this no sleep thing is turning me very introspective. we thought we were done. knock wood, everyone was healthy. for about a minute and a half. then miss isabella decided it was time to start teething again. those eye teeth. the canines. the cuspids. she’s in so much pain. the poor kid is gnawing on anything and everything. she’s taken to shoving these giant pretzels into the hole between her teeth and biting down hard. she’s also stopped sleeping. completely. oh, the joys. we’re done having kids. trust me on this one. if my uterus ever comes begging for a new baby….i’ll just slap a good ole’ case of february 2007 in its face. that’ll show it.
anyway, on to the deep thoughts. On saturday night we went out to dinner with our friends. as we sat around the table someone pointed out that if we had done this five years ago…how different the people around the table would have been. most of them, almost all, would not have been there. we didn’t even know them 5 years ago. but i know that 5 years from now…those exact same people are going to be there. and even though Jack accused me of being drunk when we spoke about this, i know they all think the same thing. this is it. these are friends for life or longer.
i’ve spent a lot of my adult life feeling slightly out of place. uncomfortable in my own skin. uncomfortable with friends. uncomfortable with family. in high school, it was so easy. i knew exactly who my friends were. i knew who i’d eat lunch with every day. who i’d sit as assemblies with. who i’d go out with on the weekends. it was so…for lack of a better word…comfortable.
venturing out into the real world, the post high school world, where no one cares if you were the geek or you were the prom queen, no one cares if you had 1 friend or 100 friends, was not that easy. i spent a lot of time living in a new city, where i didn’t know anyone, feeling not enough. not funny enough. not smart enough. not pretty enough. not cool enough. not outgoing enough. not reserved enough. not skinny enough. not religious enough. not enough. ÂÂ
it took me a really long time to get there, considering i’ll be 29 in may (so, that’s what..11 years??!!), but i’m finally feeling good enough. i’m finally at a place where i can be myself. myself. it feels good to say it. freeing, almost. and i’m happy. i’m really, truly, honest-to-goodness, deep-down-to-my-core happy.
now if only i could get some sleep…
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