Timing

I've been thinking a lot about timing lately. With the Big Project being so hard, it's been easy to second-guess all of my choices over the last year. And then there are the million other little things. Another season of Halloween costumes for babies popping up in the stores means that another year has gone by, and I have no one to fill the costume. I still keep up with a group of chicas that I started TTC-ing with, most of whom have real live babies now, and it strikes me just how long it's been since we started on this journey, when I read that their babies are teething. And then there are the people that I've seen through journeys of their own. I was thrilled for you when I saw that you'd finally gotten a positive pregnancy test. I still am thrilled for you, and I don't begrudge you what you have. Some days, though, looking at your pregnancy ticker or your baby's age ticker takes my breath away when I realize how much time has past. Tick, tick, tick. What lies ahead for me?

We decided a while back that if we managed to get pregnant by the time the Big Project ended, we'd go to Hawaii on vacation. If we didn't manage to get pregnant, we'd go to Central America. I've wanted to go to CA since 1994. I've literally had the trip planned in my head, in some fashion, since 1994. I've wanted to do something for 14 years, and haven't managed it. It's a little thing, a trivial thing, maybe, to want to travel. It's not exactly on the same level as wanting to have a child. But it's there.

So, anyway, back to this timing thing. If we were pregnant, we couldn't go to CA, because after everything that we've been through thus far, I'm not risking malaria while pregnant, and malaria is a very real risk in the places that I want to go. Plus, I want to take SCUBA lessons, and you can't do that while pregnant. So, CA wouldn't make sense if we were pregnant, and hence the Hawaiian Plan B.

I have a Goethe quote stuck up on my desk. It says, Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

While browsing at a travel bookstore a few weeks ago, I came upon a travel guide for CA that I don't own (and I own a lot of them!). When I opened up to the beginning, at the very top of the page, there was the very Goethe quote that I have on my desk. I am choosing to see this as a sign. I am choosing to see all of my struggles in the last year, both personal and professional, as what was intended for me. I am choosing to believe that the universe will unfold as it is supposed to, that my time for motherhood will come, and I will be all the richer for the wait. I think that I am probably going to CA, and I think I am probably meant to go there. I can't wait to see what adventures are in store for me.