Reflection. Life.  Reflecting on life…I find myself doing that as I have a few more days before I turn 40. 40!  40!  How can that be?  The days of traveling softball, doing gymnastics at The Community Center, swimming in the pool during the summers while mom was working, playing at Elisha’s house, changing for gym class at Kilmer while keeping a low profile during gym, roaming the halls of Madison between classes; all seems like yesterday.  A lot has certainly happened since that time. I graduated high school, graduated college, got my first job, got my second job (going on 16 years there) and worked my way up the ranks there. During this time, I also fell in love, got married, had three beautiful girls, bought a condo, sold a condo, bought a house.

Justin and I have been together nearly half our lives.  I was 20 when we started dating.  Two decades! We have traveled together….California, New York, South Carolina, West Virginia, Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Florida, Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, North Carolina Mexico, Nevis, Dominican Republic, Greece, Turks and Caicos, Sweden. I’ve traveled to Spain with my mom and Israel and London by myself as well during this time.

Our early 20’s were busy with getting jobs and putting our best foot forward each day.  Evenings were spent at the gym or at happy hours. A few years after being in the work force, we, like many of our friends, purchased our first home.  Bars and night clubs were already behind us (yet they were truly never a thing) and spending times letting loose on the weekend with friends occurred more frequently at our homes.  We were busy…weekend mornings we slept in…a must when not going to bed until way after midnight.  Going to the gym mid-day on weekends was the norm and our day would start after a late lunch.  Not sure what we did each weekend, but I can tell you that even in my 20’s responsibility filled a lot of our to-do list on the weekends (grocery shopping in person at Giant, my Sunday cleaning “ritual”, and a monthly deep clean of our condo. We had fun though and we were lazy. Turning on the T.V. daily was a norm – eating dinner in front of the T.V at the coffee table also a fairly regular occurrence.

Life was good in our 20’s. After being a couple for close to 8 years, Justin and I got married when I was 29 and he was 28.  The years surrounding our sacrament of marriage were filled with attending many weddings.  Then I turned 30 along with Justin and most all our friends!

30’s were the decades of babies!!  And we had our share…3 of them in the course of two years!  The baby phase was amazing.  Conversations with friends paused for quite a few years truthfully but I was so present when the girls were babies and toddlers.  Busy, yes of course, but present!  During the girls’ early years, we moved out of our condo, moved in with my parents, bought a house in a wonderful neighborhood, and welcomed four au pairs into our family.

Then with a blink of the eye, we no longer had an au pair, we had two 8 year-olds, a 6 year-old, and I was turning 40!  Life!  I’m in my 40’s!  Truthfully, I think a lot of that disbelief is because I feel great and don’t look terribly different than I did at 16…yes, older…some wrinkles, but not a ton.  And I am in great shape!!  While I have categorized my life as busy at every stage of my life, in large due to my Type A personality, I am grateful for this next chapter.  Grateful to be turning 40.  Grateful to be the one to get my girls ready for school and be there when they get home in the afternoon.  Grateful to have saved enough money to finally embark on our home renovation. Grateful for a job that allows me to work largely at home. Grateful for kids who despite fighting truly love each other.  Grateful for a supportive and loving husband. Grateful for a life partner to dream with and turn our dreams into reality.  Truly grateful.

It’s been a long while since I have talked about Avery’s vision on this blog.  Avery’s low vision is a part of her daily life, our daily life, and it is simply our norm.  At eight years old, she’s proven that her low vision is not going to hold her back in life. Will there be challenges in life? Yes, of course.  But everyone has challenges in life, low vision or not and what matters is how a person perseveres in the face of obstacles.

When Avery was a baby and first diagnosed with cataracts, nystagumus, microthalmia, low vision….Justin and I had the conversation of our future home.  Did we need to purchase a one-level home so Avery could better navigate? There was so much we didn’t know!

Today we took the girls on their first legit hike.  We went on the Appalachian Trail in Bluemont, VA.  It was rocky, very rocky and steep in some sections.  We were two minutes into the hike when she face planted hard….she didn’t see a branch to the side of the trail; her foot hit it at and she totally face planted.  She bounced right up, brushing herself off, and crying, but she was okay.  The hike was hard for her.  But she was brave.  With the help of Justin and I, she hiked holding Justin’s hand or my hand on much of the non-level terrain.  She identified sections that were harder for her, sometimes due to the light and how it was shining on the rocks through the trees.  Her sisters were always ahead of her on their own.  Yet Avery never lets that bother her.  Low vision is her norm.

That one level house…she told us!  She continues to show us her abilities.  She teaches herself, she teaches others, she teaches us.  

She perseveres.