Fixing Me...

Ahhhh, a breather, dare I say it. (Insert knock on plastic keyboard surround). Dare I risk saying: A Week With Not One Doctor's Appointment. That's a new thing. It's been over 3 months since that's happened. Now, I realize that there are people who live that life, or worse, for years. And I know we'll end up there again, but I'm thankful for this breather. Big Girl is back in school now, and is happy. Her holes from her skin biopsies are bothering her, but are healing. She has access to a new study, and therefore new options now. Peanut is waiting for Begindergarten to start, and excited for that too.

I'm a year older as of last week. The air is starting to turn just a tad cool in the morning, when we walk to school. It feels lovely. It feels fresh. Odd that as the growing season starts to think about winding down, I feel like everything *could* start to bloom in life...potential seems to fill the air.

I don't know if this is a mid-life crisis brought on as I move upwards towards 40, "deflating" since the stress of the last months has eased off, or if this is something more positive...I'm feeling need for change. Maybe it's just all the House Hunters International I've been watching, but it feels deeper than that.

I need to travel.

I need to change the house.

I need to change...me.

I'll be honest. I've been trying to lose 20 pounds, for years. I look in the mirror and I'm not happy. But I'm also not happy with how I present myself. Once upon a time I never left the house sans makeup. I'm glad I'm less uptight than that now. But I've fallen into the SAHM uniform of jeans and tshirts. My beautiful jewelry sits mostly unworn in the box. Most of my shoes go unworn. (I'm not a Vogue-reading fashionista, but I do love my shoes.) I've got my intellectual-in-training (read: nerdy bookhound) glasses, but everything else is blah. I come across to myself as blah. So how does everyone else see me? There's lots of cool shit rattling around inside my brain...but it stays there mostly.

I found myself more and more speaking of kids, school, errands, to do lists, and parenting my kids as waaaay too much of my communication load. I hate that. I'm so much smarter and more interesting than just that.

Last year, before we renovated, we looked at moving. I hated the idea of leaving my house, my beautiful, tons-of-work-poured-into-it home. Now, I could move for the right house, or the right opportunity. New. Adventure. Excitement. I am actually excited at the thought when emails from the real estate agent hit my inbox.

We hit 15 years of marriage together this past summer. A feat I'm proud of, rolling thru the rocky times that were partially brought on by infertility, and getting thru over double the length of marriage that my parents ever were able to attain, and still going. But at the same time, I had probably, for myself, the hardest summer of feeling a lack of communication between myself and my husband. Topics came up that had us at odds, and I've never ever had it where discussions were shut down on me without being treated as an equal, worthy of discussion merely because I was the partner that was speaking. And that has me still smarting. Partially cause I don't do well with that, period, partially because his parents are masters at that technique and any and all disfunction in that family unit stems from it, and is my biggest source of irritation. Therefore, I'm very vigilent as to if I ever see P starting to slide into that territory. Partially because the topic at hand sits very deep in my heart, no matter how I try to purge it from there. Do I fear for our marriage in any way? Hell No. Has it changed? Yes. Is that bad? No. Good? No. Just different? Yes. And that takes an adjustment.

Peanut will be gone 4 mornings a week this school year. Next year, it's K for her, then I've got both girls gone most of the time. Now I can look at what I'm doing with my life - I'll be chef/chauffeur/teacher/mom most of the time, but for the first time in 3+ years, I will have devoted time that I can be "me". Yeah, a lot of that will be errands and cleaning and such, but I'll have time, if I want it, to devote to me and what I want out of life. And I realize now that I have not done enough of that...nothing since Big Girl came home, not very much in all the years Peanut has been home, and actually not very much from the time we put in our paperwork for Peanut back in 2005.

So the question is: What do I do with myself? As I see it, I have a few options:

1. Embrace the new me. Come to terms with it. A few pounds I don't want, feeling like less than a *star* in life, coming to terms with suburban contentment, but potentially mediocrity. Do I say that with disdain? A smidge. But that's my point...not that I have to settle, but maybe I have to readjust my viewpoints, and realize the good I do have and be content with that...that there is nothing negative about it at all.

2. Revamp, restyle, recreate. Keep the cool glasses. Lose the weight. Tell the hairstylist to take the new haircut further...devote a few mornings a week to *me*. Find time to scrapbook, excercise, read, or better yet, learn cello, get my master gardner certification or get back to horse back riding, like I've wanted to. Push the "buy" button on that shopping cart with the cool new purse and the funky sweater with the polka dots and the crisp white - needing ironing - nicely fitting dress shirt to go under it. And most importantly, not feel guilty for making life for me too. The kids are my life, but they don't need to have my 24/7 adoration...they are of the age that if I want to read a book, I should be able to be left alone for a wee bit. Find more time for P and I too.

3. Go bat shit over the top. New hair color, lose the weight, get a tattoo, take a job, move the household to a new house with a new feel - ultra clean lined contemporary maybe. I'm guessing this is probably not the best idea, especially if I got a tattoo before losing the weight I want to lose. Oh, and make that house sitting on the cliff overlooking a valley or water of a far off place.

Either way, I have to learn to live with, or change the issues deep in my heart. That's gonna be the hard part.

But as to which option...I think 3 gets kicked to the curb cause P has an awesome job and loves it, and the girls would kill me if I moved them. Door number 1 is a good lesson in appreciation of the fine details of life, and realizing it's the little stuff that makes the biggest hill when it's piled together. Door number 2 though is a lesson in setting a goal and achieving it, for not settling for anything but everything for yourself and your loved ones. Both admirable lessons, but which is the one for me?