"What will you give birth to this year?"

At the end of 2017, a friend asked me this question when I told her I was having surgery to remove my fallopian tubes, finalizing our decision to remain childfree. I may never give birth to a living child, but I can birth ideas, creative work, projects and art. I may not parent my own children, but I can nurture myself and others with a deep level of maternal love and care. How I would spend the energy I used to spend on trying to conceive, grieving, and agonizing over the decision to remain childfree? For years, I had spent so much energy on trying to grow our family. Where would those efforts, that mental capacity, be redirected? After my surgery, this question felt exciting, liberating, optimistic.

I wasted no time redirecting that energy. In addition to my busy day job, I took on the volunteer role of Executive Director at TEDxMinneapolis, growing the incredible volunteer team I now had the responsibility of leading, as we became a government-recognized 501c3 nonprofit. Starting in July, I became president of IIDA (the International Interior Design Association) Northland Chapter, and led an effort to ask our community what they wanted to see from us, resulting in the development of new 5-year strategic priorities.

I traveled: to Brooklyn for TEDFest, to Chicago (several times) for IIDA and squeezed in visits with friends while there, to Portland, Pittsburgh, Philly, New Jersey, Maine, Washington DC, and back to Chicago for work, to Cabo with incredible friends who wanted to treat me after my surgery, to the Boundary Waters with a friend I hadn't seen in years but we picked right up where we left off and had a grand adventure together, Chicago again, this time with Ben, when I won the Hamilton lottery (!!!), and to San Francisco with Ben for an incredibly restorative long weekend that included good food, tree magic, and a tattoo and energy medicine session that completely transformed me inside and out.

I dove into the inner work of uncovering just how deeply ingrained the dark social norms of racism and white supremacy are within me. I began my own work to not only correct my own biases and learn from educators, but to learn what living with anti-racism as a core value looks like for me, including facing my own cultural appropriation on this blog, which I'm working on correcting. This will be lifelong work, uncomfortable and raw, but feels like it is the most important work I've ever done in my life.

Ben and I began Dave Ramsey's baby steps to financial freedom, and are finally on track to be debt free within a few years. I committed to weaving every week this year, built a gorgeous weaving studio and discovered the power of mindfulness in weaving. I wove commissioned pieces, wove for myself, started an Etsy shop, sold work to friends and strangers, and even taught several classes, delighting in sharing the joys of weaving as meditation with others. I thought I'd be coming back to this blog, writing about the second road trip I did with my mom (the first part) and husband (the second part), but never felt the strike of urgency that you feel when you know you MUST do something to follow a creative urge. And frankly, I was exhausted.

This was a full year, and after so many months of running at full speed, I talked to friends, family, and my therapist about whether I was taking on too much as a defense mechanism, uncovering feelings of unworthiness that were still deeply ingrained within me. I went to a new acupuncturist, re-started my meditation practice and began to face the emotions of anger and sadness that were still quite present, still stuck in my body, now manifesting themselves as physical injuries.

At the beginning of 2018, I wanted to jump at the opportunities living childfree offered me. But what does living childfree actually look like? Looking back, I can see that living childfree is simply that - living. It's making choices, constantly navigating what balance looks like. It's spending energy on things you value, which just doesn't happen to include your own children.

When one of my dearest friends visited me this summer, she commented on how colorful my life is. "You've made your own rainbow" she said. My heart swelled and tears came to my eyes - I was building a life that felt like a rainbow after the storm. But just like having a baby after losing one doesn't erase your grief, making your own rainbow doesn't mean your life is free of the low points. We've experienced a lot of good this year. It was a great year by any measure. And...I've also struggled with the question of balance, how to preserve time for things that energize me rather than drain me, and how to decide what to let go of when everything I do feels meaningful, fun, and allows me to use my strengths. I was sad to finally leave the online community I had been a part of while trying to grow our family, after coming to terms with the fact that a mom group was no place for me. I've felt immense grief, comparable only to our miscarriages, when Miiko, our 11-year-old dog, dropped dead on the kitchen floor in front of me after being on medication for congestive heart failure for over a year. And that grief deepened when just a month later we made the incredibly difficult decision to euthenise his brother Olli, who was suffering from the pain of prostate cancer. They were part of our family for over a decade, and my heart still feels torn apart at their loss. Building a rainbow doesn't mean I am not constantly drained because I'm spending too much energy on things I love, all while balancing new grief and old. It doesn't mean I live each day with only joy, only gratitude.

Life is filled with dualities. I am so happy with my life. I still feel so secure in the decision we made a year ago that resulted in my surgery. And I still have an inner child who speaks up whenever she is frustrated and sad with how unfair the world is. I have cried more in the last two months than the last two years. I love everything I give my time and energy too, and still I know it is too much, that giving more of myself than I have to give is at the cost of my own health and wellbeing.

If we had sent a holiday card this year, it might have included our favorite trips and best pictures together. We might have memorialized Miiko and Olli, giving a nod to our grief, but would we have been able to capture the depth of this first full year living childfree? I would hate to have anyone see our holiday card and say "oh, poor Ben and Ariane. It's so unfair that they can't have kids! They would have been such great parents". And I'd equally hate if someone saw our card and thought "so great that they've moved on! Looks like their lives are fantastic, even without kids!" Living childfree after our losses and infertility is far more complicated than either of those stories. And until we can capture the complexities, the dualities, and contradictions of our childfree life in a holiday card, we'll have to settle for a blog post.

2018 was overwhelming and fulfilling, wonderful and heartbreaking, inspiring and gut wrenching. I welcome 2019 with open arms, and all the challenges, joys, and lessons it will bring. Wishing you all a reflective, honest, and peaceful transition into the New Year.