Moving on.

Around this time last year, I was packing up my things and relinquishing the keys to my 'single girl apartment'.

This year, the Husband and I have been purging our things while packing up together. Throughout it all, I kept asking myself at least a dozen times, "How in the fuck, did I accumulate so much shit, in so little time?!"

We've also been sprucing up our current place (this included everything from painting to caulking to replacing all the hardware -- I'm such a handy(wo)man, now!) for our new tenant who was, thankfully, incredibly flexible and patient with last-minute schedule changes that were beyond our control. God bless her heart.

Everything happened in less than a month, and with the holiday season taking up half of that time, I could not have been more grateful and relieved that everything fell into place the way they did, when they did.

It seems to be a reoccurring theme in my life -- some calm before the storm; small, fleeting glimpses of beauty amongst the chaos; rainbows, after torrential rains.

It has been both exhausting and exhilarating. I'm definitely excited, sure, but to be honest, I'm really looking forward to just enjoying the dust settling soon, too.

The one day I once dreamed of.

It's slightly scary, sometimes. 

Because my dreams are always so vivid, there are moments -- real life moments -- where I am afraid I'll wake up, disappointed. 

But I don't. I'm alive and well and happy. I turned 28 this year and it feels both terribly young and old at the same time and there are still days -- weeks -- where I feel minuscule and unknowing about my place and purpose in this world. 

And then I look across the table from me, studying my husband's raised eyebrow, not anticipating his next question, my girlish giggle quickly turning into a full-blown laugh at his own wistful answer. 

My worries dissipate, like dawn breaking in the horizon, making way for a new day.

It'll be a new year, soon. I hope I'll get to savor this one just as well.

My ideal bookshelf.

I truly believe that some things in life will find you, at the right moment, in due time. This includes love, and books.

To add to that list: these adorable bookends.

I have been wanting (and looking for) something similar for years, and today, while taking a stroll with a sweet coworker friend, we somehow ended up browsing the local Marshalls nearby. 

There, tucked in between discounted Christmas decorations, I found myself staring at this pretty pair of night owls straight in the eye, smiling, envisioning them already perched atop our new fireplace mantel soon, comfortably watching over many beloved titles between the two of them.

(The best part? I snagged them for only $25, a fraction of the cost!)

Creating my ideal, always changing and evolving bookshelf -- it's possibly one of the things I am most looking forward to putting together when we move in to our new home. 

And the beauty of it is that, thanks to husband, who purchased the most beautiful, antique floor-to-ceiling bookcase for me, there will always be plenty of room for several more favorites in the years to come.

Christmas, and childhood.

In the midst of holiday joy and happiness, I tend to experience small whispers of nostalgia around this time of the year. 

I was never sure why, exactly. But recently, while stamping and embossing some wine tags to gift my boss and coworkers and my relatives, it dawned on me that I miss it. 

I miss it a lot. Creating. Making. Giving life to these ideas inside my head with my own hands. 

When I was much, much younger, when my mother was a stay-at-home wife and had the luxury of time and attention to give me, we would spend hours upon hours getting artsy and crafty together. 

Caterpillars out of egg cartons. Mice out of eggshells. Rocking horses out of empty toilet paper rolls. The list goes on. And so does my yearning to be able to do so, someday, with my own daughter or son.

2013 was a beautiful, beautiful year. I saw sides of my family I wish I never did, but underneath it all, it showed me what kind of family I want to create and make a life with my husband someday.

But, first: our big move, smack dab in the middle of the holidays. No pretenses here, my friends. Things have been so, so chaotic and draining. Remind me to never do this again. 

Alone time, and growing old, and inherited sadness.

When too much of my energy flows outward, and I don't give myself nearly enough time to replenish my soul -- when I don't make time for myself, there isn't really an eloquent way to say it: I just feel shitty.

But then again, it's probably because I have more than just "energy" flowing outwards from me right now and my body literally feels depleted and drained, like a bloated balloon who'll soon find itself with jarring stretch marks.

Darn being a woman once a month, sometimes.

But, that. Being a woman, and all. I mean, I got married this past summer; bought a beautiful new home with my husband.

And yet.

And yet, I don't yet feel like an "adult", much less a "woman", either.

Maybe it's because I've always associated being a woman very closely with being a mother, and I don't feel ready to be(come) one yet, at all.

I mean, sure. The thought penetrates my mind here and there, and it sits for a while, simmering, planting its seed. But then my body starts rejecting it. I start to feel nauseous. Panicky. Anxious.

Fearful, almost.

I am afraid that I will be weak and that I will break. That I won't be strong enough for the both of us -- for all of us. That I will be terrible, and selfish, and a failure at it. A failure at it all.

Some blogger friends have told me, "You are never truly ready". But I know so many women who seem like such naturals, who seem like they're in their element, who seem like they've got it together.

They seem like "real" women, while I'm still stumbling around, still trying to figure out the rest of the puzzle pieces of my life.

But therein lies my problem. I have the tendency to see holes, even when my life is so full and my heart is so whole. It's a terrible, terrible trap I sometimes find myself falling into, for no reason at all. And when this happens, I start to wonder whether this sadness is something I've inherited from someone before me, and whether they inherited it from another person before them.

And then somehow I suddenly find myself half-assedly watching "Eat Pray Love" on TV, even though I'm not a middle-aged woman having a midlife crisis, and my husband coincidentally just FaceTimed me on my MacBook Air because I didn't realize my iPhone died.

The end. (For tonight.)