New Beginnings

This is the very first picture of me ever taken outside of the United States on the morning of my very first day as an expat. I’d gotten on a plane in Memphis a little nervous and a lot excited and landed bleary eyed in Beijing two days later still nervous and even more excited. (Don’t I look totally awesome with my red eyes and 14 hours on an airplane pallor?) I’d thrown caution to the wind to travel to the other side of the planet to be with a boy – THE Boy – and as I got off that plane a wave “Oh crap, now what?” hit me for the first time like a ton of bricks. I had no idea where to go or what I was supposed to do. We’d talked for months about me getting on that plane. We never really talked about me getting off. We never talked about the practical things like passport checks and security checks. We never really talked about where we were going to meet or what to do if somehow something went wrong. We never talked about the bigger picture and what exactly me getting off that plane meant. As I stood there … alone … in a completely foreign country … I did the only thing I really could do. I took a step forward. I trusted that he would be waiting for me on the other side and somewhat miraculously, he was. He’s been there everyday since.

That was almost exactly 10 years ago to the day. I was just a few months shy of 30 years old.

It’s actually pretty insane thinking about how much of a plan we didn’t have back then. None whatsoever beyond just being together really. I mean, I’d like to think that we’re these super organized people but the truth is our plan was and still is just to be together come hell or high water. We’ve had happy times and sad times and exciting times and disappointing times and pretty much all the times in between. Things have fallen apart and even better things have fallen together. We’ve moved around the world. We’ve met inspiring people and made amazing friends. We’ve had three babies. We’re working on this parenting/family/couple thing. We take it all one step at a time, one day at a time. Other than that we really have no idea what we’re doing. So far it’s working out better than pretty well.

Which brings me to this here blog…

Kinda like getting off that airplane in Beijing, I really had no idea what I was doing when I started this blog. It began as a blog about our wedding but the wedding was over 8 years ago and I’ve been kinda futzing around on this thing ever since without any real direction and certainly very little commitment. I’ve thought about shutting it down completely because, well, it’s mostly been kinda lame. And I think we all deserve better than lame. If you’re going to give me a few minutes of your time, you deserve something better. I feel like I am certainly capable of better. (Well, most of the time, anyway.) So I’ve done something I’ve been thinking about doing for a really long time. I’ve wiped the slate clean. I’ve archived all my content – the good, the not so good, and the totally lame. I’m starting over with a completely blank blog and I hope to fill it up again with memories old and adventures new. I want to talk about becoming a woman of a certain age who is perpetually 16 at heart. I want to share with you recipes and funny things and my fumbles through fashion. I want to write about issues that are important to me. And I want to share with you my journey into maybe finding … deep breath… a new career. (YIKES!) I would love it if you thought of this space a place where we can talk about anything and everything under the sun, a place to exchange information and ideas, thoughts and fears and dreams.

If you’ve been following along for a while, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. A thousand times thank you. If you’re just discovering this place now, welcome! I hope you’ll find something here that you can relate to. Wrapping up a decade, moving into a new one, it feels like a pretty good time for a new beginning, doesn’t it? There is no plan beyond showing up and I still have no idea what I’m doing, but I am so glad you’re here! I hope we become good friends.