My 300th Posting & (Nearly) Three-Year Anniversary

I always used to think that the big changes of my life occurred in September, centered around the start of the new school year. It also happens to be the month that I got married. But upon further reflection, I realize that most of my Big. Life. Changes. happened in January. 

To wit:

-When I finished university one semester early, it was in January that I found myself casting about, trying to figure out what to do with my life while all my mates were still in school.

-When we moved to London, it was in January that I found myself wandering around a new city, trying to find a flat for us, and learning to love a hot cup of tea on a grey day. As I unpacked boxes in our new house, I found out I was pregnant with Thing One. (Not too many life changes at once.)

-When I started training in earnest for the London Marathon, it was in January. I also started this blog nearly three years ago today.

-And now, with Thing Two off to reception for the whole day, I now find myself trying to figure out what to do with my life (now that it's mostly mine again) and how to accomplish it.

It's a funny location to be in, looking back and looking ahead, but this is where I find myself these days. 

One Sunday, just before Christmas, I met an earlier version of myself. She was a 29-year-old woman who had just moved here from the United States. She now was trying to navigate London and get to grips with all the things that were the same, but different about living here. Her husband was off working, leaving her to figure all the little things of life in London. It reminded me so much of my early days here, and it seemed, paradoxically, that it was just yesterday and so very long ago.

Mr. MarathonMum and I then did the math. If we arrived here nine years ago, and that seemed like just yesterday, nine years from now Thing One will be 17 years old. "We're at the half-way point," Mr. MarathonMum joked, but I for one, DID NOT find that funny.

It seems apt that my 300th posting would be so retrospective, and is both looking back and looking ahead. I've got a plan for what I'm going to do now, but I still need the crucial notebook to get it all down on paper. (Those who know me well will appreciate my need for stationery products to get things moving.)

That fantastic write Anonymous once said, "It is the memory that enables a person to gather roses in January," to which I would add, "It is the memory, and the aspirations, that makes things happen in January."