What are memories, really...

Day 2349: If I have learned one thing as a sailor's wife, it us the shocking fact that you will move, and you best learn to like it or at least make the best of it. With each place comes new adventure and being the girl that was going to move just down the street from my parents, it is always something new. 

Each new duty station come with the packing and unpacking and repacking and refusal to do anything related to packing. I'll go ahead and be honest, we have been at our current duty station for over a year, and I still haven't finished unpacking! Why, do you ask? Well that's a great question. The answer is because I have learned that I don't need all the things I have. Sure, the fancy extras and "stuff" as it were, used to be important to me at some point. I mean it surely must have been for me to willingly move it across the country more than once, but why is it important. Most of that stuff I haven't touched or even looked at in years!

But nonetheless, I have grown emotionally attached to my stuff. Each little thing was a reminder of where I have been and how far I have come in my life, be it the out dated textbooks (I can still get some $$ for those!!), or the little scrap of paper I wrote my baby sister's hypothetical names on when my brothers and I helped my parents pick (they went with my choice, but it's not like it was a competition). And some of these things are worth keeping. That scrap of paper still sticks out of the baby name book my darling dear and I keep handy for our random discussions about our eventual offspring. But I can't keep everything. I can't hold onto every little paper, every little gift I was ever given, every small thing that ment something at some point, because that's not what a real memory is.

A memory is the smell of my parents juke box in our play room growing up, or the way I remember my grandmother reading by the window when I got home from school. It's the sound of a crashing plastic ride-on car skidding through our driveway, or the time I hugged my grandpa goodbye knowing I wouldn't see him again. It's the holler of the angry neighbor as my roommate and I built furniture well into the night we moved into our first apartment. It's the laughter from day I met Darling Dear when he thought I was drunk but just realized I'm crazy, or sound of the tears coming from my mother as I moved across the country for the first time. It's the feeling I had when I stood in front of all the important people in my life and stammered to keep Darling Dear as my best friend forever. 

It's a feeling, or a smell, or a sound. An experience, not a thing. And though getting rid of the "stuff" is hard, I remind myself that I am making way for new memories and that I am not really letting go of the ones from my past.

Babies are following me everywhere...

Day 2336: People really aren't kidding when they say that there is a time in your life that you will become baby crazy. Let's be honest, I never truly expected the moment when our parents stopped discouraging "getting jiggy with it" and started encouraging it instead. But since we have always been open about the subject of having a baby, it has become a bit of a running joke for us now a days.

I have always been a bit on the baby crazy side. I knew I wanted to be a mother from the get-go. I have always loved babies and can never seem to get enough of them. Their precious little cheeks, fingers, and toes, and don't even get me started on their little blubbering sounds and baby socks! I nearly die every time I see one out of envy alone!

Darling Dear is a little bit more of a distance admirer. The idea of our own baby is all fine and great, but he isn't usually the type to offer up to holding someone else's spawn. A smile, maybe, but lets face it, who can look at a baby and not smile. But after over a year of trying to make our own little person, even he is going baby crazy! Enough to almost enjoy my endless expression of love for anything baby, smiling at everything related, and even holding the babies of our friend! Shocking!

Because of this, though, I find that the babies seem to be following me everywhere! Darling Dear was the one to broach the "are we ready" convo, so at least I never felt like I was making him take the next step before he was ready, but his show of enthusiasm has flipped another switch in me and I think I have become full on baby INSANE!

I'm hanging in there. Each month brings new challenges but at least we are enduring together. And when I think about one day, when I will get to hold that little bundle in my arms, none of the waiting, or baby crazy will matter anymore. But more than that, I can't wait to share that day and experience it with Darling Dear.

Sometimes late at night...

Day 2334: Sometimes, late at night, I find it difficult to sleep. My brain is wrought with thoughts and lists, and "My gosh! Did I remember to do this and that?!?!?" And sometimes I just want to sleep so badly, and it just isn't coming.

Blame it on daylight-savings, or Darling Dear's wacky schedule (Yes, I get up when he does. Who else would pack him a lunchy??), though I admittedly will return to the sweet comfort of my warm bed for a nap, but sometimes, I just can't rest. Maybe the overload of thoughts and ideas, questions and wonderings, just refuse to let me try.

But deep down, part of me thinks that it's the struggles. The triumphs are great, don't get me wrong, but the pondering of what might have been and what is yet to be has me stuck in a mood that I just can't seem to kick, dwelling on the thing that is just out of my grasp.

"It will happen in it's own time," they say, and sure enough as the sleep will be, with each dusky night, the struggles will end and the day will come. Sometimes, it just takes a little longer to get there. But that doesn't make it any easier.