Reflections from Taylor

Megan and I recently celebrated our 7 year anniversary (!) at a vegan restaurant named Nutshell with my parents. We met my parents there after we both got off work and before going home. It was a very yummy dinner and we had a good time. We were there for a couple of hours and got home about 12 hours after we had left for work that morning. We have 2 very spoiled cats - they have an automatic litter box and automatic food dishes. We got them these things because we are a little bit lazy and have had a lot of evenings like the one on our anniversary. Staying out late without having to worry about feeding the cats relieves a lot of pressure for us. That time of our lives though, is changing. Part of me will mourn the loss of evenings like that once the baby is here (or, let's be realistic, once Megan is pregnant) though it feels like less of a loss to me now than it did a year ago. Megan and I have been through a lot of changes together during the course of our relationship - our last two years of undergrad, our respective graduate school programs, moving across the country twice, a couple of overseas vacations, and probably most challenging, surviving life in (and paying $1,000 rent a month for) a 250 squre foot stuido apartment in San Francisco with 2 cats. These big things, and countless little things, have made our relationship what it is. Of all our experiences, however, one of the most profound things for me, was helping to support our friends through the prenancy, birth, and loss of their first baby, Natalie. Being the youngest of three children and of my 15 cousins, I did not have many (if any) experiences with babies until I met Natalie. Over the course of her all too short life, I celebrated many 'firsts' with her. She is a very special person and I will always cherish her for many reasons including the one 'first' that I didn't know I was missing - the desire to parent. This desire has been reinforced even more over the last year and a half, since we moved back to Oregon. I have gotten to spend quite a bit of time with our neices, Brinsley and Brooklynn (two of the reasons we moved to Oregon) which has been quite enjoyable and served as a fabulous learning experience.

Megan and I are almost 3 years apart in age - not a very significant difference in most respects, but a huge one in regard to the lifespan milestones of our 20s. I was only 20 when we got together (Megan was 23) and did not know any close friends who had gotten married. Megan, on the other hand, was going through the last of a series of weddings of her friends, including the wedding of her cousin with whom she has a very close relationship. At the time, I didn't know the impact those weddings had on her, but looking back on it, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that it was a significant impact - but not as significant as when some of those friends started having babies 4 years ago. Our difference in age was never so apparent as it was at that point - something I felt a little bit guilty about at the time. Had we had access to sperm, I think she would probably have tried to convince me (and she might have even succeeded) to try to get pregnant then. I'm glad it didn't work out that way, though, because I know I was not personally ready to have children at that point - that I was still doing quite a bit of growing up myself. It was too soon for me to give up the lifestyle I so enjoyed and having my biggest worry be whether the cats food timer did not go off (something our cat Cleo tries to convince us of on a regular basis). That isn't to say that I consider myself a grown-up at this point, but I know I've come a long way in just the last couple of years and I'm ready to let go of that part of my life because I truly believe that parenting will be more fulfilling - something I couldn't have imagined just a short while ago.