Happy New Year's Eve!
So, today is the last day of 2008. This new year is so bittersweet - I hate to say goodbye to the year that my daughter was born (even if she was born near the year's end!).
Before my two kids, I always had a hard time with change and been ever-reluctant to say "goodbye" to the passing years. As a young girl, I would cry each time the school year ended (I hated change); I would cry once the holidays were over (what would I have to look forward to once Christmas had passed?); I would dread the fall because it signaled another year coming to an end...I was a complicated little thing, as my mom always said!
My husband would use my boxes of "crap" i.e. old school papers (from 6th grade to law school!), grade school love-notes, nametags, airline tickets, cards from friends, and you-name-it-and-I-put-it-in-a-box as the #1 evidence of my relucance to move on from just about anything. Gavin's arrival helped to get me past this "keep everything, change nothing" mentality. With him in my arms, I jumped into motherhood with excitement for the new phases, new challenges, new days - new everything.
I no longer feel so sad when time passes and different periods of my life end because I have my children to bring their love and joy to each new phase and new year. Granted, I do take tons of photos and save important momentos (locks of his hair, first pair of shoes, artwork, and the like), but they are just momentos and don't bring me the kind of sadness for the past that they would have before I became a mother.
It is hard to explain....Gavin just changed the way I lived my life. I just completely trust that each day, each year will be better than the next with him (and now Mila) in it. My husband always half-jokes that he should have been this reason for change, but it was becoming a mom that made the difference in my out-look.
...So welcome 2009, and the health, love, happiness, and good things that it will bring!
