{Originally Published on Recovering Straight Girl}

The smell of fall is in the air here in the Pacific Northwest. I’m not really ready to let summer go but fall is my favorite time of the year. More than January 1st, fall feels like the time to begin again–a new year–a new time of possibilities.

We’ve had a fun summer and I’m beginning to be ready to dive in to the world again. I’ve been cleaning things up in my office, my home, and in my head. Taking stock of what I have, what I need, and what to do next. It’s a little exhausting at times, but I know it will all pay off in the end.

I was having some apprehension about starting school again. HG and I decided that changing schools would be a good idea and I applied to the school I want to attend last spring but did not follow up on my admittance until just last week. I think I was having anxiety about it and figured if I put it off too long I could just take some online classes at the community college I attended last term. But I did decide to follow up and did send them the info they needed and did register for classes as a non-admitted student until everything is processed. Yesterday I filled out all of the financial aid info that I know they will need as soon as everything is processed, cleaned out all of my files, recycled an entire garbage can of paper, and got ready to mail two important items that will (yes, Universe, WILL) bring me some money.

I’m making room for great things to come my way.

In a few hours I will pick up my father from the airport for his visit here with us. I don’t think that I realized just how anxious I am about this visit until I woke up this morning at 2:30 a.m. and couldn’t go back to sleep. Usually when something is coming up that I’m not sure about I just put it aside and deny it awhile. It works out for me actually, because I think while I have it set aside in my denial I somehow process through it a little bit.

This visit brings up a lot of things for me. Obvious things like Why Now? Why Now, after all this time, does my father want to come and visit? I’m glad he does and I’m very much looking forward to it but I still hear that voice in my head that says, “What’s wrong with me that he didn’t want to come before?”

Logically, I know it isn’t me (right?) but I still hear it.

I am a little resentful of all the things that I’ve never been able to do with my father/never experienced with having a father.

• He never held one of my newborn babies.
• He’s never seen my children on Christmas morning.
• We haven’t had a holiday meal together for nearly two decades.
• I’ve never cooked dinner for him (or made him coffee, or mixed him a drink, or baked him a cake.)
• He’s never stepped foot in any of the four homes that I’ve owned.
• He’s never met my wife or any of the dear friends that I adore.
• He’s never fixed anything for me.

These things come up at a time like this but I am extremely grateful that we have a chance to maybe catch up on a few of them. I will certainly make him coffee, pour him a glass of wine and possibly make a cake. He will be a guest in my beautiful home. I will cook him dinner, and he will meet my wife and my friends.

And the other day when he called me to check in about the flight and the weather here and what-not, the last thing he said to me was, “And if you need anything fixed while I’m there, I’m very handy. I can do pretty much anything–electrical, plumbing, whatever you need.”

I laughed and said, “Well, as a matter of fact . . .”

Inside my heart jumped with happiness. My dad is going to come to my house and fix something for me! In a strange way just the thought of this is very healing.

I’ve been making room for good things to come my way.

And I’m welcoming it all.

Editor’s Pick by Deb from Deb on the Rocks. It’s thrilling to find an author who describes her thoughts and experiences so well that you gain insight into your own. That resonance is why Kathryn Martini’s blog is inviting, why her “Welcoming It All” post keeps coming to my mind weeks after I initially read it and why readers are compelled to come back and find out what happens next. Recovering Straight Girl is a candid exploration of Kathryn’s life as a mother who is freshly back in college to reinvent herself professionally — just as she has been reinventing her personal life after divorcing an abusive man and then falling in love with a woman. She is a smart, engaging writer living complexities out loud–parenting, blended families, love, life change, career shift–so be sure to subscribe and get to know RSG. Read the original post to meet her readers and see their comments.