Show and Tell: Reading Back

I have professed it before, I am a horrible journal keeper. Ironic considering I keep a prolific blog, no? But blogs are interactive. You communicate and people respond. Give and take. I like that more than writing randomly in a book to no one.

That being said, I have been compelled to write on occasion. Usually the days where my brain can't possible contain what I'm thinking and I need to get it out or go insane.

So the other night, I was reading through the pages of this beautiful journal my husband gave me. It's black leather. It was a Christmas gift in 2005. The funny thing is I had the same idea and got him a red leather one. ;)

I want to share with you an entry I wrote.

Reading through the few I wrote over a couple of years made me cry. Not sure if it's the hormones or the re-living of moments that were hard enough to bear at the time.

Here's an entry form Oct.23, 2007, 1 month and 1 day after I got married. I was still dealing with my fibromyalgia but it was getting better...

I'm 24 years old but I often feel like I have the body of an 84 or 94 year old. Quite the difference and yet, here I am, more than a year since my life was turned upside down.

A coworker (now retired) often told me, "It's the best years of your life kid, enjoy them!" On one hand, I agree with wise, slim and youthful retiree, but on the other hand, I hope she's wrong. I have so much to be grateful for, but... but, I want more.

More happiness, more joy, even more tears. I want each year of my life to get better and better, to live up to the bumper sticker picked out years ago by a friend from an English class that says "Destined to be an old woman with no regrets". On the sticker is a woman at the beach wearing a one piece suit and a floppy wide-brimmed hat, waving in a care-free "Mary Tyler Moore" moment.

I want to be her. The woman who lived and lived well. Who sucked up every horrible terrible moment, set them beside all the laughter and smiles and love, and declared her adventure of a life, equal and balanced. I want to be the one who at the end of her days, casually waves it all away like a dream and sends her spirit, her soul out into the energy of the Universe to be mixed, melded and dispersed with everyone else. To be everything and nothing all at the same time.

She is my idol, my dream. Not just a fanciful inspiration, but something to be sure of. One thing I can count on.

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So that was my entry. A month later I would have a moment where I was SURE I was pregnant, only to find out I wasn't. We hadn't been trying at all. I really wasn't on our radar yet. But in that moment, everything changed. The desire to be a mother hit me so hard I could barely breath for the intensity of it. After a discussion with R, we agreed that when I was off my meds and in remission, we could try for a baby. I left school (which is a whole story unto itself) and went back to my job full-time (I had gone part-time to go back to school). In March 2008, I went off my meds and got the medical okay to try to concieve.

In the next 12 months I would be pregnant twice. A mother never.

Today is a different day. I will be a mother. And that woman standing on the beach, will also be me. I'm determined.

Now stop on by Mels' and see what the rest of the class is reflecting on...