A New Venture

Maybe it is the change in weather and the fact that much of my family is heading back to school.  It could be the fact that for several years I've been eager to head back to school myself, I just haven't been able to figure out how to find the time or money.

Mostly it is stemming from the fact that I am eagerly anticipating major changes in the coming year.  With Nick finishing up course work for medical school in December, the arrival of "itty bitty" in February, and residency decisions happening in March...life as I know it now is going to change drastically and rapidly over the next year.  I am finding that there is much to my life that needs to be processed and so begins my blog.

I don't have any fantastic ideas of where this blog will take me, but I am hopeful that it is something I can maintain for at least a little while.  I would never admit to being an English buff or a grammar whiz, but I have always enjoyed writing.  There is something about sitting down with your thoughts and letting your ideas come together that I've always found addicting and cathartic.

I anticipate that a great deal of my writing will be centered on processing my life experiences, hence the title of the blog.  The title is actually a twist on a song by one of my favorite musicians, Mason Jennings.  Nick and I have often listened to Mason's song titled "Be Here Now" and marveled at the simple power of the song's message.

We have actually deemed it our theme song for our marriage as it reminds us to slow down and take things a day at a time.  The song emphasizes the importance of just being in the moment.  Often I find myself thinking "if I could just get to next week" or "maybe in three years we could..." and then I have to stop and remind myself about the now and enjoy the day to day routine.  It is after all the humdrum of normal everyday living that gets me to next week or three years from now, and those hopes and dreams for the future just wouldn't happen if I didn't live in this moment right now.

As I contemplated a title for this blog I really wanted to have a title that gave me some focus and represented this period of time in my life.  I found that this actually captured it pretty well.  Lately, I've been overwhelmed with a feeling of being on the cusp of change and yet my daily routine hasn't changed significantly.  I've felt as though I want time both to simultaneously speed up and slow down all at once.

This was all spurred on in June when Nick and I found out I was pregnant.  I wouldn't necessarily call it a surprise, but I think it all happened much more quickly than either of us had anticipated.  Since finding out we've had the normal roller coaster of emotions, we're completely elated and then we throw in moments of impatience or fear.  Couple that with the eager and nervous anticipation of welcoming a new  member into our family, and we pretty much swing through all varieties of emotions on any given day.

It is a bit like that summer before your first year of college when you get the name of your first roommate.  There is that period of excitement when it finally starts to feel real that you will be heading off to college.  You know that things are going to be different, but you're not really sure how.  The name of your roommate and those first few phone calls or emails remind you that this change is approaching.  There is excitement as you learn that you have a few things in common, then there are the unknowns of how it will go to live with a stranger and what happens if you don't get a long.  And of course there is that period of waiting, you start pulling together the items you'll need to make college feel like home and you buy a few new school supplies.  You listen as all the people who have been through it before tell you how great it is going to be.  Then they scare you with horror stories of their first roommate.  Somedays you wish your could just be a senior in high school forever and then other days you couldn't be more ready to move onward and upward.  In the meantime, all you can do is wait and imagine what it will be like in August or September when move in day FINALLY arrives.

I feel that way most days now.  I am anticipating and starting to prepare for our little arrival.  I hear stories of how amazing becoming a parent is, and then I hear about the fatigue and the complete takeover that this new family member will have on my life.  I worry about leaving behind the freedom of childlessness, and then simultaneously I can hardly wait to experience the world with our child in it.  In the meantime all I can do is live in the comfortable, quiet little world that Nick and I have created for ourselves over the past two years.  Planning the nursery, picking out names and dreaming of who our child is becoming slowly starts to make everything feel more real, but I still have to wait.

Hence, being here now has really been my theme this summer.  Mason writes it best when he says, "Be here now, no other place to be.  And let good things happen, and let the future come into each moment like the rising sun."  I am relishing in the quiet moments and the great closeness that Nick and I have established in our wonderful first two years of married life, and I am slowly and daily anticipating the next phase of our life.


Here is a link to Mason Jennings' music video for "Be Here Now" on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa_4wV2GDfQ&ob=av2e