It’s a big deal, meeting your very first celebrity.
Lucy kept her cool. (She is the coolest.)
But in all seriousness, these first memories…I just had no idea how special they would feel. It’s like looking at life through all new eyes. I know that sounds trite, and I suppose I’m sort of late to the party. But here I am. I couldn’t have known, couldn’t have totally undserstood, before. I can only be in the moment I’m in.
And that’s one of life’s great discoveries, isn’t it? And one of its most beautiful and hardest lessons.
Here’s the short of it: It’s been over a year. I am so ready to get back to writing. And I mean, real writing. Like, creating. You know, the magic – putting words together and making something that didn’t exist before it came together on a blank page.
Here’s the long:
Having a 1-year-old, and the year and change in between her birth and now, is busy, crazy, different every day, and exhausting. It’s also amazing, inspiring, fun, and its own kind of magic. Lucy is my whole life, and finding ways to bring her needs into harmony with my own has been a challenge that I meet in novel, interesting ways every day. Some days, I succeed, and we’re both satisfied. Some days, I…don’t succeed quite as well…and she is happy and her needs are met and I have not even brushed my teeth. Time for writing? Nah. I barely have time to eat. “Well, you’ll make time for what matters.” Dude, have you had a baby? SHE matters. More than anything else. But I matter, too. And I do want to make time.
So, where does that leave me? What does it mean?
It means that, for the next month, I’m going to sit down at least once a week and jot down ideas, and good lines of dialogue, and when I can, a few paragraphs of beginnings and endings. And come January, I’m going to start posting short stories again.
I don’t know if I’ll do a theme like I have in past years, or if I’ll try something different. Back in October of 2023, I posted the start of something fun, and maybe I’ll revisit that. I would like to know how it ends.
I don’t know exactly what my writing will look like in the new year, but I’m going to do it, and there will be stories. I hope you’ll read them!
…to everyone celebrating today! Lucy, for one, is very excited to help.
I’ll be back in December with some fun posts, but for now, we’re spending time with family and trying to get ready for Christmas. (Will we decorate this year? In our new house? Where we are still not totally unpacked? We shall see…) This is going to be a busy holiday season, I can already tell, and while I’m a bit intimidated, I am also so excited to start new traditions in our new home with our beautiful baby girl – who is now officially a toddler, which is amazing all on its own.
So, happy eating and many thanks for all the good things, y’all. See you next week!
I’ve been wrestling with what to say about that. A poem? An essay about motherhood and all the wonderful things about Lucy? A list of that enumerates and explains this experience so far?
Nothing feels quite right.
Probably because nothing quite captures how I feel.
I’ve never loved this big. I’ve never worked this hard. I’ve never felt this tired. I’ve never been this happy.
One year of absolute, complete and all-encompassing joy with my beautiful, strong, smart, spunky, funny, fearless girl.
One year with my Lucy.
I’ve often said that perfection doesn’t exist in this universe. As it turns out, I was wrong. Because this –
It’s not like I didn’t know this was a possibility. Graham grew up here, and we’ve talked for years about potentially moving and living closer to family. Other places always just called a little louder.
How things have changed.
Let me back up.
I teased a big announcement a few weeks ago, and mentioned a few posts ago – back in August, maybe? – that lots of things were happening in our little corner of the world. So, now you know. The big news? We’ve moved! The lots of things? Making plans…to move.
We are officially residents of Virginia Beach.
I miss our village and our farmhouse fiercely. All the time. But now we’re closer to Graham’s parents, and Lucy will get to know them. That feels so important. (My parents helped us move, and plan to visit monthly. The beach and the grandbaby are good incentives to travel. 😊) Graham is so excited for Lucy to grow up at the ocean, and I’m interested in what life looks like in a beach town when it’s not summer.
We’ve set up shop in a lovely (20-year-old…what an adjustment!) house in a very nice neighborhood right on the water. The views are great.
We’ve got room now for a large, cozy couch, which Lucy and her BFF Merlin have put to good use already.
And Graham’s parents are just so elated to see Lucy as often as possible.
And y’all, Lucy has figured out how to climb the stairs at their house.
Her first birthday is next week, and she’s just growing so fast! It’s beautiful to watch.
Things are bittersweet around here, though. There’s so much to be happy about and grateful for. But every new beginning also means a goodbye, and this one hurts. I’m thankful for our time in an old home in the country, for the people we met there and the community that welcomed us and loved us and lifted us up whenever we needed it.
But you know what? You take yourself with you wherever you go, and all of that love is still part of me. It’s still part of us and the life we’ll build from here on out.
And I hope you’ll stay with me, too! I imagine there will be plenty to write about, being that I’m now a country mountain critter making a home in a busy beach city.
So cheers to the start of a new adventure, y’all! May it be good.
This is just a quick post to say: Hi! I’m still here. I miss all of you something fierce! Things are happening around here in my little corner of Virginia, and I’m planning to be back in October with a weekly post. I’ve got a lot to share, let me tell you.
In the meantime, how are you? How are things? How is life?
All good here, if a bit crazy. Lucy’s good.
Pets are good.
Graham and I are tired. But good.
I can’t wait to get back to creating soon. I hope you’ll be here when I do.
My parents came to visit last week. Graham’s work has been insane, and some nights he’s been up until 3:00 a.m. or later. We were struggling. We were both tired, our house was a mess. The cat’s feeling neglected. I don’t even want to talk about laundry.
We needed help. And we got it, and more.
My family has always done music. I’ve posted about it a lot, and I’m just so elated that Lucy seems to love music, too. My dad brought out his mandolin, and she was just fascinated.
Absolutely entranced. And she wanted to try it for herself.
She cried when he put it away. She’s never done that before, with any toy. (We got it back out and gave it back to her, of course.)
These little moments, they just keep coming. Lucy is an easy baby, but life around her has been generally chaotic. These sweet new memories make all that chaos seem like nothing at all.
It’s a blurry photo, I know, but too good a (new) memory to not share.
Our sweet Lucy Blue-Eyes made her big debut over the weekend, and we’re so excited to start getting her out and about to meet out friends and see our community. She had a good time, I think, and was very relaxed about the whole thing.
Mama, on the other hand, was an absolute mess. I know she can’t live in three rooms of our house her whole life, but going out where the people and the germs are makes me so nervous. I want her to know the world, but I also want to keep her safe from the bad things. This, I’m sure, is a parent’s ultimate dilemma.
At any rate, we went to one of our favorite places, and Lucy got to show off a shirt from one of my very best friends, and we had a chance to catch up with a few people, and Lucy took a big nap in the middle of all of it, and it was good. We’ll do it again, I’m sure.
Okay, so I’m a little late on this. I’ve been busy, you know?
Normally, every year, I set very specific goals and make plans for how I’m going to accomplish them. This year, things are a little different and my only goal is to be a good mom to Lucy while I figure everything else out. So, I’m trying something new. A lot of my friends choose a “word of the year” every year, and I’ve never done it. But new year, new things to try. So, here we go. My word this year is:
EMBRACE
Embrace this new life. Embrace these new challenges. Embrace the joys and the hardships and the highs and lows. Embrace myself, and Graham, and most especially, baby Lucy, who is so fun to cuddle. Embrace all the changes and embrace every moment, and hold these precious, brief days with both arms.
A 3:00 a.m. thought. But also a post I’ve been meaning to write.
It’s hard to believe that this time last year, Lucy was not even in the plan. Now she’s here, and she’s my whole life.
This time last year, we’d just gotten Merlin. Now he rules the house. Don’t tell Annie.
This time last year, we were in the middle of renovating and updating and the sounds of construction were the constant soundtrack of our days. It’s quiet around here now, except when Lucy cries, which is not often.
This time last year, I don’t think I could have imagined what things would look like today. How tiring and wonderful and short the days would be, and how much love my heart could hold, and just how happy we could be in our cozy little farmhouse, the three of us and our crazy pets.
I wonder what things will look like this time next year. I’m excited for all the joys and memories to come.
A Virginia Writer's Diary 