Day One. Hello and Welcome.

Welcome to my blog!

So cliche, right? “Oh here we go, another bored housewife telling us how to live our lives.” I know it’s a thought out there.  It’s okay.  Also, the timing, cliche!  LOL’ing at myself a little. Oh. Freakin’. Well.

TBH- I planned to launch this circa 4.5 years ago, but I pulled the plug.   Reason? Honestly- I was too chicken to open up my life and run the risk of being seen, therefore criticized, and/or worse (in my mind), rejected.  Gasp. Fast forward to now, though a series of events, time, and life lived (of which I can only refer to as a metamorphosis)… I can most confidently say I know longer care about those things.  I am aware of those things, it’s just that they no longer have the power to silence me.  Brene Brown has prolifically written about the pursuit of wholehearted living, the power of vulnerability, of being brave and afraid at the same time…  For me, this expressive writing is to honor that.

I used to have a plan for what my site would be.  It was tidy, pretty, marketable, tame, perfectly curated, edited and palatable.  I don’t disagree with any of those things, I love those things.  But I don’t think that is what I, Allison Harvie, am supposed to bring to the proverbial table of society.  I think my job is to just bring me, as I am.  My experiences, deaths, burials and resurrections.  My joys, my lessons learned.  Things I’ve processed and now see the full picture of.  I will also probably bring practical things because I have a bazillion kids and practical and usable information is the air that I breathe. I will bring those things because that is my best offering.

I have earned the right to talk about some things.  Things like marriage, mothering, shame, depression, anxiety, grief, addiction, pain, mental illness, abuse, eating disorders.  I’ve earned it because I’ve lived it.  That’s my ground. That’s my territory and I have something to say about those things.

I’ve watched my life burn to the ground multiple times over, only to look around, stand up, find a hammer, nails and go again.  I have absolutely NOT gotten all manner of things in life sussed.  But if I wait to write until I do, then that day will never come.  There are things to say right now, in this moment, in this space and I’m going to say it. My uttermost agenda is that in these writings you would primarily find comfort in knowing that if anything resonates: you are not alone.  And of equal importance, that you would be convinced that there is hope and a way forward through whatever you are facing.

So no, I’m not a bored housewife.  I’m a woman who has something to say, from battles hard fought, won and lost.  (And still winning and losing) In the powerful words of Glennon Doyle, I am not a bored housewife, ’I am a goddamn Cheetah’.  With love, empathy and strength I intend to share my journeys of captivity, back to self, to the wild.

I welcome you on this journey with me, one day at a time.

Onward,

Allison xo