All in one day...

My emotions are zig zagging all over the place tonight, as the adrenaline from the weekend slows down and leaves me out of sorts.

My mom was here for a week, and left early yesterday morning. That whole visit could be a post in itself -maybe sometime. I put her in a cab at 730, then came home to fall back asleep and wake to find that one of my best college friends had given birth to a boy.

I walked to the store. Bought a $2 bag of day-old bagels from the local place that keeps them back for the locals. I baked a taco/tex mex....thing. I vacuumed.

I went to a reception down the street -the place I used to work in Kentucky was in town having a conference. I smiled and shook hands and did the "do you remember me/oh you look SO great!" bit.

Then, I walked home while talking to my dad. He wouldn't let me off the phone until I was safe in my apartment, then I hung up to learn that my very best childhood friend had given birth to a boy.

Two people, whose lives I used to be so intertwined with that I knew everything about them, down to what they ate every day. Two girls that I watched grow into women, and now watched grow into mothers. Mothers of sons. I am happy -- so incredibly happy, truly -- but I can't ignore the niggling feeling of "what about me?" Can it be my turn yet?

I've been trying out the phrase "I doubt I'll have children" to see how it tastes in my mouth. It tastes wrong and bitter, but I'll grow to acquire a taste for it. It's something I'm learning to accept, and realize that the traditional way of doing things just may not be for my path. The alternatives of adoption or other means of giving birth may well be my reality. It's daunting, as I age. My life has always taken a strange path -and perhaps that will just continue.

In the meantime, I keep trying to transform healthcare in America. Ya know, that easy-peasy thing. We're working so so hard. That's pretty much all I can say. I pulled off a successful event last week on the hill (meaning congressional hill visits and a press briefing) and it was a huge load off my mind when I finally stood up to close us out.

My mom came with me, and I sat her in the very back. I told her she could come along -- it was very strange to see my mother alongside my boss, my clients, my coworkers, all my professional colleagues that dominate my landscape here. I stood up to give everyone a job-well-done pep talk. And then, there was my mom, snapping pictures.

Some things never change.

On we grow.

Me, Russell Senate Building, April 2013

Just writing

I've probably started 10 or 20 blog posts by now. I either delete them or save them and never look at them again, and then another day starts and it's a blur from there.

Sometimes this blog is like a friend that I lose touch with -I don't want to lose touch, but it's close enough to me that it's either all or nothing. We need to talk everyday, about everything, or we can't talk at all. There's no in between with us, and when there's a gap, it's noticeable and I'm a little shy about approaching again.

So, hello. I've been okay. Working my ASS off, and finally went home last weekend for a quick break and some baby/kid niece and nephew time. I hugged each of them to me time and time again. They center me, each of their blonde heads pressing into my chest and sneezing in my face and arms thrown over me at night when I sleep in the middle. 

I'm always ready to get back home though, to my DC home. I spent the day in Lexington (where I lived for four years, and where I lived when I started this blog) and I noticed how uncomfortable I am there. I almost feel a panic attack coming on when I look out the window and see the sights of a few years ago sliding past my window. That town never fit me, and I can't breathe there. 

I didn't cry when I flew away this time. I usually don't, anymore. I am always glad to get back, and I always miss my family, and I feel like I'm always going to be destined to be missing someone, somewhere. It's how I grew up, lugging my duffle bag from county to county to one house from another. I will always feel torn, and always feel like there's something I'm missing.

In February, I met Bill Clinton. I met a few other folks that are pretty important to my industry but aren't famous, all at our annual conference, and I felt like I was doing something. All the crowded metro rides and the snowy slush that cars rain on my pants, all the late nights and wordsmithing was for something. Clinton, before he closed his remarks to us, said "I pray for your success." 

I'm not sentimental much anymore, about anything really. But for a minute, I felt that was genuine. That we were being counted on to do something amazing. And then now, back again, slogging through the day-to-day "who is going to order the water bottles and dish detergent" and budget battles and things out of my control just wipe all that out. I'm feeling discouraged and like it's all just taking so damn long to count. My brother in law this weekend asked me "Is Obamacare stupid?" I hesitated and he asked "Or, do you not know much about it?" I said "I know too much about it, which is why I can't answer things like that so simply."

Anyway. 

I dated someone, and I think it may be over. More about that another time. Another blip on the ever-ending radar screen cycle of things-that-don't-work-out. It makes me so tired to even write about, because I've been writing about this for years. I've been writing about how I'm working on accepting that things just might not turn out in the way that I had thought. And yet I'm not accepting it, and forging on, and dabbling in the heartbreak and hope again and again, and it's just getting so very old.

I turn 32 next week. I've been writing here since I was 26, and I feel paralyzed sometimes when I think of how little has changed even though so MUCH of course has. I am a completely different person in so many ways. 32.

32, and what have I done? What does it matter?

I'll leave you all with some pictures of some absolutely beautiful kids that I adore, and thank all of you very few (and very treasured) readers for hanging with me all these years. Keep writing.

Me and my teenage nieces

 Little guys, Easter morning

 Brooklyn with our found baby rabbit

 My dad, and his grandkids. I love how much they love each other.

 Me and my sister that keeps me sane.

 All five of our babies, a moment totally unposed and captured on the sly

Niece with baby bunny

 Nephew, being a dreamer.

 Nephew that holds my heart.

Thanks all.