Levi displays how he enjoys the “right now”.

Just write. Just keep writing. It shouldn’t matter what comes out. Just keep writing. Consider the day. Consider the personalities. Consider the mood swings. Consider the odd interruptions and strange silliness that percolate through each day.

Just write.

I’ve gotten away from writing. Fearful that I lend too personal, accidentally revealing confidences that don’t want to be revealed. In 2011, when I embarked upon the first “write once a day” challenge, it seemed easier – though it was hard. I found a rhythm for nine months that allowed me to write, to digest, and write in a way that I could explore and vent without betraying perceived needed secrecy.

Do you ever think about laying down your roots? Establishing yourself to place, and making it work? I think about it often, but I haven’t considered it like that until now.

In my twenties, I moved around, I quit jobs, and I started and stopped going to school – more than once. I struggled to come of age, in a sense, trying different hats on to see what fit, never satisfied with where I was. Eventually that path had me follow a boy out West, a place I long coveted, and I suppose I used him as an excuse to make that experiment a reality. The first few years here, I had the same patterns – though my hand was sometimes forced, rather than me choosing to jump ship – the choice was sometimes made for me.

And then, I found out I was pregnant. My mind began to flash back to when I was a child, something it continues to do now that we are raising our son. Flashing back to the constant moving. Flashing back to the new adventures and many unsuccessful attempts to “make friends”. Flashing back to the countless teachers, the borrowed clothes, and never feeling a sense of home – except at my grandparents house.

Already, I was repeating patterns I vowed to never repeat, and I suppose another vow surfaced – create a stable home for our son.

Serendipitously, I stayed home until he was three years old, although it certainly didn’t feel like a blessing at the time. We woke up together, ate together, dressed together, visited the library together, made cookies together, started a food club together, volunteered together, waited for daddy together. And, then I got a job. And, then, we put him into three different schools over the course of three years while I next learned how to navigate working motherhood while my husband worked varied shifts at his union job.

And, now I’m thinking about that relationship that brought me out here… we were never settled where we were. It was always a temporary thing until we made the move. There was no desire to have a career, there. There was no desire to have a permanent place, there. We always had one foot out the door. And, now I know that’s not how I want to live. I want to be rooted, at least for a while. I want to think in the now, not the future.

I’m not saying to neglect planning for a rainy day, nor am I saying to not save for that next big thing. But, I don’t want to worry about it anymore. I don’t want it to come up in conversation. I want to enjoy exactly where we are right now. I want to appreciate everything around us – right now. I want to savor these moments, because they won’t last forever, and I want to learn from them. Right now.