on hold

Mike and I went to a birthday party for our friend's baby last Saturday.  She was turning one, and the room was packed with his family and friends, and their pregnant friends, and the babies of other friends.  So many babies were crawling around that at one point I told Mike that I was scared to move because I felt like a giant and feared I would squish one. 

And a strange thing happened.  It seems I have somehow come to the point in my life where strangers think it is socially acceptable to ask when you are going to have a baby.  And, the truth is, we're starting to think about it.  And so I decided to tell the questioning people that.  The pregnant women were very excited to hear this, I think knowing that non-pregnant people might someday soon be in their position was comforting.  But later that day we went on to my grandmother's house, and the topic came up again, and so I told my aunts what we were thinking.  One started clapping with excitement, one told me I was crazy and too young and what was I thinking I hadn't even seen the world yet, and later that day on the phone with my brother, he came back with, "why don't you guys just relax for a while".

I get where he's coming from.  Mike is unemployed, no one is hiring teachers, and we're just coming out of several months of an intense emotional roller coaster.  Actually, not a roller coaster but more like that freefall ride, where you plummet down a few stories with your stomach in your throat and your knuckles white from gripping the safety bar so tightly*.  That's a bit more fitting.  So, it's been rough, but we're better now and it feels good to talk about all that will come next, instead of being weighed down by the past.

We have put things on hold before.  We had been talking about getting engaged when Mike's dad got sick, but decided to wait until he was better.  And then he got worse, and then he passed away, and then we were sad for a long time.  When things got easier, we got engaged, only to suffer the next great loss just days before the wedding.  So I guess we don't believe that holding off until some future relaxed date is really the answer.  Because life is going to keep happening.  I hope we're through with the tremendous sad stuff for a while, but who knows.  I'm just not so sure we're willing to put anything else on hold again.  But for now, it's just talk, and I think we've learned to maybe keep these conversations to ourselves-which is a funny thing to say as I am about to hit "publish post"...

*I haven't actually been on this ride because I am not a crazy person, but I've seen it drop with my friends in it while I watch from a safe distance on a Six Flags park bench..so I can imagine.