All is Found

51

It took me a little while to come to terms with the fact that I won six Grammys. I don't think it sunk in until I got the awards in the mail at the beginning of the month. When they came it took me a while to figure out where to put them all. I took all of the old awards from the beginning of my career off the book shelves I have next to the fire place and put them in a box. I replaced them with my AMA's and the VMA's and placed all of the Grammys on the mantle. It's going to take a lot for me to move them.

The past two months have been full of selfcare. I've been going to physical therapy to build my endurance back up along with weekly therapy sessions with Doctor Blake. My doctor's appointments have also now become monthly which I'm happy about. They will probably stay like that for a while because they want to track the progress of the regrowth of my liver. The week after I came home from New York I had a follow up appointment with my throat doctor who cleared me to start singing again. I was super happy about that because I wanted to get back to working on my album.

Today is actually my album release day. Once I was cleared to sing again, sing I did. I went right into working on the rest of the songs for the album and pumped them out pretty quick. Most of the other work on the songs was done already so it was just the matter of cutting the vocals. After the vocals were done on each song I sent the album to Toby for approval and then the album went to get mixed and master.

March 19, 2021 will be forever in my mind now. The day my first true album gets released. I ended up titling it Alone in a Room because of how much weight is on that song. It means a lot to me and I want people to focus on that one track in particular. The album cover art was a picture Nikki took of me in my bathroom sitting against the white wall.

During the process of finishing the album Thea was right by my side. On good days and bad she was always right there giving me a dose of reality whether I wanted it or not. I feel like it definitely helped me get the album done faster. Sometimes I would sit around and play and change a song for days when I should have just left it alone in the first place. Thea helped me with that.

On days when I wasn't working on the album Thea and I worked on wedding plans. We picked at date, May 8th of this year and it was coming up sooner then I think we both realized. At first we didn't really know where we wanted to get married. I've never been to a wedding so I didn't know what to expect. Thea already went through this once before so she suggested hiring a wedding planner and I'm so thankful she mentioned it. It took a lot of the stress off my shoulders with planning everything.

We hired Emily just after we got home from New York. She gave us a lot of suggestions and we ending up booking Wychmere Beach Club in Cape Cod. We got to tour the venue and saw how beautiful the place looks at sunset and thought we had to book it. Last week we went back to venue to preview and taste test the menu. We also nailed down the décor and color pallet we wanted to go with. The center pieces were going to be floral arrangements and that was about it when it came to décor.

Even though I had plenty of money to cover anything we might want to include, I didn't want to overdo it. I always liked the simple look of things; less is more when you plan it right. With this being her second wedding, Thea also didn't want it to be a major production either. Thea decided that she didn't want to wear her police uniform, she wanted to wear a dress. I was all for it.

Along with wedding plans we also decided that Thea is going to move in with me. She has been basically living here since we got home from the hospital so I thought it would be the next logically step for now. I've told Thea I'm open to moving somewhere new in Salem if she wanted but for the moment she's content with moving into my house. We have been starting to make room for things and rearranging furniture in the house as she brought more and more over. Thea hasn't put her house on the market yet and I'm fine with it. I also told her she doesn't have to sell it if she doesn't want too.