I have never been good with goodbyes. I prefer to live in denial up until the last possible moment, and then hurry though and pretend it never happened. Unfortunately for me, there have been a lot of goodbyes going around the past couple of weeks.
Today I leave my house. My city. My church. My gym. My friends. My people. Typing that out is even hard for me. I have always been sentimental, but this time it’s worse. Why? Because I have been hiding something from yall since June. JUNE yall. I didn’t say anything for safety purposes, but now that it’s over I feel comfortable being honest, because I feel that it will help you to understand some of the feelings I have now, and will help explain some of my actions as of late.
Yes Bobby got a new job and yes we are moving to Tampa at the end of the week. But what you didn’t know, is that Bobby moved away to start said job back in June. Yes, Emma Kate and I have been living on our own since this summer.
That’s why I haven’t been around online as much
That’s why EK was in full time daycare since June instead of her usual 3 days a week
That’s why my parents have been in town a lot and I have gone to see them more
That’s why I have been super stressed
That’s why I have been more quiet about personal things
That’s why it’s so much harder for me to leave.
You guys, the past five months have been hard. REALLY hard. I have shed a lot of tears, felt really lonely, been scared, angry, frustrated, you name it. The week Bobby left everything that could go wrong went wrong (our house got struck by lightning which fried all our internet and TV boxes and broke one of our TV’s… we got rear ended, had to have two repair guys at the house, one of the machines at the shop broke, Bobby’s grandmother passed away, the internet went out at the shop so we couldn’t process payments, and the biggest spider I have ever seen was on my screened in porch and I had to have a neighbor come and kill it for me <—-yes even he said it was the biggest spider he had ever seen!) I had NO idea how I was going to make it until I could move with Bobby. Thankfully, not all the weeks were quite so eventful, but that first week had me questioning everything.
Out of all of this there has come some good, which is why it’s so hard for me to say goodbye. After that first awful week, I learned something about myself. I learned that I am capable of handling way more than I ever thought I could. Instead of relying on Bobby to take care of the “yucky stuff”, I had to handle everything on the home front and storefront plus my two jobs I already had. It sucked a lot of days, but I proved to myself just how strong I am. My independence has grown by leaps and bounds, and I just feel better about myself and my abilities as a whole. If you would have asked me back in June if I could face all the challenges that were to come, I would have said no. But that’s the funny thing about it. You always think you can’t handle something until you are thrust into it with no other choice…and then you realize that you CAN do those hard things. I had to keep going for the sake of my family and my child, and I am so proud of all I was able to accomplish and handle. (Also I have a huge newfound respect for single parents and military families!)
I also had to rely on my friends a lot during this time. I got really close to friends from church and my gym, and that’s why it is so much harder to say goodbye to them. They were my rock, my sounding board, and a lot of times the only adult interaction I had in a day. They took care of me and made sure I was doing ok, and became my family. I know we will still talk and text and hopefully occasionally see each other, but it’s just not the same.
As I packed up Emma Kate’s room a few days ago, it hit me that it would be the last night she would spend in her room, in the house we brought her home to from the hospital. I just stayed in her room and cried y’all. Don’t get me wrong, this move is GOOD, and I know it’s what God has for us, but that doesn’t make change and goodbye any easier. I know that a house is just a house, and it’s the people that make it home. The memories inside the walls will always stay with me, but it’s still hard to let go.
I am however excited for new memories, new adventures, and new friends. They will never replace the old ones, but I can make room for the new, too.
So even though you didn’t know it, thank you for hanging with me while I did life alone for a little while. Thanks for not leaving my little blog, and for being understanding of what I was going through (even though you didn’t know it haha). It’s funny, I tried SO hard to not make it obvious Bobby wasn’t here, and not many people caught on thankfully (or at least they didn’t tell me they knew). He came back into town twice, and when he was here I was sure to post a lot of pictures so people would think he was still at home! If you go back to my Instagram feed, you will notice he is nowhere to be found except for during two weekends. I may have had to do some tricky things to keep my secret, like setting up a barstool outside and a self timer on my phone for my Sunday church photos, but hopefully you all will forgive me. 
The store and the house have sold, so I am now excited for us to be back together as a family in our new home in our new city and state. A fresh start is always good, and may be just what we need. So for now, to my friends in Madison, I prefer to not say goodbye but just “see you later” and I love you all. Thanks for being you, you all know who you are.
QOTD: How are you at goodbyes? Have you ever had a keep a secret from people online/social media?
