Reflections (v. 2.0)

Last year, I wrote a post reflecting on 2009. So I have been thinking about 2010 and what I'll write about it.

As I look back on it, I think 2010 was mostly not a good year. Meaning, at least 50% of my memories and thoughts about it are negative. Of course there are good things like our marriage and our pups and starting acupuncture and eating organic/natural, but other than that, things were pretty crappy. You can review the list of crap here. And even things like my grossly inconsiderate fertile friends added to the bog.

So, sorry, 2010. When I look back on you, I think of disappointment, failure, sadness, abandonment, and deflated hope.

But unlike my projections about 2010, my projections about 2011 do not contain any rosy cheeked baby next Christmas. I think it is cliche and unrealistic for me to sit here and say "I think we will have a baby next Christmas" because that is what I said last year and obviously it didn't do me any good. Except maybe it makes me face the fact that it will probably never happen for us.

As much as I honestly am not including any baby in my 2011 expectations, I sort of chuckle when I think of it because it is like a big cosmic reverse psychology session that I sit here and think that this year I'm not even going to dream of a child because that is what I did last year and look where it got me.

Luckily, even though I have given up hope that any sort of baby will be born to us this year, I don't picture 2011 to be the same as 2010 in the sadness capacity. Mostly because all of the sadness (my grandfather's death notwithstanding) came from infertility treatments and expectations, and this year we have none. So, without the expectation that something is going to work, you don't have much fall when it doesn't. (Stay tuned for a potential big contradiction to this statement.) In this way, even if we are still childless this time next year, at least we didn't expect anything different.

Maybe this is not a very faithful way to look at things- after all, we aren't supposed to give up hoping. But I also think that if we are to die to ourselves in following Christ, that means to give up our dreams in place of what God might have for us. And with this concept, that does mean giving up hope that your dreams will come true.

I don't really think anything big is going to happen for us in 2011. I think we will continue loving each other and our dogs, paying down our mortgage, reading good books, making wonderful food, and falling asleep at 9:15pm. I think in the eyes of most people, we will be kind of boring. And I think in the eyes of society, we will be less than a family.

But I think 2011 will be a good year. And I'm not trying to be vague just so next year at this time I won't be proven wrong again. I have high hopes for it in every way except for expanding our family.

I have a theme for 2011, but I will wait until 1/1 to announce it. Excuse my french, in advance ;-)