Oceans

Welcome back! It has been a HOT minute since I last posted an actual blog post…and now that I remember how to work Wix again, let me entertain you with more words.

To be truthful, I have really struggled with what to even make this post about…. Especially given the fact that I haven’t made one in over TWO years. So, I thought I’d start by giving you all a little life update and explain my ghosting of my blog.

My last post was on Valentine’s Day 2021. Well, that very next weekend after some soul searching… in the middle of an ice storm, Matt and I decided it was time for a change. That day, we decided that we were going to follow our dreams, pack up our little family and move south. After telling our family and closest friends (I’m still crying inside over those conversations), we began applying for jobs. With us being the medical field, we were incredibly fortunate to find jobs quickly. Matt took a job in a local emergency room and has since advanced to a leadership position (I know, he’s pretty awesome). As for me? I took a HUGE leap of faith and switched from adults to pediatrics and am still learning new things every single day! Finding a house was a different, stressful story. After 6 offers, we were finally able to settle on a house and moved from Virginia to South Carolina in May of 2021.

Let me take a side bar here for a moment and talk about how our God works behind the scenes. After we lost out on the 3rd house down here, we were feeling pretty depleted and like very tiny fish in very big ponds. We simply couldn’t compete with the all cash offers that were rolling in left and right, knocking us out of every offer we made. But one day, our realtor showed us a listing in a neighborhood we didn’t even tour when we initially searched down here. The house number was 11…my lucky number (my sister and I text each other 11:11 times all the time)… I had a good feeling about it but I was NOT getting my hopes up. We did a virtual tour with our realtor and put in an offer. Days later we got the call while at dinner with Matt’s parents that our offer was accepted!! I knew that lucky number 11 was it. So the next day, I emailed my clinical director here in South Carolina and her response back? “That’s my street!!!” And as it turns out, she has become one of my very best friends down here. Blessings, again!!! As we are starting to pack up, we also learned that my sister in law’s coworker lived two houses down and my brother in law’s coworker lived across the street. We already felt connected to this sweet little neighborhood and hadn’t even moved yet… so let me tell you, in a time of uncertainty, God knew what he was doing!!!

Anyways, fast-forward to today and a LOT has happened over the past two years. It has been filled with some of our saddest days, our highest highs, and some of my personal lowest lows. We lost Matt’s dad, our Bubby, a true one of a kind man, on Christmas Day of 2021 but again, God had a plan for our move. He knew that Matt and his sister needed to be close for each other and for their mom, our Mimi, so that we could all grieve together as a family. Because of our proximity, literally 8 minutes door to door, she didn’t have to worry about deciding which of her kid’s house to visit and she always gets the two for one special when she comes with extra grandkid snuggles!

Our years here have been full of fun times, too. My mom and step dad made the move down here in 2022, my sister and her family get to visit frequently, Grant and his cousins get to see each other at least twice a week. We live 25 minutes from the beach and have Friday night beach nights, we go on golf cart rides, bike rides, have a neighborhood swimming pool. We’ve taken up golf (just kidding, we’ve been once but I’m hooked). It’s hard to be super sad when a vacationer’s playground is your backyard.

But believe me, when you’re consumed by anxiety 75% of the time, despite all the vitamin D and serotonin, sadness finds a way to creep in no matter how sunny the day is. First off, our decision to move has by far been one of the most spontaneous, out of my comfort zone, “Let go and let God” moments of my life. I was leaving all things comfortable and planned. My work, Grant’s daycare and our home were in a 8 minute triangle. My workday ended before it got dark. I had all these great professional plans, made low vision connections, and there was an OT program locally where I eventually saw myself becoming an educator. I had a group of friends with whom I was comfortable sharing my journey with RP. And then BOOM. All the sudden I’m starting over in my career, working late nights past dark trying to coordinate childcare and a ride for myself, (because HELL NO I wasn’t going to tell my new employer I couldn’t drive in the dark). I was afraid that my new coworkers and friends would think less of me or question my capabilities, staying up super late documenting, Matt’s schedule changed back to nights, Grant decided that sleep was overrated and it just truly felt like the world was squeezing every ounce of life out of me. I found myself resenting myself, incredibly frustrated that I had to rely on others so much… feeling so incredibly childish that I needed to get a ride here and there, home from work, this list goes on. Truly until this move, my choice to not drive at night felt like an actual choice not one of necessity. I spent a lot of nights crying and honestly, despite all the good that came out of our move, found myself regretting it more often than not.

When we first moved down here the song Oceans by Hillsong played on repeat in my head… “Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders, Let me walk upon the waters. Wherever You would call me, Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander, And my faith will be made stronger in the presence of my Savior.” But overtime that song faded and it felt as though the metaphorical ocean that was once pulling me here, was actually pulling me under. As it turns out, I was actually forgetting a verse. Hillsong goes on to sing “So I will call upon Your Name, And keep my eyes above the waves, When oceans rise, My soul will rest in Your embrace”. I was so damn consumed in my self pity and keeping a fake smile on my face that I forgot about the power of prayer. Now, let me preface this by saying, I am not where I would like to be in my relationship with God and sometimes I treat him like a Costco membership. I once heard a sermon make this comparison about how we often “buy in bulk” with God… we go in for our once a month haul and the rest of the month we just reap the benefits of our purchase (if the author of this specific sermon ever reads this please let me know and I will certainly give you credit because clearly it stuck with me). And that’s been me, praying when times are tough, miraculously, he answers my prayers and I get by, month by month.

Just recently, I’ve been slowly coming back around to my “I’m going to own it” mentality I first had when I started this blog. It’s taken me about two years to start to flip the lens and actually look at this from a different perspective. If you know anything about me, you know that I sadly care what people think of me; the joys of being a people pleaser. I’ve been so afraid of what my new employer, my new coworkers, my new friends might think, or God forbid, what they might say behind my back. But I am trying really hard to have the mentality of “those who matter, don’t mind and those who mind, don’t matter”. I’m slowly coming to the realization that life is WAY too short to live it fearing the opinions of others. So I’m again choosing to look at the glass half full. I’m counting my blessings; I have a husband who will wipe my tears, grab my hand in the dark, or (lovingly) push me out of the way of a wet floor sign. I have a sister in law who has countlessly helped with transportation no matter what, and I now have my mom and step-dad local who will also selflessly act as my taxi whenever I may need them. I have dear friends who are some of the most accepting and nonjudgmental people I know. In the grand scheme of things, I am blessed and I was too consumed by the waves to see the ocean of blessings all around me.

As much as a strive to be a role model for those who are struggling with invisible challenges, it’s not always rainbows and sunshine. Sometimes that big beautiful ocean starts to pull us under and things get a little ugly. But I think what we forget in those ugly moments is the fact that we are not alone. Nine times out of ten there is someone else who might be going through some of the same invisible struggles and we can lift each other up. We can show compassion and empathy, lend a helping hand or a listening ear. As for me, I strive to do those things and to also remember that I have the ultimate life raft, my God is here to rescue me from the riptides on my toughest days.

For those who have made it this far, thank you for playing catch up with me. I’m so excited to get back into my blog, share more stories, and continue to remind myself that I am more than any diagnosis. And so are you.

All my love,

Ali