expect the unexpected

it's so funny how always the least expected thoughts and realizations are the most poignant, important, and from time to time, painful.

shortly after bill and i got engaged i remember realizing that certain things, marriage, children, settled domestic life, had never been certainties for me. that these kinds of steps in life are things that we consider wanting or not wanting, having or not having. what i mean is that getting married or having children or a particular type of career can be fantasies with fuzzy edges and indiscernible details, but it is only when you have already laid the groundwork for these dreams to become reality that you can truly visualize them.

so, back to the point, the full impact of what it meant to be engaged to someone, to know the name, face and love of the person who i was going to marry, also meant that i knew who would be the father of my children. it seems like a stupid obvious thing, but i can tell you, with certainty, that it was a significant moment for me.

so now, a little more than a year later, i'm trying to plan the next steps of my career that i can only barely visualize thus far. i can't help thinking that pete would be finishing his time in korea and doing the same planning and dreaming right about now. this is one of those blindsides of a realization that threatens to hurt the most.