measure in love

I'm a pretty sappy chick - always have been. My profound love for musical theatre fits in perfectly with my sappiness. When I woke up on my birthday, all I wanted to do was watch my favorite numbers from "Rent." During pregnancy, scenes from the movie version of one of my favorite shows hit all the emotional buttons I needed to continuously press through the phases and changes of growing a little being. It gets me in the gut with the harmonies, the homage to wild bohemians in NYC and, most importantly, the message of "No Day But Today."

There really couldn't be a better motto to model your life around. And with a baby, especially a wild and wacky toddling fool changing every ten minutes or so, coming up with something more fantastic or hysterical or knowledgeable in each and every moment, the "Today" feels even more present. So I do declare to continue to, "Measure my life in love." Proudly.

After too much pizza on my birthday, my girl Casey watched "Rent" with me. The whole thing. Even stayed up til 12:30. She cried in all the right parts and was sappy right there with me. It's funny cuz sometimes I can feel sorta embarassed, especially in my badass, non-musical theatrey kinda Missoula scene, of my passion for musical theatre. But at 35, I'd say it's time to come out of the closet with all your goofy individuality and get down with your bad self. So that's what we did.
The birthday love was abrubtly halted when I woke up at five in the morning later in the week with debilitating belly cramps that jolted me out of bed and raced me towards the toilet. I'm just now beginning to feel a bit more "regular", and even managed to eat and keep down a solid meal this evening. I have a theory that your body tells you when you need to slow down. I've been moving hard and fast for the past few months and I'm pretty certain that my body was telling me to take a major break. The poops and blahs let me stay home with Eliana on Friday. We stayed in our cozies, read lots of books, snuggled and both took four hour naps. It was so the kind of down time with her that we've been needing. Fast and hard is fun, but it certainly limits the long, lingering 'precious present' moments that happen when you have nothing to do and nowhere to be.

So I enter 35 with a mellow start, a cleansed system and a reminder of my roots and priorities. I'm going to try and slow down, stay present and be sure not to let any of the me things get in the way of the us things. I'm still working out the balance. I imagine I'll be working out the balance for quite some time. But for now, I'll stick with Jonathan Larson's timeless words and continue to measure my years in love.