What I Love About Fall.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this is going to be one of the many odes to fall that you’ve probably read lately.

Stuff like:

Everything pumpkin
Candles
Chilly nights by the wood-burning fireplace (that I don’t have)
Gathering warm babies into bed with you when dawn breaks (this I do have)
Hayrides
HAUNTED Hayrides
Apple Picking (with a pantless preschooler..not that I’ve done that or anything..)
Fall clothes
Not having to shower twice a day or do extra, sweaty laundry during an endless heat wave

And it’s true – I love all of that stuff and much, much more. However, what I love about this fall is..

Not being pregnant. (Although I was pretty darn cute by the end of last fall):

What I love about this fall is..

Not potty-training a two-year-old while being pregnant:

What I love about this fall is..

Not moving to a new house in a freak snowstorm while potty-training a two-year-old while being pregnant:

Man, it even makes parenting a new baby while transitioning a three-year-old into nursery school seem like a cakewalk. I kid you not. I guess it’s the not having to pack up your life and fall in love with somewhere new thing. I guess it’s the not feeling utterly nauseous and repulsed by everything thing. You mean I’ll get to eat my Halloween candy and my Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners without feeling like vomiting? I’ll be able to smell scented candles without dry heaving?

Aces.

It’s not that I have it all, by any stretch of my dreamy imagination, but I once talked to a therapist about what it’s like after you’ve gotten something, or many things, that you always wanted. It’s a strange thing. As a teenager I was always afraid of eventually finding the one love of my life (if such a thing exists) because I was afraid to lose that falling in love feeling. I love looking forward so much that I lose sight of what it means to look at the right now. We talked about that, “Well, what now? What next?” feeling and how it’s about what you do with what you newly have, how to get comfortable on your current level of standing, and then how to find the courage to climb the next mountain of what you want to achieve in your life.

Lately, I’ve been noticing lots of new houses and new pregnancies/babies going on around me. And while we’re still technically in the honeymoon phase (under one year) with our new house, and while I only have a three-month-old, it’s still strange to think they might both be the last. Cassidy is much more realistic than I am. He says, “Never say never.” And since there’s no chance in hell I’d want to move right now, or get pregnant again, it’s easy to believe I’ll always feel this way.

I probably won’t. I just don’t know. I like this somewhat steady footing, or rather, what feels like more steady footing than last year. There are no guarantees in anything, and there could be an avalanche tomorrow. Whatever. I feel slightly steady RIGHT NOW and I’m just going to enjoy that for what it is. There are other goals to achieve and other heights to scale.

For right now there’s no pregnancy. No moving. Music to my ears.

What I love about this fall is..

Not being in motion. Well, that’s not totally true. I guess I’m always in motion, currently (and happily) working on several glorious and difficult things:

A confident preschooler
An intense baby
A long overdue photography business
Writing, writing, writing
Marriage, marriage, marriage

I’m in the kind of motion that doesn’t spin you around too fast and make you feel motion sick.

Slow but steady. Impossibly slow, but just noticeably steady.