Hey! We’re Still Alive!

How do you catch up when you’re six months a year behind?

So, quite obviously the blog has fallen by the wayside for the first six months that we’ve done this move, and a few months prior to that. It has been quite the ride and there are loads of stories to be told. I wanted to sit down and try to piece everything back together in order so it looked seamless and as though I’d planned it all along.

That would be a really big lie. All of this has been unmitigated chaos and it would be false to pretend it wasn’t and like I had it all together.

What’s going to happen then is this. I’m just going to write things and amass pictures from relevant times to highlight them. They may be in order; they may be out of order. I don’t know where my sparkly brain is going to land in trying to catch this up.

I know for one thing I am *never* doing an Ontario to Nova Scotia drive ever again. We left on the day Ontario got record breaking rainfall, so we definitely forgot a lot of things because it was just pouring as we tried to pack and leave. We’re slowly replenishing the things we forgot. Huge thanks to Matthew Nickerson Hauling for being the best moving company ever. They were an absolute delight to work with and were so kind.

While it’s been a lot of getting used to a new place’s winter, I have found it hard to keep up here because I don’t feel like I’m presenting my best self. I always try to come into this all collected and prepared. I’m not, and I haven’t been since before the move.

I am still working through and coming to terms with the trauma of living in that apartment for 3 years. How horrible the environment was, how abusive, how ignored we were by everyone. It has been a lot to untangle and I’m still working on it. I know both Shawn and I still have moments where we realize we need to do laundry and panic because it’s not “our laundry day”, or that the dogs need to go out and we get deflated because it’s not “our back yard day”. These nervous system responses are not as intense as they were when we first got here but we’re definitely still working on them. I still panic if it feels “too loud” here nearing 9pm, and I can’t quite eliminate the thought that if I breathe funny we won’t have a home anymore.

Needless to say this has gotten in the way of having the mental space to write things. In the apartment, writing became a bit of an escape and it was often easier to do than to deal with the reality of where I was living. Now it feels like pressure to perform as I’m untangling all these feelings and adjusting to a whole new living situation.

I won’t make any promises that I’ll get it all caught up any time soon, as now we’re moving into spring and the reality of the potential of farm life is happening and most of my time is spent reining in my own enthusiasm not to get too far ahead of myself. I have promised myself kindness and I love you all and I am glad you’re still checking in, I hope to give you more stories and pictures so you can see how the last six months have been too.