We measure our lives in terms of hours and days and weeks and months and years.  We are constantly looking ahead or thinking back, rarely grounded in the present moment. I’m as guilty as anyone, planning the future, reminiscing (or mourning) the past. I barely had time to breathe last January, much less contemplate resolutions for the new year, but I still took a shot at putting some goals in writing.  I accomplished more than I thought I would of that list-- traveling a bit, signing new contracts with Cleis Press, celebrating our 20th anniversary with our annual day trip to Williamsburg (not quite a romantic getaway, but maybe we’ll squeeze something in this year).

I was contemplating resolutions for this year when I took a pregnancy test and found out… holy fertility… I’m pregnant.  No, we weren’t “planning” it. We had been talking about it off and on for months, but had never really committed to it. (Rather, I hadn’t committed-- Jay has wanted another baby since I was pregnant with the last one!) On the other hand, we hadn’t given away any of the baby stuff either-- not even a onesie.  I gave the too-small Bumbo seat (a wonderful thing for babies who can’t sit up yet) to friends months ago with the understanding that it’s only a loan.  Clearly, despite my ambivalence about another baby, I wasn’t ready to close the door on the idea.

I started 2010 with a four week old baby and I ended 2010 four weeks pregnant. What a year!  And now I’m faced with trying to put down some resolutions in writing, knowing that pregnancy and another baby are certain to throw a wrench in the works.  I realize things may not go well because of my age and history of miscarriage, but I am trying to maintain a cautious level of optimism.  I announced my pregnancy pretty much immediately for the simple fact that as soon as I order a decaf black and white mocha at Starbucks the baristas are going to know what’s up since they were along for the ride last year.  It seemed silly for the Starbucks crew (most of whom I’ve friended on Facebook) to know I was pregnant while my closest friends did not.

So now what do I do?  Do I write resolutions based on being pregnant and having a baby at the end of August or beginning of September? Do I forge ahead with resolutions that don’t factor pregnancy and a new baby into things?  Do I skip the resolutions again this year and just shoot for some random goals? 

Posted by Kristina in Pregnancy and Baby in Life at 09:00 AM Permalink

I thought January 1 was an appropriate time to check back in on my sadly neglected blog.  Actually, I’ve meant to update things around here for weeks, but with baby’s first birthday and the holidays… well, yeah. It didn’t happen.

My brief summary of 2010 would be that it was the hardest, most difficult, most emotional, most exhausting year of my life. Hands down. I wasn’t at my physical or mental best for the first half of the year and I spent the second half of the year trying to regroup and find my balance. I was more successful in some ways than others.  I can say I ended the year in a much better mental state than I started it, but honestly anything above being the sobbing puddle of weak, exhausted, lonely new mom I was on January 1, 2010 would have been an improvement. The best thing I can say about that time frame, pre-babysitter (and saying she saved my life is not much of an exaggeration), is that I survived it. I survived it.  Can I get my cookie now?

Things got incrementally better, first with Ashleigh coming in to babysit 20ish hours, then with Patrick sleeping through the night pretty solidly by 3 months, then Jay coming home in May. The second half of the year is a blur of cookouts and holidays and catching up and reconnecting with friends and writing, editing and drinking coffee.  In other words, the second half of the year appeared almost normal, with only the addition of a baby to mark the dramatic change that had happened in my life.

But as I wrote in November, change doesn’t come in an instant and sometimes can’t even be traced to a single day or week or month. While Jay’s homecoming marked the end of my tour of duty as a single mom, it wasn’t an overnight change from bad year to good year.  It was a series of adjustments, finding my balance and my way in the quest for the life that I want. Here I am on January 1, still not quite sure how to measure the changes I’ve experienced or the things I’ve endured. In some ways, I’m bitter.  In other ways, I’m grateful. I am who I am because of my experiences, yes?  And I have to say, I like myself more today than I did a year ago today.

In the midst of the parenting alone and then coparenting with a partner who had been gone for 8 months, I had my work to keep me sane (or drive me even more insane, at times). I didn’t write nearly as much as I would have liked (ditto 2009, unfortunately), but I saw the publication of my first anthology and did some readings both here and in Portland to promote it, I compiled and submitted my second anthology and I signed contracts for two more anthologies. I kind of blink in shock when I realize that I managed all of that given the stress and time constraints I was under.

I wasted a fair amount of time in 2010 chasing daydreams and longing for things that weren’t meant to be. Illusions shattered, I am tired but grounded and determined at the start of 2011.  I’m ready to start a new year focused on family, friends and my beloved writing.  I’m also intent on maintaining both my balance and my peace, come what may.

Wishing you peace in 2011.  And I promise to blog more, too.

Posted by Kristina in Life at 10:11 PM Permalink

A year ago, I was enormously pregnant, shaking my fist at the limitations imposed on me by gestational diabetes (what a sad Thanksgiving dinner that was), dealing with endless doctors’ appointment ands pregnancy concerns, coping with being alone during the second most stressful time in my life (with the most stressful time in my life being the months after I had a baby), battling a serious case of depression brought on by circumstance, hormones and sheer exhaustion and wondering where the hell I would be a year from then.  Oh, and I had just turned in the manuscript of my first anthology, which should have been a big deal and a reason to celebrate.  But I was too depressed and exhausted to celebrate.  And too relieved that I’d completed it despite all the stress and exhaustion to even be happy about the accomplishment.  At the time, for those six or eight months, however you want to measure it, I thought I was so strong, so tough, coping so well.  In retrospect, I realize I pretty much lost my mind and was shellshocked from all the change that was happening to me and how out of control my life seemed. I was moving from one day to the next with my head down, just trying to deal with what was right in front of me because anything on the periphery was too overwhelming to contemplate.

And here I am a year later.... Patrick is a delightful baby who will be a year old in just three weeks, Jay has been home for six months and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, I will eat anything (and everything) I want for Thanksgiving dinner (and beyond), I have turned in my second anthology and contracted to do two more and my life is full of so many wonderful people and experiences that I reel at the idea I was ever sad or lonely or felt alone.  I’m still tired all the time, but it’s a good kind of tired from having too much good stuff to do and not enough hours to do it.  I’ve also learned that I’m not alone.  I don’t have to be strong and tough and cope with the scary things by myself if I don’t want to. I had to learn that lesson the hardest way possible-- by going through hell by myself and surviving it-- but I did learn it and it’s a lesson I won’t repeat. 

There is no particular reason for posting this today.  November 11 doesn’t mark any milestone from a year ago, I’ve just been thinking about what I was doing around this time last year and remembering how awful most everything seemed because I was wrapped up in how nothing was going the way I wanted it or planned it and how much better things are now, even though I didn’t plan most of this, either.  Life is good and full and happy and I am inspired by so much around me, by so many people.  I’m lucky and I know it. I’ve learned to ask for help. I’ve learned to let go of some stuff and stop beating myself up for other stuff. I’ve changed.

Any day can be a new beginning: the birth of a child, a military homecoming, January 1, the day a career goal is accomplished.  And those days will get dutifully noted on the calendar or in the datebook or on the resume.  But any day can be the turning point in a life and sometimes the significance of that day isn’t clear until much later.  Sometimes the turning point happens so gradually that it can’t be confined to a single day.  Then it’s referred to in that very general of ways: the spring, the third trimester, the beginning of the year, when the baby slept through the night, when I realized I wasn’t alone, the year I turned 43.  Those turning points get lost among the calendar dates because there is no way to note them, no moment in time to pinpoint.  It’s those turning points that are remembered as “around that time, you know, back when...”

As the days and months and years slip by, those turning points slip from the memory, too.  Until all we are sure of is one thing: we were changed. Profoundly and forever.  And we may not know when it happened or even what the catalyst was for the change or if it was a single event or a series of events that caused the change, but that one thought persists when all else fades from memory: We are changed.

I am changed.

Posted by Kristina in Life at 03:17 PM Permalink

Sometimes I feel like my life is like this picture. A blur of activity and motion and time passing, with no clear center or focus.  (The picture is actually the result of a baby grabbing the camera to prevent his picture being taken and photographing the foliage overhead instead.) It’s September.  The kids are back in school. Patrick is nine months-- nine months!!-- old.  My first anthology for Cleis Press has been on the shelves for two months and I’m getting ready to submit my second collection and start planning the third. Jay has been home from his umpteenth deployment for going on four months (though he’s been out of town for about a month of the past four). We’re going to celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary in a month.

Time is passing. Quickly. And I’m trying to stop and look around once in awhile, as wise young Ferris recommended a crazy 24 years ago, but it’s just so darn hard sometimes.  The days are a blur of activity and routine and squeezing in just one more thing before bed.  Baby milestones to record and stories to write and diapers to change and laughter to soak up and lists to make and plans to plan and phone calls to return and precious few hours of sleep to recover from it all.  Oh, but life is good. So very, very good.

I spend a lot of time contemplating the future that is rushing up on me, rather than simply enjoying the present.  The next book, the next story, the next milestone, the next doctor’s appointment.  Do I want another baby?  Or a Ph.D.? Or a M.F.A.? Should I go back to teaching in the spring? Do I want to edit another dozen anthologies or do I want to write my own novel?  Family trip to Chicago or Disney World next year? Can I swing a fun trip on my own in the fall?  When can I revisit my beloved London? Should we move to a new city/neighborhood? When? Will Patrick be ready for Montessori school at two or three? Remodel the kitchen first, or the office/playroom? So many questions. It’s a wonder I get any sleep at all.

The days still pass, oblivious to all the things still left on my list to do.  Slow down, slow down, I tell myself.  Enjoy this moment.  This one right here.  Enjoy it!  And I do, I swear I do. I ignore the nagging guilt that I still have so many other things to do and accomplish and, hey, I’m not getting any younger thoughts, and I enjoy the happy moments as they come. Sometimes, I even revel in them, letting that knot of ambition coated in guilt and anxiety slowly loosen so that I barely notice it at all.  And then I catch my breath and think, oh yes, this is what it’s all about.  A summer’s day, a blanket in the grass and the loves of my life.

This is what life is all about.

Posted by Kristina in Life at 03:16 PM Permalink