30 Days of Me!

So we all know that for the entire last year there's been pretty much one thing on my mind-Baby Gabe. The last year I have been entirely consumed with his life and his loss. Oh how much I love my little guy. I feel that in some ways, I am moving into the whole acceptance stage of grief. Believe me, I still go through every single stage at least once a day, and even hour to hour, but I think I'm finally accepting (whatever that means) this whole life of loss. Then again, that's not true. I know I came to a time many months ago where I just knew, without the slightest doubt, that Gabriel is where he is supposed to be, with our Heavenly Father, and the acceptance began. At that time, the literal physical heartache I had faded away and my heart was instead filled with peace. That peace hasn't left and I'm so thankful for that. I still know he is where he's meant to be, but it's also so hard to be left behind missing him.

Anyway, in all of this last year, I feel that I've kind of lost myself. I'm definitely a changed person. Sometimes I'm not a fan of that person. Sometimes I am. I certainly have grown more than I ever wanted to. I've seen a lot of BLMs' (baby loss mommas) blogs that have spent 30 days of blogging about themselves in trying to get back to normal. Now, I'm sure most people don't want to hear all about me. I don't even want to hear all about me. So, for those of you that don't, just don't read my blog for the next 30 days...even though I have plenty of more subjects I'm sure I'll be blogging about along the way, especially now that I know how to get pictures off my camera! Anyway, I figured this might be a good way for me to think about the things that make me me and help me maybe find my way back to knowing me better. That sounds completely looney, but hey, I'm willing to try it. I decided to start on today, my birthday of all days, since this whole mess of a person began 35 years ago. So, here goes....30 Days of me!!

Day 1: Introduce yourself

Well, my name is Cyndi....actually Cynthia Lee Jensen Jordan. I was born 35 years (yikes!) ago today, May 25th, at 10:37 pm in SLC (that means that at this moment I am still 34!). I'm the youngest of 7 and my parents always promise I wasn't a mistake. :) I was lucky enough to be born into a family that belonged to the LDS church, a major blessing in my life. I was raised in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. I went to Canyon View Elementary, Butler Middle, Wasatch Jr. High, & Skyline High School. I pretty much rocked it in the smarts my whole life (until having kids did me in) but tried to play it off that I was dumb so boys would like me. I was always entirely too into boys my whole life. 29 years ago today I had my first kiss, with Jonathon Gaines, in the woodshed at my condo in Island Park, ID. We then went and had cake and ice cream and he cried because it wasn't his birthday (which was actually a few days before). I lost interest almost immediately and moved on to the next guy, just like I did for many years until I met the man that supercedes all others.

In high school I loved to take a gazillion pictures and scrapbook before there was even a thing called scrapbooking. I loved it so much I joined the yearbook staff for a few years there. It's my only claim to participating in any kind of high school function. I kind of saw high school as one big time for partying (the sober kind!!) and attending school as little as possible while still maintaining a 3.5 or higher GPA. I'm proud to say I still did that....my best friend at the time had a harder time with the GPA and our lack of attendance, but somehow we graduated! After graduation I came down to Provo to go to school at UVSC. I really, really, really wanted to go up to the Pacific Northwest for school. Grunge was in and I was determined to meet Eddie Vedder and join the others up there mourning the loss of the great Kurt Cobain. I was very into music at that time...and still am. However, my parents somehow bribed me into staying here in Zion. I guess I'm glad they did...it helped me meet my Ben, but I can't believe I've lived in Happy Valley for going on 17 years when I never intended to come here in the first place. Someday I will escape...hopefully somewhere without snow and with the ocean breeze!!

After coming to Provo, I soon went to a Mighty Mighty Bosstones concert at the Palace. That is the one and only concert that I ever got up on stage and actually danced with the band. It is also a significant concert because it was also the first time I saw the local hip-hop group, the Numbs, who opened for them. The Numbs would change my life. Not only did I become a major groupie and friends with that crazy group of guys, but they later introduced me to one of their friends from high school, fresh of the mish just one day. Yep, my Ben. I still remember the exact moment I met the guy. He doesn't. He was so overwhelmed with the whole concept of going over to hang out with these "really cool girls" just a day fresh from the mission, that it was all a blur to him. That night, after hanging at our way cool house for awhile, our friend, Gunnar, realized that he'd locked his keys in the car. Ben came to the rescue by promptly breaking into said car. With the knowledge that this R.M. was awesome at breaking and entering, I began to fall in love...and we were soon together forever.

Okay, okay, it wasn't exactly like that. It actually took months for Ben to look my way. Granted, I was dating one of those Numbs boys and he thought I was taken, but still. After me and the DJ broke it off, I moved in on Ben. Okay, I didn't. As much as I liked boys, I was always extremely shy around them if I totally dug them. I was lucky enough to have a friend, Kanani, who had known Ben forever, who when she found out that I was crushin' on him, stated with absolute certainty, "Oh you guys are perfect for each other. You're going to get married!" She then went to work making that happen by lining up all sorts of activities in which Ben and I would be forced to be together. One night Ben came over to our abode and somehow everyone just disappeared. We talked all night long, until the break of dawn, when finally we had our first smooch...or two. It was totally scandalous that we spent the entire night together, but it was perfect, and we were soon in love, and just like Kanani predicted, we got married on July 1, 1997 in the Mt. Timpanogos temple.

So our first years married were spent with us going to school or alternating going to school or working to pay for school. We also had a ton of fun living it up with our many awesome friends in our married student ward. Those were such fun times that we never wanted to leave and hence we were both in school FOREVER. I'm pretty sure we still hold the record for being in that ward the longest. Yeah, we're awesome. Ben went to BYU and I was at UVSC. For many of my years in life I wanted to be an OB nurse with the greatest desire. I worked as a CNA for years. After getting all of my stuff done to enter the nursing program, I decided I was done with that dream and changed my major to Elementary Ed. I had to begin all over and it took me forever to get through school but El. Ed. was awesome and I loved it! I never actually taught because in the first few weeks of my student teaching I found out that the baby we'd been trying for forever was on her way. Thank heavens for cooperating teachers because I took many a bathroom break to puke my guts out but somehow completed student teaching and graduated in April 2001.

Skylar D. was born that September and my absolute dream of being a mom finally came true. Nicky D. joined the family in April 2004, and a few days later Ben graduated from BYU. After a few months we realized our stint in the married ward needed to come to an end and we moved to our first house in North Orem. McKadey Jake was born in March 2006, Alexis Lou was born in September 2008, and our precious angel, little Gabriel, was born still in August 2010. Along the way, we also adopted a dog, Koda, a few cats-Gracie, Soffee, Q-tip, Cali, & Darth Catter (only Soffee and Catter are still with us), numerous amounts of fish, and a lizard named Luke. We live in Orem, I'm a stay at home momma, while Ben brings in the bacon being a web designer for none other than the LDS church. We enjoy the most beautiful view of Mt. Timpanogos every day, camping, Disneyland, and long walks on the beach.

Now that, was a mighty big intro, but there you have it. If you were completely bored out of your mind, tune in again in 30 days!