Finding Starlight In A Challenging Year
My fingers have been typing more of my novel than blogs. The last blog I wrote was December 30th, 2022. I always write a year end blog and, even though I wrote no other entries this year, I wanted to be certain I made this one happen.
No one tells you what it is like when heartbeats cease to exist. It isn’t a slow burn; it is a breath and then its gone. A brief candle, as Shakespeare wrote. I’ve heard and lost two heartbeats. In February of this year, while nauseous to my teeth, everything going wrong every hour of my labor, I listened to my daughter’s heartbeat and mine. It grounded me, reminded me hers was the heartbeat that stayed and soon would be separate from mine. Though even as I write this, I don’t believe that’s truth. We still share the same heart. She is very much a part of me even though she is rapidly becoming a little person. I will never forget the silence of my losses and the resounding cry of my child when she entered the world.
Someday I’ll write my birth story. Today is not that day.
This year I broke open. My body was bruised and battered from labor and surgery; I looked like I had been put through a washing machine. Every inch of me ached. I was thrown into a tailspin of the disappointment and horror of my very scary experience and discovering how perfect my daughter was. It shouldn’t have mattered, but it did. Another thing to carry with me in my trauma backpack, I suppose.
I always pick a word or phrase for the year. Last year, I picked Be Present for 2023. A wise choice for my first year of parenthood because I am not sure it allows you not to be. Nor would I want to be any less present than I was. Watching my daughter grow and see the world, it is a precious magic I am thankful I sank into and devoured alongside her.
I have never been more content and sure that moving back to NYC almost five years ago after leaving for a brief spell was the right thing to do. My entire soul is here in my chosen family, the museums, the theater, my past, present and future. The pulse of the pavement, the noise, the smells, the food. I have been grown closer to many of my dear ones. They’ve allowed me the space to grow as a mother and learn who I am now. I belong here, with them. Never will I doubt that again.
A lot of grim, terrible and ugly moments grip me as we head into the next year. We are watching a war unfold on our tiny pocket computers. I have friends who are suffering and scared. I’ve written so many condolences this year that always feel empty for the brutal losses they are in response to. So many leaving far too soon. The weight of the world is heavy and the year ahead already has a cloud over it like the Nazgul are ready to fly.
Yet there is hope.
My small corner of the world welcomed other rainbow babies beside my own. I’ve been honored to watch friends also become mothers and fathers. Tiny miracles have happened. I am in awe of how the universe provides for those who never stop wishing. So many bright, brilliant spots await in 2024. I can’t dwell on the dim realities that always exist. They aren’t going anywhere. What is life without them? It’s the perfect day over and over. How can we know how precious it all is?
In spite of it all, I’ve felt lighter this year. I went through fucking hell the last few years, pandemic not included. I think because I’ve experienced such a powerful storm, the sun feels extra warm on my skin. I saw an end result to my labor that did not have me in it and I am still here, with my daughter who is made of absolute starlight, completing our wonderful family. It was almost gone so simply as if it never even happened.
So I can’t sweat the small stuff. Not anymore. My word for next year is Bloom. I think of myself inside a seed pod, reforming and growing into something new. A combination of motherhood and myself with all the pain, progress, passion, and power I have inside my bones. I want to spread my petals, let the sun feed me. Tell my people I love them. Write my story. Experience the world through my daughter’s brand new eyes.
I enter a new decade in 2024. This is like an extra blank page for me. A whole decade to fill. I think of my last decade and how much it contains. It is almost bursting. It is surreal how much I fit into ten years. It feels like an entire lifetime. Some days it never feels like it is enough. Like I am enough. Then I remember where I was at age 30 and how much has changed, from the most memorable days of my life to the downright horrific. I am not the same person I was then.
Can’t wait to see who I bloom into next.
