This morning my heart is so heavy, my head a little unclear, all aching from the loss of good people who were so recently here on this earth. Meanwhile the cruel walk so heavily amongst us, stomping across our screens. My dad lost one of his closest, childhood friends a couple weeks ago. When I asked him how he was handling it, he'd said "He was one of two people in my life who has always been there for me, any time I needed him." And he's gone. Yesterday, his son, my age, probably 40 now, called his dad "perfect to me" and said he wanted to be just like him. I can't tell you if I've ever heard a child say that. 

Knowing they were in their final days, my friend asked his Dad if there was anything he wanted them to do after he passed.  He'd told them to teach his grandson two things - tolerance and forgiveness. These are the men who once walked our country. Men whose faith drove them to serve the hungry, poor, abandoned. Who tread with conviction and steadiness, served when they were needed. 

This morning I see on repeat the brutal murder of a man standing in to protect a woman, a man who served our veterans and showed them the honor they deserve in their final moments. A man I imagine being like my "uncle" - these men who walked the earth with tolerance and forgiveness. 

And like so many of my friends, we make breakfast. We try to parent. I need to get ready to go volunteer at Sunday school, to smile and sing with toddlers. Inside, heavy, unclear, aching. 

I'll try to tread today like Uncle Tom, my steps an echo. 

I have been journaling more and posting, anywhere else - less. But this morning I am wondering if today is the day - and if so, I have a few thoughts I don't mind sharing somewhere special. Oh yes, I have a blog! I remembered this and so came here. A lot has changed in the world since my last post (which I was pleased to see was more recent than I would have guessed). Namely, Covid has spread across our tiny earth - locking us in homes, distancing us from loved ones and friends from whom we regularly find so much comfort and joy. What hasn't changed since my last post is there is a baby girl growing in me. Still so wild and odd to say.

She was due 5 days ago now and this morning I decided to crawl out of bed, soon after 4am, shower and start my day. As I dressed I had this thought, it could really be today. And then, today is a great day to have a baby. This thinking has changed over the past couple months - after months and months of thinking "This is such a hard time to be pregnant."  "What a difficult time to be having a baby." A challenging time. A strange time. An odd time. Etc, etc, etc.  Then on a drive one day I heard, "This is the perfect time to have your baby - this baby - these babies. This is the time I chose for them." And just like that, I felt a download begin of who my little girl would be, who her friends, mostly all here by now, would be - what character, calmness, wisdom - brought into this world when much was stripped away, laid bare, up in the air for examination, and so many questions and loud opinions shared.  So many tears too. That is the time they step forth? Like, their first breaths?  This would be a horrible time for me to be beginning, but it is the perfect time for Juniper to be born - because it is when He chose for her, and her for now. So a week ago when my UPS delivery man said, "Wow, what a hard time to be having a baby." I responded, "Any time is a great time to have a baby." And I meant it, this gift I didn't know I'd ever have - I'll take her during a pandemic, happily.

Truthfully, I don't know what to expect in any measure when it's finally go-time.  At some point every piece of the typical process has been up in the air. I know my family won't be out in the waiting room this time, my friends won't visit with their little ones the first day, my Godmother won't hold my hand and pray over me just as my labor begins. There's this little chance John could be stopped from joining me in labor, and another that June could be isolated from us for two weeks.  We hired a doula, but she could be at another birth at the last minute. The hospital has changed its precautionary measure several times - and remains completely different than our experience with Nolan. Little is guaranteed. But, nonetheless, I know at least a measure of who this little girl is to be and so today is a great day to have a baby! So little June, feel free to arrive any time, you've got this, sweet girl and your family is all very excited to meet you.

I am convinced I am living the best days of my life right now.   I spent a small part of the day crawled in my bed with my fingers in my ears, praying in tongues.  This wasn't because I was about to lose it, though I was pretty emotionally spent.  I wanted to keep my cortisol levels down, my body calm - and it's hard to do that when you are listening to a toddler who doesn't want to nap, scream.  He and I had rounded past an hour of this battle and I needed a window for my body physically.  It helped.  I did stay calm.  And after 4 rounds of me going in, calming and soothing, but reaffirming that he needed to take a nap and he would have to nap - and him going from calm to very angry as I left again with a "we'll play when you get up!"  - eventually, he napped. About 1 hour and 45 minutes after we started the process.

I just want you to know that this isn't a rose-colored glasses kind of proclamation.  I am living the best days of my life right now.

But after his nap, now close to 4pm, he woke up happy, and thanked me when I picked him up. We cuddled and ate apples and cheese and watched a show about trains.  We went to the play area at uvillage and he pretended to make me coffee at a little play counter - taking my make believe money, moving his hands around above my travel mug before handing it back to me with a giant smile so proud of his coffee skills.  And then he'd say "More?" and take my cup back, only to repeat the game of pretend a dozen times.  He asked me to go down the slide next to him.  When we stopped in a store and they had a childrens coloring section, we sat and colored together for 15-20 minutes. A little girl about 5 months younger than him wanted to color, and he picked up a chair and carried it over to her, right next to his and patted it for her to sit.  Then he handed her a crayon and slid his paper over toward her.  Her mother was shocked, "Wow, you are a very nice little boy."  I was more shocked.

Today at one point I thought how incredibly grateful I am for my job - being overcome by how exhausting and challenging and near breaking the nap time saga had been.  And now as I crawl into bed I think how grateful I am that I was able to spend so much time home with him today - how I never want to miss it.

I guess I knew to expect that Toddlers feel ALL the feels and at a 10, but I didn't know to expect that I, consequently, would also be feeling all the feels throughout the course of a day. 

As we finished our stories tonight, cuddled into my bed, I told him how grateful I am that God chose him to be my son, and he chose me and John to be his mommy and daddy.  I told him we were all - him, me and his daddy, very, very lucky that God chose us all for each other.  I told him how proud I was of him today for being so kind and thoughtful, and that I appreciated that he took a nap today even though it was very hard for him.  It certainly wasn't obvious if he understood much of it, but he did look at me and say "mama, dada, doggn" and smile.  So, he got the gist.

I am living the best days of my life right now. It is a fact, and it is up to me whether or not I actually enjoy them.

John and I have been listening to The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor and it has solidified a goal I've been considering - I'm going to write down three good things each day.  A moment with Nolan that swallowed up everything else or just made me laugh, a tender or fun moment with John, a good deed a friend, stranger or politician did in the world, a pretty flower, peaceful drive, good run, a success at the office - mine or others. 

Maybe I will write some of these here.  It can't hurt for others to see a few more positive things. 

I may not visit here often anymore, but I'm still too devoted to this old gal to move my words someplace else.  I am not one for change for changes sake. I'm one for intention, returning, and returning again. I'm for grabbing drinks with your old friends, because they are your old friends.

And yet I feel I have outgrown this place - it doesn't fit right anymore. It may be a skin I should have shed years ago.

If I don't dedicate a piece of my life to writing, I will continue with some small place empty inside me. It doesn't have to come together in a book (though I'd like that), or result in income (again, certainly would be great), but I need to be writing and it needs to be something that both frees me and stretches me.  This is where I've come back to every time I've stopped to assess. 

Currently to make room for family, work and home - and do them all as well as I can, I need to be up around 6am.  And adding another thing in doesn't sound plausible, nor do I feel it necessary. But my work is seasonal enough that when fall rolls around my hours will likely dip and my plan is to substitute in this other kind of work to my early mornings.

It's not important that I write any of this here, but with all of it in my heart the past few weeks I felt it time to pull out my old trusty macbook and put my fingers on its keys. They are a different click than my work laptop - accepting my hands in softer way. I just wanted to remember how it felt, see if it would still turn on and if we still had the same connection. I feel a bit awkward and clumsy at it really.

And that is the other part of what has been on my heart - what if its gone? What if I've taken so long getting to this one, most obvious piece of what I feel called to that I've sacrificed all the work I've done in the skill? I'm hoping its just misplaced and if I wander here enough this fall and maybe some of the mornings or late evenings leading up to it, perhaps I'll stumble upon all the pieces.

So this fall, I plan to write each morning.

Something I know:  

We help each other make it. Strong ties hold us. 

There are those anomalies of people who manage to survive, thrive and move across the world on their own. But there aren't many.  

Most of us are here because of a friend, a first job, a person who didn't have to but did. And then another, who did. Someone who showed up when they said they would, followed through, extended an offer - extended their confidence. 

I've been the recipient time and time again - my first office and then marketing job was because of someone who said "If I'll trust you with my kids - I'll trust you with my phones." That grew to: "Just show me you know how to learn." And that likely set my entire career in order.  But there was also the time my sister decided I was going to work with her - and her boss offered me a job I hadn't asked for (or really understood I was being offered) - then the girl who trained me there and called to offer me the next role.  The next two jobs I got the "traditional" way - searching, applying, interviewing, accepting, working with recruiters. 2 out of 9 jobs I received that so called "traditional way" -  6 were from relationship and respect, from doing well at a previous role and proving I could be relied on to learn. The last, I created myself, my baby, Whittle. She's the quiet dream I always keep in the room. She's there for whenever that offer comes to do what I love - the moment when "helping others make it" and writing intersect. 

Build strong ties.  Help others make it. I believe those two things will benefit you more in business than anything. But I'm no tycoon - and I hope I never am. 

One year ago today was undeniably the day we would welcome our son.  We'd checked into the hospital the afternoon before, and after a long night... things were underway. My water broke of its own, while I sat with my godmother in the hospital room. She was the only family to arrive so far, we'd told everyone to hold off because labor wasn't progressing as far as we knew.  She hadn't received the message and drove from Renton to spend the day waiting with us. Thank God, because literally it was as she said a prayer over us that things started to suddenly happen.

From there, we continued to discover that my body wasn't going to do things "normal" - but it was going to do them, in its own confusing, amazing way.  It was a healing experience - a tying together of my body, mind, soul that had been severed apart many times and for many years. Very few things happened as I'd been told they would. And basically every item we'd written on our birth plan as a "would like to avoid" got checked off one after another... including having a Halloween baby.  But it didn't matter... we loved our story. We loved being in it. We operated as a team, we trusted and watched and worked. And in the end, through a cesarean delivery at 12:25am we welcomed our son, Nolan into the world.

His birthday is the 31st, but the 30th will always be all about him and the goodness and healing that was worked in me on that day. It will be about new beginnings - about light in the dark. That's the word we both felt deeply in our beings from the earliest days of our pregnancy. The grief. The glory. The pain. The healing. The guilt. The gratitude. The light shines in the dark and the darkness has not overcome it. 

Nolan William Robert, be a light, Son, in dark days and bright times alike. 

Nolan - Son of the Champion. A reminder that we can be brave and courageous because others were first.  Be grateful for the hard choices of others that paved the way for your own. A brave and victorious legacy. Champion.

William - Resolute Protector. A piece of his Dad's name and his character. Be strong and use that glorious will of yours to stand up for others, protect and guard. Defend what it is you discover you are called to protect.

Robert - Bright Fame. Light. Be who you are; it matters greatly to the world around you and the story unfolding. My godfather's name; a man who beamed with joy, love and strength. A man born 68 years ago today, October 30th.



I've never thought about it before, how beautiful it is that he waited until the start of a new day - the morning. Darkness still everywhere, the promise of morning light. 12:25am.

My dad calls Halloween a dark day - I guess that was the day God saw fit to call this new little light into the world. It's really rather perfect.

I'm a schedule person - a todo list person - a boxes checked person. It feels so good!  And there is something in me that keeps stretching out, craving that schedule. A new normal. Something to organize and erect like a golden cathedral to look to - a bell tower to direct my days with its ticks and tocks.

But its foolish just now to try. This baby boy is yet to fit into any exact schedule, and I'm trying to let this change me a bit, reform me before I begin trying to squeeze him into boxes. For now, I watch his rhythms and I move with them. I study him and try to learn how he tells me what he needs, what he feels, what he sees. And I'm doing my best to learn how to fit the rest of life's requirements in there too, around him.  And I sometimes day dream about a predictable, organized life where I begin scanning my favorite blogs with a cup of coffee at ___am each day, drawing in inspiration. Then clocking into work at ___am. Nolan up at ___am. Down for a nap at ___am. Clocking out at ____am. Where I can schedule things, create calendars, have room.

Not yet. Right now I watch for little hands that still and lay beside him, long looks, a yawn. There it is - time for a nap.  And I note the time, watching for a pattern, ready for a schedule. Soon, I tell myself, soon.

I haven't blogged in a long time, but I need to write and for me it's an all or nothing practice. I can't let the waters run free in one place and damn them up in another. That's how this blog has always worked - it allows those odd streams to trickle out and find a home. Today, I'm writing bios and team descriptions for work and for them to keep moving I have to blot my pen a bit here too with thoughts about another person I know.

I was lucky enough to spend the weekend with some friends. John had arranged for the framing of the basement to start and we needed to get Nolan out of the house for those couple days. When a last minute invite to drive to some friend's family beach house came, I jumped and rearranged my previous plans.

All that isn't important to know. Where it gets us is here though - sitting around a kitchen island, talking about the man not there. John. Everyone was saying how much they wished he was there and how they missed him, liked him, yadda yadda yadda. I love hearing it. And I hear it a lot. More than I've ever heard anyone be liked - I hear people like John. And I'm an analyzer, I want to know why. I might come across like a terrible wife for it, as if I don't know that I married one of the greatest guys. I do know, but I know from lots of long talks, tearful conversations, sweet responses, humble replies, kind looks, hard work, emptied trash, thoughtful questions, sincere texts, boring nights and fun dates, secret gifts, and positive things said behind people's backs. What I want to know is how they all know, and how everyone seems to know so quick. What is it about the guy that made every person in my life tell me "I like that guy!" after meeting him for a second?

I don't really know the answer yet, but my current hypothesis is they can sense they're safe - he is kind, intelligent and humble, and that comes across quickly, maybe from his questions. He asks questions. And he makes people laugh. But he doesn't use sarcasm to do it. You know that quote you always see ascribed to Eleanor Roosevelt? "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people." John is never a small mind. I think that is why people like him so damn much. I like him for that too (also, his cute butt). ;)

Grateful

I have a couple friends a season or so ahead of me in life - I call them mentors and friends. And when they are willing to somehow share openly a glimpse of what is going on in their life, I always walk away with a bit more perspective. What a gift to get to do now with an eye of what's right around the corner. I am beginning my 11th day of being a parent to a human in the outside world. John and I are constantly checking to make sure our son is breathing. We've poked him. We have no control over our schedules and end up botching most attempts to arrive at our doctor appointments with a well-fed, ready to just sleep baby.

To know that the worry doesn't end - that the concerns change from SIDS to college applications and then to a myriad of new developments in a blink is hopefully informing my very first attachments to my son.

We feel so grateful in these first days. Grateful for our child. Grateful for my body. Grateful for healing. Grateful for friends with 3 month olds who arrive with takeout at the hospital, because they remember just how sick you get of hospital food. And who tell you, sleep is near, we promise. Grateful for friends a few years ahead of that, who drive over to listen to your baby breathe and assure you it's normal - demonstrate how they bounce their baby to sleep - set up a sample sleeping arrangement that worked in real life for them - tell you, you are doing good. Check in on you. For those who offer to lend us swaddles, bouncers, clothes, etc. and tell us what worked for them. For those who show up with a cup of coffee.

Grateful for an unbelievable medical team and hospital staff. Grateful for giving birth in today's times. Grateful for epidurals (there I said it). For kind, funny, attentive nurses. For doctors who helped us manage our expectations, always kept us informed, listened to us, and worked with us as we tried every option we could, always keeping our son's safety first.

Grateful for family members who sat patiently in a hospital room, or anxiously by their phones all day and night and into the earliest hours of the next to hear he was here, and lay eyes on his perfect face with us. For grandmas who've held our son so we could sleep.

Grateful for those friends a season ahead to remind us - the days are long, but the years are short. You can never fail by..... this or that. Those who's children are newly grown and facing the challenges we ourselves just faced. Grown "children" - new adults we look at and think, I hope Nolan grows up to be something like that. And so, we drink up every word as we watch these friends hold our newborn child, telling us to be his cheerleader - raise him to hear the Lord, and then, trust him to. Find wisdom in him. We watch these friends hold our newborn child, and listen to them share a little about the joys and pains of the next season ahead, their current world, and we think, I hope I grow up to be something like that.

Things I want to fill my home with -

poetry
soft places to sit
solid places to share and eat and stand
warm blankets and looks.

music.

clean smells, crackling fires, cool breezes that move curtains.

bread, bubbling fruit in the oven - apples, blackberries, peaches, cherries, plums, especially plums, wrapped in crust and cinnamon, and everything that can compose and rise, sweet in a kitchen.

a place to come and go and come again.

I have what I believe is an unusual number of early memories. All simple and ordinary and priceless to me these past 26 or more years. We moved right before the end of my preschool year. I know this because I road home from that school with my sisters in Tina's brown pickup.  She shot some sort of little pop gun out her window at another student.  We drove to her house - across the street from our new huge house.  The one with weird stuff on the walls, the big back yard, my own room - and most importantly the one next to Elise, Robert, and soon Tyson.

I mark my early years this way - before and after the move.  The old house. The new house. So I have the benefit of knowing all the memories preserved in the old Edmonds house are from my first 4-5 years of life.  When I speak with most people, they have a couple blurry memories from these years of their life.  I have almost as many from those years as all the childhood years to follow.

Sitting at the kitchen table with my dad while he played a voicemail for me - "Hi, this is Ivy. Elise and I are wondering if Kati is free this afternoon to go to the beach with us?"  The photos from that day rested on our wall for the next decade. The sound of that message still rests in my head, the mischievous smile on my Dad's knowing face as he played it, and then told me I could go. He probably toyed with me a bit first, as he is prone to do.

The memory on my mind today is from weekend mornings - my parents up, blaring music over the speakers Dad had set up in the kitchen.  The feeling of waking up to a happy, melodious house on a Sunday morning, breakfast being prepared.  I think this exact thing probably didn't really happen that many times, but my heart remembers it as a family habit for a while - a thing we did on Sunday mornings before getting ready and heading off to church.  I want my kids to feel that way on Sunday mornings.  I want them to store it up, potent enough to fill them in their thirties. That memory. That feeling.

Weekend mornings are my absolute favorite time. John and I linger over coffee, or walk to a cafe, or make breakfast at home.  We do that most every morning, but weekends it's longer, it's better, it's more melodic. I wonder if this childhood memory plays any part in why I so prefer to spend my mornings this way - maybe it's the resonance of a lodged memory, vibrating as we hit the same note.

When I quit my job last August I quickly learned to dread a new conversation - "Oh that must be so nice! I bet you have so much time! What are you even doing with all that time?" I mostly hated because I constantly wondered, what am I doing with all this time? I suddenly had about 60 more hours of it each week, and yet I didn't really feel like I had more than an hour of free time a day - if that. And that bothered the heck out of me! Where was it going? And at the same time, it felt so smug, everyone assuming I had this life of luxurious free time - the strangely unemployed non-mother. I usually found some nice reply, or what I at least imagine was a nice reply.  But I wanted to remind people, my husband and I run a business out of our home, and just because we've decided to stop running three businesses, our daily ones each demanding well over 40 hours and the sum total requiring a circus-level routine of aerobatics and antics - doesn't mean I spend my days sipping rose and getting pedis.  Mostly, I scoop up animal poop, schedule appointments, pay bills, and run unending loads of laundry and dishes.  When it pours rain, I run out and make sure our entry isn't flooding, and if it is, I bail it out at noon or 2am.  And, I'm trying to build another business... and figure out what that business is, if there is a client, a need, a talent, a joy.

And most of all - I'm prioritizing, not by deadline or revenue potential - but by value.  John and I chose for me to leave my current career path for a few reasons (one being it was soul-sucking), the most important being that we didn't want our lives to be run for us.  We knew what mattered to us, but felt like others were dictating how all of our most precious hours had to be spent.  I for one wasn't always good at reserving enough emotional energy to give to those I love, after meeting the demands and needs of professional associates all day.  What I agree to do, I do well.  I have to - it's who I am.  I can't miss a deadline, or do a half-ass job even if that's the resources my job provides for, and go home happy with myself.  So I'd pull from the reserves over and over and end up dead as I headed home to spend time with the one I love most - and all the others I love too.

So a change.  A reorientation.  That is what we have been trying to do - that is how we've been trying to spend all that time.  We still have a lot of work, but we're trying to figure out how to put what is first, first, and then do the rest with excellence.

And I hope we've built some deeper, better habits and approaches because it seems like before things ever had a chance to really be slow - they are back to being crazy! A different crazy, and it's great - but mad house crazy!  The things we decided mattered most, and we wanted to spend time sowing to, well all those things grew. (Go figure!)

Family. Health. Home. Business. All of it has bloomed to fill the room we made for it - and we're back to wondering again - how do we simplify?  Amidst all of this good, all that is important, what is most important? And how do we spend our time now?

May 9th is one of my favorite days.  It's the day John proposed.  And I have to be honest, I might like it more than our wedding day.  Our wedding was a whirlwind, filled with a million emotions - and it was AMAZING and beautiful - but it was also too fast, too stressed and much of it felt like it belonged to all those we love. We kind of did that on purpose. My favorite moment from the day I think was when the sound cut out on our vows - I'm serious.  Even in the moment I thought, this is kind of nice.  It's our vows.  And you could kind of hear them from the rows, probably not from the balcony above.... but we heard them, and we were making them to one another. They were ours. They were intimate, private, sincere... not broadcasted. I think that's a symbol of who we've become and how we've been trying to live our life out as since. Let those beside us hear, witness and share... in real life, real time.  We'll call our loved ones, or send them a letter.  We want to be open to those around us - see the big world and care for it - but we want to treasure the intimate, the real, the sincere.

So if the wedding day was mostly for the people we care most about in our lives - bringing them into our love story and sharing our joy with them - then the engagement day was ours.  Which is slightly ironic since it was fronted and shared as a social media campaign kick-off.  Every detail though, every moment and twist and turn and surprise was a direct link from John to me... and it was perfect. Amidst stress and quick on the spot adapting (remember this was a Friday work day), that day was when I realized what was in my heart - he created space for me to be present, all alone, discovering peace and longing - and then hours later gave me an offer I'll forever be grateful I accepted. Before that very day, I didn't know if I'd say yes... and I'd told him as much.  He asked on May 9th in vulnerability and bravery - exactly as I'd want it truthfully. It wasn't a fake question we both knew the answer to --- and that is how it had been for us all along, real questions.  Every day it seemed we were asking ourselves and each other silent questions we didn't know the answer to, and it was frightening. Plenty of them out loud too.

I was circling around in the ferris wheel alone, each turn thinking it would stop and John would step in.  But he never did.  After 3 rounds, I laid back and listened to the music just for a moment let's be still.  I realized he really might not be behind it all. And then I realized, I wanted him to be.

May 9th was just perfect. He surprised me (a hard feat).  He showed he knew me.  He demonstrated he loved me.  I knew the proposal was coming someday soon, and I'd wondered what I would think when I saw the ring.  It may sound superficial, but when I saw it my whole head just filled with "That's my ring.  And it's perfect for me."  I couldn't have dreamed up anything so right for me as John.

Beau, thank you for the best Proposal.

xo.
Your favorite blogger. ;)

If you're like most people, in January, you spend a lot of time contemplating changes.  You think about all the "new" a fresh year can bring you... we tend to call them New Years Resolutions. But for one reason or another I was acutely aware this year of the other end of that string - the goodbyes, the cutting, the tying up of the old and bidding things adieu.  You can't have one without the other.  I think that is my wish for you all this year - that you find the strength to say goodbye to all the extras that have accumulated to slow you down and wear you out... be it a bad habit, a bad relationship, a bad thought, or even all the good that has become the antagonist of the unknown great of which you dream or wonder.  Please, use the wonderful happiness of a fresh start that a new year can offer, to do the hard work of saying goodbye and ending something. 

Creating a new habit does take decision after decision, but ending a habit or relationship is done in a moment (and then you just have to stick to it!).  It is over starting the first time you don't go back to it. I think that's really the power of the new year.  It's that an old one has closed, and you can't go back to it.  You get to decide what to leave back there.  

And with goodbye comes new energy, time, space.... everything a new beginning requires.  Suddenly, the future looks bright, with all of its unknowns and wonder. 

I'm being equally intentional about my firsts this year.  This is my first use of my revamped laptop. John installed a new RAM and a solid-state hard drive so I can seriously start working on my consulting business.  When he left for work this morning, I reached for my "new" laptop - opened chrome - typed in Facebook - and thank God it asked me for my sign-in credentials.  That flicker was just enough time for an intentional thought to over-ride the frightening thoughtless habit of my fingers to open that blue page! I thought, "This is my first act here in this all new space - what do I want it to be?"  I came here. 

Similarly, I've had my eye on a dreamy Waterman fountain pen for most of the last 6 months.  When John surprised me with it for my 30th birthday last week I took time to consider what my first act with it should be - I had pulled out a sheet of paper to write a to-do list and was of course going to use my new pen to outline it.  Is that really what this fountain pen is for?  Is that what my 30's are for?  What I'm for?  No.  I wrote a three sentence love letter.  Then, I wrote a to-do list.  (I really do like to-do lists.)  The acts are small, but with each first, I set a direction, a priority.  I set it.  

In short - let's say goodbye. And then let's take advantage of each opportunity we have to make a new 'first step' - allowing ourselves to intentionally chart our first moves, even if we can't plan out or control our whole coming year.  

I have some friends that hate when people hide things.  And I not only understand that, but I love that they feel that way.  I love that they are so passionate about people being open and honest and real that they'd much rather hear bad news than see a smiling, dishonest face.

I've got to say, I'm not one of those people.  I feel very strongly about being who you really are, being honest and sincere.  But I feel equally strongly that your core does not belong to them. You do not belong to them.  You belong to few.  You belong to one. You belong to you. You belong to who you choose to share you with... and that is wildly beautiful to me.  I like looking at a person I know somewhat, and knowing they are concealing things from me - beautiful things, sincere things, their things.  I admire those people.

It makes it that much more wonderful when one of your few share one of those concealed pieces with you - maybe it's only for a moment, a timely secret, painful or happy, or maybe it's forever, a piece of them.

My world has grown so much smaller in the past few years.  Less ears, less voices.  In my old world, we used to always have to tell everything, to almost everyone, and everyone else would tell the rest anyways.  Talking.  Telling.  Sharing.  So little keeping.

I love the keeping.

I turn 30 in a couple months.  And I have a lot of time to think about it right now, which I think is good.  I haven't had a lot of "thinking" time over the past 10ish years, you know, time to just uncomfortably sit in myself so to speak.  So we've been doing that, we've been thinking and feeling.  We've been looking at situations from an older, different angle and we've been giving ourself room to feel things - feel wronged and feel wrong.  Feel happy, feel powerful, capable, pretty or not pretty. Feel shame. Feel injustice. All the feels. (All the royal we's as well.)

Lately I've been sitting with a big ? - like a REALLY big question mark.  I'm pretty tired of most everything there is to see, do, consume on a daily basis.  Yesterday I scrolled through the "explore" section of Instagram, looking for something refreshing - something that isn't puppies (I have a lot of those on my feed!), pretty moms in very gradient-colored homes with children dressed in fancy linen onesies (I follow a lot of those), house plants, white subway tile... I genuinely like all of these things, but I'm just sort of...full.  I need something refreshing, like sorbet to my Instagram, and my Facebook, and my days!

I'm a writer, but I don't want to write more of all the same. I don't want to start a blog on tiny homes or being a puppy mom or a newly wed.  So, the question mark.... and the looking, or waiting, and sitting.

We take a lot of walks when it's not pouring rain (the pup and me, not the royal we), and I've been reading. We've done some house projects.  We clean.  We think about how we are two months away from 30 - and we don't want to waste our life.  Nor this season of life where I get to course correct - where I get to catch up - where I can move nearly any direction I want to go! It's a good life.  And I don't want to be a consumer - so I try to buy less, shop less, try to not fill my time with pastimes that require purchases.  Because purchases are not progress.

30 in a couple months... and here's what I know that I didn't know ten years ago, or even five. You're stuck with you.  You aren't stuck with anyone or anything else. Relationships are a gift we hope and pray we are blessed to keep, but deep down you only have so much control of that. When you have a spouse, care for them like hell, but while you're waiting you should know - you're still always going to be with you. When you're 20, 30 or 90. Somehow, being married, I feel like the "me" is even harder to ignore in the room now than when I was single.  And I love that I have a husband that fully supported my goal for this year to be a healthier me - mentally, physically and spiritually. So two months left - we've made some progress, we have more to make... and we have a big question mark as to what this healthier, truer me is really all about - how she spends her time and what inspires and refreshes her and what valuable contribution she holds the capacity to give this world.

Last night I dreamt that our airbnb guests showed up a day early to just "check out" the place - the whole family trotted into the yard, across the patio and began heading into the house! I had to explain to them that that is NOT how this works.

Then I started debating if it was an honest mistake, or if they were sizing up my house!  Kids in tow!

We might spend a bit too much time on airbnb. ;)

Nah.

I quit my job.

Most of you probably know that/have figured it out by now.

Here's what I don't know -

Have I quit the industry?
Have I quit 'my career'?
What is next?

People are asking what the plan is - what's next? And I want to jump in and say "Build my own business.  Offer communications and marketing support for small businesses I believe in."  But, that's not what today is about.  Today is a crazy gift where I get to let go of all pressure, direction, preconceived ideas, and experience - and reconsider... who am I? What am I good at? And more importantly - What do I believe matters? What makes me happy? What thing ADDS to me when I give it?

So, while a definite piece to me thinks - this business is "next" - and truth be told, it has a name and a url and an unpublished website... I'm letting it float out there, because it may not be what's next.

I don't know what is next. 

I know I've always loved to write.  I'm going to figure out if I still love it. 

I know I am a romantic - and I know I need to find a way to FEEL the romance in life and business all over again. I know I care more about doing than saying (a true problem for a "writer" - and something I'll have to tease out).  I know I cry when I listen to the symphony.  I love the taste and ceremony of a good glass of wine.  I love the heart of cooking a meal for people I love - but hate the pressure of preparing something people can rate/compare/time.  My dinners will be hours late. Plan on it.  They will almost always be something new.  They might actually not taste good.  I love the stars.  I love fires. I loves stories. I love feeling deep and close to another human being.  I love the magical moment when you realize you have found a new place in this world where you are safe.

I know these things, but beyond that, I really don't know much.  And right now, I get to step back and try to discover new things I know. 

I am one lucky woman.  I happen to have a man beside me who is better at letting people "not know" than anyone else I've ever met. 

I have been counting down the days until the end, then resetting and counting down again for so many months now it's hard to believe it's really the LAST WEEK!

We're not quite sure what's next and that is a bit unnerving, but it doesn't touch how exciting it is to be saying goodbye to something that just didn't feel right. We're doing our best to hold on to the unknown and not to fill the spaces immediately... the goal is to leave room and discover along the way.

Come Friday, I'll be spending time with my ENTIRE family, celebrating my parents' retirement and swimming in my own new freedom to create/work/dream/garden/write/cook away!