Slow Start

The first full week of the year is almost on the books! For me, it’s been a bit of a slow start. And I’m (perhaps uncharacteristically) ok with that. Usually I am so gung-ho. I come out like gangbusters into the new year, signing up for this class or that, making lists and committing to regimens, busting out and taking action. This time, I’ve been doing a deep dive internally. Trying to listening to my inner voice.

Honestly, I emerged from the festivities feeling a bit exhausted. Ok. Kind of wrecked. It was a mega-extended holiday season for us - basically all of November and December - with my daughter’s adoption at the end of October kicking off not only Thanksgiving and Christmas, but Joe’s 8 week paternity leave, visits from extended family, a trip to Santa Barbara and Joe’s dad finishing up a five month stay at our house. Lots of precious good times that I will surely never forget. But I’ve needed so badly to gather myself, to just breathe for a moment in this new reality, to return to a life of more than just survival, which is essentially where Joe and I had been for the past two and a half years. I’m grateful for this soft beginning, giving me a chance to move slowly, take stock, find myself again in my brand new life.

I am constantly amazed at the timing and wisdom of the universe. As if to underscore and support this desire, and juuust to ensure that I’d heed the call, God gave me jury duty this week. So even though it’s finally “real” life  - Joe back to work, father in law back in Florida, child at daycare -- I’m not able to just start up like I normally would, picking up where I left off and jumping back into the fire. It’s as if the world has quietly given me the gift of suspended time this week, asking me to forge a new path: Take it slow. Trust. Tie up loose ends. Do do things a little differently this year.

A side note of about God’s timing being impeccable: On Monday, after a long and leisurely coffee date with a heart friend - which seemed so indulgent on the first back to work day of the year, but felt so right - I returned home and waiting for me in my mailbox was the final piece of a complex puzzle our family has been putting together for the last nine years. Isabella’s birth certificate. It finally came from Sacramento.

I had just been stressing about STILL not having it, STILL not being able to access her social security number, which would screw up our taxes AGAIN. And there it was. In a nondescript white envelope. Signifying the very last step in this whole journey. Whispering to me that yes, it might be a slow start to this new year, but it’s a NEW year. It’s here. A new reality. And it’s not going anywhere.

And all at once everything feels the same, and yet, very, very different.