All evening, I've been playing the "what was happening a year ago?" game.
At this time last year, I was mostly lying on my side, propped up with pillows, hooked up to IVs in both arms, trying to read magazines, getting groggy from the meds they gave me, waiting for my body to get going on the whole labor thing, and trying not to worry as my blood pressure kept creeping up. At this point in the night, they'd given me a sleeping pill, and while I tried to rest, Matt, too, tried to rest in the uncomfortable chair under the window.
I remarked tonight that the passing of this year is baffling to me. It's not so much that I can't believe Sam is turning one, it's that I cannot believe that another year of life has passed by so quickly. Another year here in Decorah. Another year of pastoring. Another year of marriage. A year full of extraordinary highs and lows.
Perhaps I feel so tender because I'm scared for my dad's scan results tomorrow, which will tell us whether the chemo is doing anything to beat down his cancer (because God knows that it is beating down his poor body). Perhaps I'm feeling emotional about seeing all my family next week for Thanksgiving. Perhaps I am just so very tired from picking up extra tasks at church while my partner in crime is down for the count with Lyme disease. Perhaps acknowledging that my baby is not so much a baby anymore but a toddler is starting to rekindle in me the desire to have a baby all over again.
I know that my life is more complicated than it was a year ago. More exhausting. More energy expended. It is fuller, too. My heart swells every time Sam laughs or leans in to give me kisses. Motherhood and all the other pieces of my life right now feel nothing like I expected them to. I'm learning that I have a greater capacity than I knew to feel conflicting emotions and a greater capacity to function, even on low low amounts of physical or emotional energy.
Tomorrow morning, it is all about Sam's birthday. But tonight, for these last moments before sleep, it is about me, and about love and nostalgia and holding onto these last bits of illusion that my baby is still a baby. Tomorrow, we celebrate. But tonight, as I tuck myself into bed, I will be thinking about that new little blue-wrapped baby nestled into my arm. I will be thinking about my dad and about the happy, healthy person he was a year ago. I will be thinking about the oddly sacred space of that hospital room where I spent five days, and the way that it was a place of rest and of joy, even in the midst of a tough recovery.
I hope that I sleep well tonight (I hope that Sam sleeps well tonight!). And I hope that when I dream, I dream of the newness and excitement and overwhelming wonder of bringing Sam into this world. I hope that when I dream, it will be of celebration and happiness and hope. Tomorrow, we party. Tonight, however, it is time for sleep.
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