Ok, so why the Formerly Fun moniker you ask. You didn’t? Well, somebody did.

Let me explain. I am one of the world’s most positive, glass totally full, let’s not just make lemonade out of lemons, let’s make a fucking lemonade stand, and franchise it, people you will ever know. However, with the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in my grandfather, the only unambiguously loving, solid, stable, constant male in my life with the exception of my husband, the birth of my youngest daughter, the subsequent death of said grandfather, the tenuous balancing of a business, two other delightful children who love and need me and a husband who deserves adoration, frequent sex and a good hot meal every night, I became frighteningly, paralyzingly sad.

I, who could juggle knives while reciting the Bill of Rights while also painting my toenails, became overwhelmed with simple tasks like taking my kids to the dentist, arranging for summer activities for the days I work, and other important stuff like getting out of bed and not crying for hours at a time. It was crushing and humbling. I have always been sensitive, self-doubting, insecure and marginally paranoid but I have this wonderful internal therapist, this better me who operates on a kinder scale of judgement than I do and she can always talk me off the ledge and put things in perspective. Sometimes I will even visualize this voice as myself, years older and wiser, embracing the current me, reminding myself things will work themselves out. This inner voice, this more reasonable, less ego focused me, she totally checked out. I don’t know if I wore her down or what but I was absolutely stranded in a place that I, even now, just a few short months from, cannot totally remember. I walked around feeling like a shell of my formerly fun(there’s that name), playful, light self.

With the assistance of the gentle, kind words of my OB, the total non-judgemental support of my husband and modern pharmacology, I set about returning to my formerly fun self. I also returned to regular writing, abandoned since the 48 hour+ labour of my third child and the months of sleep deprivation that followed. A frequent vehicle of mental clarification for me in the past, I’ve set about writing weekly, daily, hourly if needed. It seems to be working, the glass is half full again and I’m sure will be brimming in the near future.