5 years ago… - November Project

This morning was so fun. I’m not sure what it was but it made me think today about why I showed up – almost 8 years ago now – and about why I still show up.

And after a chat with a friend today, I decided to write this. Ok, for the new people – NP blog posts aren’t always as big and heavy as this one is about to be. But they can be.

Here goes….

I’m finally ready to trust you NP friends.

I wrote a guest blog post, in 2018, and just couldn’t write then what I’m about to write now. It was still pretty raw for me then. It’s not now.

I’ll start by saying that I wasn’t in the best frame of mind when I #justshowedup in June 2014. I was in a pretty dire spot in my head.

I was at the beginning of my infertility journey. It turned out to be the early days of 2.5 years of unsuccessful treatment to help grow my family beyond my husband and I. We spent piles of $$, emotional energy, and personal wellness as we went through that journey.

It was a lot.

In 2016, I had disappeared from NP for months at a time. I did that because I was in and out of treatment and well, I couldn’t physically do much while in the middle of that nor did I have the mental capacity.

On March 28, 2017, I was officially told that the journey to have that biological family that many people have, wasn’t going to happen for my husband and I.

That was over 5 years ago now.

I remember showing up to stairs the very next week. Even though I was much quieter in 2017, I had still known so many of you for years at that point. You were already – without knowing it – my comfort.

In early April that year, my friend and yours, Steven, snapped this pic of me at the top of the RG stairs. My body was still going through what it goes through at the end of an unsuccessful IVF round.

You didn’t know. I didn’t tell you.

I took comfort in you being around me- crushing stairs, saying hi, high fiving me, huffing and puffing, giving hugs (as we used to do back then) and wishing me a happy Wednesday. You might be reading this and thinking that that wasn’t enough comfort for someone going through that life event that I had just been through. It was.

In the summer of 2016, I bumped into Andrew at CBC’s studio. We were both guests on Edmonton AM, the morning show. As I was leaving the studio, he whispered to me “I’ll see you Wednesday”. I hadn’t been to NP in months at that point. I was in the middle of an IVF round.

But I did give him my #verbal and I did come back. I haven’t left since. Not even in April 2017 – when this pic was taken. And I can tell you that I was in rough shape in this photo- physically and emotionally.

In the state that I was in that day, you were there. You didn’t even know you were there for me.

Something about today made me think about that day… it’s more of a feeling that a specific event.

Now that that journey is in the rearview for me I can tell you this…

I’ve healed. I feel that I fully healed from that giant life event in early 2019. Yeah- it took 2 full years to feel like an evolved and happy-again version of myself.

What I couldn’t say in my NP guest blog post in 2018 (I wrote that I had “health issues”), I can say now.

I don’t know all the awesome and tough stuff that’s happening your lives at the moment. I’m happy to hear it and chat it out as we suck air – up and down those hills + stairs. I’m also happy to just be there. Just as you were for me.

Lastly, I don’t need you to feel bad or sad about what I wrote. What I went through is part of some people’s life story. It’s part of my life story. I grieved (a lot). I healed. I grew and evolved (and continue to). I’m happy. I celebrate how awesome my life is. I make decisions to continue having a wonderful life. I could say a million others things here but I’ll leave it there…

I hope there’s something in this post that is helpful to you. That’s likely the only reason I wrote this as, like I said, this isn’t healing for me. I did that already.

Lastly again, you don’t have to avoid this topic when you see me. It’s not a secret. It never was. I feel comfortable to say this (holy shit I’m writing this on the internet) because I trust you. And, like I wrote in that 2018 guest blog post, we’ve got each others’ back.

Ok, now if you haven’t yet enjoyed Steven’s photos from this mornings epic RG stair workout, go check them out here.

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