Here Comes the Shift

October House, June '17

Life, man.

Life.

Isn't it interesting how the borders of the phases of our lives become clear only as we approach the overlap? And how we don't often see the full shape of the thing until the living of it is over and done?

I'm approaching the border. I can feel it like the charged hum of a force field. The closer I get, the more tingle in my bones. The deeper the ache in my heart, and the more insistent the leaping in my brain!

This last phase—the one we are almost leaving—was a heavy one. Now, seeing more clearly the shape of it, I can name it: Waiting. During Waiting, I went down into myself. Dormant. Hibernating. Alive, but mostly digesting. Dreaming. Making ready. I only recognized this when I felt myself start to wake up a couple of weeks back. Not fully awake and stretching, not yet. More like the flutter of eyelids - that cozy half-dreaming state where reality starts to crash in at the borders of the dreams, and things feel very surreal and slippery, but still safe. That deep gut anticipation, that subconscious knowing that Awake is near, but not yet. You're not fully here, yet.

And the next phase also has a name: October House. October House is one of the big ones - I feel it stone strong. October House is a core event in our lives. Like when Bill proposed, and the landscape of my soul settled into place. Like when those two blue lines appeared, and I half-noticed my trembling hands as I hit my knees to empty out my grateful soul to my Father who gave us this forever thing that we now were: Parents. Mother. Forever. Like the permanent change to our little dynamic when 3 became 4...then 5...then 6.

It seems strange to put a house on par with these events in my life. But it's not the house itself. It's what the house *is*. And I feel the same kind of permanent shift. This is a new beginning for our family that ultimately changes everything.

October House.

As big as New York was for us.

I don't know if it's the house itself. I don't know if it's who we'll know there. Neighbors, our ward family. I don't know if it's an opportunity that will come as a result that makes this change such a big one. I don't know. Doesn't matter. Because even though I don't know, I KNOW. You know?

Less than two weeks.

In less than two weeks, our lives change again.

October House.