As a year comes to an end, I always reflect back on the moments that made it what it was. This year happens to feel like 3 wrapped into one…201920202021 was a mashed-up blur of heartbreak and growth, burning it down and building it back again, over and over. It was a draft of a script that was re-written so many times, you end up back where it all started. You could say it went by in the blink of an eye but only if the blink felt like 100 years if it felt like a moment. You could say it was tragic and grief-stricken but only if you leave out the parts where the babies grew and took first steps and you got to kiss them and feel their chubby arms wrapped around your neck. You could call it a lot of things but all you need to call it is life. In all of its beauty and pain, nobody said it would be easy.
When I talked to my coach tonight, my mind felt fuzzy and scattered and I had a pit in my stomach. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to talk about and I didn’t feel like I had a goal in mind. I started with one thing and ended up a million miles away, always circling back to the same topic of grief. But as we talked about the grief, we also talked about the beauty, the love, the mothering. We talked about unconditional love and compassion and the idea that maybe she taught me how to do it all along, not just for my kids, but for myself.
I reflected back to who I was when I was sitting on the coffee table in my parents’ living room with a newborn baby in my lap, hearing news that would change everything. I thought about who I was months later when shit got real and we started to get a glimpse of what this disease was capable of. I thought about a memory that popped up from just a year ago when overnight, neither one of my parents could walk and our care level tripled. There were so many new normals, I forgot what normal had ever looked like. The life we started comparing to was only slightly easier than the life we were facing.
Tonight, I sit alone at a restaurant eating a steak and drinking Moscow Mules. Sheryl Crow sings sweet nothings through my AirPods and words flow from my fingertips. I reflect on the year that was and can’t help but acknowledge how it shaped the person that sits behind this keyboard. I feel proud. I feel loved. I feel sad. I feel gutted. I feel whole. I feel resilient. I feel grateful. I acknowledge the resentments that linger and give myself grace in processing still-raw emotions. I think I’m closer to finding myself than I’ve ever been and there is a great sense of freedom and peace in wholly embracing that journey. She gave me a lot of gentle words of advice over the years that I usually ignored but right now if she could, I feel like she would tell me not to lose myself in it all. Just be. Also, put your laundry away. And I think I might listen this time.
Until next time,
-T-
