The Best Year

 On the first day of this year we knew enough of you to dream of you, knew enough of you to buy tiny socks, start a list of names

The spring went slow, tears, and the world contracted and grew small while some strange disease crept in, and still you grew, and I did the same

Summer was hot and you were active, resting only when I walked, and so I walked and walked and walked, and wondered what it would be like to walk with you

You were born fighting a battle we couldn't see, life wrapped 'round your neck three times, I've never been able to think long on that, I hope you'll forgive my inability to imagine life without you

Since you joined us the world caught fire, more disease, more fear, more worry for what the future will bring

But hope, too. And green grass to lay you down in, tiny toes with tiny toenails flexed to feel the tickle, wind to cross your cheek as you swing

So few have held you. We've had to tell you of their love, promise that they smile behind each mask, that they pray to God and saints on your behalf, that there are hugs to look forward to.

It has been a year of weeping, of exhaustion, of loneliness.  But it has been the best of all things, too, the deepest of all joys, the wildest of all loves. It has been milk and sweat, the weight of you in my arms, the perfect curve of your smile. It has been the best year, this year of you. 

Scares

 A couple months ago, upon inspecting a freckle at my hairline, I felt a deep, insistent nudge to get it checked. The freckle had been there for ages but recently appeared darker.  Were I not a new mom, I might have ignored that nudge. I might have chalked it up to too much time in the sun and a need for new bangs. But the dependence of a tiny person made me worry and that worry may have saved my life. 

The melanoma was thin, removed with a 45 minute procedure that was more stressful than painful. The only lasting effects are numbness in my scalp, which should fade over time, and a scar nobody will notice but me.  The days waiting for pathology results were the worst, wondering if I'd need another procedure, wondering if the cancer had spread, wondering what stories my husband would tell our son if I died before his first birthday. 

It was enough of a scare to make life feel more precious, even in the middle of this exhausting pandemic. Even isolated, even without the ready comfort of family and friends, even though Truman has only been held by his aunts and uncles with masks on, even though every day feels like a long Tuesday, even in this slog life feels holy. 

There's a part of me that always struggled with the idea of motherhood because it seemed like a state of being that required full dismissal of self. As in, I'd no longer get to be Rachel because henceforth I'd have to be Mom. But the reality is more nuanced. I see him and I think, "I exist so that you exist." My ambition has been tempered by his smile. Work no longer feels like a goal in and of itself, but a means to an end and he's the end. I still enjoy the way I get to use my brain,  but I prefer to think of him and not solar subscription agreements. But that doesn't feel like a loss of self, just a new alignment of priorities. And the scare of the last few weeks, the scabs largely gone, the scar pinking up and smoothing out, reminds me that every breath of that existence, his and mine, is a gift. 

My Son

I've stopped and started this post a dozen times.  I'll blame that partly on the demands of a newborn but the truth is writing about my son has felt very heavy.  Heavy in the sense that there's too much carried to lift any one brick for evaluation. The breadth and depth of motherhood (not to mention experiencing motherhood in the context of a pandemic) has swallowed me, made words float far away on a surface I can see but not quite touch. Even my prayers have been stunted, short and desperate (help him grow! protect him! help me!), pleas have been all I could muster under the twin burdens of terror and euphoria. 

While pregnant with Truman, even after he started routinely kicking me in the ribs, his existence seemed tenuous, like any morning I might wake up and it would have all been a dream.  With each week I allowed myself an incremental addition of joy, knowing I was closer to feeling him in my arms.  But even at the hospital, pacing and wincing and generally terrifying my husband, Truman still felt like a cloud of hope, a puff of smoke that a stiff breeze could dissolve. He didn't feel solid until he was placed on my chest after surgery. I couldn't lift my arms on my own and the combination of drugs and hormones made me shiver violently, my teeth chattering as Chester and the nurse helped me hold him. He was warm and sleepy, exhausted by his ordeal, and the first sensation I felt as I regained feeling in my arms was his tiny, wet breath. He was here and real.

Today brought the first breaths of autumn, a brisk wind racing between sunbeams, and as we sat outside Truman would inhale sharply, then smile, when the wind rustled his hair.  I have never felt more firmly tethered to a place than I did in that moment, watching my son feel his first windy day, my feet in the grass of our backyard, my fingers smoothing the edge of his blanket. We exist together, my son and I, his father beside us. Our hearts beat and we feel the wind blow and we watch the leaves make shadows. He is here and real, and I get to love him for the rest of my life. 

Fragile

I have rarely lacked confidence in my ability to get things done. I have a healthy stockpile of self-doubts, but my ability to act and decide and plan and put plans in motion is not one. This has served me well in many contexts. It has made me a good lawyer, a good provider, a good payer-of-debts. It has helped me help others and fix problems big and small.  I am a developer of Plans of Attack and a checker of all the boxes. But pregnancy in a pandemic has shattered everything.

I know from experience that pregnancy, every pregnancy, feels disorienting.  On Monday your body is your own.  On Tuesday it is shared sacred space. We've been here before. Twice before. And while those pregnancies ended, they were long enough to disrupt what I could and could not believe about my body.  They were long enough to love someone and lose someone. They were long enough to love and hate what was in the mirror. They were long enough to be surprised by how resilient our flesh can be, suffer and still wake up whole, suffer and still wake up and go to work, suffer and still go to happy hour, suffer and still hope.

After losses, pregnancy feels especially tenuous. My only experience of pregnancy thus far has been destruction and loss, so to be in this new world of good news, healthy ultrasounds, kicks and somersaults after supper, feels beautiful and fragile. To know he's a boy, growing into a boy body, with boy elbows and knees in my stomach, means there's so much more to imagine and cherish, so many daydreams of dirt and baseball and laughter and boat rides, so much more to be lost. He is pictured, not more loved than his lost siblings, but certainly more concrete. He is possible and probable, and that makes the risks loom larger.

But he is an anchor now, too. We cannot drift too deeply into any sea of despair because there are bassinets to research, child care options to discuss.  There are nurseries to daydream and names to debate. We may be isolated, a bit stuck, and bruised by the disappointments and fears of this current storm, but we are constantly reminded by a tiny person we love that the future must come, too. And he doesn't care if Mom doesn't have baby showers, or if the new house isn't quite put together, or if he even has a "new" house to come home to in the first place. He'll just be here. We love him for just being here, just existing. And that love is not fragile, it is fierce.

Something to Talk About

I'm new at my job. Unsurprisingly, I'm frequently making my way to the printer and end up exchanging pleasantries with folks who don't know me.  Those initial conversations are frequently awkward, so polite as to be ridiculous, but that's the dance we do in new spaces. Because I started this job while going through our second miscarriage, I was more sensitive to some of those getting-to-know-you questions and I was struck by the fact that only women with children asked me if I had children. It was frequently one of their first questions, and perhaps it always has been.  Perhaps it's only now, when we're trying for and losing our babies, that the question lodges somewhere painful and leaves a mark.

I will say, first, that for whatever reason, the second loss has been easier than the first.  Easier in that I knew what to expect, understood what I was feeling, and had a learned timeline of events.  It was not emotionally easier, but I definitely functioned better. No catatonic evenings on the couch writing drippy poetry and sipping whiskey. I'll partly credit the new job for that high functioning sadness but I'll also credit the weird, wonderful resiliency of human experience. But that doesn't lessen the hitch in my breath, feel the hollowness of my answer, "no, no children." I am an excellent actress, so no need to assume this is painful for anyone other than myself. I am slick and clever and any discomfort can be easily sidestepped with a quick reference to lawyer antics, my newest kitchen gadget purchase, or a comment on somebody's fabulous shoes. 

That's fine. Really. I understand the weirdness of meeting and investing in people, asking questions, picking and prodding to determine points of shared interest. We do so desperately want to connect with people and questions are how that information frequently makes its way to us. But I think it's the expectation of the question itself that I find difficult these days. I don't doubt that mothers want to know if there is shared experience there, a shared bond, working mom to working mom, and that's certainly a valid connection to hope for.  But I wish we didn't start there. I wish that wasn't the first of the getting-to-know-you questions.  Because I am positive that I will not be a more interesting person if/when I become a mother. I will never be of more value than I am right now. My worth, vitality will not increase. I will love someone new, cherish someone I've longed for, but I've actually experienced those things before. I could talk about my husband that way. And if you'd spoken to me before I met him, I could have spoken similarly about members of my family, dreams, goals, travels. My mind, my heart, my relationship with the world, they do not become more worthy of interest or bond or connection when I can add "mother" to my list of descriptors. I am wholly myself today and will be wholly myself forever. 

Women without children never struggle here, they don't ask if you have kids. I don't ask women if they are mothers when I meet them.  And it's not because I don't care, it's because their motherhood isn't a key piece of information for me in determining how I will connect with them.  Because motherhood is not something we will link arms over, we have to find other areas to connect. Books, school, autumn, a shared love of americanos with vanilla syrup, travel daydreams, cars in the shop.  I am aware of my increased sensitivity these days but the questions surrounding children feel very much like an audition with some women, as if my choice of monologue is under scrutiny and the cast list won't be posted until Friday. I think it's this assumed lack of invitation, this knocking on the window of a club I'm not invited to, that scratches the wound. Because so frequently after I say I don't have kids, the conversation falters. Even if I joke and bring up my adorable dog.  Even if I ask to know more about the children, what grade, what sport, there's a languishing there and I feel not a little bit left in the cold. 

While we've begun the adoption journey, we don't know how/when that road will end. I wish, in meeting women, we could connect as friends,  as colleagues, as athletes on side by side spinning bikes, as lovers-of-Jane-Austen, as mutual haters of the office copier, as owners of the same leopard print sweater, and leave the do-you-have-kids questions for days, weeks, months down the road.  I wish for many things, and this is one. 

Castles on the Wall

The Castles hung in his den, which we rarely used. They hung in the room we awkwardly crowded into years ago, that first Thanksgiving after his diagnosis, when we weren't sure how much time we had but we worried the time we had was short. It was too formal a space for our typical Thanksgiving banter and debate and storytelling and worry. But it felt like the room we were supposed to be in.

If I ever noticed the Castles before he died, I don't remember that moment. They're a striking pair, beautifully framed, original paintings of castles to which we have no familial ties. Perhaps he mentioned them to me at some point, asked me if I'd ever been nearby, seen them in person. I'm not even sure if they still stand, perhaps the paintings themselves are pictures of ghosts, Cornwall must be bursting with not-important-enough-to-maintain castles.

We wandered the house after he died, knowing that every thing in its place would soon not be in its place any longer. Couldn't we just keep the house a bit longer, just let it rest, let it miss him? The half-hearted pointing and, "yeah, I guess that might look good in our second bedroom" rings so loud, achingly hollow. I don't want the damn end tables, I want him here. But I guess if they're just going to be sold to someone who doesn't know who they belonged to, hell, yes, I want them.  At least I know where those end tables sat, wooden bookends to the couch we all loved. I know the (not my style) lamps that sat on top of them. I know whose crossword puzzle was tossed there.

I have always been surrounded by him here.  When I bought the house he sent me gorgeous, impossible to fit anywhere mustard colored chairs, a blue ceramic lamp that now sits beside my couch, a mirror that probably cost more than our bed. On birthdays and when I got married he filled the house with pots, pans, kitchen gadgets. Even our collection of coffee mugs has his imprint. Knowing my husband's fascination with Waffle House, he gifted him with a holiday Waffle House coffee mug for Christmas. The thought in that mug still destroys me. I keep it tucked in the back of the cupboard so its presence doesn't wreck me unawares on a Tuesday.

But those things were deliberate gifts. He touched them, decided they were ours. The Castles are only here because I chose them. They are beautiful, and they watched us eat Thanksgiving  turkey, heard our prayers for healing (and for each of us, if not out loud, "if he can't be healed, Lord, at least give us more time than we deserve"). They're prettier than anything else we own on these walls, they're more sophisticated than we are, and they do not belong here.  They belong in his house, in the room we didn't use.  They should be hanging on those walls, an occasional conversation piece but largely forgotten, pictures of ghosts.

They will never be my Castles. They are simply more than I find myself desiring, they're lovelier, older, more impressive than I'd elect. And that makes sense, because they belonged to a man who was more than I deserved. More faithful, more generous, more loving, more kind. And while his choice in art was more classically lovely than I'd choose for myself, he also gifted us with Waffle House mugs, so the pretty inherent in all of his things holds little pretension. The Castles now hang just above our dining table. We don't have a room that goes unused because this home is 890 square feet. There is no den to tuck the prettiest of things, even the prettiest of things have to mingle with the hand-me-downs and Target clearance in this house. But they hang where we pray before supper. They hang where I sometimes work from home, laptop angled to the windows. They hang where we host friends, where we make decisions, where we lay out our passports before traveling. They hang where we live and their prettiness fits in well here, in our new Life Without Uncle Buck. It's a life that misses him, speaks to him, hears his "hey sweetheart" so damn clear, and it's a life that now has Castles on the wall.

A Roof

Several weeks ago I lost two people, my uncle and  my baby. The losses are married in my gut because they happened so closely in time, days apart.  It's hard to unwind where one pain ends and the other begins, if the tears are for one or both or all or everything. I remember saying to my mom at some point in the process of both losses, "it's too much." She agreed, of course, it is entirely too much. On their own, each loss would have felt unbearable, but the two together feel as if I've broken some internal meter for fortitude.

The last few weeks have blurred, smiles and laughter and warm meals with friends a welcome balm.  But I still feel bizarrely scooped out, like the strongest, worthiest, most-myself-est pieces have been removed for maintenance and I am just a roof, pulled taut over the remaining bits and pieces that make me a person.

I have many in my life who pray for me. My family, friends. And I would never dismiss the desire loved ones have to bring the heartaches of their dearest companions to God.  I'm thankful for prayer, for the messy attempt we humans make of offering comfort when comfort feels impossible, but the underlying faith necessary to believe in the helpfulness of prayer these days is pretty thin.  And that spiritual shakiness is what makes me ache for my uncle. No stranger to pain, especially over the last five years of his cancer struggle, he always ended his health updates with "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away/Blessed be the name of the Lord." It could have been a casual email signature to some, but to him it was the greatest of truths.  I miss having that bone deep belief in my life, that smiling assurance that no depth of sorrow was without hope.

There wasn't anything to bury when we lost the baby. Too soon, too small, too fast. So we wrapped the petals of flowers given to us by friends and family in a remnant of my wedding gown and buried the hope of our babe at my husband's mom's grave. By that time, Uncle Buck had left us, too, and so the prayers I threw into the clouds were directed to him, not to God, "Show him around, Uncle Buck. Take care of him until I get there." Childish perhaps, but speaking to my uncle is easier than speaking to God these days, and so I do.  I hear his "darlin," his "sweetheart" when I cry and I hear the refrain he repeated throughout the course of his treatment, "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away/Blessed be the name of the Lord." I read my poems to him and pretend he's with me in the car when I listen to political podcasts. On the days that it is difficult for me to believe in a good and loving God, I am thankful for my unshakable belief in the communion of saints. While God may feel far away, Uncle Buck does not, and someday perhaps I'll acknowledge that that's God, too.

I am a Roof Now, Empty and Protective

The hurt stretched, pulled thin against some immovable plane.

I picture ancient warrior women, all hands and sweep of hair, rolling out some mammoth hide and 

pulling it taut. 

That's what I am now, for now, 

my hurt some wet, bloody roof to our home. 

The sweat and crush of it has passed but the shade remains, 

the shade and the protection from all this rain.

We bury you (just petals really because you had nothing else to give us when you left)

beside your Granma, not far from a lake, 

That's where I am now, for now,

the loss of you so quick, your daddy dug a hole with a tiny stick.

I wonder if grass is cool or green or itchy, slim and sharp or soft and wide

In that other place you've bloomed without the protection of my animal hide.

The sun will dry this skin in pieces, patches, and the rain won't soak us through.

But you're still out there beneath a tree and I am still a mama with no baby

That's who I am now, for now,

Hands smoothing the stretch of me, pulled tight to the ground as music wafts from somewhere

I protect some part of you still, beneath this roof of flesh and blood

And you grow somewhere new, God's garden, God's flood

The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord. 

A Circle is Round

A circle is round
It has no end
That's how long I want to be your friend

This old Girl Scout ditty came to mind the second time my husband's wedding ring shattered. Yes. The second time, in 8 months of marriage. We were excited about the ring we chose over a year ago, it was a nice complement to my engagement ring, and the white gold braiding at the center matched the white gold flowers in my ring. A few months of wear, however, loosened that white gold braid so that soon his ring was a mess of unattached rings, like a weird wearable jigsaw puzzle.  Thinking perhaps work was doing the damage as the life of a chef means one's hands are constantly greased, constantly washing, we returned the ring for a new one and decided he'd wear the second one only on the weekends, opting for a silicone $5 ring for the workday.

The second ring broke faster than the first, the white gold braid actually snapping in half this time.  It was then that the old Girl Scout song popped into my mind.  The circle was no longer round, it had an end, and I'm English major enough to loathe the foreboding in that metaphor for marriage.

It was after this second destruction, frustrated with the necessity of purchasing a new ring, and disappointed that the ring blessed by his vows wouldn't take my husband through life, that my dad offered my Grandfather's ring as a potential replacement. My Grandmother's estate was newly settled, the ring newly passed along to my dad, and though in need of a refitting, was altogether perfect.

I'm a sentimental woman. And although I don't like to think of myself as materialistic, I am a romantic and attached to the doodahs of life that last long enough to carry memories with them.  It's why the wearing of my husband's late mother's ring means so much to me. The ring underlines the promise, bolds it, reminds me daily that the vows we took that day weren't just words or contractual speech, but were promises written in blood and gold and years.

And now he carries the same. And it struck me that we carry that golden weight similarly, in that I never knew his mother and he never knew my grandfather.  But I can see the imprint of his mother's love in the way he loves his family, the way he smiles at her memory, the guarded softness in his voice when he misses her. And I think he feels the same in me, knows the man that was my grandfather through the strength in my father's handshake, the stories told of his preaching life, his trip to Brazil, and the brief glimpse he had of my Grandmother, the wife of the first wearer of his ring, the weekend he proposed.

There's a special humility in wearing the ring of someone loved, someone who shaped your spouse. We must live up to the love etched in that gold. We must cherish that circle, that roundness of memory and life, and forbid it to end.

A circle is round
It has no end
And that's how long I want to be your friend

Heirloom

Over the last couple of years I've lost my last remaining grandparents.  As the matriarchs of their respective families, their deaths have brought with them the tidying up of homes, categorization of shoebox pictures, exploration of trinkets and recipe cards, and the divvying up of all of the above. Homes and land were sold, and the piecemeal sediment of their lives has been buried, tossed or scattered to new caretakers in the family and beyond.

A few weeks ago I invited several dear girlfriends over for lunch for the purpose of hosting loved ones around a table decorated with some of those heirloom items.  I inherited my Great Aunt Maryann's china years ago and its delicate blue flowers have been packed away in yellowing newspaper dated for my 20th birthday (deep into the Bush-Gore Florida recount, for those curious). I paired the plates with the crystal I inherited from my Grandmother, goblets for water and sparkling dessert ware. I served tea sandwiches, crusts removed and cucumbers smeared with herbed butter, on milk glass from my Great-Grandmother.

The lunch was quiet and kind, littered with laughter, prayer, clinking of wine glasses, and soft tears. Loss was fresh and ongoing to several at the table, and sometimes that rawness was palpable. Not uncomfortable, but a sort of throbbing warning that hearts nearby are vulnerable, newly wounded. I don't doubt that has frequently been the case for those around my table, and that it will not be the last, but I was buoyed by the memories of the women who cherished these beautiful things, knowing the sisterhood inherent in the drying of tears over crackers and egg salad. It's a gentle and unconquerable love.

The lunch was planned early in the year, scheduled weeks before one loss and in the midst of the other. It was simply a date that worked for all, communal crossed fingers that the weather would not do us in. While chopping and toasting and plating our meal in the kitchen, the day felt tenuous, balanced perfectly on the edge of various seasons for each of us. I was struck by how deeply painful, how horribly unfair life could be sometimes, how frequently we walk around with our wounds fully exposed to the elements. But at the same time, these sweet moments together, unwrapping scarves, knocking snow from our boots, pouring wine, squeezing shoulders and hands, the gentleness of those gestures and the fervor with which we want so desperately to love each other through the messiness of every wound, that felt like God. God deeper than, and yet sensitive to, the ache in every heart.

And I think that's what makes these heirlooms, the ring I wear of Mamaw's, the crystal I use for special occasions, the china I unwrap from aging newspaper, so heavy with import for me. I do not know every heartache experienced by the women before me, but I know that they loved well, that they took care of their sisters, their friends, often at a table. I know that they prayed in the midst of loss, teased a smile out of heartache, and dried a million tears in their decades on Earth, and I like to think that some of that comfort, a lot of that laughter, occurred with these plates, these glasses, sitting on tables in Texas, South Carolina, Arkansas. They can carry the weight of life, and they can hold the memory of more tears, more joy, more laughter for years to come.

Between the Trees

Humans love to separate themselves.  We love to judge, define, draw circles around ourselves and those in our tribe, circles that say, "We are superior to You." Even in relationships, we easily find ourselves on islands of our own making, comfortable with our position and independence, at ease with the demarcation we've drawn to keep the World out.

While I believe all people are guilty of asserting their special apart-ness, Christians seem especially skilled at claiming superiority. Our faith traces its roots to the chosen people of Israel, after all, and we really like that mantle, like smiling with our faces to the cross, knowing we are now separate and distinct from those who cast their eyes elsewhere. Christians aren't great at remembering that all fall short and we conveniently forget the gift of grace was extended to every single soul.

Last weekend I traveled North with my husband and father-in-law to the small town where my father-in-law grew up, where both sides of his family raised their families since the 1800s.  A cavalcade of Norwegian names makes up the town historical record, the majority of which my husband is related to either by blood or marriage. There are thousands of such towns all over the world, towns where families built their histories, entrenched their stories.  My dad's side of the family has a similar shared homecoming every year in the mountains of East Tennessee.  Landscapes shape us, the stories follow us.

My husband's uncle showed us around the family churchyard, told stories of the folks buried there.  But it was the story of someone not buried there that was the focus of our visit. Years ago, in the early 1900s, a man in this town committed suicide. Suicide being an unpardonable sin, the man was buried outside the cemetery. It strikes me as the ultimate cruelty to punish a family in such a way. The deceased is no longer present to defend himself or his family, but the church decides his family deserves no marker at which to grieve.  It's a punishment of the living and a final cruelty to the dead.

One reason for our trip to the churchyard was a hunt. It was a search for where they placed that man, no marker, no indication of where they laid his body, our only clues a slightly sunken spot between the trees and the witchcraft-ish crossing of dowsing rods as we walked over the presumed spot. Chester's uncle plans to erect a marker, nothing grand, and likely not a marker many folks will ever notice, but an acknowledgment where one never stood before.

The family of the man is long dead.  Anyone who knew him or knew people who loved him has long since faded from memory.  His story is just a whisper now, and apart from the few who know what lies in the overgrown bramble beyond the cemetery line, his story has the ring of folktale. So there is no person alive to say, "thank you." There will likely be no visitors to this man's marker, no tearful prayers said to his memory, but I believe the carving of a new line matters, the opening of an imaginary gate, welcoming him into the graveyard of his kin.

It matters when we notice the lines we place between us.  And it matters when we, belatedly, erase them. It's what Christ did, bridging the chasm between damned and redeemed. Damnation, not so much that burning cartoon beneath the ground, but separation, from God and from each other, has always been man's deepest ache, deepest worry, deepest question.  Redemption is inclusive, it speaks to an invitation to all, it speaks to markers on unmarked graves, and the belated apology to a man between the trees.

What Beauty is Supposed to Be

Over the weekend my husband and I drove (well, he drove, I chose our podcasts) to Omaha to continue my admittedly nutty dream of running a half-marathon in every state. Chester signed up for the 5K, excited to have a goal of his own and a medal at the finish. We left on Saturday, ran Sunday morning, and made it home in time for a lazy frozen pizza dinner that evening. It was all perfect.

I remember road trips with my family.  When I was growing up we didn't fly often but piled instead into the van and trekked to whatever vacation destination or family was on the agenda.  We'd rotate the seating arrangements and at some point my teenage self would begrudgingly sit up front with a parent, usually my dad, even though I'd much rather be my moody, teenagery self in the back seat with my discman. We'd talk about school, grades, college plans, softball, but eventually we'd run out of topics and I'd be left to lean my head against the seat and stare out the window.  I could spend hours staring out windows, happily. But passenger seat windows have that pesky mirror.

I'm not sure when it started but at some point I became annoyed by, almost afraid of, my own reflection. Catching my reflection by surprise made me feel angry, vulnerable, so I made a habit, unbeknownst to anyone around me, of casing every single environment for mirrors and reflective surfaces.  My face, my body, my very self, they were all disappointments and it was only with advance preparation that I could manage a mirror without entering into a spiral of self-loathing.  Elevators were always a curse, one could never tell from the outside how many mirrors there might be. Hotels especially are notorious for mirrored elevators, all those ladies riding up and down who need to check their lipstick like normal ladies do. I still hate a hotel elevator.

All that is to say, passenger seats have historically been a joy (window! no driving responsibility!) and an anxiety (ugh, that damn mirror).  It's an emotional fight I hide well.  I can accept a glance in a mirror.  I can cushion the blow of disliking what I see with the 37 year old knowledge that it doesn't really matter, not the way it used to.  But that ancient bother is still there and I frequently find myself tilting my head at uncomfortable, but flattering, angles, sucking in my cheeks just enough to mimic an instantaneous weight loss.

Our races Sunday morning were hot. I slathered sunscreen on my freckled skin and lubed every seam of my pants and sports bra and still felt the wounds forming as sweat made a quick mess of friction between skin and lycra. By mile ten my right IT band, that lovely string of fire connecting hip and knee, was making itself known, not a surprise but also not welcome. At this point I've felt pretty much every ache available to runners and I have a good sense of what is cause for concern and what is just The Way Rachel's Body Aches When She Runs 13 Miles. An IT band ache is nothing special and I trudged along, a slower pace than I'd like but admirable given the heat.  By the time I crossed the finish line I was a sticky, sweaty wreck, strands of wet hair escaping from under my baseball cap, lips chapped because I forgot my chapstick, sunscreen streaked across my cheeks in a way I knew would invite a curious amalgamation of freckles.

By the time we walked back to the hotel after Chester's race I was a bit less rosy but no less messy. Throwing my baseball cap on the bed and tossing my wet clothes in a pile in the bathroom, I didn't hesitate to look in the mirror.  I checked the seams along my bra line, knowing I'd cut flesh. I untangled the rat's nest wrapped around my ponytail holder and looked myself in the eye.  The mirrors never bother me after runs.  For that period of time after great effort I am rewarded with complete acceptance of every freckle, flabby arm, lopsided eyelid (I see it, nobody else does), and that acceptance feels very close to pride. Very close to love.

That acceptance has tended to fade quickly.  It's a joy in those moments but soon I'm back in the skin I wish I didn't have, in the body I wish I didn't have.  But over the last year I've found those moments of acceptance extending for longer periods of time, which I credit to my husband.  There's something miraculous in someone loving all of you, finding beauty in all of you.  But it isn't just that mirrored beauty he sees, it's some underlying worth, something inherent and unwavering, as if the way he loves me sees the stuff of me, beneath my skin, within my breath, before it registers my red hair, my blue eyes, the curve of my hips. It feels the way beauty is supposed to be, seeing the ache of muscles after effort, the pride of goals accomplished, the sigh of rest, and letting that be all the beauty one needs.

I ride in the passenger seat of Chester's car.  And his is the only car in my adult memory in which I do shirk from the reflection of that pesky mirror.  His mirror is the only one I've ever stared at myself without preparation. It is a sign of love that I hadn't registered, hadn't realized existed, until I leaned my head against the glass somewhere in Iowa, caught sight of myself and smiled.

Kind of Poem

We've been home from our honeymoon for nearly a month.  All the bags are unpacked and we've settled into a rhythm of going to work, coming home, making dinner, tending to the garden, daydreaming. I used to write more about my trips, more detailed accounts perhaps, but with this trip I never expected to provide any kind of retelling of our road trip around the perimeter of Iceland. It feels a bit too holy to reduce to an itinerary.  But as is my habit, I did let little poems and snippets burrow into my skin.

He is a watcher out of windows,
a soul adding wonder to rocks and trees and earth
He is a wanderer of the purest sort,
walking without the burden of calculated exertion
but carrying only the questions of who walked here first, whether it might rain

We're very different people. He taps my forehead sometimes and makes a typewriter noise, his signal that he can see my brain racing, calculating, adjusting, weighing any number of combinations of cause and effect. He adds friction to that momentum in the best possible way, turns a spiral into an arrow, sometimes a pillow.

All my life I've written poems and missives in my head. Sometimes they're not even sentences, just snips of language that describe a moment. The description has always been important to me, as if a moment isn't quite real, quite concrete, unless I can put words to it. Words unpack me better than pictures or gestures or actions. And I think that's why I've found writing in the context of marriage so reorienting.  He makes my heart see pictures that I will never be able to describe and I find myself replacing poems with images in response. Not camera images, not snapshots of his head tilting out of the rain of a waterfall, not the way his eyes squint when he makes me laugh, but images of what love and care and hope feel like.

He was seated at our window this morning as I worked from home.  They're taking down an enormous tree across the street and he described what they were doing, the ropes among the branches, the fall of larger limbs. It had no comparison to Iceland, but it reminded me of our standing on a boat in some Northern fjord, poised and hopeful as we waited to spot the splash of a humpback whale. He was behind me then, his hand occasionally on my shoulder.  But the same picture came to me, my hands reaching into his chest and holding his heart, gently, like I was holding a kitten, a precious stone, a bomb.

I'll hold your heart forever, whatever the world around you provides, and whatever shape your heart takes. And I'll leave the descriptions to the rest of our lives, and trust that holding your heart can be its own kind of poem, written in heartbeats.

Next

There is no bravery in a love that knows what's next
How easy it would be to love
to linger
if we knew the bend and flex
of life's course

The prettiest of loves would crumble beside a hospital bed
had it not the courage of leaping
tear-stained and hopeful
from cozy field of flowers into the dark red
bloom of each delicate human pulse

The guts are never wrung for mere affection
No God-blessed desire checks its watch
counts the minutes
anticipates the reaction
with the comfort of a fortune teller

Love never knows how love will deepen
how easy it would be to love
to linger
if the depth of it did not so often cause the weeping
of tired eyes

Before we walked, love walked before us
wept in our footsteps
and promised us nothing but itself,
no plan, no fortune, but victorious
what is next

Dedicated to a dear friend who is spending time nursing her sister in the hospital. 

All the Things You Were Born to Be

My best friend, Megan, got engaged a week before my wedding. We've walked (trudged on occasion) the road of singleness together so to be able to share the joy of this season with her has been one of life's perfect gifts. As she plans and stresses and daydreams about her wedding, I'm happily on the other side of that Great Big Day, happily cheering her on with the hindsight of someone who is still waiting for her wedding photos to be edited.

On a recent phone call we were talking about houses.  She owns a small home about the same size as mine. It's not an absurdly small home, we've both been lucky in finding homes that fit our lives and budgets.  But they are each a wee bit on the tiny side for incorporating another human.  Another grown human.  With clothes. There are things to be thrown away. Things to be boxed and stored. Things to be stared at and then shoved under a bed.

For me, there was a terror and a joy in all that sorting and boxing and shuffling. Joy in knowing what I was making room for, a life together, my love. And terror in that it felt like the story I'd thus far written of myself had to be redrafted. It wasn't just the physical stuff I needed to get rid of, not just the books (so many books) and clothes and nobody-needs-this-many-pairs-of-shoes. It felt like I needed to discard some portions of myself, too, or if not discard, at least tuck them somewhere else so they wouldn't get in the way.  This love, this promise, this idea that for so long felt like it wasn't for me was suddenly (it seemed) holding my hand and vowing to love me forever.  And my concern was that I didn't quite have my shit together for that kind of thing. Still a bit of tidying up to do, babe, give me a second while I shove a few things under the bed...

When we got home after the wedding and began unwrapping presents, sorting clothes, digging up stones in the backyard, the home that felt impossibly small suddenly felt right-sized. All the shuffling and sorting and worrying about shuffling and sorting felt silly. Tidying up, literally and figuratively, had been lost in the hubbub of wedding planning, and that is as it should be. The little house, very clearly, was the perfect place to begin. Likewise, we were at the perfect place to begin. 37. 42. It's the perfect place, tidy or not.

I only know a month's worth of marriage. But a month's worth has provided one particular insight I wish I'd recognized as a singleton. You will never know all the things you were born to be. We're not promised loving parents, siblings, romantic love, adventure, travel, marriage, parenthood, career fulfillment, friendship. If we're lucky, we find ourselves as the recipient of some or all of those gifts in bits and pieces, an accumulation of heartaches and surprises and boredom and exuberant joys. And it is so easy to feel like Life only has enough room for so much Life. We try our best to shift and store and box away all of the things we feel need to be managed in order to ready ourselves for what comes next, but What Comes Next is so often perfectly sized for the life we already have. Because the heart stretches. Life expands. There is no "getting ready" for this kind of love.

We were born ready. And we will learn what else we were born to be, together.

My Name

I'm ten days away from changing my last name.  I've jokingly stated for years (decades) that I couldn't wait to get rid of the "Welch" moniker, not because of any distaste for my family, but due solely to the incessant reference to a certain movie star.  Raquel Welch has followed me around for as long as I can remember, though I don't recall it being a recurring joke until I had a driver's license.  When folks meet you as Rachel, without knowing the last name, they think less of the last name upon hearing it. They recognize the difference in the names, and only note the similarity to that gorgeous, auburn-haired bombshell in passing. It's different when strangers see the name on an ID, they immediately leap to the star, give me a wink and remind me that there are worse ladies with whom to share a name. 

After 37 years I'm pretty used to the joke, pretty used to throwing out the smile, pretty used to the irony of being compared to a movie star when I'm showing my ID at Walgreens so I can buy Sudafed for the head cold from hell. Sure, lady, movie star. That's me.  Please hand over the drugs.

Perhaps for this reason, I've never felt enormously attached to my name.  And as an English major and avid reader, I found myself frequently daydreaming of other names.  In my head I was frequently Anne, Charlotte, Eleanor. I would not go so far as to say I hated my name, but I never felt Rachel was a particularly beautiful name.  It sounded harsh in the ears, a bit like a sneeze, especially coupled with the double "ch" provided by my last name. So I enjoyed nicknames, loved acquiring the "Rae" nickname in Peace Corps, reveled in the brevity of that, the beauty of a being a ray of something. Sunshine maybe. Laser beams.

As is likely typical in any relationship with a foreign-born mate, Chester receives a lot of questions from me about how to say certain words.  My Portuguese is non-existent except for some terms of endearment, niceties. But one of the first words he said to me in Portuguese was my name.  Ha'kiel. The "R" is an "H" sound in Portuguese, so the roll of my name was replaced with something softer, breathier. It's the pronunciation I've loved most.

It did not dawn on me until we were in Brazil that "Ha'kiel" was not the pronunciation of Rachel but of Raquel. The story of Rachel and Jacob in the Bible is the story of Raquel and Jaco in Portuguese. The name I'd been avoiding for 37 years was, in a matter of months and with the pronunciation of one man, the name I loved best.

I don't fault my parents for the jokes.  In their minds, they named me Rachel. Named me for a story in the Bible. Named me something familiar and strong. And I'll always be a Welch, even if I file some papers stating I prefer a move up the alphabet. But it's not the change to my last name that feels monumental, in these days before we say our vows.

Beauty is an ephemeral thing, hard to grasp, slippery, but powerful in its sparkle. Love makes beauty feel a bit more dense, something you can hold in your arms, and for me Love made my name beautiful.  It made it a name I love.  It's a simple, small thing, maybe, to hear your name in a new way.  But it seems precious, too.  It will take time to get used to a new last name.  I'll scribble the wrong signature for months, I'm sure. But Raquel already feels mine, the name I was born to share with a movie star.

A Day Like Sunday

Sometimes a day feels impossibly heavy, like the heft of it might crush your next inhale. I woke up to a call on Sunday that my grandmother, my last grandparent to share the Earth with, had passed away. I cried for as long as time allowed as friends were hosting a sweet bridal brunch and puffy eyes are not how I choose to present myself to the world.

As my fiance drove me to the party, I looked at my eyes again in the side view mirror, checking for errant mascara smears, and remembered my 13 year old self, armed with my triplet of green eyeshadows, painting Grandmother's eyelids some summer. She liked the way I put the darker color in the crease, she said, and how the green looked with my eyes. They're her eyes, really, and I think that was the first moment I wondered if I'd look like her someday. Over the last decades I've seen hints of lines on my face that whisper at the depth of the ones she carried. And that deep left crease between the nose and mouth when we smile always reminded me that she is rooted in me, as powerful a marker as the mountain she drew us all to every summer.

The day passed slowly, with laughter and joy sipping mimosas among loving friends (not lost on me that Grandmother would not approve of that form of self-soothing) and with tenderness as Dad and I practiced our father-daughter dance, debated the merits of my song options. It struck me throughout the day, sometimes like a feather grazing against my arm, sometimes like a knife below my ear, that she wasn't here anymore. I wouldn't get to tell her the song we chose. I wouldn't get to tell her about the delicious cake at my shower, the sweet friends who made bacon and biscuits to celebrate with me. I wouldn't get to tell her that I wore a new dress that day, that there were stars on it, and the snow was finally packed down enough to make heeled boots less treacherous. These were all the things I'd share with her on our next call, all the things I'd mention as I shared my life with her from 800 miles away.

We'd spoken last a few days before, chatting about my wedding, discussing my plan to shorten her bridal gloves so that I could wear them with my dress. We talked a bit about the milk glass she'd sent for Christmas, how pretty it would be as a candy dish. I've never in life had a candy dish but she's right, it's perfect for a pile of sweets. We laughed about her getting straight As in physical therapy. We were kindred achievers, straight As were important.

I knew my brother headed to church with his family on Sunday, knew my sister had to teach yoga at noon that day.  I wondered how Katie, my cousin, would fill her day, how the hours would pass for her, the fourth of our small but mighty pack of grandchildren. And I wondered if they each felt the loss as I did, in jolts of memory, or if they settled into it better, felt the loss unfold like a blanket.

She was the eldest of her siblings and I am the first born of her first born. I always felt a certain kinship (and friction) there, the shared independence providing an easy bond and an easy cause for heated discussion. She was not meek, but she was generous and joyful even when life was harsh.  She was a doer, an achiever, an accomplisher of tasks great and small. I think we recognized that trait in one another often, both able to rattle off what we’d done and what we planned to do, a momentum couched in faith as much as birth order. And as the litany of things I'd never share with her piled up, it was that mixture of strength and DOING and joy that underscored the loss. Everyone needs a pair of blue eyes like hers, looking into you, reminding you of what you're capable of doing and the joys you're capable of experiencing. I needed those reminders often, whispers of that toughness, fortitude when life felt exhausting. She was so sure of herself, her place in the world, her place before God, and I envied that assurance. I will always envy it. And I will always be thankful that for 37 years I had her blue eyes looking into mine, her left smile crease mirroring my own, her strength providing all the guidance a girl could need for the burdens and joys of a day like Sunday.

Brazil

Whenever I'm in the midst of an intense experience, I always wonder what it is that I'll need to write about.  Most of my writing is reflective, a way to process the world and the people around me, my method to life's large and small madness. This year I've also gotten into the habit of writing more with pen and paper, started in January with the purchase of a perfectly pocket-sized notebook during a rainy day in New Orleans, and more recently due to a beautiful leather journal given to me by my fiance.  Paper is a bit more private and a bit more precious.

But sometimes my thoughts are broader than the poems and missives I jot in notebooks. Paragraphs are usually better suited for a keyboard.  The trouble with that is that I sit, well over 24 hours now back in the US after my latest adventure, and the moments of "I must write about this" blur in my mind. But I must give a few their due, so I'll begin...

Only a Year?
I sat on a plane to Brazil with my fiance five days after the one year anniversary of our first date. I've never been one to support the idea of proper romantic chronology (date for X amount before you're exclusive, be exclusive for X amount before you get serious, be together X amount before you get engaged, etc.).  I credit that flippancy with my mom's early marriage.  She married at 19 and I think it's natural for girls to imagine their lives as a kind of mirror or vague approximation of the timeline of their mothers.  Hitting 22, 27 (not to mention higher numbers) with no marriage on the horizon, it became clear to me that the timing that shaped my mother's life would not be the same for me.  There's a freedom in that, and a terror.  But it's the freedom I felt most strongly.

All that flippancy as to proper dating timelines aside, sitting next to a fiance on a trip out of the country with members of his family was not what I would have anticipated of my life a year ago. Surely that's a speedy leap. Not only do I feel overwhelmed by the love that has come to me, I'm overwhelmed at how easy it is to be taken care of, how natural it feels to want to take care of someone else. I always imagined it to be impossibly difficult, that level of care, but it seems to have bubbled up naturally alongside the love. To not only feel and want to give that care but to receive it, feels genuinely holy.

These Rocks Remind Me of Those Rocks
Walking on the rocks at one of the beaches we visited in Buzios, I was reminded by the rocks I piled on top of each other when I hiked the glacier trail in Zermatt, Switzerland.  In one location I was slathered in sunscreen and walking barefoot in a swimsuit on a crowded beach, and in the other I was bundled up and felt like I could hear my own heartbeat in the silence and solitude around me. But my brain still connected the two, saw the rocks, their shape and color, the tumble of little stones along the coast, and recalled the similar shapes on that hike and the peace I felt in laying on the cold ground in those mountains, stacking stones while I muttered prayers.

But it wasn't that connection that made the real impression.  What halted my step for a moment was the fact that I connected them at all.  To be walking in Brazil and be reminded of Switzerland, what kind of glorious existence have I been blessed with? To have both images alive in my experience, to hold both close enough to want to fit them into the puzzle of rocky landscapes of my life, it just makes me so overwhelmed with gratitude.

Home is Everything
In the middle of our trip we made our way to Campo Mourao, the small city where my fiance was born and raised. Specifically, he grew up on a small campus for training seminarians and providing orphanage care. We spent time at his childhood home and I could picture him running from one building to the next, picture the red dirt caked on his knees.  I saw him hug and laugh and tell stories with men and women who'd known him since childhood, people who'd known and loved his family, people who recognized the ring on my finger was worn by his mother. It was a home clearly steeped in love and devotion and he relaxed there in a way you can only relax in surroundings you fully understand and embrace.  And it struck me that that's one of the things any marriage would want to construct, a home that allows two people of vastly different backgrounds and experiences to relax, enjoy, embrace, and be comforted. A tiny portion of the world within which you can each be seen and heard and cherished, even if the heater is making noise or the laundry has piled up. Seems like a tricky thing, home-making. Tricky and exciting.

And finally...

No Wondering This Time
On every adventure since my first trip abroad to Russia at 14, I've wondered the same thing.  Is this the first and last time I ever see this place? Will I ever return? Is this moment once in a lifetime?  When I studied in England in college, my dad said something on the phone that always stuck with me.  I was (very dramatically) begging for money to travel to Ireland with classmates over a weekend and I used the phrase "once in a lifetime" probably a bit too heavily to the parents that were generously paying for me to study abroad in the first place.  My dad responded to my "once in a lifetime" plea with a short, "that's your choice." He went on to say something along the lines of it being my decision whether or not something would be a once in a lifetime experience, at least when it comes to travel.  If I wanted to go to Ireland someday, I would go (on my own dime). I know I must have been upset with that answer but it was actually very sound advice and a good reminder that while there are some experiences that may truly be of the once in a lifetime variety, many are not.  They are only "once" because we choose to make them so. We have the power to determine whether we want to experience something, whether it's worth our effort and investment. Life doesn't just happen to you.  You build it yourself. [Side note: I did go to Ireland, this year! On my own dime and with my own dear friend, Sandy, beside me. So Dad was clearly right.]

But that's a bit of a burden, too.  To know that I will choose to not return to places I've loved in favor of new adventures is a bit sad.  So that's what made the wondering so much more fun this time around.  Brazil (Brasil, for Chester) will be a part of my life for all my life, because it is home to my future husband.  We won't be able to go back every year but we have every hope of going back every few years to see friends and do more exploring.  We'll see places Chester has never seen, we'll fly to Argentina and Chile to get more stamps in our passport and finally spend time in Patagonia.  We'll likely stand in the same place at Iguacu Falls and take pictures again someday (see picture), soaked again by that massive storm of water. And that shifting of wonder, to a when, as opposed to an if, feels like a great gift.

And that's the sum of every thought about this trip, really.  It all feels like too great an experience to boil down into paragraphs here and into poems scratched in journals at the beach. It all feels like a gift, laden with farofa and sweat and bug spray and bad plumbing and grilled meat and mud and laughter and new freckles and love.

Counting Down

Over the weekend we celebrated our engagement with family and friends, successfully introducing the bridal party for the first time. My uncle surprised me in his characteristic Uncle Buck way, flying in for 24 hours to raise a glass to the pending nuptials.  It was a weekend full of family, hugs, love, surprises, bridesmaid dresses, and daydreams about how I should wear my hair with my mother's veil.

Counting down is equal parts intimidating and exciting. As a planner, I can feel the to-dos whispering with every day discarded. But I also have an overwhelming sense of "oh, hurry up, already" at times. Let's get crackin' on the rest of our lives! I don't care about flatware!

Counting down felt a bit holier when surrounded by family and the dearest of friends. It wasn't just a list of boxes to check, it was a taste of what that day will be, how it will feel.  Ches was largely in the kitchen, laughing and making sure our guests were well-hydrated. I floated in the living room and kitchen, catching up with friends I hadn't seen in awhile, introducing Little Debbie to her future in-laws. Occasionally Ches and I would stand still long enough to make introductions, tell a story, tease each other a bit, and then we'd each float back to our people.  I laughed a lot, and I heard Ches laughing, too.

These are some of the people that made him the man I love. And vice versa.

It's a count down to a life that involves them all. Some will be at the wedding, some will not. Some will come over for dinner often, others we'll see sporadically. We'll celebrate birthdays together, other weddings. We'll hold each others hands at funerals, loan each other sunglasses on vacation. We'll set some up on blind dates, we'll ask others for a lift when the car is in the shop. We're counting down to each being more than an introduction.  They'll belong to each of us, in some way.  And all of those little connections amaze me.  Those ties can feel tenuous, but in other moments they feel like some kind of cosmic glue, binding us to the people who teach us how to love and be loved.

Love feels a bit like gravity, a bit like standing on a cliff and hoping for flight, like a soap bubble and a rainbow and a bowl of soup, like a hammer, like a nail, like a law and a theory all rolled into one. I learned love from my people, those in the room on Saturday and those in my heart. I learned love in the reach of their arms and the depth of their laughter, in the fervency of their prayer. And I feel every definition of that love, counting down.

Couches

When I bought my house three years ago I was immediately overwhelmed by the space.  After six years in a 500 square foot apartment, my home's indulgent 890 square feet felt palatial.  I needed furniture and I acquired it in bits and pieces.  Some I ordered off various low cost websites (the twin bed I built from such a delivery has an unfortunate habit of falling apart if you're too violent a sleeper) and other pieces I grabbed at Target.

But I wanted a "grown up" couch. I wanted it to be new and perfect. I'm also fairly frugal so I opted for the Room and Board Outlet and left after my first trip with a receipt for a small grey canvas couch and a pale blue velvet swivel chair.  I was proud, happy, and impressed with the enthusiasm I could muster for decorating and getting things in order.

The couch has served me well.  It's the perfect snuggling size with my pup and it has been my landing spot after breakups, long runs, long days, and marathon viewings of Parks and Rec. It is not, perhaps, the perfect size for me, my pup, and my 6' hubby-to-be.  And so last weekend we went furniture shopping together.

Wedding planning is a weird thing.  In many ways it just feels like I'm planning the biggest party of my life. It's amorphous and fuzzy when I visualize it and only over time does it start to take shape. I waffle on colors and dress styles and hair options and whether or not I want the groom in a tux. And because my fiance is the Type B to my Type A, a lot of that waffling is met with a smile and a hug.  As long as he gets to marry me, Chester seems content with all options. The marriage is more important to me than the wedding, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't care about the details.

House planning makes marriage feel more real to me.  Perhaps it's because we both know the wedding is one day and that it will come and go quickly.  Discussing how we'll update my home to make it our home feels heavier, more laden with understanding that there will come a time when he doesn't leave. Someday he'll live here and this space will be his.  And we need a couch that makes room for him, for us.

And this is the part of planning I truly love.  Wedding planning is an exercise in addressing multiple inputs. You want your guests to feel welcome, you want to stay within a reasonable budget, you want your parents to be proud, you want your family to feel included, you want travelers to be happy they bought that plane ticket.  You review every detail with those desires in mind.

The wedding day belongs to many people. The couch only belongs to us. The house will be only ours. And because the "ours" is new to me, it feels precious. The decisions on leather vs canvas, grey vs. camel, are portentous. Holy.

The Rest of Your Life

You don't experience singleness in your thirties without toying with the idea that singleness is the mode in which you'll experience the rest of your life. You either grow comfortable with this idea or you fight it, wavering between acceptance and sadness.  And even if you grow comfortable with the idea of life-long singleness, you still have seasons of loneliness, evenings that end with more grey than you'd like.

I can't say that I ever felt comfortable with accepting singleness, but I had grown content in the day-to-day of it. Life can be full and joyous without a mate and I laughed infinitely more than I cried. As easy as it is to be thrilled and excited these days, his mother's ring on my finger, I've struggled to articulate this other feeling, this bittersweet look backwards.

The joy I hold in one hand is coupled with a smidge of melancholy in the other that I didn't love alone-ness more, that I didn't dig in and just rest in that season instead of so often hoping that the rest of my life had not yet begun. I didn't always remember that the rest of my life was already happening, that finding someone with whom to share some later season did not belittle the season I was in.

But that feels like a good lesson, one I hope to hold dear and precious, for whatever seasons are ahead. It is so easy to wrap all one's hopes and joys around some later moment, to sit on the lawn and stare heavenward, waiting for that next specific, life-changing firework, even when reeling from the firework before. He makes my heart burst and rest at the same time, makes joy feel easy. But I'm still quick to stare heavenward and wonder about the shape of our lives together, what thousands of tomorrows will look like, what fireworks are ahead.

We'll marry sometime early next year, and soon I'll know exactly when, know the date that will be etched on trinkets over the next 50 years. Soon I'll know what the dress looks like, and what the colors will be.  Soon I'll know who'll attend, what drinks they'll hold in their hands when they toast my new last name.  Soon some other season will unfold, lace and gold and figuring out whose turn it is to do laundry. Soon this season will be over, this short and beautiful season of almost and not-yet. I have learned the preciousness of the passage of time. I will cherish the rest of my life that is happening today, weight of a promise on my finger.