Make out like it never happened . . .
It is the tail end of the year, and it’s time for some sort of a wrap-up post. Ish. Thing. I make no promises of coherency.
This year was a difficult one in many ways, but the biggest way was a very personal one. Some of you know about this, but while Scott and I weren’t making a big secret of it, we weren't exactly advertising. For the past year and a half, Scott and I have been trying to have a baby. During that time, I have had two miscarriages, and a lot of really disappointing months of hoping to no avail. So now, after a few months of some minor and failed fertility treatment, we have decided that we would like to adopt children, instead of riding this impossible emotional roller coaster any longer. I am still grieving some for the idea of being pregnant, and having a child of my body. But we are both committed to being parents, and we know we will love a child that has come into the world through another, but needs us to be mom and dad. I don’t know how much I want to be open online about the process, but we’ll start filling out paperwork for the Foster/Adoption program this coming month, and begin all the training and home visits and everything that is necessary. I don’t know how long it will take, but we hope to be parents sometime in this new year. I expect the emotional roller coaster to be just as emotional and roller coastery, but with luck less impossible. This is bound to be amazing and frightening, and I may lose my fool mind from time to time. You may even read about it online. But I can’t say how much I’ll want to reveal here, because it took awhile for me to want to tell anyone at all about the miscarriages. It’s gotten easier, as time has passed. But I still tear up at just the word, so . . . who knows. But I find it is the biggest part of my life right now - this journey to being parents.
This holiday season has been a fight to keep off the melancholy, as I've contemplated what it would be like if either of those bundles of cells had become a baby. And so I've been trying to think about what next year could be like, instead. And the years after that. So this new year is fraught with hope and anxiety, and I step into it with a lot of deep breathing and the overwhelming desire to organize absolutely everything in the house. Alphabetically. With footnotes. This could get ugly. But I have no follow-through, so instead I'll probably just start throwing things into bins and labeling them "stuff." But the labels will be colorful, at least.
That's not to say that the season hasn't been wonderful, as well. I've been catching up with old friends, spending time with those I love, and enjoying a quiet and relatively stress-free xmas here at our house on hilly hill. We had a lovely xmas eve going out to see movies, and then a nice quiet morning opening presents and eating cinnamon rolls. And Michelle and Jared came over for dinner, which was fantastic, because Scott and Michelle and Jared are all good cooks. I made cookies and jello salad. Stick with yer strengths. (The cookies and jello were good, too. If I do say so myself.)
On a lighter and brighter side, my writing is coming back. Drips and drabs and spurts, but I can write again. The YA novel I’ve been working on is something like ½ done, for a rough, that is to say, zero, draft. It keeps surprising me, and I keep at it. I’m not at the 50,000 word mark I was hoping for, for this month. It’s probably more like 30,000 words right now. But I’m still plugging away, and it’s moving forward. I count this as a win. I find it interesting that if I make a goal, I start to panic, even though that goal/deadline is entirely arbitrary and means nothing to anyone but me. But panic I do, and then I get stuck on something, and then I can’t write. So I think I’ll let my soft goal of finishing something so that first readers can crack at it be just that - soft and moveable. If I have something by the end of January, I do. If not, well, then I don’t. Panic is not necessary, I tell my lizard brain. No one will come stand over me and shout and shake their finger at me and call me a failure. Just settle down. And yet, the lizard brain is pretty sure of judgment. I believe this comes of overly judgmental teachers in early primary school, and a pervasive Midwestern mindset that no matter what, we are always letting someone down. Why do we feel this way? I blame Protestantism. Or maybe my Swedish ancestors. Bloody Swedes.
Other than that, this year I am feeling the need to fight the early-middle-aged weight gain (gleefully helped along by hormones) with extra aerobic type exercise, so I've begun using the little gym at work. I'm up to 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer, which was my goal for the end of this year, so there it is. I've lost a few pounds, and I'm aiming to be in awesome-tastic shape in general, and in specific for the Exit Space show this year (coming up in June, I believe) and also for my friend Michelle's wedding in August. I also aim to stop spending time and energy worrying about my weight. Which means ... I have to spend time and energy worrying about calorie input and output. Which ... doesn't really seem that different somehow. Sigh. But it seems to be working, so we'll go with that.
I'm still dancing at the Exit Space studio in Greenlake, and I love everyone there. Going there and dancing has been the single biggest stress relief and expression of emotion and joy that I have, and Marlo Martin has created a place that I feel comfortable just being me and being where I am. So I'd like to thank her for that.
And I'd like to thank all of my friends and family for being so wonderful and supportive, and for being in my life. You are all wonderful, and I love you all. Thanks, happy holidays, and happy new year.