Life always surprises me. I try to map it out in front of me, but it seems that there is more often than not a detour, or road block, something requiring an alteration in my plan.
I don’t think that this is just my life. I think that everyone has this. The circumstances come in different shapes and sizes, but they come for all of us. Maybe God is up there, giving us only what we can handle. Or maybe fate hands us what we need, even when we think that we don’t need it at all. I’m not sure. I just know that wrenches get tossed in to the workings of our lives, just when we thought it was all running so smoothly.
On October 25th, I was just finishing a weekend in Kenosha with my best friend Holly, her husband Neal, and their daughter Riley. I got up early to run along Lake Michigan, which I always want to do when I visit and have never taken the initiative to get out of bed early and do. It was cool and windy, the lake full of white caps. The sun kept trying to peek out among the clouds, casting spectacular rays out over the water. I ran along the sand, and then the path.. The morning felt magical, as if there was some answer looming in the sun’s rays, the miniscule sand pieces, and the water worn rocks. I had no idea what was to come. I just kept running until I finished my 4 mile route, pausing to take pictures, as if the feeling could be captured.
Riley is a busy bee, but took some time out of her day to cuddle me. She climbed up onto the couch with me, toting her favorite blanket, and snuggled up on my lap for half an hour. We watched Barney. I was thinking about how long it had been since I had lived in the Land Of Barney, with sticky, chubby little fingers, constant milk refills and sweet toddler babbling. I kissed the fine hairs on her head, rubbed her back and bird like shoulder blades and listened to the songs I still knew by heart, but hadn’t heard in years.
So far removed it all is from my own life with my children. My daughters don’t even need to be reminded to shower. They crack intelligent, funny jokes, and we talk about concepts and ideas that the school teaches them, as well as the things about life that I feel they need to know. At 11 and 13, the girls share my books and can discuss them with me. I sat there that morning thinking how strange it was to be back in the Land of Barney, and about how far away it seemed, but that it must not be if I still knew all the songs by heart.
I was invited by a good friend to have dinner at my cousin’s church. A group of us sat together, eating and laughing. I was happy to be there; acutely aware of how full my life is of family and friends. I was thinking that I didn’t want anything more, didn’t need anything more. That I live a blessed life.
After dinner, a man I’d been dating for a couple months invited me to come over and watch Sunday Night Football. We never did watch the end of that game…
I found out two weeks later that I’m pregnant. Yep, that’s right, pregnant. This is not something I was expecting, not even a little bit. My first reaction to the first of three pregnancy tests I took was laughter, the sort that comes from “Are you FREAKING kidding me?!?” But I knew. Somewhere inside I knew. I’d been hungry for the first time since April, and though its been quite a few years, I’ve been pregnant before. A strange side ache a week before left me lying on my couch wondering why it was vaguely familiar, until I remembered that I had only had this side ache just before I found out I was pregnant with each of the girls. Still, the tests knocked me back. Made it all real and true, I guess.
I wish I could write everyone some encouraging words about the guy I was dating. All I can really say is that it is not the sunny days of summer that define our character, it is the storms of life. It’s easy to be a good person when days are primed for barbeques, but it’s a different story when we are forced to stumble blindly through an unforeseen storm without a clear path. What I also know is that by the times we hit these storms of life with someone, were usually “in it.” I have learned a lot the past couple months about my own ability to weather storms, as well as the fact that it’s an amazing measure of the people who will remain with you, riding it out, and still be standing by your side when the sun comes out. Everyone of consequence in my life, with the exception of that man who helped me set this storm into motion, is still standing by my side. I’m not very mathematically minded, but those are fabulous statistics. I am grateful for all of the support that I do have.
If you have faith - as I do- that things truly do work out the way they are supposed to, then you have to believe that all the time. Not just when life is easy and going your way, but when surprises come in and knock you back for a bit. All the things in my life, good and bad, have been a path of stepping stones, one leading to the next, inevitably leading me to this amazing life I live, that I wouldn’t change or trade for anything. Plus, I don’t think we get to choose the shape or timing of our blessings. And I, for one, do not piss on my blessings.
My daughters are ecstatic. They think this is the best thing ever. They have been letting me nap, making me dinner when I wake up, walking the dog and letting me be emotional and hormonal without complaint. They have shown me how grown up they are in all of this. They act as if this is the most natural and obvious thing to have happen. I couldn’t be prouder of them, because they aren’t just good kids, they’re good people.
As soon as I found out, I called my best friend. And in true best friend fashion, she immediately packed up her daughter and drove the nearly two hours to my house. We sat on my porch overlooking my backyard and talked. I think that even then, just hours into knowing, she wrapped the whole thing up best…
“Well, you were looking for love,” she told me. “I guarantee you that you found it…And who knows? Maybe it’ll even have a penis…”
The newest member of our family will be joining us somewhere around July 15th, 2010...
