Peeper Summarized: Welcome Back

Where we were a year ago today is still a vivid, living memory for me. I wish I could say I grabbed the bull by the horns and rode that beast all the way to New York. A little distance is wonderful for cultivating perspective and I can now say with humility, "That's not exactly how it all went down."

The past year has been a mixed bag of stimulating, frustrating, engaging, overwhelming, funny, desperate and downright wonderful. We have a whole new area of the country to explore and THE greatest city on earth just a 30 minute train ride away. I was resistant to moving here at first but now I can hardly remember why. Rather, I am constantly trying to convince Tim that we could absolutely manage living in Manhattan! All our cats would have to be on prozac to keep them from peeing on everything in sight because our living space would be small but it could be done.

We Facetime with grandma Judy almost every day.

A community is gathering around us and that has been the highlight of the year. A dear, old friend moved to NYC from SF a few months after we did. Another dear, old friend is just around the corner. And the new friends? Wow! For me, meeting new people and forging connections doesn't come easily. I am delighted to report that I had nothing to worry about after all. The new friends have been one of the best parts of the whole relocation thing. I got me a girl posse and I dig those ladies a whole lot.

This family has welcomed us with open arms. They deserve a boatload of credit for why our family is in a good place now. This is how our kids play together and it is endless.

We're settled in now. I'm learning the back roads of this place. I've memorized the squeaky floorboards in our house. I haven't felt this content in a geographic location for many, many years. Frankly, if we lived in New York forever more I'd be perfectly happy with that outcome.

Fishing off one of the docks somewhere on the west side of Manhattan last weekend.

A playground in Hell's Kitchen last weekend.

Ada spent some time at camp grandma recently. It was just me and my little buddy all day every day during that time. It gave me ample opportunity to take care of myself - to read, meditate, cook, do yoga, go for walks and just think. Only by engaging in some self-care was I able to recognize just how much I've ignored it over the past year. I've been so busy making a home, adjusting a toddler to a new place, being a cheerleader for my young professor husband, building a community, learning my way around and adjusting to having two kids that I fell into the classic pitfall of motherhood: I let everyone else's needs trump my own leaving the holy trilogy of my body, mind and spirit in a sorry state of deferred maintenance. That's changing cause you know what they say - if mama ain't happy? That's right. Ain't nobody happy.

Governor's Island.

This little blog space has been part of that neglect, I'm sad to say. Sorry, friends. In time of trouble some people use their blog to pour their hearts out. Looks like I'm not one of those. Not this time anyway. I was just too depleted to get my shiz together enough to hit 'publish post'. It kept happening over and over again that I would have thoughts and sit to write them but the words just wouldn't come. They came in fits and starts but nothing flowed or made sense. I don't want to be too hard on myself about this because it's just representative of my state of mind at the time, which also worked in distracted fits and starts with little ability to finish what I started. I'm sad that so many memories of the past few months aren't set in stone here but I'll find another way to preserve them for my kids. Anyway, maybe some of those moments should be allowed to just weave into the fabric of the recent past with no particular attention paid to them.

What I'm really here to say is that we're here. We are really HERE. My kids are THRIVING. I am happy. Tim is working like a workaholic does and loving it. I'm so pleased that I can make these statements now because last year I knew that in a year I wanted to be able to say those things and mean them. There were so many times over the past 16 months that I wanted so badly to fast forward to right now that I physically ached over it. Of course, it doesn't work that way. Instead you just have to move through it and let the overarching lessons tucked within the experience sink in deep. The work of creating a new life in a new place? Check. Goal accomplished.

This little beauty turned 4 years old.

Ingram turne one. My microgram is now a milligram.

So what comes next? I don't know. I've been a habitual goal-setter for so damn long that I'm not very good at sitting back and enjoying the reward (a classic perfectionist pitfall). I've had some time to think it over though and I've come to the conclusion that it's alright to just DO THIS for right now. It's alright to keep my home and raise my kids and take a little time each day to check in with myself.

While the ball will continue rolling somewhere deep inside because there is a master plan, I think I'm going to exercise my "being in the moment" muscles a little bit.