Here I go...

Here I go... just another step towards something I am not comfortable doing.  I am a lover not a writer, but I am a thinker, so hopefully I will be able to get some of what is going on inside my head and my world to come out through my fingertips!

Most of the people who will start following or reading this blog know me.  I grew up in Haliburton, Ontario, a very small town, one I couldn't wait to escape from.  I went to University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and then went to Switzerland after school.  I didn't realize in my 22 year old wisdom just how much I would need to stay in Europe, so about 4 months after I got there I ran out of money and had to come home.  I had been bitten by the travel bug, so my plan was to come home, work for a few months and keep going.  Boy do plans change!! 

During the few months I was at home I met a man... you can imagine the rest of the story... girl meets boy, girl and boy get married, and have a baby (all within 2.5 years).  Life was good.  We lived close (but not TOO close) to my parents, I had great lifelong friends around me and before I knew it I was a mom of two amazing boys.  My youngest, Bennett was born in 2005.  We, the "de Savoye 4" had a fairly idealic life, we travelled, we lived on the lake, we had family in the city so we could come and go as we pleased, and I got to stay home with the boys.

January 2006 is when my world slowly started to change and I started to experience my first "New Normal".  My mother in law and her sister were both diagnosed with incurable cancer in January of 2006.  They were diagnosed on my birthday and told my husband of the diagnosis on his birthday.  He was extremely close to both women, he and his sister were raised by a single mom with their aunt always there to help out.  Needless to say the news was devastating to my husband.  But, he has always been the one to take care of everything, so he quickly lept into action.  He was working about an hour out of town at the time, so he spent many hours communting from our house to work and from work/home to the city to spend as much time as possible with his family.  The majority of the time he would be on the way to work before the boys woke up, would get home after they went to bed and would go straight from work to the city on Friday, coming back to us on Sunday night.  It was what he needed to do.  I don't blame him and can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing if the roles were reversed. 

At the end of March his aunt passed away, peacefully with her sister by her side.  My husband drove straight down to the city to be with his family and to make sure his mom was ok, as she was still battling cancer herself. 

In June his step-father didn't wake up one morning.  One more blow and one more thing to deal with. 

In October of 2006 his mother passed away.  He was at her side when she slipped away.  It was important for him to be there, they were very close and he didn't want her to be alone.  It was an extremely sad day for anyone and everyone who knew her, she was a great lady.  She was wonderful to me and adored our boys.

Needless to say, 2006 wasn't a great year for us. 

In early 2007 he began negotiations to open a hotel in Yorkville.  The opportunity was too good to pass up, so in June he moved to Toronto and the boys and I stayed "up north" to work on the sale of our home.  I can't express how peaceful that summer was.  The boys and I had an amazing time, swimming, playing, boating and just being together.  I don't think either of us realized how all encompassing the job of opening this hotel would be, he was only able to come home twice in the 4 months he lived in Toronto before we moved down.  The boys and I didn't go to Toronto to see him, it wouldn't "work" with timing...  A "New Normal".

Our house finally sold in the late summer of 2007.  The boys and I packed the house (if you can imagine a 4 year old and 2 year old "helping"!!).  My husband came home for a few days just before the move to coordinate the last minute details, and with that we were off.  He had found us a rental in Leaside, a great family neighbourhood, close to everything.  He was still very busy with the hotel, so the boys and I figured our way around (before moving to the City I knew how to get to 3 places, a hotel, his mom's and his sister's house), I got Max (my oldest) registered in school and we started our life in Toronto... Another "New Normal".

From the fall of 2007 until early spring 2010 life plugged along.  I made some amazing friends, as did the boys.  My husband left the hotel in Yorkville, the hours and stress just weren't worth it.  He settled into a job with Intercontinental hotels, a great fit for him.

Even though from the outside it looked like everything was great, trouble was brewing at home.  Without going into the gory details, my husband and I started to view our relationship in very different ways.  I found myself lost in a relationship.  I wasn't me anymore... I was a mom, a wife, a friend, a daughter, a sister, but I wasn't ME... I wasn't Dianne... It has taken me a lot of reflection to realize that is what was happening, at the time I just knew something wasn't right and spent countless hours and unbelievable energy trying to "fix" it and keep the calm.

Everything finally came to a head in February of 2010... my family broke up on Family Day... Ironic right?  We had reached the point of no return... couselling wasn't an option... he decided he was moving out.  Telling the boys was one of the hardest things I have ever been a part of... the look on Max's face will haunt me forever.  Bennett was 4, I don't think he really understood what was going on.   Another "New Normal"...

It took about a month for the logistics of him moving to get sorted out.  He "worked" late and I went to bed early.  I found a job, working part time as an Office Manager for a Real Estate Team.  I had completed all of the courses to be a Realtor, but didn't have my license yet.  He moved out over March Break of that year, the boys and I were up at my parents. 

Coming home to a half empty house, seeing his side of the closet empty, and things that had been a part of my life missing from my home was almost unbearable.  I waited until the boys were in bed and collapsed.  I allowed myself that one night, and boy did I cry!!  I had gone from a stay at home mom with not too many cares, to a working single mother of two little boys in what seemed like a blink of the eye.  All of a sudden I was alone.  I hadn't been alone since I was 22, and even then I went from my parents house to his house... Another "New Normal"...

I feel like it is at this point that MY story really begins... I will always be grateful for the relationship that I had with him.  We will always be tied because we share these amazing little beings.  But I want the focus of this blog to be about how I got ME back.  It didn't happen overnight and there were a lot of road blocks, speed bumps and brick walls along the way.  The journey isn't over yet, and a lot of the time I am not sure where I am going next, although I do know that I just have to keep going. 

I promise all the posts won't be this long, but I felt like it was important to have a little bit of history before I take you on the journey of the last two years (it was two years on Monday, March 19th).  This journey has been up and down, probably more down at the beginning, but I would venture to say that there are definitely more "ups" now.  I have navigated systems that I never knew existed, let alone that I would have to be a part of.  This is a journey from a "lost" at home wife and mom with nothing to my name aside from a Rogers account and a Visa I have had since I was 18 to a "found", independent professional woman who also happens to be a single mom in the City...