Returning

Things are on the up and up around here, with only a few detours sideways or backwards.

The night before I left for Vegas we had another big fight, but this one ended better (hint: with both of us in the same bed). In the morning we were fragile but friendly again.

Since I got back we've been different. Better. D$ brought me a sandwich when he picked me up from the airport from Vegas. (This is a tradition between us and I really should expect it but it makes me gloriously happy every time. You can get flowers if you want, but goddamn if I don't like getting a sandwich from a handsome man when I step off an airplane). On the way home I could tell that he had missed me - like really missed me - despite the fact that he'd been boozing it up with his best friend while I'd been gone. This was a relief, because my biggest fear this whole time was that I'd drive him away. I'd missed him too, despite any evidence to the contrary.

Since then we've been talking (quietly, for the most part).  We've been considering. Considering each other, considering our actions, considering how we affect each other (and also considering what we will eat next but that last one is par for the course for us). D$ has been crazy affectionate and I have crazy-loved it. We've had one biggish fight but it ended in talking things out that same night (a new thing for us). I have been working really hard to be pleasant and present when I'm home* and so far it seems to be working.

We still have a lot of work to do of course. I can't seem to find a damn psychologist who works on Fridays and have gotten tired of using all of my breaks from work walking around outside trying to avoid a coworker hearing me make phone calls about seeing a therapist, so I still haven't seen anyone. I'll take another totally-subjective look at the list provided by my insurance later this week and try again.


So. Up and Up. Shedding dead needles and moving towards the sun.**



Oh! I also pick up my Nightguard on Thursday (only 6 months later). Fie on you, jaw pain!




*Sadly, this is one reason that I haven't been around here much - it is hard to be pleasant and present in the two hours I have between work and bed and get any writing done. This balance still needs to be struck because I don't want to abandon the blog and I just lost another follower! Grrr. **As in: sun, if you don't come out I am going to lose my goddamn mind. Spring! I need you!

The Boulevard Cypress

Image: Greens of Summer 2 by Diana Murphy via her blog Beautimuse (also check out Swoond)

Years ago my mother bought four 12-inch Boulevard Cypress trees and planted them in the side garden. Now they stretch 15 feet high, reaching out towards the grapes and blueberry bushes and shading the arbor where the hammock swings in summertime. The trees are tall and spindly and their rich green needles are shockingly soft on top where they meet the sun. Underneath, though, the branches are skeletal - rickety and clumped with dead,wet, brown needles.

The Saturday after D$ and I's biggest fight I spent three hours pruning the Cypress. I delicately separated the dead needles from bright green new growth. I lopped off entire branches at the trunk. As I pruned,* I thought. These needles and  branches I was clearing away had once been helpful to the Cypress. They were a part of its history; had formed and fed the Cypress as it made its way up to the sun. Now they are unneeded, hangers-on that marred its beauty and, most importantly, used up energy that could be used to move up, on, out towards the light. When I was done the Cypress stood proudly, slightly more naked but much more beautiful.

What D$ and I have been dealing with -  the old emotions and defenses - are like these brown needles. They are a part of our history and in the past perhaps they were useful. Perhaps they helped us protect our fledgling identities or shielded us from old dangers. Now, however, they are not needed. They are holding us down and using up energy that could be used to bring us closer to light.

The last several weeks have shown me just what my dead branches consist of: anger. Vehement, nonsensical anger.  I get frighteningly angry at the drop of a hat and viciously take that anger out on those I love most.

It has to stop. I don't know if I can do it all by myself but I do know that I cannot make it D$'s responsibility to help me. He has been on the wrong side of the broom** one too many times and, rightly, needs me to figure this out on my own. So for basically the first time in my life, I am going to start counseling.***

*My mom called it "poodling" and I sang a nonsense song about tree-poodling almost the whole time I worked. No one said serious thoughts couldn't be accompanied by made-up songs. 
**No I never hit anyone with a broom. If you can name the song you win. 
***I haven't started yet, but I will. I am trying to find a counselor but sort of don't know how to do that. Am I just supposed to pick from my insurance companies list and hope are good? Terrifying. If anyone in the Portland area has a referral I am all ears. 

On not being there

It probably hasn't escaped you that I was not with D$ for his dissertation defense nor his becoming-a-doctorness. In fact I was halfway across the country and not even at my desk to receive his excited phone call. This is clearly shitty-partner fodder, right? Maybe, maybe not.

I really, really wanted to go to Minnesota for D$'s defense, but it was D$ who basically insisted that I not go.

Here's how I felt about it: Getting your PhD is a huge fucking deal and something that one's spouse should be around for. D worked his ass off, supported me in my endeavors and got his PhD and got a job in my hometown. Oh, and he's 26 years old.* So it was important to me that I be there for him and show my support.

D$'s opinion was more like this: He was not happy in his PhD program. He is mostly just happy to be done, and I wouldn't understand his defense anyway.** He knows I support him and would much rather save the money on a plane ticket for the two of us to go on vacation somewhere.

D$ won out because it was his achievement and his choice.*** We left it at that. Then, the night before he left, balking at the prospect of spending a month apart, D said he wanted me to come to Minnesota after all. I avoided the urge to hit him over the head with a pillow and scream i fucking told you so why wouldn't you let me buy a ticket when they were cheap aradsfasdfasdfoasidgasd!!  At that point it was too late as tickets were too expensive.

So I wasn't there. I am also not there as he visits his family across the south and mourns the death of his grandmother. I am not there as he drives across the country tomorrow, and I will not be there when he visits his sister in California.

I am missing a lot of things this month. I know it was his choice. I know that D$ does things on his own and always has. I also know that it still stinks.


*I know, a baby. He will be 27 soon, but still. I am 28. Also, fun fact: Einstein got his PhD at 26!
**That is totally true. 
***I was also sort of worried that if I went then I would somehow make the event about me, which I really, really didn't want do to. 

One Bitter Cookie (or: Random Fault Post)

From Not So Humble Pie

The trait I hate most about myself - a trait that has reared its head once again today - is that I have a hard time not being bitter about other people's success. Wait, let me say this honestly - I am bitter about other people's success.

Let's say a nice couple about my age on House Hunters is looking for a $450,000 house and has a $80,000 down payment. I immediately pick them apart - who are they to have so much money? What the fuck kinds of jobs do they have, anyway? They don't seem smart or interesting. Maybe their fucking parents gave it to them.

Or maybe I'm reading a list of bios of people in my career field. I pick out the person with the fellowships, accolades, publications, etc. Or the one with the Ivy League pedigree. "What an asshole," my bitter self mutters, without me being able to control it.

The worst: one of my dearest, oldest* friends gets some very good news about a project she has been working on. Instead of being happy I am filled with anger. All I can think is reasons why she doesn't deserve it, or how unfair it is, or how upset it will make people who have worked harder for similar things, or how easy her life is. How hard I work and how little it is appreciated. I mean - this is one of my best friends.

Let's not even talk about wedding blogs.

What is this? What, do I think that I deserve more than everyone else in the world? Do I, in my heart of hearts, really think that I am that much better than everyone around me? Am I just insecure?

It's like I turn the successes of others into my own personal failures - like everything someone else gets or does is something I feel like I should have been doing or getting. Either I beat myself up for not being better (not going to an Ivy League, not having a PhD, not being a paid blogger or mandolin aficionado) or I create a list of reasons why my super unfair life and that persons super fucking unfairly easy life are conspiring against me. And I don't even want to go to an Ivy League or get a PhD.


I'd like to say that this only harms me - that the worst it does is makes me bitter and unhappy - but it harms the people around me, too. How would my friend feel if she heard me say those things? Why should that poor fellowship-winning person get 'tude from me? I am putting unfair negative energy out into the world, and that isn't good for anyone. Luckily I don't really do this to D,  but if we're being honest that is probably because any success he has will directly benefit me. Jesus Christ, that sounds so bad.

I'm trying really hard to be better, but its been really difficult so far. Bitterness is a hard habit to break.

All suggestions welcome.




*oldest as in been my friend for the longest. Not as as in elderly. 

Slowly learning

The day before the housewarming party D and I had a huge fight. What started the fight was of course not really what the fight was about. At all. A small stupid incident set us both off and turned into a day-long battle - interspersed with us getting along for a few hours - that ended up with D storming out of the house and me furiously cleaning the bathroom while muttering to myself.

The fight was about money. Well, about how we treat each other about money. How my deep financial fears and penchant for projecting my insecurities onto him combine with his impatience and severe rationality to make us (mostly me) unable to make financial decisions without a lot of angst. Of course we didn't come to that nice conclusion right away. We had to endure lots of stupidity (on both our parts) before we got there.

The problems are many: First: numbers, to D$, are like the alphabet. Numbers, to me, are scary and make my brain turn off. Second: If I am going to make a decision I have to talk about it for a long time first.  I talk about is how the decision is making me feel - am I mad that I have to make the decision, what are my fears, etc. None of this is usually very logical but I have to get it out before I can make a rational decision. Example: when I needed to take out more student loans in order to pay off older and more expensive student loans, I spent several days saying, "I made pact to myself that I wouldn't take out any student loans for graduate school and so I don't want to take out any loans." I knew in the back of my head that it was stupid not to take out more loans - in fact I knew that I probably would take out more loans -  but the idea made me sick and upset and I had to talk about that before I could move on to the smart decision.

When D is faced with a decision he looks at the facts and decides. Done deal. So he thinks that all the talking I am doing is how I will make a choice -  that I will make a decision based purely on my emotions. During the student loan debacle he ran up some numbers for me (without walking me through it) and acted offended and contemptuous when I wouldn't readily admit that the loans were the best idea and go ahead with it. He thought I was going to refuse to take out loans, and end up spending more money in the long run, because I was upset at the ultimately meaningless act of taking out more loans.

Here is what happened (what happens): D$ feels like I don't trust him to look at the financial information and make the right choice even though crunching numbers is what he does all day long. I feel that D is treating me like I am stupid and is treating me as if I can't be trusted to make financial decisions. Massive hurt feelings ensue. It looks something like this:

MWK: This is how I feel

D$: These are the facts.

MWK: But this is how I feel.

D$: But there are the facts.

MWK: FEELINGS FEELINGS FEELINGS!

D$: FACTS FACTS FACTS!

Both: *#$@!*#@%!

After the last fight we were finally able to get to the bottom of some of this. I made D understand that my emotions are just as legitimate and necessary to me as his numbers. I think D understands that he needs to let me express my emotions and give me the time to emote without being impatient or treating me like a child. D$ told me how frustrated he gets when I won't listen to him on the numbers stuff and I understand now how hard it would be to have your wife doubt you on what is, to be sure, your greatest skill (that's math, folks. The man loves math).

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Last weekend, about a week after the party, we sat down to talk about money again and to make a budget. There were a few tense moments but mostly we were able to have a calm and civil conversation. We came to an understanding about our finances and how we want to handle them. It was by no means fun, but I am proud of us for getting through it.

Lucky

via

The housewarming party was a success. My mom, D and I spent all day preparing. Went I went to pick my mom up from her house she had three five-gallon buckets full of flowers from her garden and she spent an hour filling our apartment with multi-colored dahlias in gravity defying bouquets. She even put a tea-cup full of awkward teenage-looking flower buds in the bathroom.*

D$ spelled our last name on some of the sixty cupcakes he made, all of my favorite people showed up. If you don't count me getting a little tipsier than I planned on in front of my new work friend I'd say the evening was a success. So...why did I sob myself to sleep?

**
My mother's best friend and her husband, who I count as two of my favorite people in the world, brought us a gift from Crate and Barrel. I didn't open it while they were there but as soon as everyone was gone I ran over to open the box and see what was it in. D$ must have been outside because I was alone in the apartment, sitting cross-legged in the hallway. I opened the box to find the platter pictured above. I sat there silently for a moment, petting the copper veins of the platter...and burst into tears.

I pulled myself together for a while - enough time to pay a visit to our downstairs neighbors who were also having a party - but soon had to retreat back to our place to be alone. I pretended to clean until D$ came to find me and noticed that I wasn't speaking. When he asked what was wrong and then pleaded for me to talk to him I finally leaned into his chest and let myself be totally wracked with sobs. He got me into bed and hugged me from behind while I continued to wail and hiccup and shake.

Yes, I was drunk, so there's that. But I was also completely overwhelmed by how much love and support we had in our new house. How lucky we are to even have a roof over our heads not to mention a gorgeous old apartment that we filled to the brim with loved ones. For the first time I hosted the majority of the people I love most in the world in my own home. People who raised me even though no one asked them to, from the man (and his wife) I met volunteering in high school, to my grandma who brought us (homemade) bread and salt and honey and wine****, to my parents, to the five or six other moms and dads I had in that room. All of them helped me become a person and all of them were there ready to welcome us home, eager to fold D into the community that made me.  

I don't think I was able to form any complete sentences to tell D$ why I was crying. He figured it out.

*I SO wish I had photos. They were so lovely. Alas our camera is still broken and the photos I tried to take look terrible.
**I wondered why she got so many packages! D$ has started greeting the UPS man by saying, "Hello, friend!"
***Not all of you...some of you are very far away and I miss you very much and wish you had been there 
****We got SO much wine. At the end of the night we had more bottles than we started with, and we started with a case and a half of wine...most of which was consumed.

The downside

I'm starting to feel the sad side of all this good news.

Yesterday I met three old work friends for a going away happy hour. There was a lot of laughter and a lot of fried food.

After I parted ways from those three wonderful women I walked over to G and L's house. That's them, above, at our wedding. (G is the teeny one in the middle, L is on the far right.) G lived two doors down from me our freshman year of college and we lived together for two years after that (including a semester where G and I shared an actual room and L lived in the same suite with us).

G is getting married in August and I went to her house last night to help her try on her wedding sari and figure out how to get it altered. Later we met L at a restaurant not far away for snacks and cheap wine (I swear, I do not have drinking problem). Among other things, we determined that all three of us should go to the alternation appointment: L is the seamstress and she will know if the woman is any good but she is too passive to say anything, as is G. I'm the bossy one so my job is to interpret their looks and make sure the woman listens to G.

That conversation, and the evening in general, made me realize how much I will miss these two women. Except for the time that I was in Senegal I have spent the last nine years living within walking distance of them, and I hadn't thought about what it will mean to lose that.

I don't really want to think about it now, either.

Pins and Needles

Big things are happening around here, people.

Some of these things are stupid and involve vomit in cars.

Some of these things are huge and exciting and terrifying. And involve job offers in hometowns and salary negotiations (whee!) and the potential of renting large trucks to move one's belongings across state lines.

Big things. Big things that have my gut in a teeny twisty ball and a smile of excitement/terror on my face. Neither D or I have slept for the past two days (I woke up shouting at him in the middle of the night last night and don't remember why and he wasn't even mad. Because he hadn't been asleep.)

I want to share these things with you, have been thinking about what I can say. The whole point of this blog is to help me work through the transitions of this year, I know.

But I can't isolate my feelings just yet because I have about ten thousand going at once and am too jittery to put together a coherent thought.

Suffice it to say that I'm thinking about you and I will tell all soon enough.

Stay tuned for the big reveal!

I would like to make this very clear

To my friends who do not read this blog (because you don't know about it),

I would like to make something clear to you. I am a very busy person right now. Weekends are the busiest. On any given weekend I have to do homework, clean my apartment, go grocery shopping, handle piles of laundry, and apply for several jobs. Despite this, I will gladly carve out time to see you.

However, can we be straight about some things?

1) Please respect my time. If we make an agreement to meet at 1, don't text me at 11:30 and say "Actually I wanted to go to a class at the YWCA at 12:30 so I won't be ready until 2:15." Particularly don't do this when we were planning on doing something at 3:00 that we will no longer be able to do because of your gym class.

If we make plans to hang out on a Saturday night, do not say you will call me around dinner time with more details and then not call until 10:30 p.m. I am waiting around for you instead of doing homework or something productive, and it makes me mad. This brings me to...

2) I do not go to fancy clubs downtown. I do not pay an $8 cover just so I can drink $10 drinks and try to avoid grinding with a man in an Ed Hardy t-shirt. This is not because I am married and have suddenly become boring. I never did that. So when you call me and say "let's hang out" and then make it clear that you already have plans to go downtown to clubs and expect me to come along, I am sorta bummed out. When and if I come along (like tonight, whenever the hell you get ready go GO), it is because I feel bad that I never go out with you, even though the reason I never go out with you is because I hate where you go out and I honestly can't afford it.

I do not like telling you that I am poor and need to go to bed early so I can get up and be productive. I do not like being a stick in the mud. So I will go out with you to fancy clubs if that is what you want. But for the love of God be on time. And come to a fucking dive bar every once in a while.

Oh, and?

My step-dad got laid off yesterday. From a company he has worked for for over 40 years. 9 months before he is eligible for full retirement.

WHAT?

Project Good Attitude is putting me through the ringer this week.

The good news is that my step-dad hated his job and it is clear that the company is becoming more and more evil and incompetent, so it is probably good for is soul to get away from them anyway. And if my parents stick to a budget they will be okay.

As my mom just said on the phone to me, "Well, as soon as we can stop feeling like we've been fucked in the ass when we weren't in the mood for it, I think we'll be okay."*

I'm off to gorge myself on homemade chocolate chip cookies and wine.**I promise not to be such a Bad News Betty Sad Sack next week. No more sympathy baiting from me, I promise. I may even write a post that is about marriage (will wonders never cease).

*Clearly, I get my tact from my mother

**Homemade by ME! I cooked twice this week y'all. Carrot-Sweet Potato Soup and cookies.

***Image from here.

Hear. Hear.

I did that terrible thing last night, where you start Facebook stalking someone who you sort of know and then decide that your life is totally meaningless? Am I the only person who does that? Long story short: This girl I know, who for the record seems like a very cool person, has apparently been traveling the world for a Foundation, making important videos of some kind in places like China, Kazakhstan, and Kenya, and looking at her photos made me feel like a speck of dust.

But then, because of APW of course, I read this on Offbeat Bride:

Time spent bitching could be time making yourself smarter and stronger and more awesome.

Exactly. More appropriate to my case would be "time spent feeling bad about myself and bitter about other people's successes." But also bitching. I do a lot of bitching.

A good reminder to keep myself working on Project Good Attitude.

Keeping me sane is teamwork, indeed.

It has been a rough couple of days. On Thursday I was hideously frustrated with school, and then I went to my yearly lady parts appointment and my [totally rad] doctor was fully pregnant and due in two weeks. And there were all these happy pregnant couples sitting in the waiting room. Long story short, I got back to school and emailed D$ to say "I want to drop out of graduate school and have a baby." Which obviously isn't a very fair thing to email one's new husband, but he responded by saying (over g-chat) "Dude let's just get preggers" before pointing out that a) I wouldn't be "big and round" until after graduation time anyway so I couldn't justify dropping out of school and b) we could just get a Slow Loris instead. We compromised; I will stay in graduate school and we will try to find a Slow Loris that I can put in little outfits.

Then, yesterday I stayed home from school to finish a job application that I had already spent hours on. Hours, people. The application was due at midnight last night and I had planned on having it done by noon, only to have the site reject my application over and over again for several hours in a row. I tried really hard not freak out; I took breaks, ran errands, repeated mantras about not wanting to move to that city anyway, and occasionally slammed my first down on the desk repeatedly. I held it together and had basically resigned myself to not applying for the job until D$ got home at around 6, when I started to lose it again.

But then my husband, my dear, sweet, large-brained, computer geek husband sat down and went through every damn text box in that damn application to figure out what was going on. And he fixed it. And I danced around and told him I loved him about twenty times, and I felt like a normal person for the first time in three days.

And then we walked to a bar to say goodbye to a dear friend, and lest you think the hubs is perfect, I should tell you that while walking he accidentally hit me in the head with our umbrella at least five times.

"So how is being married? Is it different?"

I've been asked this many many times since the wedding, and my response is normally something like, "Oh well, you know, it's great! Not really that different, blah blah blah." To be honest, I never really know how to answer, because:

1) This is one of the those questions that people don't really want the answer to. Like if someone asks how you are and you say "Fine" because it would be weird if you said "Ugh, I have had the farts all day like you wouldn't believe." Even if married life was terrible (and it totally isn't) it would be super awkward if I said that.

2) The people who ask seem to expect me to say it isn't that different; they make a face like that is what they expect me to say and it is easy to comply. I do feel different, more stable and quietly happy and rooted in a way that I didn't expect, but I'm not going to tell that to my old co-worker on the bus.

3) To be honest, up until a week ago, after the honeymoon ended and our normal lives commenced again, it didn't seem all that different (aforementioned feelings excluded).

Up until a week ago.

About two weeks ago I got in a huge fight with some close family members. The biggest in years...we're talking angry letters (in the mail! With stamps!) huge gaping emotional wounds being opened, etc. Normally this would have broken me for days but this time I felt much calmer than normal. Not that was I wasn't upset, I definitely was. I didn't even realize what kept me so calm until after the fact, but then someone asked me that stupid question and I went, Aha! It felt different to be going through it with my husband. It wasn't that D did anything any differently than he would have done two months ago (in fact he was barely involved in the whole thing) but for some reason the knowledge that he was there on my side made the whole thing easier. I guess it felt like, hey, I am making my own family now, and that made the ordeal with my parents and siblings all that much easier.

Figuring this out made me really happy but it also sort of weirded me out. It gave me a good answer to the question, for one thing. What is weird is that I would never EVER argue that marriage is the key to anything, much less stability or emotional balance, but it does seem to have increased both of those things in me.

That is all the analysis I have right now. Yes, it is different. But I am still figuring how and why, and I am damn sure that the "difference" marriage makes is different for everyone (and not something that marriage has a patent on, to be sure).