Remember That Time We Almost Sold Our House?

I guess when you post something like "Hey, we're selling our house!", you should probably follow it up with an update of some sort to let people (especially family) know what the heck is going on in your life.

Well, we had some open houses and after about a month on the market, we received an offer.  We were so sad/excited and couldn't believe it was actually happening and that we had to find a rental and start organizing and packing!  We found a larger rental in our same neighborhood which we planned to share with JB's brother, and were starting to get excited about our plans to move.

Only, the day they were supposed to come and do their inspections, we instead received an email from their agent that they wanted to cancel the contract.  Apparently this buyer wasn't old enough to make her own decisions and her parents came in and told her she was making a hasty decision and should keep looking....

Well then...

We got kind of discouraged, but kept in on the market and had a few more open houses.  A few people came back and looked at it, but still no offers.  During this time, JB got a promotion at work, and we had discussed just having his brother rent a room from us (since we were all going to rent a place together anyway), which would still allow us to be paying off some things and building our savings while avoiding the whole moving fiasco.  We were also able to re-finance the house and lower our payment a couple hundred dollars.

So, there you have it.  We're staying.

My BIL (and his trusty furry sidekick, Larry) will be moving in this weekend and before they do we have to relocate the office to the loft upstairs and clean out the attic.  Which basically all has to be done, like, yesterday.  Works out well that JB is working split shifts right now because it gives me a chance to be productive in the evenings instead of snuggling on the couch watching Dexter on Netflix (we are currently at the beginning of season 6, so don't ruin anything for me, kthanks).

I have a couple of other things to catch up on, so maybe I will be doing some blogging while JB is working in the evenings too.  :)

Until then...

For Sale

Yesterday I posted this picture on Instagram:

I have since posted a photo home tour and the flyer for the sale of our home on Facebook.  I have been flooded with texts, comments, and messages asking why we are selling and where we are going, so I thought I thought I would just take care of answering those questions here.

First, I would like to clarify that in no way are we selling because we HAVE TO.  We are not under financial strain.  In fact, our financial position is the best it's been since we moved into the home we built from the ground up.  Given the recent market history and the fact that a lot of people have had to short sale or foreclose their home, that's where people's minds automatically go.  Fortunately for us, that is not the case.

It just so happens that the market in our area right now is really good.  And since we have been in our home for just over 3.5 years with a low interest rate, we are in a position to increase our financial position even more by selling our home.  After all, equity is just money on paper...

This was by no means an easy decision, as we have been discussing it for quite a while now.  WE love, LOVE, love this house.  We watched this house go from a piece of paper, to a foundation, to our first home together.  We chose the color of the walls and cupboards, the size of the tile, selected the slab of granite for our counter tops.  JB proposed to me in this house.  We had our rehearsal dinner in this house.  My bridesmaids and I got ready on our wedding day in this house.  We learned how to live together here and make decisions for our future together here, which has led us to where we are now.  We have discussed our goals, plans, dreams, etc.  And in the end, taking all factors into consideration, this is a great opportunity for us prepare for whatever opportunities may come our way (professional, recreational, or otherwise).

There are some that may think that we are moving backwards in the social progression of marriage -> home -> babies -> retirement, but that is subjective, and JB and I don't feel that way.  We feel like we have the opportunity to reset and rediscover our passions and future plans.  Some people think that this amazing home we have now is never going to come around again.  But maybe something better will?

The other question I have been getting a lot is "Where are you going?".  We currently don't have any plans to leave the area as we are both still employed here, our families are here, and we love the community we live in.  Based on our research, we should be able to rent something suitable in the same area for $500-$800 less per month.  You read that right.  How do you deny that fact?  Lower rent, lower utilities, and debt free?

Sign. Me.Up.

Now we just need someone to buy the house....

Who Has Two Thumbs & A New J-O-B?

Circa Vegas 2006

THIS GIRL!!!!  Holla holla!!

I have been contacted by the same recruiter for different positions throughout the year, but I was content where I was and none of the positions were appealing to me and they were all farther from home.  My commute is already 45 minuites each way, so I was definitely going to be moving closer to home if I was going to leave my current position.

Let me just say that the company I work for is wonderful.  In every class I have taken for business or HR, my current company does everything they say you should do.  As an employee-owned firm, they go to great lengths to over-communicate and maintain transparency in their operations.  They have afforded me many development opportunities over the past 5 years, including paying for my masters degree and assisting my efforts to get SPHR certified.

Obviously there is a reason I entertained a meeting with the recruiter regarding this new position...

This was my second HR related job out of college and although I started as an HR Assistant, I was quickly promoted to the role of HR Manager (Go me!).  With the corporate office being in the middle of the country, I have been merely pushing down the processes and procedures as set forth from the mother ship.  I have not been able to gain much experience or really dive into the many facets of HR and have spent most of the last 5 years dealing with mainly administrative processes as they relate to HR and handling employee relations issues.  I have gained some great knowledge in these areas, but I feel that in order to become a well-rounded HR professional and be able to move forward in my career, I need to get this experience sooner than later.

This new position is still the role of HR Manager, but is for a much smaller company that has not had a separate HR Manager to this date.  They have had someone that wears many different hats, one of them being HR, but now that they are growing, they realize they need to put someone in place that can dive into all of these things and be strictly dedicated to HR.

That person is going to be me!!! 

I am so, so sad to be leaving behind the friends I have made over the past 5 years.  It has taken a long time to build some of these relationships and grow into my role here.  I am going to miss my work neighbors and work besties soooooooooooooooo much!  That being said, I am so excited for this next chapter in my life and career.  I will be hands on in all areas of HR Management and I will be closer to home!

Here's to 2013 and new beginnings!!

All Thankful And Shiz

via

A few years back I did the whole "Today I am Thankful For" series every day during the month of November.  Let's be honest, I have only posted 3 times this month and it's almost over, so I'm pretty sure that ship has sailed.

It's never too late to be thankful or grateful or feel blessed though.  The fact that people do this post a day on their blog or Facebook or whatever only during the month of November seems silly to me.  I guess it goes along with the whole Turkey Day thing, but it seems that people should post stuff like that year-round.  Although I would probably block someone who posted every morning that they were thankful for another day that they got to open their eyes.  Some of that stuff can go without saying...

So I will just take this one day of Thanksgiving to note all which I am currently thankful for and you can feel free to skip over it since every other blog you have read today is probably doing the same thing.  Sometimes I blog for you, but I'm kinda selfish, so mostly I blog for me.

Shiz I am thankful for:

JB - My main man has to be number one on my list.  And although is is part of my family, he needs his own line because he's there, in the trenches, every.day.  He gets to see me at my best and my worst and he is there for me every step of the way.  He forces me to take time for myself and relax when all I want to do is clean the house or make a million plans or cross things off of my to-do list.  He is there to have a blast with even though all we are doing is sitting on the couch watching TV or running errands on a Saturday.  He's my true BFF and I am so thankful for him.

Family - Even when they drive me nuts I remind myself that some people have no one

Friends - Please see Family

My Mental & Physical Health - This is so important to me.  I want to live a long time and have an amazing quality of life.  I am hopefully taking the right steps now to ensure a long and healthy life with my family and friends.

My Job - Even people who love their jobs don't like getting up in the morning, so I won't be like "Oh I jump out of bed every day eager to get to work and make a difference."  But I do love the people I work with and I work for a great company, and I have a steady and reliable income which I am very thankful for.

Our Home - After almost 3 years we still have no backyard put in and a lot of bare wall space, but it's my favorite place in the world to be.  Living in a safe neighborhood with good schools, where we could someday raise a family should we choose to have one is such a wonderful thing.

Reliable Transportation - My first car was a total lemon and luckily it was at a time when I had other ways of getting places and a dad with a couple of extra cars lying around, but now that I am a grown up and all self-sufficient and shiz, I wouldn't know what to do if I couldn't get to and from all of the places I need to be everyday, mainly my job so I could pay for said reliable transportation.

Access to Fresh, Organic, & Locally Grown Food - Living in California, there is an abundance of this and I am so grateful for that.  I remember visiting New York once and the produce was terrible and so expensive!  I feel fortunate to have all this stuff so readily available.

Blogging - Such a blogger thing to say, but it's so true.  If it weren't for blogging, I wouldn't have all of my precious memories to look back on.  I wouldn't have met people like Ravey-Poo who I talk to and laugh with multpile times a day.  Or my sista from anotha mista, Ashley.  People who don't blog just don't get it.  It's the best.  I am glad to have a network of new people I would have never known without it.

I could get all #firstworld on y'all and say I am thankful for fresh, running water and freedom and democracy, but that's not really my style.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I am thankful for all of that, but, well...you know...

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday with your family.  Try to remind yourself when you are wishing you could just snuggle up on the couch instead of running all over town to this relative or that relative, that some people don't even get to acknowledge this holiday.  And some people don't have a single soul to spend it with.  Perspective is everything.  Change that and you can change your life.

So.Profound.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!

Oh yeah, and Merry Christmas to you!

Today I turn 30.  Three-to-the-oh.  Dirty Thirty.

I should be out celebrating, but it's Christmas, so I have no one to celebrate with except for the sad, lonely people that are at bars on Christmas Day.  Nothankyou. 

Why do people get so weird about turning 30?  Or birthdays in general.  Why is there this stigma attached to aging?  I don't get it.  Maybe I don't get it because I am so happy with my life and I feel like I am in an amazing place at this point in my journey and I can't wait to see what more is to come.  Maybe it's just people who think they should have done more or should be more by the time they hit this age that dread it.  I dunno.  What I do know it that I thought this would be a good time to reflect on everything the first 30 years of my life has given me...

• Wonderful and supportive family
• Realizing my love for reading at a young age
• Realizing my love for dance/performing
• Countless friends, some of which are still around from way back when and a few amazing ones I picked up a little later in life
• Steady and continuous employment since the age of 15
• Amazing camping trips
• A couple of trips to Hawaii
• Many trips to Vegas
• A couple of trips to the East Coast
• A few cruises
• The loss of too many friends and a few family members
• Falling in love a few times
• Having my heart broken once or twice
• An Associates Degree
• A Bachelors Degree
• A Masters Degree
• Employers that let me work around my school schedule
• A Honda Accord
• A VW Jetta
• A Scion TC
• Owning my first home at 21 years old
• The ability to purchase another home at 28 years old
• Confidence in myself and my abilities
• A lot of debt that I was able to pay off a couple of times and rack back up again (Yay America!)
• Tens of thousands of life lessons
• The experience of a sorority (AXO for life!)
• A couple of minor car accidents
• The privelege of being engaged...twice
• The strength and wisdom to follow my heart and end the first engagement
• The ability to bounce back from that and find love again
• Getting married to a man I love more and more each day
• Becoming an Auntie
• A commitment to health and wellness
• Travels to Europe
• An awesome blog community
• Being a Matron of Honor
• Seeing some of my best friends find happiness in life and love
• Countless other experiences for better or for worse

It's been an amazing thirty years and I can't even imagine what is coming my way in the next thirty.  I hope to strengthen all of the relationships I have and maybe even make a few more.  Who knows?  Thank you for being a part of my journey.

Way-Back Breezy

I have wanted to write this post for a long time because this is a big part of how I came to be who I am today and I only hope that people can take from this and possibly apply it to something they are going through.  The reason this post came to be is that I was writing an email to share this experience with a blog friend that is currently going through a tough time.  Otherwise I would have had zero motivation to write it seeing as how I am now happily married.

Anyway...Once upon a time,

When I was 17 I started dating this guy I worked with. When I was 18, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. At 19, we broke up for a year and a half and eventually got back together. We were together for almost 7 years total and he finally proposed when I was 23. I graduated from college, he began paramendic school, we weren't living together, he never wanted to hang out with my new friends I had made through college/sorority, and we spent more time/holidays with his family than mine. I had always wanted to marry him, but now that I had a ring on my finger, we were drifting apart.

About 6 months later, I was heartbroken and devastated because I knew that I wasn't happy and if I wasn't happy now, our marriage would be a sham.  He had picked a date that was 2.5 years from the date of our proposal which kind of made me feel like he had only proposed because he had already started to feel me slipping away.  Anyway, I went away for a weekend to my dad's to think about everything and talk to my dad about it and on the drive home I was ill knowing I would be ending our relationship.


When I got home he came over and I was in tears before he walked through the door. I told him that I didn't think this was going to work and laid out all of the reasons why. He was stunned and asked me to reconsider, saying that he would change and make more of an effort. Against my better judgement, I agreed. Things didn't change and got even worse. A month later I knew it was over.  I was becoming more aware of my actions and my unhappiness.  Over the past 6 months I had been putting myself in questionable situations that no woman who is happy in her relationship would and it finally came to a head. A week later, we ended things for good.  I was sad that it was over, but I felt more terrible for him. I knew the sacrifices he had made to buy my ring and felt responsible for breaking his heart and wondered if he would ever find love again. (I should really get over myself, LOL).

We tried to do the friend thing as we had done before during past breakups, but I think we both realized that in order to properly move on, we needed to sever our ties. My best friend of 7 years was gone in the blink of an eye. I did what most do, partied the loneliness away. I was out with my friends 4 nights a week racking up credit card debt with dinners/drinks and trips to Vegas and Hawaii; all of the things we never did together because he was fiscally responsible.

Eventually we started dating other people. Mine unfortunately turned out to be a rebound and his turned into a 3 year relationship who he moved in with not long after they started dating. Although I was happy for him, I was heartbroken mostly because as long as we were together, he had never taken that step with me. I know that he was scared of failing and having to move back home and that's why he wanted to wait, but in my eyes we had each other and we would figure it out and make it happen and I never felt that he had the faith I did that we would get through it.

We would myspace message or text every once in a while on birthdays and stuff, but his GF was a little more than psycho and wanted him to have nothing to do with me so we didn't talk much for a long time. His dream of becoming a firefighter, a journey he had started when we were together, had finally come true for him and I couldn't even celebrate with him and our friends. That made me sad, but I understood.

Not too long after that he broke up with his girlfriend and I started dating my now husband. He and I finally became friends on facebook because we were actually at a place in our lives where we could do that. We both bought houses within a month of each other and were genuinely happy for the other, and not too long after that, I got married. Even though I was extremely happy with the path my life had taken, I still carried around this guilt for breaking his heart all those years ago and I just wanted him to find someone and be as happy as I was so I could forgive myself. About a year ago he did. They are expecting a baby in April and I am so excited for him. He is so happy and successful and is going to be an amazing father and has found someone who makes him very happy.

The important thing to remember if you are dealing with a situation like this in your relationship/marriage is that you can't lie to yourself to save face for the rest of the world or be unhappy for someone else's happiness. It takes more strength and courage to do what I chose to do than to just be complacent and stay in a situation we know in our hearts isn't right. It will take a lot of time and growth and change to be whole again and forgive yourself for walking away, but it will be worth it in the end. I don't think he or I would have done half of the things we have accomplished today or be the people we are now if we stayed together. It's very cliche, but everything does happen for a reason and things to have to fall apart so something better can fall together.

That's truth.

What's Your Secret?

A while ago I posted this blog regarding my get fit journey. At the same time, I posted this and other pics on my FB:





This pic is from June of 2009. I was in the best shape I have ever been in my entire life! For some reason, just today, two separate people have commented on these pics on FB even though I posted them well over a year and a half ago. One of them asked me the very question that is the title of this post. Other people I know have asked me the same thing. Especially those that want to start, or are already on, a journey of their own.

My answer is this:

There are no secrets, no magic pills, and no quick fixes on my agenda. The biggest secret is time and dedication. During that time I was working out for an hour a day about 4-6 days a week and eating lean meats/protein, fruits, veggies, and complex carbs (brown rice and whole grains). It took at least 3 months for me to see any sort of progress, but then I kind of noticed it all at once.

When I first started, I didn't have much of an idea of what I was doing. Some cardio machines here, weights there. I started going to the group classes at the gym because all I had to do was show up and they told me what to do. Then I signed up for a boot camp that met three mornings a week. Soon (read 3 months) I looked and felt the best I ever had. I remember when I put on jeans and a clingy top for the first time and didn't feel gross. It was the best feeling! A better feeling was knowing that I had earned it. All of my hard work had gotten me where I was.

As usual, life happens, and over the following months I started to be less diligent about making it to the gym and started indulging more in not so clean eating. Since I don't have a scale at home, I would use my numbers when I would go to the doctor for something, which was extremely inconsistent, but the number was slowly but surely increasing and all of the pants I had to have altered to fit my new size 6 frame a few months before, were starting to get snug again. I was in denial at first, and then I was just lazy. With my 45 minute commute each way, it's hard to get motivated to spend an hour after work at the gym when I just want to get home to JB. Before I knew it a year had passed and my 4-6 times a week at the gym had turned into 2 times a week at the most.

And then...I got engaged.

Shedding for the wedding is no joke. I was having a hard time getting motivated to get my ass back to the grind. We started planning last July and officially got engaged in October and still, by the end of December I had not gotten serious about getting back into shape for the big day.

Then it hit me...

One day I was driving home from work and had a little conversation with myself. I said,

"Self. Let's be real. You have 5 months until your wedding day and you are going to need all of that time to get where you want to be. You know how to do this. You've done it before and you can do it again. You have already cleaned up your eating and it helps that you are too broke to eat out, so now you gotta put in the sweat hours."

And I did. I started the next day and have been going strong since. I'm definitely not stopping until the wedding, but even then, once we get back from our honeymoon, I want to be able to keep it up this time. There is no reason not to, really. No matter what time I get home, JB will be there to spend time with.

So, sorry to disappoint you folks, but there are no secrets here. Get your ass out there and do the work it takes to get where you want to be. Make the right choices about what you are putting in your body (and the research to figure out what those are). Put in your fitness time by doing something you enjoy. Try new things. I find that groupon deals are the best way to find new fitness endeavors. And if you are reading this and saying to yourself, "Sure, easy for her to say, she's already thin." or "Yeah, says the girl who is getting ready to marry a trainer." It's BS. Excuses, excuses. I had to start from scratch and educate myself on what to eat and what to do and find my own way. YOU CAN DO IT TOO!

Remember, if you take a short cut to get rid of the weight, it will come back as quickly as it disappeared. You have to make the changes to sustain it for a lifetime.

Aspire to Inspire

A couple of weeks ago I attended a conference put on by the Sacramento Area Human Resources Association (SAHRA). The title of this blog was the theme of the conference and boy was it inspirational! The keynote speaker was a Filipino woman named Sonia Aranza. It's funny that I feel this sort of connection to Filipino people now even though JB is only half Filipino. I obviously had to text him immediately after she mentioned her place of origin.

Sonia opened the conference with a presentation about self-leadership. Whether it was the hormone cycle, or the way in which her words reached me, I found myself fighting back tears several times during the hour she was speaking. I took some notes from the presentation and thought I would share them with everyone here so you can take something from them as well.

Confront your self-limiting beliefs

These can be physical, emotional, spiritual, or educational, but they all have one thing in common; you are letting them hold you back from your full potential.

After elaborating on this, she gave each of us a couple of minutes to pair up with someone near us that we did not know and share (within our comfort level) one self-limiting belief. I shared that in my organization, the majority of management are middle-aged white males, and I think being a woman in my (late) twenties keeps me from realizing my full potential here. I am overcome by self limiting beliefs that they don't think I am capable or they don't take me seroiusly, so I avoid interacting with them until absolutely necessary. They only find out how capable I am when they have to come to me with an issue. Whether or not this is really the case, in my head it is very true and I need to work past that.

She mentioned that fear can be an acronym for two things:

Face Everything And Run
or
Face Everything And Recover

The first one delays progress and compounds the work you need to do. Progress moves at the speed you choose, so choose to recover instead of run.

Then she quoted the Harvard Busines Review by saying that our habits of thinking are the greatest predictor of our success.

Create Your Own Luck!

I have been saying this since I left the conference. JB said something once that really stuck with me, "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity." He has been very good about aligning himself with the right people to get his career headed down the path he wants it to go, preparing himself to take advantage of the opportunities that may arise. Some notes from Sonia:

• The harder you work, the luckier you get
• There is nothing you can change except YOU
• Those who are successful pursue their success
• We teach people how to treat us
• Success moves at the speed of relationships

Now, maybe you know some people who just sat around the house and didn't bother to put any work into bettering themselves that got this amazing opportunity one day and became crazy successful, but I don't. The people I know that are successful have pursued it. Making contacts, taking classes, pursuing interests, building relationships. Success isn't like a Jehovah's Witness. It doesn't just come around knocking on your door while you are sitting there in your underwear in front of the computer or the television eating cold pizza for breakfast and ask you to enjoy it's wonderfulness. Get your ass up and create your own luck!

Again, after elaborating, she gave us a couple of minutes with a different person to share (within our comfort level) one thing we would do to create our own luck, whether it be personal or professional. This came at an appropriate time as just the day before I had called and made an appointment to start seeing a counselor (therapist, whatever). No matter what anyone says, I know there is a better me in there and I know there are things that I can work on to make me better for my significant other, my friends and family, and myself. Even possibly a future child. Did it feel weird sharing this with a total stranger? Kind of. But comfort zones don't really get us very far.

Be Intentional!

You are more substantial than you know. Every action, word, decision - no matter how small - impacts someone else. Be intentional in those actions and decisions because they are more important than you think. Steer the canoe in the direction you want it to go, don't just let it toss about in the waves.

Those were the three points she touched on and then she closed with this:

Our Deepest Fear
By Marianne Williamson

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us.

We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small
Does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine,
As children do.
We were born to make manifest
The glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us;
It's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we're liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

Word to your mother.

The Journey

Somehow, I couldn't figure out before today, how to follow one of my followers. Someone I have known for years, but have not been very close to. Someone I share a bond with, but never really knew that much about. And to be honest, someone I have always kind of admired. I should be working right now, I will admit, but instead, I have been reading about the past year of her life. And the more I read, the more I come to respect this person, and find that we have so much more in common than I could ever know.

The first thing I noticed is that she is an amazing writer. The more I read, the more I felt inspired to write. The more I read, the more I reached back into my past and started thinking of that time 4.5 years ago, when as I was ending a realtionship and giving back a ring and starting my journey to find myself, she was just finding happiness with someone. Someone who was probably supposed to be forever, but alas did not work out. And now reading about her experience with that happiness coming to an end earlier this year, and her journey to find herself again, I cry. But the funny part is, the entire time she is speaking of the sadness, pain, and loneliness that come with the end of a long-term commitment to someone else, I do not cry. I remember the pain, but do not cry. The tears come when I read of her new butterflies for someone else.

I am not sure why this is the release point. Is it because as I am reading over the one, two, three months it takes her to start getting to a place where she can get through the day, the emotions are slowly building inside of me? And when I finally see that she has found happiness again, or thinks she might have, I am overwhelmed with joy for her? I have no idea. Maybe it's the hormones from my contraceptive.

I always feel the need to take her under my wing. Which is funny because we don't talk often, or really even hang out together for that matter. Group social gatherings are what have brought us together in the past, and she is usually one of my favorites, but now that she is no longer part of that group, and to be honest, neither am I, I do not see her or know much beyond what I read on facebook. But I always want to take her under my wing. Tell her that I too experienced the pain of losing someone I thought would be forever, and made it through the rough journey of finding myself without him. Part of that journey consisted of spending a lot of money, drinking a lot of booze and eating terribly delicious food late at night, and surrounding myself with other people that had those similar interests.

It also consisted of throwing myself into someone who should have never been more than a friend and making myself look pathetic and vulnerable in doing so. I became someone I didn't even recognize. The true emo side of me really came out there for a while. And through that rejection I ended up giving someone else a chance who didn't deserve a moment of my time, let alone 6 months...twice. Yikes. Of course there were a number of "victims" along my journey that I tried to let down easily, but never really succeeded in doing so. That really takes a toll on you mentally.

But all in all, I think the person I ended up finding is somewhat well-adjusted, determined, and hopeful. So I have to say that the journey was worth it. The so-called "end" has justified the means. Only being a little over a quarter of the way through my life, I know that it is nowhere near the end, but I am coming to a place that I have been working toward all this time. A place I never thought I would find again. And it's better than I could have ever imagined.

I think about how things are now, and I can't believe I almost settled for so much less. Not that the person was so much less, but the experience, the relationship, the love, was SO much less. There was less respect for each other and the relationship itself. There was less maturity in both of us, and I think we may have never grown from that if we had stayed together. I would be 2.5 years into a marriage, extremely unhappy, and probably nowhere near where I am in my career today. Instead, I have another degree under my belt and a love so different and so much better than anything I have ever known before.

So all I can say is, as hard as it was and as much as it hurt sometimes, the journey was definitely worth it. I can't wait for what's in store...