8.27.07
Finally, an entry worth something
I recently saw Ray Zahab speak. He ran across the Saharah, from sea to sea, him and two of his best friends. No one else has even done this before. He is awe-inspiring, to say the least.
I mentioned that I have been running, right? Seven to ten kilometres (depending on the day and the amount of time I have) for a few weeks now. I am slow, ever-so-slow, but I do it, and sometimes I think of Ray Zahab. I talked to him afterwards, and he told me he and his wife are trying to conceive. And I wondered if we always chase what we do not have.
I got an email from my dad two days ago, to my brothers, Steve and myself asking if we wanted to go with him to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. He told me to think about it long and hard, about camping in rural Africa, about altitude sickness, about possibly having to turn back alone, about the foreign food and water, about the training that is required. I am going to do it.
Sometimes I look at my life and I wonder what in the hell I am doing. I focus on what I have not accomplished that was on my list of To Have Done By 26, and man, it is a long list. When I get so fiercly down on myself like that, sometimes it is hard to remember the things that I have done. at least my home is safe, at least my family is well provided for.
I am really looking forward to getting back to work for a thousand different reasons, a main one being the ability to contribute financially again. It is hard to justify a new pair of sandals for myself, even if they are only sixteen dollars, when I do not have my own paycheck. It has been hard at times, these past two years, not having a job, asking Steve to transfer money to me for this or for that. So, because of that, it will be good to get back to work.
So Leila starts daycare next week, while I have a much anticipated and much needed (on both our parts, I think) visit with Amanda. I am looking forward to some free time in September and am tentatively planning to put her in most mornings so she will have lots of time to get used to it. And I am really looking forward going back to work, but there are moments, like buying shoes that make Leila look like such a little girl, when it feels like surely, and much too quickly, I am losing my baby. To word it that way makes me seem ungrateful, because I am truly appreciating the person she is becoming and expecially her sense of humour. But when I pull her hair back into a barrette and put on her new sandals, and she grabs her sippy cup out of my hand and casually leans against the couch, I wonder when it hapened.
Thoughts of another baby have been put on hold for now, with day care and work and road races and then, of course, Kilimanjaro, and a general contentment that has settled in around us as the last hot days of summer roll by. Depending on the month/day/position of the moon I flip between desperately wanting another child and desperately hoping that I did not just get pregnant, which is perhaps indicitive of the fact that I am not quite ready for another pregnancy or another child. Although we did splurge and lease this in Carbon Metallic for three years. Sexy and spacious, it is a minivan in disguise!
wunderwuman at 2:27 p.m.