If you’re going to make a resolution to try something, do something, start something … why wait until a given day to actually try, do or start that something?  Kind of calls into question one’s commitment to that resolution, huh?  So…why wait until tomorrow when I can start today, right?

I’ve been neglecting the wicker chickens lately.  Lately, as in…well…almost all of last year.  So my simple resolution — my December 31st resolution — is to give myself the time most days to sit down and write.  Nothing deep.  Nothing skilled.  Just.  Writing.   So, here I am.

The last few weeks have been rough on me.  Cal’s passing was sudden and very unexpected, and not a day has gone by that I haven’t ached for his goofy, pain-in-the-ass, loving self.  We went up to the lake house last weekend and tossed his ashes into the lake.  If ever there is a heaven for Cal, that lake is it.

I needed something to soothe my sadness, so I picked up my knitting needles and cast on.  I had had some yarn in my stash that I’d intended for a sweater, but I stumbled upon a lace pattern that I simply couldn’t resist.

I’ve always thought of wraps as grandmotherly-like things and have shied away from them.  But for some reason, this lace, this yarn…well, it speaks to me.  A wrap it is to be.  I can hardly wait to toss it on over a brown t-shirt and jeans.

They say knitting’s therapy.  There’s no doubt in my mind of that.  I have a chair in my home, that, though the fabric is loud, is the quietest place to be found in my house.  Away from the kids’ rooms, the play room, and even the kitchen, it’s tucked into a corner with  natural light and just enough warmth under its bamboo blanket to keep things cozy.  I’ve spent hours there lately.  And in that chair, tucked under that blanket, and knitting that wrap, I’ve worked out a little bit of my grief.

No, I’ve no aspirations to become a real published author.  I’ll leave those aspirations to those with far more mettle than I.  But, when an organization to which you belong spouts as one of its philosophies something that you simply don’t believe in, well, submitting an article for publication in their quarterly magazine is just something you have to do.  Test them, if you will, to see if they’ll listen to the other side of the story, or gasp! actually publish it for the rest of the membership to read.

And publish it, they did.

In this month’s issue of International Doula magazine, these fine words (if I do say so myself) appear.  Many thanks to Rebecca, who pushed me to dig a little deeper, and to Jennifer, who helped me uncover something under all that dirt.

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Calling It Like It Is

Words are, without a doubt, powerful.  We use them to express our needs, our desires, our fears, our hopes and our dreams.  Indeed, all of our emotions — if we’re lucky — can be put in to words.  The ability to consciously and carefully choose our words is our fundamental right — and a source of great power. To take our words lightly, then, is to foolishly dismiss that source of power, and to allow others to put words into our mouths is to foolishly allow that power to be used against us.

The first time I heard the phrase cesarean birth, I was taken aback.  The words came from a childbirth instructor advocating for the use of the term instead of the more clinical, cold, and passive cesarean section. Soon, I began to hear it more and more; doulas, childbirth instructors and others in the birth community saying cesarean birth, trying to effect a change with their words.

Certainly, the sentiment behind the selection of the word is pure; the only agenda in the choice of the phrase is to take away the disempowering connotation of the term section and give back to mothers the power and beauty and ownership so inherent in the word birth. This motivation may be pure, but I would argue that the effect of its implementation – particularly when it is used to provide the opportunity for a woman to shape her vision of her own cesarean experience – is far more disempowering than the original term itself. “But it’s still a birth,” a doula offers supportively to a mother adjusting to the news she is about to have a cesarean. “It’s still a birth.”

Is a cesarean really a birth? What a provocative question.

For some women, the answer to that question is undoubtedly and emphatically yes.  So much so, in fact, that to posit that it isn’t would be an affront to their feelings.  Upon hearing the question, Jennifer, mom of three, reacted strongly.  “[I felt] that I’d been knocked in the stomach, actually.  It has never occurred to me that what took place in those operating rooms were anything less than births.  My children were born those days…I associate birth with my children’s entrance into the world.  No matter how it happened, they were born.  I don’t know that I actually delivered that day, but I do know that I gave birth.” For Jennifer, her cesareans are lovingly remembered birthdays.  They are also triumphs over a cancer that required cervical surgery in her early 20s.  Kristen, a mom who underwent a cesarean under general anesthesia for an abrupted placenta, feels similarly. “My body decided it needed to do this.  I had to have outside help – help for me to give birth.”  But, she continues, “without me, without my body, there could be no birth.”  There’s an emotional component to her choice of words, too, stemming from the particulars of her cesarean under general anesthesia:  “[S]aying that I ‘gave birth,’ includes me in on something I so badly wanted to be included in…[I]f I don’t see it as me giving birth, then I have nothing from [the] experience. No memories, no sounds, no smells.”  When these moms speak of their experiences, using the term cesarean birth is an empowering choice, one that reflects their most heartfelt feelings about their birth experiences.

But as surely as there are women who view their cesareans as births, there are others who find the concept decidedly offensive.  A woman who feels this way might think of her cesarean as a loss, a betrayal, an affront, or any other number of things, but not a birth.  Upon reading an announcement sent out on her behalf stating that she’d given birth, Dana reacted bitterly.  “Like hell I gave birth.  I just laid there,” she says.  Bonnie puts it another way, very matter-of-factly.  “She was ?born. I was the vessel. But I didn’t give birth to her, any more than her father did. I, did, however [have] the surgery.”  Perhaps, for these women, it’s an issue of semantics, but, if it is an issue of semantics, it is one wrought with emotion.  They’re not being pedantic as much as they are being true to their emotions.  As Krista explains: “I don’t argue that a baby born by cesarean was [not] born, or that it was [not] the day of his birth.  But for me, the phrase ‘giving birth’ implies active physical participation, and I know that it wasn’t true of my experience. I couldn’t have been less a part of my son’s surgical removal.”  There’s a sense of loss echoed by all of these women.  They would never consciously choose to refer to their experiences as cesarean births, and to be encouraged to do so by a doula, a therapist, or a childbirth educator would be encouraging them to normalize something that, for them, was not at all normal.  These women have the right to choose how they feel and they should also have the right to choose what words they want to use to name their experience.

As doulas, it would be contradictory to our purpose of support to subtly encourage, by our simple choice of words, a perception that runs entirely counter to a mother’s thoughts or experience.  Whether we’re talking to a mom about her previous cesarean experience, or to a mom facing the prospect of a cesarean, offering the term cesarean birth as a salve can inadvertently sting worse than the cut itself.  Doing so doesn’t necessarily provide her an opportunity to reshape her own experience; it can, in fact, show extreme disrespect for her experience and her very legitimate, normal feelings about her cesarean.

What to do, then?  The term section is disempowering.  Reverting to its usage is a step backward to the days of deliveries, a word so egocentrically focused on the care provider that the mother is left out of the experience entirely.  But substituting the term birth clearly has its drawbacks as well.  The solution, in my mind, is to simply leave the choice up to each woman individually. We never know how a woman feels about her experience, unless she tells us.  So let her.  Cesarean. When we use the term without a modifier, mom gets to make a conscious choice without having any words put into her mouth for her.  Talk about empowering.

Writing this article has been a bit of a transformative experience for me.  I will admit that prior to beginning this article, the term cesarean birth was a little more than unpalatable to me on both a personal and professional level.  Hearing doulas and childbirth educators advocate for the language change was an affront to my understanding of our mutual passion.  When we choose to use the term cesarean birth in general conversation, in our writing and in our publications, I believe we’re propagating the myth of cesarean normalcy.  As the cesarean rate continues to unjustifiably rise in the U.S. and other industrialized nations, I’ve always felt that we in the birth community must take a stand – in ways both big and small — to ensure that cesareans are not viewed as “just another way to give birth.”  To do otherwise would be to materially participate in a phenomenon we are working so hard to counter.  This, I still believe.

But as I spoke to women regarding their personal cesarean experiences, I found within me a place where I understand that sometimes the term cesarean birth does make sense.  Initially, I wanted simply to advocate for those, like me, who cannot describe their cesarean experience as a birth.  I still want to give voice to that opinion.  But, I now understand that those who feel the opposite feel so just as passionately.  In the end, I believe this understanding strengthens the argument for choice even more.  We don’t want to inadvertently hurt a woman by implying that her cesarean was a birth any more than we would want to hurt a woman by implying that it wasn’t a birth.  That is a distinction each woman should have the power to make for herself.

I’ve never understood the adage sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Words can hurt. As doulas, we must take care not to use words that can have this effect.  But words can also move mountains.  It is part of our job — and our passion — to empower women.  Perhaps the most important support we can give to the women we touch is the mountain-moving power of their own words, consciously chosen, to reflect their own experiences.  Let their voices be heard.

Everyone knows our dear English language can be a tricky little devil. She’s filled with all sorts of rules — that are constantly broken. She’s swarming with single letters that take on multiple sounds, and multiple letters that share the same sound. Every time she seems to make a little sense, she goes and puts you through the ringer. Apostrophes indicate possession in one instance, and contraction in an other. And don’t even ask her to take on plural possession with any sort of regularity. She’ll fight you tooth and nail on that one.

While the past tense of fret is fretted, the past tense of get isn’t getted, it’s got. The past tense of bet? Not betted, not bot, but — and how’s this for clarity? — bet.

Need is needed, but feed is fed.

Anything belonging to her is hers, but anything belonging to him is his.

Let’s not forget read and read, and aloud and allowed, and ….

You get the idea.

So, it’s no wonder that our little ones are just a little confused every once in a while. It’s one of their endearing habits, in my opinion, those mis-conjugated verbs and adorably off-the-mark possessive pronouns. That English? She’s really not that accommodating to the wee ones.

But I like her spunk, none-the-less. The hoops she has us jumping through make things just spicy enough, just fun enough, to let us know we’ve got a spirited one on our hands. I’m always ready to defend her honor, ready to correct the little ones in my house on their otherwise disrespectful use of our playground of words.

But, every once in a while, out of the innocent, untrained minds of a little one, comes an honest observation of our language that leaves me utterly unable to come to her defense.

Such was the case the other day when I reprimanded my daughter for calling her brother a poo-berry.

“Zoe, that’s potty talk and name calling. We don’t do either in our house.”

“But mo-om! It’s okay to call him Pooh Bear. Why can’t I just call him poo-berry, too?”

I sat there in stunned silence, because, you know? I really couldn’t even begin to explain that one.

I had the pleasure last night of re-reading a good portion of a friend’s old blog entries. This, in turn, led me to read a good portion of my old entries. I’ve been writing in this blog consistently for well over a year. All along, I’ve been unapologetic about my intentions in doing so. I write, simply, to give my children an opportunity to better understand who I am — one day. In the meantime, I’m writing for myself. As I read through many of the entries I’ve written over the past year, I enjoyed reliving the moments that brought me to write them in the first place. The act of re-reading them was certainly as indulgent as the act of writing them.

But is it really? Indulgent? I’m not so sure.

In the last couple of months, as I’ve struggled to sort and shift and reassign my priorities to insert my part-time work into my days, the thing for which I’ve felt the most remorse, the most sadness, is losing the time to sit, to think, and to write with quality. Not everything I put into this blog over the last year was quality writing. I daresay, little of it was. But, any time I had an idea that I wanted to develop — to mull over — I found the time to do so. My thoughts were deposited into this blog, safe and secure. Little, if anything, of importance to me fell to the wayside. Such is not the case over the last few months. Those precious hours in the afternoon are usually reserved for work right now. By the evening? I’m simply too tired.

Little by little, I’ve watched as thoughts, moments, memories and ideas have simply slipped through my fingertips and disappeared into the ether. I’m trying, of course. Not everything slips away. But the luxurious hours I used to spend crafting and coaxing my thoughts onto virtual paper are rare now. The thoughts I had, just today, about Zoe and Evan and their very special relationship as sister and brother — I’m not certain they’ll find a place here. The bliss spread over their face upon biting into crisp apples, and the simple joy I felt upon watching them in the rear-view mirror? Tenuously captured, if at all. Countless other thoughts and moments have already suffered the same fate.

So is this exercise really an indulgence, then? That it became, by necessity, a lesser priority might lead one to think so. In the economics of decision making, this activity has suffered. But the cost of lost memories and derailed trains of thought is far more dear.

“Where are you from?” I’m often asked. And, almost always, the inquiry is accompanied by an air of sleuthing curiosity, not the attitude of mindless conversation that most often comes with that question. Despite being born and raised, more or less, in the South, I haven’t, apparently, any discernible accent. No roots are clearly uncovered when I speak; thus, the curiosity. I’m predictably able to elicit a shocked response when I give them my answer. “I would have never known,” is almost always the reaction.

This has never sat well with me. I want my roots to be easily identifiable, if only for my own reassurance that I, in fact, posses them. Know my roots; know me. This is as much for my own knowledge as it is for others. It’s all a part of figuring myself out.

“Naw, ma’am, you wouldn’ wanna live where ah’m from,” muttered a humble laborer to my mother while painting her house one day. “Where ah’m from, loneliness is dripping off tha treeeees.”

That achy, jealous, filled feeling you get when you’ve read something perfect? I felt it for the first time ever on that day, overhearing that painter’s conversation with my mother. The words weren’t written, but they might as well have been. And though he heartily recommended against it, I’ve never yearned more strongly to have roots than I yearned to have the roots from those very trees in his poetic hometown.

Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

Or, rather:

Blog, blog and blog, for tomorrow the computer goes away.

My husband flies off to Montana (or is it Wyoming?) tomorrow for work, taking along with him his laptop and my sanity. It’s your guess as to which — the laptop (my only connection to the Internet these days) or he himself — is the source of my sanity. I’m horrible at keeping secrets! It’s a little of both, I’m ashamed to admit.

Man that walks on water that he is, he has graciously offer-,er, agreed to my demand, to let me have the morning to catch up on some writing that I’ve been wanting to do.

So, for your enjoyment, a few entries. Read them one at a time, or gobble them up all at once. Your choice, just like halloween candy. But, choose wisely. They are all you’ll get for a few days. Me? I have no choice.

MUST. WRITE. NOW.

Oh, and, Thanks, Tim.

A friend of mine confessed the other day that she’d shopped around her writing last winter in an attempt to get it published. She’s sneaky, that girl. She knew damn well I’d done as much as the same this spring and she didn’t say a word to me about her own attempts at the time. Sneaky. But, I’ll forgive her. It’s tough, this writing thing; tougher still, getting it out there and seeing if it lands gracefully. Which is where my own confession comes in. That shopping I did this spring? Thud. Or, more accurately, tossed out into the infinite mist, never to be heard from again. And I really should have marked it here, at least, long ago. Which is what I shall do now.

It started off innocently enough. I opened the paper that day and turned to the “community writers” column. It’s a weekly column rotating four local writers selected from the community. None of them are paid; none of them are professionals. One of them is even a high-school student. It’s always interesting to see what’s in that space each week. This particular week, there was something particularly interesting at the end of the column: “We’re looking for new community writers! Send in your 100 word submission…” I stared at the words. Should I? My hesitation didn’t last for even a moment. I was already on to the next question and the hundreds that followed it: what should I submit? how should I write it? will they like it? can I really snatch this gig?

I could hardly get the kids down to their naps fast enough. When they were finally down, I went right to work. I knew enough to rely on something I’d already written — something that was within this blog — as the basis of my submission; I knew then, that the task in front of me was more of a curator and editor than of a writer. Influential, too, was the 100-word limitation. Murder! Especially for this writer who uses verbosity as a crutch all-too-often. But, within the peaceful hour or two that is naptime, I sifted out and edited several candidates. Four possible entries. Somewhere, on that page of 400 words, I had my opportunity. But, I couldn’t decide which was my best opportunity. So, I took a leap of faith. Rebecca. Would you take a look at these and give me your thoughts?

Things I’m Thankful For? A thoughtful editor with genuine enthusiasm and encouragement. Your thoughts and input made me a better writer and gave me an appreciation for the skill of editing that I never had before. My shyness and reserve kept me from thanking you properly before now.

So, with the insightful input of a friend, and a few more tweaks on my end, the opportunity was uncovered and brought to earth-bound perfection. Boy. My writing. A little of my life. As little, or as much as, you can get in 100 words.

Nothing left to do, then, but send it on its merry way. Submit.

And then.

Nothing.

Nothing, that is, from the other side of the fence. Plenty from my side of the fence, though. For days after I submitted the piece, I ruminated over my work. Was it the right one? Would it catch the eye of the editor? What else could I possibly have submitted that would have been more appealing? more enticing? I waited, impatiently, for an email or a phone call from the newspaper. Please send us a few more writing samples. As time went by, I searched the newspaper each week for an announcement. Have they made a selection? Who’s the writer? What voice did they have that I didn’t?

The phone call, the email never came, and the silence answered most of my questions. Eventually, a new writer’s name showed up in the community writer’s column by-line, answering one of the remaining questions. But with her name and profile revealed, one last question was left unanswered. It burned brighter, diquieted more, in fact. What voice did they have that I didn’t?

“She’s a stay-at-home-mom with two kids…” Thus begins the new columnist’s curriculum vitae, as it were. So much for providing a unique voice to the community. I had had reservations about the topic of my submission. Another mom. One of those. With so much talk about mommy blogs and well-educated mothers staying at home, I was concerned my entry would fall on deaf, or bored, ears. But then, here was a woman who had apparently been able to set herself apart from however many submissions there had been, despite, or perhaps? because of, being a mother at home with her children. Thing is, I’ll never know. Nothing, you see, ever came from the other side of that fence.

It’s been months now, since I sent in the submission. Months, too, since the new columnist has appeared in the paper. The initial days and weeks of self-chatter have quieted, but not ceased entirely. I’ve moved on, and continued writing for myself, with only the slightest thoughts of perhaps shopping my writing again, one day. I’m perfectly comfortable with the fact that my name isn’t appearing in that space in the paper each month. I’m not so comfortable, though, when I see the name and the painfully familiar profile that is appearing in its stead. My discomfort isn’t out of jealousy; my discomfort is out of the sense of unknowing of how it all went down behind closed doors. Was my entry considered for even a moment? If I do shop my writing one day, do I have a unique voice? Without feedback, I’m left still ruminating, guessing, and wondering.

I’ve said before that confession is good for the soul. In this case, I’ve committed no sin, other than guarding a secret. Confession can serve a different purpose, though — one of release, of letting go. Months ago, I submitted my work into the infinite mist, never to be heard from again. It left me wondering. Today, I’ll toss my questions into a similar, but not the same, mist. Publish Post. A burden, lifted.

I’ve always claimed that anyone — anyone – can learn to draw. It really is a skill more than an art form. With a little training in observation, perspective, line, form and texture, a person can put pen to paper and reproduce what’s in front of them with reasonable success. I really believe this. I also believe that it takes far more than mere skill to surpass the realm of mimicry and reproduction and venture into true artistry. That takes, well, true artistry. There’s a very wide chasm between a meddling amateur and a true artist, in every creative medium.

So, coming from that viewpoint, it’s always struck me as a bit hollow when I’ve been called talented for the work that I do in the various media in which I meddle. Because, in my mind, I’m very much a meddler. A skilled meddler, perhaps. I possess the knowledge — of the mathematical rules of perspective in drawing, of opacity and translucence in watercolor painting, and of vocabulary and grammar in writing — but that artistry? That artistry eludes me. Any talent I possess, then, is a skill, honed and sharpened — learned, if you will — but not a gift, and decidedly not artistry.

It used to be this discrepancy would frustrate me to the point, even, of not working on those skills at all. When an image in my mind found its way to paper and was grotesquely mutated somehow, in the process, I couldn’t help but want to toss it all away. My hands, my paintbrush had betrayed me. Likewise, with words. I want sometimes so desperately to put something to paper to convey what is in my mind, but the words don’t or won’t or can’t come. I’m left with something that, though perhaps satisfactory to the outside consumer, is entirely unsatisfactory to me. Failure, once again. Faced with all this failure, why not put the pens and paintbrushes down?

And so, put them down, I did. For many years, I didn’t pick up a paintbrush, and I didn’t write any thing that I didn’t have to. Simply: Too much frustration. But then, one day, I did pick up a paintbrush, and soon thereafter, I picked up a pen. It had been many, many years, but the paint and words flowed. Haltingly, at first, but they did flow. And they have been flowing now for the better part of three years.

It’s gotten better. Not the failure part. That happens, still, and to the same degree. It’s that missing artist in me that sabotages much of my work, leaving the finished products mere skeletons of what I’d imagined they would be. That missing artist is still missing. But I don’t put the pens and paintbrushes down in frustration anymore. Call it Maturity, I guess. Or Obstinacy. Or Optimism. Whatever it is, I’m glad I’ve found it. It’s filling the place where I wish an artist was. It’s not a perfect fit, but it will do.

I’m not a dangerously impetuous or rash person, like the adrenaline junkie who recklessly dashes off without a single thought to the consequences of their actions, but I’m certainly not one to be paralyzed into inaction by forethought and premeditation, either. I’m quite guilty of making big decisions in my life without having really considered what they would ultimately mean to me; I’m equally guilty of glossing over countless other decisions, abdicating them to fate, if you will, utterly unaware that they’d ever have an impact on me at all. Case in point: this blog. One year ago, today, I penned my first entry. Without a single thought as to why, exactly, I was doing it, I opened this electronic notebook and called it mine. Little did I know what it would all mean to me.I started off with a sputter, with no clear direction, no clear focus. And, certainly, no discipline. Helpless, I was. But, slowly, I gained a toehold, and began to understand what it was I wanted to write about. Wicker Chickens. My life, my reality: the simple stuff, the not-so-simple stuff, and everything in between. I began to understand, too, why I wanted to write. I wanted to write about the reality that is my life to be able to give that picture to my kids, one day. All this, if it is anything at all, is a realistic portrayal of what my life is right now, from the miniature snapshots that the camera missed, to the running themes a still camera could never capture. Even now, as I read back over this past year’s writings, I see myself, clearly, on the very days the entries were written. They’re real. I believe a host of my own problems have at their root an unrealistic image of what reality — for “Everymom” — is really like. I’m working that out, a little, here. And, in the meantime, if I can give my kids a picture of what my reality is like, then, well, I will have done one thing right. That is why I’m writing.And so, with a direction and a purpose, the discipline came. Day after day, the words came. Some of them, good. Some of them, not so. None of them great. Often times, they came only with struggle — for the time, for the thoughtspace, for the inspiration. But, they did come. And as I wrote them, I began to fall in love with them. Not in love with my words, alone, but in love with all words. The tens of thousands of words within this journal were only a meager appetizer for a hunger I’d unexpectedly uncovered. Whet my appetite, indeed.I’ve fallen in love with words and language. I find myself reading other people’s writing, at times both utterly humbled by their skill and grace and intensely jealous that I’m so completely inept by comparison. I read passages and am struck with longing — longing for the “art-sense” to handle words as well as they have. I look up words in the dictionary, for joy or for reassurance. I read about the use of language, and constantly question my own constructs and their correctness. And I take what I’ve learned back to this blog and I test and play and stretch and torque and poke. All of it, delightful. I hesitate to mark this day as a “birthday” — I doubt very seriously I’ll commemorate this day each year — but, one year after beginning this blog, I can’t help but recognize the infancy I’ve just experienced. No parent can witness their child’s first year and not be humbled by the miracle of growth and maturity that takes place during that year. Perhaps it’s arrogant to liken what I’ve witnessed this past year to that same miracle; if it is, I’ll risk arrogance, then. I have no idea where this writing will take me in the future, just like I had no idea where it would take me in this single year. I only know it’s merely in its infancy, and that I can’t control where that relationship will lead. Whatever. I’m all right with that. Sometimes, decisions are best abdicated to fate.

One dangerous side-effect of keeping a blog is finding yourself living your life slightly “on stage.” I’m not talking about the fact that what I write is available to countless millions on the Internet (albeit, only read by highly countable numbers; highly, that is, as in, easily countable.) What I mean is this: I find myself, often, catching moments and knowing, with certainty, that I’ll blog about them. This, in and of itself, isn’t that bad. But when you know that level of conciousness has invaded others in your life? That can be a problem. I can’t help but think that’s what happened to me yesterday evening.Tim and I were cleaning up the kitchen after our evening meal and discussing money. Specifically, I was thanking him for switching, at my request, the account into which he was having his expense account payments automatically deposited. Before the change, it was causing great confusion; after the change, it was a weight lifted. I said to him: “Changing that account? It was the best decision I’ve ever made. Well, besides marrying you, that is.”Instantly, I knew this conversation would be a topic in my blog.Apparently, he did, too. Though, he didn’t let me know it. Not directly, that is.His next comment? Immediately following mine?”So is her last name really Crumpacker?” (forgive me, Gretchen)Yeah, he knew exactly what I was thinking. And it led him down the path to his own question. And I knew just what path he’d taken.So, my conversation has become a topic in my blog. Just in an entirely different form than I’d originally envisioned.Life On Stage. I don’t really mind it. Especially sharing it with the best decision in my life.