This last month and a half since I last blogged has created a lot of sadness and guilt and shame inside of my heart. I don’t know if that is my moral conscience, or if its God, or if it’s because I really should feel this poorly.

I don’t think I have ever coped with my grief. The grief of my *almost* losing my husband after six months of marriage due to sepsis. This year has been loss, after loss, after loss. I lost a guy I may or may not have been in love with in the past due to his alcoholism; it was my last “steady” although crazy if you can call it a relationship. He nurtured my love for tequila and he drank and drank and drank and it was a relationship of situational convenience but he died this year… not even 32 years old. I saw memorials for him on Facebook but he was very anti social media. But at the time, my own husband was in early recovery from his two life saving surgeries, so I didn’t attend the memorial and I drowned out the white noise in my head with my work and caregiving activities.

I don’t like admitting that losing that guy had an impact on me but it did. It did because I slept with him. He took some of my innocence away through his own addiction and he is what led me to drink heavy when I was drinking. (He isn’t all to blame; my own genes don’t help but social influence is a great factor of addiction).

I got to two years sober on August 17th of 2025. So now, I have two years and five days sober. If I remember correctly, two years ago to this day I went to my first AA meeting as a member, got a court slip signed, etc., etc. I just wish it didn’t have to come to this point to let my vices get this bad as to wreck a $45,000 SUV or to go to jail for four days or to get PR’ed out of jail by my whole family giving personal speeches and testimonies on how I’ll be different. But the reality is, I could have been my alcoholic friend who just died and I could have literally died at any point…. whether it be from the drunk and intoxicated driving, the stupid vices and behaviors I fed into, it could have been in jail where I finally did plunk myself; I always said I was gonna do it, why not do it surrounded by strangers who didn’t give a shit about me and my measly problems.

God made me resilient in that situation. I wouldn’t have made it out of jail alive or not attending the local psych ward without seeing a Bible at the edge of my cot and giving my life back to God and put it in his hands’. I wasn’t going to get out of there alive and I have come to terms with that in my two years sober. But survivor’s guilt is real. Also, if I hadn’t gotten married when I did, my husband wouldn’t be alive today. I had to sign for him as his power of attorney to get a central line put in his neck to push down more and more antibiotics for his sepsis and to cure any infection that could have come about from his two back-to-back surgeries. I don’t know who would have shown up for Kyle if I hadn’t rallied in the troops and made his family reunite in case he did end up passing. His closest relative by blood is his dad who is an hour away. I always think and know to myself that his dad wouldn’t have gotten Kyle a central line to push antibiotics because it was fairly invasive not to mention expensive. But I am sure of it, God told me in His own way: Kyle would have died if I hadn’t authorized doctors in the ICU to give Kyle a central line. And to play God like that, as… as… a human as flawed as I am; I mean what if I did make the wrong choice? Then what? I would really then have survivors guilt. *shudder*

July 17, 2025 I lost my job as a crisis navigator for a Christian non profit. I have been looking for work prior to when I was fired, needlessly, but as of August 22, I am still searching, trying to get unemployment that is backed up to Mars, and we’re struggling. I don’t really want to go into how I lost my job because I have learned that it really doesn’t matter what they said because they lied; they blatantly lied to protect a “more” Christian man within the agency. It really made me doubt my belief in God once again, because as Christians we are compelled to tell the truth and I did just that, but the others who were higher up lied, and their asses got covered and I got to crash and burn instead.

But on July 1, I started going back to school… yes. once again. But this time I did it, y’all. I will graduate with my Associates of the Arts in General Studies; a two year degree that took 8.5 years to complete. But with all of my behavioral health issues, work things, and whatever shenanigans I got myself into, It wasn’t meant to be until now. I finished my quarter yesterday and I will be able to see my final grades next week and officially state that I am a college graduate.

My husband’s grandfather, whom we live with in their basement, asked me how my school was going this morning and I told him I completed my courses and I will get grades next week and a diploma will come in the mail soon enough. He held my hand for a minute straight and beamed into my eyes how he was so proud of me. It almost made me cry because I never had a grandfather like that; my grandfather has never told a person that he loves them before; not even his own children. So for him as a former German professor for the same community college to tell me he was proud of me meant a lot.

So, now what? Having my degree will open some doors as to what I can do next as far as jobs go. I would like to continue my education, but I am unsure on what Kyle and I will do next. But the world is our oyster, now we just need to find the pearl.

Much love,

Dani