31... It's Been Really Real.

It’s always been so important to me to take some time around each birthday to take a step back and evaluate the last year. To pay attention and embrace the privilege of taking another lap around the sun.  I’ve struggled to come to grips with the way I’m feeling heading into this birthday. It’d be a lie if I told you otherwise. This has been a year of so many feelings: An overwhelming sense of gratitude. Of the highest highs. Of loss. A new name. A new family. A new puppy. Stability. Uncertainty.

This was the year I married my best friend, on the beach with the people we love the most. And if I had the chance to replay that weekend and what it felt like, I’d do it over and over and over again until someone forced me to stop.  It was the year we bought our first home and learned just what everybody meant when they’d say the phrase “That’s home ownership for ya.” But it has also been where we have started to build a space and a life we love.

We brought home a new puppy approximately 36 hours after we said “I do,” which was mostly crazy but also turns out to be one of the best decisions we’ve ever made.  We took our first vacation together just the two of us, our honeymoon, where we spent two weeks exploring Italy and laughing and drinking wine together. (So much wine!) It was the year we almost lost Norm, twice. And in a surprising and heartbreaking twist these last few days, we also lost my grandma Esther.

This was the year we started trying for a family, and for a really fantastic minute there, we were going to have one. But this was also the year that I gained a newfound compassion for people who have experienced the loss of a pregnancy. I learned what a miscarriage feels like outside of the physical parts, in the space somewhere side of your chest that you can’t really put your finger on or explain. And the realness of it all, once the dust settles, catches you off guard in ways you don’t expect.

Somewhere over the course of 31, Tampa finally, truly, felt like home. And the people there started to too.  It took a while, but now when I feel homesick, it’s for a feeling more than a place these days.

As each year comes and goes I become more and more acutely aware of how much I’m going to miss a moment, a day, a phase or a place, once its gone. Everything ends eventually: Watching the sun drop below the horizon on the dock at Wawasee. Walking up to grandma and grandpa’s house for the last time. Your last night on the edge of the Italian coast with your brand new husband. The innocent excitement of two pink lines, that turn into crippling disappointment when there isn’t a heartbeat anymore.

Maybe the price we pay for getting older is that we simply become more and more aware of how much we’re going to miss these moments while we’re still living them. Or maybe that’s just the price of being human. I guess this has been the year that has taught me, both gently and by force, the importance of finding the balance so that unwavering truth doesn’t overwhelm you.

I’m bracing myself for the fact that 32 is probably going to be another year that teaches me more about how to do that... I guess I hope every year does, really. I hope that even when I’m turning 40, or 59 or 85 (god willing) that I still have regular moments that stop me in my tracks. That make my heart feel so full it could burst. That make me miss what’s gone so much it also feels a little like breaking.  With each year, the more full and more broken my heart seems to be at the same time.

It’s pretty incredible if you think about it, that we can walk around with our hearts constantly finding ways to grow and shatter over and over and over again. And it’s beautiful that even at the close of the absolute best and hardest year of my life… I wouldn’t change a bit of it.

Good things are ahead, and great moments have come and gone. Hard ones too. And really, that’s all any of us can ask for.