It's just like riding a bike

If you've never been to Yosemite, you have to go. Now! Stop reading this blog, turn off the computer, pack some hiking shoes or sneakers, grab your loved ones and go! So many people always told me that I needed to go to Yosemite. But I'm not a very outdoorsy person, and neither is John, so we never really gave it a second thought. But then one of John's good friends decided to get married in Yosemite, so we decided to go a day early and run around Yosemite. OMG! I can't even explain the beauty of that place!

We spent Friday hiking around Yosemite Valley (the easy hikes). It was perfect weather, bright blue skys. We saw the waterfalls and the mountains and it was just gorgeous. Then on Saturday, we drove up to Glacier Point. Talk about the most incredible view ever! It was amazing. We just sat there silently perched on a rock and looked out into the valley at the waterfalls below. I've never seen anything like it before. You could totally get lost in the beauty of it all, and everything negative in your life just escapes you. For the first time in a very long time, my mind wasn't focused on TTC or my unhappiness about our baby situation. I just focused on the incredible sights before me and thanked God that I actually got a chance to see this. I soaked it all in as much as I could. I'm sad I had to leave at all - I hope I have the opportunity to go back.

I feel like I really cleared my mind over the weekend. It's not to say that I didn't think about TTC at all, but there was so much other stuff to focus on. Yes, it made me sad when I saw a girl at the wedding who was happily pregnant and due in October. Yes, it made me sad to see the little hiker children latching onto their parents. But I finally didn't focus all of my attention on it. They were passing thoughts that didn't get me down. Even on the way home, with two newborn babies sitting within two rows of me, I actually smiled and thought to myself "I want one too". But in a happy way, not in a get-depressed-and-incredibly-jealous way. I'm sure those feelings will come back again, but I felt a great calm over me for the first time in a long time. Like everything would really be ok.

But I can't lie and say that the weekend didn't have any sadness at all. Besides those passing thoughts about the pregnant woman or the little hikers, I did get very sad while John and I were bike riding by our lodge. I haven't been on a bike since Hawaii 4 years ago when we rode down a mountain. But that was almost all downhill and was pretty easy to do. And so as I struggled on the bike Saturday, I thought to myself how much harder this was as I got older. And then I thought about my own mother and how she doesn't go swimming, doesn't ride roller coasters and is afraid of just about everything. She's lots of fun in general, but has never been adventurous, although she constantly tells me that she wasn't always like that. That when she was younger, she did all of these things too. She was 23 when she had me (21 when she had my brother), but she still "outgrew" all of this stuff by the time we were kids and were ready to do them ourselves.

That's when I got really sad. I'm not an incredibly active 32 year old, but I still consider myself to be somewhat adventurous. But I got scared on that bike on Saturday. I felt old. I started to worry that all these things I love - that I won't be able to do them with my children. That I'll just be too old. It made me sad. It made me long for a child as soon as possible. I want to experience all of these things with my children, I don't want to be sitting on the sidelines. I want to hike down a mountain in Yosemite, I want to swim in the ocean and not be afraid, I want to ride roller coasters and bike down mountains, and do all of that stuff. I guess I just felt the biological clock ticking loudly. I know if I take care of myself I can probably be healthy enough to do these things, but I just don't want to be afraid to do them.

I'm ok though. It made me sad and yearning, but I know there's nothing I can do at this point. It is what it is. It's out of my hands for now.