Love Now.

Quite often, as new parents, we hear the same lines over and over again from strangers.

"Oh, that's such a fun age!"

"Enjoy it -- it goes by so fast!" (what they mean is quickly. meh.)

"Oh, I wish mine were still that small!"

I understand the sentiment here. I do. 

When Emma was three or four months old, we passed a newborn baby on one of our walks -- he couldn't have been more than a few weeks. And I thought to myself, oh my goodness her childhood is over. That's how much older Emma suddenly seemed to me. Every time I move Emma into the next size of infant clothing, I feel a pang. And she's still in 3-6 months. Looking over the photos I've taken of her, I feel the same pang. She really is growing so quickly.

I want to savor these times. I do savor them.

And yet. 

My dad often tells a story from when my brother and I were very young -- I don't know, let's say 3 and 1. My parents were talking with a friend, while they watched my brother and I play (I can only assume adorably). My dad asked the man if he had any children.

"Oh, oh, oh. I miss my little girls. I miss them."

My dad hurriedly inquired -- what had happened to his girls?

"They're teenagers. Oh, I miss my little girls."

My dad was set back. This man said these things so sorrowfully -- as if his daughters had died. Yet they had only grown older. They weren't gone. 

"Right then," my dad says at this point in the story, "I promised myself that I would enjoy and love every single age that you ever experienced. I will always enjoy you. I will never mourn who you were because I'm not as invested in who you are."

And he's right, as usual.

Can't every age be our favorite age? I miss Emma as a newborn -- her floppy head and limp limbs -- already. But I love love love seeing her learn and explore new things every day. I love watching her roll across the floor. I love how deliberately she reaches out to grasp something she wants.

I want to always love now.

The same goes for other types of stages in life, can't it?

Two years ago, I would never have guessed I'd be here -- a mom. I would have laughed if you told me that my biggest projects would be teaching a baby how to sleep through the night and washing diapers.

A year before that, as a senior in college, I'd have laughed if you'd told me where I'd be the next year -- working as a nanny and in a local bakery. I was convinced I'd be teaching eager young minds. Four years before that -- fresh out of high school -- I'd have laughed if you'd told me that one of the first guys I met at college would become my boyfriend before the year was out, and that we would be married three days after graduating from college. I was so not interested in relationships. I was completely focused on my education.
(actually, I totally sound like her here, which is making me feel 800% more glamorous)

I've always had my life planned out.

Don't we all?

Life's a funny thing, with its curve balls and unexpected situations. 

But here I am, mother to the sweetest girl and wife to the lovingest husband. He's in grad school, and he works nearly full time, so we can pay the bills, which sometimes seem all too daunting. Our life is quite simple, really, by necessity.

We wish it wasn't quite so. We wish we could go on vacation, and travel, and stay out past 8pm, then sleep in to 10am. We wish we could move out of LA county already. It kills us sometimes to hear about friends who up and go to Europe for a few weeks. Or even to hear about friends who can take weekend camping trips or mini vacations.
"I can't wait till they have kids so they don't get to do all these fun things," I said to Eric a few weeks ago, when we were feeling low about not being able to afford even the gas to take a drive up the coast. 

Which is completely selfish and petty.

Instead, I should realize that this is simply our now. Eric won't always be in grad school. We won't always have a baby. We'll sleep in again eventually. We'll have jobs someday, jobs that allow us to place some money in the bank instead of scrambling to send every last cent off to pay our living expenses on time. I'm pretty sure we'll even be able to go on vacation again someday. We might not ever attain the independently wealthy lifestyle that sounds so appealing (ha!); we want too many kids for that. But we've chosen the one good over another good. This life is our current chosen good.

Our now is life as a young family, with all of its ups and many of its downs. For all of our financial burdens, we have many more blessings. For all of the times we wish we could up and go somewhere relaxing or exotic, we have a sweet, quiet evening at home, singing songs to our baby girl and eating cookie dough on our couch while watching Seinfeld, crocheting and reading Democracy in America.

The title of this blog -- Earth's the right place for love -- is a line from a poem by Robert Frost. The description -- I don't know where it's likely to go better -- is the next line of the poem. Frost was certainly a man who knew what discontent was, and I don't know if he ever fully dug himself out of that deep grave. But earth is where we are, and we certainly need love to animate our lives. We can imagine all sorts of alternate planets or realities in which our lives might seem better, but there would be no truth in those, and there is always room for discontent. Discontent seems a very compact tenant, but will somehow fill the corners of life until you mourn even the fact that your daughters are older than they used to be.

I don't want to idealize our struggles. I don't want to stop trying to make our lives better. I don't want to grow complacent or apathetic about how our current situation simply won't allow for certain exciting things our friends do. But I do want to always enjoy our now. I never want to mourn what our life is out of impatience for what I want our life to be.