Where Are We?

Living Life in the Slow Lane

Me with my favorite muse, Dulce.

I used to think of the Slow Lane as somewhere I didn't want to be. It was that space in between where I was, and where I wanted to go.

But that was then, and this is now. 

I did the work to move myself forward, and my life changed. 

So who am I and what is this blog all about?

My name is Kelly Ospina. I'm a mom, an activist, a former foster parent, an on-again/off-again writer.

I started blogging at a time when I literally felt my life was Stuck in the Slow Lane, so that's what I decided to call the blog. Life became an even bumpier ride when I took on three foster kids, ages 2, 5, and 7. Since I didn't know if the kids would go home or not, I got serious about saving to buy a house, and about writing. 

Thankfully, the kids and their mom were reunited (it was touch-and-go there, for awhile) and got their own place in July of 2014. I closed on my condo in July of 2016, achieving a life-long dream to become a home owner. I also had two of my flash fiction stories published on everydayfiction.com,

I thought I had life pretty well figured out at that  point, but then the pandemic came along and everything changed yet again. My office based job abruptly became work from home. The work I had been doing disappeared (trade show planning), so I had to find myself something else to do. That segued into software administration and today my focus is systems integration. I sure didn't see that coming, but I love it. We never did go back to the office and I've been homebased ever since.

As if the pandemic wasn't horrifying enough, my mom was diagnosed with stage IV pancreatic cancer at the height of it. Everything else fell away, and the focus of my life, and that of my siblings, became spending as much time with her as we could. She mostly ignored her cancer (while strictly adhering to doctor's orders) and lived her life with intention for the next two and a half years. She passed away in January of 2022. 

In another surprise move, I sold my beloved condo, left the community I'd lived in most of my life and bought the house across the street from my dad in his 55+ community in another area of the state. Now I'm back to living life in the Slow Lane, in a whole new way, but these days it feels like the right place to be.