Turning Thirty

I’m turning thirty next week.  Dirty dirty thirty.

It’s crazy what happens in life in a year.  The last year has had it’s up and downs but I dare say that it was one of the happiest years of my life.  Quite a few things happened that I never mentioned here but they were significant so now I’m mentioning them.

The happiness really started at the end of May which was when I took this course called The Basic.  It really helped me see a new perspective on life and on myself and my thought patterns.  It was an amazing experience.  I immediately signed my husband up for it which was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.  Brent absorbed it all even more than I have and our marriage really hasn’t ever been better!

Taking that course is what started Brent and I on our journey to try to conceive a baby.  Brent confessed to me that ever since The Basic, he’s been wanting another baby.  And that journey began and, oh boy, that’s been a journey.  Oh.  Boy.

But the beginning of that journey was when I really started feeling REAL contentment and happiness in my life since the 8 months I experienced it when Silas was a baby.  Happiness hasn’t been an easily renewable resource in my life.  Not for lack of good things.  Just stupid mental illness, depression, whatever you want to call it.

In August I was asked to be a guest on The Dr Oz show which was one of the most amazing experiences of my life.  One of my dearest friends decided to buy a last minute airplane ticket and she came with me.  We just had the most fun ever.  It seriously can put me in a good mood whenever I think about it.  The whole experience.  Amazing.  And now the world knows I have 9 nipples…haha.

Brent and I got pregnant in September.  I was so excited!!  The excitement lasted only two days because I started bleeding and was woken in the night with such horrible cramps.  Spent the rest of the night in the hospital and then had to wait for test results.  We lost the pregnancy.

The devastation of that was awful but then my neighbour and friend was found after taking his own life that same week.  That overshadowed my own grief as I just immersed myself in helping his wife, finding people to make her family meals, just being there for her.  What a dreadful time.  He’s been missed greatly but a lot of us still feel him around.  We joke that he’s haunting us.  I know that might seem insensitive but it’s not.  It’s exactly what he would do if it were possible.  Sometimes I go outside and I still think I can hear him talking.  I see his face in his children.  I wish he felt like he could handle this earth – he had a lot to offer.

I didn’t really mourn my miscarriage for an entire month.  Once I did, I got pregnant again.  I think there’s a link between the two.

Unfortunately, early in the year I experienced another loss.  It might sound weird but he’s my step step grandfather.  My step dad’s step dad.  It wasn’t sudden, it was just natural.  Old age.  Time to go.  He was a fantastic man.  His funeral was beautiful, hundreds of old timer cowboys, clad in their jeans and cowboy boots.  They told stories of the old days.  Learning more about my grandfather (lets not be technical…he was my grandpa) at his funeral made me want to be a better person and it still does.  I just wish I could remember the last time I walked by him and he grabbed me and tickled me.

Sadly I lost my great uncle the same week.  Someone who I hardly knew but had good memories of.  Great family get togethers at his home.  His massive yard where I would go pick raspberries.  He was a lovely and amazing uncle.  He is greatly missed by a lot of people.

Most of the time since I got pregnant with Jonah I felt sick and lazy.  Christmas was when the morning sickness kicked in and I got pretty useless after that.  Then Jonah’s death has completely changed me.  I am a very different version of the Leah I knew 4 weeks ago.

Losing him was an incredibly spiritual experience and my thoughts are obviously in that place still.  I’m learning a lot.  I feel a lot more in tune with my spirituality than I was before.

A switch went off in my mind and I’m actually entering my 30’s the way I wanted to.  I’m a better housewife,  I’m exercising, I’m letting anal Leah out of her shell – she’s always scared me.  She requires a lot of energy but she’s good at keeping busy and I like her.

I just didn’t intend to enter my 30’s mourning the death of my baby.  I was thinking I would have a party and feel pregnant and fat and be sad I’m not having a few drinks with everyone.  But I’m entering it the best I can under the circumstances.

I don’t know exactly why I’m now acting the way I’ve always wanted to act as a stay at home mom.  I know part of it is knowing that if I went back to a more sedentary lifestyle I would fall into a black hole.  Perhaps I’m trying to prove myself to my future child.  Perhaps in my grief, my slate was somehow wiped clean and my mom helped me rewrite it as I began to heal.  Probably all of the above.

I’m ready for my 30’s.  I feel more like a person in their 30’s lately anyway.  I’m ready to say goodbye to a more immature version of myself and to just keep growing in wisdom and maturity.  I’m excited to know more of what I want in life, to be more confident in who I am, to feel more settled.

Here’s to 30 and to not letting go of the happiness and contentment I finally feel again.  I’m clinging to it for dear life and nothing is going to stop me from letting it go now.  Even in the year where I experienced more loss than I ever have in my entire life.