Dreams are built around the word hello

I’m sure my sixth-grade self didn’t imagine a 28-year-old me who was still writing on OD; I’m also sure my 23-year-old me didn’t imagine a me who was able to write on OD once again.

But after 4+ years of writing on Prosebox, now *that* is what feels like home. What does OD give me that I haven’t already found elsewhere? In sixth grade, this place was a refuge, a place to find people who weren’t from the same tiny town as me, who could give me friendship and advice I couldn’t find in real life. At 28, the entire world is open to me already, and I have places to share my thoughts. I don’t see myself paying for a subscription here because I don’t know what this place has to offer me that’s not fulfilled somewhere else in my life.

Still, OD is a part of who I am as a person, so it’s impossible for me to imagine not at least saying hello.

Life is so much better now than I ever though it would be. Since my last entry? Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. I ended up staying with Sephora as a permanent employee. I left the teaching job in Portland after just one school year. Ryan and I moved into an 800-sq-ft studio in the middle of downtown Portland and it was the best freaking almost-year, walking three miles every day and eating cupcakes all the time, walking to work, spending all of our waking hours being Us.

After only ten months, though, we bought a house and moved back to the midwest.

It’s incredible. It’s a small house, but it’s perfect for us. We adopted a border collie and he’s a daily delight. I have a grand piano in one of the spare bedrooms. We spend so much time with Ryan’s parents, and my parents are easy to visit on a weekend. I commuted 35 minutes to a Sephora, started teaching with my old piano studio again, quit Sephora after a year and a half here (almost 3 total) to instead accompany at a middle school. So now I have two jobs, and they’re both piano-related, and Ryan no longer works for Apple but for a small local business that actually cares about his work-life balance and mental wellbeing, and our lives are so much less stressful than they used to be.

And how could I update you on my life if I didn’t tell you that I am currently writing this from our nursery.

We took apart the office and painted it this weekend, built the crib late last night, brought all the rest of the furniture in this morning. Just counting down the less-than-100 days until our tiny baby is here. Ryan has been feeling movement for more than a month, but tonight for the first time he felt a real body part pushing against him, not just my body moving, and the look on his face is my favorite.

Life is so good. I hope it has treated all of you well, too.