Sunday, May 25, 2008

What kind of parent do I want to be?

I want to be patient

I want to our child to be a good eater

I want either Gil or I to read to our child every night

I want our child to be respectful

I want to play with our child

I want our child to play outside

I don’t want to our child to be a TV junkie

I don’t want to be a yeller

I don’t want to fight with Gil in front of our child

I don’t want our child to think that Gil and I are perfect

I want to be supportive

I want to continue to socialize with my friends

I want to eat dinner, at the table, as a family

I want our child to be involved in activities but not OVER involved

I want to be supportive

I want to be a firm disciplinarian

I want to be consistent

I want to be fair

I want to be involved in our child’s schooling

I want to teach our child to be generous

I want to teach our child to be tolerant

I want to teach our child to stand up for them self

I want to teach our child to stand up for others

I want to encourage our child to be adventurous

I want our child to know that home is always a safe place to come to no matter what

I want our child to value family

I want to write letters, cards and journals for our child

I want to instill in our child sense of tradition

I want to teach our child to have good manners

I want our child to really enjoy holidays

I want to vacation as a family

I want to sometimes go away with just Gil while our child “vacations” with family

I want to include our child’s friends in activities when possible

I want to ensure that our child spends quality one on one time with both of us separately

I don’t want to make our child fearful of the world

I want to be honest with our child about the unique circumstances of our family

I don’t want to burden our child with my problems

I want to teach our child to live “greenly”

I want our child to spend lots of time with a diverse group of our friends

I want our child to spend lots of time with their grandparents on both sides

I want to take LOTS of pictures of our child but not staged Walmart pictures


I don’t want our child to ever have to question how much I love them; even when I am not happy with them

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Oh yeah!!! Good news at last!

Okay boys and girls I finally have some good news to share. As I mentioned several weeks ago I have a mass that was the cause of some concern. I have been a woman on the edge for sometime. I was really fucking scared. Yesterday we had an appointment with Doctor Lee who I could have kissed when she told me that the tumor is totally benign. It is very close to my urethra so they can't safely remove it with out some danger to the area so they are just going to leave it unless it starts to cause a problem. I am so excited, I am so happy. I am SOOOO happy! yeah!

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Thoughts on Loss...

My very first memory is of my Mother walking away. I can still see her clearly, as from my Father's front window, walking determinedly down the path leading from the house. I wailed in anguish as my whole heart broke from missing her. This was not to be a permanent separation but still a potent omen of things to come. As first memories go this was catastrophic. It set in motion a truism that would follow me through most of my life; people you love leave you.

Of the millions of tiny footprints my mother left on my life her death is the deepest. It penetrates everything. The hole left behind is so vast, so immense that nothing can fill it. And emptiness is its own feeling. There were times I prayed to feel anything but that emptiness, this lead to cutting, to drugs, and to obsessive relationships.

My chest hurts merely thinking about this; there is a tightness that grips me, spreading down into my arms. That old familiar feeling; a cross between numbness and tingling and ache that screams at me to touch it. The problem is of course that a touch is not enough, it never is. A simple touch just won’t do, it doesn’t get past the numbness so touch progresses to pinch, pinch to scratch, and so on. I have trained my self to apply firm but gentle massage to my forearms at those times and eventually the feeling passes. I often wonder if I am a freak or if other former “cutters” still feel this way.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

I spent a good chunk of yesterday with Michelle and it was wonderful. She is so strong and I have nothing but admiration for her. We talked, we laughed, we cried some. And talking to her made some of my own fears recess a little. I still think about what I would do if something happened to Gil way too much but in a way that has spurned us in to action. making sure we have things like life insurance and wills and making sure we know what each other wants for after they are dead. We both want to be cremated and to have our organs donated. We haven't decided on a final resting place but we have started talking about it which is important. We can't be scared to talk about these things. It is the not talking that feeds the fear. I don't want what happened to Michelle to ever happened to me but if it does I want to have things in place, fall back plans.

Friday, May 02, 2008

Our Story...

Gil and I met (we believe) in 1999 or early 2000. We met through mutual friends and quickly became friends our selves. At the time Gil was involved in a serious relationship and I was recovering from a serious on and off again relationship. Over the next two years our friendship grew until we were “best buds”. We had stuck by each other through failed relationships, major life changes, financial woes and mental health issues. When I found myself suddenly without an apartment Gil said he wouldn’t mind a roommate until I could get on my feet. In this time we got to know the best and worst of each other and we eventually came to see what was right under our noses, that as such good friends we would also make good partners. This was not a seamless transition and like most new romances we had a few hiccups at the beginning but they made us stronger and gave us lots of fodder for future laughter.

As a couple we have never not lived together which I think in many respects expedited our relationship, and within the first year we knew that we were both committed to a future and family together. Even so we felt no need to rush into marriage and waited until it really felt like the right time for both of us before venturing down that path. In the mean time we built on the great friendship that already existed to build a strong relationship; one that could survive a hurricane, a flood, living with his parents, psychotic land lords, unemployment, winter depression, sick pets, my father’s heart attack, the occasional crazy fight, both of our families, multiple moves and planning a wedding. From early on we had a mutual understanding that romantic love was nice and certainly has its place but the source of our power is our friendship. I can say very honestly that Gil is the best friend I have, likely the best friend I have ever had. When I hear something funny, when something strange happens, when I feel like the universe is bullying me it is Gil who gets the first call. When I have a difficult decision for make it is Gil whose opinion I seek. It’s Gil I want to share my experiences with, who can make me laugh no matter how glum I am, who I know will just “get” what I mean. What I really love about our friendship is how it keeps growing and changing. We are the same in lots of ways; we are both youngest children, we both grew up with fathers who had drinking problems (his recovered, mine not so much), we both moved a lot as children, we both went to SMU, and over the years our paths crossed hundreds of times without ever meeting. However for all our similarities we are VERY different from each other; our strengths and our weaknesses. Our political and religious views, our taste in music. Where he is patient and calm, I am high strung and neurotic. Where he exhibits a reserved social shyness, I can speak with anyone easily. He cooks, I burn. He could read a physics text book for fun (and understand it!) where as I have no brain for math or science. Gil is happy to stay at home and hang out and I am social butterfly always looking for my next adventure. These differences keep us both learning and growing. They have taught us the fine art of comprise; when to give a little, when to give a lot and when to dig in our heels and not give at all. Because we both have very different interests we can go away and do our own thing but always enjoy coming back to each other to share our experiences; we even included that in our wedding vows. It is very important to both of that our sense of individuality remains intact, that in blending our lives we didn’t blend our personalities. This has been especially important to me as I have learned so much about myself, about my capabilities, I learned that I can be comfortable on my own, doing my own thing and that I don’t need Gil to take care of me but it is okay to like it when he does.

Gil and I don’t always get along; sometime we get on each others nerves. We don’t always agree with each other; some things we will never agree on. Some days we don’t even like each other all that much; those days are few and far between. This is okay with us. We don’t have to be perfect all the time. People bug each other from time to time, it happens. You can’t live with a person, socialize with a person, and carpool with a person without periodically bumping heads. Some things are easily resolved, whose turn it is to clean the litter box (mine!), who left the toilet seat up (him!). Other issues will plague us all the days of our lives; who leaves “sock bombs” all over the house (me!) or who stayed up way too late playing video games (him!). It is not just the problems that test the marriage it is how you deal with them. I have learned that I am never going to get Gil to sit down and spill out all his emotions to me. He has learned that I will never stop doing that. I have learned that if I want an answer to a question I should just ask outright, Gil doesn’t get it when I beat around the bush and he doesn’t like it when I am coy. Gil has learned that sometimes I have problems expressing myself verbally and I get frustrated so he needs to be patient. But we haven’t come up against a problem in the last six years that we could not find our way past. As I said sometimes we compromise and other times we dig in but always with the preservation of our relationship in mind. I once told a friend that I put as much or more work into maintaining my relationship as I do my job and her response was that a relationship shouldn’t be work. I can see where she is coming from but she is wrong. Relationships are not self maintaining. They are like gardens. They look beautiful when they start but if you neglect them weeds take over and choke off all your beautiful plants. Gardens need to be tended to, weeds need to be pulled, plants fertilized and watered and if you come from my school of thought sung and talked to. Relationships need all those things too. There is no magic relationship fairy who comes along and waves along and fixes everything. Everyday I try and make sure Gil knows how much I love him. Everyday I try and make sure he knows how much I appreciate everything he does for our family. Everyday I try and remember why I married him in the first place and build on that. Some days I fail at those goals. Some days I bet he wonders why he married me in the first place. But the point is everyday I try... and I know he does too.


and I guess that's all I have to say about that.



Thursday, May 01, 2008

I WIN!!

Not that I am gloating because I wouldn't do that because how immature would that be? But I WIN, I WIN, I WIN!!! A stood up to her Mother and I am her Maid of Honor. I am proud of her. As I said it was NEVER about me wanting to be the Maid. It was about .... about.... about the fact that woman was mean to me and I didn't deserve it. yeah so there....