Sweet

Meet Sweet, the pig-nosed, meatball-cheeked, apple of my focus for the last 34 weeks. I love this little worm nestled contentedly on the right side of my belly, poking at my bladder and jabbing at my ribcage.

With only 6 more weeks to go, I find myself reminiscing fondly about these last 7 ½ months and thanking the wrinkly little alien for being so kind to his/her work-a-holic of a mother. Save a 24 hour cold, I never got sick (I’m thankful for good vitamins, strong genes, or perhaps both). Save the pre-programmed exhaustion of my first trimester, I managed to survive my work weeks often on limited amounts of red-eye-induced sleep and forever changing time zones. Save an instant thickening of my once curvaceous waist, to the untrained eye my pregnancy was well concealed until my 5th month and my ankles have yet to swell (I still sport 4 inch heels to social events). Save a vivid dream or two that were the likely result of internal activity, I have never been awakened by the baby’s movements; never felt pain, discomfort or nausea; rarely had to get up in the middle of the night for a desperate pee; and never been want for assistance. Sweet has breezed past velvet ropes and slumbered while I shook my expanding hips on more than one hot night club dance floor; trucked along quietly on hikes through Red Rock Canyon (the last of which, although brief, was three days ago); listened patiently and attentively to my never-ending conference calls; and darted agreeably by my side through airport after airport; rental car after rental car; city after city. For the last 7 ½ months it has been tranquil baby, me and a suitcase against the world. I am a very, very lucky woman.

And now, here I am; home at last, nesting - washing gender-neutral jumpers, hooded towels, bibs, wash cloths and booties no bigger than my finger; preparing my home for the entry of a child who is already, quite possibly, an angel.

Grounded

I read about the latest blogger happy hour in my former city and my appetite was whet again. I didn’t mean to stop writing. I can’t say it was an accident, really. By “not actively preventing”, my husband and I conceived within 5 days of my last post (educated guess and women’s intuition being the pinpoints). Since then, I have carried my developing baby genius 120,000 miles around the country in 7 months for work and the sheer exhaustion has limited my creative juices. In fact, my imagination is still barricaded by the perpetual distraction of consulting and the little one doing somersaults in my now enormous tummy. I did, however, finally fly my last flight before the birth of my first bundle of joy. I have not entered an airport in 10 days; a bittersweet reminder that life as I once knew it is on the brink of phenomenal overhaul. There was precious little that I had to give up to move to Las Vegas, but without doctor-permitted access to the friendly skies and weekly visits east I am now obligated to forge my desert living and reminisce about what I have really left behind.

Guardian Angel

I’ve often thought of myself as extraordinarily blessed; so much so that I can’t help but wonder from time to time whether there is purposeful, divine intervention sheltering me. My yet discovered celestial reason for being. Take my accident last weekend. I was forced by another vehicle into a concrete wall at sixty miles an hour and walked away without a scratch.

I often deliberate my guardian angel with a Private Ryan-like torment. What have I done to deserve this charmed, unblemished life? For all intents and purposes, I’m a Plain Jane corporate lemming who is too risk averse to change her hairstyle, let alone change the world and thus, my boundless comfort is also my subconscious burden. My uncanny lack of scar tissue (both emotionally and physically) is not just a statistical outlier, but an outright improbability. I say my prayerful thanks with a gnawing guilt that I am misusing my godsent time.

And then I received some appeasing clarity. I was discussing the miraculous outcome of my accident with my preacher’s wife of a sweet, elderly grandmother when she said, “You know, Jessica, you just make so many people happy.” And maybe my purpose is as simple as that…

Welcome to Nevada

It’s amazing what kind of impact a 45 second change in direction can make. My choice of words is what some might deem ironic (although technically ‘non-impact’ and ‘on-course’ would be the ironic words) given their literal intent. The opening scene: 10am; pure, desert sunshine; crisp, dry, morning air; fresh squeezed orange/carrot juice; convertible top down; CD player set to a crooning Aussie rock band; open highway. A sip of juice and five minutes later another driver forgets to check his blind spot. The closing scene: squealing, fishtailing wheels; burnt rubber; blackened concrete wall; a skid mark spanning four highway lanes and a mangled, leaking, smoking car coming to rest on a bed of jagged rocks.

Aside: Does it seem strange to anyone that there are no airbags deployed in this picture? I will be having a long conversation with Ford on Monday.

That mental video clip has played over and over in my head at least 200 times today and I’m doing my best to avoid contemplating what ‘could’ have happened. I walked away unscathed as did each of my passengers. After the dust settled on my slightly bruised forehead, the tears commenced. I was unharmed and I could not have cared less about my mutilated vehicle. I was crying to drain the emotional panic that had erupted within me because I couldn’t see my husband for the entire 45 second duration of our accident. He had opted to spread out, unprotected across the back seat (giving his best buddy shot gun for our road trip). Until I heard my sweetheart’s voice from behind my headrest, after slamming head-on into a wall of concrete and spinning in a 360 across four lanes of oncoming highway traffic, I had no knowledge of his outcome. The idea of losing my universe of happiness was too much for my psyche to hold inside for long. Traumatic events are a frightening reminder to prioritize.

Hooah

I am in the midst of boxing up my belongings (and thus, procrastinating) and I came across some items in our closet that inspired me to write a brief post: my husband’s old army ranger uniforms in crisp mint and olive. I couldn’t help but run my fingers across the finely pressed collars, yarn-sewn name tags and metallic decor. He served in his youth, long before we met; crawling through swampy murk, defusing land mines, diving through clouds, starvation, push-ups, chin-ups, blisters, frost bite. The words to describe my pride escape me. I married a hero.

On the Road Again

My husband and I are ‘do-it-yourself’ kind of people. Scour your own tiles, spice your own beef, move your own house 2,500 miles across the country… My parents call daily to inquire optimistically about the changing of my mind. But what better way to keep the marital adventure sparks flying than to tow my sweet scarlet muscle car behind a 17’ truck filled sparsely with the trinket-like beginning of our life together? [Rhetorical – I can think of many]. Regardless, this was a long drawn out decision that we made together and I’m looking forward to the endless hours of alone time on the back-country highways.

Alma Mater

Tonight I stood at the front of a room full of ravenously inquiring brilliant minds; young, hopeful, yearning. I began [paraphrase], “Interesting that our firm is presenting to you this evening in this location; I have quite the fond memory of this room because it was within the very same chairs almost 10 years ago that I sat where you are today…” RRRRRiiiiii!!?? [That, if not plainly evident, is my alphabetical representation of a record scratching violently to a halt]. 10 years? Has it really been that long?

What I recall from that fateful 1998 fall evening in the warm confines of the student union building, where I drank hungrily the words of my future colleagues, was pure, intimidation-brimmed excitement. The hymen-tearing “I want to do that” experience; raw, unjaded desire. These consultants represented the brass ring; the fruit of my academic labours. Their delivery was effortless, their passion unparalleled, their culture so obviously unprecedented.

And now I am the embodiment of everything for which I vocationally ached. At least, that’s what I’d like to imagine I exude as I speak with as much confident energy as I can muster to an audience full of Me Juniors; the only thing separating me from them being the words “10 years”. Their drive, their naiveté, it’s so sweetly enviable. The soul of my younger self perches playfully on my right shoulder and mocks, “Oh, for these students to be flies on the wall of your subconscious right about now...”