Thank you!

Hi! Thank you for checking out the blog. My name is Diondrea and you can call me Dion. I’m a divorced mother of two from Chicago. I am new to blogging so please bare with me as I get the hang of it lol. I’ll be blogging about everyday life situations and how they are dealt with as a divorced/single woman. This includes but is not limited to emotions, relationships, careers, family and spirituality. Sometimes we need support or encouragement and even someone that just listens. I’d like this blog to be the engine that gets the hard conversations going. And together we can provide each other with resources and answers to questions that go unanswered. So again, thank you for embarking on this journey with me, and I’ll be posting again soon.

D!

Take it easy on yourself

Sometimes I wonder what would “having it all together,” look like?
Does it start at birth? Does it require not being rejected in the womb? Does it call for a healthy relationship between your parents as you come into the world? Can it be inherited?

Or, maybe one’s upbringing! Would you have to be raised in church with a biblical standard for life? Perhaps, raised in a home with values like the Huxtables?

Is it something that can be taught in a classroom? Can I just grow into it? Is it something I learn from my peers?

As hard as we may work at it, do we really ever have it “all together?” That’s almost like dodging life! Can you opt out of the storms?

What if it wasn’t about having it all together as much as it is the way you handle it when it starts to fall apart?

Life has appointed times for blessings and favor as well as trials and tribulations. And just like you get blessing after blessing and favor on top of favor, you can have trial after trial and tribu… well, you get my point.

Don’t be hard on yourself about not having it all together. It’s how you handle what comes, good and bad that builds you.

Faith and perception are everything. Faith to know that if you made it out before, if God saw you through that last time, He will do it again. And your positive view of any situation will help you turn things around in your mind and in your heart and help you move forward faster.

So if it doesn’t feel good right now, just believe that God is preparing you for your future self. Maybe even prepping you for someone in the future. And of course if it doesn’t kill you, you’re supposed to learn from it.

Your doing fine! You are exactly where you are supposed to be learning what you are supposed to learn. You move at your God given pace. Doesn’t mean be careless but there is no such thing as “having it all together!” Purpose requires experience in life and if you never go through anything or grow through anything then how will you fulfill your assignment.

What love is?

Love is a lot of things. It is expressed in a lot of ways. It doesn’t have conditions.

Who gets conditional love, your spouse? Do you love them because of what they can do for you? The way the two of you look together? The fact that you make beautiful babies? What happens if one of you lose your income? What if you had to be the bread winner and the caregiver? Do you love better if your marriage is stress free? Is infidelity a deal breaker? Can love save your marriage? Is there a difference between loving someone and being in love with someone? Can you fall out of love as fast as you fell in love? Do you need more than love in your union to keep it?

What about your children? Do you love them under conditions? Do they get to make mistakes? If you have more than one, do you compare them to each other? Do you make them compete for love? Do they get to embarrass you? Can you discipline them and still love them? Do you take things out on them because of their other parent? What happens if one shames the family name, do they still get love? What if they molest or murder someone, can you love them through that? Do you need more than love to raise your children?

What about your friends? What if they are selfish? What happens when you disagree? Who calls first after a disagreement? Who apologizes first? Can you get over the awkwardness after you argue? What determines if they are even really a “friend?” What if you two have opposite personalities? How many mistakes do they get to make? What if you need space from each other, do you just stop being friends? How long do you go without checking on each other? What if they aren’t good listeners? What if they talk to much? Do you even need love to be a good friend?

1 Corinthians 13: 4-13

Take your time with your relationships. Even though love can heal, sometimes it hurts. Unconditional love helps get you through the hurt. Unconditional love helps you decide to move forward in it or move on from it. Honest communication is key!

Life goes on!

It’s ok to have a bad day! Life can throw a lot at you. I don’t think it matters whether you’re single, married or in between. Sometimes you just have a ball of emotions about life’s circumstances and they overwhelm you. But it’s ok. You will definitely regroup, refocus and get back in the game.

So to the ones in a relationship, feeling like the world is on your shoulders because you take care of so many people or so many things and don’t have anytime for your self. You cant just sleep in and you cant not cook and clean. You have to compromise! Your have to sacrifice! You feel that nobody appreciates the things you do, yet you do it over and over because that’s who you are and that’s what you do or because it’s a requirement to keep your relationship happy.! It’s ok!

And to the those out here who feel like single life is over-rated and you won’t find anybody or be found. You feel like everybody around you is in a relationship and all you do is think about it and compare your life to theirs. You feel like you will be alone forever because you do the same thing and go the same places week in and out! It’s ok.

No matter what stage of life your in, there will be those so-called “bad days” but they come and go. The trick is to not stay there. Move on. The process to coming out of that space is different for everyone but it’s doable!

Regardless to how it feels, you are not the only one going through it! Others don’t talk about it or try to cover it up but it happens to us all. If there is a percentage of humans that it doesn’t happen too, trust me it’s very small. Some people are more transparent with it and it’s resolved with community. Others make take it directly to God and let Him have it to move forward. You definitely have to be intentional about not staying there, but it’s just part of life. Look at all the things you’re doing, that you once thought you couldn’t do. All the people you thought you couldn’t live without and you’re living! The best thing you can do for yourself is to remember what got you through the last time and use it to kee p getting through. Sometimes you have to change your strategy but your gonna be ok. Life goes on.

The Life of the party is an introvert!

Introverts, like myself, generally like people. The challenge is dealing with the same people consistently everyday or all day. Space! Space is my safe haven. I don’t always want to be alone but I enjoy spending time by myself. It gives me the freedom to reflect, refocus, unwind and decompress. I need space to listen to my own thoughts. My space gives me a place to do whatever I want to do, especially if I’ve spent most of my time doing what other people want me to do.

I’m not a talker, I’m a listener. I know this about me. The hard part is getting people to understand that my silence is not always a sign of a problem. I can express when something is wrong with me but I don’t have to express every thought in my head! Some people will talk too much! I think there should be a balance of conversation and silence between people in certain dynamics, but that’s just me! For instance, I can’t watch movies with people who talk all the time. We may as well not watch.

Everybody has a comfort zone or people they are more comfortable with. People who get to witness the loudness of your laugh, the gestures of your storytelling or the awkwardness of you that you don’t share with the world. The ones who are there when you see something funny (but you should not be laughing) and when you make eye contact the both of you burst out in laughter so hard that you cry and try to speak in soprano. The ones you’ve know all your life so when you see each other you talked excitingly fast trying to catch up. And the people you are most like, so conversations are relatable as well as revelatory. In my comfort zone, I’m the life of the party and everyone wants to be around. But in the presence of most strangers or in awkward situations I will shut down and just look. (Now I try to smile)

In the perfect world between my ears, everyone is a self-starter, responsible for their actions, compassionate and considerate. Unnecessary contact or conversation is avoided and small talk can be a text message. I’m stuck somewhere between: Fun to be around but in need of my own space, not too much but enough to feel free. I want friendship and a spouse but I want to be left alone sometimes and I’m not angry or mad. I’d like to be invited to the parties and get togethers but if I come I won’t stay long. I know…I know! The process to be balanced is real, but I’m working on it.

I saw my shadow!

Life can have you going in such a way that you think you don’t have time to stop and evaluate the things going on with you.

I woke up this morning and started my day as usual. Normally I get out before the crack of dawn. Today the sun was shining! As I walked out of my door, I saw my shadow. I did not like it. I wanted to look in the mirror at all of my flaws. I turned side to side, tilted my head, examined body parts, got on the scale and played with my hair. Looking at myself made me more aware of myself.

Changes are inevitable! They have to be made! They will be made!

Busyness can be a crutch or a cover-up for all those things we know we need to do but neglect concerning ourselves. Emotional and physical evaluations are necessary for effective change.

It doesn’t have to be overwhelming, just take it one thing and one day at a time!

You can do it!

I used to hate holidays!

When my ex and I first broke up, holidays were the worst! I’m telling you I would hate those 24hrs and the minutes right before and after them. My children were small, I didn’t have a life of my own and people were tired of my sob story so I truly had no one. The few people I considered friends had some sort of relationship or their children were older or they had a life. Me, nope, nothing! I had gave my life up for marriage and family. The sad part was, it was his family that I spent most of my time with. For some reason, they really felt like my family too, until he and I broke up! I didn’t realize that those were his people and my children’s people but me, not so much lol. I can laugh about it now and I no longer wish to kill any of them! So needless to say, I had really just fell into the whole thing not knowing there would be a time that I would need someone other than him or them. After the break up, holidays like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s/Father’s Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas proved to be those times. The people I had recently spent my holidays with were no longer available, unless I just wanted to be apart of an awkward situation. The people I kinda just left hanging to start my new life had basically found things to do that didn’t include me. I mean, I didn’t want to sit around people I didn’t know and definitely didn’t want to be a pitiful third wheel! So I spent those days in the house with or without my kids, crying, hurt, thinking of all the memories that I allowed to replay in my head because my break up was fresh. Ugh! I mean I made myself sick, I lost weight, my hair was falling out, I started drinking like a fish. All around a holiday!

This lasted a couple of years. It was a fixed pity party. In my mind, it became the time for me to rehash all the stuff that had happened, figure out where he’d lied, think about what I could’ve done or said. Just a bad way to spend a holiday. Especially if my children weren’t home because OMG, all I had was them. The people who would check up on me didn’t make it better. They filled a void of me being alone, but nobody told me anything other than it would be okay! Thats the last thing you really want to hear while you’re drunk and crying so hard that you can’t be understood. It really would be ok and I get it, because you don’t know what else to say to someone in that situation. What did help, was them getting me out of the house, with or without my children. I had to start finding things to do as a party of 3 instead of 4. I even had to find things to do when my children were away.

I would get invites from people who knew what I was going through because I told them or it just showed. I stopped turning people down and started building my life from scratch. It was really a chance to find out who I was and for some, this can be the chance to reinvent yourself. I started “dating” my ex at 16 so I didn’t know who I was outside of him. I was bruised and scared mentally and emotionally. But it was either sit here while these kids grow up and do what you’re grooming them to do, which is be self sufficient and live a purposeful life on their own or go get your life and find out what you like and your purpose so you won’t be a cat lady in the future!

The big picture is the future and no matter where you are in life now it’s gonna change. Change is inevitable! Life will happen to you if you don’t happen to it. So I started having my own holiday parties and making sure I was surrounded by people who loved me and would make me laugh and who wanted to be in my life. I actually started liking the holidays because I looked at life different. It didn’t happen overnight but I found a life lol. I started having people to see and things to do. It didn’t just fall in my lap all the time tho, I had to make a lot of it happen. It started to be “ok,” just like they said!

As Valentine’s Day approaches let me encourage you. Don’t dread it. You don’t even have to celebrate it if you don’t want to but you don’t have to hate it! It is not the end of the road and hopefully not the last Valentine’s Day you will live through. Think about you in the future! Not your children, not your spouse, YOU! If you don’t figure out how to get through them days now, and there’s a time in the future when you need to get through them again, you’re gonna be messed up! Things happen, not just break ups. People pass on, go off to college, get married, etc. You can start a tradition and do it annually until your situation changes. Find a single buddy and make plans, go to a comedy show or dinner or a road trip, something! Don’t be found drowning in your tears wasting your life away about the shoulda, woulda, couldas! Somethings we just have to do for ourselves and you just might like it. I did, probably a little too much! Lol!!! I decorate my house and my office for holidays now. I only wish I started doing things for me sooner.

This doesn’t take anything away from what has happened to you or in your life but trust me, you don’t get time back! Cry it out for a min and then shake it off. The quicker you get over your feelings in a situation, the quicker you stop hurting! So this Valentine’s Day make plans to enjoy life. Don’t trip about being single, just have fun. Holidays can actually be fun again. It’s up to you! Happy Valentine’s Day!❤