him.

i'm alone a lot. probably more than i have the treasured company of my husband.

he works a lot. sometimes, he comes home when i'm brushing my teeth to go to bed. i sleepily smile at him and say hello while i wash my face. i try so hard to stay awake to talk to him, and most of the time i'm successful.

i have a lot of time to clean our house, to pin silly pictures and to think. i spend so much time just simply thinking. so much time that i am completely baffled when he tells me that there's a lot of times where he's thinking "nothing". how does someone think nothing? but i appreciate that. i appreciate the ability to have a calm mind and just be.

in this thinking, i think about us. i think about him. i think about what he sees. how he feels. how lucky i am.

sometimes i wish i could see what he sees, and feel what he feels. to go back in time and relive all of our moments and see if i've missed anything. missed a look, a smile, the way he's so calm and happy. i would happily relive all of our good and our bad times, because in the end it means that even though it's 11pm on a wednesday and i'm climbing into bed and he's just coming home, at least he's home. and i'm his.

being chosen.

recently i have had a change of thinking on this whole baby thing. ever since we started on this new road of loss, pain, sadness, hoping, testing and waiting in our baby journey, i've been trying to figure out what it will be like from here on out. what happens if my body can't carry a baby? am i meant to do something else? how will we get our baby?

but then, something changed. instead of thinking about it in a way that means that i'm getting my baby, i began to think about this beautiful baby choosing me.

our baby is "out there" somewhere. she's waiting (yes, i like to think/hope our baby is a girl) for us. she's waiting for the perfect moment to come into our lives and change us forever.

maybe she'll come by being carried by another woman who ben and i choose to carry her for us. maybe she'll be made and brought into this world by a different mama, but we will be hers.

she chooses us. someday, somehow a baby will choose me to be her mama and she will choose ben to be her dad.

this helps, this thinking. this reminds me that the gift of a baby is just that, a gift. i will be the luckiest woman in the world to be chosen to be someone's mama. it reminds me to be patient. it reminds me that life takes twists and turns, but out of the horrible parts (and there have been many of those), there are great gifts.

we're waiting, baby. whenever you're ready.

labeled.

let's talk about labels.

no, not the kinds you stick on baskets and bins to keep yourself organized. the kind that people like to assign to other people so they can fit them in some little box (yes, it's about to get real "hippie" up in here).

i hate them. i fight against them. do not label me. i call myself a hippie sometimes because of this, but even then something inside me is twitching.

i will never register with any political party and have no desire to.

i don't identify with any one religion/belief system and have no desire to.

i am moderately feminist. but i don't even think feminism should be a term and i would cringe at the thought of being called one.

i'm a vegetarian. but someday i might not be. and i don't like how that translates to "picky eater" for most people. i just say "i don't like meat."

see a trend here? luckily i have a husband who loves this about me, and while he may laugh sometimes and not really understand why i'm so label-aversive at least he appreciates it. he is not so opposed to labels, by the way. which i can appreciate and even understand. it might make life easier for some people.

but me? none.

i am a person. a woman. a wife. a friend. a sister. (and okay, maybe a hippie) label me that way. but do not confine me to anything else.

i will say that i don't care if other people label themselves as anything, align them to certain groups/religions etc. I'm all about whatever makes you happy and doesn't hurt anyone.

linked.

i read these 9 insights this weekend and it really struck me. some things i had already heard, one thing i didn't agree with at all (i don't know where i stand on the last point about suffering, i have to think about it more), and the rest are things that got me thinking.

i know the website the link is from might be a little odd to some, but i kind of liked reading some other things on it. i am a thinker. not compulsively like that 9 insights says. but truly, i am always aware of what i am doing, how i am acting and thinking about how this may be perceived, why i'm doing it, etc (this does not mean i always make the best choices). i am always thinking. it's a blessing and a curse. sometimes ben will exclaim "who thinks about that?!" me. i think about "that" ("that" referring to many different topics that at times i discuss).

i know it's only monday, but maybe it will kick the week off right!