I’m Back.

Hello patient friends. Well, hello to those of you who have come back here, wondering if I would ever post again. Thanks for hanging in there.

Here’s the scoop. I’ve been busy these last few weeks, getting my arse kicked by motherhood. It is truly amazing, as is the story of how I got here, just three days after the post entitled, “Whoosh.”

I KNOW.

I had no idea what was just around the corner. Just. Around. The Corner.

The story will be told, at least in part, here soon. But we’ve got some legal stuff to wait on before this little miracle is legally part of our family (she is already part of our family in every other capacity) so I’m not really in a position to be sharing too many details just yet.

But know this: I am unspeakably happy. And in love. And deeply content. And tired. And amused that my day’s accomplishments have been distilled down to such basic baby-centric activities that I feel an absurd sense of achievement when I actually manage to put away laundry, bathe, and make my bed all in the same day. More on that later, I’m sure.

Due to sleep deprivation and the aforementioned distillation of my focus, there hasn’t been a lot of time to process any of this. The speed with which it all happened gave this entire event—becoming a parent—a surreal quality that was hard to shake at first; I had to remind myself that it was truly happening, so it was both okay and important to allow myself to feel all of it, not just observe the events like some kind of spectator.

What I do know, though, is that sometime during those first days, I heard my brain sigh the words, “Oh. Now I get it. It was all for THIS child.” Even as I type those words, they feel treacley and like the final words uttered by the faded 90s actress at the center of a Hallmark Channel movie, just as the sappy music begins to swell in the background and the text about how they all lived Happily Ever After overlays the soft-filtered family portrait.

I find myself speaking in made-for-TV truisms because it is hard to capture this imperceptible internal shift adequately. It is like waking up and finding that your heart now beats on the right side of your chest. Nothing else has changed. It is still pumping the blood and doing all that it is meant to be doing, but is in a slightly different place, but this internal sensation you’ve lived with all your life—so long that you’ve grown not to notice it—is entirely new.

While I was busy wondering about the purpose of all of that waiting, suddenly I wasn’t waiting anymore. And life without that particular wondering? A little like finding all my internal organs are still fully functional, but have traded places overnight.

Growing up on the East Coast, I have a few memories of hurricanes. I remember the storm where I learned about the eye of the storm, and how, when they eye passes over you, chaos is quelled, temporarily. In this particular storm, I remember when the eye passed over our house. The rain stopped. The winds quieted. The grass and trees in the backyard were lit an eerie green color, the only reminder that it was not a normal summer day. Otherwise, there was a welcomed sense of calm. The newscasters barked on about how the eye was dangerous because it lulled people into a false sense of security, and under no circumstances should you leave your home. “The storm is not over,” they cautioned. And as tempting as it was to go squidging through the spongy grass, I knew I had to stay inside.

I don’t know if grace is like the eye of the hurricane or not. Is it a temporary reprieve from my constant internal churning to understand how God operates in my life? Or is it some kind of evidence to throw in the corner of the “there’s a plan” debate? I don’t honestly know. But what I do know is that I feel the lightness of having a long-carried burden lifted. And, whether or not the newscasters in my brain (who are eager to remind me that all the other questions still exist, which they do, I know) wish to tell me not to, all I want to do is run outside and revel in this calm. And while I’m out there, I’ll be turning some cartwheels for the remarkable miracle that was dropped into my lap five and a half weeks ago. Because she deserves a lot of cartwheels.