resolutions.

I suck at New Year's Eve. I can throw a pretty sweet party for just about any holiday. St. Patrick's Day? No problem. You bet that leprechaun will find his way to my house, leaving a trail of green footprints across my tile and even some green urine in the toilet for good measure. No detail remains undone. New Years? Meh. I'm not sure my poor children ever celebrated New Year's Eve (or day, for that matter), short of waking up and me pointing out it's now an entirely new year. Sometimes we share annoyances that businesses are closed or that the beach is crowded. Usually, we just retreat to the zoo for something to do. I don't know why I lose my party planning excitement for New Year's other than I've never been very good at staying up late, and I can't recall the last time I even stayed up until midnight. Resolutions are lame and no one ever keeps them, let's be real. So New Years? Meh. Meh all around.

This year, though, I feel a little differently. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to have my happy ass in bed at 9:00 struggling to stay awake through just one more binge-watching episode of Blackish, but I kind of get the appeal of a fresh slate. A little bit, anyway. Enough to maybe make my meh a smaller one this year than in years past.

My husband surprised Ethan with a day trip to Legoland for their New Years party and Carmen, my mom and I had a more low-key day at the (where else?) zoo. The neighbors are already getting into the spirit with noisemakers (can you see my side eye from here?) and I'm just counting down the minutes until bedtime, because that's how I do. But anyway, resolutions. I'm feeling it this year, maybe because the last few months have been such a gigantic breakthrough for me in so many ways.

I'm gifting myself the promise of self care this year because this is one area in which I routinely slack off. In the past, I've determined that self-care meant allowing myself time to wash my hair a couple of times a week or enjoying a non-rushed hot shower. I'm learning that these are just things that are kind of mandatory, and I have to give myself time for actual self-care: reading books that are piled up on my nightstand, taking myself on a date to the movies, going for coffee with friends or even extending my nightly walks a little longer so I can listen to all of John Moreland's albums twice just because I want to. I've been trying to practice this the last few weeks and I've noticed a huge difference in how much more refreshed I feel even when the big details don't really change (the laundry is still piled, the dishes are still hanging out dirtied on the counter, there aren't enough hours in the day still).

My hopes for this upcoming year? Allowing myself to feel -- truly feel -- inner peace without worrying about when or if the other shoe will drop. It's been a long road and I'm forever changed by the path I've walked, but I'm trying to keep my grip on peace because I've been waiting for it to arrive for a while. So that's a whole lot of peace, a whole lot of happiness -- and all the roadtrips my minivan can stand because seeing so much of this country with my babies has been such a place of joy this past year. Bring it on, adventure. Ready for you, 2018.

#selfie

I began this little blog as a place to keep friends and family in the know with my first pregnancy and then I sort of morphed things to fit neatly into the world of mommy blogs. (This just happens when you're a mom and kids rule everything around you.) 2014 saw a gigantic shift in my life when we lost our daughter, Wylie, and this space turned into a place to share grief and express myself at a time when life couldn't possibly get any scarier or lonelier. Because life moves in waves with tides that ebb and flow, this grief space eventually became an infertility journey. It was a journey that was ended when an adoption journey began -- and then wholeness. And healing. And trying to find my footing in a world that was different than it once was, yet still eerily the same.

This has been the part of my journey that I have kept closest to my heart, not necessarily in secret but certainly in a level of quietness that no one has come to expect from an over-sharer like me. It has been a journey of accepting things about myself that the world doesn't know how to see in me: a PTSD diagnosis, a child who will never be present on our chaotic family Target visits or cross-country roadtrips. It has been a journey in taping up the wounds that until now I'd left gaping and bleeding, trying my best to let the healing begin even though there will always be scars. And, oh, how there will always be scars.

I have been a pushover for most of my life, always saying yes and bending over backwards to accompany other people. I have taken on too much unnecessary stress and pain and hurt for the sake of friendship or not wanting to hurt anyone else's feelings. On my journey into wholeness and healing, I have forced myself to rid myself of this. I have forced myself to have enough self-respect to acknowledge my own feelings matter and that not all people fit into the place you're in, and that's okay. This is only one of many ways I have found myself stronger as time continues to go on. I am standing up for myself and being the example I want my children to see.

It's now nearly 2018 and after a year of self-discovery and reflection and changes in mind and body, I am ready to reclaim this space as my own in the form that I began this life as: a writer. Writing has saved my life and been my place of familiarity during all of the shifts life has made both with and without my consent. This is my resolution to myself in 2018, as I find my peace and let it fit comfortably all around me: find my words again.

Life has changed so much over the years and I've been struggling to hold on for so long. But I've got this now, and I feel bolder and stronger and more alive than I have in a while. This new year will be the start of a new journey, and I'm letting that not feel as scary as it would have sounded at one point. I took a different route to get here and my soul is forever scarred, tattered and changed, but I have reclaimed my life. For the first time, I feel the depth of my strength both mentally and physically.

And so hello, little blog, little space on the web for my words. I'm back. Promise.