May 7th

Today marks the anniversary of a special day for me. Three years ago, I graduated from Olivet Nazarene University. Class of 2016 y'all! I graduated with a Bachelors in Science even though I was an art major with a concentration in photography and a business minor. Man, three years. My life has truly changed in those three years. Let's be real, my life is NO where I thought it would be by now. Let's take a trip back down the past three years, shall we?

In the past three years, I have gotten to do some traveling. As graduation gifts, I got to do an individual trip with my mother and my father. My momma and I got to explore Ireland on a two week trip through Globus. I totally recommend Globus for any trips around the world! They're amazing and you meet amazing people from all over the world! I have even been inspired to write a short story about a girl who goes to Ireland when her life takes a crazy change. It is still in the works. But in all seriousness a big part of my heart was left in Ireland.

We got to see the whole country in two weeks. When life was getting rough in the past few years, I always wanted to just grab my passport, hop on a plan to Ireland and just go wherever and maybe never come back or come back when I was in a better place. I would just worked on my story and do photography there. God that still sounds tempting now.

Now about the trip with my dad. We did a week long road trip to North Carolina and Georgia. So much driving! We played the license plate game and my dad said he'd pay me x amount of money if I saw a federal plate, an Alaska plate and a Hawaii plate. Guess who saw all three!? Anyways, I had always wanted to go to North Carolina due to all of the Nicholas Sparks books I've read, and my dad just started planning a road trip. I've never been on a road trip really until then. We stayed at the Baltimore Estate in Asheville, NC. GORGEOUS! I am so fortunate that we got to stay on the property. We got to do a lot of cool things. We went down to the "little town" which hosted about ten shops, and one being this amazing ice cream parlor that my dad LOVED! They also had horses on property that we were checking out. They were surrounded by an electric fence, and that was the one and only time I was electrocuted. That shit really hurts!

So after being in North Carolina for five days, we made of way to Georgia. Savannah specifically. It was very beautiful, and very historic. We went on this two hour boat cruise on the water where we listened to a live band perform. It was memorable. We were going to spend two days in Savannah but only decided to spend one and made a long drive home. Both of these trips will be remembered forever. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Both of those trips took place in 2016. In May of 2017, my mom and I took off on our own little road trip. We drove south to Nashville, Tennessee! That is when my mom finally started falling in love with country music! Nashville was wonderful. We both already want to go back. We got to explore Nashville, go to some bars, buy some cowboy boots, meet some amazing people and see some amazing performers perform at the Opry, including my favorite, Tyler Farr. He literally heard me screaming from the balcony! OOPS!

Not only did we go to Nashville, but we also continued our trip to Memphis, Tennessee. Home of the King himself, Elvis Presley! We got to tour Graceland and see his home, as well as his plane. That was a cool experience. I didn't really want to do it but my momma did so we went and I'm glad we did. We also got to meet up with one of my friends from college. she lives and teaches down there. We met up for dinner, and had some true southern BBQ and baby, it was soo good. I never really liked BBQ sauce before that trip and now, I love it! Another amazing part of Memphis was we came across this BEAUTIFUL, old cemetery. One of my favorites. It was a beautiful amount of nature, history and life thrown in all together. Let's just say, Memphis was good to us.

From there we started making our way up to Springfield to head back home. I had never been to Springfield, which to me is crazy to me because, well, it is our state's capital! So my mom and I, again, adventured around Springfield and I truly think a part of my heart was left there as well. We visited Lincoln's tomb as well as all of these memorials for past wars. One even had a name of one of my dad's buddies from his childhood, Robert Swan. That was pretty amazing seeing his name and sending my dad some pictures. I actually went back to Springfield on my honeymoon and saw that memorial again. Springfield is somewhere I'd consider moving too, it was just so beautiful and historical.

One last trip that I have made in the past three years was to Michigan in November of this past year. I was turning 25 and 2018 was a pretty rough year, and I was starting the next big chapter of my life by doing something super exciting. I had never been to Michigan before and I needed to get away. My mom and I spent three days there. We stayed in Holland, which was absolutely adorable! We also got to see all the cute little beach towns. I got some amazing photographs. It was the perfect way to turn 25 and start fresh. It was probably one of my best birthdays.

One big changed from when I graduated to today is that I am single! If you have followed my blog then you have read about my divorce and know a lot of what I went through, especially in 2018. So I am not going to relive that/hash it out again. If you haven't then go check out some of my past articles.

In all serious though, it is still hard for me to say from time to time that I am single. You know, I met my ex husband back in January of 2015. Y'all, I literally just questioned myself if that year was right. I kind of have blocked out a lot of that relationship because of the pain it caused me in the end. That's rough. Anyways, when I met my ex, I was going into my second semester of my junior year. We were really in a long distant relationship for the first year and a half. Yes I was home for the summer but we still lived 20-30 minutes apart.

So we met in January 2015, we got engaged in March of 2016 during my senior year spring break, we got married in October of 2017, and we got divorced in August of 2018. Four dates that truly changed my life. I'm so unsure of how to feel about what I just wrote. God, it has been almost been nine months since I've been divorced. Eleven of being separated. Honestly, it still hurts from time to time, but I truly thank God for helping me learn about my self. Teaching me how to have self love. Teaching me that it is okay to walk out of a toxic situation. Teaching me that it is okay to not be okay, but also teaching me how to be strong in learning to lean on others when I can no longer lean on myself. With that, it brings me into my last part of these three live changing years.

I just stated a little but in these past three years, I have discovered myself! the smile that was just put on my face by writing that. I truly can not believe that it has been three years since I was a college student. Hell, three years since I have been just a student! Can you believe that I was in school for 19 years straight. 19 years. Just wow. Anyways! So really in the past year, I have truly learned the most about myself. In college, I really became independent and started learning about life, but this past year, I really learned about me.

This picture was taken the day my life was changed.

I'm saving up to get my own place that I can call my home. Some where that I can be me, create art and just learn to live as an independent person. This past year I have started taking care of me. My mental health, my life style with eating, working out and taking better care of me. I still have a long way to go but people are noticing changes. I am noticing changes. I am loving myself from the inside out. I have more confidence. I feeling so much better. I have more energy time to time. I'm still making art; more that ever! I go to the gym. I have created a better Sarah and that is truly what I wanted to do going into 2019 and with turning 25. I am no longer a child. I am an adult and I need to make better choices. I am no where where I thought I would be at this point in my life. Hell, I thought I'd still be married and would be considering having babies or buying a house by now and let's be real, where i am at with life is truly where God wanted me to be!

There are two things that I am super proud of from this past year. One is that I have recreated my website. Quealy's Photography has gotten a face lift and I love it. I am truly trying to add to it and get more work posted. It is taking some time but I finally created something that was mainly focused towards my cemetery photography and everything else just fell into play.

The other is that I created and recreated my blog. When I was in the middle of my divorce, after my separation, I needed a new outlet. Something to give me life again. Something to do when I was getting sad or needed to take my stress away. Something that would make me happy. I've been writing my whole life; let it be short stories, about my daily life, or blogging. I love writing. I'm not the best. I make grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, I've been doing that forever, but I am getting better at it. Writing is just one way for me to express me, and hopefully my stories can affect and change other people's lives.

My life has been a crazy amount of forks in the road the last three years. I'm hoping the next three years are just as crazy, but that my life starts moving into a direction of what I hope my life will be like in the long run. In all seriousness, what does that look like? I know what I want it to look like but in the end it is all God's plan. So cheers to the next three years y'all.

Sarah ♥︎