Grasping for Reality: Welcome back to your life, Maggie

Hi!

Remember me?

You know, Maggie. The owner of this blog. You can't have forgotten about me already.

Yes, I know it's been 8 months since I updated. But after all the years we spent together I would have thought you wouldn't forget me that easily.

Think of all the good times we had; all the trips we took, all the delicious food we ate (and cooked), all the adventures we had together. I know that if think really hard, you'll remember.

Yay, there we are! Annnnnnnnnd, we're back!

So you probably wondered what happened to me all those months ago. No, I didn't fall off the face of the earth, get kidnapped by Gypsies (Romani? Travelers? whatever), or forget that I had a blog. I was in what I like to call The Bad Place.

The Bad Place is where I spent every day wondering if I would need to take Mom to the hospital because she was so sick from her chemotherapy treatments. The Bad Place is when I had to basically move back home to care for her and make sure she was eating. The Bad Place is when I would spend every evening I was by myself crying and hugging my stuffed toy beagle because I was so sad all the time. And The Bad Place is where I broke out in hives because I had so much anxiety.

That's all I am going to say about that. Because this post isn't about some "Oh, woe is me, my life was so hard" type of discussion. This post is about how happy I am now, and how all the awfulness, and time, and stress, and pain was worth it. Because my Mom is a cancer survivor who has fought her way out of the darkness and is getting back to her life. And so am I. Sure, she's minus a few lymph nodes, but hey, nobody's perfect.

Basically since New Years 2015, things have made a complete turn around. Every day Mom gets stronger; she's back to working in her office one day a week and can just about work full days at home. She walks almost every day (with a little not so gentle nudging from yours truly) and can eat almost anything she wants again. She will always have a dry throat and has to be careful about getting sick (no lymph nodes, remember?), but other than that she's well on the road to full recovery.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the incredible outpouring of help, love, and support from all of my friends, Mom's friends, and our family. When I say we couldn't have done it without you all, I mean it. We could not. have done it. without you. Full stop.

And as for me, well it seems like everything is going right. Of course that means I've got my eye on the sky waiting for the Acme safe to fall on me, but I am just enjoying it while it lasts. Work is going well (I just got asked to mentor a new attorney), family is all happy and healthy, and I've been dating someone wonderful since January.

In fact, I can't imagine ever being as happy as I am right now. So that's something, right? I am sure it won't last forever, but like Mom said--you gotta have the bad times so you learn to appreciate the good ones.

And I intend to appreciate the hell out of it.

And just to prove that things weren't all bad (and aren't bad now).....