I went all of the year 2023 without writing here. With my life feeling so very finite, my trusty ole blog didn't seem a worthy enough place to expend energy.
Since the last time I wrote here...
- I have had a whole pregnancy and a whole baby. Now I have a three-year-old and a nine-month-old. They're sisters, and this morning we woke up to them talking and singing together in their room.
- We took a trip to Guatemala, Jake, Tessa, and me.
- I have had and ended a full-time job with the county's Housing Authority.
- We have gotten roommates, a family from Nicaragua.
- I have spent three months babysitting two toddlers and two infants.
- I have helped my toddler potty train. There is incredible emotional weight to this milestone, and I felt entirely unprepared for that. She'll never be a baby again, and she deals with that by playing "Baby," in which she tells me what to do, and is therefore no different from any of our other games, except that she uses a whiny voice.
- No one in our immediate families has died.
- No new cars were purchased.
- Our house looks a little different. My brother-in-law installed a few new outlets. Jake installed a pot rack. Edwin repainted the bathroom. Uncle Tom put a door in the side of the garage.
- We look a little different. Our hair is greyer. Our bellies are a bit saggy. We can't seem to catch up on sleep.
- I have started a part-time job answering helpdesk emails for a non-profit.
I used to have a Xanga. Remember how it was the same thing as this, but with the option to choose music along with your post? I remember people doing this, giving "it's been so long since I wrote"-type update posts every six months, and then nothing. And then Xanga died, and I lost years of writing.
I see I just did that; an update, I mean. I wonder if it means that a blog is no longer the place I hang my thoughts. I don't have a more pressing place to put them: I'm not suddenly running for office, or writing a book. I imagine I'll be back little by little.
