my soul.......searched

sitting here tonight..........Sunday
in front of my laptop.....all alone.......black coffee.
this is hard.....maybe the hardest post i've ever written.
where to begin? i have no idea.
how about with honesty. i want to be real. i want truth. i want transparency.
tonight i opened a box and i found a magazine i was published in a few years back. i hadn't looked at it in probably 3 years. i felt a tugging......a pull........a gravity to write again. over the past 2 years i've been so lost, so confused, so numb. i lost my voice, my passion, my sense of self.
i've been "gone" for a while, a long while. last December my life went completely sideways in a million directions. i ended up unhappier than i've ever been.
at rock bottom, i decided to delve head first into some deep, deep soul searching and the truths that i found were pretty painful.
i looked at them.......i prayed on them, i pondered about them, i contemplated them, i just sat with them for a long while. after all of that i made a decision.
the decision that i came to was that i needed space, space to myself to be able to grow emotionally and spiritually.
last week i moved into my own apartment.
the transition.......difficult, of course.
but my soul feels alive, there's a stirring in my heart and i feel a deep sense of hope......a big hope, a hope that everything isn't just going to be okay but that everything is going to be amazing.......eventually.
right now? no
but in time........yes. what the future holds i have no earthly idea but what i can tell you is that i feel more authentically me than i have in probably 20 years.
that seems a bit extreme i know but it's the truth. the way my soul has been evolving over the past few months has been amazing.......something i have never experienced actually.
i've had an awakening......
i'm alive again. the fog has lifted.  i can see clearly. i can feel deeply. 
life is messy.......sometimes the biggest messes turn into the biggest miracles, so my heart and my mind are open to whatever God sends my way.
and with that i'll say good night.

it was she, simply me

I have been blogging for 5 years. I started blogging as a journal simply to keep family and friends up to date on my first pregnancy with my son Milton in 2009. I never intended for anyone I didn't know to read it and I also never knew how much I'd love it. A lot has changed along the way and this is in fact the third blog I've created. I have found they all take on a life of their own and sometimes we outgrow them, our life changes, our family changes, our creative ideas change which means our blogs change too; naturally of course as have mine.

That first blog I speak of was, how should I put this? Very primitive. Ha! That's a good way to describe it. It was just an extremely simple reflection on what I was experiencing as a newly pregnant mom in New York City at the time. I didn't know anything about photography or what might be interesting to people and frankly didn't really care. That blog was solely for me and my immediate family. I'm not sure I've ever even shared the reminisce of that blog but here it is if you would like to see my first days at the keyboard. My first blog was called Baby Villarrubia. It brings back such crazy memories when I look through those posts now. I suppose that's exactly why blogging is so amazing because there is no way I would be scrapbooking my everyday life but blogging, that I can do and I've got a fabulous anytime journal to look back on nowadays.

After a time I realized I really loved blogging and I wanted to share more than just family posts and pictures about my baby. I wanted to share recipes, inspiration, fitness, and creativity so I started yet another blog to encompass all of that and more. It inspired me to be a better mom, a better wife and a more adventurous, fun person. It enhanced my natural strengths, and I found myself suddenly surrounded by the most amazing community that I had no idea even exhisted. I was hooked.

If any of you know me I'm sure it's from my second blog  Bouffe e Bambini. This is the blog I had for 4 years and I posted on it very consistently. This blog really completed me. It did something for me that I  was unable to find anywhere else. As a mom to several small infants at one time I was extremely lonely. In fact I had never felt more lonely in all my life and that little blog was my savior. I met and connected with other moms, other moms who understood me. I could give advice and get advice and it was EXACTLY what I needed at the time.  Honestly, it's what got me through the really hard days. The days when I was literally dredging through the trenches of sleepless, messy, screaming, crying motherhood. I was so exhausted and beat down some days that I didn't know how I would survive when suddenly I found myself surrounded by an amazing loving community of women. So because of this blog and this community I was able to make it through some of the hardest moments of my life, my life as a mother because by God this motherhood thing is the hardest damn thing I've ever even come close to trying to do. I mean just,  wow!  That little blog Bouffe e Bambini allowed me to have a time and a space to be me again and not just be someone's beaten down exhausted mother. I made friends. I felt heard and listened to. It was fun and I felt important again. I loved it. I loved it for a long time.

As time went on things changed. I changed. My life changed and I went through some really difficult times. The Bouffe e Bambini chapter had clearly come to an end. My ideas and creativity started to feel forced. I started to feel obligated to post and felt like I was scraping the bottom of the barrel for content.  I felt judged, and let's face it, I definitely got judged. That's what happens when you put the raw emotions and details of your messy life out for all to see. I like sharing my messy imperfect life.  I love encouraging others by letting them know they are not alone in their struggles. I am no stranger to the struggle. There were some unkind things said about me and it really, really bothered me.  The worst parts about it is I let it affect me. I let it hurt me. I let it stifle my creativity.
 I was naive. Honestly, I didn't know there were people in the online community who were really and truly out to hurt others. I learned that one the hard way. I learn a lot of things the hard way. So Bouffe e Bambini had been coming to an end for a long time and when these hurtful things were said it just cemented the deal for me. Bouffe e bambini had come to an end,  naturally.

 So, I let it be for almost a year hardly posting at all and you know what? I missed it like crazy. I LOVE blogging. I truly believe it's something that lives and breathes in me but Bouffe e Bambini was over. The chapter had very clearly ended; The thing that had once been my savior, my everything had become tainted.   I could't forget about it and I couldn't make a new start in that space so I decided to start a new blog. So here I am starting over from scratch and it actually feels REALLY good.  I have a fresh attitude, different ideas and a bit more of a free spirit of truly embracing ME and just ME whatever that may be.  It was the perfect time. So here I am; simply she, simply me.

The moment I decided to start a new blog the name {Simply She} was the very first thing that came to my mind. It was perfect in it's own way for what I was going through. I am striving to live a simple life among what some might call chaos. I hope this blog will be filled with a variety of things like recipes, creativity, my family, my thoughts, some beauty, some struggle, my health adventures and some inspiration. Thank you so much for coming by. I hope to see a lot more of you here around my new space.

And please do pardon my mess as I haven't set up any of my "pages" on the sidebar yet but I was just so eager to connect with you all again I wanted to just get a quick post out there. Cheers.

Here we are,  me and my crew. I am so happy to back.

I would love to hear from you new or old friends:) 

xoxo Hanna