Okay universe, which way is up?

So, shall I be honest with you all?

Sure, why not. I'm told I wear my sappy old heart on my sleeve, anyway, and I'll just bet a heck of a lot of you have been through this yourself. A blog is for blogging, after all, and sometimes that means talking about your life... GASP... I know, it's not just all about when the next book comes out, some cool event or whatnot. Sometimes, you just want to analyze life with the help of your friends.

Right, so that brings me to the point (which I am shamelessly skirting...notice?) The point is, my life has entered what one would call a bit of turbulence. Okay, let me append this. The plane has broken apart, and I am now free falling through hundreds of feet of pure air while the hard, painful ground speeds ever menacingly toward me. Or wait... is that a body of water? Am I saved?? Shall I just weather the injuries and swim for my life??

Are you finished with the nonsensical symbolism now? Good, me too. What I'm trying to force out is the fact that my relationship of about ten years, hell, just say marriage, has ended, and my heart is broken. I feel like I'm back at square one in my life all over again... abruptly and unnervingly. Everything you work for as a couple, all the memories built, the walls painted, the artwork chosen, etc, etc, every object you look at has a memory attached to it, and it's a lot like someone dying. It's painful in the extreme, and I float between anger/fear/pain and hope/courage constantly. I'm on my own, now, though friends and family insist otherwise. But it's true. I have to untangle my life from someone else and re-learn how to be single... how to be alone. Sound familiar to any of you? I'm sure it does.

I love hard, you see. Once I'm in, I'm in. So, having to acknowledge defeat is super crazy hard for me. But, somewhere deep down, buried under all the yucky emotion, some kind of voice of reason is telling me that I haven't been defeated--that maybe it's those things that I thought I was, that I thought I wanted, that I may have been ten years ago are defeated. Maybe the only thing left for me to defeat is my fear.

The plan, now, is to move out of my current state in the next few months (literally and figuratively), and do some traveling. Not too sure how little old me will afford this, what with leaving my job and hardly having any savings to take with me, but I'm going to do something I think the universe is just screaming for me to do--take a fucking risk already. Just, break free, trust and have faith that I'll find the means to make it solo, now that the pages of the life I knew are turned.

I suppose it's wise to jump into my books, my music, my editing. Those things are who I am, because they are in my heart, and no one can take that away from me. If I can pick up enough freelance editing work, I'll probably be able to eek by traveling around and writing for a while. In the mean time, if you have good energy to send, perhaps you'll spare a bit for me? I'm entering one of those soul changing kicks in the ass that life serves up when it's time to move on to the next phase. The universe knows what the hell it's doing--but I don't. So, here's to trust and patience and brave steps. And here's to seeing you on the road!

Love you all,
Jen