Turning the kaleidoscope

I have to say, I'm struggling a little bit to understand that February really ends this weekend. Seriously, this month flew by. Maybe something to do with packing up and moving across the country? Who knows, but wow, it's almost March, and I'm only a few weeks away from turning 25, and we're only a few weeks away from spring.

Not that you'd know it wasn't already spring from being in Denver. Last night at around 9 p.m. Torsten and I went for a walk downtown in lightweight sweaters and were hot by the end. The bank thermometer we passed said it was 60 degrees. I hear this is a mild winter by Denver standards, but this is impressive.

Anyway, yes, I'm only a few weeks from having lived for a full quarter century. I'm not feeling any sort of quarter-life crisis, though (and BTW, isn't that kind of an optimistic term for 25? I mean, not to be a Negative Nancy or anything, but while life expectancy has improved, I don't think we've quite hit 100 yet).

If anything, just the opposite. I feel really good about where I am. I'm married to a fantastic man. We're living in the city we plan to settle in. We're about to get a dog. We're well on our way to completing our own little Norman Rockwell tableau, you know? I am definitely ahead of myself here, but I have spent quite a bit of time perusing real estate listings, and there might be a couple of baby outfits in the back of the closet. (What? They have POLKA DOTS. There is NOTHING WRONG with buying a few things ahead of time. After all, if you go LOOKING for something specific, you never find it, so it's best to just buy it early if you happen across it, right? RIGHT?)

Neither the baby nor the house will be happening just yet, but it is so nice to dream. And being in Denver and holding down a steady job that I like, that I could see staying in long term, that I could see making into a bona fide career... well, it makes all the rest of that stuff seem much more attainable. I COULD have a kid now. We'd be fine if I did. It wouldn't throw any plans hugely out of whack if we did. We'd like a bit more time together just the two of us first, and we'd like to maybe find a house first, and that means saving up more of a down payment for awhile. But if it did happen now? Plenty of babies live in rented apartments and they're all totally fine. And ours would be too.

It's just such a new feeling, you know? Before it was always like, if my period was an hour late I was freaking out, because we were so, so far from being ready. Mostly because we've known for awhile that we didn't want to settle in DC, but if I'd gotten pregnant then I would have wanted to stay there to have the good job with good insurance and good maternity leave policy (not knowing that I had this telecommuting option), and then what? It would have thrown everything off kilter. Now that we're in the place we want to make our permanent home, everything has shifted slightly, but crucially.

It's just so nice to have this settled and squared away. Not just Denver itself, though I do love it here and feel more and more each day that we absolutely made the right choice, but the being settled. For the longest time things have felt transient, impermanent. And now it's like the pieces of the puzzle are slotting into place. And I'm very happy about that.

So no, no quarter life crisis here. Perhaps this means that my midlife crisis will be a doozy? I suppose all we can do is wait and see.