Epiphany...a day ahead.

Hello! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Tomorrow, January 6th is Epiphany on the Christian church calendar but I had to share my 2009 epiphany early.

The fog has lifted. The birds are singing. The air is fresh. The sky is blue. Life is wonderful and so, so good.

What you may ask has come over me? A nice dose of thyroid medicine. Holy, amazing, batman...I won't go into any of the details except to say after each of my pregnancies nodes in my thyroid has grown. And that over the course of the last six months I have felt as if aliens overtook by body and very being. Check out this website for the symptoms. (and a bit of PSA: even if your blood work is "normal" if you feel these, push your doctor to get you some help.) But for me the most telling sign was just how dull I felt. I was in conversations but not there. Every moment of life was a chore...a painful, exhausting chore that I began to loathe every moment of. Truly. A normal day was overwhelming work.

Just two weeks into treatment and I am amazed/stunned at how much better I feel. Now, granted, the mundane parts of my day to day life are still there but cleaning the kitchen, laundry, and the like don't overwhelm or exhaust me. The grief and myriad of other feelings remain, but they too don't overwhelm or completely dismantle me any more.

Yesterday, I was dancing around the room and hopping up and down with BB. It was apparent in his face that this was new (and very fun) behavior from me. His excited and precious face reinforced for me how important it is to take care of myself--so I can be the best version of myself.

A cloud has lifted, joy returns. Yay!

As I say good bye** to 2008 and the gut wrenching, faith testing, awe filled, sad, miraculous year that it was, I am thankful for Epiphany. It is good to arrive, if only for a moment, at the cradle of Christ and offer whatever gifts I have. It is good to clearly see the star leading us.

(**or as members of my family said, "Kick its butt out the door.")

A note about the photo above. You will notice that the kings are on their way to the stable but aren't "suppose" to be there yet. BB and I were at silent odds over how close they should be. Every time I passed by the kings over the weekend they were a bit closer than I had intended...so I would move them backwards. Only to find them close again when I passed by. Those poor guys are going backwards as often as they moved forward...hum, sounds about right.