Personal Recap: Year 27
Year 27.
Wow.
I turned 28 yesterday so I wanted to take some time to truly reflect on everything year 27 was for me…and I mean EVERY THING.
Becoming a Wife
8 days after my 27th birthday, I made the decision to share my life with another human being.
As a kid, marriage seemed like the “normal” thing to do when you grow up, but as I aged and got to know myself and learned to love every bit of myself including every flaw, marriage seemed like a more and more distant thing.
Not because I didn’t think I’d ever find the one and all that fairytale stuff, but because I’d become so comfortable with my independence and who I was on my own that I wasn’t sure I wanted to truly share myself with someone to the capacity that marriage is supposed to bind you to.
But, as I do with most things in my life, I decided to look at marriage and this life partnership in my own way and not allow it to be what it’s “supposed to be” like.
Year 28 will allow me to truly explore that notion when my husband finally arrives in the States and lives with us.
Us?
Us, that’s right, I am not longer just an I, I am now forever an us despite my new marital status, because year 27 also was the year that I experienced my first pregnancy and was introduced to motherhood.
Photo Credit: https://www.laurendavonne.com/
November 28th, 2017, 2:09pm – 8lbs 9oz 21 1/4 inches
If you’re a mom, you know the above is something that will forever be engrained in your mind – the date, time of birth, weight and length of your first child.
My best friend’s mom always refers to the day that he was born as her BIRTHday.
I understand and relate to that now more than ever.
I think I’ve had several Phoenix moments in my life, but this day, this day gave rise to one of the best versions of me.
I’ve told those closely to me that becoming a mother and experiencing having a newborn was literally one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life.
Why?
If I have to be completely honest and transparent with myself, I have also had trouble with commitment in all aspects of my life – love, career and etc.
I’ve always had the choice to quit and move on to the next thing or forget what I started and never truly finish it.
In year 27, I made several attempts to improve myself and stop quitting so much, but becoming a mother truly forced me to learn this, as well as, learn that a little perseverance and resilience can result in such a grand feeling of accomplishment.
A short anecdote related to this concept that some mothers may relate to is the my struggle with learning how to breastfeed and being successful at it.
First and foremost, as I already knew, but was reminded of, success should always be looked at subjectively. Success is what you think it is for you and no one else. In this scenario, I decided success for me was to breast feed the majority of the time, but was okay with supplementing with formula.
Once I figured out my routine and made it work for me with many many moments of trial and error, I experienced such a feeling of gratification and accomplishment like no other.
It’s cliché, but true what they say, the harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.
Finally Starting this Blog
Before I became a mom, as I had mentioned earlier, I made several efforts to stop quitting my big ideas and truly sticking with something.
This blog was definitely one of those big ideas for sure. I launched it in July 2017 alongside my public social media pregnancy announcement.
I started out strong:
- Designed a logo
- Bought the domain
- Designed this website
- Had a photo shoot for the launch
- Launched the website
- Wrote my first blog post
- And then….
The momentum died. Flat.
I said I was going to blog every month, but that fell through. The excuse – irrelevant.
All in all, I’m proud to say I made these moves to finally launch this passion project of mine, but I’m disappointed that I stopped being consistent with it.
That being said, through the lessons motherhood has taught me and the euphoria I know I can experience when I stick to something and persevere to see it to success, I am vowing to myself that in year 28, I will be writing content more frequently even if it’s not “perfect.”
Year 28 will be the year that some of my big ideas come through fruition because I owe to myself to stop being so scared of what I know I’m capable of.
After all, now I’ve got a little human being watching my every move and I refuse to indirectly teach him that quitting or leaving things unfinished or complacency are okay.
Here’s to a year of more personal growth – year 28!