Finding My Voice and Strength Through Change (and a new blog direction)

Time is ridiculously cruel. How dare spring think she can rear her head up! It's only February for goodness' sake! Now here I am post-seven-years-of-solitude, and everything around me seems to be moving at lightening speed.

I loved every minute of my time alone. Well, I wasn't exactly "alone" in the sense that I sat in my hovel worrying away every minute of the day in my own head--there were the dogs, my husband, our garden, the woods, books, my cooking, running, knitting.

Every day had its ebb and flow.

Mornings were set aside for morning stuff, like coffee (lots), reading, knitting, walking the dogs and running.

Then afternoon arrived and a whole different set of priorities emerged: dinner, dogs (again and always, the dogs), knitting (because I am really someone who prefers evening knitting to day time knitting) and then time with hubby as we found ourselves gobsmacked over the fact that another twenty-four hours had passed.

As we are aging, we find time to be a thief.

We cannot believe it. Another day. Gone.

It's hard for me to believe, but this blog's life began eight years (and many dinners, desserts, cookies and traumatic experiences) ago. I cannot begin to imagine what I might have missed capturing in life were it not for these pages. Oh sure, the memories would be stored in my head. But still, the emotional content and visual components would be lost.

I don't pretend to think that this blog will live on into eternity, but a woman can wish.

I made a choice not to contribute to the human legacy, therefore, I leave "legacy" up to the family I have (my sister), my husband, our canine companions we've cherished, loved and lost (fourteen and counting), and those few close, dear friends I have known nearly all my life.

Now I shift my focus here from the vegan food, to Vegan Time (or Thyme). This, after all, is the footprint of my life here. Now not just the "food please", but the rest of life. Because there is so much more than just food happening. Oh but there are still amazing vegan eats happening, there just seems to be only so much one person can produce and, well, I've produced hundreds of those "eats" and now many, if not all of them, are on a steady rotation here at home.

*If by chance my creative cooking emerges with a plate I feel is share-worthy, it will find a place here. So the blog stays.

I've been struggling to work out a balance that allows me to enjoy life in the same way I had a month ago: in solitude, in quiet, with my own rhythm.

I've come home at the end of a few of these days completely spent and sometimes in tears.

Fear is what has brought me here. Fear is what has kept me moving.

(Someone said this once, I can't remember who.)

I finally, just last week, told a best friend of mine (since we were fourteen--we've known each other, mind you!) that I had returned to working full time. She was shocked. She said she thought she'd rather DIE than to work full time again, but also added (just to paint her in a more loving light) that she was so very proud of what I was doing. The same thing my sister has shared with me over and over again. The same another dear friend of mine said when she reached out--so proud and happy for me.

Kind words of encouragement. All welcome. But those women have all been heroes to me for so very long as they have carried on raising children (or not) and STILL worked full time.

That was me last November: no way. I could NEVER. . . return to work. But the opportunity (and strange timing of it all) was something that was bigger than me. Not looking. No resume in hand.

This happened for a reason. One still unclear to me.

Meantime, our weekends are filled with a renewed sense of purpose. Getting out with the kiddos is something we make time for. And somehow, weekends are--instead of a run-on sentence of the M-F of old--now a mandate to recharge, find new things to do and new places to go.

Recently our love of St. Louis' Forest Park has given us new ground to explore with the four-legged girls. And then we always migrate to South Grand for a bite to eat.

We love this city.