The 1st Day of my 43rd Year

The 1st Day of my 43rd Year

So after no blogging for far too long it felt a bit too narcissistic to post on my actual birthday.  So I waited until the day after.

I can’t say I’m sorry to wave bye bye to my 42nd year.  It was less than awesome.  In the past 365 days, I have injured both knees (not at the same time cuz that would have been far too convenient!).  The first caused lots of pain but healed nicely with physical therapy.  The second one was way more annoying.  Surgical repair.  6 weeks on crutches (which, of course I didn’t do) and now I’m facing 8 to 12 weeks of physical therapy.  Let me make sure you understand me.  In the big scheme of things this is no big deal.  I have friends who have battled cancer, kidney disease and a host of terrible health issues.  I know that a  chubby girl who can’t stop falling and screwing up her knees is not the stuff of sympathy worthy posts. But to fully understand the roller coaster of depression, shame, anger and fury I have been on for the past year, well…the injuries are kind of important.  Having been lucky enough to live most of my life pain free, I can tell you this.  I’m just not tough enough to have chronic health problems.  My hat’s off to those of you who battle this every day.  I now have a new appreciation for people addicted to pain meds.  I totally get it now.  Because, if we’re being honest, we’re all addicted to not being in pain.  But most of us don’t have to prove it every day.  And pain is just so exhausting.  No one seems to talk about this.  I used to think a lot about a lot of things.  Poetry, music, art, politics.  As an introvert, my life is lived mainly in my head and there’s just a lot going on up there.  I am a ridiculously interesting person in my mind.  I rarely get bored.  But this year most of those interesting thoughts were replaced with one thought…”Ouch”. When it hurts to walk, sleep, sit or stand, you just tend to focus on that.  And it wasn’t far into this adventure that I realized no one wants to hear that your knee hurts 20 times a day.  I totally get this but can I tell you that a person in pain wants to mention this 3000 times a day so if you know someone like this, try to cut em a break.

 

So, what else happened this year?

I discovered I can’t eat dairy.  This is literally worse than the knee problems.  More on the Whole 30 and how it changed my life but I still hate it in a later post.

Emily got a place of her own.  She’s happy as a clam and living quite independently.  So yay!  But I miss Kayden so much.  So Boo!

I got to visit Ireland and France as a tag-a-long on one of Kevin’s business trips.  Once in a lifetime experience.  Still seems like I dreamed it.

Savannah graduated high school.  Got her first real job over the summer and then started college this fall.  I saved my mental breakdown until she moved into the dorms.  She comes home every weekend but I still feel like the world is off kilter without her living at home.

My website is chugging along.  We were featured in an article in the National media.  We continue to publish a weekly article in an actual newspaper that no one probably reads.  We aren’t generating an income yet but Lauren and I are putting our profits into a retirement account which is ironic as mompreneurs never actually get to stop working.

We’ve attended two churches in the past 2 years and both of the pastors have quit for different reasons.  I don’t blame myself obviously but I’m positive God is trying to teach me something.

The kids are all ok.  Not without struggles and challenges of course (are we ever?)  But we’ve had worse years for sure.

I am still married.  (I never take this for granted.)

God loves me as much today as he did 366 days ago.  ( I never take this for granted either.)

 

So here we go 43.

Comments

  1. Happy late birthday! I’m a week and a day into 43 and it’s OK so far. Glad you’re back on here. I mostly just fiddle with blogging these days. Can’t completely commit to it so it just sits and waits for me to remember to come by and when I do, I just slap something up there rather than write something actually thought out, like this!

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