nye

I was antsy for 2014 to give way to 2015. Once Wylie died, I was eager for a new year, a fresh start; it seemed like a plausible way to crawl myself out of the hole I'd found myself in. The walls of despair and doom and pain seemed climbable once the proverbial slate was wiped clean. In actuality, it didn't really pan out that way. 2015 was the year I found myself diagnosed with unexplained secondary infertility and a grim report on interventions being successful (and not gestating another child whose heart would be too broken to survive). 2014 pulled the rug out from under me and knocked me to the ground and 2015 just kept up the brutal assault. I didn't have much hope for 2016 other than to keep surviving. We had finalized our plans to begin the adoption process but yet happiness seemed so far away. It wasn't long into 2016 that we got the call that would change our lives forever: she chose you to parent, and the baby was just born.

And then this year, 2016, unfolded in all of it's glory. There was uproarious laughter and chaos and crying and bottles and juggling schedules and messy living room floors and perfection, all of it. Each day like a dream, a sleep-deprived stupor in which two small children were both reaching to me with arms outstretched; both capable of being held, carried, rocked in my arms. Real. Really real. Two children needing to be fed and needing me, all of me, until I wearily fell asleep each night so drained and yet so full. So very full.

I am apprehensive about the new year and what it means in terms of the ugliness and hatred that seems to have coated this country. I am saddened by the steps back we have taken as a society and intimidated by the height of the mountain we must climb to reclaim the victory of kindness. But 2016 gave me my fight back. It gave me my will to go on, to know that I can take on a lot more than I ever believed possible.

Ready or not.