I didn’t know what I was getting into.

Exactly a year ago, on Thanksgiving 2009, I revealed my super secret “creative project” to my family.  Up until that day, Embrace the Detour was just a figment of my imagination.  Yes, I owned the domain name and yes, I had paid someone to design the site (back then, I knew exactly nothing about HTML and the ins and outs of Wordpress), but since no one knew about ETD, I could pretend it didn’t exist.

But I didn’t want to.  Not back then, anyway.  Shot through with third trimester pregnancy hormones, I was raring to go.  I didn’t want to wait until Lil Mil arrived.  Eager to convince myself (and everyone else) that I COULD DO THIS! I started working on my first post (which, I’ll admit, took me over a week to write).

While certainly supportive, my family had mixed feelings about this creative project of mine.  Husband in particular was lukewarm.  He was excited that I was excited, but at the same time, he was worried that I was taking on too much.

I was.

Of course at the time I didn’t realize that.  I honestly believed that I could write — and finish! — a novel in the first three months of my baby’s life, and I said as much on my Because page.  Believe me, if I’d known how incredibly hard the undertaking would prove to be, I never would’ve made such a grand (and public) pronouncement.

Thank God I didn’t know.

By the time I realized what I’d signed up for, it was too late.  There were too many people watching and, even more than that, too many people telling me to give up.  It was too much, they said.

They were right, of course, but I refused to accept that.  So I kept at it.  Kept juggling.  Kept struggling.  Kept writing.

Three months turned into 100 days.  My definition of “draft” morphed into something more manageable.  My blog posts became less frequent.

But I kept at it.  Kept juggling.  Kept struggling.  Kept writing.

And today, one year after this blog was born and 10 months and 8 days after my baby was born, I have a completed novel to show for it.  And!  On top of that, I have something unexpected.  A community.  This community.  Friends!  Not the fake, we-met-over-the-Internet kind, but the real, live, we-met-over-the-Internet kind.  Friends like Rachel of MWF Seeking BFF (who I met in person two weeks ago and am now obsessed with.  Rachel, if I move to Chicago can I please be your BFF?)

Thank God for unrealistic expectations.  Thank God for this blog and the book that came out of it.  Thank God for the baby who’s made all the juggling and struggling worthwhile.  Thank God for the boy who is juggling and struggling with me, holding my hand while I do it.

And thank God for you, my friends.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Any day now, Lil Mil will take her first steps.  Someone will be there to see it. 

It won’t be me.

Yes, I’m being pessimistic, but I’m also going with the odds.  During the week, I see my daughter for about two hours every morning.  Sometimes less.  On the weekends, I’m with her all day, but we’re usually out doing stuff, so she doesn’t spend much time on her feet.  It’s during the week, while I’m at work and she’s with S (the part-time babysitter who became our full-time nanny when we yanked Lil Mil out of daycare - see what you missed while I was away?) that she prances around the house, holding on to her wooden pushtoy, hamming it up for the applause she’s come to expect (if she doesn’t get it, she’ll plop down and clap for herself).

Most weeks, there’s at least a chance I’d be there to  witness those monumental first steps.  But this week, Lil Mil is with Mom and Dad for the week (mine, not hers), which means that if she decides to walk in the next six days, I will most certainly miss it.

Is it horrible that I’m willing my daughter not to walk just because I want to be there when she does?

I’ve been gone for awhile.  Too long.

Has it really been more than two months since my last post?  Apparently so.  The date stamp don’t lie.

What have I been doing with myself?  Working.  And…

Nope.  Just working.

I’m not gonna lie.  I do not wear a wild and happy grin most of the time.  I wear it sometimes — like weekend mornings and the exceedingly rare weekday evenings when I manage to get home from work before Lil Mil goes to bed — but the rest of the time I wear the glazed half-smile (and by “half” I mean “totally fake”) of a person who is going through the motions.  A person who spends the bulk of her day sitting bleary-eyed in front of a computer screen (a PC!  Ick!), staring at a contract that needs drafting or an email that needs crafting, wondering what the amazing creature she used to spend every second with is doing.  Without her. 

Don’t get me wrong – I am happy.  Wildly happy, in fact.  My daughter is a giggly ball of curiousity who laughs more than she cries.  My husband is an even better version of the completely awesome man I married 5 years ago next week.  I’m working on a TV project that I’m exceptionally excited about.  I’m shopping a novel I’m genuinely proud of.  

The problem isn’t that I don’t like where I am or what I’m doing.  The problem is that I don’t have the time or mental space to notice where I am or what I’m doing.  I’m always either wholly occupied by work or wholly occupied by the desire to be somewhere other than work.  And when I’m not at work, I’m working my way through my laughably long to-do list.  I’ve given into the momentum of my life, letting it push me along.  I’ve started drifting through my days, letting each day bleed into the next, not keeping track or taking note of milestones big or small. 

No more.

Starting today, I’m back.  Back to blogging, yes, but more than that, back to noticing.  To reflecting.  To relishing.  To cherishing.

To living.

It’s my new routine (I love routines):  Husband drops me off at work (we’ve been riding together since my In-laws, aka our life-saving live-in nannies, arrived two weeks ago to keep Lil Mil who is not yet in the daycare we thought she’d be in by August 1st), and I go into my building and down to the concourse level where there’s a Starbucks and a little takeaway cafe that sells hot breakfast food.  While I’m waiting for my coffee, I walk across to the cafe and order a small oatmeal with walnuts, almonds and brown sugar, a delectable concoction that costs $3.51.  Not exceptionally cheap, but not expensive enough to use a credit card  (the cafe has a $5 minimum).  Knowing this, I ’ve started carrying cash.  Today, however, I walked in knowing that I only had 2 one-dollar bills in my wallet, and thus was fully prepared to add a banana I wouldn’t eat or package of cookies I shouldn’t eat but totally would, just to meet the minimum.

As I was surveying my options, pretending there was a chance I’d pick something other than the cookies, I remembered that I had some change in my wallet, maybe even some quarters.  So I dumped all my coins onto the counter and counted it:

2 quarters

8 dimes

3 nickels

6 pennies

I had exactly $3.51 in my wallet.  Exactly the amount I needed.  Not a penny more.  Not a penny less.

“I have exactly the right amount!” I exclaimed, grinning at the guy behind the counter.  (The guy I love dearly because he doesn’t need to ask my order, but he doesn’t assume I want the same thing every morning.  “Oatmeal?” he’ll say as I walk up.  Giving me the option to order something else.  Not pigeonholing me.  Just remembering what I like.)

I handed him the 2 bills and opened my hand to show him the coins.  “That has to mean something, right?”

The man just smiled, taking the money and ringing me up.  “Exactly the right amount!” I said again, this time to the businessman behind me in line.  He looked past me, pointing at the counter.

“You missed one,” he said.

There, completely overlooked, was a single penny.

Not the right amount.  A penny more.

And just like that, the moment felt less shiny.  Somehow less true.

The guy behind the counter reached for it.  He set the coin on the lid to my oatmeal and handed both to me.

“Exactly the right amount,” he said with a smile.   ”For the oatmeal, and for good luck.”

Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin,
But onward, upward, till the goal ye win.
- Francis Anne Kemble (1809-1893)