And now...

Now, over nine months later I am still living and playing in New York. It's been quite a journey getting here even though here was never on my list to be.

I might've been born a Southerner, but since the age of 17 I never wanted to live anywhere else but Colorado. I left there in 2008 and have no intention of ever living there again. I've made my way across the country with a stopover in Texas and New Mexico before finally arriving in NY last December. If there's one thing I've learned it's that what I think I want and what eventually lands in my lap are two totally different things, or so it seems. When I really examine my desires closer, I realize that I have indeed come to the place where I've always longed to be -- in love with the most wonderful man in the world.

Still.

Before leaving TX the last time I was told that love was not enough, and I'm here to say that for me after all I've been through, I firmly believe that it's not only enough, but it's everything. It is everything. It's because of love that I leap out of bed in the morning and scramble downstairs. Okay, okay, the scrambling begins after the caffeine kicks in, but every morning I get to open my eyes to a delicious pair of baby blues looking at me and sip from a coffee cup with chickens ranging free on it. I am privileged to walk into a room where I can sew and create with wild tie-dyed fabrics and threads all day long. I am utterly and unequivocally privileged with the ability to think up things like I do, but also have a man like my Daniel who pushes me beyond what I thought was finished and complete. Finito means something totally different in his vocabulary!

I'm nearing my 55th birthday, and I'm realizing just how much I'm enjoying being me. That's been a tough thing for me to celebrate. I worked incessantly before to make amends for using up oxygen, and now... Well now, I breathe deeply taking in more than enough oxygen, more than ever before, and I appreciate how my lungs fill, my chest rises, and my head clears. I so love the ability to look clearly out the windows of my home and see pineapple tomatoes growing on vines or a newly-picked eggplant sitting on our kitchen table. I am blessed to find that the purplish color on the stove is from elderberries instead of dye. I have arrived in a place finally where I so eagerly belong. I fit right in. I meld perfectly with the artist that pushes me to see things differently. I marvel at our differences, and most importantly, adore who we are together.