The Yellow Door Life

It has been 427 days since I published my last blog. 

This is the longest writing break I have taken since long before my divorce. 

I can tell you exactly what happened. 

But at the end of the day, all the whats and whys are just excuses. I went through a lot of trials, rejections, and failure, and allowed myself to give up on something that matters a lot to me. 

To put it into perspective, I walked away from a high-paying, fancy Head of Marketing job because I was told I couldn’t have a personal blog (and I was a week away from launching mine), so I said deuces and here we are. 

Suffice it to say, at the end of 2023, I let go of the things I came here to do, the goals I had, and the things that brought me peace, all because things weren’t going my way (and on my timeline).

Here’s a hint y’all.

God is sitting up there laughing at all of us who think we have it all figured out. And not in a mean way. He’s laughing at us, because he knows how we will be laughing at ourselves in the end when that thing we have been praying and working for ACTUALLY HAPPENS. 

As humans it is natural for us to repeat patterns, healthy or not. I read this on Instagram last week and it really had me examining my life choices:

Your nervous system will always choose a familiar hell over unfamiliar heaven. 

Heal, so you can choose differently. 

I know better. We all do. When we choose to give into temptations and addictions. When we fall into old patterns, we do it because it’s comfortable and our bodies are used to it. My body understands pain and trauma, better than it does healing and peace, and that is downright scary. 

Despite all of that, I let a whole year pass me by, and I became the old version of myself. The one I thought I had left behind on a dark street in Colorado two and a half years ago. 

2024 was a plateau year for me.

I experienced very little growth, and in many ways, I actually regressed. 

I was glad when it came to an end, and will only take from it, the absolute most valuable things I learned, which are listed below. 

Lessons Learned in 2024

Answered prayers will sometimes break your heart. 

At the end of 2023, Ollie was starting to have some serious health problems. There was a night I had to take her into the ER for a lipoma that had burst and was bleeding profusely. As we waited to hear from the doctor about the treatment plan, I came to peace with the idea of having to put her down that night. Ollie had a lot of issues and this particular problem kept recurring and she had these growths all over her body, including in her chest near her organs. 

When the doctor called and told me the plan and cost, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was not feasible. He told me we could do all her wound care ourselves to save money, but that it would take a lot of work. She was my girl though, so we went that route and brought her home.

We dealt with her wound, which did eventually heal. We took her to the vet for her normal shots and check-up a month later.

We started her on an allergy medicine she had been on when she was younger.

Then, she got worse. She stopped eating. She had a few days where she wouldn’t get up at all.

Then on the night of January 7th, I heard a sound that I never want to hear again. She was gasping for air. I put my hand on her hip and told her it was ok. I told her I loved her and she could go home. She kicked out her leg and breathed her last. 

The answered prayer? After thinking for all those months I was going to have to put her down, and had planned to do the next day if she didn’t go on her own, I prayed fervently and asked God to please let her die at home, on her terms. And she did.

I’ll never forget Ollie or the way she looked after me when I was all alone. She was my best friend, and honestly, I let the way I felt losing her define me for the next 12 months. 

Introduce yourself the first time you see an attractive man that interests you. 

I’m a strange mix of confidence and awkward, shyness. I teach middle school, so put me in a room full of 12-year-olds and I’m like a rockstar, but introducing myself to strangers, who I deem attractive, is still not a skill I can brag about. 

So when I saw an attractive man at church one Wednesday evening, instead of introducing myself, and seeing if that interest was reciprocated, I spent 10 months just waiting to see if he would ever approach me. We did eventually have a few interactions and I discovered he was very shy and often stumbled on his words when he talked to me, so I figured he was just nervous too. It took me until December to finally invite him out for coffee, at which point he said yes, got my phone number, and then told me he was engaged.

…….

Yup.

I spent all year too scared to ask that man to coffee, all to find out he had a woman the WHOLE time. 

Y’all.

Just introduce yourself. I could have saved myself a whole lot of time if I hadn’t been so scared to just ask him out to coffee, THE FIRST TIME I SAW HIM. 

So now, he will forever be Chipotle Church Guy and become nothing more than an anecdote I tell at parties. 

Side note: Gentlemen, if you are in a committed relationship, engaged, or married, please for the love of all things, stop staring at, sitting by, flirting with, and complimenting women that are not yours. No wonder we are all so confused out here. Just saying. 

There will come a time where you have to stop standing at the edge of the water and get in.

I can’t swim. At least, not well enough to save myself from drowning (I don’t think). I gave up on swimming lessons many, many years ago, because I was a little pudge in my yellow, orange, and pink one-piece, swimming suit and the kids at the Y would make fun of me. I hated the chlorinated water and so I just gave up. I also have an irrational fear of there being sharks in swimming pools, so here we are. 

Regardless of my fear of swimming, I am obsessed with the water. Oceans, lakes, rivers, tiny, baby creeks. I love being near them. Water adjacent has always suited me just fine. 

When I moved to Tennessee, I wanted to be more brave and try things I hadn’t been able to bring myself to do in Colorado. I began hiking. I started traveling alone. But I was curious about kayaking. It seemed simple enough, but I was worried I would fall out and end up flailing around like an idiot in the water. 

In June of 2024 though, one of my coworkers put together a kayaking trip and I decided “to heck with fear” and I said yes. I played this song over and over leading up to the trip and tried to pump myself up. The morning of, I almost told them I wasn’t coming, but I showed up.

When we first launched on the river it took me several minutes to find my balance and stop from rocking my kayak all over the place. All the YouTube videos I had watched were playing in my head and I stopped moving. The kayak stopped moving too and I was just floating. Effortlessly floating. I remembered what I had learned about paddling and I slowly started making my way downstream. 

I couldn’t believe how easy it was. How peaceful.

Granted, I did end up getting stuck a couple times on this trip, but it taught me how to paddle backwards and use my paddle to work my way off of a rock. 

I ended up going several more times before the season was over and had the kayak I wanted to buy all picked out. 

Fear is nothing more than an anchor, and I’m so glad I let this anchor go, because gliding across the water is so much better than watching it from the shoreline. 

If she says the ferret has been biting people, believe her.

During my fall break, I went with a couple friends to a local petting zoo. As we made our way through the house turned petting zoo, we came into a room with ferrets, guinea pigs, and rabbits. I have been around guinea pigs and rabbits before, but I had never held a ferret. They are odd looking little creatures and I’ve always been fascinated by them. I asked the employee standing near the ferret cage if I could hold one. 

“I mean you can, but she tends to bite.” She replied. 

“That’s ok, I still want to hold her.” I said, as the invisible, red flag slapped me in the face. 

She hands me June the ferret and immediately she latches on to the tip of my middle finger with some crazy sharp teeth. One of my friends was in the middle of trying to take my picture with said ferret, when the employee realized she needed to pry her ferret-sized jaw off of me. I rushed from the room to the bathroom to wash my finger and to check and see if June had punctured the skin. I ran into my other friend on the way and she asked what happened.

“The ferret bit me.”

Now, let’s be clear. I was warned. I said yes anyways. I got bit. 

When I showed the picture to my kids, I introduced June as my new opp (opponent for those of you who don’t speak middle schooler), and we all had a good laugh.

Moral of the story? Red flags are a no no. Look for nice, pretty green ones instead. 

Disease progression is a real thing. 

I rarely eat marshmallows. Like my whole life marshmallows were not something we just had in the house that often, unless we were baking or making cocoa. In November, Mom had a craving for them, so there was a bag of marshmallows in the house and one night, I decided to eat a few. Early the next morning at 3:30, I woke up with the worst leg cramp I have had since I was in the 7th grade. I honestly thought my life may just end then and there. I had pain shooting up and down the whole right side of my body and my right thigh was locked up so tight I couldn’t stand up straight or sit down. I just stood there grimacing in pain. 

Then a clear voice popped in my head and said, “Disease progression is a real thing. I’ve given you time, now use it wisely.” 

Why was I sitting there eating marshmallows? I knew better. I had all this time and I was wasting it. 

When I told my kids about it, they asked me, “Why did you eat sugar Ms. Bihm, you know you’re not supposed to do that?” (I’ve taught them so well). 

The kids get it. I should get it. 

We only get so many chances to fix things.

Don’t waste them y’all. At some point it will be too late. 

Stop failing on purpose. You’ve come too far just to come this far. 

And on that note, we get to the biggest lesson of all. 

Stop failing on purpose. 

I say it’s on purpose because I know better. I have the tools and resources I need. The only thing that stopped me from achieving my goals last year was fear. 

Fear is rooted in loss. We fear losing something so strongly that we end up not living our life at all. 

Fear has no place in faith. 

Fear has no place in healing.

Fear should have no place in me.

But, that’s easier said than done. 

To say that 2024 taught me how to live fearlessly would be naive. I’m still scared.

I don’t know what a healthy version of Emily looks like. I’m still trying to visualize how I would be as a happy, healthy version of myself. 

I know she’s there, however, and even though I don’t know what happens next, I have to believe that everything I’m doing will be worth it for her. 

As I look at the year before me, I have more questions than ever before, but I know I have to do it. This time, I have to show up, completely. 

No more failing, no more worrying, just doing. 

Doing on purpose. 

Healing on purpose.

Believing on purpose.