Today’s blog:
Well, it’s official: apparently I’m building a small kingdom in Great Falls.
The current royal court includes three pink-eyed white guinea pigs—Mr. Bingley, Mr. Knightley, and Beatrix Potter—and today’s newest addition, Jemima Puddle-Duck, who is a gorgeous dark chocolate and caramel-colored little girl.
Add to that Pippin Took, my rescue dog; Finnian Elijah, my rescue cat; my soon-to-be-adopted daughter, H; and me, and I think we have officially exceeded “household” and entered “small but well-managed civilization” territory.
Which may explain why I’m looking at three-bedroom houses with yards.
Somewhere along the way, while I was busy working, studying, parenting, rescuing animals, going to church, driving to gymnastics and ice-skating, and generally keeping approximately 47 plates spinning at once, I looked around and realized something:
I built a life I genuinely love.
And I don’t mean a perfect life. I mean a real one. A hard-earned, prayed-over, fought-for, sometimes exhausting, occasionally ridiculous, wonderfully full life.
I just finished Criminal Law with a 4.0. Three more classes, and by the end of this year I should have my Advanced Paralegal Certification to go alongside the Paralegal Certification I earned earlier this year.
My management position is going swimmingly. I’m making a phenomenal living doing work that challenges me and gives me room to grow. Years of working, learning, sacrificing, starting over, refusing to quit, and trusting that eventually the pieces would come together have paid off in ways I couldn’t always see while I was living through them.
Meanwhile, H is thriving. She’s a straight-A student with great friends, ice-skating lessons, gymnastics, church, and a future that seems to be getting bigger by the day. Watching her discover what she can do may be one of my favorite parts of this entire chapter.
And apparently I’m not finished dreaming.
There’s the possible three-bedroom house with a yard. There may eventually be a motorhome—or perhaps a pull-behind travel trailer for our adventures. And then there’s my 2010 Xterra, which I continue to fix, polish, improve, and fuss over until this 16-year-old vehicle has absolutely no idea it is supposed to be aging.
Honestly, neither do I.
Next week brings another diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound following my BI-RADS 4B biopsy six months ago. That biopsy brought good news, and I’m walking into this next round of testing hoping and praying for more of the same.
Life has taught me not to take the good seasons for granted.
There were years when I couldn’t see how some things would ever work out. There were people I thought would always be part of my story who weren’t. There were doors that closed, plans that changed, losses I never would have chosen, and chapters I had to finish without the ending I wanted.
But here’s the funny thing about continuing to move forward:
Eventually, you stop looking behind you.
You get busy building.
And one day you look around and there’s a daughter laughing in your home, guinea pigs squeaking for vegetables, a rescue dog underfoot, a rescue cat supervising everything, textbooks you conquered sitting on a shelf, a career you worked for, a church you love, a vehicle ready for the next adventure, and dreams that have gotten bigger instead of smaller.
I didn’t arrive here because life was always kind to me.
I arrived here because I kept going.
I worked. I studied. I prayed. I waited. I learned. I started over when necessary. I became more disciplined. I stopped trying to force things that weren’t meant to stay. And somewhere in all of that, I created something better than the life I once thought I needed.
I created one that fits me.
It’s busy. It’s slightly chaotic. It requires an astonishing quantity of Timothy hay. But it is peaceful, purposeful, secure, hilarious, hopeful, and mine.
And perhaps that is the greatest surprise of this chapter:
I’m not waiting for my life to begin anymore.
I’m already living it.
And from where I’m standing, the view ahead looks pretty spectacular.
