30 years since the hook up

Next month marks 30 years that D and I have been together as a couple. 

Our story started with dental insurance, which is where every romance begins. 

Good lord, I look pale. 

He was finishing his master's degree, and I was wrapping up my bachelor's degree. We had worked for the same company for a bit, seeing each other in the halls or kitchen. I worked part-time as a file clerk, and he worked in the IT department. I thought he was cute---tall, dark, and nerdy. Imagine a young Harold Ramis in Ghostbusters and you've seen D in his late 20s. My co-workers were dying to set us up. 

I think D and I spoke to each other once in the elevator before we "happened" to both go a going-away drinking session for a coworker in accounting who was leaving the company. We all met at a bar, and I spent most of the night chatting with the husband of one of D's coworkers. I'm not sure D said anything to me until we left and walked to our cars. Whatever he said wasn't memorable. 

What was memorable is that two days later, he called me and asked me to go for a walk at a park. I was sitting on my porch reading The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck when my parents told me I had a phone call. (Gawd, just typing that feels ancient---when I didn't have a phone strapped to my hip.)

We met at the dental office parking lot and drove together to the park. We stopped at Ear-X-Tacy, where I refused to let him buy me a Jeff Buckley LP (because then I would owe him something and we weren't having any of that). I remember nothing that we talked about. 

What I do remember is that he asked me out for the following weekend, which is the surefire way to my heart---asking me well in advance to do an activity. I have never liked being treated like a last minute "might as well" by anyone. 

The night of our first "date" date, we went to dinner at the Bristol where D proceeded to not talk much at all. It was awkward, and I remember thinking to myself, "This is probably going nowhere." We then went to see a play called "Angry Housewives," a title I didn't realize was so prescient to what our future would be. I remember when we were leaving, D placed his hand on the middle of my back, whether to keep hold of me in the crowd or steady my way I don't know, but I recall liking the feeling. Still, I didn't know if it made up for the not talking/awkward dinner. 

He drove me home and we took a walk all over the neighborhood in the dark, and like Robert Frost noted, that made all the difference. Something about the darkness allowed D to come out his shell. He told me he watched the film Orlando and enjoyed it, which is the sum total of what I remember us discussing. Oh, and he kissed me before he left. 

Hot and heaviness followed for a year until we got engaged, 29 years ago this month. We married 18 months after that. 

We will soon be having a big to-do of sorts, which I didn't specifically plan for our 30 years of togetherness, but it happens to coincide with it so I'm calling it our "celebration." Of course, it isn't a party---did you not read anything about the quiet dude I hooked myself up with 30 years ago? 

I looked back while composing this to see what else I've written here about marriage, and I've periodically, dating back to our 15th wedding anniversary, written about our relationship, mostly in good terms. It hasn't been all roses, for sure. 

But he's quiet, and I have a hard time being around people who blather on. And he doesn't like sports, which is the other reason he stole my heart besides asking me out for a date a week ahead of time. He's not a messy guy, and he looks good in a beard, and he, more or less, doesn't care what I do. He thinks I'm funny and smart. And I'm assertive enough to politely tell a solicitor we don't want any and goodbye so that D doesn't have to do it when he accidentally is too close to the glass-paneled front door when someone knocks, and he (thinks he) can't really hide. He's still tall and nerdy but now gray all over---still giving off Egon vibes 30 years on. 

May 2, 2025

25 years of togetherness

I can barely get it together to remember our wedding anniversary for which I have paper documents to remind me of the specific date.
We never exchange gifts and mostly don't bother with cards.
Never having to please me with a special gift is one of the things D likes most about me.
When we began dating, he specifically mentioned to his mom, "She doesn't like to shop."
Our relationship has never involved me dragging him out to the mall.

Next month marks 25 years of togetherness for us.
I don't remember the day of our first date, but it was 1995, and I'm pretty sure it was June, and I know it was a Sunday.
I think we got engaged at the end of May 24 years ago.
It may have been today, but I'm not 100 percent certain.

Those little details never seemed important.
What was important was that we took a walk in the park on our first date.
On that first date, he asked me out for the following weekend, a full week in advance.
I used to be the type of person who thrived on making all of my plans WAY more ahead of time than I do now so this impressed me.

On that second date, he barely talked at dinner but then opened up during a nighttime walk.
We both liked the film version of "Orlando."
He didn't like sports.
We went to see a play called "Angry Housewives," which was prescient although neither of us knew it at the time.

D knew me before I was medicated for anxiety, and if he can handle that gauntlet, he deserves the peace that comes with me being far more chill now.

This isn't to say our marriage is perfect.
We've gone to therapy.
I'm not as huggy as he'd like for me to be, and he can't locate a single thing in our house without requiring my involvement.
We both hold our tongues.
I'm sure there is resentment underneath the surface for both of us. Small little grudges we've never quite let go of.
There are things he does that drive me crazy, and I know there are things I do that drive him crazy.

But we generally like each other.
We make each other laugh.
Even during pandemic quarantine.

I know he's got my back and supports me.
He lets me do my own thing.
We both have a live-and-let-live philosophy for each other.

I tell him all the time that I don't know why he has stayed in our relationship so long especially since he is the type of person to believe "There is a BEST whatever out there."
And I know I'm not the best.
If the BEST woman ever knocked on our front door (preferably naked) and offered herself to him, he might hightail it out of here.
(He really doesn't like to socialize which is probably the glue that holds our marriage together most.)

I think we're both proud of the life and family we've built together.

Last night we discussed how 25 years feels like a hella long time, especially because neither of us feels especially old.
(Although our knees and backs loudly disagree with that assertion.)

Year 22

Things I've learned in and/or realized after 22 years of marriage.

1. You do get to the point where you don't actually remember how many years you've been married. I think after 20, you lose count. Sorta like how you stop counting months at some point when the newness of your baby wears off.

2. My parents have been married for 48 years. Every year, they ask each other if they want to do another year. I think that is probably a really good way to look at it.

Because the idea of forever, especially when you're in a thick funk of "Why in God's name haven't I run away from this person and the children we created?" is just not appealing.

3. In the moments when I'm not trying to make my brain better and stronger, I read People magazine. I recently read about a long-term non-married couple that broke up (Andrew Cuomo and Sandra Lee). Their statement was: "Over the recent past, we have realized that our lives have gone in different directions and our romantic relationship has turned into a deep friendship."

When I think about the couples I know who have been married 20+ years, they don't ooze romance; but they are deep friends.

It always makes me sad when couples split up, even though I know these breakups are truly for the best for these people as individuals (and for their families).

4. It is important to keep your expectations of marriage on the higher end of low.

I do not wear sexy underwear or dress like a French maid or say particularly nice things to my husband. I would not, under any circumstances, be defined as a fantastic wife. But my husband would not be defined as a fantastic husband.

I think people expect an awful lot out of marriage, which is fine as long as both people and the circumstances they are in make those expectations attainable.

What I am finding though, is that as children get older and you push toward age 50 and beyond it, you start to encounter all sorts of body and health and hormone-related issues that make life far, far more complicated than you ever dreamed possible. (Especially when you can still remember complaining about how hard it was to raise little kids. And it was hard except for that their toddler and young child problems were colors of sippy cups which were cheap and easy to solve.)

5. I have realized that

• the grass isn't greener
• the road not taken is littered with brambles
• the glass slipper is uncomfortable as fuck.

After 22 years, I'm going to have moments where I love him and moments where I want to bash his head in with an iron skillet (why didn't I take one of Papaw's iron skillets after he died?)

He has these moments with me.

It doesn't matter who I was with. And there are some people I would want to bash their heads in after 22 minutes seconds.

We're compatible.
We make each other laugh.
Those things are pretty good, so why spend a lot of useless energy wondering about what might have happened if.

Happy 20 years of marital whatever-this-is

I don't want to jump the gun, but provided D and stay married until Wednesday, we will "officially" celebrate 20 years of marital "bliss."

We unofficially celebrated in May with our 6-day trip to Quebec, Canada, which seems a lifetime ago. Our goal was to stay married until our official anniversary.

I think we've got a pretty good chance of making it until Wednesday.

I remember as a teen looking at my parents' marriage and thinking, "Geezus, it is so boring." To my teen eyes, there was no passion, no romance.

My teen eyes were right.

A long marriage is a whole, whole lot of boring. Of tedious. Of thinking to yourself, "How in the world have we tolerated each other for this long?" It is sprinkled with occasional bouts of "I cannot stand this person at all" and "I am so thankful I have this person in my life."

Every once in a while, if you can somehow find enough energy, there are sparks of the passion that got the two of you together in the first place, but those are hard to find during any kind of sports season when you are driving someone to practice or a game 3-4 times a week.

Most conversations that D and I attempt to have are interrupted by G wanting to say something highly important right-that-moment about poop or a video game.

We are entirely too tired and antisocial to actually want to "go out and do anything" on a weekend. That whole "date-night concept" is not really for people who don't enjoy going out much.

If my kids ever ask me the "secret" to a long marriage, I think I would tell them that to have a long marriage, you have to keep your mouth shut a lot.

You have to realize that the whole "grass is greener" phenomenon is bunkus. Other situations appear better, but the reality is that that other person who seems amazing enjoys sports WAY more than you and would have a game on the television ALL THE TIME and would EXPECT YOU TO EAT AT SPORTS BARS. That other person likes to shop ALL THE TIME and would EXPECT YOU TO GO WITH HER.

A long-term marriage requires that you still consider the person you married your friend, and in spite of all his/her annoying personality quirks, you know that the person you married is going to be there come hell or high water.

By the time you reach 44 and 48 years of age, you want someone who will go with you to your colonoscopy and find the mupirocin when you have an infected hang-nail, not someone who will take you dancing every weekend.

Having and continuing to want a long-term marriage is looking at what you started with and being thankful for and proud of what you've built together---the family, the camaraderie, the wealth when you started out with nothing.

So....here's to Wednesday, to 20 years, to looking at life through middle-aged eyes and finding that marriage may be a little dull but not so bad after all. 

After 20 years, I can say he's my best friend

D and I returned the other day from our 20th anniversary trip to Quebec.

Our wedding date is in November, but with N's field hockey schedule and the busyness of activities in the fall AND the fact that Quebec weather gets cold that time of year, we opted for a May trip.

We had a lovely, lovely time.
It was nice to have uninterrupted conversations with each other.
It was nice to sit and walk in silence with each other.
It was nice to enjoy each other's sense of humor.

On the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City.

We have decided to stay married until November, and then we will reevaluate every year as per our normal.

I have said this before, and I will say it again, but I take great pride in being married for this long.

It is a testament to working through the regular, mundane shit of life, as well as the bigger unfortunate things, like parents dying and illness and unexpected expenses.  All the sickness and health and richer and poorer business.

For many years, I fought against being married.
That sounds funny, especially since I did want to be married.

I fought against the ridiculous societal idea of couplehood in a marriage. I kept my name. I strove to have my own identity separate from D. I resented the notion that as soon as we married we were no longer him and her but a big nebulous mass of "we."

We haven't ever subscribed to that whole "togetherness" idea of doing things we each hate just to make the other person happy. Sometimes I see couples and it seems to me that one of them is just there in misery to keep the other person from lording it over that "you never want to do what I want to do."

D and I have never really done that. In our early days, I never played video games with him just to make him happy. I hate video games.

One time in our very young marriage, we went grocery shopping together, and it was miserable. He hated it, and I hated him being there because he hated being there and drudged along, six feet behind me. That concluded our days of shopping together.

The things we both enjoy we do together. The things the other person doesn't enjoy, we don't ask them to do. It works for us.

I fought against the idea that D was supposed to be my best friend, but I think I can say after 20 years and 3 kids and 2 houses and yadda-yadda that he is my best friend. He has been through everything with me these two decades.

Being my best friend doesn't mean he fulfills every need I have. There is a reason I have my girlfriends, my mentors, my mother.
But he is a very good complement to my personality.
I think that is what a best friend is supposed to be.

On the AML Louis Jolliet, St. Lawrence River

Happy Hyperbole Heart Day

My sons are the only individuals in this world who can get away with calling me beautiful.

I sort of shiver when they do it, but they are children and my sons, and if they think I am beautiful as their mom, I can live with that.

D, on the other hand, is not allowed to tell me I'm beautiful.  I don't remember a time when he ever has, but I think I remember having a conversation with him in which I said I don't want to ever be called beautiful.

I do not think I am beautiful.  Attractive....occasionally.  I have "windows" of attractive, and they are usually quite short-lived.

I do catch D, from time to time, giving me a googly-eyed look, to which I go "Wha?" and then he stops.  It is in those moments that he is maybe thinking, "She's beautiful," but he knows better than to tell me that.

He would get this:

Today is Valentine's Day, a day on which I do nothing special to show my love to those I love.  I don't give the kids candy or cards, nor does D get anything.

Ok, technically, he did get this, which I made during the children's worship service this weekend....but it was mostly to have something to do while all the littles were making their mommies and daddies valentines.

I expect nothing from him and would actually be royally pissed if he went out and spent $50 on flowers for me.  That $50 could be better spent elsewhere....like on a souvenir from our upcoming anniversary trip.

I have the same philosophy about Valentine's Day (and all holidays) as my mother (she is a wise old bird).  If a person spends time with me or lavishes special things on me one day of the year, and then doesn't make much time for me any other time, then that one 24-hour period doesn't really mean anything special.  My mother would rather go out to lunch with me on 12 regular, boring Tuesdays of the year than spend 1 "magical" Christmas Day.  

When I think about love, I tend to focus on the boring aspects of it---the mundane, the routine---because that seems to me to be what love is really about.  That seems to be the 95% of it.  The thrill doesn't last long in the beginning, and when it reasserts itself at random times throughout a relationship, it doesn't last long then either.  It pops up to say, "Uh, I'm still here" as a reassurance that all is not hopelessly dull, even if it is mostly dull.

When I think about love, I think about what I want to instill in my children by the example of my relationship with their dad.  That we find each other funny.  That we don't have knock-down drag-out arguments.  That we give and take.  That we sometimes, albeit not very often because that is pretty expensive, take time just for us.  That we provide a stable foundation of relationship on which they grow.

These parts of love don't get the glory.

Valentine's Day cards are all about soulmates, about one person fulfilling every single need in the other.  About one person being beautiful or amazing or the everything to the other person.  I'm a fan of hyperbole, but this is just hyperbole on speed.  I stopped getting D these cards because I felt they were all bullshit (and they also cost $5 a pop).

D is not my soulmate, an expectation that is too high for one human being to meet.  I don't want to idolize my husband.....because I have to share a bathroom with him.  Idolizing a person with whom you share a bathroom is just holding too vast of opposing ideas in one's head at the same time.

So I choose to remember that he is human, and I am human, and we somehow try to make our humanness work together happily.

He's seen my uterus; I've seen his colon

Marriage has all kinds of phases and milestones that I never, ever would have guessed were a thing when D and I wed almost 20 years ago.

Our "honeymoon" period ended, I think, pretty much immediately after our honeymoon when my "having a difficult time adjusting to marriage" phase began.  It lasted about six months and seemed to dissipate once we got our cats and I entered my MAT program.

We had a good run of years in which things seemed normal.  We worked; we traveled.

In 2003, we entered the "babymoon phase" which lasted all of 38 seconds and was soon eclipsed by my "something terrible is going to happen to this pregnancy" phase, which lasted until N was safely born.  At that point, D entered his "can't cope with fatherhood phase" and I began the "must be the perfect mother" period.

I lived in the "untreated anxiety" stage for a good 18 months.

When the boys were born, we hit the "husband has seen his wife's uterus flopped up on her abdomen" milestone.

Yes, that is a thing.

Since having children, D and I have moved back and forth between the "we are so thankful for them" phase and the "why the f*ck did we have them?" phase.  Running this gauntlet lasts awhile, I think.  

D has had his fits and starts of the "I'm not happy in my job" phase, and I've dealt with the "I feel like I want to contribute more in the professional world but not too much" stage.  We've gone through one "I lost a parent" stage.

Today, D had a colonoscopy, and I hit the "I've seen photos of my husband's colon" marriage milestone.

That whole endoscopy thing is all kinds of awkward, and maybe the nurse thought me a little strange when I asked if I should shake him or kick him to try to wake him up from his post-scope stupor.  Maybe other wives phrase their tenderness differently?

But inside my heart, in spite of the awkward, I felt something special about this colon milestone.  It felt special to me that we're on this shared path to old age.  That we are there and have been there for each other.  I helped him put on his underwear in an anesthetic fog, and he has picked me up off the floor when I vasovagal-ed while on the toilet.

There is nothing pretty about it, and it isn't glamorous or exciting or really anything that I would willingly submit to if I knew in advance what was coming.  I cannot, in any way, feel sentimental about this because it is in large part ugly and messy and disgusting.

And yet it is a little tiny miracle, I think.  A little something holy.  

Half my life (and why I won't do a Love Your Spouse challenge)

This summer marks a milestone:  I've been in a relationship with D for half my life--21 years.

I very clearly remember, sometime after we married, a conversation we had about the point at which we would be together half my life.  That seemed like a long time away, longer than what it has actually been to arrive at half my life with him.

This fall we will mark 19 years of marriage.  We keep thinking we'll go on a trip for our 20th in 2017, assuming we can ever firmly decide on a place.  So far we've considered Paris, Bavaria, Hawaii, Montreal and Key West.  But I keep finding places I'd like to go.....so add Acadia National Park in Maine to the list.

Overall, I think we are well-suited to one another.  I hear of other couples who have shouting match arguments, and I don't understand it.  I could have shouting match arguments if I was married to a different person, but yelling just isn't D's thing.  He shuts down, and you can't fight with someone who is no longer standing there in front of you.

My parents never did shouting match arguments either. They had "quiet disagreements," and I think this sums up what D and I have.

With this being said, D and I certainly get on each other's last nerve.  There are times I think to myself, "Why in God's name did I marry him?"  There are times when I imagine taking a frying pan to his head.  But some of that frustration at times coalesces with frustrations with the kids, so I'm often not sure how much is actually him or the kids or the combination of both.  He doesn't write a blog or particularly talk about when he is frustrated with me, but I know he has to get that way at least occasionally.  And he isn't the type to huff and puff and rattle crap around as I do when I'm frustrated.

I've seen a Love Your Spouse challenge on Facebook and haven't been tagged by anyone, which is good, because I wouldn't do it.  For starters, D doesn't like to have his photo plastered on Facebook.

But I also don't want to do it because I think it sends a false message, and isn't that what social media is mostly about anyway?  The majority of people post stuff that they want everyone to think is their life, even if what they post is only 5% of it.

People post a pic of themselves at the gym on the elliptical but not of their kitchen counter with 3 packages of donuts (and yes, I'm referring to my kitchen counter right now).

People post pics of themselves dressed up, coordinated with their kids, but not slumming in their paint clothes on a Saturday afternoon with their hair not washed since Thursday.

People post pics of the dinner that turned out beautifully but not the 8 million dinners that ended up burnt in the oven or that tasted craptastic.

And if I post pics of me and D together all smiley, it doesn't convey the 99% of our marriage that is figuring out who picks up what kid from where.  It doesn't convey me shopping for his underwear at Target.  It doesn't convey morning breath and gross nail-picking habits (mine) and beard hair all over the bathroom (his) and watching each other's bodies grow looser and grayer over 20 years.

It ain't pretty, that's for sure.

What we say on social media is probably .2% of the story.  If someone posts that they are moving with their children, it might mean that they are in the midst of or just come out of a nasty, nasty divorce.  There is a lot to, as Paul Harvey would say, "the rest of the story" that we aren't privy to.  We don't want to be privy to it, but we forget it is there at all on social media.

Marriage and Parenting, version 7402

I don't know exactly how many iterations of marriage and parenting a couple goes through over the course of a lifetime, but since 1997 (the beginning of our marriage) and 2004 (the beginning of our parenting), it has certainly felt like 7,402.

I'm not sure what makes a marriage work, but like most things, I suspect it is a complex formula that factors in personality, life experiences, goals, needs, physical changes and so on.

The kids being 12, 8 and 6 is a bit of a sweet spot for our marriage right now.  We are able to go for walks in the neighborhood without the children, and while I do miss "family walks," it is nice to have time to just be with D and catch up on the day without being interrupted.  Our blood actually circulates as we walk, which is much different when walking with little people who stop to look at every worm.

As our children moved from the adorable sweetness of infancy/toddlerhood into consistent eye-rolling, endless poop commentary and complaints about the food that is stocked in the pantry, it meant a move in our marriage.  We are a united front if only because our children are more regularly a-holes to one or both of us.  At some point, as they moved from cuddly, snuggly littles into opinionated turds, I found that I appreciated and needed D's adultness.  Someone to whom to say, "Isn't [insert child's name] being a pain in the butt right now?"

This is not to say that all is glory and light all the time.  I think we both regularly would like to ring each others' necks, although we generally keep these feelings to ourselves and let them subside, as they do as the day progresses, we calm down and become distracted by other things.  Or one of us says something funny and causes the other to remember, "Aha!  This is why I like him/her."

As I've written about, I have not been entirely okay with my existence as a stay-at-home mom of kids who are no longer at home.  My desire to make a change for myself means that D will have to change a bit, and that can be difficult.  The man who ate Raisin Bran every day for breakfast for the first ten years of our marriage and is now in his Muesli phase isn't one to eagerly agree to changing the routine.

But we will adjust if for no other reason than he knows (based on being in my life for 21 years) that I sorta plow ahead.  I make small changes to my life to find happiness, and I don't ask him to make major changes in his life (but do ask for help with small changes).  Having that united front at the moment makes that transition easier, although it certainly won't be easy.   It feels (at least to me) that we are more of a "team" than we have ever been.

We have begun to talk about doing something special for our 20th wedding anniversary next year, assuming that we are still married at that time.  That sounds funny, and we do say it a bit in jest, but I think we also try to remember that this marriage isn't a given.  My parents, who are in their 45th year of a mostly happy marriage, ask every year if they want to re-up for another.  In its own way, this question requires a person to take the pulse of the marriage.

For iteration 7,402, the pulse feels strong and steady.  

I can't think of 47 reasons why I love my husband

This week D turns 47.

Every year, I compose a letter to my kids on their birthdays, but that would be too hokey for the husband, so I thought I'd do a "Things I Love About My Husband" list.

I briefly considered "47 Things I Love About My Husband" but that is far too mentally taxing.  (There also might not be 47 things.)

What I do love about my husband is that he makes me laugh.

One of my habits that drives him batty is that I start a sentence and fail to finish it.  I suspect this is because I'm usually juggling 20 balls in the air at once (mine, N's, G's and M's).

He told me I'm like Darth Vader.

I guess some wives would find this insulting, but I thought it was really funny.

I love his weird dreams, too, which he can't really help, so maybe I shouldn't give him too much credit for them.  The other night he had a dream that he was putting a diaper on one of the kittens, but the only thing sticking out of the diaper was the kitten's head.  At the end of the dream he got so frustrated he went "Aghhhhhh!" and woke himself up.

I love it that my husband leaves me alone.
I probably would not have written this when I was in the "newlywed expect-to-be-up-in-each-others-faces-all-the-time" stage, but I really appreciate that he isn't clingy and doesn't call or text me unnecessarily (ever).  He just sorta lets me do my own thing.

I appreciate that he realizes when the Netflix queue has been too dude-heavy.
After a run of What We Do in the Shadows, Ant-Man and Chappie, he suggested I check the queue to pick some things I wanted to see.  I didn't dislike any of those films (and actually really dig Marvel films), but it was nice of him to remind me to pick some more literary fare for our viewing pleasure.  This past weekend was Terminator: Genisys, so I've got like 3 lined up.

So what is that?  Four things.

I'd say that is pretty good for a Monday and 18 years of marriage.  

18th anniversary (writing now because we, duh, married on one of the busiest weekends of the year)

D and I married on All Saints' Day eighteen years ago.

We discussed getting married on Halloween, but I knew that would eliminate a ton of family members from attending, which would have been great on the budget but sucky on the celebratory effect.

With regard to our selected anniversary date, we didn't realize the following:

1. We would always forget our anniversary because we think, "Our anniversary is in November," without fully grasping that it is DAY 1.  We don't have any actual time in the month of November to prepare.  As our lives have gotten busier, we have pretty much agreed to forego cards and other such trinkets.

2. We would be so busy with our own tribe of children that actually celebrating our anniversary would be an afterthought.  By the time Halloween ends at midnight, we will have been to approximately 167 Halloween parties, 2 pumpkin tosses, 6 trunk or treats, and a spooky orchestra concert.  In years' past, doing something on our anniversary has been just.one.more.thing on the calendar, and no thank you.

(Hence, the reason I'm posting this now instead of the weekend.)

With regard to marriage, when we started out, we didn't realize a whole heck of a lot more, like.....

*how, in retrospect, the first 4 years felt like play-acting.

*how, in retrospect, years 4-6 were crazy good.

*how our home eventually went from feeling not as homey as our parents' home to the place where we decompress and breathe, and we didn't realize when or how it happened.

*how he and I would begin at opposite ends of a spectrum on issues, meet in the middle and somehow bypass each other.  He is where I used to be, and I am where he used to be.

*sometimes the best you can say about your marriage is that you've simply put too much into it to deal with starting over with someone else, so you suck it up, watch things blow over and move on.

*how usually episodes like the aforementioned are followed by moments when you know this person is a really good fit for you, for a variety of reasons.

*you have to get really good at ignoring a lot, including some of your own stupid behaviors and thought processes that really amount to nothing productive.

*how much of a feeling of pride and success comes with sticking with the same person for this many years and not once having raised the iron skillet over his/her head in the middle of the night.

If it looks like OCD, and it sounds like OCD, it is probably OCD

I have seen this meme (and others like it) float around about M&Ms and OCD, and I sorta hate it.

 

I think I dislike it because it minimizes the disability and disarray that OCD can cause in a person's life.  OCD becomes something ridiculous and comical.  Something that just makes you rearrange your M&Ms. 

People use OCD now the way people used to use the word "retarded."  Off the cuff.  They like a certain brand of lipstick and say, "Oh, I'm so OCD about my cosmetics," in the same manner in which people would jokingly say, "Don't be so retarded!"

I don't get angry with them, but I wish they understood just how debilitating it can be.  How unfunny it is if you are living it every day or watching someone you love struggle with it.

Today I scheduled an appointment with a child psychiatrist for G.  Our family physician feels that, given G's behaviors, OCD sounds very likely and medication would be warranted.  An 8-year-old child probably shouldn't even notice when his mother moves a flower arrangement, and if he does notice, he certainly shouldn't scream, cry and briefly lose his mind because something was changed in the house.  An 8-year-old probably shouldn't have a repetitive string of things he says before bed every night, in the exact same way, for a year or more.  

I am not anti-medication.  My medication changed my life for the better, although I initially struggled with "having to take medication to make my brain work properly."  Why the brain is so darned different from kidneys or intestines or any other body part that is allowed to stop working properly of its own accord without any shame or guilt, I do not know.  

My fear at the idea of putting G on medication, or even considering it as a possibility, has to do with changing his brain in an unnatural way, but our family doctor said something today which, given my experience and what I know about OCD, I should have been able to say to myself:

It doesn't make much sense to think medication will keep G's brain from developing properly.  He is not medicated right now, but given his anxiety, his brain is not developing "properly."  He is likely developing all kinds of distorted patterns of thinking that will end up causing him more harm over the long run.  If medication dampens his anxiety and OCD behaviors, he will be more likely to learn affective, useful coping mechanisms.  

Heightened, consistent and chronic anxiety that interferes with a child's ability to feel secure and function, even within a household that is as flipping "secure and functional" as I can possibly make it, is not "normal" brain development.  

And so we look toward the evaluation and whatever answers it gives us.  

The news, where I stand, and why I'm quiet (oh, and being married to an atheist)

So much big news, and I'm still considering where I stand on much of it.

The older I get, the less likely I am to voice my opinion to people beyond D, my neighbor H (with whom I can discuss topical/controversial ideas without getting into a row), and my best friend, K.  And my mom.

There are many reasons for this.

One is that nobody beyond me actually cares what I think.

Two is that I think I vacillate most of the time in the narrow space surrounding the middle ground.

Three is that most issues, and especially those that have made the news lately, are too complex for there to be one solid, complete right answer.

And if there is one solid, complete right answer I don't know it or have it.

I think I'll go with the easiest topic for me:  the Confederate flag.

I think it should be removed from South Carolina's state capitol for the sole reason that by being in the state capitol it is suggesting that the Confederacy and what it stood for is what the state as a whole and the state's government supports at this day and time.  There is so much negative symbolism to the Confederate flag that its removal from state grounds is needed.

I listened to a public radio program in which it discussed The Cornerstone Speech by Alexander Stephens.  I had never heard of this before, but he lays out exactly what the Confederacy was founded upon:  Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.  

The Confederate flag, in symbolizing this then, symbolizes this now.  It wasn't at the South Carolina state capitol until 1961.  

However, I don't think statues of Confederate generals in South Carolina or in other states should be removed.  I don't think military forts or streets or anything else should be renamed unless there is a grassroots movement within that community to make changes.

There isn't symbolism (or nearly as much) in a statue of one man or many men who fought for what they believed in.  However wrong we may think their choice, there is something to be learned from their choices.  We cannot rewrite American history entirely, nor would be want to.  How many people, after all, would even recognize that men other than Ulysses S. Grant or Robert E. Lee fought in the Civil War?  I suspect a large majority don't even know who these two fellas are either.  (I had never heard of the aforementioned speech, and I like to think I'm a pretty enlightened individual.)

[Earlier this summer I read Hallowed Ground: A Walk at Gettysburg by James McPherson, and it reminded me of what a horrible war it was.  So much bloodshed on both sides.  I'm teaching my middle school students Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt, a novel which really shows the difficulties of the civil war regardless of what "side" a person or family was on.]

I also think it is BEYOND ridiculous for all sorts of businesses to stop selling Confederate flags.  I'd be curious to know what much money places actually make in the selling on the flags?  There is a big difference, to me at least, in what symbolic gestures a state makes (which represents or is supposed to represent a large group of people) and what symbolic gestures an individual makes.  Should my personal freedom to purchase what I want be trumped?  In this instance, I have to go with personal freedom.

And the removal of The Dukes of Hazard on television?  That is plumb, balls-to-the-wall crazy!

Ok, next:  ACA

Was it a poorly written law?  Maybe.  There are lots of poorly written laws.  I look to the tax code as perhaps the prime example of such.

Is health care something that is unlike any other type of "product" or "business?"  How do we put a value on our health?  Is my health more valuable, more important than your health?  Why?

I am a supporter of universal health care coverage because of its unique nature.  It isn't like a cell phone or a handbag or a pair of shoes.  It isn't like a car because it doesn't have replacements (like a bike, subway, bus, or a pair of legs).  If my health is destroyed, I am out of luck.  I can't get replacement health that is Dollar General Store level or boutique level.

There are plenty of people who take shitty care of their health, but there are also plenty of people who, through no fault of their own, have terrible health.

Because of health's unique nature, I think a for-profit model is not the right one for governing it.  I would prefer a system in which health care is like the grocery store.  Tests or visits cost what they cost, and those costs are public and don't differ much between Alaska and Hawaii.  A 10-day supply of medication X costs pretty much the same everywhere.

Have you ever called a pharmacy and asked what a medication costs?  Or asked a hospital how much ear tube removal and replacement costs?  I have, and if you enjoy Dr. Seuss-like conversations, I suggest you try it.

This is not the way it works, and until or unless it starts working in that way, I'm going to have to support allowing everyone to have a reasonable shot at getting health care insurance coverage they can afford.  The ACA is the closest thing to it at this juncture, however flawed and imperfect it may be.

Ok, now gay marriage.

I am not gay, so this law has no impact on me personally.  My marriage to D isn't affected one iota.  The Supreme Court's decision does nothing to minimize the importance of our marriage to me (and us) any more than Ben Affleck's and Jennifer Garner's marital demise impacts our marriage and its importance.

With that being said, if any or all of my children are gay, I would certainly want them to have the same rights and protections as any other person in the country.  You read about people who have very strong religious beliefs about homosexuality until their child comes out as gay, and then suddenly there is a shift.  They may still believe the same, but their love for their child softens them.  I listened to an interview with Matthew and Monte Vines, a father and son who struggled with this very issue, and it was compelling.

I'm no bible scholar.  This is the biblical law that guides me most, Matthew 7:12:  So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.  Wait, no, it is this:  John 13:34--A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  

Those are pretty much the same, aren't they?

Most people pick and choose the parts of the bible that mean the most, that resonate with them.  I doubt there is anyone who doesn't.  I don't know if you can exist in the modern world if you try to follow every single one of the laws and rules throughout the Old and New Testaments because many of them contradict each other.  Turning the other cheek is the complete antithesis of taking an eye for an eye.

I don't think people choose to be gay, any more than I chose to have OCD and GAD, any more than a person chooses to be black.  I have been wired this way from birth.  Due to stereotypes and prejudices about being black, gay or having a mental illness, some people might think, "Well, it certainly would be much easier for me if I wasn't black/gay/mentally ill," and it would.  But I haven't had much luck with changing reality.  It is what it is.  So you live your life as a black person, as a gay person, as a mentally ill person with as much dignity and kindness and honesty as you can.  And living in such a manner, you hope that any rights granted to everyone else are also granted to you---to live, to be free, to pursue your happiness.


*********
I very much have a "you believe what you want, and I'll believe what I want, and let's try to live peaceably together" mentality.  I think some of this is from being in my relationship with D for 20 years.

He is an atheist, and I am a whatever I am, a believer in God and Disciples of Christ church-goer as of the past few years.  I don't think he fully understands where I come from, and I don't fully understand where he comes from.  I don't ask that he attend church with me, and he doesn't ask me not to attend church.  He is ok with me raising the children with some type of Christian background if for no other reason than it will make them comfortable within a religious setting, something he is definitely not.

Our marriage would be terrible if either of us tried to force our belief system (and atheism is a belief system after all) on the other.  We do have conversations about religion, about church, about God, but we keep things respectful.  Both of us recognize that it would be futile to try to change each other's view.

I am fortunate to be married to an atheist, which sounds pretty weird, but I think it would be much harder for me to be married to a deeply religious person who felt compelled to evangelize and save me.  I would fight against this and resent it.

D and I try to respect each other's right to think and believe what we think and believe.  Negotiating this relationship for two decades has made me work very hard to accept people's beliefs for whatever they are, acknowledge their freedom to believe what they wish, but also diligently strive to ensure that my right to believe what I want doesn't infringe on their right to live how they wish.  

The beard

Today I was supposed to go to the kids' school to read a book to G's class for "We Love to Read" week and have N's class work on their festival creation.  But the district is in full "It is going to snow in 6 hours so we need to cancel school now" mode, so it is a snow day.

I'm afraid that if I start complaining about the snow day I will never stop complaining about the snow day, so I'm going to talk about the latest and greatest thing in my world:

D's beard

To be honest, I don't know where the idea even came from for him to grow a beard.  He has never tried before in all the years I've known him.  When he asked what I thought I think I said, "Sure, why not," and maybe suggested it might be sexy.  I think that was all the motivation he needed.

I have been thinking about his beard a lot.  Well, not about his actual beard, the little gray hairs poking out, but about how weird it is that something as simple as a beard can make me see him differently.

This coming summer is our 20-years-of-togetherness anniversary.  Given my penchant for pre-emptive worry and/or reflection, I've been mulling over the significance of this event, and the beard plays into this reflection.

N makes me listen to the radio whenever we are in the car together so I've heard Ed Sheeran's song "Thinking Out Loud."  I both like and hate the lyrics to this song, especially since D and I are sandwiched in that part of life between 23 and 70.

No one at 23 thinks with any seriousness about being with their partner until they're 70.  I'm over half-way there, and I can't think seriously about it.  My MIL turns 67 this month, and I don't know that she thinks seriously about it.

So in his lyrics, I snicker at this line:
And, darling, I will be loving you 'til we're 70


and completely appreciate and "get" these lines:
And, baby, my heart could still fall as hard at 23
And I'm thinking 'bout how people fall in love in mysterious ways
Maybe just the touch of a hand
Well, me—I fall in love with you every single day


I don't know that I will be breathing at 70, so I'm going to reserve judgment on who I will be loving and how when that time approaches.

But in all these years with D, I find that sometimes out of the blue, or because of a beard, I am falling in love with him again, feeling all goofy inside and wanting to be with him far more than usual.  Which is nice, completely unexpected, and one of the best things about being with a person for almost half my life.  

Almost half my life

For some strange reason I've been feeling particularly thankful for my husband, which is a sure sign I have a brain tumor or something terribly amiss with my noodle.  It is really not in my nature to be lovey-dovey, especially publicly.  I am not one of those women who talks about "my man" or "my lover" or "my soulmate."  I don't like to throw-up inside my mouth that much.

However, June marks 19 years of togetherness for us, and I've been thinking on that a lot.  In November, we will be married 17 years.

I don't remember specific dates anymore.  It was sometime in June when we had our first date.  I think we became engaged on May 28 the following year, but I'm not sure.  So much of what I have thought I would never forget, I have forgotten.

We worked at the same dental insurance company when we met.  He was completing his masters degree, and I was wrapping up my bachelors.  Colleagues had been trying to get us together for awhile.  Despite D's extreme reserve and avoidance of social events, he went to have drinks with a bunch of coworkers on a Friday evening, where I proceeded to chat it up with a mutual colleague's husband (who was far more talkative than D).

Two days later, on a Sunday, D called me and asked to go for a walk at a park that afternoon.
After our walk, he asked me out for the following Friday.  I was mightily impressed with him giving me so many days notice.
On the Friday of our first date, we went to see the play "Angry Housewives," which I find quite funny now.

I have often said that there are two main reasons I hooked up with D.

First, he liked the movie "Orlando" with Tilda Swinton, which he told me on our first date.  I thought he must be pretty enlightened if he was commenting on this movie and not some beat-em-up, testosterone-laden guy movie.

The second reason is that he doesn't care one whit for sports.

Recently, I was reminded of another reason why, 19 years later, I am glad I hooked up with D.  I was reading a newspaper article about the Malaysian jetliner that disappeared and discussing it with him.  As our conversation was dwindling, he said, "I think Gru took it."  Days and days later, I am still chuckling about this.

Perhaps my re-reading of Jane Eyre is what has me thinking on my marriage and the nature of love.  Being with someone who, while not perfect, is well-suited to my nature.

Or maybe it is that it has been a month since I've had my weekly 6-hours-of-solitary-grown-up-time, so I'm clinging to things that are adult and not endless childhood babble, and D is the most readily available thing.

Whatever the reason, I'm thankful he's in my life.
And now I'm going to go cuss or something to get all this sentimentality out of my system.

A train wreck I love, love to watch

I have a "hobby" that is embarrassing especially since I pride myself on being well-educated and well-read.
Here it is:
I love to read about Tori Spelling, especially now that her husband has cheated on her.

It is sick.....this interest I have in those two idiots.
I don't watch their show for two reasons:  1. I don't watch television at all, and 2. their idiocy would be a little too in-my-face, and I can only handle reading about it on people.com.

What I enjoy about them is that they are a fine example of karma biting one in the arse.

They both cheated on their spouses (with each other).  This violates a cardinal rule I have about marriage, which is, "If you want to be divorced, get divorced, but until the divorce is final you are still married and should keep your paws off other people and instruct them to keep their paws off you."

I don't know if this is leftover from my Catholicism days or if I have a latent Puritanical streak, but it really peeves me when people date while they are still married.  If your relationship is in shambles, it builds character to muddle through the fallout alone without immediately jumping into another relationship.

What is too good about this situation is that she is giving him grief over cheating.  When SHE cheated with him.  Clearly being the daughter of a gazillionaire keeps one from understanding that lovely phrase, "If he'll cheat with you, he'll cheat on you."

I learned my lesson young as someone who, at 19 years old, broke a boyfriend's heart by cheating and got my own ass seized by karma's talons.   I'm not up on a perfect pedestal casting judgment.  (Ok, maybe I am.)

But I'm doing it from the "Geez, I feel sorry for their kids because their parents' judgment is so fucked up because they are making a show and money from their marital discord and therapy sessions, and that is all kinds of inappropriate."

And, like the news reports of women who microwave their children and other negligent actions that make me feel better on my worst days of mothering my children, Tori and Dean make me feel that, while D and I don't have a perfect relationship, we haven't done THAT.

News of the EVEN weirder

D sliced his finger open about two weeks ago in a freak dish-washing accident, which means I have been both cooking AND cleaning up.  I would have made just a terrible pioneer woman because I hate all this housekeeping work.

With him being out of dish-washing commission, I recognized how much he does for which I really don't often mentally or verbally give him credit.

The first few days after his injury I even had to clean the litter box out, which I haven't done since my first pregnancy 11 years ago.

He hasn't been able to help with baths, either, although our routine generally tends to be that I bath the boys and he dries off and dresses.  But there have been some occasions when I needed him to wash them while I was doing something with N, and he wasn't able to do so.

All this annoying appreciating of him, along with my thoughts on being on the periphery, made me realize how well-suited he and I are for each other.

I've said jokingly really totally seriously but people think I'm joking that the reason I married him was due to his complete lack of interest in sports.  He also tends to like independent and/or obscure movies rather than macho dude flicks, which is a big plus.

But it occurred to me that what he and I really have in common is our general insistence on doing things our own way, our quiet disdain for authority, and our feelings of being outside the fold.  We just sorta get each other.  He thinks I'm funny all the time, and I think he's not funny most of the time, but when he is funny it is totally worth all those other times when his sense of humor falls in the just plain goofy category.

Now this does not mean I think he is my soulmate.  I abhor that word and wouldn't call him or anyone my soulmate unless a gun was pointed at my head.

But occasionally, I do understand that in its own way, our relationship does actually feed my soul a bit.

Now to take my temperature because this is the second totally-unlike-Carrie posts in a row.  

Things falling apart

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

William Butler Yeats wrote this poem about life after WWI, and as I learned from reading Kevin Smokler's book Practical Classics, the phrase and idea of "things falling apart" has been the subject of much art, literature and music since this poem was published.  

I might argue that this stanza could be an analogy for the implosion of a marriage. 

I am reading the novel What Alice Forgot, which is about a woman who falls, hits her head and forgets 10 years of her life, including the fact that she is in the midst of a divorce.  Gwyneth and Chris announced their split.  A friend of mine told me this week she and her husband are breaking up.

So, of course, my mind is on marriage and "conscious uncoupling" (whatever the heck that means).

The funny thing about this much-made-fun-of phraseology by Paltrow is that it is the exact opposite of what happens in a marriage that makes things fall apart.  While D and I are as happily married as two people can be who have lived with each other day in and day out for 16 years, when I think about our rough patch almost 2 years ago, it was due, in some measure, to unconsciously being married.

Being married, especially after multiple children come into the picture, becomes like driving in one's car to work.  You arrive but you haven't the foggiest how you got there.  It is an automatic that requires little to no effort on your brain's consciousness to make it happen.  I think the same thing happens in marriage.  Suddenly you've been married a dozen years and have no clue how it happened, where the time went, and how you got to be the person you are right at this moment.  It is, essentially, unconscious coupling.

Some people say marriage should be easy, while others say marriage takes a lot of hard work.  I wonder if marriage was easier to swallow and endure when life, and therefore marriage, was cut short due to disease, starvation and the perils of childbirth.  Perhaps this is why so many people I know who have divorced or needed marriage counseling do so around the 14-18 year mark.  Nature is wanting someone to kick off, but modern life makes us just keep.on.going.

Plus, a focus on survival tends to make one not terribly interested in or aware of happiness.  Happiness is a luxury we can afford these days, and sometimes happiness does not coincide with the rigors of marriage.  And when I say rigors, I mean dullness, monotony, and annoyances.

I am always saddened when marriages end, even if they should end, even if they started out on the least solid of footing.  It is a death.  Even when there is relief that the marriage is over, as there would be if a loved one had been gravely ill and in terrific pain, there is grief at the loss of something you had, a way in which you lived, an identity that had been with you for many years.
Marriage is much like parenting, or at least the rigors of marriage become very similar to the rigors of parenting once you become a parent.  Insert the word "marriage" and this clip pretty well sums it up.

Like with parenting, I used to feel pretty smug about marriage.  There is nothing like raising an actual child (or children) to force one to eat tremendous amounts of crow, and there is nothing like living through a rough patch to knock one for a bit of a loop.  My experience has helped me understand better what it might be like for a couple that isn't just going through a temporary blip but has years of prickliness and fighting and resentment built up and cannot find a way to reconcile.  A couple that has long lost the ability to like each other.

That has to be a special ring of hell unto itself.

Re-upping for another year

Last Friday, D and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary, although celebrate isn't really what we did.  Due to bad weather on Thursday (Halloween), our neighborhood's trick-or-treating was postponed to Friday.  So D took a hippie, Jake the dog and Finn the human out trick-or-treating while I sat with our neighbor and passed out goodies.

(I also tried to recover from an off-the-chain tantrum by G, which resulted in an off-the-chain tantrum by yours truly, which is a post for another day.)

Given the planning, preparation and attendance at 3 separate Halloween parties last week, I didn't even get D a card.  

When we decided to wed on Nov 1, we didn't have the foresight to understand how 3 Halloween parties in 3 days, plus actual trick-or-treating, would keep us me from remembering an anniversary card purchase.  

Married for 16 years and together as a couple for 18 years seems remarkable, and in a way it is.  So many couples don't make it nearly as far.  

I'm not sure how we've kept it together.  We keep our mouths shut a lot.  We accept each other for who we are (and vent to objective, third parties).  Therapy helped.  We have realistic expectations of what marriage is.  We really do like each other.  

And I venture to say there is a whole lot of luck involved too.

Recently I read an essay/blog suggesting that marriage is about making the other person happy, and while I don't completely agree with his point, I don't completely disagree either.  I think it is easy to love someone and want to make someone else happy when life is uncomplicated, when the married relationship is new, when you don't have the demands of children added in.  (If you don't have a mood-disorder, that is probably helpful too.)

In my experience as a mom for almost a decade, I honestly have not had the energy much of the time to worry about keeping D happy.  I have struggled to keep my house and sanity intact and my children alive.  I'm not saying this is ideal; I'm saying it is real.

D and I have also gone through enough "shit happens" experiences, like the death of a parent, like unexpected surgeries and health issues and house fall-apart situations, that take the wind out of one's sails and make it impossible to make oneself happy, forget about making the partner in the relationship happy.

I think my biggest issue with the writer's point is the use of the term "happy."  Happiness is short-lived.  I have moments, snippets, nanoseconds of joy/happiness in my life.  I have large swaths of soldiering on, "what the fuck am I doing," and mundane.

It is a slippery slope to spend too much time and energy trying to keep someone else happy because where and when does it end?  Sure, if both people are trying simultaneously to keep the other person happy then the idea is they are both made happy, but I propose that although we should aspire to this, the reality of marriage, if it lasts longer than a hot second, is that there is a large amount of selfishness.  And if not selfishness, then distraction by that big large entity we call "LIFE."

I think better than the notion of "making the other person happy," is "Do no harm."   What makes D happy is not what makes me happy.  I may like seeing him be happy, but I want to be happy too, and the reality is that sometimes that happiness doesn't have a darn thing to do with him or anything he can or can't do for, with or to me.

But if I pursue my happiness while not doing him any harm, it seems I can find a better balance and not feel the full weight and responsibility of his happiness on my shoulders.

I don't propose that my idea is better than the guy who wrote about making the other person happy.  Maybe it is because he is a man, and I'm a woman.  Maybe because I'm most certainly older than him and have been married longer.

I think my idea doesn't sound as romantic or doe-eyed as his, but so far it seems to have worked for us.
And I guess that is all that matters.  

Absence makes you realize how loud your children really are

D and I had a lovely weekend away from the children and all parenting responsibilities for the first time in almost 9 years.

(Ok, technically, I have had 48+ hours away from my children, but it was only because I was having more children (and in those cases I had major abdominal surgeries as the means of delivering those children) so that totally doesn't count.)

I slept in until 8:00 am.  I worked out.  I was able to relieve myself without an audience.  I was able to read uninterrupted in the middle of the afternoon.  I did not have to fix anyone a snack.  The only butt- and nose-wiping I had to do was my own.

It was glorious!!

D and I did not run out of things to discuss, although the ride home was quiet.  That could have been a state of mutual depression at returning to "real" life, though.

The only downside of this trip is that our children, who are notoriously loud, seem even louder.

Warning:  Photo Dump