{Photo credit: Chelsey Osborne Photography}
Hi, my name is Kate, and I’m addicted to change.
My husband and I missed the whole opposites-attract memo; he’s got the bug, too. In the just over six years we’ve been together, we’ve lived in five homes in two states. We’ve had a combined nine jobs. Four cars. Too many frequent flier miles to count. Dozens of race medals (we’re both runners) from different places and distances. Oh, and somewhere in there we snuck in growing, birthing and raising a tiny human who’s just about finished her second trip around the sun.
With the people I love scattered across the country (and world), I’ve got a fantastic collection of friends and family whom I don’t get to see as often as I’d like. Sometimes a ridiculous amount of time goes by between our check-ins, so it’s not uncommon to get (or ask) The What’s-New Question.
From my brilliant friends and family, I hear of new careers, new businesses, new babies, new homes, new goals. The sheer excitement of changes to come and the exhilaration (and exhaustion) of being in their midst.
From me, they hear an awkward silence before I stutter that, um, nothing’s really new, but, uh, things are good?
We own our house and work good, stable jobs. We have a newish vehicle that just might, with a little luck and regular oil changes, last long enough be our kiddo’s first car. The time and money we set aside for travel, we use to visit family. We run, like we’ve always run, but neither my husband nor I are currently training for any big races or to set any land-speed records. We get up every day, go to work and daycare, do the evening blur, go to bed and do it all again.
Objectively, there’s nothing new.
Except we have a toddler, which means we have a new toddler every day.
A person who this morning woke up laughing because, “I dream Grandpa! Being silly!”
Who today wants to wear the American flag socks (Why do we own these?) and drink out of the dinosaur cup and eat with the green spoon and not wear a jacket and bring Morris the monkey in the car and sing some “choo train” song I can’t quite decipher.
Who gives dive-bomb hugs, serves up pineapple-fish sandwiches piping hot from her play oven and, when we kiss her goodnight and lay her down in her crib, says, “OK, move back” and waves us away.
Today.
Tomorrow, who knows?
Maybe tangibly the answer to The What’s-New Question is still “nothing.”
But every day, I get a new person staggering across the living room floor in saggy pajamas.
A new human being with new wants and needs and things that make her laugh (and totally melt down).
So while someday I’ll start itching for a new house or job or car or trip or race, a dive-bomb hug from a new daughter every morning gets me my fix for now.
