little epiphanies

It's been a week of little epiphanies.  They've varied in significance from very small and incidental to pretty big stuff.

Let's start from the smallest and work our way up:

• I am madly in love with Andrew Belle as a musical artist.  Saw him about a year ago at a small venue in Northern Virginia with some girlfriends, and his music just keeps sticking with me.  The album I can't get enough of is "Black Bear".  The three songs I can't get enough of are "Black Bear", "Dark Matter" & "Pieces", though the whole album is great.  "Pieces" is truly one of my favorite songs ever.  I listen to it and I think how beautiful it is every time.  Love it!  He recently released an album called "Hush" which is comprised of remixes and reworkings of these same songs.  Intriguing!
• I love my stylist and what he does with my hair.  Yesterday was just a cut because I was crunched for time, but I love it.  My hair feels so bouncy and healthy and swingy every time I leave the salon, and it smells amazing, and he's amazing.  I go back a week from today after work for my highlights and lowlights.  I've never had any lowlights before, but I'm seriously excited to see how this will look!  He says it's a really good look for the fall, and my current highlights are pretty grown out.
• I love Halloween.  The weather, the pumpkins, the decorations and lights and spooky movies, the haunted houses.  A co-worker called today to ask if I would consider dressing up as the victim to his vampire for our Firm's Halloween parade event (for the kids of firm employees) next Friday.  I'm currently considering it because a) it's not the costume I'd pick if I were to dress up and b) I've only dressed up once as an adult, and it was pirate themed and it was with the Angry Ex.  I had fun dressing up, but we had a Halloween costume party to go to, so it made sense!  I told coworker I'd think about it today, but in the meantime I started considering dressing up on my own either way, at least for Halloween.  I was scouring for costumes and randomly came across a really cute scarecrow concept.  No pre-purchased costume, just something along the lines of boots, skinny jeans, a plaid button down shirt, a floppy straw hat, strategically placed patchwork and leaves, and accompanying face makeup.  Simple, cute and decidedly NOT in the vein of the ever so common "sexy" costumes that flood the selections for women.  In the right circumstances I would definitely be open to a sexy costume, but for a work dress up?  Pass!  I'm kind of crushing on this whole scarecrow idea, so we'll see...
• Work related epiphany:  while my supervisor is driving me all kinds of nuts, I feel valued in a whole other way.  They put an offer out today to a student who is in his third year of undergrad (graduating early in May) to work part-time as an assistant to me.  It's just from background clearance point until he graduates in May, but I'm so excited for this.  He is being hired exclusively for me, and I will be in charge of delegating his workload, and basically he will be helping me catch up on a backlog of projects that are important, but that I simply don't have time for in the daily course of my day.  The prospect of getting this backlog caught up and then exclusively dealing with items going forward is spectacular, and I'm so grateful one of the Co-Managing Partners recommended me as a spot for him to HR.  I look forward to truly adding some supervisory experience to my repertoire as well.  I was part of his interview along with the HR rep, and it was pretty cool to be involved in that capacity.  He should be starting in the next couple of weeks!
• Time Management:  I'm capable of doing a decent job at this.  In spite of my freakout earlier this week, I'm managing!  I don't get everything done everyday, but you know...that's okay.  The world keeps turning, and if the occasional thing slides by and it means I'm a little less stressed, then that's all right!  I do all the big, important things!  My apartment is currently super clean since BF and J came over last night, and I love it.  I've talked to my trainer and he's looking at his schedule to see if he has any availability for morning sessions for me, so that would be a possible compromise....early morning workouts two days a week, freeing up two more nights a week, which would be awesome.  We'll see!  I feel like that's a better starting point because if I have a booked session with him, I'll definitely show and I won't slack, because he won't let me!  At this point I'm not sure if I trust myself to just show up that early and work out alone. It's a start.  :-)
• J: This is BF's daughter.  She's 14, fiercely smart, sarcastic, challenging and witty.  Last night BF brought her over after picking her up from school.  They waited at my apt for me to get home from work, J doing her homework, BF just hanging out.  I got home and opened my front door to find them both sitting cross legged on the floor in front of the door...as it turned out, they were mimicking my cat's everyday behavior upon my arrival from work.  It was legit adorable. We chatted for a bit while I took care of a couple things and got changed, and then we headed to dinner.  We laughed, we joked, we talked about her school, about our KD Haunt plans for Friday, about food, about the rest of the weekend.  At J's request, we got frozen yogurt afterwards and brought it back to my place to eat.  More laughter, more joking, more chatting.  J was so engaged because she couldn't do the normal teenage girl thing and go off on her own, and it was kind of awesome.  And it felt really easy and normal and familiar.  

When they left that night I instantly missed them, but reminded myself I'd get to see them very soon. Then I was struck by the strangest, most unexpected realization.  I knew I loved BF months ago.  It was suddenly so clear and true and unavoidable, and it was a great moment.  Last night I had this crazy unexpected epiphany---I love J, too.  Seriously, I feel invested in her as a person, as BF's daughter, and as a person in my life.  She's beginning to feel as integral to our dynamic as BF is.  I love when we all cook together.  I love hearing about her schoolwork and activities.  I like when she gossips about her friends and everything going on in her world.  I like that we "have" to take her hoodie shopping this weekend, even though she'll probably ditch us outside the stores in the mall on occasion.  I like that we have running jokes, and that she loves my cat, and that we have such similar senses of humor. I love how much she looks like BF, and how many little personality traits they share.

I have these random moments where we're all hanging out and it feels so normal and right and I think...this could be our little family.  I'll never replace her mom, and I'd never try, but our little trio works pretty well. Even though she's 14, I still get to see glimpses of the childlike stuff with her, and hear her precocious declarations and see her perceived wisdom, and know that really, she's so young and she's got so much to come.

I had a stepmom I hated growing up.  She was fiercely threatened by me, she was fake and sneaky and manipulative.  I will never be that person if my future means that J becomes my stepdaughter eventually.  I love the idea of it.  I love knowing that we'll get to be part of each other's lives in that possible future, and that I'll easily love her and accept her because she is BF's daughter and she is awesome.  I love knowing that if that happens, I'll be around to see her graduate high school, go to college, find her career, fall in love, build a life, maybe have kids of her own.  

None of these are sure things, of course.  BF and I are just dating, not living together, not engaged. It's not even been a year yet. But we're committed and we see potential and lately I just feel so damn good about all of it, and maybe that's why this clicked into place.  Talk about an epiphany.  :-)