The nervous voms

We put another offer on a house.  Then they counter-offered and we had to decide what to do about it. I ended the night scrolling through pictures of adoptable dogs on the Internet to calm myself down. Except I did not calm down and I haven't calmed down since.

This house is at the top of our budget. Slightly over it, actually. Let's break down the reasons this makes me want to nervous vomit all over the place.

1. This is a house that we cannot afford on just D's salary. If we buy this house and have children we will struggle to allow me to stay home for six months and then I will have to go back to work. End of story.


2. D$ makes really good money. What the fuck is wrong with me that I want to buy a house that isn't affordable on a salary that is more than the combined salary of almost everyone I know? How is that even possible?  What is it that I think I need that can cost so much money? 


3. The house has three bedrooms. It has a dining room, a garage, a full basement. It is cute. I feel like buying this house (when I could buy a smaller house in a not-as-nice neighborhood for an amount that would allow me to take more time off of work) I am selling my future children down the river so that I can have nicer "stuff." Wrapping my  hypothetical babies up in blankets and leaving them on a church doorstep so that I can have a guest bedroom.*


4. What happens if we become miserable in our jobs and cannot follow our dreams because of our mortgage? What happens if we lose our jobs? 

Of course there are counter arguments: the neighborhood has the best elementary school in the state. Those three bedrooms mean that we can live in this house with our children for many many years without having to move again. It's a really good price for the neighborhood and the amount of space.  I don't know if I would want to stay home anyway. We have free, amazing childcare in my mom(s) so staying home is a bad financial decision regardless of the price of the home we buy (not to mention the impact on my career, independence, etc). 

All of these facts did nothing to soothe the ache in my gut when I think about 1-4 above. None of these facts eased the guilt I felt about not living in a dirt-floored cabin, sharing a bed with my children, and Living Simply So That Others May Simply Live. That rationale did not stop me from wondering what our (artist/teacher/librarian) friends will think when they see it. Will they whistle under their breath and decide we must have lots of money, then hate me when I am home with a baby and stingy about going out because of the cost? 

Really, I should have had this freak out a long time ago. When we set our housing budget D$ told me what the top of the budget meant. I knew it. But I didn't know it. Now - now that I was deciding if I wanted to  sign my name to documents that will commit me to that amount of money -  well I sorta started to lose my shit. I second guessed my priorities. I doubted what I thought I knew. I spoke to my dad on speakerphone while huddled in a ball on a stool but failed to be swayed by his advice. It felt like there was basically no way for me to know if we were doing the right thing. 

*      *      *      *      *

After hours of deliberation we took a deep breathe and counter-offered back. Neither one of us felt good, or sure, or remotely sane. 

Today, they countered (again, these assholes!) with something we'd considered offering. 

And I was excited. D$ was excited. 

Hopefully, that's all we need to know. 

We're gonna accept. 

*D$ rightly pointed out that the third thought is pretty much 100% about me. I don't think that D$'s choice to work is selling our kids down the river, do I? 

House Hunting and Privilege

When we first started looking for houses one of the first pieces of advice we got was to write a letter to any potential sellers. Really ham it up - tell them that we look forward to raising our children in the house, send a photo of us and the cats, etc. Apparently a friend of ours - who sent a photo of himself and a pretend wife along with his letter - got a house in this manner, despite the fact that there was a higher offer.

I hate to admit it but at first I thought this might be a good idea. D and I are attractive, our cats are cute, who wouldn't want to sell their home to us? Anything to gain an edge and get what we want, right? Thankfully I have D$ - level-headed, fair, "just give me the numbers" D$ - whose swift and disgusted refusal helped me understand what I was really proposing.


D$ and I are a white, straight couple. We are in a monogamous relationship and want to have children. We fit exactly the mold that mainstream America considers acceptable, safe, and expected. The mold whose ubiquity in American culture and media makes life harder for anyone for whom it does not fit. That letter we could send? It would say (to what, in Portland, is highly likely to be a white seller):  "Sell your house to us because we look like you. Sell your house to us because we fit your expectations of "nice people." Sell your house to us because we are white. Sell your house to us because we are straight. Sell your house to us because we deserve it more (because our orientation and lifestyle do not make you nervous).

And this? This is a thing I will not do. My whole life I have benefited from who I am.  Yes, it was without my choosing, but that does not erase the fact that my white, straight privilege is undoubtedly key to the fact that I am even in the position of being able to buy a house at the age of 29. Knowing this, I will not chose to forcibly wield that privilege in order to knock any potential competitors off the playing field.

Heart of Darkness

So I was going to write about what happened over the last two months.

"Oh, you mean how you and D were blessed with incredible luck and achieved everything you had been hoping for for years, and then the minute you got it you turned into a miserable fire-breathing wench?"

Yea, that.

I don't really know how to start. We drove across the country in separate cars (me with the kitties and D with the moving truck). I contemplated killing the cats. As I implied before, moving really took my mind and heart away from me in a completely unexpected way. I thought that once we got to Portland that things would be better. And they should have gotten better, but I got worse and worse. I got worse and worse despite the fact that I was working at a job I really wanted, living in my hometown that I loved, and starting a new life with my completely rad husband. I mean, WTF, self?

I know I know, bla bla bla I was going through huge transitions. Moving across the country, starting a new job, living with my parents. But so was D. Except it was maybe worse for him because it was he was living with his in-laws (although they are amazing as in-laws go ifIdosaysomyself). D was going through all of the same transitions and he was being how he always is: pleasant and helpful and patient and never a burden to anyone. He was getting up an hour early to walk my parents' dog, for chrissakes.

It sounds weak and spoiled to say the main issue was not having time to myself, or living with my parents, but I do think that was a large part of things. I was working ten-hour days with an hour commute on both ends of the day and when I came home there was always something: grandparents in town, friends in town, apartments to look at, I had to buy a car.* I dog-sat for a severely traumatized dog that took a half-hour of coaxing to go outside and went to the bathroom inside several times. I went to a friend's beachhouse for the 4th of July holiday even though I knew that I should stay home and rest - we ended up having to sleep on the floor in a hallway and I came home tired, grumpy and out-of-it enough to get a flat tire in my new car while pulling out of a Dairy Queen parking lot. Not once in over a month did I come home and just hang out with D, or read a book or, as you may have noticed, browse on the Internet or write.

Instead of realizing that I needed to find a way to spend some time alone I just kept going, until I completely stopped being able to handle things. Really really stupid things. I yelled at D when I was stuck in traffic and he tried to give me directions over the phone. If fact I yelled at D for everything. I freaked out at my step-mom because she said the downstairs of the house smelled like cat litter. I pouted around the house like a teenager, only worse than when I was a teenager. My step-mom took me aside to ask if something was wrong or if she and my dad had offended me. D finally told me, after weeks of giving me hugs and hoping I would improve, to "stop being a jerk to me all the time."

At the end of it all, we had a huge blowout over my anniversary present, of all things.** We fought for two days and we both were less than mature. To give you an idea: on the second night of the fight I thought it was very mature of me to call D an "arrogant mother-effer" under my breath instead of screaming it at him.

And then...and then I snapped back to senses. I bought Daniel a card and a porcupine finger puppet and propped them up on the sink to say "I'm Sorry." I talked to him about how I craved time to myself. We moved into our new apartment. Things haven't slowed down since then - we are only half unpacked because we went out of town the weekend after moving in, actually - but I am getting better at knowing what I need and then making sure I get it. On our weekend trip I built in time for D and I to do our own thing and stay somewhere comfortable. This most recent weekend we didn't make any plans and spent the whole two days furniture shopping and apartment arranging. One night last week we actually cooked dinner together and then ate it while catching up on episodes of The Closer*** and we both agreed it was the best night we had had in weeks. Lucky for me, it turns out he still wants to be married. To me.

I can't say what exactly caused me to be so horrible for so long, except that it was everything and nothing. I do know that getting our own place has helped and that being protective about a) time to myself and b) time with D has really helped. Being overworked and not having my own space doesn't excuse how I acted, however, and I still have to come to terms with how relatively easy it was for me to treat the people around me so poorly. For now I am focusing on preventive medicine - making sure to get enough sleep and saying no to nights out or weekend activities that will ultimately stress me out. I am also trying to recognize the symptoms and stop them before they get bad so hat I can put myself in check before I start swinging my negative emotions around the room.

So there you have it - my feeble attempt to work through That One Time That I Was a Jerk for A Month. Potential moral: porcupine hedgehogs solve all problems. That, or: for the love of God if you are being a jerk all the time go be by yourself for a while and/or see a freaking doctor.

*Oh dear god, so terrible. Car-shopping made me want to punch people and cry and stomp my feet. I actually did two of those things, come to think of it.

**It is a long story that will not translate well to Internet. But it wasn't about jewelry or anything stupid like that. It was about something else stupid.

***D loves Deputy Chief Brenda Lee Johnson (Kyra Sedgewick). Sometimes he will sigh and say "Oh, Kyra, apple of my eye." This is okay with me because I love Fritz - that man is definitely in my top 5.

Excuse me while I wax nostalgic

I wanted to make a song about where I live[d]

you know big ups my town

my [borrowed] territory

my [borrowed] state but

I couldn't figure out much to brag about

But wait

Well Prince lives here,

we got ten thousand lakes

I [was] from Minnesota

land of the cold air

And it hit me man

Minnesota is dope

The nightlife ain't all that, but that's okay

I don't need to be tempted by the devil every day

So if you love the midwest, and it doesn't matter where

say shhh...

Say shhh...

Lyrics (with my modifications): "Shhh" by Atmosphere

Images of things I love: Macalester College, Cycle Mpls, Lake of the Isles, Mpls Snow, Grain Belt Beer, Mpls Skyline, Gold Medal Flour Mills

Mental Health Update

Two days ago I had a total breakdown while trying to pack the kitchen.

Like I said, D$ has done the majority of the packing while I've been finishing up school. He had to work Thursday and it was my turn to pack up the kitchen and bathroom. I should have known it would be hard...I was anxious all morning before I started.

After three hours I had packed four boxes. I don't know what the problem was but I was pacing around the apartment, stomping my feet,and at a few points actually holding back tears. I may have resorted to laying in child's pose on the futon once or twice.

I mean, WTF? Why in the world do frying pans have to have such long fucking handles? Do we need all of these bottle openers? Why are the cookie sheets dirty? What in the hell is "Herbed Poultry" spice and do I need to keep it? I couldn't handle the smallest setbacks or decisions. I even yelled "I CAN'T DO THIS BY MYSELF!" A few times. In an empty apartment.

Eventually D$ called to check on me and realized that I was completely freaking out. He tried to talk me down but all I could do was cry, "I can't do this. All the pans are stupid sizes and everywhere I look I find more cabinets full of stuff and we still don't have enough boxes and waaaaaa." I knew I was being a total baby, which only made me feel worse.

Normally I consider myself to be a fairly capable, independent person. I lived by myself in a third world country, for chrissakes. But I am apparently totally incapable of packing boxes by myself. I've been trying to think why this is, and I think it is a combination of control freak + perfectionism + excessive guilt. I feel like there must be a right way to pack the boxes and the idea that I might do it wrong stops me in my tracks with anxiety. What if, god forbid, we have to buy more boxes? Or if a pan breaks and it is my fault! Or if D$ opens the boxes later and says, "Why in the world did you pack this?"

Objectively, I know this is stupid. None of those things is even remotely a big deal. But what do I do with this information? It is easy enough to say "MWK, you are getting all worked up about something that does not matter. Take a deep breathe and move forward." But so far I haven't been able to internalize this (although I did take all the pictures off the walls without losing my shit, which I consider to be a good sign).

Having D$ around helps...sometimes. The day of the kitchen debacle he came home and made a big deal over all the empty cabinets, which I thought was both sweet and annoying (I mean just because I was acting like a child doesn't mean he has to treat me like one, right? Right?)

I am hopefully that now I have identified what upsets me so much that I can work through it. We still have a good deal of packing left and I'm hoping that by consciously reminding myself that there is no right way to pack I can keep my anxiety in check. Or at least learn to deal with it in a more productive way than foot stomping.

I am not dead

Although I am buried in boxes.

The e-mail I get every Monday telling me about who visits this little blog has informed me that I am down to approximately zero hits. This isn't surprising since I haven't posted anything in over a week.

Forgive me. In the last several days I have finished up graduate school, facilitated a few"breakout sessions" for a conference, and started packing up our apartment.*

On Friday my mother-in-law arrives (after I go out to breakfast, get my hair did, and go to the dentist).

Saturday we hang out.

Sunday I graduate.

Monday she leaves.

Tuesday we pack up the moving truck.

Wednesday we leave MN.

Tonight we are hosting a goodbye party at a local bar. There will be a pizza buffet and lots of beer. I hoping to avoid any crying, but you never know.