Same Time Last Year

I took a break from playing Tetris on my cell phone (what else am I supposed to do in the gloomy breast feeding room while it takes 30 minutes to pump out lunch for Charlie and Nori?) to text Jessica (I am really good at multitasking). Last year at this time, Jessica, Chrissy and I were in Barcelona. We roamed the city every morning, took disco naps in the afternoon, and then headed out for a lot of tapas and wine. We were connoisseurs of Catalan cuisine and fluent in Spanish when necessary. We sat in a small bar drinking great red wine watching 80's music videos from Madonna and Wham! on a large flatscreen above the bar. By the time the Cher video came on Jessica was sure we were in a gay bar. It was not until the Boy George video that Chrissy and I agreed. Today, Jessica was watching Lifetime and I was hanging out in a NICU. Chrissy, perhaps, was doing something closer to our lives a year ago but I could not text England. She will be home soon and hopefully so will I. Refelcting about that trip did not make me feel sad about the radical change in my life but instead I felt grateful. A year ago if I had to predict how I might feel in a situation like I am currently in I might have said resentful. But really, as I sat in the overused vinyl chair hoping no one would walk in on me looking for supplies (because the breast feeding room is really a supply closet in disguise), I just felt content and perhaps prepared. Not prepared and content about the challenges that motherhood would present me but rather content and prepared to have a year unlike any I have experienced before.