Surprise

Sometimes I look back at my mid-20s and I think about the days that my husband and I were both working. We woke up each morning to go to our perspective jobs, both off to do important things. Joining our incomes for the first time was exciting and we were setting off to build this life together. We were young and naïve and totally clueless to how life really works, but that added to all the magic. We were playing house and figuring out this thing called life together. We felt strong and powerful and ambitious. We made plans of buying houses, having babies and making a beautiful life. The options seemed endless.

And somewhere along the line we made so many dreams happen. We bought a house and had an amazing baby. I started off working and then became a mother. I felt so lucky to stay home and raise that perfect little baby. But as everyone experiences in life, some of our hopes and dreams did not come to fruition. There were sacrifices and losses and grief, but we endured them together. And here I am 10 years later in my mid-30s looking back at the last decade and I sometimes feel a bit as if life went on and I somehow stayed stagnant. As Kaylee has grown older and started going to school full time I notice my limitations due to CF so much more. I didn't go back to work like planned. I still need mid-day naps even though my night sleep is no longer interrupted by a fussy baby. And there are more and more days that I am sick and in bed and unable to fulfill my basic household duties. There are more days my husband works and comes home to do housework and dinner and care for Kaylee while I lay useless in bed. On those days I feel like dead weight. I feel like a burden. And sometimes in the dark corners of my mind I do wonder if sometimes my husband feels a bit resentful of how much more work he puts in to keep our little family afloat. He would never utter those words out loud, but I do wonder if in the dark corners of his mind he wonders what it would be like if he married a healthy person instead.

So when I walked through my front door at 5:00 on my birthday to see my living room full of friends from all different phases of my life and heard "Surprise" ring through the whole house I felt so loved especially by the man who does the lions share in my home.  He secretly had a friend who is a chef make food, and a friend who is a bartender make a cocktail. He secretly invited my friends and coordinated with my sister and mom to get my out of the house. And one of my longest standing friends flew in just for the day to take part in the celebration. And just 5 days before I was scheduled to have my transplant testing done I was so filled with love and excitement that the high carried me through the next few days. And even when I start to get worried or stressed about my evaluation I just have to think of my birthday to remember that I am loved. And when I start to feel that I am less of a wife for not bringing home and income or for having so many "bad days" I can just think about all the thought and work and love that my husband put into this party that was meant to show me how much people care about me before I step off into this new scary and unknown adventure. 

The restrictions CF has put on my life can sometimes make me feel less than. I am such a different person than I was when I was healthier and working and productive according to societies standards. It can be hard to feel as if your life is slowly closing in on you and is made up of treatments and IVs and sick days when you once had a taste of living a "normal" life. But knowing I am cared for and loved just the way I am, CF and all, is forcing me to slowly redefine a successful life.