I’m sitting on my parents porch listening to the drip, drip, drip from the storm that has just rolled through. I’m rocking, and the old wooden rocker is creaking, click, swoosh, click, swoosh, and I’m holding a baby. The baby looks like every other baby and yet, he's completely unique because he’s mine. And despite knowing that this is a great moment, I’m thinking about being somewhere else. We just put our house on the market again. I’m reminded how even when everything feels like it’s changing, some things are always the same. I was in that exact spot three years ago, rocking a baby, listening to the rain and thinking about moving. In some ways though, it feels like I have always been here, in this moment. Some part of me has always been a mother. Even when I told myself I would never have kids, I think this is where I was meant to end up.
Four years ago, when I left Chicago, my friends, my job, my life as I knew it---I wanted a change. I knew not what that change was, just that I yearned for something more, something different from the monotonous drone of the retail life (not that those Anthropologie discounts weren’t fun). So, in one tumultuous day, I decided, while waiting at the Midway airport cell phone parking area, with planes buzzing overhead, to leave and embrace change.
My friend asked us last night, “Where are you moving to?” We glanced nervously at each other and replied that we hadn’t a clue. Sure, we hadn't talked about a lot of places, most larger cities. And I had researched one in particular pretty thoroughly but there was still a long way to the finish line. We are jumping headlong into the unknown. And it's scary and wonderful all at the same time. Kind of like being a parent really.
It’s naïve to think everything will stay the same. I wonder if I will miss these days, this life, this me? But I know some part of me will be forever rocking a baby in the rain of the muggy deep south, and watching his rotund belly softly go in, out, in, out. This much I know is true.