The Jesus year….

I have mentioned it in one of my blogs, and now that the birthday has come and gone, I feel it's time I talked about the Jesus year. For those who don't know what I'm talking about and haven't been able to put it together, let me give you a quick explanation.  Thirty-three is the year Jesus was crucified on the cross and so many believe this particular year is extremely significant in our own lives.  We are to find ourselves or learn something new. Something drastic happens or something interesting makes you change your perspective on life.  Whatever it is - the Jesus year will change you and not just for a moment, forever.

I didn't have a damn clue what the Jesus year was until my brother told me about when he was visiting this past January.  It was a freezing cold day and we had just moved into our new apartment in New York and Tom who had already had his first surgery was due for a doctor visit later in the week to find out if a second surgery or chemo was necessary. Tension was everywhere in the house and I had finally found a moment to sit down at the dining room table which looked more like a table you see in the show Hoarders than a table you would ever serve a turkey on for Thanksgiving but somehow I had managed to find just enough room for my laptop. My brother had also carved out a little spot for himself and was typing away when he looked up at me.  "Chiara, how old are you?" " I'm 33, why?" He nodded his head up and down and then said "oh boy, Key…you're in it." I laughed, no shit was I in it Joel...but I answered a little curious, "In what?!" "The Jesus year." "The Jesus year, Joel?" And then he went on to explain and it all made perfect sense. Listen I don't preach this stuff I just thought it was pretty freaking interesting and YES if there is ever a year that challenged me, made me think, made me look outwards and upwards and inwards and left and right and up and down, it was definitely this year.

My Jesus year was a combination of the good, the bad and the ugly.  It started in Boston and it ended in New York.  Tom was interviewing back when I turned 33 and it was all hush, hush and given I was newly pregnant, I was blissfully happy and blissfully ignorant to think life would ever change.  Boston was home and I wanted to keep it that way. Later realizing it was those exact feelings that would challenge the very core of our marriage. Looking back I now know Tom and I spent the majority of my Jesus year on different pages.  Tom wanted nothing more than to move out of Boston and get a new job in New York.  I wanted nothing more than to have a new baby and stay in Boston… can you say different pages?!

There was plenty of fights and plenty of slamming, of plenty of doors.  There were more sober nights than drunk nights (thank you Francesca) and less parties and more dinners.  There was more one on one with friends and there were longer hugs. I'm still wondering why I thought it was a good idea to have a going away party and a 2nd birthday party on the same day and at nine months pregnant? I'm also still wondering how I pulled both of them off and stayed up until 4am partying and do I dare mention, all with Louboutins on the very swelled feet ;-)

My Jesus year brought amazing things in the world of motherhood. For the first time, being a mom to a toddler and not a baby and shaping that toddler into a little girl.  Listening to Finley's ever growing vocabulary and knowing I had a part in it and marveling at this amazing child while I grew another inside of me.  I will try to remember the "I love you's" and try to forget the "get away from me's" although I'm not dumb….I know I haven't heard the last of the latter.  I was challenged with single motherhood while Tom spent the last months of my pregnancy and the first few months of Frankie's life in New York and we all spent the work week without him. I faced the new challenges of being a mom of two and I grew a whole new respect for women who do it alone. In my Jesus year I started to realize, I had become my mother.

I got pleasant surprises, "It's a GIRL!" and not so pleasant surprises "Honey, I got the JOB!" The first half of my Jesus year was a challenge but of course nothing could prepare for the 2nd half.  I laugh thinking that even Frankie's birth story was something out of the ordinary. No birth story is what you expect but certainly if someone had told me Frankie was going to come into this world in four minutes and two pushes, and I would be relived I didn't end up giving birth to her in my Range Rover, I wouldn't have believed them.  If someone said Tom wouldn't be there to see it happen, I would have laughed in their face. A drive-by delivery was just the beginning to the craziest fall and winter I have ever experienced.

I was met with challenges I had never dealt with before and had no idea trying to get a child into a New York private nursery school while living in Boston and with a newborn would literally take over my life.  I never knew completing these nursery school applications, interviews, tours, play-dates while nursing a baby and traveling back and forth to NYC while Tom lives in California, would make me fall to my knees on a sidewalk on the UES in complete tears (and embarrassingly so I called my mom to come pick me up). The ironic part is, as bad as all that was to handle….I believe the lesson of learning life's REAL challenges was just about to be handed to me and I had no idea. 

I was moving to NYC and I just had to deal. It was Christmas time and I was determined to make it memorable, it being the last in Boston but two days before the end of 2010, the C card was dropped. And just when I thought it couldn't get any crazier and just when I thought Tom and I couldn't get any further apart, our lives changed forever.  How we found the C is a story that is definitely not for the blogs and more for the close friends who get me drunk enough to retell but for those who don't know the story and are reading this - use your imagination ;). When we sat up that night wondering what it could be and I saw the look of panic in Tom's eyes, I really thought he was crazy.  Cancer was the absolute last thing from my mind. But just four days before we were to pack up our apartment and I was to leave my entire support system and HOME, Tom was diagnosed with stage 2 testicular cancer…..and here we go again.  

My Jesus year brought me closer to some, and further from others. I was able to reconnect with friends who I hadn't seen or heard from in years and disconnect from friends who at the end I had come to the conclusion they brought zero to the table.  I faced new challenges and boy did I cry (although it might of been the pregnancy and post baby blues). I thank those friends who were there for me and called me and stuck by me through all the craziness and continue to still find time to call and check-in now.  You have all taught me a great lesson in friendship.

After recalling the last year, I get a lot of people asking me "how did you keep it together?" The answer is simple "I had no reason not to." I had a family who loved me, friends who I could call in an instant, two precious girls who make every day seem like Christmas morning and so not keeping it together wasn't an option. I don't ever want to do my Jesus year over again but I'm glad I went through it.  The good - Francesca being born.  The bad - leaving Boston. The ugly - cancer.  In the end - what won't kill you, will only make you stronger. I'm just happy every thing is settled down….for now.