I'm getting bad at this

I keep forgetting to blog. I know that no one's day is incomplete without my blog. I'm not some literary genius that leaves my readers begging for more. But for posterity's sake I do feel like I should be a little better balanced on the ball, so to speak.

Things of recent importance:

School is going well. My Music Appreciation class was a complete nightmare, but I got out alive and with an A. The teacher was an awful and mean shrew, but she could not bring me down. I defeated the dragon! Now I am only in Comp II, Spanish II, and Computer Science. English and Spanish are in the bag, of course (knock on wood), but this Computer Science is kicking my behind. I am so not on this level of thinking. I'm not even in the same building, or the same town as these concepts for that matter. After I read my textbook or work on a project I honestly feel physically exhausted and stupid. If I pull a B out in this class it will be from my behind. I hope I can pull it off.

Also, in the world of academics, I have been invited to join Phi Theta Kappa (right?) and I think I am going to accept. I researched it extensively online and it gets really great reviews as being helpful to students and Alumni on many levels. I'm going for it. I'm a natural joiner and participator anyway.

In bigger news:

My baby is ONE! I can't even understand or comprehend that it has been an entire year since I was laid up in the hospital hallucinating cardboard cutouts of women and hyperventillating from a bad pain med reaction. I cannot fathom that it has been a whole year since I undressed nervously in the delivery room bathroom and looked at my big baby belly for the last time. I am reflecting back on those little memories when my life was so drastically changed in one weekend.

They tell you a baby changes everything, and of course it makes complete sense. But you cannot fully understand what that means until it happens. I had a gradual 9 months to get used to the idea of being a mother, of loving someone more than anyone in the world, of putting my needs on the back burner. But even these things are magnified ten-fold when they slop that messy baby on your chest and you see the face you have been longing to gaze upon for 40 weeks. This little person is entirely yours for better or worse, and you are so blessed whether you know it or not. He changed me. I am hardly anything like the girl I was before I gave birth. Sure, I was 24 and a respected professional adult. But I do not feel like I became a woman until I became someone's mother.

He has changed my priorities. He has changed my relationships to my parents and my boyfriend/his father. He has changed my spiritual point of view. He has changed how I deal with problems, what I think is worth fretting over and what I no longer think is such a big deal. He has changed my set of friends, my maturity level, my tolerance for others, and even my body. Nothing is the same. And I'm okay with that.

I won't lie. There are days that I wish I could go back to everything being about me. There are times when my friends are out having a blast and doing what I had intended on doing during this phase of my life that I mourn the loss of fun, careless nights. I feel guilty when I feel this way, and that's normal. I don't regret having my son, and those pangs of regret that pop up are completely drowned out by the song of his laughter.

My son. He is everything I never knew I always wanted. He is everything I needed. I realize now that these years are going to pass by all too quickly. I wish I could bask in his innocent smile and bright, amazed eyes for all of eternity. But I know that I cannot. Instead I will record these thoughts that I might remember to cherish every moment, good or bad. Even when I am tearing my hair out, exhausted and sick of him, I hope that I remember that one day he will not be my little man. He will be a college student, a professional, a husband, a father, and I will not be the person he comes home to anymore.

For now, though, he makes me feel like life is perfect even when it is so very flawed.

Just musing

     Most of the time when I finish watching a movie I wish it could keep on going so I would know exactly what happens to all the characters fo rthe rest of forever. Seldomn do movies go that far, and when they do it can be traumatic, like Immortal Beloved. However, I just feel like I need all these loose ends to be tied that most movie-makers leave dangling uselessly as the credits begin to roll. I was especially thinking of this while I watched My Girl 1 and 2 on Saturday.
     When I was a kid My Girl was one of my favorite movies, and Veda my favorite character of all times. I think she ranks pretty high to this day. I was just like her at that age, full of spunk and tenacity, wise beyond my years. I wanted to be her, and mostly I was. People would even tell me I looked like "the little girl from My Girl", and that was perhaps the best compliment my 7 year old ears had ever heard. With so much potential, there was no doubt in my mind that Veda would be going places and I would be trotting along behind her, eagerly awaiting the next adventure. But there never was a My Girl 3, and maybe I can blame that fact on losing my way. For even a headstrong girl with such radiance needs encouragement and a firm hand to guide her along the rougher terrain.
     So maybe it's better that they didn't make a third. Because for all we know, Nick (My Girl 2 love interest) could have convinced Veda to move to California where she fell in with the wrong crowd. She might have started off right, but some whim (as often comes to girls of our nature) probably pulled her off the Ivy League path toward some uncertain adventure. Before she can blink twice she's down to her elbows in soapy dishes and up to her ears with regret, listening to a crying baby in the background and staring listelessly out the window wondering if Nick will even be home tonight. What-Might-Have and What-Should-Have-Been are relentlessly gnawing at her ankles and whispering their angry, hateful words behind her back.
      I suppose Hollywood-Folk know that movie magic can only take you so far before the characters must be thrown into the real world, and that rarely makes for a heart-warming story. Still, I can't help but wonder if somewhere out in Movieland Veda is living the life of our childhood dreams, or suffering a fate similar to the rest of us. I'm not sure which outcome would make me feel better.