First Day of 2022 & 2021 Year in Review

Happy New Year! I'm kind of excited about 2022. There are so many quilts I want to make, lol.

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Even though I'm looking forward to making quilts and working on my home, the first day of 2022 found me in tears. Loud, wailing tears. I felt so sad and devastated. I really missed my children.

Overall, I like to share how much I love my new life that I've created. The happiness and contentment that I have are very real. But so are the massive losses that prompted all of it. And sometimes I feel my losses and the longing for my children very, very strongly. It's important that I share this part of my life too.

It happened on Saturday morning (1/1/22). I was hanging out with my boyfriend at home when all of a sudden I started tearing up, told him I was having feelings, and went to the bedroom and had a massive cry. A very loud, very painful, very visceral, and very real cry. I did what I could in the moment. I felt it. And it sucked.

Seven years prior (1/1/15) I had my first embryo transfer.

Oh. Yeah...
And January, February, and March have sucked ever since.
(Well, some things can lessen over time... Maybe they will suck less this year?)

So that's how 2022 started. I also felt better later in the day. I really do appreciate all that I do have. I put up the Xmas ornaments, cleaned out the fridge, and did some laundry. I made sausage and jalapeno queso because it felt like a festive thing to do. And, of course, I sewed.

So that's how 2022 started (crying) and how I'm feeling about it (enthusiastic anyway, haha)...

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As for 2021, I read Mali's recent year in review post and wanted to reflect myself.

We all know life has been hard for the last couple of years...
(And, in our CNBC community, we all know it was hard before then too.) 

But... 

DANG, thanks to books, blogs, and a commitment to personal insight and change, 2021 was a major year of personal growth for me. I wrote about it a lot, but here are 3 of my favorite posts.

My first post of the year was written on Jan. 1st when I was feeling strong feelings just like this past Saturday. (Fertility treatments can be so traumatizing. The body definitely remembers!)

Then later in January I wrote a very honest post about how I used to always put everyone else first. It was important that I was honest with myself about this lifelong pattern of mine.

Continuing with my personal growth, I read four books this year:

• Women Who Love Too Much by Robin Norwood
• The Empath's Survival Guide: Life Strategies for Sensitive People by Dr. Judith Orloff
• When Your Mother Has Borderline Personality Disorder by Daniel S. Lobel
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson.

I wrote a post about a topic I read about in the second book, Dr. Orloff's concept of energy vampires. All of the books were helpful though. I read the first three when I was unemployed last spring and I read the last one while I was unemployed this past month. So, hey, I take advantage of my time when I'm not working. Cheers to personal growth lol.

Which brings me to my Top 5 Most Read posts of 2021:

     5. My Name is Mine 

(I finished changing my name on everything. I no longer have the last name that my children would've had.)

     4. Feeling Insecure 

(I think feeling insecure is relatable in general. With regard to this post specifically, in hindsight, I think all of my weird feelings about my job were my intuitive instincts just screaming at me to run in the opposite direction. But, it can be hard to know in the moment. Going through infertility definitely shook my sense of security. And my nerves are still frayed.)

     3. Awkward Introduction 

(Yeah, geez, that job was weird... This post highlights the fertile bias that was overwhelmingly present at my new job orientation.)

     2. Fifth Times's the Charm

(The absolute best part of 2021, and hell, from the whole decade of 2011 - 2021 was buying my home. It's not a house I would've bought if I was raising children. It's not even in a town where I would live if I was raising children. But it is perfect. It's perfect for me, perfect for my boyfriend, and perfect for our lives together. Anyway, this post describes all five of the moves I've made since knowing I would be living life after infertility without kids.)

     1. Relatable Words from Others

(I'm surprised this is my most popular post of the year, but it is probably because Mali wrote about it here. Thank you Mali!! This post is about two different patients I had and the comments they made to me. I love providing patient care. I look forward to my next job where I get to do that.)

Then, last but not least, I also really liked my last post of the year.
Each year is full of "insignificant" days.
We deserve to enjoy them.

My first 8-point star blocks!

(Sorry for the bad lighting; it was late at night. This quilt will be for a knitter. Do any of you readers like to knit? I don't know any knitters. I just felt compelled to make these blocks.)