I am visiting friends this weekend that I haven’t visited in a few years.   And I am thinking about evolution.  Not clearly the kind that has to do with monkeys or walking fish (that’s DEFINITELY a different post for a different day.  Or never.)   This is the kind that has to do with me.   When last we visited, we gave my friend’s partner PTSD by bringing our 7 month old and 21 month old into a very chic, mostly concrete townhouse.   And now we are visiting again after the memory of the torture has grown dimmer.   We descend now with a 4 year old and a 3 year old into the aforementioned well-decorated villa while one half of this partnership has broken ribs.  Let the mayhem commence. Let’s hope that with the pain killer the hospital also dispensed a good bit of Valium to this poor couple.

But back to evolution.  I was thinking about the me THEN and the me NOW.  Clearly both people have a blatant disregard for the comfort of those she cares about.   But in many ways, I have EVOLVED.   I am a totally different mother.   My priorities and relationships have evolved.   I think even my relationship with God, who is guiding this evolution and completing the work in me, is different.  I more often speak TO him rather than ABOUT him.  Which I like.   I rely on Him more in my job than on my own strength which has opened so many possibilities.  It’s encouraging to see how it goes along.

On the other side of the coin, of course, are the mountains I continue to circle.   The parts of my existence where I want to yell “AGAIN?!  Can this really STILL be going on?  And not even a reality show to show for it?”  But even on these endless revolutions, I am starting to see that the way I am in regard to them is changing.  For example, I still have not reached my ideal weight number (which was actually determined during my last visit to these friends when my friend yelled out to the window at a women who I described as my ideal weight to ask her what she weighed) but I realize that I am becoming less focused on the space my body takes up in the world and more on the space it takes up in my thinking.  I continue to be frustrated by this struggle but less for the lack of vintage options available in my size than my lack of discipline and the amount of time I devote to complaining about it.   So even as I endlessly circle, the hill is evolving.  It’s as if I have been magically transferred to a NEW mountain.   A mountain that highlights character rather than image as the object of desire.  Which is interesting.  Frankly, I would like to be transferred to a mountain where the way North was a bit better marked.  Possibly one that also included the airport-style moving walkways towards the exits.   But, I digress.

Evolution takes a pause to notice, but I think its worthwhile.  It’s encouraging to know that I am not the same.   Good to ask… Where was I?  Where am I?   How did that happen?  What remains to be done?  What gear (other than a stiff drink) will I likely need for this journey? I am also interested in other folks’ tales of evolution.  To know where you were and where you are now.  Maybe someone has even found the moving walkway.