I’ve neglected this blog in the last month and there are good reasons for that. Life has changed so completely in the past few weeks that I feel almost paralyzed as I sit here attempting to explain it all, complex as it is, in a tiny little blog post.
There’s no good way to begin so I will just dive in with the biggest news of all.
Brian and I are having a baby
If you’ve been following the blog you know how torn I’ve felt over my desire for two kinds of lives: One of roots or one of adventure. And having a child was always the big question mark that bobbed there in the space between the two decisions. I’ve always felt like my purpose in life is to birth books. I was less sure about birthing a human. Was there room in my life for both? The answer, when it came, was yes.
So far this has not been easy for me. I have been throwing up all hours of the day and night. My brain feels frazzled and I am bone tired. In the few lucid hours of my days, I have been working on my book.
And, somehow, through an honest-to-god feat of endurance, I finished the first draft of my book. I finished my book proposal too. And then I wrote a query letter and began the long and soul-crushing search for an agent, readying myself for months of rejection.
But then a miracle happened. I got a literary agent. In a week.
He is a real-deal, bigwig, NYC literary agent. But most importantly he is as excited about my book as I am and he thinks it has enormous potential. We have a long way to go. For starters, we need to sell my book. But this is the first step in a dream that I have held for so long, one that I had no idea if I would ever achieve.
Yesterday, the agent contract arrived in my inbox. And I screamed and jumped around our apartment like my legs were on fire. Then Brian and I took a hot, bumpy bus ride into Puerto Vallarta to see our baby for the first time. As we watched it kick and flip in my belly and we listened to that heartbeat, sure and strong as anything, I thought this is all happening. Brian took pictures of the sonogram and the doctor cooed over our little jumping bean and I blinked away tears because I have two hearts now.
The past few months have been so full of big decisions. It all feels right but overwhelming too. We have once again set out on a path where there are no guarantees and no real answers. The truth is, traveling has become easy, and commonplace. Going home feels both exotic and daunting now.
Last night I stripped down in our empty apartment and climbed into the shower. I put the water on hot and held my teary face up to the steam. In the quiet of the bathroom, I whispered, “Thank you.” And when the words hit my ears they were so raw and absolute that I had to sit down from the power of them.
Here’s the thing of all things, the absolute truest truth I know: Some unmistakably essential part of my life is coming to an end. But I am standing at the edge of everything.
