Don't Fence Me In

The weather this weekend was some of the most perfect early fall weather I’ve ever experienced. Sunny and warm, but with a hint of a crisp breeze. Herb and Ryan and I spent Saturday at my alma mater, Gordon College, which is in Wenham, Massachusetts. The campus has grown considerably since I was a student, but it’s still beautiful. My favorite part of the day was going on a nature hike through the woods around one of the large ponds on campus. We had Ryan in the jogging stroller so he could get a good look at everything and everyone. He loved being out in the fresh air, listening to the birds, watching the breeze blow through the trees, and smelling the scent of fall in the air. And so did I!

But I think Ryan’s favorite part of the day was after the walk, when we went out to the soccer field and let him walk and crawl around unfettered. We don’t have a very big yard (or very big rooms), so he doesn’t have a lot of opportunities to just take off and crawl as far as he wants without running into some obstacle.

But on the huge quad – which fortunately, wasn’t especially crowded – he could take off and just keep going without us having to stop him. And he took advantage of it! He crawled after other babies, and bigger kids, and dogs. He found a longboard (a kind of extra-long skateboard) that a student had laid down while he chatted with friends and happily examined it and spun the wheels. He watched the girls’ soccer team play. He explored other strollers, and feet, and grass and leaves and sticks. It was a kind of freedom that he’d never experienced before, and he reveled in it!

He’s at the age where he encounters a lot of frustrations – either because I won’t let him do something that he wants to, or because he can’t figure out quite how to do something that he wants to. To when he has the chance to explore without boundaries (and therefore, without frustrations), I want to give it to him. There are so many times that I have to say no for his own safety, so I love finding a place where I don’t have to say no, and I don’t have to rein in his curiosity, and I don’t have to frustrate him by stopping him mid-exploration.

And it was a great day for all of us to not be fenced in.

It Was 20 Years Ago Today

Tomorrow is my 20th college reunion. I can’t quite figure out how that happened, because I’m pretty certain that it’s only been about 6 months since I graduated from college. But then I think about everything that’s happened in those “6 months”, and I guess maybe it really has been 20 years.

When I graduated from college in May 1990, I had a job lined up, a tiny hatchback with 80,000 miles on it, and not much else. I knew that the job wasn’t something I wanted to do forever, but it was a job in my field with a paycheck I could live on (barely), so I figured it was a place to start. I soon found an apartment and a roommate and started out on my “grownup” life. After 6 months, my boss announced that she was moving to Iowa and taking my job with her – although I was welcome to come with her. I declined and began job-hunting again. But at least this time I was already employed within a network, so I was able to find a new job within just a few weeks – a job I ended up staying with for nearly 8 years.

During those 8 years, I lost my roommate and found an apartment of my own. I got involved in church and theater and vocal groups and handbell choirs. I went on a tour of England. I grew out my hair. And I got sick of living and working in the city.

So I took a deep breath, moved to a different apartment, got a different job, and found a different theater group. I bought a new car. I won a couple of theater awards. I colored my hair. And then I cut it again. And then I grew it out again. I performed in a professional musical in Boston and I joined a cabaret troupe. I eventually moved again, this time with another roommate. And then, everything changed.

I decided that I really wanted to be married, and that it wasn’t going to happen unless I did something about it. So I took another deep breath and signed up on an internet dating site. I met a couple of really nice guys, and a couple of whackos. My ego took a few blows and got a few boosts. And then one day I saw the profile of a guy who mentioned both church and theater, and I dropped him a little note. Little did I know that that one little note would change both of our lives.

To make a long story short, we met, we fell in love, we got married, and we had a baby. One short sentence that summarizes three of the most amazingly wonderful years of my life. I suspect that many of my friends from college have a similar story on a very different timeline. In some ways, I wish I could have skipped some of the boring parts of my history and jumped into the last few years sooner. But it was those intervening years that made both me and Herb the people we were when we met, and the people we are now. So I don’t regret a moment of those intervening years. They brought me to the happiness I have now, and that happiness is worth every moment of waiting over the years.

I just hope that all my classmates I run into tomorrow aren’t too jealous of me!