writing be good enough for academic publication? But, apparently, it is, so, I guess that I am, in ways, still an academic.
I'm still doing web sites and graphic design, and I am learning how to incorporate social marketing into my skill set, and another reason I wanted to do this blog was to practice those skills by incorporating videos and social networking into content writing, and this blog will provide me an avenue to do so. (Also, as you can tell, I am majorly long-winded, and short blog posts should tighten up my writing skill set so that I am writing more short, concise pieces for the Internet rather than novel-length posts, such as this one.)
I'm still a Mom. At 35, I'm in a new relationship, and I've just welcomed my 4th child, Shelby, into this world. I have a 16-year-old in driver's ed, a 14-year-old artist, a 13-year old car nut, and a 1-month-old in diapers. So, this ought to be challenging.
Since my kids are picky eaters, I have learned over the years how to accommodate those tastes and still have quick, easy recipes for the busy parent, so I thought that this blog would be a good place to share those recipes.
Other things that I will share with any readers that happen to pop by are writing snippets, songs that I like and/or inspire me and/or that I am listening to, quick computer tips and tricks, web design tips and tricks, what I learn about social marketing, writing tips, and my opinions about things.
My goal is to post 10 to 20 new posts every week, 1 or 2 videos every week, and at least one new recipe (with accompanying video instruction) every week. By and large, I think I just need goals in my life.
Maybe, along the way, I will figure out who I am. Since I cannot change the fact that my identity has been stolen from me, and I cannot change the fact that I am no longer the person I was a year ago when he left me for the home wrecker, I figure that, what with my impending wedding, that I may as well suck it up and figure out who I am.
