Time really does heal all wounds

3 months ago I wrote the submission below but never posted it to my blog. Where does the time go???? Trying to stay on top of life, art and all the trappings is like holding down 3 full time jobs. I have been remiss but I am making attempts to stay connected and balanced but still moving forward. 

I find it curious to see how far I/we (my husband) have come in such short periods of time. Veils have been lifting from his wounded brain the past couple months and we are in a much stronger place. We can do this! Life is settling into a pattern much more similar to what I remember pre-stroke and my work has become very important again. So without any more to add, here is what I wrote in late April:

I have been naughty…at least towards keeping up on my blog. In 2010, when I first started blogging, I had intended it to be strictly a place to talk about and reveal my art.
A year later my husband suffered a severe stroke and I found the easiest way to keep everyone informed was to blog about it. For months my entries were only about Dave and his stroke recovery and nothing about my art.

When the dust settled and I was able to get back in front of my easel I tried to keep the focus again on art only. Time goes on and it becomes apparent that when one is an artist it is impossible to separate life from art. This morning I awoke to the realization that my attempts to compartmentalize the “artist me” from the “woman me” was stifling!

I have decided my only requirement in these blogs and life in general is to be authentic.

From this point forward you can count on my entries online to be completely forthcoming and honest about my life, my art and how they intersect (or not).

I spent so much time giving updates on how Dave was doing I neglected myself. One has only so much energy and there were plenty of times my seemingly inexhaustible reserves of energy nearly dried up. It was sink or swim time!

After going through what we have in our household it had left me feeling at times raw and wounded, fragile and exposed. Most of us spend the years between teen and midlife fortifying our emotional strength and knowledge of self into a foundation of confidence and faith. I felt like I could conquer the world and take on whatever task was at hand!

Then the wind was taken out of my sails, the rug pulled from beneath my feet and I spent months just focusing on building up my life partner and love, with little left to give myself. Sure I heard plenty of times, “Make sure and take time for yourself” and intellectually you know that, but the reality is not so easy.

So here we are….7 months post stroke and 5 months post foot surgery (for me) and the best I can do is take it a day at a time. There is so much I want to accomplish! I want so badly each day to feel the wheels of productivity pushing me forward as to fall in to bed at night exhausted from achievement instead of emotional fatigue. It will come! Slowly but surely we are recapturing what we can of our former lives. It will never be the same but we can build a good “new”. I just need to be patient and faithful and forgiving.