My Birthday Mourning

I knew this year for my birthday I wanted to accomplish something BIG. So last summer I made a goal to run 29 miles... on my 29th birthday... March 29th. It was so perfect, I couldn't wait!! You know when you just really feel like you're on top of your game? I LOVED where I was, and more importantly who I was, last summer; I was done with making babies for a while, I had really regained an awareness of who I wanted to become as a WOMAN... for myself... not just as a wife and mother. This 29 mile goal was to be a pinnacle for me, a representation of my most formative years reaching a peak, I was finally coming into my own, proud of who I was. Then, one week into my training I learned about baby #4 on the way.

Let's skip all the dreadful details of the emotionally dark and devastating months that followed, and fast forward to where we are now... it's a long awaited new day, in a beautiful new Spring. Though the worst is behind me I am still undergoing the most challenging transformation of my life, it reaches far beyond the bounds of pregnancy. I've heard other moms describe this same transformation - sometimes it's brought on by baby number 3, or 4, or 5. Sometimes, it's something entirely different that requires such extreme growth in such a short period of time. Whatever it is, if you've felt it, you know that it's harder than you could have expected. It's not a scratch on the surface - it can't be fixed with shallow condolences such as "don't worry, everything will work out", or the super cheeser, "there is a reason this is happening right now, you just don't know it yet." Or my favorite, "You'll look back on this and say, 'oh, I'm so grateful for....blah blah blah.'" I'm sure the well wishers have their heart in the right place, but I don't. In fact, those sentiments annoy me more than anything, they buzz in one ear and out the other. I'm not looking back. I'm staring straight ahead and I don't want sunshine and roses right now. I need reality, because reality requires doing. A LOT of DOING. And I'm the one who has to do it. This is soul surgery for me.

When I was just a few weeks into this pregnancy I confided in my Mother-in-law that I felt like this was the end of "Jaci the Great". All I was seeing at the end of this road was super-frump Mom who was completely out of control of her kids, her home, and herself. My beautiful, and wise, and ever so poised Mother-in-law said, "It's not the end of Jaci the Great, it's the making of." How does she do it? How does she know just the right words to say that will penetrate straight to the heart of the matter, and keep me going from day to day. Maybe, because she's a mother, a great one.

This isn't the birthday that I'd hoped it would be. My selfishness wanted to accomplish something for myself, I wanted the world to hear my birthday song. But my accomplishment this year, this golden birthday year, is that my world will just keep turning. It will be anchored in routine: another day of simply doing. A day of refinement, of discipline, of consistency, of living for someone else's smile - that's a blessing in itself.

My ray of hope? Well, it's a beam really... a moonbeam. My dad sent me a full moon for my birthday. I love you, Dad!