Ariana Carruth's Blog, page 4

That "One" Decision

Often, I write about our afflictions and how they shape our lives, but I have also recently written about those “one” decisions that we make that set us on a new course— a course of empowerment over our own destinies. 
These “one” decisions are often a result of a larger course correction of several decisions that keep narrowing our path towards where we need to be in our next chapter. 
Is it our higher sense of self leading us? God? The universe? A guardian angel? Or is it just coincidence?
Whatever you may believe the end result is the same. We can make empowering decisions in our lives that forever change our course— shaping who we are, what we will become and sending a butterfly effect of change into the universe.
In one of my recent blog posts, I discussed how my “one” decision to call a personal trainer from a flyer placed me on a radically different path in life regarding my health, fitness, confidence, and so much more. 
That one decision keeps playing out in my life in larger ways. It has placed me on a path of health with a new love of fitness (specifically running), it has altered my existence, my appearance, my mind, soul, my travel plans. 
Now on this path, opportunities that weren’t visible before suddenly appear in my range of sight. Relationships develop. 
This is where some of my readers might be sighing in frustration that this is another “running” blog, but hang on for just a moment more…. 
It’s not about running, fitness, weight loss, a new look, etc. 
It is about empowerment. 
It is about change. It is about all of the incredible dominoes that begin to fall in sync as we make just “one” bold decision. 
We decided to move. Hating where we lived, destined (in our minds) to be expats again, we were dreadfully out of sync where we lived. Our restless souls needed so much more than the area could provide.
So we moved. 
New friends were made. We joined a club nearby. The personal trainer flyer presented itself. I found a new me, a new life. 
The path of the past is now so far away with so many past intersections of choice that we could never go back, even if that was our wish. 
Enter today. 
Today, I’m on the precipice of more decision making— more empowerment. 
What one may see as several random choices, events, interactions; I see as a guide leading me down a narrowing path towards the next chapter I need to write. 
And write about boobs, I will? 
After taking another risk, largely involving in letting go of insecurities, doubt and feelings of inadequacy (is that not a theme or what?), this afternoon I sat down and discussed a new business opportunity.
I’ve blogged about my struggle with an outside identity from motherhood. When I ask myself, who am I, the answer of “mom” is often first. Before, woman, wife, runner, friend; I think of myself first as a mother. I am a mother 24/7 for the rest of my life. That is a fact, but does “mother” have to be my first identifier every hour of every day? Can I wear another hat, too? 
Perhaps, I wake as “woman” or even more spiritual “a soul”. Perhaps, I am just there to be for a small moment before my eyes open. As the first child cries out, I am “mother”. As I make my husband his morning coffee, I am “wife”. Later in the morning, I am “runner” and perhaps I can even be “author” in the same day. 
Woman, wife, mother, runner, author— it’s time to add another meaningful identifier to my life; to this chapter. 
After all, I am the author to my own story— and a self-identified cliff jumper. 
The free fall into this new opportunity probably began much longer ago than I realize, but one of the most difficult first steps was just picking up the phone to make an appointment. 
In losing 50 pounds, I needed a new wardrobe— all layers from top-to-bottom. I wanted quality. I wanted to embrace this new person that I saw in the mirror yet hadn’t fully recognized or accepted. I wanted to feel good in what I wore. I wanted to exude confidence and own this new body of mine. 
Still, when the stylist rang the door, my heart skipped a beat with anxiety. I wasn’t sure I was ready for a bra fitting, 50 pounds lighter or not. Overwhelmingly insecure, I knew I still needed well fitting undergarments for my changing body and disappearing boobs. I knew I needed a proper foundation to conquer my outfit, to conquer my day. 
The experience was—- well, I don’t want to say “surprising” because that word seems unfair as if I shouldn’t have expected the stylist to be professional, knowledgeable and kind— yet, it was a surprising experience for me. 
The stylist made me feel comfortable in a way that I didn’t think possible. She made me feel confident and beautiful. As I tried on bras that fit perfectly (because they were measured on this incredible 10-pt measuring system I had never before experienced), I could feel myself straighten in confidence with strength, empowerment, and beauty. I loved the feeling! It was addicting. I didn’t really want to take off the sample bra and return it as I awaited my own order fulfillment. 
How can a bra change my demeanor and my outlook? Throughout affliction, I’ve had some dark days where circumstance striped my sense of self. I’ve been utterly lost. All confidence gone in who I was, what I could offer, what I looked like. 
Would a great bra have changed any of my circumstances? No. 
But there is symbolism in a great bra. It is not just the foundation for our outfit, but it can be the foundation for empowerment.

My new bras soon arrived in the post— much to my delight, I might add. They were soft, perfectly fitting, a little indulgence to anything I had previously done for myself. I soon moved out all of my ill fitting bras, and found myself feeling as if I was dressing in symbolic armor when I put on my Peach bra each day. 
And that is why I decided to take this leap. 
Those feelings of empowerment, beauty, confidence all stemming from a perfectly fit bra is something I desperately want to pass onto others. Never owning such a proper set of foundations before, I hadn’t realized their importance or the simple symbolism of a bra in where my day could go. It sounds ridiculous yet it has become so true in my own daily routine. 
We can’t avoid our afflictions, but I am determined to armor women with a perfectly fitting bra and clothing so that in the very least we can all look and feel amazing as life throws us for another loop. 
Life will change. Great days will follow bad days and vice versa. It’s the same adage that I always try to live by—- we can’t control the affliction but we can control how we feel about it and how we react. We can control our outlook and part of that outlook, I contend, is faking it until you make it. 

We put on a smile, we focus on the positive (while editing out the negative), we mold our worst days into better ones with sheer stubbornness and willpower—— and, if you take this journey with me, a really amazingly soft and perfectly fit bra that armors you with confidence for the day while still allowing you to be YOU— a mom, a runner, an author, a wife, a friend, a business woman—- whomever you want to be— because you are still writing your new chapter as much as anyone. 


Warmest regards, 
Ariana Carruth (New) Peach Stylist 

Routine Moments with an Incredible Subterranean Set of Circumstances

In the breakfast nook I sit. Laptop on the kid smeared breakfast table with coffee near. Avery sways to the tunes of Taylor Swift to my right, intermediately taking breaks to shove fists of cheerios into her mouth. My little Zev has excitedly bounced up the stairs to waken his tween sister, Audry. 
“Wildest Dreams” is momentarily interrupted by an outburst of screams and thrashing from Avery. No rhythm or reason, not discernible to me at least. 
Another song cued up and Avery returns to devouring her breakfast— what is left on the table after throwing most of it on the floor. 
Zev has yet to return from his sister’s room, however I haven’t heard any tween screams of frustrations so I don’t intervene. 
School drop off will commence in just twenty minutes. 
Avery makes her routine move from the chair and rolls into the living room—as my first alarm of many sounds with the reminder it is time to pack backpacks and corral the children into shoes, jackets. 

My day, my month, my year will be filled with replicated moments. Most mornings, I will glide thru the routine in a fog— a robotic version of myself so accustomed to the procedure that I am barely thinking, barely feeling the experience. 
The coffee tastes the same, the screams of Avery’s morning outburst at the breakfast table are expected, the tween annoyance of her little brother will be played out with anticipation as every day before. 
We will rush to get out the door because all the time we felt we had will suddenly diminish as we make a mad dash to the car. 


And there is where I will begin— in the time we feel we will always have and in the moments we experience daily without acknowledging the underpinnings of their circumstance.  

I sit at my breakfast table, a table new to me from a move 20 months ago. A move resulted from a series of events that led us to jump off a cliff of uncertainty and choose a simple life in a simple neighborhood instead of a move to England—an expat move that I was sure was the only key to my genuine happiness. 
To my right is Avery, a frustrated screaming eight-year-old in the moment, but overall a miracle of corrupted chromosome lines with an undeniable will to live and a spirit full of answers with a body unable to share them. 
Upstairs is my toddler, a child who against all odds survived a pregnancy that was believed to be unsurvivable. He had survived. I had survived my entryway. Layers upon layers of circumstance, choices, perseverance, faith, and an unwavering stubbornness are just beneath the surface of these routine moments of our day. 
A rushed Audry tramples down the stairs. She’s overslept. She’s now eleven-years-old and in the sixth grade. A first born. Our pride and joy. A part of us and our sixteen years together. 

Where we are headed is a series of routine moments with an incredible subterranean set of circumstances that led us there. We are jarred from the routine by affliction— moving us on another path and/or to a place of enlightenment and appreciation. And then those survived afflictions become new layers beneath a new routine. 

Awareness is my struggle. 
I think of cancer-- the boogey man of my today. I have seen too many friends and neighbors affected by the devastating misfortune for it not to be the most terrifying, yet realistically possible, affliction I can imagine. 
Lost in my routine, forgetting my own past, I must often jolt myself into a place of awareness that the time I am spoiled with today— the time that I so freely take for granted— isn’t guaranteed and it isn’t fairly distributed to everyone. 
Being a mother of a child with a shorter life expectancy should serve as a daily reminder of the gift of time, yet part of surviving today is forgetting the unpleasantries of the future. 
I am but a constant addict of preoccupation trying to earn a chip. I made promises to God and to myself—bargained shamefully to survive when death was at my door. As death moved on for someone else, I fell back into routine. I fell back into the lies to myself that I will always have time— my loved ones will always be with me, my children, my husband, my health and my future. 
If we could all just live like we do when we are threatened with the end—- recklessly open with our feelings, our gratitude and selfish with our time savoring it, relishing in it with only those that are dearest to us. 
And then our alarm sounds—it’s time to get up, go to work, get the kids to school, do laundry, pay bills and live our day of distractions. 

Ah, the struggle of an almost unachievable balance of living a fulfilling life with gratitude and fulfilled responsibilities while cherishing time. 

Waking with opened eyes, a beating heart and a life to live should be our first thought of gratitude each morning. Without cancer lingering, without afflictions reminding us of our mortality. There is a special prayer for this in Judaism (as I’m sure there is in other religions) for this very moment. The first prayer of the day before even fully waking. I adore this. I adore the idea, but admittedly I rarely live it. 

Perhaps, that is my secret to why I love running so much. Running fills me with a deep sense of gratitude for my health, the moment, the weather, God, family, soul, body and for being alive. I feel all of it and more as my feet hit the pavement, I breathe in the air, and experience what my mind, body and spirit can achieve. Being able to run feels like a blessing and in that I am really feeling the moment, gratitude for life and for time. 
We all need more of those soul fulfilling moments in our daily lives to counter balance the rush and despondency of routine. 
What is your moment? What is your standstill in time where life makes sense, you are filled with appreciation and for at least those minutes-- you are really living. 

If you can’t answer, go find your reminder…. 

Magically Painful Miles in Life's Journey of Transformations

What happens when you take your own happiness, rewrite your chapters and keep promises to yourself—- maybe for the first time ever? 
For the last nine years, I’ve embraced this notion of “creating my own happiness.” Throughout affliction, I realized my day, my outlook and yes, even my happiness, was decidedly on me. I could truly embrace the adage of “the glass is half full” or be my own worst enemy and wallow in everything I couldn’t control in my life. 

There might have been tears, dreadful days of grief, confusion and heartache, but what burned continuously was perseverance and hope. I had blind faith and an undying stubbornness to construct my own ending to the story. 
As life ebbs and flows, the challenge, however, is preventing complacency. What was good for me yesterday might not be good enough for me today. It is a constant metamorphosis. I am a constant metamorphosis. 
Part of my own transformation is constantly trying to be a better person for others and for myself. My flaws and inadequacies could fill a book, and it is more difficult to see and address those failures when we are further from center. 
In the last 18 months, gaining a deeper center and exploring a new level of perseverance and change has been a more focused mantra within my continuous growth. I had worked on my marriage, myself emotionally and intellectually, my faith, my family and it was time to work on my health (cardiac, endurance, strength, weight loss and activity). 
I was, after all, in a state of inactivity—never really exercising in my adult life. Six pregnancies, five months of bedrest and a general love for food had altered my physical state inside and out. As a special needs parent with the responsibility of lifting and carrying for an non ambulatory growing child who will become a non ambulatory adult some day, it was time to change— time to be better for her and for me. 

With impending change in the air, I always sense the universe prodding me in the right direction. Sometimes, however, I don’t want to listen or I really dislike it’s message. But when we are open, ready, and willing to experience a true transformation the tools are right at hand. 
For me, this tool was a flyer from our club about a free first session with a personal trainer. With insecurities, fear, and dragging feet I went. This one decision was the first step to an entirely different life. This trainer would become a friend, a mentor, a punisher, a redeemer, and the key holder to a new future. There would be tears, pain, moments of failure, doubts, and constant challenges—- mostly to keep my promise (to myself) not to quit. 
Fast forward 18 months, and I find myself a new person (physically dramatically different inside and out) and running my third half marathon. It was during this third half marathon, a RunDisney event at the Disney World Marathon Weekend, where I had to renegotiate with myself on where my true limits lied and how the story was going to end— pushing myself again beyond new limitations, new expectations and into a positive outlook. 

It was less than 20 hours before I found myself on a very painful mile ten of this race that I had the great (yet very characteristic) misfortune of falling off an Expo bus. Sheeting rain had soaked the ground and unfortunately the steps of the bus. With caution I put my son behind me and grabbed the railing. That was the last thing I remembered before feeling the impact of the stairs. 
Within nanoseconds the pain reached my brain and the swelling began. Thankfully, I was wearing a backpack filled with diapers for the little ones which prevented me from hitting my head, back, kidneys. Not so fortunately, however, was that I hit my right elbow and upper right thigh on the edge of the stairs. Swollen, bruised (body and ego) I painfully and slowly limped to find a medical tent. By the time I was with a medic the injuries had swelled to the point where walking was too excruciatingly painful, and I was unable to bend my arm at the elbow. Ice and Ibuprofen were my new best friends—my two hopes for enough rehabilitation to run a half marathon by early morning. 
As my alarm sounded at 2:45 the morning of the race, I was relieved to be able to walk relatively pain free. As we journeyed the mile or so to the corral for the start of the race my muscles felt warmed up and ready to conquer the 13.1 mile course. 


Here I was— standing in corral with 22,000 other runners embarking on a dream to run the magical miles of Disney. I was injured, but upright. It had been a year of dreaming and training. I had taken my body from 50 pounds heavier to a much more fit and trim frame. I became a “runner” in my mind and in the minds of others. No longer was I the woman who couldn’t run thirty-seconds without stopping. I had become a twice half marathon non-stop runner about to conquer a third in just eight months time. The magical lights of Cinderella's castle awaited me. The exhilaration of crossing the finish line in Epcot was only a couple of hours away—— if. 
If… 
We train, we run. We mostly choose our run days and run times. I love running in the cold, for instance. I choose to run on days without injury. I normally run on a decent night’s sleep. I run in my own climate, on my own terms and in my own altitude. I run flat. I run strong. I run consistent. 
Race days, especially destination race days, are runs that are completely out of your control. The date, time, location are set in stone. The weather is unpredictable. The course is new to you, and in some instances nothing you could prepare for. . . a little like life?
That’s the challenge.
And challenged, I was. The race started off crowded but beautifully. I was running a Disney Half Marathon!! The first few miles were easy. It was humid, warmer than anticipated and the fog limited visibility but I was still in the zone. The crowds prevented me from setting my usual pace, but with injuries I wondered if that wasn’t a godsend. 
As we approached the first massive ascent, however, I could feel my bad knee (snowboarding injury from years ago) inflame and my recent injury from the fall was becoming quite noticeable. Still, I pushed through and mile two quickly became mile four. Approaching Magic Kingdom filled me with excitement and anticipation of seeing the castle, running the park before opening and all of the magic that awaited. 
Before setting my eyes on the caste, however, I had to first conquer a dreaded, steep and lengthy underpass that I feared would be on the course. Steep descents are my achilles heel in running because of my bad knee and as most of my fellow runners gained speed on descent, this was when I had to slow my pace to protect my knee. Relief came inside the level ground of the tunnel but as we ascended out again I could feel my knee, my fresh injury and encroaching doubt about finishing my half with a personal best time. 
Believing I had just overcome one of the greatest challenges of the course, I was disheartened as we further approached the park and entered a part of the course that was on an extreme slant of an uneven path. I couldn’t have trained for such terrain and given two healthy knees and no injury from falling off a bus, I most certainly would have felt better. Running high on the exaggerated slope was painful. Running low on the slope was equally painful, and unfortunately running straight in the middle of the slope didn’t offer any relief either. Any healing that had happened in the last few hours from my fall had vanished back into a sea of painful inflammation. 
And then we turned the corner from behind the side gates of Main Street into Magic Kingdom…. 
The magic of Disney and the accompanied adrenaline of the moment as we turned onto a lined Main Street with cheering spectators vanquished all pain. Before sunrise and still illuminated with Christmas lights, it was a magical and emotional sight of an otherwise empty Magic Kingdom. 

We ran down Main Street with an illuminated Frozen lit Cinderella’s castle in our sights. This was by far the most emotional, fantastical, pain-free moment of the race. The experience is mostly beyond words. It was euphoric. My body just moved—glided, as my mind disconnected from every bit of angst, doubt, pain, and thought. 
Turning right off Main Street, the course took us through an empty Tomorrowland and around into Fantasyland, thru Cinderella’s castle and eventually out Frontierland 'behind the stage' so-to-speak of Magic Kingdom. As we departed Magic Kingdom we crossed the railroad tracks with the iconic Magic Kingdom steam train whistling with encouragement. 
It was everything I had wanted, dreamed and wished for—- it was the magical miles of a Disney run. 
Leaving Magic Kingdom was another seven miles or so to the finish line which would take us back to Epcot. Mile seven, eight, nine all went by quickly. I was in the zone— a painful zone from injury, but a manageable zone thanks to the flat surface and the emotional high from Magic Kingdom. 
Somewhere along the course after mile nine, however, the ascents/descents, slopes, injury, bum knee (in which I had re-injured just two weeks before the race) and lack of sleep caught up with me. Manageable pain wasn’t so manageable anymore. It had morphed into an agonizing level of pain never before felt, and with every step I doubted my continuation, struggled with my pace and had to argue with myself over whether to walk a few steps or even stop at a medical tent for medication and/or icy hot. 
In those miles, I wished for my running partner by my side. I dreamt of the finish line. I convinced myself I hadn’t yet reached my threshold. And I promised myself that slowing anymore, walking or stopping at a medical tent wasn’t going to be the way I finished this race. I could run half marathons, and now I was going to prove it to myself that I could run one with a fresh injury to the leg. 
I had to adjust my expectations while still pushing my limits—
Isn’t that what we need to do every day--in life, in our afflictions and in our pursuit for our own happiness? 

Epcot finally came into my view. It would mean the finish line was finally near. I wanted to finish strong in spite of feeling anything but. As they say at my gym, “empty your tank” and it was the “all-out” of all ‘all-outs’ as I ran the last half mile. 
Crossing the finish line was nothing short of glorious. I was done. My tank was officially empty. I had kept moving in its entirety and in the end I was only ten minutes slower than my personal best time. After being awarded my medal by a volunteer, I headed straight to the medical tent. It was much needed and slightly overdo, but it came on my terms. 

Like anything in life, we set forth a plan and God laughs. This race was no different. 
I had fallen two weeks before the race and then again just hours beforehand. There was no plan for that. The weather was, for me, worse case scenario for the time of year and the course itself was more difficult than anticipated for a runner with injuries whom solely trains on flat terrain. 
My running life gave me lemons, and I demanded my medal anyway. 
Transform or bust. Almost anything we can dream for ourselves is within our reach— a moment of happiness in affliction, a new ‘you’, a different life path. We just have to decide we are worth it. We owe ourselves kept promises for change and for happiness. We owe ourselves our dreams and the perseverance to reach out and take them. 
Happy New Year! What will be your accomplished change in 2016? How will you ‘create’ your own happiness? 

My Annual Date with the Stirrups

A date with the stirrups and a pull to the past for remembrance had me thirty miles away and back into the dark cloud of my former OB’s office. I tell myself, “it’s only once a year”. “She knows my medical history.” Yet part of me realized yesterday that I voluntarily walk into the plume of the dark past each and every year for much more than good medical care and an annual exam. 
Over nine years ago, she was my ticket to Scotland. Not published in my book to save literary confusion, I had first been under the care of another OB (whom delivered my first born and diagnosed my first miscarriage). I was raw, split open from the deep wounds of fresh infidelity. I was newly pregnant, confused, desperate and so grossly un-evolved I believed my world was ending. And it was ending— for all intents and purposes it was in fact never the same, but it also wasn’t the end of days that I imagined. 
In that desperation, I saw a trip with my husband to Europe as a saving grace for our marriage. And in my all-consuming state of insecurity, I also saw my absence from that trip as the end. When my first OB refused to grant his blessing for my travels abroad, I found an OB that would. 
It was that desperation for my ticket across the pond that led me to her— the OB that would deliver painful news, the OB that would extend introductions to those that saved lives, the OB that would sit with me for hours as I said goodbye to our son, and the OB that saved my own life in the physical and emotional sense. 
As I sat in the remodeled waiting room reading a Scottish detective novel, I was unfazed by the past. A few memories danced in my mind as women were called in for ultrasounds, but the vastly different view of the new waiting area acted as a barrier for the darker memories that waft in the exam corridors. 
Once summoned behind closed doors, I could feel the intensity of the past. “Exam room six” instructed the nurse. Her face was new, but the message was all the same. It was always exam room six for bad news or was that exam room five? I could never remember. I didn’t want to remember. My husband always knew. He had convinced himself we always received the worst news of our lives in one of those exam rooms but came out unscathed if assigned to the other. 
This visit, however, I was safe from the dark cloud that haunted so many of my former years. I didn’t have a baby to protect. I wasn’t there for anything but an exam; a simple routine annual exam. 
As my OB entered the room and took her usual seat, I looked down at my bare feet and gown and back up to her eyes. Those eyes—at times welled with tears and emotions that you rarely see in your doctor. Those eyes that communicated beyond the medical dialogue spewing from her lips to say “I’m here”—- to say “I am sorry” on a human level. 
It was that medical table where I cratered a hundred times. It were her eyes that I looked deeply into as I emotionally blurted my husband was having an affair and that I was pregnant and scared. Having told no one, I told her— a stranger, my new doctor. 
It was those eyes welled with tears as she relayed our baby in utero was likely going to die. It was those eyes again many years later welled with tears as she handed our swaddled son to us for one long goodbye. 
Today, however, she sat (as did I) with the memories of the past behind our eyes. The conversation was void of tragic news, loss, and angst. There we were with our medical history conversing about running and my next marathon race. 
She had asked how “the family was doing” and I saw her in eyes what she meant, but I couldn’t go there. Not now. Not with her. 
As much as I couldn’t go there, I knew with reflection, however, that I still have her as my OB/GYN so part of me “goes there” each and every year—to remember, to reflect and perhaps to feel I’ve conquered. 
So much of our process of recovery is moving on and partially forgetting. We may not forget the events of our lives, but we distance ourselves from the emotions. It is being near places and people from those times of deep afflictions that can easily and uncomfortably bring those repressed memories to the forefront. 
Day-to-day I don’t want to feel those moments where the axis fell off my world. They are sacred, and they are tucked away. All the same, erasing the past is disgraceful to who you’ve become, what you’ve overcome and the loss that you’ve suffered. 
For me, my annual trek thirty miles away to the dark corridors of exam room five and six is my personal pilgrimage back into a time of excruciating metamorphosis and profound loss— but the juxtaposition of walking in as a survivor is why it’s necessary. 
Always move forward…. but always reach back and grab a bit of the past to remind you of the journey that got you here today. 
Read more in my book, Love For Our Afflictions by Ariana Carruth. Available at Barnes&Noble.com, Amazon, iBookstore, etc. 

It's Always a Monday....

In the backwash of the wave of affliction am I no more. The current has shifted, life has ebbed and affliction is abound. 
It is a familiar feeling, a familiar existence—yet resented all the same. Full of envy and regret, I sit as I reflect on the last few years—affliction free, blissfully forgettable & under appreciated. 
My friend walks free and full of life. My life is secure. The future is promising. 
Freed from affliction I sat at times bored, senses dulled by the mundanity. It was easy to focus on the little things, and suburbia was a mindless playground of needless worry.
Time moves, the world course corrects and before I know it affliction is calling my number for another round. 
Loss is synonymous with affliction. It represents itself in a thousand disguises but always present at the core. 

Clouded with the false hope for a new beginning white washed of the past, I had put our reminder of great loss—the white speckled egg—not away, but out of open sight. No longer predominately displayed the little clay egg sat mostly hidden for 18 months—a rebellion to affliction and an outward expression of my desire to stay affliction free. It was a new house, a new chapter…. 
Had I forgotten? Did I want to forget by moving his remains from sight? Had I not before held, loved and kissed a son before Zev: all so briefly that it felt like a distant nightmare of my imagination. 
While every fiber of my being still remembers those moments, I wanted to seize the affliction-free year wholly and with as much innocent glee as possible. It has been so long since I felt so secure, so fulfilled and so safe; I didn't want the reminder of darker times. But as if part of me knew the wave was cresting, I moved the egg out front and center once more. 
Not until today did I know why. And as much as loss is synonymous with affliction, adaptability is synonymous with recovery. As loss greets us for another dance into affliction, I see the little white egg as a reminder of both the loss and of the recovery. I see the experiences of the past, the affliction free years, and now I see our new wave of challenges crash into the forefront of our lives. 

Today, I lost a friend and the world lost a remarkable, kind, spirited soul. Caught up in my own affliction, I tossed the dice and gambled with time. I bet against the unknown, God, the unpredictability of life and shamefully assumed there would always be tomorrow. 
It was far too great of a gamble, and with a deep sadness I missed my goodbyes with a beautiful friend. If I had only known…. 
But don’t we all know the fragility of life? Aren’t we all gambling with it each and every day? We expect to have a healthy baby in nine months time. We expect our loved ones will arrive home as safely as they left. We feel entitled for tomorrow and with that entitlement we put today’s gift of life on tomorrow. 
While the wave of affliction is back on various levels in my own life, I am desperate for time— time with loved ones, times of security, times without affliction. But as I sit desperate for time, the little white egg is not far from view— a reminder of loss and a reminder of the recovery: the deepest sorrow, the gratitude of perspective and the blessed reminder of surviving the seemingly worst days of life. 

For my friend, you are already profoundly missed. Deeply saddened and deeply regretful… I let life delay a visit with you— I wanted a goodbye. I wanted more time with you. I didn’t know our last exchange was to be our last. Time passed all too suddenly, and life changed all too quickly. 

For my readers, the hardest challenge is to look our fears straight on and to deal with them. Affliction is our tool: the painful reminders, the difficult path, the opportunity for growth, perspective and the road to honest gratitude. As I sign my books, “May we always find a love for our afflictions.” As the waves crash may we remind ourselves of our own survivability, afflictions’ gifts and the equally blessed affliction-free backwash that will eventually come—serving as our respite and reflection. 

Much love. 

An Undefined Personal Identity

Jittery and anxious, I find myself again today. Resembling a heroin addict jonesing for her next fix, it isn’t narcotics that I seek, but time with my children. 
In an age where stay-at-home yoga pant wearing Starbucks addicted moms get a bad rep for their leisure days of pilates, pedicures, shopping and massages while the children are in the care of the employed; I find myself in stay-at-home mom purgatory. 
September has taken ahold of our routine and all three of my children are now in school. The youngest, a toddler, is on his second day of preschool. I awake each morning by 5:30am with excitement— ready to start our morning, the little time I have with them. I carefully pack their lunches and prepare a warm special breakfast— to include special plating and a touch of love with the hope they know just how much I cherish them. 
By 9am, however, they are all settled into their classrooms to grow, learn, and fly in each of their own little ways. 
By 10am, I’m full of nervous energy— house cleaned, errands ran. I contemplate another workout. Monday (on my son’s first day of preschool), I went out and ran eight miles just to work off some of the anxiety. Today, I reluctantly take my one day off a week from exercise so my body can truly recover. 
Do I write? Do I read? Do I organize another closet? Do I spend more time with friends? My nails most definitely need a manicure and pedicure…. my eyebrows do need a waxing. Do I shop? I’m not a shopper—- but the draw of shopping without a toddler is notable. Do I just wander the bookstore…. free, childless. 
I check my gym’s class schedule one more time…. maybe, I don’t need a day off this week.
The easel sits empty. Two finished paintings since the beginning of school. Maybe I should paint? 
Volunteer emails flood my inbox. Maybe I should saddle up and join the PTO? 
There are a hundred maybes. My options are endless, and my to-do list expansive. 

But at the core— the deep, lonely, vulnerable core— lies the truth. I don’t just love spending time with my children (even more than writing, painting, wandering free), but being a mother is my only true identifier. 
I’m lost, utterly discombobulated, without them. 
An amputee freshly missing an appendage, my brain has yet to catch up with my new state of being. 
Alone, I sit. And it isn’t the aloneness that is necessarily the cause of my anxiety. The childless hours of the school year is the start of another chapter— outside of motherhood. 
No, what feeds the angst is that I am adrift without the umbilical tether to my children, and the harsh realization that I have to find me again without the first and foremost identifier of motherhood. 
Filling my school days with projects, volunteering, reading, pedicures and even time with friends are nothing more than distractions, temporary aides, to the larger and deeper void in my personal identity. Who am I? What defines me? What fulfills me? Beyond my children. 
Questions to keep asking… 

Trite

I went to bed last night wondering how or even if I can really help, inspire or matter with my writing. Harsh introspection for bedtime, indeed, but I can’t wash the words “trite”, cliche’, and unimaginative from my mind as recent criticism of my blog continues to reverberate within. 
If sharing myself isn’t helpful to anyone than there isn’t much point to blogging. 
As I have been publicly open, my book’s conception was born from a deep desire to heal during a difficult time—- it was never meant to be shared, and only a few chapters were written with the intention of publication as the manuscript officially became a book. The result was a raw honest look inside the heart, mind & insecurities of a woman who had lost not just her footing in her world with infidelity and birthing a sick child, but that of someone who had also lost a baby and struggled with infertility, identify and grief. No filter, no sweeping edits as painful as it was not to delete every word that made me cringe; all of the truth was left there to hopefully resonate with its’ readers.
Today, I am without marital and fertility struggles. Today, my severely disabled child is medically stable. Today my world is filled with more light than darkness—not just because of an ability to hang onto the positive and to fish out the negativity, but because of circumstance. Affliction has ebbs and flows, and I am still in the backwash of the wave of affliction. 
My blogging has been criticized as stereotypical and uninspiring because it isn’t deep nor the dark side of thought. 
The thing is—life in and out of affliction isn’t always dark or deep. Much of who I am and what I believe (and hope to inspire others to feel) is the recovery from affliction. Life is often about the light, optimism (even temporarily feigned optimism). Life is often about the cliche’ because those mantras, although well worn, are useful. Life is about the dark days and it is about the morning after. It is as pretty as it is ugly and the prettiness serves (or should) as much of a purpose for growth and introspection as the ugly. 
I can write today about my ‘Promises for Back-to-School’ because this August I wasn’t caught in the darkness of the reality that the baby I was carrying could die— at any moment in utero, birth or in the NICU. That was eight Augusts ago. Eight years have passed since my world was swept into the medical swath of having a child who will not outlive me.
This August, I did not have to see via ultrasound another dead baby in my seemingly uninhabitable uterus. That was four Augusts ago—four Augusts since my hope was vanquished by overwhelming grief and doubt as I said goodbye to that pregnancy. 
This August I wasn’t consumed with constant worry of preterm labor, another stillborn baby, another placental abruption. That August came and went three years ago when I lied for five months in bed hooked to monitors, contracting daily and worried to my deepest core that I would lose another son to my own body’s ineptitude for pregnancy. 
Yes, this August is very different than many of the past. 
And yes, my blog is very different than my book. I am no less honest today than I was then, but I am also an evolved version of myself. The afflictions that catalyzed my growth and awareness began nine years ago. Afflictions, time, age and circumstances have changed me (as they should). 
More to the point, I am in a phase of recovery from affliction and that—- the recovery, can also be an inspiration. 
When I blog about sending my children back to school, being an ignitor of change, special needs parenting, surviving suburbia, sweating the small stuff, etc. they are honest introspections and insights experienced by someone who has survived the bad day. They might not dig to the depths of my previous pieces, but to fabricate pain where it doesn’t exist for the sake of inspiration isn’t honest. The lack of pain is the inspiration of the day. The ordinary day is what the majority of us feel and experience—and just because it is common and routine doesn’t mean there isn’t room for reflection inside those moments. 
Moments of introspection aren’t always earth shattering. Dark moments from the past and dark moments to come in the future are where they should be— in the past and in the future. To linger in yesterday’s affliction serves no purpose for today. I’ve been down that rabbit hole. I’ve conquered. I’ve grown. I’ve forgiven. I’ve let go. 
Likewise, I know consciously there are dark days ahead. I know my little girl has an unsurvivable condition. There will be deep pain and much more writing to express the unimaginable—some day. There are fears, but they are shelved for another day. They exist for the future because today, today she is here and well. That is all we really need to remember. And sure, it is cliche’.
I can’t reinvent the wheel. The cliches I may touch on in my blogs are truths. The atrocity is that they’ve become so overused they’ve lost their ability to deeply resonate. Yet, they are important as ever to remember. 
Tomorrow will be better. Affliction will come and it will go. 
Wrap it up a hundred different ways and yet the same basic principles still exist for all of us. We know them… we just have to remember them and utilize their messages. 
Maybe my blog will serve as a reminder of the lighter days (the days where you worry much ado about nothing and the better days that are around the corner). 
Maybe my blog only leaves you wanting more— something more profound. I however challenge you to ask yourself why? 
If it is the cliche’ of it all that leaves you uninspired what is it about those, admittedly well worn, but yet useful messages that push you to tune out vs making them your own?
The simplest mantras that trend are just tools… easily understood verbiage to remind us of everything we already know—- everything that is easy to know, but difficult to live . 
It is the living and surviving affliction that illuminates the reminder that the darkness is only a moment, a chapter—- and that there are vastly different moments of experiences to come. It is our challenge to cherish, to learn and to grow in each moment: the dark, the blissful, the exciting and the mundane. 

Promises for the New School Year

A new school year is knocking at the door to my last week of summer. Monday will bring mimosas and tissues as I both cheer and cry while sending my littles off to a new year. Paperwork will flood my home by Tuesday, Wednesday will reveal the bags under my eyes from the new early wake-up routine, and by Friday I will miss my children so much that I will contemplate the ultimate level of stay-at-home-mom dedication—— homeschool! 
As September grabs ahold of us, routine will have settled onto our new semester. Fall will somehow be in the air even with 90 degree temps and mosquitoes swarming. Halloween will be on the brain and to summon the cooler weather everyone on my block, myself included, will be decorating with pumpkins, spiking their lawns with harvest Round Top metal decor, and lighting every spice candle within reach. 
The idea of homeschooling my children will wane as the stress and reality of the household, motherhood and volunteering responsibilities reverberate into my consciousness in my sleep and into my waking hours. 
It is there—there in the dark side of the school routine—where I want to promise myself this year will be different. . .


1. I promise not to over volunteer. YES, I want to help. Yes, it is important to give back to your neighborhood school, your children’s school, to the teachers, etc., but I promise not to lose sight of the forest for the trees. Simply put, I cannot become too busy, stressed and overwhelmed volunteering for everyone and every organization that I’m too stressed and too busy to have quality time with my own children—- time that is, let’s face it, very sparse during the school year and very fleeting as they age. 
Instead, I will say no when saying yes comes at the expense of my own family--for after all I am a mother so I can mother. 
2. I promise not to feel guilty for my first promise. 
3. I promise to let my children be children.I won’t over schedule them with after school and weekend activities. I will hush the suburbanite fear mongering that ignites the paranoia within that our children will end up drop-out, drug addicted prostitutes living on the streets if we don’t fill every waking after school hour until bedtime with sports, lessons and olympic dreams. 
Instead, I promise to breathe… to slow down… to enjoy an after school cupcake outing so I can visit with my children and really hear their thoughts, feelings, dreams, worries. I promise to let them play, to read for pleasure , to lounge on a Saturday morning. They have their entire lives to be over scheduled, stressed, and left chasing…. chasing the unobtainable happiness and success that never comes from anywhere but from within. I promise to let them be little, and I promise I will free myself of worry of whom they will become as adults because I know I gave them the precious time they needed— the time that childhood allows, if I only allow my children to take it. 
4. I promise my own self-worth. I promise that I will balance my life while they are in school so that when they are home, I am the best parent I can be. I promise to utilize the time they are in school to de-stress, to manage the household, to volunteer, to work— all so I am fresh and present for them. The weeknight hours we have together are disappointingly short during the school year— much too short to spend those hours feeling overwhelmed, stressed or unavailable because I couldn’t keep promises #1-3


5. I promise to have fun!Whether in car line, a volunteer meeting or schlepping kids to activities; I promise to keep a light heart and the spirit of summer. I promise to remember these days are precious, and before long I will be crying at my daughter's dorm room as we drop her off at college. I promise to enjoy more than dread the madness of the school year because some day I will find myself missing it (if only for a moment). 
6. I promise to 'Keep Calm' (& to not lose my shit) during homework timeI promise to channel my inner peace when my daughter and myself become overwhelmed and frustrated with homework or a school project-- and to remember promises #3-5. 
7. I promise to stay socialI promise to stay social and ignore the desire to hibernate in reclusion for survival. The busy school year can easily have me retreating into my shell. Maybe it is the introvert in me or a coping mechanism for stress (or a little of both), but it's often easier for me to run outside of social circles throughout the months of the school year. I promise this year, however, to have dinner parties, grab a coffee (or drinks) with friends, throw a party, host a playdate, and get together with friends and their families on the weekends. I promise this for my children, mostly. I want them to see a balanced life with healthy relationships and to feel the joy, lessons & expanding viewpoints we can share from the company of others. 
8. I promise to be aloneLastly and while seemingly contradictory to promise #7, I would like to indulge in complete alone time . As my youngest goes off to preschool for the first time, I will find myself with a few hours a week of utter aloneness (a first in years). I promise to take a couple of these hours each week to be by myself-- to pray, to mediate, to learn, to read, to write, to sit alone in a coffee shop. As much as I will miss my children while they are in school, this rare alone time will be my gift of renewal and growth -- as long as I promise myself to take it. 
Happy New School Year! What promises will you make? 

Painful Truths & Great Appreciations

Forty minutes into a frustrating and overwhelming standoff with my special needs daughter this morning over independently getting herself into her breakfast chair vs me carrying her to the chair, my oldest daughter with tears in her eyes reveals her recent revelation.... that her sister will die. 
The moment paused as her haunting discovery lingered without acknowledgment. 
Then with a deep breath and an even longer pause, I contemplated a dozen variations of the truth that I could tell her. 
Instead of offering any truths, however, I panicked with a question. 

“Who told you that?" I exclaimed in frustration and annoyance.  

“Dad,” she responded.  

“Your father told you what exactly?” I snapped with greater annoyance. 

Simultaneously texting my husband at the office with insinuations of poor parenting, I began to mutter clouded truths to my daughter. 

“Your sister…. 

Your sister’s life expectancy is shorter than most…. BUT we don’t know anything. And your father shouldn’t…. And twenty years? No one knows..." I continued in bewilderment while I looked deep into my coffee cup to avoid looking into the crying eyes of my daughter.  

“But Dad said, that most people with her diagnosis don’t live beyond thirty…”

In text with my husband, I realized that he told our daughter (whom was frustrated with her sibling) to appreciate her sister because we didn't know how long she would live. I immediately understood the why, but I still hated the how, the when and the reason it was necessary at all to have a conversation about the future passing of one of our children. 
Equally, I hated that a very normal frustration felt by a sibling turned into a moment of guilt because our situation is anything but “normal”. 

The painful truth is that I was upset with my husband for revealing a truth that I don’t very much like. The painful truth is that our oldest daughter does need to know about her sister’s future so it isn’t a shock when it happens—-because the painful truth is that it will happen. 
The painful truth is we don’t know when. The painful truth is that over the last year I’ve heard of more DTM deaths than I want to know about because they are a reminder of the fragility of life, any life but especially life with DTM. 
While unfair, being reminded to appreciate every day because we don’t know what tomorrow will bring is a blessed lesson. 
Our daughter is gifted with more compassion and awareness than most adults because she is the sibling of a special needs child with a shortened life expectancy. Those gifts come with the responsibility to put aside moment-to-moment frustrations for the greater picture and appreciation of life and our time with our loved ones. 
This lesson is there for all of us. 
As a special needs parent, I have to incorporate the same mantra. I cannot get wrapped up in the disappointment and stress of my daughter’s development, lack of progress or the day-to-day exhaustion and extraordinary duties of care taking. As difficult as the minute, the hour, the day may feel I must remember the unknowns of tomorrow. 
We simply cannot take today for granted because the reality of our future is more preordained than most. Our time is moving faster. 
My deep truths are always hidden just beneath the surface of our daily lives and the smile on my face. Today they surfaced over breakfast in my daughter’s anxiety and tears. Tomorrow they will surface in a medical drama or in sorrow and even jealously when I think of the plans we cannot grasp in our future that are typical for others. 
The profound gift in that pain however is that we get to live life as if today was our last, her last. If we remember well enough to do so. If we remember what is at stake, we will live an extraordinary life of appreciation. 
The same gift is there waiting for everyone…. our family only has a daily reminder.
I hope our truths are your blessings—blessings to seize today, to let go of the little moments of frustration, and to hug your loved ones as if it was your very last one. 
Much love.
For more read Love For Our Afflictions available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble.com, iBookstore and other retailers

Goodreads Book Giveaway!

Enter now thru August 3rd to win a copy.
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Goodreads Book Giveaway Love for Our Afflictions by Ariana Carruth Giveaway ends August 03, 2015.
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