I’m sitting here, two kids way past done with potty training, and I’m crying over diapers.

This is such a weird time. Social What?? Sheltering-in-Place? No TP left? Hand sanitizer a thing of the past? Everything is closed?

Guess what? Not all is lost.

I’ve been trying to spend less time on social media lately since I have other responsibilities which are more important, and social media for me is a time vampire. I usually start perusing my feed under the guise of checking up on my friends around the country and their various children, artistic endeavors, and funny memes and gifs, but inevitably I end up spending way too much time scrolling my feed and getting nothing meaningful accomplished. What if…

A few months ago, my beloved grandmother passed away. It was not entirely unexpected, but the passing of such a cherished and monumental person in my life threw me into a tailspin. My world suddenly looked different and took on a different meaning. In some moments I didn’t recognize myself and in other moments I feel like I reverted emotionally to the person I was as a child. They say that the death of someone close to you changes your perspective on life, and I can certainly vouch for that.

Has anyone else out there felt like they were messing their kids up – like someday you’ll be receiving bills in the mail for your kids’ therapy? Do you have days where you feel like either you or your kids won’t survive through the day? Or is it just me?

Here we are, New Year’s Day, January 1, 2019. I’m glad that 2018 is gone. It was a tough year with love, loss, hardship, frustration, and opportunity. I’m thankful for the personal growth I achieved, and for the self-awareness that has started to blossom out of being deliberate with my thoughts and time, but now it’s time to move to the next level. 2018 left me feeling unfulfilled, like there’s more out there.

May I be honest? I hate making resolutions. It’s not that I don’t want to make progress or make positive changes in my life. It’s that when I make resolutions, unless I have a really good idea of how I’m going to actually act out my resolutions, I end up at the end of the year not accomplishing much and feeling like a failure and feeling defeated. Which makes it highly unlikely that I’ll make any more resolutions for the next year. I hate making resolutions because they don’t work.

I went on a trip by myself this past weekend for the first time since having kids. It was the first time I had flown in over ten years, so I was a little nervous, but excited. I like flying – the airport people watching, the convenience, the ability to sit and rest or read or listen to music while launching hundreds of miles per hour toward your destination, shimmery city lights glistening in the inkwell below, orange and pink cotton candy clouds with nothing but blue sky above. There’s nothing quite like witnessing dark, jagged mountains silhouetted against a radiant sunset or seeing chains of lakes which resemble the water droplets leftover on the sink after brushing your teeth.

I said goodbye to you tonight.

I knew this day would come; I’ve known it for a long time. I even knew somehow that it would come soon, but I’m still not ready.

This disease that slowly stole you from us the last few years is finally coming to take you for good, and even though the grieving has been a little bit at a time, it never accumulates into anything tangible, and every time I think of you, the sorrow begins anew and my insides ache with longing for what once was.

I wrote this letter a couple months prior to having my second child.

My precious children,

Life is full of choices. Things do not happen for an unknown reason. Things happen because of our decisions—not because of luck, and not because you or anyone else is entitled to anything. You can only control your own choices, not those of others. Good things are earned and should be celebrated; they happen as a result of hard work, determination, and perseverance. Perfection is impossible; excellence is not. Bad things happen, but even then, life is still good and lessons can be learned.