stephanieleigh.blog

Self Love – Above everything else, genuinely love yourself first. Self-love is powerful and it’s the best love that you will ever have. When you love who YOU are, your relationships will be healthier and your life will be happier. Self-love sets the standard in how we allow others to treat us and how we treat ourselves. Your happiness and well-being is important. Protect it by always valuing who you are! ~Anonymous Hi friends! It’s been awhile since I’ve shared. My goal with this blog is to share value and I just haven’t had a vision of what I should express, until now. I’ve always been content with who I…

The last month and a half has been an interesting time for me. Between the holidays and losing Leo DURING the holidays, I felt like I was either running with my pants on fire or going inward for deep reflection. Leo was only with us for a little over 6 years and while I was reminiscing over that time period, I realized most of it was spent as my marriage was crumbling to pieces. I’ve always been good at compartmentalizing and so I had gotten to a place recently of acceptance and gratitude with where I’m at in life. However, looking over photos from when we first brought Leo home…

Well, my friends, 2023 is officially over. In the spirit of complete honesty, to say I struggled during the month of December would be an extreme understatement. My desire to feel like Buddy the Elf was genuine, however I found myself feeling like Cindy Lou Who and Charlie Brown entirely. It seemed like anywhere I looked for Christmas spirit I came up a bit empty. When did Christmas become about lists and obligations rather than magic and joy? I’ve been feeling this way for a few years, however this year it seemed magnified. Now don’t get me wrong. There were wonderful moments with family and friends scattered throughout the month.…

A little over a year from DOS (Date of Separation), I received a call from one of my angels (A1). She was at dinner with another angel (A2) and they wanted to visit me in California. They proposed a weekend that they were available and shockingly enough, so was I. A1 had been walking my journey with me from DOS. She had been calling, texting, checking on me at least once a week since the very beginning. There hadn’t been a full week that I didn’t hear from her – she was my lifeline. Needless to say, she knew where I was at mentally and emotionally and had an instinct…

About 6 months after we decided to get divorced, I was not doing well. At all. We had made the decision to no longer be married, however there had been no movement beyond that. I’m pretty sure I was emotionally paralyzed – unable to make any forward progress. During this time, I went in for a regular checkup with my doctor and when asked how I was doing, I fell apart. Thankfully, she didn’t have any patients scheduled after me and for the next hour, she gave me her undivided attention. She then decided it was best that I start taking an anti-anxiety medication. Up to that point, I had…

Have you ever fallen asleep at a weird time of day and woken up completely frazzled, wondering where you were or if you missed an alarm? That’s the best way to describe how I felt when we decided to get divorced. Startled, confused and completely lost. As I mentioned before, I got married when I was 23. As young as I was, I knew I was in love and he was the man I wanted to spend my life with. The majority of the people around me at the time were skeptical. Partly because of my age and partly because we got engaged 4 months after we met. The skepticism…

Self-care is a bit of a subjective topic. To me, self-care can mean reading a book, meditating, journaling, taking a bath… any number of things that I enjoy doing by myself. However, I have decided that self care can also mean spending time with beautiful souls who love and care for me. I didn’t confide in anyone for almost the first two years of my struggling marriage. I had dated a man a long time ago who had been married. He told me that when he and his wife separated, he told his family about their issues. Then, when he and his wife were trying to work it out, his…

4 months – the amount of time to fall in love. 1 year – the amount of time to plan a wedding and get married. 9 months – the amount of time to create a human being. 20 years – the amount of time to build a life. 4 years – the amount of time for a marriage to crumble and fall apart. Time is extremely subjective. Except of course the time it takes to create a human body…  I had never really thought about time except that I never felt like I had enough. Busy with kids, with work, getting kids to extracurricular activities. Always running. It was a…

Two years after we started struggling in our marriage is when we decided to get off the hamster wheel and try a 3-month trial separation. We had been having the same arguments over and over with no forward movement – basically the definition of insanity. The hope being that some time and distance might provide perspective. We took a drive and created a script for what we would say to our children. Savanna and Skyler were adults and Sammy was in high school. We also decided to “bird nest”, which is when the parents take turns leaving the home so the children wouldn’t have to be disrupted. Looking back, this…

Hi there! Thanks for stopping by. My name is Stephanie and I’m a 48 year old, divorced, mama to 3 amazing humans and 2 fur babies. 4 1/2 years ago, I would have never pictured my life as it is right now. It has been a roller coaster to say the least. LOTS of ups and downs but I’m FINALLY at a point that I feel truly thankful for the lessons I’ve learned along my journey. A little history A little bit about me… I got married when I was 23 and was married for 24 years. We had our first child (Savanna) 1 1/2 years after our wedding. Our…