As Barb mentioned in her blog last week, she’s noticed me getting more antsy…more unsettled in my life and eager for a change.  I go through this stage every now and then, rethinking all the decisions in my life thus far, thinking I should quit my job, get divorced, sell the house and hit the road.  Where doesn’t matter, the details don’t matter…I just need a change like it’s my job.

So instead of acting irrationally (of course), I plug away at my weekly routine - preparing Matteo’s bottles for daycare, doing laundry, ironing my clothes for work, and somehow getting myself there every Monday morning.  This Monday was no different, except how I was feeling.

Tired, crabby, and disgruntled, I counted the minutes until my first phone consultation with my therapist.  I feel so corny even saying “my therapist”…it’s such an LA thing to do.  But I think I need it, so I’m doing it.  I had a great talk with her and look forward to our first session this week.  I hope to break ground and peel the onion as to why I keep repeating the same cycle in my life, but never able to get over the hump to make lasting change.  Hopefully she will be the catalyst for propelling myself into a future I can be excited about.

Then, the best reward of the day is that Barb came over for Micromovement Monday.  Our first of many, we have renewed a commitment to getting together and brainstorming and setting goals for things we want to accomplish.  An exercise in accountability and helping each other take steps in the direction we say we want to go, helping each other to manifest the world we want to live in.

It was a great Monday, all in all, and I look forward to many more.  Now if I could only figure out how to work half the time and make twice the money, I’d be in business.  Until then, I gotta keep my girl Barb around to keep me inspired, keep me honest, and keep me sane.  Pretty scary I’m depending on her for a sanity check, but that’s what friends are for.  And besides, as we were laughing about last night, when you’re crazy you’re always the last to know. 

How they change…and how they stay the same.  I’m the same person, just in a new way.  I’m still the Lori that my friends know.  I’m still the Lori my family knows.  Now I’m the Lori that Matteo knows…a person, quite frankly, that I myself have never met.  I’m still myself, only softer, stronger, warmer and hopefully wiser.

I’ve been struggling lately with what my future will look like.  I was driving the other day behind a minivan with a “Soccer Mom” bumper sticker, and called Barb to PLEASE ask her to shoot me if I ever become that person.  Same with the “my child is an honor student at such and such elementary school” bumper stickers, and the ones with the little stick people on the rear window with mommy, daddy, kiddies (usually at least three), doggie, kittie, etc.  You get the picture.

You see, I don’t really want the “working mom” life.  There’s not enough time for either “working” or “mom”.  And I don’t want the stay at home mom life either.  My job is to really dig deep and decide WHAT DO I WANT?  I need to find the sweet spot in this life of mine.  The spot where I feel fulfilled with something of my own, get enough time to spend with my amazing baby, and still have something fun to talk about with my husband over dinner and drinks.  Is that asking too much?

No, it isn’t.  I’m not quite sure what this picture of my life will look like, which is why I’m hiring a professional.  I’m going to start seeing a therapist (which is such an LA thing to do I can’t stand it) to help me be accountable to myself and help me put a plan together to create a life that I am passionate about.

Don’t get me wrong…I’m not unhappy, per se.  The only way I can really describe it is that having a baby has opened a space within me that I have never seen.  A beautiful, pure and phenomenal space filled with joy and awareness, adventure and true love.  And now that I have a taste of it, I want more.  Give me more, I’m finally ready for it.

So I’ll keep you posted…it’s a journey, they say…and I’m getting my map out to see where I want to go next.  I have five years until I turn 40, and want to make sure I take advantage of it.  You never get this time back.  I will never be 35 again, and Matteo will never again be 5 months old.  I don’t want to miss a beat…I don’t want to miss my life.

And if it takes therapy to make this good life better, then so be it.  Why settle for happiness when bliss may be just around the corner?

Wish me luck.  My first mother’s day…and it definitely won’t be my last.  It was a great Sunday filled with family and food, and Matteo even took his first swim!  Carpe diem.  Suck the marrow.  Today is the only day we truly have…appreciate what you have, never give up on your dreams, and get out there and make it happen…woo hoo!

Monday morning, I’m driving to daycare to drop off Matteo.  I’m a little tired, more than the usual tired, and bitching inside that I have to get up and go through this boat drill to get to work, when all I want to do is stay home.  Hang out at home with my baby and my husband and enjoy my house and explore my creativity.

On the way out of daycare, I stop and talk to another working mom, Kelly.  Kellycalvinsmom brought her son Calvin to daycare the same day Matteo started, and they’re the same age, so she and I have gotten to know each other over the past 5 weeks.  She and her husband live in the area, and we keep talking about getting together for dinner or something, but haven’t quite accomplished it.  The closest we’ve gotten to spending time outside of the daycare parking lot is when she came over on a Saturday afternoon and we went to Target.

So we’re in the parking lot Monday morning, talking small talk, and I ask her how it’s going.  Bad, she says.  Really?  I say, in what way?  And I quote:  “David (her husband) has stage four colon cancer.  They’ve given him 18 months to live and he starts chemo next Tuesday.”

Shit.  Here I am bitching about having to go to work.  Here I am bitching that I’m not independently wealthy.  Here I am bitching that I’m fat and my pants don’t fit so I have to go shopping to get new clothes to wear for my vacation coming up in Hawaii.  Shit, shit, shit.  

So we talk for a few minutes…I tell her how impressed I am that she’s holding it together.  She even wears makeup every morning and dresses professionally.  She says what choice does she have…and she’s absolutely right.  She needs to keep her job.  She needs to take care of her 5 month old son.  And now she needs to take care of her dying husband.

Please, please, please, be grateful for what you have.  Even if it’s not what you imagined having or not what you think you should have.  We always tend to think the grass is greener, and forget to look down at our own patch of land and realize how lucky we are.  How lucky we are to have what we have and be who we are.  Lucky to be healthy (and fat) and alive (and bitching).