End of a decade

Really, I didn't much think about New Year's this year. It just seemed like any other New Year's...the promise of a much better year ahead. The hope, the excitement, wishful thinking...every year the same. But then I really started thinking about what this is. We are moving into a whole new decade.

I am reminded of New Year, 2000. Josh and I spent the Millenium at a ranch with Josh's parents and some family friends. Everyone was in an uproar over Y2K. What was going to happen? As we all stared at the TV as New York's ball dropped, I think secretly we were all waiting for the electricity to suddenly flip off, our bank accounts to be drained, and mass hysteria to begin. And when none of that happened, we all smiled and went to sleep.

This decade has been bittersweet for me. 2001 was by far my most incredible year. That spring I completed my coursework for my major, had a wedding shower, a bridal luncheon, turned 21 May 10, began an internship at Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital on May 14, had a bachelorette party May 17, got married May 19, graduated college on August 11, took our honeymoon to Lake Tahoe the same day, bought our first small house the day we came back, and started my career as an Early Intervention Specialist at BACH on October 1. It was a banner year.

The next year was spent working and being pregnant. As I look back on it, I think I spent most of my decade depressed and struggling to find the self I lost when I became a mother. Post partum depression lasted long into my second pregnancy and after. 2009 saw me looking back on this decade with a combination of sadness and happiness. Both my children were growing faster than I would like and I searched for the last time when deep in my heart, I felt truly happy. I love my husband and my children, and I wouldn't change the way I did things, especially since I will be only 42 when my youngest child graduates high school! The thing that makes me most frustrated about myself is that I never once lived in the moment. I took too many things for granted and dwelled too much on the problems that I was having. That is no way to live.

Life is hard. Life is grand, satisfying, complex, painful, comical, frustrating, joyful, and painfully uncertain. I really thought about that this week with all my medical issues that suddenly came up. Here I am, sitting at my computer, planning Christmas for next year, and I am not guaranteed even tonight. I want to stop myself from wishing my life away. I want to make my children love each and every day possible. I can't take my bank account with me to heaven. It really doesn't mean anything in the long run (ouch that was painful to write). Instead of me thinking about all the things I didn't get to do in my 20s, I am challenging my cynical, "glass is half empty" mind to think of the joyful experiences that I did have in my 20s. Think of how much we have all grown this first decade of the 21st century.

This is my life. It is not like anyone else's. God has blessed me beyond measure and I am so greedy to want for more or anything different. I am beautifully and wonderfully made...as is my family! Come on 2010! I welcome you with open arms!!