The best way to prepare for life, is to begin to live.

I want to travel.
And just like everything else in my life thus far, I have decided to take charge and make it happen on my own.
I want to see other countries. I want to go to Italy next year. Probably late in the year. But I will go. I have a bucket list of places I want to see, and this is step one.
I also think Tor and I will be making a weekend trip to NYC in the spring. Take the train in and just be ridiculous for a couple days.
It takes very little soul searching to confirm to myself again and again, that marriage and kids are not part of my American dream.
People tell me that will all change. Maybe they're right. Maybe not.
Either way, I love my life, and I want to live my dreams.
The concept of life has never made much sense to me, I think that's part of the reason why I can't fathom procreating.
We are born. We live for a bit. We die.
That's all.
Most people would say that it's important to have a higher purpose, live for something bigger. But why?
Even if you live a good life, and touch the lives of others, those lives die as well.
Even if you live a great life, and your name is remembered well after you're gone, it will only be remembered by people who will also inevitably pass away.
Here is where the God card gets thrown into the mix- if you live your life for God, you have something eternal.
Maybe.
But you're not you eternally.
All you have is now.
All you have is the breath in your lungs at this very moment.
The worst regret you could ever have, is a dream unlived.
So live.

Thoughts....

Love today. It's Wednesday, which means I get to sleep in and enjoy life the way I want. It's raining, and I'm happy when it's nasty out. Strange, I know.
So many updates on life.
I have a new job. I love it SO much. My bosses and co-workers are amazing. I don't wake up dreading my days anymore. I don't have to sit and listen to the same impossible complaints without solutions. I don't have to endure an endless mental beating, and catty digs. I am not made to feel inadequate and useless.
Instead, I laugh, and joke, and can talk to people without fear of "saying the wrong thing" . I am constantly thanked for a job well done, and truly appreciated, even though I still don't know everything, and still make plenty of mistakes. I talk to my patients with ease, I want to do well, I want to be a part of a team and invest in them, because I truly enjoy being there.
This is the first "Big Girl" job where I can honestly see myself putting down roots and calling home.
I really lucked out.

Abby turns one in a couple weeks! She is getting so big, and is turning that corner where she is no longer my naughty little puppy. I already miss it. (sort of...)

My home is pretty much complete. It took a year of slowly adding things, and bringing the details together, but when I walk through the front door I feel like I'm home, and it's really great.

My life is amazing, and it still seems unreal sometimes how much it's turned around over the past few years. With summer on it's way out the door, and fall rapidly approaching, it brings back memories of October 2007.
But this is the first year I don't feel that crushing remembrance about it.
This is the first time I see it as the beginning of the end.
I hit rock bottom so that I could climb my way out, and into something infinitely better than I could have ever hoped for.
I can't wait for fall.