My 33rd Year

              About a month before my birthday each year, I start shamelessly plugging my birthday.  I begin telling anyone and everyone who will listen about February 21^st, the day the world became a better place.  The day a legend was born. 

                I also begin thinking a lot about the previous year.  Was it a good year?  Did I accomplish anything special?  Did I become a better person?  Did I learn anything valuable?  Hopefully, the answer to these questions is yes.  More often than not, the answer eludes me.  Yes, I always learn valuable lessons; and while I hope that I became a better person, I find myself occupied with all the things I need to change that I didn’t notice before.  That happens with improvements.  You fix something, it looks amazing, and you discover you have a million other things that are falling apart and need repair. 

                My 33^rd year was surprising to say the least.  I can honestly say that it started off all wrong.  On my 33^rd birthday, my father was in the hospital, and I was pretty sure he would not be getting any better.  I spent that birthday thinking of him.  I had visited him the week before, and was horrified to see that he looked 25 years older than he had the last time I had seen him.  Cancer will do that to you.  So I started my 33^rd year with a feeling of dread. 

                On March 22^nd, after a few weeks of caring for my father at home, he finally died.  Death did not come easily for him.  He wanted it to.  He even apologized for not being able to die faster.  It did not come easily for him, and it was even harder on the rest of us. 

                Watching him die did something to me.  It broke me.  Damaged me.  I felt that I was no longer even remotely the same person I had been.  I was torn, and I was angry.  Incredibly angry.  I was also sure that I needed to hold that emotion in.  I am, after all, a parent.  And I needed to parent. 

                In April, not even a month after he died, I lost all sense of who I was.  As much as I hate the term, I suppose you could say I had a breakdown.  I shattered into a million pieces, and didn’t even want to try to put them back together again.  Life was too hard, and I didn’t have the energy to deal with it anymore. 

In the beginning months of being 33, not only did I lose myself, I lost my marriage, my best female friend, and custody of my children.  I lost my job, my self-worth, and my religion.  I lost my sense of security, my ability to make good relationship choices, and my desire to love again.  I became absolutely sure that the whole, “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” was a gigantic bunch of crap.  Because no love seemed worth the absolute devastation of losing it. 

April passed, horrible and lonely.  I attempted to hold myself together, just enough to survive.  May and June got a little better.  Time does that.  Funny how it never seems like it could be true, and then it is.  Time is the scab covering a fresh wound; and eventually the scar of where the wound used to be. 

Both July and August brought new heartbreak of a different variety.  Luckily, I let time work its magic there too.  September through November I kept myself too busy to do much deep thinking.  And December became something better.  More hopeful.  Beautiful.

It is January now, almost a month before I turn 34.  I am a slightly better, more self-aware version of myself.  I am telling myself that my 34^th year will be wonderful.  But even as I’m doing so, I know that life is full of surprises, and many of them are not all that great.  There is no way to get through this life but to pick yourself up and muddle through it.  Maybe even have a little happiness along the way.    34 years is an accomplishment.  I made it through multiple things this year that could have killed me.  That tried to kill me.  But I made it.  I’m still breathing.  And damn if I’m not proud of that 33^rd year. 

I hope that this year brings me the ability to love again.  Not to just love, but to love better, truer, and with more unbridled joy.  I hope that this year brings me the ability to be kinder, more empathetic, and to positively affect the lives of others who may need to be lifted up.  I hope that I can appreciate my family and friends more deeply, and take the time to tell them how I feel.  So here’s to my birthday, and the start of another chapter in the legend of Laura.

All my love,

Laura