Today is the seventh of March, 2020. I have wanted to cultivate a habit of writing for some time. This will be my spot where I accumulate all of the effort for my own sake, to feel like I am producing something. I dream of looking back to these posts in many years, when I am old with my wife Katie, and my daughter is old enough to reflect on these years as well.
Where the Beginning Starts
While I am sure that I will dive into my past and all of the events that have affected the way I am and think today, let me quickly just describe where I come from right now.
Physically
In this moment, I am at the corner of my dining room table. It is a nice table. Katie found it at a thrift store while we were renting our last home. We have since moved to this cozy first floor apartment in downtown Westerly, RI.
I have my feet up on the chair next to me facing the windows which have evening sun shining through the blinds over the piano and onto the bar cart.
It was very clear to us that we should move to this town. Our old home was on a main road with cars whizzing by at 55 mph as you grabbed your mail. Here, we are off the main road. We have a beautiful park and library, a church with 24 hour adoration, and all of the restaurants that we could enjoy within a three minute walk.
This is a pretty good place to be.
In Life
Just in time to dive into where my life is, our lovely daughter woke up screaming from her nap, and I’ll get back to this soon I hope!
Marriage and Family
Back. Three hours later. So that is a good portion of our lives these days.
The past two years have been a consecutive series of life events! Katie and I got married in October 2018, and a year later we had our daughter. We love our little Bean!
With all of these changes, it seems that Katie and I are constantly learning to adjust. I hope that writing more regularly will help us to reflect over these years to come in our marriage, our family, and our faith.
Faith
Katie and I both came to have deeper understanding of our Catholic faith in college. We met through a deep love for Jesus and His Church. When we moved to this area we started to get involved in the local community. Now, with most small groups meeting past baby’s bedtime, we mostly catch up with friends from these groups on the weekends and find our own times to pray and reflect.
In Career
The Missionary
After college graduation, I took two years to serve as a Catholic missionary on a college campus. This was an amazing time to grow personally, share faith with others, and meet extraordinary people (including my wife). Though no longer a full time and paying career, I will always be a subtle missionary in some sense.
The Engineer
Today, I am trying out my degree as a structural engineer. Almost two years in, it is going well. I am liking the job more as I learn to do it better and work more confidently. The downside to this type of engineering is the rigidity (pun accidental but welcome).
Today, I clock in, I work, I clock out. I solve problems and work to get the things done that need to happen. This is good and important work, but sometimes I need to get outside of the specifications and the requirements and try something cool. Engineering is awesome because it makes sense, but some areas of the discipline do not have the room to take the risk of trying something wild.
The Artist
I have played music in some capacity for most of my life. As a missionary this was expressed in praise and worship for retreats, masses, or nights of prayer. As an engineer, this is evening house concerts for The Bean to make her smile and giggle or to calm her down while she kicks her legs to the rhythms of the songs.
The Future
I know this post is about today, not the future; however, this thought occurs to me daily so it feels present. I have a hope to some day record an album of my own songs. About five full ones, and many other partial songs currently reside as junky recordings in my cellphone or on Evernote.
The End of the Beginning of the Blog
So that is a brief summary of where I am starting today. I have set a goal for myself to develop some of my ideas more clearly by writing something down somewhere each day. It could be here or on a napkin, as long as I am working through these ideas that are in my head and recording a bit of my life along the way…somewhat publicly. We will see where this leads.