Good Bye 2009

I felt it important to blog today as the year comes to an end.

I think it's always important to reflect on a year when it ends and to look hopefully into the new year.

I've always loved New Year's Eve. Probably more than any other holiday. Maybe it's because I love the idea of new beginnings.

Even though tomorrow is just another day, it feels like the start of something new, something fresh. Tomorrow is a new year. It's a new decade. 2010. It's amazing really.

I was watching a news story about when the festivities were cancelled at the Seattle Space Needle 10 years ago. I had completely forgotten that! As we entered the year 2000, there was fear of terrorism and the festivities were cancelled. I remember how sad I was about that. I never go to the Seattle Center at New Years and had no plans to go in 1999, but it felt like something was different that year. Thankfully, the festivities were back on the next year and have been ever since.

It's been 10 years since we were all so concerned about Midnight 2000.

This decade was a huge one for me. It was my 30s and it was a time of finding myself which is often not painless and that was certainly the case for me. Just when I thought I had finally figured it out, for the most part anyway, my mom got sick.

Gosh I remember New Year's Eve last year. We started moving at 8am and finally finished at 5am New Years Day. But even with that horrendous move, I was so hopeful for 2009. I was really looking forward to it. And then 2 and a half months later, mom was diagnosed and everything about the year changed.

And looking back, it is mostly a blur. A blur of trips north. A blur of hospitals and procedures. A blur of countless phone calls. A blur of months where so much was said without any words being spoken.

What still isn't a blur and is still very visible in my mind is the picture of my mind lying in the hospital bed in the living room. And her lying there after she had died. And the sound that is still very clear in my mind, when it wants to go there, is what it sounded like when she died. None of that has faded. I'm not sure it ever will.

2009 will always be the year I lost my mom. Nothing will ever change that for me. It's what 2009 will always symbolize.

2009 is also the year Olly lost his grandmother.

2009 is the year my home was burglarized and I lost a lot of security.

But 2009 will also be the year when I let go of a lot of old baggage because there was just no reason to carry it around anymore. I feel lighter since I let it go. I wish it hadn't taken cancer to make me realize how unimportant it all was and how silly it was to carry it around for all those years.

2009 will be the year I grew up in so many ways. It will be the year a new me emerged...a stronger, wiser me. I am not the same person I was when 2009 began. It's incredible really how much different I am from the person I was one year ago today. Life experience has a way of doing that to you I guess.

2009 will be the year I took the leap and started back to school. It will be the beginning of another life transformation for me. When I receive my degree in August of 2011, I will look back at 2009 as the year I took the first step that started me back towards my degree.

In 2009, my sons turned 7 and 11 and I turned 40. I love my boys' birthdays. They are always so much more fun than mine. But I had been looking forward to mine this year. I was looking forward to 40. Instead I spent the week before my birthday in a hospital room with my mom who was rarely lucid. And I spent my birthday with her at home when she was still really confused and not sure why I was there. It wasn't what I had anticipated. I would like to look forward to 41 this year, but I've found I'm a little nervous to plan anything these days for fear of what one phone call may hold and how it may change everything again. But, nonetheless, Christopher will be 8 in 12 days and I always love his birthday because it's something to kind of bring us down from the holidays. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years all end and then we still have Christopher's birthday to enjoy early in the year. It's a great way to start the year and I'm very much looking forward to it this year.

In 2009, I was present at the birth of 23 babies, one of whom was my nephew. 23 babies who celebrated their first holidays this year, who are celebrating their first New Year with their parents. There were some hard births and a couple of sick babies, but everything turned out beautifully in the end. I was able to share births with several repeat clients this year and one of those had her baby on my birthday.

And that is why I write today. I could look back at 2009 and only see it as the year I lost my mom. That would be easy to do. It was a very, very hard year. Not just for me, but for many people. My facebook page is filled with people posting about how ready they are for 2009 to end. Just in the last 2 months, the Seattle/Tacoma area has lost SIX police officers. It has been devastating. I know I am not the only one that has lost someone they love this year. I am far from alone in my grief.

But 2009 was filled with happy tears too. I was a part of 23 family's lives on one of the most incredible days ever. 2009 gave my family about 5 more months with my mom than we thought we would have and many good times were had in those months. 2009 brought a wonderful police officer into my life whose care and concern for my children was touching in ways that I will never be able to explain. 2009 brought a week of fun with my children as we played tourists in our own town and just enjoyed being together. 2009 included many, many, many childbirth classes where I got to do what I loved. Not everyone can say they have a job they love. 2009 reminded me that I have a man in my life who loves me unconditionally, who will stand by me through anything and will not let me fall even if he has to hold me up himself. 2009 included so much in the way of friends and family. I feel closer to so many of them than I did at the beginning of this year and have been reminded that we all need to make time for one another.

So, yes, 2009 was hard. It was the year I lost my mom. Lots of people lost someone this year. So many of us witnessed hard to understand things this year. So many shaken heads, not understanding this world sometimes.

However, although tomorrow may just be another day, it is a new year, full of new hope. Will bad things happen in 2010? Of course they will. But good things will happen too...just like they did in 2009. More babies will be born. They are the beacons of hope for our future. I have four clients due in the next 2 months and already have clients lined up throughout the year. 2010 will hold 48 weeks of school for me. Hard work for sure, but rewarding in the end. In 2010 I will turn 41. It will be my first birthday without my mom and it will be hard. But my mom gave me this life, and I will celebrate it!

Our family's year begins with my dad's birthday tomorrow. I just got off the phone with him. He sounds so sad. But I am grateful he is going out to dinner with the couple he and mom have spent New Year's Eve with for the past 15 years. They usually got a hotel room and stayed up playing bridge. But you can't play bridge without 4 players and they've lost one of their players this year. Nonetheless, I'm so glad they are still doing dinner. I told dad to go and laugh. It's what mom would want him to do. And he agreed. Tomorrow I am heading up early to dads to take down his Christmas tree. Then we're all heading to lunch where Michael and Kiersten and their boys and Kiersten's parents, Karen & Andy will join us to celebrate dad's birthday. We will celebrate dad without mom being physically present. But she will be there in spirit, of that I am certain. She wouldn't miss it.

Today I am incredibly grateful that what seemed like a pretty miserable cold yesterday is clearing itself out quickly so that I will have the energy to get up early tomorrow and be able to help dad with getting the Christmas decorations down. Yesterday morning I felt terrible and was concerned that I had more than just a cold. But I spent all day lounging in bed which I NEVER do and it's pretty remarkable what rest can do for a body. I'd forgotten that as 1) I don't really like to spend an entire day in bed and 2) I rarely get an opportunity to do it even if I wanted to. So when I'm sick, I usually have a class to teach or a birth to attend or something else to keep me busy and I don't often get to rest and recover. I did that yesterday and it WORKED! :-) I'll be making dad's cake today and getting laundry done and the boys packed for their dads this weekend, but other than that, I'm still going to try and take it easy today to keep giving my body time to recover. By the first day of 2010, I intend to be feeling even better!

I'm glad to see 2009 go. But I refuse to look back at it as only the year I lost my mom. That would negate all the good that took place this year. And although it was hard for me to find at times, every time I attended a birth or my children made me laugh, I found joy and the world brightened a bit for me.

There will be more joy this year. And I'm sure there will be some hard times too. But I look forward to 2010. I refuse to let the difficulties and hard times of 2009 take away my hope for brighter days. I have some things I am highly looking forward to in 2010 and I believe it will be a good year. I hope to look back at this time next year and look fondly upon 2010.

I am strong. I know that now. I have survived a year that I once thought I could never survive. I am still putting one foot in front of the other. I am still living. I am still laughing. I am still finding the joy in the midst of dark days. I am making my life better. And I know my mom is proud of me.

2009 was a tough year. But it was also a year filled with love, life, and learning. I am proud of the person I am as 2009 ends. A year can't be all bad if it ends that way. As I've said before, the human spirit is pretty amazing. It allows me to find that truth in a year when I lost my mom.

Goodbye 2009. I learned a lot from you. You will be a year I will never, ever forget. You took a lot from me, but I refuse to let you take my hope for the future.

I'm ready for you 2010. 2009 made me very strong. I will survive what you have for me too. But, it would really be great if you could maybe go easy on all of this year and throw in more joy than sadness. I'd love to look back on you a year from now and discuss what a great year you gave the world. :-)

Today, on the eve of the beginning of 2010, I hold out hope for a wonderful year filled with smiles and happiness. I wish that for myself and my family and for all of you and yours.

May we all greet 2010 with hope and open arms believing in the good the world has to hold.