A Mom's Life

I work with college students every day. Walking around campus, seeing posters about safe sex comic acts, music concerts and reading student senate meetings brings me back in time every day. In many ways, it's really nice because for so many of us, our late teens and early twenties is a blur, maybe from partying too hard or just from trying to block out a period of time filled with confusion, soul searching, self angst and worry about the future. After leaving college, I didn't step on a campus for many years. During that time, I lost my self angst, figured out who I was, and paved the way for my future. I still have to admit that when I took the job five years ago, I felt really weird coming to work each day. I felt like an impostor walking around campus; that rather than being an adult, a mentor, an advisor to the students, I was actually one of them. I was afraid that they'd see right through me and be able to tell how nervous I was about being outside my comfort zone...

I have a ceramic Christmas tree in my bedroom. It's from the 70's, or maybe even earlier, and has some black electrical tape holding the base together. It's missing a few of the lights and certainly has years of dirt, or as I'd like to call it, patina, giving it the perfect amount of character. I used to keep the tree in bubble wrap in the basement, only to take out once a year to place in the bay window in the living room. I love how Christmas decorations make the house feel and the memories some tinsel and lights can evoke. Perhaps it is the warm feeling the tree gave me, or my connection to its previous owner that prevented me from packing it away last year. Every night, at least those that I don't fall asleep on the couch,I turn off the lights, sit in my bed, and look at the tree and the way, when lit-up, it makes the bedroom glow. Tiny flecks of red and yellow and green sparkle on the walls and ceiling and it makes the room feel magical. Since I was a kid...

Ever since I've known him, Andy and I have been in competition. As a matter of fact, we've been competing before we ever met. We applied to the same summer fellowship program, (I got in; he didn't) and many of the same graduate schools (he got into GW; I didn't). We have the same academic interests and for many years, similar professional goals. During the early years of our relationship we were living the same life with the exact same goals- we took the same classes with the same professors; worked for the same museums and local organizations and shared a group of friends. We both felt as though we'd fought for, and earned, our spots at one of the best and most well-known museum studies graduate programs in the country, and for that, we had slight chips on our shoulders- and the urge to knock those chips from the egos of others, one another included. I once joked about dancing to "Anything you can do, I can do better" at our wedding because the lyrics sum...