Hi. This is me.

  Hi.  This is me.  I am always leery of posting pictures of myself... just because I hate pictures of myself... as I'm sure a lot of people do. However, I am trying to take better care of myself and be okay with... well... me.  So here I am.
  I am a wife and mother.  I am a writer and a dreamer.  I am in my 40's now and not happy about it.  I am creative. I love to learn, though I admit that I am not very good at it, but it does not stop me from trying.  I deal with chronic pain, and I struggle with my self esteem, and my weight... though I am happy to say that I just came from the doctors today and I am happy to report that I lost 12 lbs.  I know it is not much, but it is a start and I will take that.
  I love to read, but it took practice.  I love to write, but that takes practice.  I love word searches, and most of all I love my role as wife and mother.  I am a natural redhead and one of 8 children.  I love a good movie, but sometimes I like the "behind the scenes" featurette's more than the film itself. I am fascinated by the process and I find it inspiring.
  I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or (Mormon's) as we are nicknamed.  I was raised in the church, but I always add... that I was converted in my early 20's when my husband joined the church (he was formerly Catholic), and I started to have children.  Children can change your priorities, just by being born. However, I am so grateful for the process I went through to find my faith.  It was a long, hard journey, but one I am grateful to be able to share.
  As a teen I lost myself.  I changed everything about myself (even my laugh) to try to fit in.  It worked, but I had to give up everything I held dear (my values, my dreams, my personality, my everything).  I did not even recognize myself and I was anorexic and suicidal.  Like I said, it was a long and painful process.  I fell away from the church... my family... myself. I lost everything.
  Then I met someone who saw through my facade, my mask, my lies, and fell in love with me for who he saw inside.  My husband Tony.  We met when I was 17, married at 19, and have been together now for almost 25 years.  It is crazy.  So much time has passed and so much has happened to us during that time.  However, now... with a lot of therapy... we are getting better... better than we ever have been.  I am feeling again, learning to live in the now, and not in the past (though I have not forgotten the lessons of the past), and we are learning how to love all over again, in a healthy way with healthy communication.  We needed to learn that... seriously needed to learn that.  We still struggle once in a while, but we are both working very hard.
  Someone once asked me, "How do two people suffering from P.T.S.D. (post traumatic stress disorder) and depression celebrate Valentines day?"  Strange... kind of random question... but I tried my best to explain.  I don't think that at the time I did a very good job of explaining, because honestly I was not really sure. In fact I'm not really sure what I said, but if I could change my answer, now, I would say that we were just going through the motions. We tried to make it nice.  My husband always did the traditional things... flowers, card, sometimes candy... stuff like that, but it was never what it should have been.  That is something that I realized late in our life though.
  When you both are suffering... all you can do is your best.  We had to learn and be taught what we both needed from each other.  We had to exorcise our ghosts, and sort through our pain.  Luckily, one thing we had going for us was that we always had love, even if it was love seen through smudged, grotty, dirty lenses.  We had love to drive us forward.  When you really, truly love someone, I mean can't live without them love, the kind that makes your life impossible to see without that person love, no matter what you go through kind of love, you can survive just about anything.  My therapist said, "Can you see a future without him?"  I had to admit that I could not.  And that was when I started to heal and work even harder.
  When you live with someone who struggles too, it makes life for both of you difficult.  We used to compete for who had the worst day.  It sucked.  We had to take responsibility for ourselves first. We did not even begin couples therapy until we had some individual sessions first... I mean months worth.  Now we are working together.  It is not easy.  It takes a lot of patience and forgiveness.  It takes a lot of effort, and to be honest some times we have good days and bad days, but we have to keep going... working... and trying to do our best.  It is exhausting, and painful, but I believe that if you really love someone... it is worth it.
Well, that is me.  I just wanted to introduce myself a bit and tell you where I'm at and what I am doing.  I'm not really sure if any of this is making sense, I am kind of writing through a fog of pain medication (my back is out again). But I felt that need to share.  And I had my face done for the doctor's appointment today (I felt like I was kind of presentable) ... is that terrible to admit. Oh well... there it is.

P.S.  If you ever have questions or topics you want me to touch on, just write me or leave a comment. I would really love that.  I would do YouTube, but I'm not sure what I would do.
Well, thanks for your time.  You never really know if what you are posting matters, but I hope it does.  I wish you well.  Until next time... bye.