The Second Act

Aside from a few posts I have managed to squeak out over the last few weeks, I have been away from the internet. With the big move, the new job, the second new city in four months, a new routine, and the crappy internet that I am inflicted with until my real internet is installed (in two MORE weeks--damn European utilities!), blogging and blog reading has been all but impossible (oh, and I don't have a cell phone yet, which is how I was reading blogs, for the most part, which has complicated matters further--curses to the European utilities and banking industry, again). I must say, I have really missed this community. I promise that I'll be catching up on reading and commenting in coming weeks, as the dust settles around my new life. I hope wonderful things are happening out there.

As for me, I truly feel as though I am in the harbor of my life as I have entered this second act. I have this amazing baby that continues to thrill and astonish me every day (there will be an upcoming post all about her). I have a wonderful husband, who has been lovely and accommodating, even though this move isn't nearly as easy for him as it's been for me (it's hard to meet people in a new city when you are the man home with the baby). We are living in a gorgeous place, where I have a cozy, proper office that looks out over a garden, from which I am typing right now. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the roses are even still blooming here. It is a magical time in my life.

That's not to say that everything is perfect (the non-perfect parts, too, will be the subject of an upcoming post). But it is very, very good. I feel like the struggle and strife and difficulty of the last few years has finally given way--like it all finally paid off. I feel like I went through all of that turmoil so that I could get here. Sometimes it takes my breath away, how lucky I am. When I nuzzle soft fuzzy baby hair, when I hear her giggles, when I wake to her giant grin. . .I just think of how blessed I am. On top of that, to have tried for almost 18 months to get a job that I hoped would be fabulous, and then to get that job, and find it every bit as fabulous as I had imagined it would be--there is something so powerful about that. I am so proud of myself that I stuck with it, that I worked hard to get somewhere, and that I actually achieved all of this. To be living in a European city is also such a gift (even despite the recent terrorism warnings). Yesterday, we strolled for hours through parks and city streets, stopping occasionally for cappuccino or pastries or gelato, and it was just magnificent. We didn't do anything terribly unusual--it was rather ordinary, in fact, but it was beautifully, enjoyably ordinary in a way that I cannot even put into words. I feel like I am living whole again. I guess that is it--I feel whole, for the first time in a very long time. In fact, perhaps for the first time ever.

As we meandered down a quiet wooded path yesterday, through an enormous park, I commented to T. that it feels as though it's been years since we left our home in New England, since I worked at my old job, but it's been just four months. These have been the longest shortest four months of my life, by which I mean that they feel long because we packed so much in, but they just flew by--dissolved. Since mid-June, we have lived in two different major cities, I have gone through three different sets of training, we have met two different sets of people (and still continue to), we have finished a major renovation of our house, we have packed up all of our things and moved hundreds of miles (twice!) and through it all, we had an infant who grew and changed and thrived despite the chaos. Looking back, it seems impossible that we jumped off that cliff and trusted that we would fly, but we did, and I must say, the views are just amazing. It feels so good to soar.