2010. Year of the future...until next year.

So I realized I haven't really summed up 2009. There's a blog I read, Que Sera Sera, and the woman who writes it met a boyfriend a while ago and is now engaged. Since she met him, I've been finding the blog less interesting. She's very happy, but it doesn't always make for good reading. How unfair of me though, isn't it? My blog was much more interesting when I was slogging away in a bank, so bored and unhappy, that I was forced to observe the life going on around me and document it as an escape. Now? Pregnancy, pregnancy, pregnancy, blah, blah, blah right?

From a personal perspective, getting wrapped up in your own life is usually a good sign. Getting wrapped up in the person you love or your child...your life as a family; It's why couples with children are so intolerable often times, to people without. There's a closing in of your world. I don't think it has to mean you become a simpering idiot with nothing left in life to think about except your child's poop or your husband's favourite sandwich. I do think it makes you look around less to find external meaning or entertainment though.

When all I did was work, I had to scour through every tiny event to propel me from moment to moment. Noticing all the details, got me through the day and telling you about it made these bits of life seem more funny or more interesting than they probably were.

Documenting something while it's happening has always made the present more...well, present for me. The more photos I take during a trip, the more I remember and experience it. The act of framing and contextualizing life makes it feel more vivid and memorable. That's what this blog is for. I'd love to be altruistic and think only of the audience and ensure my posts were well-crafted and memorable each time...however, mostly, I'm just telling you how I feel, for real.

Pregnancy has been an overwhelmingly present thing for me the past 9 months. Waiting at the end of it like this is a complex mix of impatience, excitement, fear and a great deal of the ineffable.

Behind it though, still remains my individual self. Most would agree that one of the great challenges of parenting is embracing the all encompassing love and concern and focus you have on your children while retaining your sense of self and your relationship with your partner, family and friends. Your former self is a wire from the past, stretching through the present, holding you to yourself. Sometimes, people stretch it too far or maybe find it a nuisance and cut it. I won't presume to judge one way or the other. People do this even without families or children. We all know someone who has changed in way that is so distanced from how you knew them, that they might as well be a different person all together.

In a way, that even sounds appealing. There are parts of me that I would love to rise above and leave behind in the ashes. Parts that maybe some of the people I know, would find to be the main reason they relate to me.

Other parts, I'm sure, will tenaciously endure. I hope those are the parts that allow you and I to continue to relate, despite changes in circumstance between either of us.

Right now, the stretch of the near future seems like such unknown territory. It's hard to envision myself (as I currently know myself) in this future. Perhaps it will come and be as mysterious as it seems. On the other hand, maybe it will come and seem as natural as today or yesterday.

I really haven't a clue. I do intend to continue documenting it and cloistered as it may seem, I hope you continue enjoying reading about it and sharing it with me.

So 2009? Not a whole lot to list. Marriage and pregnancy. Two really big things that filled the year up like an infinitely, inflating balloon. That's an accurate description of how I physically feel right now too. Even trying to think of other things, that may have occurred this year, makes my brain jump around erratically like I'm asking it to find a pin I dropped in the grass when all my brain wants to do is go running across the field, into the horizon to see what's up ahead.

So good-bye 2009. You were eventful and flew by as much as crawled past at times. Certainly, your legacy moves me forward into 2010. Which, by the way, sounds like the most ridiculously made-up year ever. 2010? It's a joke year of science fiction movies. Are we really there? I guess we are. For at least another year, anyway. So let's see what happens. Let's see how it all turns out.

Thanks to Que Sera Sera, though, I discovered this blog today which is pretty much exactly what I'm talking about. Check this out here. (myparentswereawesome.tumblr.com)