And I just want to give a shout of Congratulations! and good luck to Zannie and her husband: they've decided to start trying for a baby this month! Yeah! And I'm not just saying that because I was feeling lonely in my "trying to conceive" clique.

I found an interesting read in the adult stacks a few days ago. It's called A Voice of Her Own: Women and the Journal Writing Journey. Neat stuff; go read. Anyway, one of the chapters through which I was flipping today was really getting deeply into how much life is about change. Everyday we say goodbye to bits of who we were, and greet new facets of ourselves we never knew existed. Precious few things remain unchanging.

To what did I bid farewell today? Certainly nothing terribly concrete. I'm in a daily process of trying to say goodbye to my past, my mother's past, and her father's past. I wish that process could end with the simple statement, "I forgive you," but it's proving not to be quite so easy.

I'm in the process of saying goodbye to my days of being the reliant one. I want to be a mother; I want my children to be able to rely on me. I'm bidding adieu to the times in which I could pick up and go with scarcely a thought for anyone but myself. Husbands can deal with change; children need more stability. I had an aunt who bounced her family around frequently, and my cousins suffered.

I'm slipping further and further away from the ideal of the professional musician. Children will delay doctoral studies, perhaps permanently. I decided that while I could live without a doctorate, the lack of children was something I could not bear. Decision made, it's still hard to believe that I'm slowly saying goodbye to that of which I dreamed for so many years. I can still be a composer, but a name, in my lifetime, may be stealing from my grasp.

Today I'm one step closer towards motherhood. Even now, my little egg may be forming many, many tiny cells and searching for a soft place to land. If we were not successful this month, I'm still moving closer, for my mind is becoming more firmly set on the goal every moment.

Today I help my husband make a decision which may affect our income, our location, and his career. He has a job interview tomorrow morning, and must decided whether he would like to continue in Materials or to move to Information Systems. The former would leave us here and pay more money; the latter may eventually move us to Wisconsin and is dearer to his heart. How can he decide?