On thinking positively

So, a charming anonymous commenter pointed out yesterday that I must be reading some sort of self-help book on affirmations and positive thinking, because here I am talking about how to deal with babies I don't even have yet. I mean, that's shocking! What the hell is wrong with me? Don't I know that maybe I won't EVER have a baby? And even if I do, WHO KNOWS WHEN?

Lovely and upbeat as that perspective is, I have to say that I'm not too concerned about not knowing what the future holds. I don't think it will come as a shock to anybody on this blog that I am a Planner. I like to think about what I want out of my life, and then I like planning thoughtfully and making good decisions in order to make those things happen.

And you know what? In the past, this has worked pretty well for me. I'm living in a house that I love in a city that I love with a husband that I love and a dog that I love. I have a job that I love and I have a working from home situation that I love. I picked the college that I wanted to go to when I was 11 years old--and I went there. I wanted to study abroad, and I did--twice. I could go on, but I think you get the point.

I'm not bragging here, and I'm also not saying that I can take credit for all the good things that have happened to me. I understand that many of these things have occurred due to circumstances out of my control, or due to the inherent privilege of having been born into a life position that allowed me a lot of opportunities. I do recognize this.

But I also think that it's reasonable to say that I had a hand in making a lot of this stuff happen. I am tenacious (some might say stubborn), and if I want something, I do everything it takes to make it happen. If the original plan of action doesn't work out, I find another one, and if that doesn't work out I find a third one. I am not the type of person to consider my options exhausted, pretty much ever. I will keep going until I get it done, if I truly believe that it is a worthwhile thing.

Moving to Denver is a good example of this. Torsten and I had been wanting to move out of DC for about two years before it actually happened. We had picked Denver about six months before we actually moved. The economy sucked, the job market sucked, we had no idea that we'd be able to keep our jobs when we moved, we knew nobody in town, we had never even been to Colorado--but we knew that's what we wanted, and so we went after it. The mindset was, we WILL move to Denver. And many job applications and spreadsheets and Plans B and C and D later, here we are.

So, I have to say that I apply the same thinking to having a child. We WILL have a child. We want a child, I think we'd be decently good at raising a child, we bought a house that's designed for children. There's more than one way to have a child, and while I would certainly never turn into one of those crazy people who kidnaps a child or attempts to steal one out of another woman's pregnant belly in sheer desperation for a baby of their own--my tenacity has SOME limits--I believe and know that someday we WILL have a child, whether or not I give birth to it. Whether we adopt it privately, domestically, internationally, or from the U.S. foster care system. Some how, some way, someday we WILL have a child. And I don't think there's anything wrong with planning ahead for that.

But just in case all this babble about how happy and great my life is hasn't set you gagging yet, let me leave you with a photo of the gorgeous double rainbow we saw yesterday. Because apparently sunshine and rainbows is how I roll.