2015
As I bid a welcome farewell to 2014 and face the upcoming new year, I complete a major transition in my life. 2014 is a year of grief I am only too willing to leave behind me. 2014 is a year of Goodbye and Letting Go.
2015 will be a year of Beginning Again and the year we complete our not-so-little family and move into the next stage of parenting -- bidding farewell to fertility issues, pregnancy stress and babies.
2014 is the year I suffered and got through a traumatic pregnancy loss.
2014 is the year I lost my younger brother (and only sibling) to a tragic motorcycle crash.
2014 wasn't all bad, though -- it was also the first year since 1997 that I went back to Nova Scotia to celebrate Christmas with my parents, something new and exciting for my children.
2015 will be the year in which we welcome our only daughter, our last new baby, into our family.
2015 is the year where I will finally feel free to make plans for life beyond babies, and face my last year before turning 40 with what I hope will be grace and style. I have not enjoyed this pregnancy in the way I had hoped and look forward to when it is done and #BabyTheLast is in my arms.
I stand on the threshold of the New Year and wave farewell with one hand while waving hello with my other.
I don't make resolutions anymore -- I stopped doing that years ago -- but I will say that this year I plan to take more time for me: more time to be creative, more time to be outside, more time to learn something new, and more time to enjoy all the "lasts" of my last baby.