{^^^This was me the week I started the blog!}

The seven year anniversary of this blog happened earlier this week. When I look back on where I was, how I was when I started this blog, I am in awe.

This blog began as a travel blog because my dream job then was to be a paid travel writer. I had plans to teach English in the Kalasin Province in Thailand. My dear grandfather had died of lung cancer, and I was itching to live abroad as soon as possible. That, along with several other things, sent me into a paralyzing depression. If you knew me during that time, I love you for still being here 🙂 Then, I moved to a completely new town where I knew one person. Not long after that, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Yikes. Then I chose some horrible partners, and thought vaguely that I would never get what I wanted, that I was doomed to a short, not so dazzling life.

Now, my life is radiant. I have everything I was hoping for then, but in a completely different package than I was expecting. I have a wonderful job at which I feel like I make a difference. It’s fulfilling, I have a great amount of autonomy, and I work with some amazing people. I am engaged to a wonderful man. I am radically in love with my body, my precious collection of star dust. We have a little, mostly furry family. Sad and frightening things happened, but we got through it together, with our friends and family.

I still write here infrequently. I still want to live abroad sometime in my lifetime. I still want to cultivate that free spirit that was ready to jet set to Thailand solo, that bravery. However, I know I am brave in other ways. I know what it’s like to fight for my life; I know what it’s like to live with a mental illness; and I know how to take no shit (see my Rosie the Riveter tattoo). This blog and I are seven years older and wiser. And surprisingly, more in love with life. Me, that is.

{This is me a few months ago}

Thank you for being here, of all the places you could be. It means more to me than I know how to say.

xMaegan