The Right Time.

People are always talking about the "right time" to do things. 

The right time to tell a secret.

The right time to say I love you.

The right time to get married.

The right time to have kids.

I have a dear, dear friend, who's struggling with the "right time" to have kids idea.  She's an amazing person, a fantastic friend, and I have no doubt she will be a phenomenal mother.

I gave her a piece of advice today.   Our friendship is not a mushy mushy one.  We are close; part of our draw to each other was our sarcasm, our mutual annoyance for things, and our fierce loyalty to our friends.  But I told her this:

 You're never going to be ready. There's never going to be a perfect time, a perfect moment. Babies change everything, but they make you look at life differently. They make you love your husband differently. And they make you feel differently. It's the most amazing thing in the world, and there's no good reason to delay that.

To which she replied something along the lines of "bitch, why you gotta make me cry?  That was beautiful."  (paraphrased, because what she actually said is for my eyes only. ;))

I feel like I've aged 20 years in the past 5.  I've loved so much; I've also lost. 

I'd be nothing today without my kids.  My kids were the ones who got me through the hard times.  The ones who could make me smile when I felt like I couldn't go on.  The ones who made me get out of bed in the morning, and the ones, if even only for a minute, could make me forget the sadness.  Forget the pain.  Forget the loss.

My mom waited for the right time to do a lot.  She would tell me that she and my stepdad were finally going to go to Italy one day, when the time was right.  That she'd get a Movado watch, when it was the right time. 

She ran out of time.  She didn't know this would happen, of course.  But she did.  She was the strongest woman I have ever known and she battled her illness with everything she had.  But the one thing she couldn't battle was the loss of time.

We need to stop waiting for the right time.  If you love someone, tell them.  If you have a secret you need help with, tell someone.  If you want to be a mother, be one.  Don't wait.

The right time is the time when it happens.