Cha-Cha-Cha Changes

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about how much my life has changed in the past year.

Besides the obvious physical differences in myself between this year and last (meaning that I am no longer enormously pregnant and running to the bathroom every 5 minutes), there are so many ways in which my life is completely different.

A year ago, I was working full-time. I'd wake up early in the morning, head to the office, and spend all day interviewing people. In between meeting with candidates, my days were spent eating lunch at my desk while catching up with celebrity gossip online or chatting with my co-workers. I'd come home at the end of the day, exhausted and ready to plop on the couch for a couple of hours. Since I spent most of my work days talking to other adults, I'd welcome those couple of hours of solitude before Matt arrived home from work. When he did get home, we'd eat dinner on the couch while watching Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune. Then I'd stay up too late watching trashy reality TV shows before I'd call it a night & start all over again the next day. Rinse and repeat. And that was my life. It was predictable and organized. I was a perfectionist and a planner.

And here I sit today. Camden is finishing up his morning nap, and I am blogging while surrounded by toy cars, trucks, and trains. I'm not so sure I know what organization is anymore. A year ago, if my family room looked the way it does at this very moment, I'd be hyperventilating while frantically cleaning up. Now, I look at Camden's grocery shopping cart lying sideways on the floor and I picture him pushing it while the cart sings "Here we go to the market!" And it makes me smile and so I leave it exactly where it is so he'll be able to find it right away when he wakes up.

Today, I'm a stay-at-home mom. It's after noon, and I haven't yet showered or changed out of my pajamas. Long gone are the days of business suits, carefully applied makeup, and high heels. Instead of joking around with co-workers, my days are spent singing "The Wheels on the Bus" and reading about baby Elmo. Sitting in an office chair for 8 hours has been replaced by holding tiny, chubby hands as Camden walks around our house (over and over again), exploring his world.

Yes, life is very different now. The perfectionist in me is slowly dying because kids don't allow for perfectionism. And that's a beautiful thing. My life is no longer neat and orderly and organized. It's loud and busy and messy. But for the first time in a very long time (in fact, maybe for the first time ever), I am completely content. I feel at peace. I know that I am doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing (including finishing my teaching licensure). I'm just happy.

I'm certainly not saying that life is all rainbows and butterflies and unicorns. Not at all. In fact, my life is full of more dirty diapers than rainbows and more sleepless nights than butterflies or unicorns. Do I miss sleeping in until 10 on Saturday mornings? Umm, that goes without saying. Do I sometimes wish I could sit through an entire episode of the Bachelor Pad (don't judge me) without interruption? Of course I do. But this New Life of mine? It's so much richer, so much more rewarding, and so much fuller than my Old Life. And in spite of (or maybe because of?) all of its imperfections, it is actually pretty perfect.