Backtrack

Something I have always done is look back on the current date a year ago and revisit what I was doing at that time, where I was and what I was experiencing. Through the help of past calendars and journal entries I can recreate what life looked like then and reflect on where I am now. Usually I can remember quite clearly, as if only a day had passed and not a year. I have been doing this retrograde a bit this month, amazed that Sam wasn't even created a year ago. I had just got back from ten days in Florida with my parents and was about to go to the Click! Art Conference with Meg. Teaching in Lander, Kate's baby shower in NYC, and my cousin's wedding in DC were on the horizon. My spring was about travel and independence.

I look back at that woman a year ago and see freeness as well as a lack of direction, a lostness on where I was going, the question of what to do with my life spinning endlessly in my head. As much as I have moments where I long for that ability to spontaneously get up and go, I also recognize that there is a purpose in my life that is bigger than just myself now. I still question what my passions, dreams, directions are but they are tampered with a nowness that involves being a mother to Sam. That is where I must start while making small goals for myself that fulfill other areas of my life. I recently said to someone that I am getting to know my new self, that I don't see this state as the fog of new motherhood, but rather the emergence of a new person, a new identity.