Happy

Life is GOOD! The absence of sickly pregnancy hormones makes it so easy to truly enjoy the little joys! I’m still anemic and my head hasn’t stopped throbbing in a week, but I still feel SO MUCH BETTER than I have felt in over 2 months. If only my body could heal as fast as my mind. Jay and Rose help their invalid-mama smile all the time—they still have their moments, but then they have these cute times that cancel those mischievous ones out.

One day they were sitting on this box giggling together just for the fun of it.

While I was going through the emotional rollercoaster of miscarriage last week, I was also re-reading one of my favorite books, The Running Dream. It is a super story of hope and conquering challenges. The girl loses her leg and learns how to walk and run on a prosthetic. Her grieving and coping process mirrored mine quite well. Here’s one part that I really loved this time around:

“Going over the finish line must be wonderful.”
I laugh. “Especially if you’re the first one there.”
“But…it means you finished. You made it. Even if you don’t get a medal.”
I look at her. “You’re very philosophical about the finish line.”
She gives a thoughtful nod. “It’s symbolic…Because it’s also the strting line.”
For some reason this thought startles me. And I think about all the races where this is true—the 400, the 800, the 1600, all the relays—and it shocks me that I have never looked at it this way.
Maybe because of staggered starts.
Maybe because starting feels so different from finishing. At the starting line you’re amped, set, coiled. At the finish line you’re completely spent.
So the thought that they’re the same line gives me a very strange feeling.  
---The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen, p.214

Ok, I don’t want to be overly dramatic, but this little conversation hit me because it just felt so applicable to my own situation. I started out that pregnancy amped, set, and ready for the discomfort. And even though the finish came before I wanted it to, I was still completely spent when it came! The contrast between how [bad] I feel when I’m pregnant and how [good] I feel when I’m normal is so HUGE that it feels like a fresh start at the end. Every end is also a beginning. Believe it or not, it’s so much fun to be able to do the smallest things for myself and my family, like hug my husband, cook dinner, do the dishes, and even change diapers. Even though those small actions still exhaust me and leave my head pounding, I don’t have that nagging nausea and disinterest that I did when I was pregnant. Right now I feel ready to LIVE and love it! It’s such a fresh, zesty feeling!

How could I not be happy?