I am ready for a new beginning. Many corporations and agencies end their fiscal year June 30 so this year I declare my New Year around the corner, too.
Changes over the past few months feel to be coming together to prove pivotal.
1. Migraines are under control. What a blessing! Thank you for all of your prayers and suggestions! It has been over two weeks! Topamax is my friend. I was very leery of it, but love it. I also keep Imitrex injections with me but, thankfully, have not had to use it yet and maybe never will. Gatorade along with lots of water helps keep low level headaches at bay. Life is good, it has always been good, but it is so much easier to appreciate that fact without daily migraines knocking down my door.
2. Weaning my youngest, and expected last child, has changed me. Besides the need for new, smaller bras, I feel differently. I have come to the long over due realization that I am no longer a “young mother”. (When one is pregnant or nursing it is easier to hold onto that bit of fantasy of being “young”.) Now 40 looms closer than ever. Truly, I do not dread it nor do I covet youth, (I covet energy) I am simply trying to find my place, figure out what follows “young mother”.
3. High School is upon us. The same week I weaned Rosie, Arwen turned 14. The beginning of the end. Only four years or so until she is on her own, an adult, we are almost done the majority of our part with her. And with all of the kids being about two years apart, each will soon follow. My mother has always been the warning voice that these precious years with little ones would go quickly, but with all of the kids being about two years apart I have had perpetual toddlers followed by babies followed by toddlers and it seemed never to end. Now I believe her.
4. Community Action. It has taken a year of being on the Board of Directors for our local Community Action Agency to really figure out what it is all about, and now I am hooked. This is where I need to be. Sociology was my major and my passion in college, I never wavered from my major like most students do. I went to graduate school for Sociology, mostly so I could teach undergraduate classes. Ironically, my Masters thesis, which never came to fruition, (but I did present a paper on it at the American Sociological Association conference) was on Head Start. Why is that ironic? Because Community Action is where Head Start started. I lost momentum in sociology because I wanted to make a difference in the world by doing not just researching which is the primary focus of sociology. (I was married my senior year of college and was subsequently quite happily pregnant second year into grad school but was severely anemic and slept all the time.) I wish I had found Community Action then, but maybe that was not meant to be. But I am certain it is meant to be now. For more information on what is Community Action check out http://www.communityactionpartnership.com/about/about_caas/default.asp#what_are
5. Stake service. I was just this week called to serve in the Stake Primary Presidency, which in LDS jargon means I am with two other women who oversee the children’s organizations (18 months-12 years old) in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in this region, eight congregations spread over about 125 mile radius. Our main purpose is to support the leaders of the children’s organizations, to give them the support, love, training, and information they need. It will involve traveling most Thursday evenings for meetings and one or two Sundays most months. It is a change from administering locally to regionally, although I have not been serving with the children for a few years but doing lots of other things ; ) I am very excited about the new calling! Our church is all lay ministry, no paid positions. I hesitate to say “volunteer” because we don’t actual volunteer but are called to serve and then given the choice to accept the call or not. I most joyfully accepted! I love to teach and one of my favorite things to teach is how to teach! Getting to travel around the area and meet new people is also so exciting.
Five is good, I’ll stop there. You get point. Change, change, change. I seek to embrace it, find my place, get on with new adventures! No time to mourn the past–celebrating it becomes part of moving on. Sounds good, now we’ll see if I can do it!
