Happy New Year

Crammed up against Christmas and unfortunately mired in the coldest, darkest time of the year, I've never been able to reconcile January 1st as a holiday, much less the start of a New Year.  It’s cold, bleak, and unwelcoming, not a stellar time to be thinking about a new exercise regime, changes to bad habits, or really anything other than hibernating.  That’s why I’ve always taken heart in the natural way my year seems to transition at the end of June into the beginning of July.

The start of my New Year celebration begins with the Summer Solstice.  The pagan in me finds this day enchanted.  The longest day of the year, lush and green, smelling of fresh cut hay and ripe strawberries, such a contrast to the stark landscape of January.  It’s the perfect day to be outside from dawn until dusk doing something that is good for your soul. This year the Strawberry Moon was coming full and I watched it rise over the Oahe Dam in the middle of the South Dakota grasslands as the sky radiated magenta beneath the thunderheads.  You can see to forever there, which is a beautiful thing when you are considering all of the possibilities life has to offer.  

The next leg of my new year happens on my birthday, almost a week later, on June 27. I consider birthdays each person’s personal New Year.  This year my transitioning held the additional boon of my son’s first birthday on June 25.  Starting with the Irish blessing of a buttered nose for luck (don’t ask, I don’t know where it came from), you get to take stock of everything the year before has been for you and use your special birthday wish (yes, these do come true, you know) to give a bit of magic and weight to your heart’s desires for the next one.  

My 35th year was far and away the most challenging of my life.  I got my birthday wish from my 34th year- a baby!  Sterling was ardently longed for, and perhaps it was that birthday candle dream that made him a reality. I spent all of 34 trying to get pregnant and then being pregnant.  That year passed in a quiet hum, flushed and pink with anticipation, dreams, and extra baby blood.  On my 35th birthday, I brought my son home from the hospital, sore and exhausted but proud and in awe of this new life.  I have no idea what my birthday wish was as I sat at the table with him beside me, snuggled in and sleeping away his newness. I had everything, so perhaps I wished for nothing at all.

The next day I had to bring Sterling back to the hospital. He was jaundice and tongue tied, not able to nurse.  I was battered and bruised and my milk wouldn’t come in, but I was so swollen that I winced at a touch.  I got a phone call while I was at the hospital that only I had the data needed for some report for school, needed ASAP, so I sat on my hospital bed and cried as I tried to pump and type.  And so the challenges of being a new, working mother began.   How would I balance trying to be exceptional at both my job and being a mother, because I was willing to accept nothing less of myself. I was back to work by August, taking really less than five true, full weeks of leave.  I did my best to give 100% of myself to my work and to Sterling (I know the math on that doesn’t work out) while not forgetting my husband, my family, and the other people and responsibilities around me.  I had to remember to pay the bills and feed the cats and horses and smile appropriately when people asked if they could talk to me about their problems.  I had to be level headed and fair even when I had had no sleep or was an hour overdue to pump.

And then I noticed things around me starting to change.  My husband was never home, and when he was home in body, he wasn’t present.  He refused to touch me and rarely talked to me.  He blamed me, saying that I was off-putting, that I was too stressed to be enjoyable.  Did he not see that I was stressed because I was trying to work to make sure we could survive and pay our bills?  That I was working so he could live his dream of running a music shop when really all I wanted was to be able to stay home and be a mom?  Did he not see that I was stressed because I was doing the lion’s share of taking care of our child because he was never there?  In reality, he was using this rationale as an excuse to be having an affair with his 24 year old shop girl.  It was easy to villainize me when his own conscience was so tainted.

I spent the entire fall in denial, praying that he wouldn’t do something like that with a brand new baby at home.  It felt like winter came very early.  In the darkest hours of the coldest days, right after the REAL new year, we confronted reality.  How appropriate a setting for my life to fall apart.  I spent the early months of 2013 watching as the dreams I had for my life and my family sluiced away like sheets of freezing rain.  Friends I needed turned a deaf ear. I fretted away every calorie I was able to take in, causing people to wonder if I was sick or had an eating disorder as I dipped below 110 pounds.  I doubted everything about myself. I had made no New Year’s resolutions, but this was decidedly NOT what I had predicted for 2013.  

As winter slowly began to melt away, I resigned myself to the fact that my marriage was truly, irrevocably over.  But spring is a time of new beginnings, much more so than January.  Once I was able to share what was happening in my world, the people in my inner circle showed me an enormous amount of care and support.  They reached out and tried to take care of me, even though I am terrible at letting that happen.   An old friend became a new source of happiness, reminding me that I have worth, that I am desirable, that I am lovable.  And that was terrifying.  I was encouraged to apply for a job that I considered well beyond my reach, but to my surprise, I was a finalist.  I was content with not getting the position, until my world tilted again and I waited, my breath and future uncertain, to see what would come of my mentor and friend vacating the top spot at Profile. Spring became a time of flux and wondering.  While great things were afoot, I was unmoored and uncertain about everything.  

In the final days of the school year, in the final days of spring, the final days of my 35th year, I began to think that life as I had hoped wasn’t over, and even more to the point, that it could be better than I had ever wished, birthday candle or no.  Hope springs eternal.  I was appointed to Profile’s corner office, which meant the loss of a dear friend from the roll, but an amazing opportunity for me.  My task is ahead of me, and I know what to do. I spent the Solstice in South Dakota, the place where my soul feels most at peace, in the comfort and belonging of a very special person.  My questions about myself and our potential relationship were answered.  Which brings me to now, past the change of seasons, past my birthday, into July.  

When you are in education, July 1 marks the New Year.  The books have been closed on the previous quarter and year, honor rolls are posted, and the time comes to start thinking about September (or late August for us).  For me, this year that means a new job with new responsibilities.  It means proving myself.  But is also means opportunity abounds.  July 1 also marked the start of a new challenge for myself, running (well, sort of), which is so far out of my comfort zone as to be laughable.  But you know, it feels great, especially in the company of an amazing cheerleader and coach.  It is my effort to open up, take risks, and not shy away from things that I can’t automatically do well.  It also means letting someone new(ish) in to my life in a non-work related way, which, believe it or not, hasn’t happened in years.  I have to let go believe that I can be valued as a friend, not just as a leader or problem solver.  

So here I sit on July 4th, Independence Day, the final stretch of my New Year celebration.  My beautiful, amazing son is sleeping through the raucous bangs and crashes of the fireworks all around us.  My legs remind me of the effort I have put in and itch for more. As dusk settles over the grasslands of South Dakota, two hours after ours, I will get a good night phone call from my cowboy, wishing me sweet dreams for the night and my future.  I look forward to Monday when I return to school refreshed after the long weekend, ready to get down to the task of making Profile even more amazing than it already is. And I realize how beautiful it is to be excited about life, love, friendships, work.  I am independent, strong, and capable of not only doing hard work, but of being valued and loved.  What a great way to start the New Year.  Cheers and blessings to all.  

Fireworks over Pierre/Fort Pierre, South Dakota