Holy 2015 Chapters

I say "chapters", plural, because so much has changed in ONE year. At times it seemed like an eternity ago and at others it was just a blink of an eye. But here I am, a person that in this time on Monday I will be someone's mom.

I am 41 weeks pregnant and my little guy is getting served his eviction notice on Monday. Sometimes I think knowing the exact moment your life is going to change is more nerve racking then when it just happens with no preconceived notion of it.

In January, 2015 I have traveled to Puerto Rico, took 3 planes from 4 different airports to get there in the dead of winter when it was 3 degrees outside. A great way to start to rebuilding my marriage that hung by the threads of mistrust, pain and heart break. I recommend traveling to Puerto Rico in the middle of winter. The sands, sun and water were the perfect blanket of warmth to mend frozen hearts, amongst the alcohol fueled adventures and the passion filled rooms.

In February I became pregnant with our first child. My pregnancy itself was pretty great. I didn't go all bipolar, psycho, cry at every moment. On the contrary I found most things very humorous. Except the changes to my body. If you know any of the real me, you know that I'm vain, self conscious and slightly insecure about how I look and I prefer to be cute and fit. Well, add months of cheese fries and milkshakes and all that fit and hotness goes right out the window. So be it.

In June I had to put my best friend of 14, my fur baby, the one creature that loved me unconditionally, to sleep. I still cry at least once a week. I miss my Zoey beyond words. I am not going to go into details on why she had to go, but it was time. It came on hard and fast, and she was not going to suffer out of my own selfishness of wanting her around. Everyone she met loved her. For a dog, she had the biggest and silliest personality.

In August I sold my purple "brat mobile" Monte Carlo. 10 years and almost 200k miles, she was a ticking time bomb of car repairs and it was, also, her time to go. In her place we bought a 4 door, sparkly white, turbocharged mom-mobile. Her name is Snowflake. Though her personality is not as big as the "brat mobile's" she is a good, fast car and we look forward to making hundreds, if not thousands of memories in her.

In September I traveled to the desert to paint watercolor paintings in old silver mining towns.

From the most epic of baby showers to painting the whole house, my life has been a constant change. I am blessed in so many ways and yet overwhelmed with all that is about to continue to happen. The things that meant so much to me that began new chapters in my life, Zoey, the brat mobile, are gone but opened new chapters. I'm sad because I miss them but probably more so because the new chapters aren't written yet.

On a lighter note, I have been told numerous times that I don't look 10 months pregnant. Yes, 10! It's supposed to be a full 9 months, but in all actually it's 40 weeks which is 10 months.

I'm nervous, I'm sad, I'm scared, I'm excited, I am someone new that gets to experience a new life with no fucking clue what to expect. But the baby's room is beautiful so I have that.

I will be back.

Below is a picture of my contractions and little man's movements from a couple weeks ago. Funny how it's reflects the look of a rollercoaster.

Consistently changing, Merry Ms Berry

Sometimes it's okay to wander

Never in my 35 years alive have I not had a plan, a goal, a vision of what or where I thought I wanted my life to go, end up, and become. But here I am in place where, if 10 years ago you would have told me I'd be, I'd laugh in your face and probably be spilling my martini on your shoes in the process. Even now I have no concrete plan or ideas on what I want to do with my life.

I am currently baking a little man in the oven. I have a couple more months until he arrives and then the next chapter of my life begins as another whole new person. I've only been a "mom" to a dog, who I miss uncontrollably, but never to a little human. I've been a friend, enemy, business partner, employee, lover, fighter and probably a million other things that my "baby brain" won't let me remember, but never a 24/7, rest of my life figure head over something my body created with someone else. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around it, even though billions of people have already done the same.

Who do I want to be? Where am I going? What is going to become of a life I thought I had control over? So many questions and yet I have no answers. I want to be a great mom and teach my child to be the best he can be. Through trials, failures, successes and plain ol' fun, I want to help him mold himself into whoever he feels he wants to be. Isn't that what a "parent" is supposed to do? That's what my mom did for me. She wanted me to succeed but knew I had to fail to get there.

So....now what? What can I do with myself to show my son how to be awesome? What do I work towards or become to show him that life is supposed to fun, hard, messy, painful and totally worth all of it?

I had to throw my hands in the air and let the all mighty ruler of the universe lead me to this point, maybe I should continue to do so because I have no idea what else to do. Write? Paint? Draw? Speak? I always thought I had to control every moment and make things happen, but in the end it didn't work for me like that. So here's to NOT having a plan. NOT kicking ass & taking names. NOT knowing what to do. And NOT caring otherwise. Here's to loving the moment in a life, with amazing people and just letting the rest of it go.

Curiously yours, Merry Ms Berry

Trip, fall, shatter and give me the fawkin glue.

It's been a year and a half since I left my soul sucking career in a financial office. I've been to school for an insane semester, currently a nanny for 2 crazy spoiled children and working one day a week at a creative agency that I adore with every inch of my being. Within in that time I have fallen apart a few times and have to put myself back together. Not only fallen apart professionally but emotionally.

First it was the feeling that my life was a slew of experiences that mean nothing for a future I might not ever get to really understand. I have always held myself to a higher standard when it came to treating others and taking care of those around me. Time after time, job after job I have allowed people to put me down and take full advantage of me. Those same painful "career" experiences that recently spilled into my personal life. And when I say personal, I mean all over the fucking place. From "best friends" becoming enemies to wanting to leave a life I fought so hard to built. My life and my home fell to pieces. ...... again.......

But this is life...right?

One way or another life has cycles, eb and flows, peaks and valleys.....AND I WANT OFF THIS FUCKING ROLLERCOASTER RIDE! Now that doesn't mean that I expect not to have to duck and weave throughout life but I'm totally over getting put down, stabbed in the back and having my heart broken. With these situations happening I do what I only know what to do best, kick down doors, pack of my bags and tell people to go fuck off. Yep. That's how I roll.
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Revision: I wrote the above post sometime last year. I should probably start dating these things better. I think I kept it around to allow others into a small part of my life. I might write about unicorns and roses, but unicorns shit and roses have thorns. It's all part of life and I am not beneath trudging through my own mistakes and downfalls. I'm not one to roll over and just cry about it. I do cry. I do walk. I do fight. I do cave. I do break. I heal. I forgive. I learn. I move forward. Eventually I let the walls down and let those who hurt me back in. Why? Because that's what true love means. To forgive those you love to allow them the chance to hurt you again, but having some faith that they won't because they really do love you too. I hope I am able to teach my unborn son all these things, his father and I made it through to create him out of the love we have for each other.

Have you missed me?

It's been over a year since I've posted anything. I've thought about spilling out everything more than a few times, and yet never made it to here. So here I am.

In the past 18 months my life has been anything but smooth. As you know I left my corporate job at an investment firm to figure "me" out, what makes me happy and what doesn't. Well.....being a nanny didn't. I am blessed and grateful to have been a nanny to 2 of the craziest, smartest and weirdest little kids around. Their parents were amazing and it was close to home. I think of the kids as my practice run children for when I have my own.

Sometime last year my marriage basically fell apart. Lines were drawn. Hearts were broken. Many many many tears were shed by all but in the end it all fell back together. The old saying of "it has to get worse before it gets better" was more than true in our home. It was by far one of the most painful and yet fulfilling experiences in my life to date. The was some time in the middle of 2014. By the time the holidays came, things were slowly being put back together.

Enter 2015. We take a vacation to Puerto Rico to escape the bitter winter for some sun, sand and amazing fun with friends. We decided since everything that was wrong with "us" was pretty much fixed that 2015 would be a great starting point to "try" and expand on our family. We tried "hard" to make a Puerto Rico baby......but it was probably a good thing considering that amount of alcohol consumed in that short period of time.

When March rolled around and more and more of my friends started popping up pregnant, I had to come to terms that I might be getting a muscle car instead of a child. We were both in an understanding that we were going to try the best we could without killing ourselves, or going to a fertility specialist to get pregnant. We were okay with fancy toys and traveling the world. Little did I know I had gotten pregnant at the end of February. Yay us!

to be continued.........

enjoy my tropical Octo-baby!