So, my life has been utter chaos for the last few months. A few days ago, my sweet little William sent me a text reminding me that I needed to write my monthly post here on Love Bytes. After a rather explicit explosion of surprise that it had come up that soon, I asked him to give me a topic. I’ve been at the writer/blogger thing for about seven years now (wow) and sometimes, it’s just a blank slate up there.

His suggestion: change.

For those who don’t know, my life is changing in a few months to something completely alien to me. I’m moving half way across the country for no other reason than I want to. I’ll be away from my support base for the first time in my life, and I’m moving to a place where I actually have friends. Here in Chicago, I live about 45 minutes outside the city, so the few times I go out with friends, it’s a planned event with transportation and sometimes hotel stays. It’s cumbersome and crazy, but in Atlanta, I’ll be living in the city and close to the amazing group of friends I’ve made there over the years.

When I stopped in Atlanta this past weekend to look for an apartment with my new roommate Shae Connor, there were more people who wanted to see me than I had time for in the short span I had. I just kept telling them, I’ll be back in 2 months. My core group of friends stayed around me all weekend, because finding and being approved for an apartment really brought home the enormity of what I was doing. So kudos to Shae Connor, Perry Cavalari (and his beautiful boyfriend), Jake Driver (and his beautiful boyfriend), Boy Pup Isaac, and Zack Taylor for making me feel loved and supported as I took the next step in changing my life.

Lots of other things will be changing too – while my day job has asked me to stay on in my current position, I’ll be working from my place in Atlanta. I’ll miss seeing the guys I work with every day; that will be a huge change for all of us. I’m also not sure what’s going to happen with my career as JP. While I can’t imagine not writing, I have other things that I want to do now and writing/promoting/conferences/blogging/etc is time consuming. I’ll make a firmer decision on that when I’m down there and things have settled.

For right now, I’m working on sweet little Anthony because I promised Aaron I would give his little brother his own happy ending. Anthony really got the short end of the stick after Aaron’s attack. It tears Aaron up the way his brothers’ lives were broken right along with his. Allen got to go off to college and escape the insanity, but Anthony….he wasn’t quite so lucky. I won’t leave him the drug-addicted brother of a lunatic, as he calls himself. He’s earned his HEA—it’s about time he got it.

One last thought about change—while it’s scary and unnerving (whooboy, is it), sometimes, it’s amazing and wonderful. Close your eyes and jump because sometimes someone catches you, sometimes you fall, and sometimes you catch yourself. Two out of three of those options are awesome, and those are pretty good odds.

XOXO,

JP