It is strange how life shifts and changes and sometimes that shift is more like an avalanche then a gradual slide. I look out my window and see snowy branches where as a week ago I would have seen palm trees and cacti’s. My head is spinning, not just because I am so sick that I can barely think, but because of how much life has changed because of one choice. One choice to take a new job, things that were important that filled my days with stuff so I didn’t feel so bad about my then current job have slid off the horizon and work has consumed the days. Work I believe in, that I want to do, work that fills my dreams, fills my thoughts. I have never worked somewhere where I felt supported and appreciated at least on first impressions I believe I have found it here. But as this week comes to a halt I realize I can loose track of my dreams and become completely consumed by my work. I still have two weeks left of graduate school and I have more then that left in life, artwork to create and stories to write, I need to make sure I can find balance between work I love and my life.

I feel a bit like time has stopped since sometime last week. Instead of moving with the rest of the world I feel like I am on a different track of time. I can hear the cars and trucks go by and they seem distant and far away, the hustle and bustle of the world outside seems odd and disjointed to my quiet little two-bedroom apartment we just moved into. I can see a Ponderosa from the studio window. My husband and I share the space, his deep wood Asian style desk on one wall my sage green old school house desk on another. It is a cozy space that I can see we will spend hours in together working on various projects. For now it is still a puzzles of boxes. Our whole apartment is a myriad of unfinished projects, piles of books, bags and shoes strewn around waiting still for homes to be assigned. It is coming along though, this little space of ours, box by box we are putting things in their place. Slowly it resembles a home, a little square of space that is ours, at least for now and I am grateful for this space.

Life really is better when you don’t have expectations. I am grateful for amazing friendships, great food, cool art, a body that works most of the time (mostly). Finding joy in smaller things. Finding out that living in the NOW, living in the present really can be pretty good, the future and present means less when you can really be in the moment.

It is funny how you can build things up in your mind. How fear can find itself lodging there created by a few too many google searches, and before you know it you have worst-case scenario on your mind, a tight knot in your stomach. The relief that gripped me when I hear the words that the MRI is clean, no tumors was immense, and then I feel silly how could I have even entertained this idea?

At the same time DH’s pain is not gone we have a few things to try and I am thankful for hope, yet I wonder if a slight vitamin D deficiency is really the cause of the two week plus migraine. His pain seems infinite and boundless; it decreases slightly and then pulls back gripping him tightly like it will never let go. This pain, this worry; in the middle of packing, organizing a move, planning out a new apartment, wondering what it will really be like.

Yesterday we snatch a couple minutes to ourselves at the Japanese gardens, dreaming of eventually landscape a yard we don’t have yet, like it. We watch the fish swim slowly through the green water, and the waterfalls cascading down into the pool. This is something we agree on, this is something we both love and I cling to the moment. We sit side-by-side leaning into each other on a rock overhanging the pool and there is love, thick and strong holding us together.

I think about this life that we have built for ourselves. A few more months and it will be nine years of marriage. I think about the moments that I wanted to give up and run away replacing men for boy dogs and live alone, and I think about the moments of love that were so strong they left me stunned. This bond, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health has been tested time and time again and instead of breaking it has grown stronger.

Things are changing, all in a flash and I have had a loss of words to write about them. In a little over a week I will look around and instead of cacti and warm sun that is working hard on getting too hot already, I will see a lot of white stuff and be wearing gloves and hats. Big pines and bare aspens will be reaching for the sky, this will be the backdrop to my new life. Instead of the green and gray walls of my current office I am going to see something different, what that will be I am not entirely sure, but it will involve creativity, children in the background (not mine), long hours, challenge, excitement and hope. I am taking a new job, and I am moving from the low desert heat to the high desert where snow still blankets the ground. I am excited and fearful all the same time. Emotions are tumbling out of me during right now. Things are tenuous, my husbands health is not good, it is a financial risk but it is also pursuing a dream. This move, this change — is HUGE.

Like any adventure that you are about to set out on I am bursting with hope of starting a new. Like the New Year, I am full of resolutions, goals and dreams, grasping this opportunity to take life by the horns and own it, like I never have before. This is it, this is that once in a lifetime opportunity that not everyone gets, it is knocking and while I am terrified I am saying yes, yes to everything this means for me and my husband right NOW.

**I have never lived in snow, or an appartment.**