Vintage

I recently received a "letter in postcards" from my friend Laura: 8 vintage postcards, to be exact, numbered and mailed in one fell swoop.

I cannot put into words the joy and delight that filled me upon opening the mailbox to find EIGHT postcards - all at once - from a beloved friend who lives on the opposite end of the continent.

She is 34 weeks pregnant (probably 36 or 37 by the time of this writing), and philosophical about her future as a parent. While I had a brief stage under the influence of my biological clock (tick-tock, tick-tock!), it passed and now I'm basking in the simplicity and splendor of being a GINK (Green Inclinations, No Kids http://www.facebook.com/GINKthink and http://ginkthink.wordpress.com)

So I must confess, most of the time I can no more relate to pregnant women than I can to mothers of young children.

But Laura said something that finally put the whole thing into a perspective to which I can relate. She wrote, "It's kind of like this... When you have a 'BIG TRIP,' you spend months reading guide books, getting essentials, learning about your destination, etc. etc. When you come home, you pretty much go back to life as it was before the trip. Yet for PARENThood, your life is different forever."

It's actually been my experience that the BIG TRIPs never let you go back to life as it was before. So we have that in common. As Angelina Jolie famously said, "A single journey can change the course of a life."

And so I wish you - Laura in particular, future and new mothers in general - Bon voyage! May you have the most splendid of journeys.