the "r" word.

A year ago today, my life changed completely.  It was a change that I, or anyone I would imagine, could not be entirely prepared for in only 9 months, heck I still don't feel properly prepared.  Yes, one year ago today was the day we were blessed with our son, Henrik.  Well, I'm not going to continue to tell you the mushy story you've heard a million times, "When I had my baby, it was the best day of my life," blah, blah, blah...Nope, I'm going to tell you the truth...the cold, hard truth...my life changed because I took a risk. 

The risk wasn't neccessarily all the responsibility of taking care of another human being or knowing it is entirely up to you to make sure this little person gets all of the tender loving care and experiences to grow into a respectable member of society, but the idea of knowing my life would completely change was the true risk for me.  Okay, the risk was all the above, and I knew it was going to be hard.

I don't know how this is supposed to go, but for my husband and me, deciding to take the plunge to have a baby was a scary thing.  We were risking our comfort, financially and socially, we were risking our prized so-called youth, our selfishness, and our emotions to bring this child into the world, well the list continues.

Man, I make having a child sound delightful, don't I?  **enter sarcasm here** Well, let me get to my point.  A year later, as hard as the road has been and will continue to be during this raising a child thing, I couldn't imagine my life without this little guy.  All the wonderful things he brings to my life regardless of all the things that were so scary for me.  What was life before this little guy?  I don't remember. 

So it got me thinking about Windom--imagine that.  As I dig deeper and deeper into this journey I have committed myself to and deeper into the workings of the city and economics and history and business, what if we stopped taking risks?  Risk starts businesses, risk keeps the economy going round, risk creates a community.  Risk fills empty buildings, creates jobs and gives us hope for a future.

We have all taken risks, some of them became failures and some became successes, but we cannot let the unknown, the fear, and the hard work stop us from taking risks.

Today I got to celebrate the 1st birthday of one of my greatest fears and greatest successes, and it felt good.