Sharks and Mountains

Thanks to a friend who is even more pregnant than I am, I had a kid-free trip to Nashville for P3's OB appointment. During the drive, I took advantage of the opportunity and ejected the music with songs about saying "Please and Thank You" and counting to ten, and rummaged through my old CD wallet to pull out something more "grown up." I decided on a mixed CD I received from a guy I was friends with in college after my trip to Russia in 2006. Three bars into the first track, I was unexpectedly pulled back to when I was 20 years old, living in Rexburg, ID as a full time student, facing about a trillion different paths that would dictate how the rest of my life would go.

The decisions I had to make during that time in my life were many, certainly, but I always felt like the path that I ultimately chose was the "right" one. After much praying, counseling with people I looked up to, and more praying, I decided to put my higher education on hold for 18 months, put off the suitors who could have easily been more than just the means to score free frozen yogurt on a Friday night, and to instead serve a full time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Nashville, TN. I wouldn't know until after that mission had ended that it would be the means of meeting the father of my children. Making Logic a permanent part of my life was as easy as breathing. Again, the decision I made to marry him felt very "right". 

Though, through these four and a half years of building a life together after the covenants have been made has felt more like swimming through white rapids with sharp rocks that slice up your legs to attract sharks, than breathing easily while leisurely floating in a hot air balloon (something I've always wanted to do, by the way).

Would my life be easier if I picked one of those Friday night fro-yo guys over the path I did choose? Would my life be harder? Would I even be married at all? Undoubtedly my life would different... Or maybe Fate would arrange a different way for Logic and I to meet, but maybe not.

I look at friends and even family who jump ship when they see or start to feel rapids. But I haven't. Perhaps it's optimism. Maybe it's fear. It could very well be blind ignorance. I like to think that the stubborn commitment that Logic and I have for each other will do us well in the end, even in the midst of sea monsters tearing away at our flesh. It's hard, though, when there isn't an end in sight.

But then I watch things like this:

And I remember...

There is a balm in Gilead. The assurance that I won't ever be left forsaken is what keeps me grounded during times of white water. These days I feel like it's more difficult to know what the "right" choice is, but I do know that regardless of my mountain, I will climb it.

In the Birthing Mood

Two years away from contributing to the blogosphere has it's perks; people turn to other means of getting family updates from me, like an e-mail, a Facebook message, text, or even the occasional archaic telephone call asking how I, Logic, and the Three Princesses are doing. It has a sort of freeing sense to not be burdened with that personal guilt because certainly there are plenty of alternative sources to fill that daily quota. However, it has been nagging me recently--

As I was adding an entry to my personal journal this afternoon during Princess1 and Princess2's nap time (of which only P2 was actually sleeping and P1 was pulling every book off of her shelves and spreading her Hooked on Phonics cards all over her bedroom -- though quietly, so I just let it go), I realized that journaling was always something I loved to do before I got married and plunged into the whirlwind of family life. I remember honestly writing in an entry during college, "Oh, my gosh! It's been ten days since my last journal entry and I feel so bad that I haven't written in so long!" Yes. Seriously. Now, as I look at my DayOne app timeline where I keep all of my journaling, I pat myself on the back if I see two entries within the same month. In my entry today I contemplated what the real reasons were for my lack of recording. I came to the conclusion that I don't enjoy writing about difficult things or anything that causes me to be negatively emotionally compromised. And, let's be honest here, since I've been married my life has been one big emotionally compromising event after another. And who wants to relive all of that through writing about it? Not this woman. But what I think I want sometimes turns out to be the exact opposite of what I need. I need to write about it. I need that connection to what has happened by seeing it in black and white. And it isn't all negative, either! Another reason to make those memories and emotions permanent somehow. Yes, all very valid reasons for keeping a personal journal. But why go so far as a blog?

What really snapped me back into the world of blogging? Simply a comment made by an old high school soccer buddy of mine who just had her first baby. She said, "Now let's get your blog back up and going." That was it. But better than trying to resurrect something that wasn't terribly fantastic to begin, how about give birth to something new? I'm in the birthing mood anyway, since Princess3 is due to make her appearance in the next couple of months. So, here we go.

Does the title have a story? Why, yes it does. Thanks for asking. When I married Logic four and a half years ago, I went from having a moderately uncommon last name to a name where I share both first and last names with at least a dozen people in any given state. Not only that, the surname "Owens" is just as common as "Owen", so upon meeting anyone for the first time and having to relay my name, I've formed the habit of saying "Angie Owens, with an S." My husband does it, too, though for much longer, of course, than I've been doing it. And that's the story. Not terribly exciting, but apparently uncommon enough that the title wasn't already taken on blogger. I guess that's all it takes. Here's to a new adventure. I hope it's worth the ride.