i feel like karma tonight.

today has been a mishmash of memory and future.

i had to stop at work this morning and actually work for a few hours--which wasn't bad, and will get me ahead and reduce stress next week. both of which i can appreciate. on the way home, i hit some garage sales for my dear friend cathy, who's expecting right around my mom's birthday in november. i got a lot of great baby stuff, including toys and a few clothes and books. and my fave buy: a graco pack and play crib, used very little, for only $20! to give you an idea of my elation: usually those sell for about 70-90 clamshells.

being the bargain hunter that i am, it was a warm fuzzy. thinking of the future of this little one, whose nose looks just like its mommy's, even in utero.

at the same time, this morning was a meditation on the past. my youngest sister and i were talking about friends whose relationships were taking unexpected dips and sways--spouses unsure of their feelings, or feeling things for someone other than their intended.

i never thought that i would be entirely glad about discovering what i did last summer. at the same time, if i had not explored this territory, the dark parts of my soul and the forgotten, dusty arena of my relationship withdan, i would not be where i am: learning.

i'd be stuck with one foot in the mud and the other in a solidifying vat of cement.

i admit, i have a long way to go. i'm still re-imagining my self, and my role in kim and dan, inc. but my eyes are more open now; i'm not deluding myself, and when and if i drift into excuses, i can discuss it openly.

when i was a kid, about 5 or 6, my sister and i had a little table. it was from the seventies, so the legs were metal and the top was metal. the legs had little white rubber feet on them, but this was no lightweight plastic thing that kids have nowadays. we decided to move the table; halfway across the room, my sister dropped her side, and it fell on my right foot, second toe in from my big toe.

when i look at that toe now, if the nail is unpainted, i can see the fissure from back then. whatever i spliced apart healed up, but it grows with a line down the middle of my nail, something you can see and feel, if you run your finger over it.

the toe works just dandy--it's not like i lost feeling in it or anything like that. it just looks strange, unpolished. it doesn't look like all the other toenails.

whenever i remember that toe it brings back a twenty-five year old memory of pain--so dim that i can barely remember it. but i've stubbed toes since then, accidentally dropped other things on them, etc. i know how much it smarted then, and i know how much it would hurt now.

i don't think i learned the same things from the table that i obviously am learning from the unveiling of my mental state; toes cannot compare to feelings. but the idea is the same, if on smaller scale: i was careful after that to watch where my feet were, and learned to keep them out of the way whenever i could. i could warn others if i noticed that they were in danger, too.

i have that feeling now, looking back at last year. i think of what avenues have been torn up and are still under construction, the bridges that i am rebuilding. it takes time and patience, which is something i need to remember more often when i am cursing orange construction signs and the smell of hot tar. (;

anyway, i have all this information about living my own life. i thought it was something unique to me, something that someone could interpret and apply to their own life. but it also is something i can share, a lesson that is generally applicable. it's different--but everyone IS different.

the thing i guess i have learned is that while everyone has that toe that's a bit different, they still have the foot--they still understand the cause and the pain, the growth and the joy. those are things that are universal.

in a few months there'll be a new little body and mind in the world, a combination of darin and cathy, small and precious. that child has so far to go--i'm only part of the way through my journey, and i have come a long ways. i don't envy the pain of that still-sheltered life, but i envy the cocoon of safety that child enjoys now, and the joy that child will know in life, too.

my dad always says, "what goes around, comes around." i suppose it always will.