Chase Your Sunset: New Year, New Doubts

I never know how to properly start introductions after not writing for so long. Sorry? It's been a while? You already know that. I also always have a tendency to promise I'll do this more often and life has a tendency to get in the way. I want to inspire you but the truth is, I don't feel inspiring every day - or every week - or sometimes for months. I wish my life was epic enough to have something constructive to write about on a daily basis but alas, I put my pants on one leg at a time too.

2017 took its toll on me in many ways which I won't get into - but there were some real struggles. The more I've talked to people over the last few months, I've realized 2017 was that kind of year for a lot of us. So, if you're reading this and you're glad you made it to this side of that awful year - Cheers! and Congratulations!

At the front end of 2018, I am a proud owner of a now four-year-old. I'm not sure where the time went but here we are! It is precisely the topic which led me to write today. I continue to be amazed by my kid. It's corny when people say that - because, well, it's your kid, you're supposed to be amazed. 

I mean just think about it. If toddlers/pre-schoolers were any less cute or stopped amazing us and making us laugh with what they learn every day - we'd probably eat our young like in nature. Before you "Perfect Moms" out there go getting all sanctimonious on me, if you haven't had to clean up piles of toddler poop when your daughter refused to stay on the pot long enough to get it all out- because running from Mommy was infinitely more hilarious - I don't want to hear about it. I digress...

So, Mila's right of passage for turning four was to hit up the ever epic Chuck E. Cheese. Her and her friends played like maniacs and towards almost the end of the night they all decided to go into the climbing gym- play area thing. I don't know the technical name for it: but you basically climb up three rungs of platforms to get to the top set of tunnels which they crawl through and chase each other in and eventually get to the slide. Mila's besties, AJ and Kinzley, were thrilled to go along on this climbing expedition but, Kinzley couldn't quite make it up the rung levels to get to the top of the play gym. Wasting no time whatsoever, AJ and Mila devised a plan to help her. 

I stood there watching them, admittedly consumed with my own thoughts, some of which were negative, spiteful, worrisome and stress-filled, while others were logistics - what bills needed to be paid, what the rest of the weekend was going to look like, how much laundry I had to finish, and reminding myself to buy dog food.  I was watching but I wasn't engaged until something caught my eye. My kid.

My 24 weeker, barely viable, 1 lb 7 oz, odds stacked against her, couldn't breathe on her own for three months, 112 days in the hospital kid was quite literally picking her friend up and lifting her onto each rung so all three of them could get to the top. What?? Naturally, I proceeded to do what any good mother would in this situation. I found the closest chair and started crying...like an idiot. Through my tears I watched the same thing happen over and over. Each time, Mila wasn't phased. She kept lifting Kinzley, who is a bit bigger in stature and certainly weighs more, and never grew tired. 

As I kept watching, I was instantly convicted. I felt a physical sting in my chest. It just hit me. If you had asked me five minutes before this took place whether it was possible, I would have told you, "No." How ignorant am I? To instinctively pick doubt over possibility and to immediately write a situation off as impossible when I had no statistical input that it couldn't work. I doubted my own child! I was transported back to every diagnosis she was given, to every milestone I was told she'd never meet and I felt so foolish.

Life has a way of breaking us. We get dealt a hand that seems impossible to overcome and we buckle. We allow ourselves to be convinced of our worth by people who are miserable within themselves. We take the easy way out by losing hope and not trying when the rubber meets the road. If you want me to inspire you, you're going to have to become inspire-able. Take my mistake and make a commitment to not repeat it. Never doubt yourself or anyone else and certainly do not allow a single person to tell you what you're capable of. Among the Biljanas, be a Mila. Continue to smash through obstacles and chase new records to break. Continue giving a figurative middle finger to whatever someone has said about you and chase your sunset. 

The most beautiful part about this is, Mila doesn't know what her outcome could have been. She doesn't know what was said about her. She instinctively fought and as her personality continues to develop, I catch glimpses of that rebellious, "try me" sparkle in her eye and I'm so thankful for it. Her battles in life are only beginning, but one thing is for sure,  I'll never doubt her again.