Happy Halloween!

My little fireman.

Bittersweet

Soon after my miscarriage, a friend of mine who'd been through it warned me that one of the big stings would come when friends of mine announced (in person, on email, on Facebook, what have you) their pregnancies, with due dates close to mine. So, I was prepared for this event. And it's really important to note that I am SUPER happy and excited for all the expectant ladies I know. I do not begrudge anyone this joy. It's way too happy a thing for that. But there is definitely a bittersweet feeling to it, in that it makes me go, "Aw, man! I really, really wish I were still pregnant, so my baby would have so many awesome playmates!" Not that my baby won't, when I do get pregnant again - my sister was five months pregnant with my niece when I got pregnant with B. Logically, I get that. But MAN, I wish that pregnancy hadn't had to end so soon. But hey, I still believe everything happens for a reason. Maybe I'm just meant to have yet another Leo or Virgo (for example) in my life, as opposed to the Aries that baby would've been. Who knows...

Disillusioned

When I was younger and had a big ole political fire in my belly, I would go to Youth Vote rallies and do my best to be as involved as I could be in the political system. In 2004, I volunteered for John Kerry's campaign...admittedly, not because I was particularly enamored of him as a candidate, but because a) I was eager to get W out of office and b) the guy lived three blocks from me - proximity rules, you know?

And I would think about how people talk about getting into their thirties and forties and feeling politically disillusioned. I remember this being the reason behind low voter turnouts years back. And I couldn't imagine ever feeling that way.

And now, here I am, feeling so detached politically. I mean, I will still vote. It's too important not to. But I have to admit, there really isn't a candidate I'm all that jazzed about. The two major parties seem to be veering further away from center, and any third party candidates don't have a realistic shot at winning, so it's a little disheartening to consider casting a vote for them.

My main issues are as follows. The Democrats just aren't thinking rationally about the country's economic situation. They want to blame people like my family and former coworkers for the mess, and that's both irresponsible and unrealistic. They also don't have a clue about how to FIX the mess we're in.

Meanwhile, the GOP might have some better ideas economically, but their indulgence in their party's wingnuts is legitimately frightening. People who are so afraid of homosexuality in the abstract that they would disallow loving families from EXISTING? Terrifying.

So, what do I do? Who do I vote for? Well, for now, the civil rights issues win out for me because my conscience insists upon it. But the economic future scares the shit out of me.

New Artist to Check Out

Check out the debut album from Hudson Moore. Good stuff. (I do not get kickbacks for posting this. Just looking to help out a talented youngster.)

http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/fireworks/id400329081

Happy Birthday, B.!

B's third birthday was a good one, I think. We had a party on Saturday, attended by our families, including a surprise (to B) cameo by his cousin, Little E, who came down from VT. B had a fantastic time. And then tonight, we went out for a family dinner, and he was thrilled when they brought him a Hoodsie with a candle in it. To top off his day, he skyped with his NYC cousins. Good times.

My little boy is getting so big, so fast.

My Baby

My baby really isn't a baby anymore. Tomorrow (at 3:58 AM to be precise), he'll be three years old. The past three years have gone by in a blink. A blink so loaded with love it still steals my breath sometimes.

Before B, I thought love was only accompanied by an ache if it was going wrong. But with B, I've learned that's not always true. The love of a parent for her/his child is an aching, desperate, beautiful thing. The thought of his smile can make me smile. The thought of his crying can bring me to tears. I would, as the saying goes, lay down in traffic for him. Sometimes, I can be completely content just to watch him sleeping. Or playing. Or thinking. His expressions of love are like a magical elixir for whatever ails me.

I had a life full of love and blessings before he came along, but I couldn't have imagined the love and blessings I would gain because he did.

Grateful

Back before I met E, I remember one of my friends asking me if I thought meeting the right guy would truly make me happier than I "naturally was." And I told her that, yes, I did, since the only thing in my life I truly wasn't happy about was all the douchebags that littered my lovelife. She was skeptical. But the thing is, I was right. I am happier with E in my life.

I love, more than I can really express adequately here, how, when I wrestle with a problem for days - agonize over discussing it with him because he might think I'm an idiot, or a spoiled princess, or what have you - then he can listen to me for five minutes and offer me the input and support I've been craving all along, and suddenly this enormous catastrophe seems so easily resolved.

He's my Knight. C'est tout.

The Best Thing

One of the best things about life is also one of the scariest things. Unpredictability. We can't predict the future. But doesn't that also mean we're not tied to any specific future? See? Awesome and scary.

I used to visit psychics a lot. There was one in particular I used to see in college. I loved going to her, because she would talk about my future in such wonderful terms. I'm a hopeless romantic and was hopeless romantically in college, so her descriptions of the great love I would find in the future were enormously appealing. She got a pretty major detail wrong, which doesn't matter at all now, although it fed my romantic fantasies in unrealistic ways for many years. But then again, that fantasy person got me through a lot of rough times, so I guess that served its purpose.

But the love I found is so different in so many ways from what she or any psychic ever described. And it's still as amazing as I could've dreamed.

All this by way of saying I wasn't locked into that future she saw. Nor am I locked into ANY future. The possibilities are endless. Just because I or someone else foresaw some specific thing for me doesn't mean that specific thing HAS to happen. I can decide on a future for myself and make it happen, and that's as freeing as it is terrifying.

And so, just because to this point, I haven't fully been able to foresee the future I want professionally, that doesn't mean it can't happen. It just means I need to visualize what I want and go after it with everything I've got.