Where's a Maypole When You Need It?

Although heaven knows I'm not about being fertile right now. My social-distancing teenagers are enough to cure me of any residual baby cravings, thanks.

But, you know, it's May and I decided that I'd go ahead and start blogging again, and use May as a sort of jumping off point for anybody else who might be thinking, in this time of slowed down life and vicious Facebooking, "I need something to do that isn't feverishly cleaning out my closets or trying to create recipes with canned tomatoes and a leftover New Year's hammock. I think I'll start a blog."

This particular blog is, like, old. I started it in December of 2005 with a post about a urinary tract infection that is so full of medical details that it's really no wonder that people ran screaming away from it. I mean, I read it and winced for my thirty-year-old self, because she was in so much pain and dealing with a truly asinine-sounding male nurse who I hope has learned some self-preserving empathy in the last fifteen years.

I wrote about a myriad of things, from my son's autism to my brush with infertility to gardening, cooking, and writing. Slap in a dash of politics, a pinch of religious introspection. This blog was a spicy stew of all kinds of randomicity. I had very few readers, but the readers I did have became friends and we all wrote blogs together and it was awesome.

Then, I stopped writing I'm Not Hannah. It was not by choice. It just...was a thing. I started another blog, but my heart wasn't in it and then the last election happened and I just felt too grim to write. And most of my bloggy friends were on Facebook and FB was fast and easy and didn't require a lot of effort, which was good because life with the kids was busy and Will had a demanding new job and I was...you know...finding myself.

Y'all. "Finding myself" is pretty much a central theme of my life and it would not be truthful to say that I've done it yet. I'd say that, metaphysically speaking, I've found, like, my pancreas and maybe my sternum and a couple of toes.

I feel that this metaphor doesn't work as well as I thought it would when I started. Those of you who remember the good old days might remember how much I love lists, so let me sum up the last few years of NotHannatude.

1. Discovered I liked photography. Became a photographer, working both freelance and at the hospital for a corporation that took newborn pics. 
2. Quit photographing newborns because our schedule became insane. Gradually stopped it with the photography because it's hard to run a business and a household at the same time, especially when an autistic middle schooler is involved. 
3. Started writing a novel.
4. Lost a friend and mentor who, along with his wife, taught me about herbs and the way I'd like to live life. 
5. Voted with a hopeful heart and a sense of history for a highly intelligent, qualified, well-rounded woman for president. Woke up the next morning to find that...the opposite had won.
6. Got depressed. And furious. And back around to super sad. (I think it's called grief.)
7. Decided to get serious about starting an herb farm.
8. Found out about an opening for a part-time clerk at a local elementary school and decided, "That's a great way to buy more herb seeds." Started that job. 
9. Enjoyed being around grownups and little kids and having a schedule so much that when the bookkeeper at the school left, I decided that I should apply for her job. 
10. Now I'm a bookkeeper. 
11. Found out my mother-in-law has dementia.
12. Got a new dog!  
    
13. Started writing a new novel.
14. Oh, hi! It's a pandemic.
15. Realized that while I love my job, I miss my family terribly and want to be both an herb farmer and writer when I grow up and given that I'm forty-five, the growing up should probably happen, you know, soon. 
16. Like, any day now. 
17. The growing up and the finding of self. 
18. IT'S GONNA HAPPEN.

Anyway, that's me in a nutshell. if you want to go back and read the entries I'm in the process of saving from the burn pile, that would be a great way to get to know me. Or at least get to know what kind of craziness you're in for should you, bless your heart, decide you want to be a reader.

You can expect posts about politics, kids, cooking, gardening, writing, humans doing weird things, books I read, memories I have, et cetera. This isn't a blog about politics. Or kids. Or cooking. Or books I read. 

Because I've realized that as I dance around this maypole we call life (check me out, bringing a metaphor HOME, baby!) I probably will never "find myself." My life seems to be a circle, bringing me through and around the same twisting, connecting paths. So maybe I should stop worrying about finding myself and becoming any one thing. 

Maybe I should just enjoy the dance.