Transition, part 3: New Horizons

I went to court with J~ on Wednesday and watched him go through the nervous motions I went through several months earlier. Luckily for us, in this state there is no ninety-day waiting period. He had the paper declaring him officially "single and unmarried" in his hand two days later.

Our plan: go to town hall and get married as soon as possible, then take off for a honeymoon-appetizer weekend immediately thereafter. The actual honeymoon will have to wait until we have a plan for B~'s care and tickets to a warm and beachy destination yet to be determined.

I have one more day's work on the big magazine project that has dominated my life for the past few months, and four more meetings of the class I'm teaching. With breathing room in sight, the question I've been putting off has churned back to the surface: what is to become of this blog?

I began it on November 29th of last year, on the heels of my second miscarriage, while working as an abortion counselor. At that time, the Babies or Not question dominated my life. But shortly thereafter, my husband dropped a bomb on our marriage, and suddenly, for me anyway, the question became a slogan, a mantra: Babies or not, I told myself, I will get through this. I will be creatively and heartfully engaged in living.

Then J~ came along, cradling that precious question mark I thought I might've lost forever. It is especially poignant right now, as I'm a day away from the point in my menstrual cycle when my morning temperature usually takes a nose-dive and I begin to bleed. This morning and last, my temp has been slightly higher than usual (than ever before, actually). If it's high again tomorrow, I'll shoot over to the drug store for a pregnancy test. Otherwise, I'll be putting that question mark aside again for another month.

And that's the thing: I'm realizing now that I actually can put the question aside, and it is a relief. Babies or Not no longer dominates my life. I am in love. I am stepmothering. I am making art and writing and working and laughing into the night with my family and dinner guests as we toast marshmallows in the woodstove. I am making exciting plans for my life that do not preclude babymaking, but don't depend on it either. In other words, I am moving on.

And so, I am marking November 29th on my calendar for the potential last entry in this blog. I might come back, on occasion, to add updates and epilogues, but more likely, I'll start a new blog altogether.

As usual, I'll keep you posted.