The "Time Before"

Throughout my life, I have always been keenly aware of when I'm actively in a "time before."

The time before college.
The time before I started work.
The time before I moved to Rochester to be with David.
The time before we had Madison.
The time before we moved to Virginia.
And now...
The time before we moved back to Rochester.

Each of these "times" has a crisp point at which life abruptly swings you around in a new direction, where to some extent life begins anew, and you get to re-evaluate, and start over. Because these moments are planned, we have the luxury of using the concentrated "time before" as a period of contemplation for who we will be in our new life.

But these are also the times when, because you're about to be swung around again, there's an odd void in your imagination when you try to visualize what's in store. Some things just defy projection, such as becoming a mother. Before Madison was born, I couldn't imagine what her face would look like, and then in an instant there she was, and life whirled around and clicked me into a new place.

In this case, of course, I can visualize our new life all over the place. I've seen photos of the beautiful house we're moving into, I run a web site with all of the kid-friendly details about the area. We'll experience the "Norm" barstool phenomenon all over the place when the girls and I go to the nature center, or gymnastics, or karate.

And yet...it's still one of those points. It's still immensely stressful. I'm sitting here in the family room in Charlottesville, and I almost can't believe that in less than 48 hours I'll never be here again. Never. A stark word, that.

It's a new life, again, only a year and a half after the last new life, which promptly got put on hold because of the mess with Archimedes. We're settling in, this time, though, for the long haul. I'm 37, David is 48, it's definitely time to settle in and live. I'm hoping very much that this is the last "time before" for a long, long time.

Until...

Oh dear, until the girls leave home.

Fortunately, I have the next decade to plan for that one.