I turned 38 earlier this month.

I’m pretty sure that every member of my family ‘teased’ me about my obsession with numbers at one point or another (this year, and every year …. this month and every month).  But I think I see life like a big, gridded calendar and knowing where everyone lies helps to quiet the never ceasing chaos of my brain.

Here’s the thing.  I’m okay with being 38.  I’m actually better than okay with being 38.  It fits me.  I fit into the grid nicely on December 12 and currently, at the age of 38.  I’ve enjoyed my 30s.  I don’t look my age (thank you Rodan + Fields and not having children) but even if I did, I think I’d be okay at 38.  Every moment in life is a learning moment, something that helps you (hopefully!) become better, more thoughtful, more well-rounded. Something that helps you appreciate where you are at this very moment. 

Today, my mother turns 70.  I’m fairly certain she wouldn’t love me saying that.  Most people don’t (although I routinely say people’s ages as I know them and their relationship to my own age — even if it’s in days, minutes, hours or years).

My mother is the best that seventy combined years has to offer.  She is thoughtful, kind, intelligent, funny, insightful, open, understanding, opinionated, strong … she has a distinct voice not only in my world, but in THE world.  She is measured in her responses, but that doesn’t prevent her from being cutting when she deems it appropriate (or necessary).  She believes in things and stands by them.  She soldiers on through the most unfair, the toughest of odds and she does it with a smile.  Her eyes still sparkle, she still gets dressed up, she still has the delight of a child when something new, or unexpected surprises her.

She looked at me across the dinner table last night, and gazed down at her son, my little brother, seated at the end of the table, and I could see the love and pride in her eyes.  She did an exceptional job raising us — she was the most lovely, most creative, most perfect mother a child could ask for.  She treated us like people (she always said it was because she was not meant to be a mother, but I think it’s because she absolutely was meant to be a mother — our mother).  She taught us, and took us on adventures, and made everything seem interesting and fun.  She encouraged learning, and welcomed us onto her bed at night to read stories (during which she did all the voices).  She made huge sacrifices we didn’t understand and she never burdened us with in order to give us the life we had as children.

As adults she has listened, supported us, allowed us to stretch our wings and both fall and fly.  She has embraced our chosen partners (even dusting off her French to speak to David’s lady in her native tongue).

She is — quite simply — exquisite.

And despite my bizarre obsession with numbers, that’s all they really are.  Just numbers.  They don’t define an age, a person.  They merely track time.

Anyway, today and every day I love my mummy.  My mama bear.  At every age.  At any age.

It seems a little strange to think that it’s August now.  The weather has been so funny all summer that just a few days ago, I would have sworn it was a late September day – perfectly warm at the height of the afternoon without being humid, but cool as the evening approached, a light breeze ruffling the leaves on the trees.

We spent last weekend in Mansfield, camped out in John’s parents’ yard.  It’s the closest we really get to camping right now, and this past weekend, we brought Lucy.  (This was a mistake.  But probably one we had to make in order to really know for sure that Lucy and Mansfield/camping don’t really mix).  The sky at night was full of twinkling stars, the air crisp as we cuddled under blankets in our tent.  Just me, and John and our little fur-creature, together under the night sky.  It was sort of wonderful.

July has been a funny month for us personally.  John began his new job at the end of June, so July has been an exercise in new normals.  How our days work, how our life is crafted.  When we moved into our house, a little over two years ago, we both worked outside of Chester County.  We both spent an amazing amount of time commuting.  Now, we are both home every day, enjoying our home, and enjoying our life out in the countryside of Southeastern Pennsylvania.  The transition hasn’t always been easy — there  have been bumps and confusion.  But we have seen both our families more this year, enjoyed each other’s company more, and been able to devote time to our friends and our hobbies, without the endless fatigue of a commuter’s life.

Last night, as Lucy and I walked along the mowed paths between high grass up on the hill behind our development, the sun sinking slowly in the sky and coloring the horizon with fire orange and blazing pink and violet-purple, I knew something inherently, at the very core of my soul.

I am at peace.

Everything that John and I have done to this point, to get us here, has been worth it.  But nothing is forever.  And leaving toxic environments and allowing ourselves to focus on what truly matters to us has been liberating.  Terrifying, yes.  But also joyous.  There is a unique power and confidence that having a partner and a small family unit provide, that may explain mankind’s tendency to couple up and procreate across the centuries.  But it is truer than true, the idea of feeling settled, of feeling heard and understood.

To watch Lucy chase butterflies and sprint the length of her leash in multiple directions, with what can only be described as a doggy smile as the warm evening breeze touched  my face and swayed the grasses surrounding us — the sky a myriad of indescribable color — John’s warm steadiness beside me.  I knew more than I’d ever known before, that I’d made the right choices, I was with the right souls, and anything was possible.

My husband bought me an Apple Watch for my birthday back in December.  We had to order it, because they didn’t have the size/color I wanted, so I finally received it a few days before the new year.  Apple products have some of the best packaging, and I remember distinctly watching its delivery status online (I had to be home to sign for it) and when it arrived, carrying it like precious jewels or paper-thin crystal up the stairs to my kitchen to unwrap it at the island.  Every moment was breath-taking.  It was so beautiful.

I was so insanely in love with it within minutes that I promptly told my husband (who had a watch he very much-loved) that he needed to get an Apple Watch immediately.  And so, despite some grumbling, he did.

And we have both been addicted since this year began.  I have missed only two days of completing my circles (Move, Exercise and Stand) ~ the first was a sync problem when I got a new phone (February 25th) and the second was this past Sunday, when I was certain that my fatigue was going to overrun my life.  I am sad about both days (I am very competitive) but what is even more important is how much the watch has changed our lives.

Hubs, who was a college athlete but hated working out, has begun riding a stationary bike every day in our garage (we do this together since we have 2 bikes …. see my previous post my bike is a very, very, very nice bike).  Sometimes we trail ride (although this is challenging on a number of fronts because of my absurd fatigue – thank you MS – and our inability make decisions in a timely fashion to avoid the heat).  I have found – in the six months of having my watch – that I’ve made more progress than I made all last year while riding the bike, probably because now the watch motivates me.  I can walk away from my phone when Lucy and I go for walks, because calls and texts (and email!) all pop up on my watch.  Hurrah!  This past Sunday I tried to leave my watch on the charger all day … but JUST.COULDN’T.DO.IT.  So I settled for closing my Stand rings and trying not to feel too sad about my Exercise and Move (since I’d made the decision to give my body a rest).

It is one of my favorite things.

In the four and half years I’ve had MS, I’ve learned so many things about keeping my disease under control.  It isn’t just about medicine, and it isn’t just about food and exercise.  It’s about all of that, and having faith in the decisions you are making, and waking up every day ready to give it your all once again.  The mornings are tough for me — my body usually hurts, and if I’m lucky I wasn’t up several times in the night to use the bathroom.  But once I’m vertical, it’s about making the best choices I can.  This watch has helped me do that, day after day, when I’m tired, when I’m sad, when I just don’t feel like it.

As John gears up to begin his new job next week by having drinks and dinner with some new co-workers, I’m at home, trying to find my direction.  And as silly as it sounds, my direction has begun to begin with my Watch.  Get up.  Move around.  Get sweaty.  I’ve learned that those things are invaluable to feeling better, feeling focused and motivated.

So, this is just a little love note to my Apple Watch, and also to my husband, for getting it for me in the first place.  He always seems to have an uncanny ability to get me things that fill my life up with happiness and joy.

It’s funny that it’s already April 21st (a day which deserves recognition as the birthday of a monarch who has done more for a country but also for women’s equality, than anyone will soon do again).

Last weekend, we hosted Easter for the fourth or fifth time — both sets of parents, plus my dearest friend (I am not sure how I have been so lucky to have a friend like her) and her significant other.  I didn’t think it would feel so stressful, but it did.  And while I think the majority of people in attendance had a good time, it always weighs on you when you believe you failed someone.

On Sunday, we leave for NIH.

It sits on my heart and my lungs, it weighs on my arms and legs.  It stymies my mind.  We spent a week there sixteen months ago and John had major surgery.  And next Wednesday, he has it again.  For the same issue. The past few days his ear and jaw have ached, and the pain — perhaps somewhat psychosomatic — has extended down his arms, into his joints.  Surgery and anesthesia are overwhelmingly complicated.  They leave you feeling powerless and adrift.

I woke up at 5a this morning.  I had meds in the city and I knew the weather was promising to be brutal (it did not disappoint).  I worried about rush hour and wanted to get a head start.  The grayness of night still hung over the sky as I turned my seat heater on and set off on the drive.

Five hours later I was home.  I’d made it by the skin of my teeth (God bless the poor man operating the parking lot ticket machine — I don’t believe I was the epitome of patience and kindness) and then, post-meds, after grabbing a soy chai latte from Starbucks (no longer a regular part of my unemployed life) I set off home and enjoyed a much better drive.  Lucy was waiting, her Kong gripped in her mouth, her body twisting into strange contortions of what I can only believe was happiness.  I absent-mindedly patted her head.  I staggered upstairs.  My brain was full of fog, my limbs felt heavier than anything I’d ever lifted.  Such are meds days.

My husband has always been the example I strived to follow.  He lives life and no one knows that his body is ravaged by a disease the doctors cannot control.  I think of that, hold onto it, when I am feeling petulant and weak in my struggle with M.S.

Life is not easy.  It certainly is not fair.  My email contained a note from my mother – the status of her recent round of chemo and her health.  It wasn’t bad.  But it certainly wasn’t sunshine and roses.  Cancer sucks.  Full stop.  I think of that when I am feeling utterly sorry for myself and my monthly infusions and complications of medication.  When my eyesight dips in and out and I break a toe because I can’t fully feel my feet.  When I find phantom bruises — deep and dark, purple midnight blue — scattered across my limbs with no explanation.  When I can’t remember the day before because of the heat, the stress, the fatigue.

Lately I’ve put my tears on the shelf.  My husband, who has always been the strength and steadiness in our relationship, is faltering under the crushing pressure.  Maybe I shouldn’t have left my job, maybe I should have made different decisions.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.  What if.  I am consumed by the worries of how I will get through the next few weeks when all that should matter is him.

I drove to get sushi for dinner – our first since giving it up for Lent.  The sky was rain-washed, the sun a tangerine orange sinking gracefully in the sky.  The greens were green, the blues were blue. The air felt fresh and full of life.  The cows grazed lazily in the fields.  Jim Croce’s “I’ve Got a Name” filled my car as it popped up on my iPhone’s random play.

I smiled.  I sang along.  I held tightly to the idea of this moment, this snap shot of why we moved here, why I left my job … what our dreams were and what they remain.  I thought of how much we’d been through, how much we have left to face.  I thought of my husband, working out diligently in our garage after a long day of work.

Life is neither fair nor easy.  Life is a constant onslaught of things we believe we are incapable of overcoming.  And yet … we do.  We hold onto each other in the darkness, finding comfort in the people we love, the warm, strong touch of their hands.  We breath deeply.  We pray.  We believe.

I’ve been diagnosed with MS for about three and a half years.  Who knows how long I’ve had it ~ they don’t know what causes it, and I was first tested at a very young age.  MS is a tough diagnosis, and they didn’t have enough when I was twelve.  But I remember getting the diagnosis at thirty-three and instead of being immediately scared, I was relieved that finally an explanation existed for how I felt.

After that, i got scared.  After breaking my foot and taking forever to heal, and then slowly losing the ability to walk any distance, or see anything clearly.  I got scared then.  I was on four different medicines before my doctor convinced me to try Tysabri.  We sat in an office for hours, debating the pros and cons, asking a myriad of (what seemed like) trivial questions. Dissecting all the options. Addressing the fears. It was probably the moment that I decided to trust this man who’d always seemed somewhere else, distracted, too in his head.  Who’d stared intently at a screen and told me I was a tough case.  This man who said he’d tell his wife to try Tysabri, despite all the possible side effects.  That it was my best — my only, really — option.  We’d tried everything else.  Nothing else worked.

There’s a difference between doing something because you want to, and doing it because you have to.  What I’ve found, across these years, is that understanding why I have to, and then learning why I would want to, is the best formula for me.  In 2012, if you’d told me that I should be a raw vegan who never drank wine and who went to sleep at 8.30 at night, I would have laughed out loud and then gotten internally angry.  Truth.

I’m not a raw vegan now, and I do drink wine.  But whew, the difference between who I was then, and who I am now — worlds apart.  Today I can say, very honestly and without a tinge of irony, that some of my favorite foods include spiralized zucchini, green smoothies, kombucha, and raspberries (to be fair, raspberries have always been my favorite).  A good day for me begins with a green smoothie, includes kombucha at lunch and ends with a sweaty bike ride on my stationary bike, wild cherry flavored sparkling water, and a dinner full of veggies.  Zucchini with Portobello is a favorite.  I also love peppers.  Mashed cauliflower is delish.

I’m pretty sure my 2012 self would look at my 2016 self and roll her eyes.  She would think this person I am now is being absurd, and that cheese and red meat never killed anyone.  That life is meant to be lived and enjoyed.  Wine is good for you.

But the thing that has inherently changed is that my life feels infinitely better when I live clean.  When I hit goals on my bicycle, or discover a new recipe full of veggies that tastes good ~ those are great moments.  I love my routine, the rhythm of this new life — the way things feel.  But I wouldn’t have done it by myself and I know that.  MS made me do it ~ MS made me appreciate taking care of myself.  MS helped me see the everyday benefits of exercise and hydration and proper sleep.

In three days, John and I are heading to Iceland for his birthday.  We booked the flights one night in November watching “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,”  As the trip has grown closer, we’ve gotten more and more excited.  I just booked our tickets for the Blue Lagoon on his birthday.  We’ve planned our daily excursions, and our wish list.  We have hiking poles, waterproof hiking sneakers, lightweight packs and rain coats.  We have awesome sunglasses and lenses for our camera.  We cleared out our iPhones over the weekend so we both have tons of storage.  We’re ready.

And if I hadn’t listened to my doctor, and then systematically embraced my new life limits, we wouldn’t be going to Iceland.  Because I wouldn’t be able to walk more than the length of one city block.  I wouldn’t be able to climb stairs without holding on for dear life.  We wouldn’t have been able to go to Venice this past February, and we certainly wouldn’t have booked another trip to Jackson Hole for September.

Tysabri is a little scary.  There are instances of patients contracting a fatal brain infection.  It messes with your organs.  I have so much blood drawn on a regular basis, it would seem strange to people who don’t have to deal with an incurable disease.  But I’m probably healthier now than I’ve ever been.  That’s the craziness of life.

When I was first diagnosed, John did a lot of reading about MS and I did none.  I thought ~ yeah, I deal with it personally every day, I don’t need a thousand other people telling me their struggles and sad stories.  My numb feet and spotty vision are good enough for me.  But John read people’s accounts of how they dealt with their disease.  And I remember, very clearly, a story about a woman who was diagnosed and now swims every day, eats super clean and proclaimed that she was healthier now than she’d ever been.  At the time, I thought that was ridiculous.  Now, it makes sense.

This past weekend, my little brother did a 36-mile hike in Banff Canada.  I see that, and I don’t get sad or angry.  i get motivated.  I can do that.  Yeah, I have MS.  That’s a bummer.  But it doesn’t change everything.  It just pushes you to look at life in a different way.

John and I have lived in our house for eight months.  And it’s just beginning to feel like home.

At first, it felt overwhelmingly big — we went from a one bedroom apartment to a three-story townhouse, so that was to be expected.  And everything felt new, and as though it belonged to someone else.  I felt awkward in our kitchen, and disinclined to cook because everything felt so unfamiliar.

Slowly, as the months slipped by, and the leaves changed from vibrant green to reds and yellows, and then became bare branches, we’ve settled in.  Work commutes have become routine, we’ve found grocery stores and know where products are — we’ve found homes for all our little nick knacks.  I don’t feel strange using our oven or our stove.  It feels really nice.

The thing about change is that it’s ever-present, and I look to find routine and familiarity everywhere because I find comfort in habits.  I guess, in some ways, that’s a little exhausting.

When John and I were talking about buying a house, and where we wanted to live, we spoke about Chester County as a far off dream for another time.  As though it couldn’t happen.  And then, somehow, we made the decision that it was really the only place we wanted to choose permanently.  And we made sacrifices (I mean, does anyone like getting up habitually before 6am to then catch a train for an hour plus ride to get to work? …. I’m pretty sure no one ‘likes’ it). 

The thing about moving somewhere as an adult is that there aren’t a lot of built-in ways to start a new social life, etc.  As a kid, you have school and sports and are surrounded by people your own age with similar interests (well, some of them have similar interests).  As an adult, it’s harder to find the pockets of people who are on the same level as you.  And it’s even harder to make friends, because so many people already have a group of friends they are comfortable with.  It’s funny to think of working on one’s social life, and taking risks but that’s a little like what John and I have done recently.  And it’s been a really awesome payback.

John and I are very much creatures of habit, with things we like, things we don’t and routines. But we’ve been going out and trying new things with new friends down in Chester County, and somehow, it’s made me feel less like an outsider, and more like Chester County is home.

And it’s made us feel motivated to get back to all the goals we’ve had in the past — of practicing our instruments, and using our Rosetta Stone and getting in shape — kayaking and biking and hiking and … well, so many things.  It feels amazingly good to be settled.  In a place of our own.  In our home.

I am not quite sure how it all happened, but we have found ourselves working with a brand consultant (for lack of a better term) at work for the past few weeks.

I won’ t lie – I wasn’t against the idea, but I certainly wasn’t overly enthused either.  However —  it’s been sort of eye opening. Because it hasn’t been about branding at all. It’s been about human sociology – human nature and human behavior. It’s wild. Lots of talk about the limbic brain and gut feelings, culture and tribe-mentality. Without even realizing it we are all  gelling and feeling puffed up with this idea that what we do is different and special. Something we are wickedly proud of building and being part of.

It’s actually bizarrely good timing for my mental health. It hasn’t been an easy six weeks and I have felt on the verge of giving up. Hopeless and lost and frustrated and … Stuck. And then – like a gift wrapped in happiness – I began to look at everything a little differently, and suddenly nothing felt quite as bad.

Life comes in waves – that’s how my brain has made it make sense to me – and there are peaks and valleys. Sometimes, when the valley is low and dark, it feels like the peak will never come again. And then it somehow sneaks up on you. And the depths of despair that had been drowning you feel faraway and distant. I like to be grateful for the valleys because they help me appreciate the peaks so much more. I won’t lie – I don’t always remember to be grateful. Sometimes I’m too distracted by feeling crappy.

But in the end, nothing is as bad as it first seems. And that’s a blessing.