Tomorrow really is a new day.

Tomorrow I end my long academic career at the University of CA! It will be a momentous day - Graduation Day, as I have thought of it for these many months since I made the decision to DO IT - to go on to the next adventure.

Actually, it feels like my life has been pacing itself in a predictable gestation period - I'm in my second trimester. The first was being a girl, a young bride, a mother.  Then I entered the second phase, the "I want a career" phase. That phase ended my marriage. It was a killer, that frame of time . So many lessons to learn that I should have already mastered, one would think, at that point of life. When I was thirty-something.

Going out on my own, trying to have it all, do it all, was harrowing at times. But I managed, as we all do, by just staying the course, even if  I wished I could go back - retrace my steps, and step back into the life I left behind. But - I had my career, and adventures and managed to keep the things that matter most. I feel so blessed - family, friends, a decent relationship with the Ex, a second marriage even. And still married this time, by gosh.

So, into the third trimester I go, a little heavier, thinking about botox and skin peels and hell, a whole face-lift would be good at this point. Full of plans I wouldn't have thought possible when I was that young bride, pregnant then with number one child, now expecting to have time to nurture my loved ones, and myself. I don't know what the future holds, or what the ultimate human experience - my total story arc - will produce. I don't know what I will deliver by the end of my lying-in on this planet, but I do pray it will be worthy.

And I hope by then,  my "late trimester" labor pains will produce a really good novel!!! Maybe, by starting this whole "I want to be a writer" phase at this time of my life, I'll really have something to write about!!