defining me

For the last few months I've been slowly working on formatting my original blog in order to print and bind it in book form. As I've read through my old posts, I've watched a time-lapsed version of me grow and change. As much fun as it's been to reacquaint myself with former versions of me, it's also been startling to see how different I am now than I was four and a half years ago when I first started blogging. My circumstances have changed, and as such, the topics I write on and the style in which I write them have also changed. My purpose for writing has evolved, and the time which I can allot to blogging has been altered.

Things which once so staunchly defined me no longer do. While I'm not yet an old hat, I'm also not defined anymore by new motherhood. I've lived in Brooklyn for three solid years now, and while there will always be new city adventures, I feel that I have acclimated. I still like to call myself a writer, but I don't have the time or energy very often these days to devote to writing creatively. My life has fallen into a pretty predictable routine, which on the one hand is fine -- I love routine! -- but on the other, the fervor I once felt has died down.

These realizations have been a little disconcerting. Has all this change led to something better? Or have I let certain aspects of myself fall unnecessarily by the wayside? In an effort to ward off a minor identity crisis, I've garnered a list of some of the things that make me who I am today. Some are silly, some are serious, but collectively they help define me.

• I am Blake's wife, and Garrett and Caleb's mother.
• I live in Brooklyn, and, at the rate things are going, will probably live in Brooklyn for a long time.
• I don't own a car.
• I love eating chocolate chip cookie dough.
• My house is clean because I'm constantly cleaning it.
• I hate being late.
• I would be fine if I never went to the Natural History Museum again.
• I like to cook.
• I am no good at making small talk.
• I am not a night owl.
• Even though I don't have much time for it (and what I produce, I'm realizing as I read through my old blog posts, is mediocre at best), I still love to write. I think like a writer, and revise like a writer, and let words consume me like a writer.
  
• I am not a big fan of playing board games.
• I'd much rather read a book.
• I am the Bishop's wife, and sometimes that is really hard.
• I like to make things, and enjoy simple sewing projects.
• I collect dishes and other kitchen things.
• I do my very best to keep my promises.
• I love the smell of rain-soaked sidewalks.
• I am always doing something. If I'm sitting still, I'm probably sick or completely exhausted.
• I like it when the bright full moon shines right through my bedroom window when I go to sleep.
• I am happy. And I'm happy with the direction my life is going.
  

Even though I am naturally resistant to change, it's nice to be able to look back and see how everything has fallen so neatly into place. And even if it feels like parts of me have been lost as I've grown, that is no reason to think that I'm in a lesser place now. Life will keep moving forward, circumstances will continue to evolve, but the things which have defined me in the past and those which define me in the present will never truly disappear. They are all, and always will be, what define me.