RETIRED.

I think it's time.

It's been more than two months since my last post, and that one was just apologizing for not posting more. Seems to me the journey of this particular blog has come to an end.

What began as a chronicling of my return to the family farm in late 2006 evolved in late 2008 into just figuring myself out. After a whirlwind two years where my identity so quickly became that of a young cheesemaker on my family's farm, who was I? Still the Dairy Princess? The Cheese Queen?

When we were first told we weren't a good fit for the company, and then had to immediately distance ourselves from the cheese and the life that had so encompassed us, it felt as if my heart and soul were left in that Dutch cheese vat lined with teak. But I've only recently realized my heart and soul are and always have been right where they need to be.

What happened between my mom & stepfather and my husband & I was very truly like a divorce. Legal proceedings happened. Terrible things were said. Accusations were made. Children were put in the middle. Sides were taken. I found myself on the front page of the local gossip rag with a very false and damaging charge of embezzlement. It. Was. Ugly.

Being true to my instincts and PR roots and keeping a sort of strong-yet-optimistic air, on these pages and out in public, has been difficult. "Oh, you know, these things happen in farm families," I'd say while I blogged about learning to make loaves of bread. "I'm sure it'll work itself out, it just takes time," I said to people who asked whether we'd reconciled in time to invite them to the wedding.

And in the interim I was still trying to figure it all out for myself. I married an amazing, incredible man who took up his post at the helm of one of the greatest support systems in existence. I delved into the Four Agreements and continued into a four-day-a-week yoga practice. I'm gradually coming into my complete expression of myself, which believe it or not does not concern what I do for a living.

So I think now I'm finally ok with letting go. It's really not appropriate for me to fill these pages with so much personal stuff when the backlog concerns a life on a farm that I'm finally not feeling so connected to anymore. I wince when I notice the explosion of cheese-related blogs that are linking to this space. "Wait, no, don't do that!" I want to say to them, because I haven't made cheese for nearly two years and may not again for another two. And then that post I was going to write, ranting about some public affair or another, or chronicling my steps in what I can only cheesily call my spiritual journey (or my "Oprah Bullshit" as my good friend Jess calls it) will now toss and turn in my brain because it has nothing. to. do. with. cheese.

Ah, but back to being a cheesemaker. That was me. I was her. And I was pretty damn good at it. But if I'm not currently making cheese, do I still consider myself a cheesemaker? Absofuckinglutely. John and I will make cheese again, we hope sooner than later, on our own terms, on our own farm, to satisfy our own dreams. And I promise to let you know about it when it happens!

Ciao for now,
Mandy, formerly Dairy Princess