I just want to say that first off....I am so excited to have found this site.  It is exactly what I need in my life.  

I am at a new and exciting place in my personal life!!  What I am discovering is that I am starting a new part of my life and I need to embrace the changes and give myself the opportunity to discover who I am and make my life whatever I want it to be.      

I was married for 13 years and it ended officially on 1/2/08.  It was my ex’s decision to file.  It is amazing how two people could once be in love and how ugly and expensive it can get when going through a divorce and having lawyers handling it.  The timing was crazy because I also found out, at the same time, that my mother had stage 4 colon cancer that metastasized to her liver.  She had surgery to remove the cancer from her colon and has been going through chemo for 1 1/2 years to shrink the tumor in her liver.  We are blessed to have the tumor in the liver shrinking and hope to have her cancer free.  I thought my 72 year old mom would not be so fortunate.  We are blessed by her progress.    

Well, back to my divorce.  Most of my marriage I did it all.  I wanted children, but having illnesses that caused me to have a hard time taking care of myself from time to time kept me from the children I once dreamed of having in my life.  Since I was on medications that would be risky to take during pregnancy;  we even started the process of adopting a baby girl from China.  I stopped the process because I had concerns about my husband being a father.  There is obviously so much more to everything.  

A few years ago I started my own personal chef business.  I was starting to have more bouts of fibromyalgia, so I figured this would give me more freedom with my hours.  The fibromyalgia became so bad that I was bed bound or couch bound for 6 months.  I was able to just do the basics.  Everything started crumbling down when I could no longer do it all.  He asked for a divorce on 2/07.  The next months I was sicker than ever.  I could barely do anything.  I did get a bit of a break and met a wonderful man.  Our first date was on 7/7/07.  He was my support during some very tough times.  I came close to taking my life a few times because I couldn’t hang on any longer.  My boyfriend and the love of my kitten, Suzy, that was always by my side, kept me going.  She is sitting bye me right now on the couch.  She is always with me and I just knew that she needed me and I couldn’t trust anyone to love her like I do.  I was finally forced to move out of my home by so much cruelty in November.    

I moved to Clarks Summit, PA to be with my boyfriend.  He moved in with me and we have been together since.  It has been hard because I miss my friends, family and my comforts in NJ.  I lived there all my life.  I loved my new home in NJ that was designed to my specifications.  It was like giving birth because I put so much into it.  I finally had it furnished and decorated to perfection.  It makes my heart ache to think that someone else will be living there someday.  The home is not affordable for either us to keep so it is up for sale.  The market is tough, so it has not sold yet.  Since I don’t have an income, I was counting on the home being sold by now for me to live off of the money.  I try not to think about it.

A good day for me is when I can take a bath or shower, cook dinner and clean up afterwards.  It is so hard to be so limited when I was able to do it all.  My apartment is still filled with boxes that need to be unpacked.  

My new life is more simple.  I don’t have energy for my friends or even talking to them on the phone most of the time.  I truly appreciate a day that my pain is not too bad or that I am not plagued with exhaustion.  I feel envious of those that can come and go anytime.  Everything evolves around my health and how I feel each day.  I miss out on a lot.  

A few years ago, I started a Nutritional Consultant and Holistic Health Practitioner program that is an at home study program.  It is taking a lot longer than anticipated.  I hope to one day complete it and help myself and others with what I learned.  Unfortunately, my cognitive skills are not great most of the time which has made it even more challenging studying.        

I hope to be married again in two years and working again.  Maybe, I will find the secret treatment for fibromyalgia or be in remission.  I have tried what seems to be everything, but I need to continue to hope that something new will be discovered.  I need to keep the hope alive to keep me fighting through each tough day.

Dianne