More than Mother's Day

Confusion has a way of striking when you least expect it.  I suppose the element of surprise is its secret weapon.

Today is the very first time that I celebrate mother's day not only to honour my own Mom and all the other Moms in my life, but that I have been receiving mother's day wishes of my own. And I've been very surprised at my own reaction.

Over the years, Mother's Day had taken on a strange feel for me.  It was always a day where I would think of my own Mom, and some years it was filled with the hope that I would someday soon become a Mom too, but there were some years where it was a day where I was reminded of how upset I was that for some reason unknown to me, I still wasn't a Mom.  And those were not fun.  Along with feeling sad about it, I also felt like a bit of a freak.  I mean, who gets upset about Mother's Day?

When they day finally came and we got the news that we would indeed be parents, I vowed that I would make sure to share that side of my story.  Hearing stories about other people who had a difficult road to parenthood made me feel better when times were tough.  It made me feel less alone, and it was always encouraging to hear that someone had made it to the other side.  Folks are not always quick to talk about it out in the open, but there are so many couples out there who are or have been on that rough road.

However I've been dragging my feet on sharing this so publicly.  It's not that I'm ashamed or embarrassed, but when I found out I was going to be a Mom, I was just so relieved.  I wanted to put aside all the worry, the stress and the unpleasant feelings and just enjoy the crap out of being pregnant.  And I'm so, so glad that I did.  

In hindsight though, I'm so grateful that the Universe chose this moment for all of this to happen.  Years ago, telling myself that the time just wasn't right was cold comfort, but knowing it now brings me a tremendous sense of peace about the whole experience.  I've also found that those difficulties allowed me to appreciate each moment of this pregnancy and gave me the determination to do things my way.  While I hope we'll have as many children as we wish, appreciating this wonderful blessing for the miracle that it is has helped me set aside my fears and make decisions based on what I feel is best.  Our "next time" (and just about everything in life) is not a guarantee, and I'm determined to follow my heart and not let first-time jitters stop me.  

Although I started this day a little teary-eyed and confused, I'm thankful to finally be able to set aside all those sad feelings from years past and enjoy this beautiful day.  Although I must admit that it does feel rather odd to be celebrated.  To me, today is more like a day to give thanks and appreciate the wonderful gift that we've been given.

So off I go to make the most of this sunny Mother's day.  I have phone calls to make, a walk to take, even lobster claws to break... and just seven more days until our due date!

So much to savour

I realize that I left this blog in a bit of a sad state the last time I posted, which was well over a year ago.  Much has happened during those months though. So much, that the desire to write about it all took a backseat to wanting to take it all in.  And somehow, I was good enough to myself to do just that.

So here is a bit of an update on what has been a truly incredible year...

A few months after I last posted, I landed what is essentially my dream job.  I didn't have to go look for it, and in fact, I didn't know such a job even existed until the job posting landed in my inbox thanks to my brother who saw it and thought of me. And before I knew it, I found myself in my new role: a college recruiter!  For the past year, I have been spending my time chatting with high-school kids, helping them figure out what to do next, and, most importantly in my opinion, not to be scared.  I think teens are super fun to be around, and I love that although this is a marketing job, I do not feel slimy in the slightest bit talking to them about the college I work for and it makes me so happy that sharing my past experiences and insights on that period in my life might just help a few of them feel a bit more at ease.

Not only do I absolutely love the job itself, but I love the people I work with too.  When I'm not in a high school, I'm on campus with a super fun bunch of people who are as quick to help me out as they are to laugh, which is pretty damn quick in either case!

I don't know how all of this managed to fall into place, but one thing I do know is that after trying my hand a few different jobs that weren't a good fit for me, knowing what I didn't want or enjoy made it a whole lot easier to identify and appreciate something that I really, really love.

But as of a week ago, I'm not working anymore.  I'm a bit sad to leave this job for a little while, but I'm excited, thrilled, nervous, ( I could throw in a hundred more adjectives but I'll spare you) about what lies ahead.  These days, I am on maternity leave, waiting, sometimes patiently, sometimes not, for our very first child to be born.

One of my favorite family photos...

I've been intent on savouring every step of this process, and along the way, I've thought on more than one occasion that I should take the time to write a few of my though and feelings about this experience. But then that would have taken me away from the endless hours spent staring at my belly and watching it move, all the conversations with the Acadian where we wondered if this baby would be a Gemini or Taurus (which strangely, is the first thing we asked ourselves when we got the positive test result), speak with my accent or his, laugh at our jokes or think we're lame, wait patiently to be born or burrow a whole straight through my belly-button, which I'm sometimes convinced she just might do!  And of course, there's my constant "No, no - you don't get it - there's a BABY in my BELLY.  A REAL baby. In THERE.  And it pees inside of me!" (and lately, these statements are often followed by "And it's coming out of THERE!" at which time I gesture to, you know, there).  The Acadian understands all of these things, and has patiently smiled and agreed with me each time I've said them (one of the many little reasons I love him so much), but there's not a day that goes by where I'm not completely in awe with this whole process.  And the fact that the baby keeps drinking that amniotic fluid she peed in, over and over again.

Another thing that I have really enjoyed during my pregnancy are the great conversations that I've had with people.  Ok, I have had some not-so-great conversations too, (Dear nosy stranger who told me tried to scare me shitless about home births and buying things off Craigslist until I almost cried: That wasn't cool.) but most of them were a lot of fun.  But I have to say that my favourite conversations were with my Mom. Being a little (ridiculously) too excited to keep the news from my family, I told them right away, and my Mom has been an awesome source of encouragement every step of the way.  Not only have I had the chance to hear so many stories about her pregnancy and first months and years as a new mom when I was born and to understand them from a whole new perspective, but I learned that we have even more in common than I had ever realized.  It was especially nice to know that she understood my hopes, wishes and dreams and that she supports me in all of my ideas, even when some seem to think they're a little crazy.  And I also love how we both find it hard to resist tiny little baby shoes.  This baby has more shoes than I do!

No, it's not a tattoo - it's henna!

It's definitely been an exciting and unforgettable year, and I'm always amazed at how things can feel like they are standing still for so long and then all of sudden change so quickly. So please forgive me for staying away for so long; I just couldn't bear to miss even a second of this.

There goes my hero

Three years ago I met my hero.  She was awesome.  She did things she, and probably everyone who knew her, thought she could never do.  When from the outside, it looked like everything was falling apart, she was keeping it together, drawing on magical super-powers that helped her bounce back up from every little trip and stumble.

Ever since that time, I've been trying to be just like her.  I reflect back on her every move and see if I can replicate what she had achieved.  Yes, I know that it doesn't do us any good to compare ourselves to others or even idolize them, but it gets a little tricky when that idol is you.

One of the joys of my new job is the commute.  Although I live less than 5km away from the office, it takes me an average of 40 minutes each way to get there via transit. Don't get me started on how ridiculous Toronto's transit situation is because the amount of expletives I'd have to use would be sure to get some sort of censor's attention.  But I digress.  It seemed that my co-workers who live in the same area got around the annoyance by simply walking to work, so a few weeks ago, I decided to brave the Canadian cold and make the trek by foot.  50 minutes.  Again, don't get me started.

But this whole walking business has been a bit of a blessing in disguise.  I actually really like it.  It's a good time to do some "mental sorting", as my sister likes to call it, and to walk through Toronto streets while signing out loud to whatever is playing on my iPod.  My apologies to those who are suffering from premature cringe lines along my route. But it's also a time when I'm blessed with little epiphanies.  Today's epiphany (ok, there are not epiphanies *every* day), was this: stop idolizing who you were.

Indeed, the person I was three years ago has been my hero for as many years.  Her 13 year relationship disintegrated and pretty much everything about the life she'd known up until then crumbled with it, and instead of hiding from the world, she carefully stepped out of the rubble in kitten heels and a checkered mini, dusted herself off and went about the business of being as fabulous a girl as she could be.  And not just because she thought she should, but because she knew she was.  She exercised, she ate well, she tried new things, she made new friends and she dared to be different.  All was good.

As we all know though, time doesn't stand still.  I continued to evolve, and sometimes, I'd find myself in tough situations. Scary, crap-your-pants kind of stuff where you're forced to ask big questions and do your best to answer them.  And in typical Sylvie style, I'd always try finding my answer by asking another question: What would Sylvie do?

Oh yes, "what would Sylvie do?"  Such a wonderful yet completely irritating question that I unfortunately answer from the perspective of a three year old, rattling off every activity that would fill my schedule and habit that would shape my actions.  And for the past three years, I've been trying to mimic those things, trying desperately to tap into those Sylvie super powers.  Maybe I need to work out more to blow off steam.  Maybe I should try to fit into my size 3 pants (dear God - I can't get started on that ridiculousness).  Maybe I need to go back to eating yogurt every afternoon with grapes and sliced almonds in it.  Maybe I need to have the same haircut as I did then.  Maybe I need to find another pair of those apple earrings I lost that summer.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.  Oh barf.  Please.

Now that I realize it, I see how ridiculous it is.  I have put the me that I was on some sort of pedestal, but if I try hard to put myself back into the head-space I was in back then, I hardly felt that I had it all figured out.  And I didn't.

I don't quite know how to stop doing it, but I'll give it my best shot.  The best I can come up with is that the Sylvie from then did what she had to do, and it's led her to where I am now.  I'm not the same person, and I'm not in the same circumstances.  But yes, I can certainly do my best to do what needs doing.

But there is one Sylvie super-power that I've admired the most, and lately, I have needed it so badly but found it to be missing whenever I called upon it.  The heroic me went through some tough times and she shed more than a few tears, but somehow, she'd always manage to set it aside after a few minutes.  She'd say "Crying isn't going to fix anything, and it's not much fun anyway.  Go do something else and stop being so sad." She was so smart.  And it always seemed to work.  I've been finding myself on tough times again lately, and what's made it even tougher is that telling myself the same thing never helped.  I couldn't convince myself to stop crying.  Or to stop being so sad.  I know that it's important to live through our feelings, but sometimes, you just know you're not doing yourself any favors by wallowing in them, and it's scary when you can't stop.  Especially when you used to have that ability.

But today, something happened.  I was at the store and I was in tears.  It wasn't much different than it's been so many times over these last few months, that is until I stopped.  My super power was back.  My magical lens zoomed out and gave me the perspective I needed.  Sure, something was upsetting me, but I had plenty of other things to do and I carried on with them.  I don't know how and I don't know why, but I did it.  Thank you Super Sylvie.