An introduction

This is me. Well, OK, it's not ME, but it certainly represents what I have somehow become. At what point did I go from being a rebel teenager terrorizing my parents to scrubbing my walls with a magic eraser? I'm not quite sure. But I can tell you this: It has a been a painful transformation. I yearn to climb mountains; to scale rocks and to traverse extreme terrain. My heart longs for adrenaline, excitement. In a word, adventure. Yet here I am, even as we speak, in a dingy pinkish-gray cubicle at an overly-powerful corporation, clicking and typing my way to lethargy and oblivion. My lust for adventure lingers ever on, and yet somehow I have sacrificed my means, my vacation time, and at many times my sanity (my husband-to-be can attest) for - what? Cooking a fabulous dinner that would make your grandmother proud. Cleaning the apartment so thoroughly that not a spot exists on the walls and no dust layers the crown molding. Attacking my (white!) couch with rubber gloves and upholstery cleaner. Incorporating myself into my family, which has now gained two sisters-in-law and two nephews. Certainly not not characteristic of me.
Dear readers, if you exist, I can tell you not when this happened. But I can absolutely, unequivocally tell you why.

I am marrying that why in exactly seventy-two days.

Most people would automatically detract this as a compromise of my ideals. But the more I have pondered upon this idea, the more I am able to reject it. For, you see, I am marrying a fellow adventurer. So although I am not climbing extreme rock faces or hacking through a fallen tree for survival firewood, I am on the greatest adventure of my life. A backpacking trip is made none the more exciting for solitude; in fact, loneliness can destroy the beauty of such a thing.
As for me, I have now acquired a taste for companionship during my travels. Two sets of eyes find twice as much intrigue.
And I have found that sometimes, when I am whirring about in my kitchen almost in perfect harmony with my meal's demands, or when I have ached all day from making my home a beautiful place, or I witness the miracle of life through my nephews, that good old adrenaline junky is back under a new disguise: domestic goddess.