Have you ever noticed in Christmas letters people only mention the good things that happened to them throughout the year? Or they re-phrase situations to make 2009 sound more glorious than it actually was. "He was temporarily let go at the corporation to explore other options." (That dude got fired.) "Amidst the economic crisis, we decided to replace our SUV for a more practical vehicle and move into a smaller, more convenient living space." (They couldn't afford to pay their bills and had to downsize.) Lets be honest, this year was a total bombshell and if you had told the 2008 Brittney what would happen in 2009, I would have smiled and nodded my head to make you feel good about yourself, all the while thinking you were as nuts as Alexander “the great” and his droogs.
It's hard to think about 2009 pre the month of May, but lets give it a try. I turned 23. (Snooze.) I completed my junior year of nursing school. (Boring.) My brother got married in April and Halle was born later that summer. (There we go-Yahoo!) To celebrate the end of yet another school year, I visited Lou while she was working in Monterey/ San Francisco, California. As any time spent with Fong Zey, it proved to be astonishing. We saw real life whales and found the golden gate bridge with no map or GPS. In the middle of May, I started an internship at Children's Mercy Hospital. Let's stop here for a moment. This internship was huge. Adrian Brody’s nose huge. The experience of working at one of the best pediatric hospitals in the nation whilst being under the direct supervision of a nurse for three full months was truly an answer to prayer. It was paid, the exposure priceless, and perhaps most importantly, is going to look killer on my resume. Two days after starting at Mercy, Brandon proposed! It was one of those moments you wish you could inhabit, take up residence in. Then in June, one day before the death of Michael Jackson, I found out I was pregnant. Unfortunately for you, I am not going to write everything I felt for the next couple of months because, despite popular belief, this is facebook and not a personal diary, but I will be honest. In the mist of an unexpected pregnancy, I panicked. Even though your circumstance may have been different, I believe we all have experienced the feeling of sheer shock, realizing your life was changing forever when you least expected or least wanted it to.
One night at Jacobs Well Church, they spoke of Gods grace as a power source-a turbine is a wind field if you will. I needed God's grace in this manner more than ever in 2009 helping me through each day, and sometimes, each hour. But, luckily for me, it takes nine months to grow a baby and as the weeks passed by, panic turned into excitement as I matured and started to kind of like the idea of starting a family and becoming a mom. Brandon and I got married in October and I couldn’t have asked for a more flawless day. He is a great husband and realizing how much God has blessed us, we are eager to experience life by welcoming a child into it.
Now about those goals and resolutions I set last year. I wanted to listen to every song on my ipod A-Z. Oops. I made it to As Tall as Lions and then I sort of forgot. (Yo girl, you didn’t even make it through the first letter of the alphabet! It’s not looking very good.) I wanted to give money every time I saw a Salvation Army bell ringer. Ha! I did this one! Ok, I forgot once or twice but I really did make an effort and 99% of the time, I remembered my coin purse. Even though the grand total of what I gave was probably $5.67, I enjoyed making someone smile over loose change. I wanted to run a half marathon. Yes, this was also a goal in 2008 and if you have been reading this blog at all, you should have used conductive reasoning by now and concluded it didn’t happen in 2009 either. I wanted to write a novel or at least take a giant step towards writing one. Yes, I started my novel, but a giant step? It was more like a small hop.
So 2010, (Is it pronounced “two-thousand-ten?” “Twenty-ten?”) what shall I do with you? (First thing would be to learn to pronounce 2010 correctly.) I want to continue to write daily just as I have throughout my pregnancy. Why must something astounding happen in my life before I write about it? I hope to journal even during the “normalcy” and “blandness” that can be everyday existence. I would like to lose this freaking baby weight. (Being fat sucks.) I wish to graduate nursing school, (I think you all do too, so I will stop talking about it) pass the NCLEX and get a job in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit or on a floor that will help me get into the NICU one day. I hope to have a healthy baby and be a mother exactly like mine. I want to use my life encounters to raise a confident individual who loves God, respects people and listens to good music.
But if there is one thing I have learned this year it is this: The Flaming Lips were right. “All we ever really have is now.” So honestly, that is my only real new years resolution: to be present, in the moment, looking forward to and prepare for the future but understanding we are only promised this instant.
Consider this your Christmas letter.
