Things That Matter

It's been a few months since my last post, which means I've been due for one. I had plans of talking about how crazy life has been since school started. Or perhaps another post about how there seem to be babies everywhere when you can't have your own for whatever reason. (Seriously, my local Starbucks seems to attract parents with babies in chest carriers, waving tiny fists at their parents' Pumpkin Spice Lattes! and yet, there are rarely any parents braving a trip with a Terrible Two-year-old. Gee, I wonder why?)

But yesterday I was at work, mere blocks from the shooting at the Washington Navy Yard. I had dear friends in that building. I might have been there for meetings with my clients if I weren't waiting on a badge renewal. But now there are bullet holes in hallways I've walked down. There are offices where proud name plates with titles and rankings made people targets. There are people who had to leave behind their cars, phones, computers, everything, and have no idea when they can go back. Parents who had to wait hours to see their kids and now spend the day at home because their work space is a crime scene.

But even harder to comprehend are the people who won't get to come back for their belongings. Who will never again hold their children close or laugh with friends. Who took jobs where the biggest threat lately was cuts in pay due to sequestration, a challenge overcome for now.

We'll wait for answers, and maybe find some closure. Implement some policies to keep a tragedy like this from happening again. But somehow the issues I held so tightly in my head seem to be replaced by a fog, a disoriented haze from which I am pulled by the sudden wail of sirens or the whir of helicopter blades. Sounds, formerly so routine in my space, that now recall the fear of being told to stay in the building but away from windows, worrying about people who make up both my work life and my "family".

I went home that afternoon, against security orders, so I could hold Andy close and be with Brianna instead of going to class. She sensed that something was up, but she accepted my explanation that sometimes scary things happen that make Mommy want lots of hugs and then asked to go to the park. It wasn't quite enough to take away all the hurt, those moments pushing her on the swings and hunting for sticks and pine cones. But for now her innocence and laughter help me feel centered with the things that matter.

The Next Grand Adventure

I posted last year about wanting another baby but giving it some time because there so many things that didn't make it the right choice at that moment. And then time went by and things still weren't right. The holidays came to a close and as we are wont to do when we mark the passage of time, Andy and I looked at plans. And we realized that we still weren't in the right place for another baby. For the first time, I felt true acceptance of that decision, without the wistfulness and longing that I'd felt before.

So I did what any other Type A, goal-driven person would do with too much time on my hands and nothing on the horizon. I decided that I should go to grad school, because clearly two months was enough time to research local schools, study and take the GMAT, write a few essays, do my taxes and submit the FAFSA, get letters of recommendation, and submit my application. Doesn't everyone like a good challenge that makes you slightly neurotic?

By the end of the application review period, I bumped up to fairly neurotic, but in the end I've been accepted to the grad program that I wanted. I'll be starting courses for an MBA in August, and by June 2015 I'll be finished. It's a very fast program, but I have Andy's support to make this happen and we talked (and talked and talked and talked) about how this would impact our family and how we can make it work.

So no babies for the next two years, and I'm okay with that. Brianna would be fantastic with a sibling right now, but I'll be in a better position to afford that baby. We're spending the next few months getting our home ready for auto-pilot, since housecleaning and maintenance will be dead last on the family to-do list. Meals will be prepared, frozen, and inventoried so that take-out on dead-tired days doesn't kill our budget. Sometimes being an overzealous planner has its perks.

I'm also doing my best to get myself back to a really healthy state. Winter and then allergy season put a serious dent in my ability and motivation to run, so I'm not where I wanted to be at the end of spring. There will be no racing for me this season, and probably not for the next two years. But I'm still trying, and I'm still losing weight. I suspect that while I was so focused on applying for school, my medication stopped working effectively for my PCOS and I didn't catch on. It's been a rude awakening to see the facial hair and acne come back (WITH A VENGEANCE!), and I had some very rough days where mood swings bordered on depression. I'm starting a new medication this week, but it may take some time to see change. I'm hoping this one sticks and continues to work for me through school, because I won't have time to manage my symptoms.