It's really hard to make new friends as an adult. Everyone is usually pretty established in their friend group by the time their late twenties roll around. I think the military provides some amount of support since you move so much, people are aware that you need a support system everywhere you go. I have had some luck with making a few great friends, but then I've moved again and had to leave them behind. We dream of a day when fate will bring us together again, but in all likelihood, it won't happen.
Finding friends in the communities you live in is a nice alternative to other's in the military, because at least one of you will have permanence to some extent. Should we be here 2 years or 4, we will have this one connection for the entire time... and no matter where we go, they will always be here in the same place, forever connecting our world with memories. Forever giving us a reason to maybe one day return.
As luck would have it, my husband and I recently got sucked into a long-standing, well-established group of church people through our family advocate. It's difficult to feel at home in such a group, even though everyone is kind, inviting, and friendly, since the past has them so intertwined, they can speak easily of almost anyone and all know who they are. They can flip from subject to subject and no one is lost or confused. Except us two newbies, smiling through the slight boredom of not knowing what they're talking about. Its worth the awkward phase of being the odd ones out, though. I can imagine a day when walking through the door without knocking is totally natural. But as cruel as fate is, the core of the group, the house family, is moving soon to another state. All of them, the grandparents, the kids, the grandkids. The whole of the core.
It's hard to make friends as adults. Because as adults, people begin to realize how important family is. So they move closer to family, or are focused on creating a family, or surround themselves with friends that are family.
If I lived in Cali again with my family, I don't think I would feel the slightest need to make friends. To have my besty again, my sisters so close, my mother at hand... It would dispel the loneliness quite a bit. But living a military life style, I'm forced to try to find kindred spirits in strange new places, and it's hard. Anne of Green Gables found as she grew up that there are far more kindred spirits in the world than she ever realized, and I think that is true. There is a basis of need and wants in all people that is recognizable and if you can fulfill those for other people, they can fulfill it for you.
I hope that we can remain good friends with this group, even though we are the odd ones out, the newbies in a time of change for a well-established group of intimates, and maybe the group can withstand the loss of the core. I certainly hope so. It would be so nice to always have someone to call on a lonely weekend, or a place to eat for another family-less holiday.
I pray that God holds them together through the change. For all of their sake and not just for my husband and I.
Monday, April 17, 2017
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
4 months
I feel like I am a gas-filled, light headed, vomitting nightmare. Pregnancy is so freaking hard. Had you told me this even a day before I found out I was pregnant, I would have dismissed every one of your warnings and laughed to myself about how amazing MY pregnancy was going to be. This is truly one of those miracles of life that is indescribable until it is happening to you. Trust me, I know that I am lucky... there are so many women who have so many more issues during pregnancy. I have no outside stress... I can focus one hundred percent on just taking care of my body and not have to worry about doing this whole pregnancy and functioning as a worker or mother or human person. I have literally nothing to do besides be pregnant. And still, it seems like an overwhelming amount of work. I cannot imagine having to do this with a job. Or having to be pregnant AROUND OTHER PEOPLE who expect things from you. I am glad that I get to go through it the first time without another child to take care of. That horror will come in two years when I plan on having my second. Living so far away from everyone has been one of those bags of mixed candy that also has some nuts and dog poop in it. Haha! There are some good things in there, but they're all kind of ruined by the fact that I don't have my family here.
4 months. It's crazy. Next month, I will be halfway done. I keep thinking that 6 months is the halfway mark, but it isn't... Thank goodness. I would hate to have to do this for a whole year!
Don't get me wrong!! I am so thrilled, ecstatic overjoyed to be carrying life... healthy, happy, growing life inside of me. It's not a blessing I take lightly.
But believe me when I say that this shit is no joke. You have all kinds of discomfort and pain and if you aren't throwing up, you're bursting into tears and when you have a really good happy day, you don't fit into your cute clothes and things that used to mildly annoy are the reason for murder. Like my dog. MY precious little poodle mix. She whines every time she wants to get up on my bed with me. And she has to be on the bed. There is no debating with her. There's no putting her some where else because she is relentless and unstoppable. And she can jump up onto my bed just fine, but she doesn't WANT to jump. She sits and whines at me until I yell at her enough she jumps up herself, or until I pick her up. I have no patience for this anymore. The first little breathy wheeze she makes at me has my blood boiling. I can't imagine what it's going to be like when I have a tiny baby sucking the milk and life out of me after 2 hours of sleep and my dog is sitting next to my bed WHINING because I won't pick her up so she can lick her butt on my pillow.
If I kill my dog, I plead insanity. I want you to know that I do love her and I like to cuddle with her. But that whine drives me to the edges of reason.
My mother is just about the best being on the whole planet when it comes to all things family. It just breaks my heart that we're so far apart.
A few weekends ago, for my birthday, my husband took me to Denver to stay with my aunt and visit the zoo and my mother ended up flying out to surprise me there, since plane tickets are so cheap from Cali to Denver. I hadn't really realized how much I had needed her. How much I had missed that connection that only she seems to be able to give me. That while I had been FEELING pregnant in my body in all of the terrible ways that pregnancy makes you feel, I hadn't been FEELING pregnant in my heart and head in all those lovely ways you want to feel pregnant. And just by being around me with her constant stream of love through touch and conversation, she opened this door that I hadn't realized had been locked up inside of me and let me feel all those happy pregnant feelings. I was finally allowing myself to buy maternity clothes and baby items and talk about being pregnant. I gave myself permission to be tired and nauseated and not do anything. I think sometimes you need another person to tell you, "This is valid." before you allow yourself to take care of yourself as if you deserve it. My mom has always been the number one best person to do that for all her children.
But the long weekend ended and back in my everyday life, I'm missing her love so much. Every time I picture the summer, I'm at home in Cali... going to the beach every day, lounging in the sun, eating fro-yo with my sisters, seeing my niece play in water for the first time, shopping with my best friend, taking road trips to see old friends. It breaks my heart that I probably will be here alone in my house all summer, waiting for my husband to come home from work. Waiting for my mom to come when it's my time to give birth. Waiting for the baby. Sometimes it feels like I will always have to miss the most important parts of my life.
If I were to go home for the summer, I would miss my husband so much. He wouldn't get to see my stomach grow. Feel the baby kick. He wouldn't get to take all the adventures with me. And I hate that. I just wish that we lived together. Or at least close enough to go visit without it either costing an arm and a leg, or two days trapped in a car.
I want my baby to grow up not knowing what it's like to miss their grandparents. I want to be able to drop off my kids for the weekend with my folks and getting to lounge around naked with my husband all weekend. That's not really an option when you live the military life. And while I am so grateful for everything the military provides, and the opportunities to explore the world, it breaks my heart that it comes at the cost of living far from my family.
4 months. It's crazy. Next month, I will be halfway done. I keep thinking that 6 months is the halfway mark, but it isn't... Thank goodness. I would hate to have to do this for a whole year!
Don't get me wrong!! I am so thrilled, ecstatic overjoyed to be carrying life... healthy, happy, growing life inside of me. It's not a blessing I take lightly.
But believe me when I say that this shit is no joke. You have all kinds of discomfort and pain and if you aren't throwing up, you're bursting into tears and when you have a really good happy day, you don't fit into your cute clothes and things that used to mildly annoy are the reason for murder. Like my dog. MY precious little poodle mix. She whines every time she wants to get up on my bed with me. And she has to be on the bed. There is no debating with her. There's no putting her some where else because she is relentless and unstoppable. And she can jump up onto my bed just fine, but she doesn't WANT to jump. She sits and whines at me until I yell at her enough she jumps up herself, or until I pick her up. I have no patience for this anymore. The first little breathy wheeze she makes at me has my blood boiling. I can't imagine what it's going to be like when I have a tiny baby sucking the milk and life out of me after 2 hours of sleep and my dog is sitting next to my bed WHINING because I won't pick her up so she can lick her butt on my pillow.
If I kill my dog, I plead insanity. I want you to know that I do love her and I like to cuddle with her. But that whine drives me to the edges of reason.
My mother is just about the best being on the whole planet when it comes to all things family. It just breaks my heart that we're so far apart.
A few weekends ago, for my birthday, my husband took me to Denver to stay with my aunt and visit the zoo and my mother ended up flying out to surprise me there, since plane tickets are so cheap from Cali to Denver. I hadn't really realized how much I had needed her. How much I had missed that connection that only she seems to be able to give me. That while I had been FEELING pregnant in my body in all of the terrible ways that pregnancy makes you feel, I hadn't been FEELING pregnant in my heart and head in all those lovely ways you want to feel pregnant. And just by being around me with her constant stream of love through touch and conversation, she opened this door that I hadn't realized had been locked up inside of me and let me feel all those happy pregnant feelings. I was finally allowing myself to buy maternity clothes and baby items and talk about being pregnant. I gave myself permission to be tired and nauseated and not do anything. I think sometimes you need another person to tell you, "This is valid." before you allow yourself to take care of yourself as if you deserve it. My mom has always been the number one best person to do that for all her children.
But the long weekend ended and back in my everyday life, I'm missing her love so much. Every time I picture the summer, I'm at home in Cali... going to the beach every day, lounging in the sun, eating fro-yo with my sisters, seeing my niece play in water for the first time, shopping with my best friend, taking road trips to see old friends. It breaks my heart that I probably will be here alone in my house all summer, waiting for my husband to come home from work. Waiting for my mom to come when it's my time to give birth. Waiting for the baby. Sometimes it feels like I will always have to miss the most important parts of my life.
If I were to go home for the summer, I would miss my husband so much. He wouldn't get to see my stomach grow. Feel the baby kick. He wouldn't get to take all the adventures with me. And I hate that. I just wish that we lived together. Or at least close enough to go visit without it either costing an arm and a leg, or two days trapped in a car.
I want my baby to grow up not knowing what it's like to miss their grandparents. I want to be able to drop off my kids for the weekend with my folks and getting to lounge around naked with my husband all weekend. That's not really an option when you live the military life. And while I am so grateful for everything the military provides, and the opportunities to explore the world, it breaks my heart that it comes at the cost of living far from my family.
Monday, January 30, 2017
Third Christmas, a new baby, our new house, and the surprise
My oldest sister had a baby girl a week and a half before Christmas. We were planning on coming home for Christmas just to see the baby, but then something happened the morning after a long night of worrying over the birth of my new niece...
I woke up and peed on a stick. And the damn thing told me I was knocked up.
I was floored. I had not seen this coming. We had tried a one-ditch effort to see if we would have a sort of silly happy surprise for everyone for Christmas... I never in a million years believed we would have been successful! There are people who try for years to get pregnant, and until it happened, I always kind of assumed that would be me. I have a tilted uterus which makes for more back pain during periods, and I've heard it's harder for women with tilted uteruses to conceive. Apparently, this was not my case.
One time. One little try. And bam. I was suddenly carrying the potential for human life.
I immediately wanted to call my mom, call my sisters, call my best friend, call anyone and everyone. But we had done the one-ditch effort specifically to surprise people for Christmas, so I couldn't. I couldn't waste this amazing opportunity.
I called my husband at work and he rushed home, we bought another test and I peed on that as well, and hey-ho, it too claimed I was knocked up. We went to the doctor that afternoon, and I peed in their little cup and what do you know, they also told us we were pregnant. It was such a shocking day. My new niece had seriously been born THAT morning. Just a few short hours earlier.
I didn't feel pregnant. When my best friend got pregnant, she told me that she knew the moment it happened. But I didn't have any of that. I had zero premonitions. I had promised myself the day my period was due, if I didn't wake up with it, I would pee on a pregnancy test. But I didn't think I was actually pregnant. I couldn't even fathom it.
We soon began planning how we were going to surprise my family, a thousand ideas but none of them seemed good enough. We settled on one idea: Every Christmas we give Christmas PJs on Christmas Eve. This year, Chris and I said that since we were buying a house, we would just do the PJs, and that would be our gift to everyone. So we thought, after everyone's changed into their PJs, we'll get together to do a family photo and then Chris would say, "Ok everyone, saaaay, Sarah's Pregnant!"
In theory it seemed like a great idea, but I couldn't get past the thought that everyone would think it was a joke. So as we were wrapping the Christmas PJs on Christmas eve, I suggested that we wrap the pregnancy tests with my mom's PJs and have her open them last. It was so stressful. Hoping we could pull it off without anyone thinking something was up...
Not to drag the story out, but I should mention that my oldest sister sort of guessed that I was pregnant the first night we were home. She and I were up late, talking about her labor, oohing and awwing over her perfect tiny new baby. And she said, "I don't need to tell you, because you'll experience it all soon enough." And I couldn't hide my grin and she caught it immediately and said, "Wait... REALLY??" It was a good sister moment.
And let me also say, I was there for 4 days before Christmas eve... not telling my family was nearly impossible. I wanted to blurt it out to each person any time we were alone together. But anyway... I digress...
So we take all the gifts into the living room, and it just so happens that everyone is sitting in this perfect order on the couch, where my mom is aaaaall the way down on one end. So we easily start handing them out, suggesting we open them one at a time so each person can see what everyone else has gotten and everyone agrees, none the wiser. Everyone is thrilled with their PJs, and then my mom's turn comes and she opens them perfectly and stops, when she sees what's sitting on top and it takes her a long minute before she looks up at me completely shocked and says, "You're pregnant??" My little sister gave the best face and slaps her hands over her mouth and soon everyone's hugging me and congratulating me and gushing about how no one knew, no one had any idea, everyone's so surprised! It was such a wonderful moment.
The rest of Christmas kind of pales in comparison, but it was all wonderful. We really had an amazing time. I spent lots of time with my niece, taking in all her tiny smiley perfection. I even got to see two of my best friends and tell them my exciting news by showing them the video of my mom opening her PJs. It was lovely.
So for Christmas, I got a new home. A brand new baby niece. My best friend came back to South Dakota with me to help me move into my new house... And... A baby all of my own.
It really was... THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER.
I woke up and peed on a stick. And the damn thing told me I was knocked up.
I was floored. I had not seen this coming. We had tried a one-ditch effort to see if we would have a sort of silly happy surprise for everyone for Christmas... I never in a million years believed we would have been successful! There are people who try for years to get pregnant, and until it happened, I always kind of assumed that would be me. I have a tilted uterus which makes for more back pain during periods, and I've heard it's harder for women with tilted uteruses to conceive. Apparently, this was not my case.
One time. One little try. And bam. I was suddenly carrying the potential for human life.
I immediately wanted to call my mom, call my sisters, call my best friend, call anyone and everyone. But we had done the one-ditch effort specifically to surprise people for Christmas, so I couldn't. I couldn't waste this amazing opportunity.
I called my husband at work and he rushed home, we bought another test and I peed on that as well, and hey-ho, it too claimed I was knocked up. We went to the doctor that afternoon, and I peed in their little cup and what do you know, they also told us we were pregnant. It was such a shocking day. My new niece had seriously been born THAT morning. Just a few short hours earlier.
I didn't feel pregnant. When my best friend got pregnant, she told me that she knew the moment it happened. But I didn't have any of that. I had zero premonitions. I had promised myself the day my period was due, if I didn't wake up with it, I would pee on a pregnancy test. But I didn't think I was actually pregnant. I couldn't even fathom it.
We soon began planning how we were going to surprise my family, a thousand ideas but none of them seemed good enough. We settled on one idea: Every Christmas we give Christmas PJs on Christmas Eve. This year, Chris and I said that since we were buying a house, we would just do the PJs, and that would be our gift to everyone. So we thought, after everyone's changed into their PJs, we'll get together to do a family photo and then Chris would say, "Ok everyone, saaaay, Sarah's Pregnant!"
In theory it seemed like a great idea, but I couldn't get past the thought that everyone would think it was a joke. So as we were wrapping the Christmas PJs on Christmas eve, I suggested that we wrap the pregnancy tests with my mom's PJs and have her open them last. It was so stressful. Hoping we could pull it off without anyone thinking something was up...
Not to drag the story out, but I should mention that my oldest sister sort of guessed that I was pregnant the first night we were home. She and I were up late, talking about her labor, oohing and awwing over her perfect tiny new baby. And she said, "I don't need to tell you, because you'll experience it all soon enough." And I couldn't hide my grin and she caught it immediately and said, "Wait... REALLY??" It was a good sister moment.
And let me also say, I was there for 4 days before Christmas eve... not telling my family was nearly impossible. I wanted to blurt it out to each person any time we were alone together. But anyway... I digress...
So we take all the gifts into the living room, and it just so happens that everyone is sitting in this perfect order on the couch, where my mom is aaaaall the way down on one end. So we easily start handing them out, suggesting we open them one at a time so each person can see what everyone else has gotten and everyone agrees, none the wiser. Everyone is thrilled with their PJs, and then my mom's turn comes and she opens them perfectly and stops, when she sees what's sitting on top and it takes her a long minute before she looks up at me completely shocked and says, "You're pregnant??" My little sister gave the best face and slaps her hands over her mouth and soon everyone's hugging me and congratulating me and gushing about how no one knew, no one had any idea, everyone's so surprised! It was such a wonderful moment.
The rest of Christmas kind of pales in comparison, but it was all wonderful. We really had an amazing time. I spent lots of time with my niece, taking in all her tiny smiley perfection. I even got to see two of my best friends and tell them my exciting news by showing them the video of my mom opening her PJs. It was lovely.
So for Christmas, I got a new home. A brand new baby niece. My best friend came back to South Dakota with me to help me move into my new house... And... A baby all of my own.
It really was... THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER.
Friday, January 27, 2017
Mental Health
My whole family suffers from mental health issues. Mostly depression. All undiagnosed, of course. I don't know about my mom, so much... She is one of the strongest, hardest working people I know. I haven't really asked her much about her mental health. But just from growing up, it seemed like my mom was definitely mentally healthy.
But my dad, he was a whole other kettle of fish. I'm sure it stems from a million different places, divorced parents, mother who plays favorites, too much exposure to sexual stuff too young. Nothing gross or horrific, just being too aware of stuff that was too old for him to truly understand. A father who withheld love. All in all my dad has turned out pretty amazing if you think about all the messed up things he went through growing up.
Regardless, he has struggled with rage, depression, anxiety, those kinds of things.
And he passed that on to us girls. My oldest sister struggles with an eating disorder, something rarely attributed to plus-sized women, but is more often the case than most people think. She struggles with co-dependance and constantly feeling like she's not good enough. I think every oldest child might struggle with that a little bit. All the parental experimentation is kind of taken out on the first child, and then they become the helper for all the other siblings. And my youngest sister struggles with feeling invisible, unloved... She was an extrovert from birth, raised by two introverts, and following my oldest sister around doing everything she did, and my oldest sister is more introverted than anyone I know. So my youngest sister always struggled with feeling unloved, having no friends, and feeling left out. Which gave her low self-esteem for a long time. But she's grown a lot and changed a lot, but constantly goes back to her youth, questioning it, and leaving her feeling as though her foundation is flawed... and when you feel like your foundation is flawed, it nearly impossible to move forward, which causes depression.
I have struggled with this sort of... Manic side and then this dark low side. I had no empathy growing up, very little impulse control, and would fly into a rage at the drop of a hat, then be totally fine in 10 minutes. Puberty was an especially hard time, with my mother at her whit's end, questioning me all the time about where I was coming from? Where this rage came from and why did it feel so uncontrollable.
I remember trying to take Midol on my period once and I felt insane. I felt shaky and outside of myself and like I couldn't keep still. It was as if my hormones were so imbalanced, I couldn't take a simple pill to ease my cramps without upsetting my whole body.
And when I got married and moved to Guam, anxiety pretty much crippled me. I couldn't DO anything. I felt like a child.
I tried to go see a therapist this year and it was horrible. She didn't understand what I was trying to say at all. I couldn't get her to see that a job and a pet weren't going to magically fix the spiraling darkness that sometimes overwhelms me.
My husband doesn't understand this crazy side of me. He is so even all the time, he's NEVER out of control. He laughs when he wants, cries when he's sad... None of his feelings ever are too big to handle. And it makes it hard to talk to him about. You would think that a man who works in mental health would be exactly the type of person to understand a crazy wife, but that is not the case.
And now I'm pregnant. This hasn't affected my hormones yet, I don't think. But I worry about what my child will pick up from me. I hope they are like my husband. I hope they can talk to me. I hope I can give them more tools than my family gave me.
At an OB class, we had to fill out a survey... and apparently if you scored a certain amount of points, it means you're "high risk". For some kind of mental something... Anyway. I did. Score high enough to get noticed. The woman who was in charge of the survey is a nice lady that I have wanted to invite over for dinner, a woman who works with my husband... But it was strange. She didn't call me about the results of my test. She went to my husband. I felt like that was kind of inappropriate. And he of course... explained away my answers. Because he doesn't really understand the extent of my crazy. So maybe she could have helped me somehow, and I'll never get that. Because she went to a co-worker who happened to know the "patient"... instead of coming to the "patient". I feel weird about the whole thing.
But my dad, he was a whole other kettle of fish. I'm sure it stems from a million different places, divorced parents, mother who plays favorites, too much exposure to sexual stuff too young. Nothing gross or horrific, just being too aware of stuff that was too old for him to truly understand. A father who withheld love. All in all my dad has turned out pretty amazing if you think about all the messed up things he went through growing up.
Regardless, he has struggled with rage, depression, anxiety, those kinds of things.
And he passed that on to us girls. My oldest sister struggles with an eating disorder, something rarely attributed to plus-sized women, but is more often the case than most people think. She struggles with co-dependance and constantly feeling like she's not good enough. I think every oldest child might struggle with that a little bit. All the parental experimentation is kind of taken out on the first child, and then they become the helper for all the other siblings. And my youngest sister struggles with feeling invisible, unloved... She was an extrovert from birth, raised by two introverts, and following my oldest sister around doing everything she did, and my oldest sister is more introverted than anyone I know. So my youngest sister always struggled with feeling unloved, having no friends, and feeling left out. Which gave her low self-esteem for a long time. But she's grown a lot and changed a lot, but constantly goes back to her youth, questioning it, and leaving her feeling as though her foundation is flawed... and when you feel like your foundation is flawed, it nearly impossible to move forward, which causes depression.
I have struggled with this sort of... Manic side and then this dark low side. I had no empathy growing up, very little impulse control, and would fly into a rage at the drop of a hat, then be totally fine in 10 minutes. Puberty was an especially hard time, with my mother at her whit's end, questioning me all the time about where I was coming from? Where this rage came from and why did it feel so uncontrollable.
I remember trying to take Midol on my period once and I felt insane. I felt shaky and outside of myself and like I couldn't keep still. It was as if my hormones were so imbalanced, I couldn't take a simple pill to ease my cramps without upsetting my whole body.
And when I got married and moved to Guam, anxiety pretty much crippled me. I couldn't DO anything. I felt like a child.
I tried to go see a therapist this year and it was horrible. She didn't understand what I was trying to say at all. I couldn't get her to see that a job and a pet weren't going to magically fix the spiraling darkness that sometimes overwhelms me.
My husband doesn't understand this crazy side of me. He is so even all the time, he's NEVER out of control. He laughs when he wants, cries when he's sad... None of his feelings ever are too big to handle. And it makes it hard to talk to him about. You would think that a man who works in mental health would be exactly the type of person to understand a crazy wife, but that is not the case.
And now I'm pregnant. This hasn't affected my hormones yet, I don't think. But I worry about what my child will pick up from me. I hope they are like my husband. I hope they can talk to me. I hope I can give them more tools than my family gave me.
At an OB class, we had to fill out a survey... and apparently if you scored a certain amount of points, it means you're "high risk". For some kind of mental something... Anyway. I did. Score high enough to get noticed. The woman who was in charge of the survey is a nice lady that I have wanted to invite over for dinner, a woman who works with my husband... But it was strange. She didn't call me about the results of my test. She went to my husband. I felt like that was kind of inappropriate. And he of course... explained away my answers. Because he doesn't really understand the extent of my crazy. So maybe she could have helped me somehow, and I'll never get that. Because she went to a co-worker who happened to know the "patient"... instead of coming to the "patient". I feel weird about the whole thing.
Thursday, January 26, 2017
The 3,000 Dollar Purchase
Now, anyone who's entered into the holy bonds of matrimony can tell you this, but marriage is hard. And complicated. And not for the faint of heart. But money seems to make to so much more complicated.
Not every man is the same and that goes doubly for women, I would say. So I wouldn't apply this to just anyone. I can only say what happened to us.
My husband has always had two unbreakable habits when it comes to purchases. The first is If I Want Something, I Need It. And the second is Ask For Forgiveness Instead of Permission. Which makes for nearly impossible gift-giving (he already owns anything he could possibly want), and for several head-butting disagreements when he's brought home something completely undiscussed.
It must come from a different type of upbringing, since I can't seem to buy myself a set of socks without making sure it's ok with my dear bread-winner first, and he has no trouble bringing home a 3rd playstation totally on the sly. And there is a small war within myself when this happens. First is the Play-It-Cool, because I desperately want to be the cool wife that he can boast about to his buddies. Then comes the simmering rage of But-Couldn't-We-Have-Talked-About-It, where I try to be rational and feel included and he could have still ended up with it, to the ULTIMATUM- You. Owe. Me.
There is a certain amount of guilt that goes along with the lecture, because I don't work. I don't bring in any money. I don't go out and deal with people everyday. A certain part of me wants him to have everything his heart desires because he puts NO pressure on me even though I don't work. But another part of me is all, "I clean the house. I cook the meals. I take care of the pets. I AM A HUMAN PERSON WHO SHOULD GET A SAY DESPITE MY LACK OF MONEY-MAKING!"
And he always returns my vehement reprimands with the grinning chagrin of a man who knows he's done a naughty thing, and promises to think and talk about it the next time.
He's awesome like that.
But there was recently a 3,000 dollar purchase made without my knowledge. To be more accurate, it was 2,800, but lets just round up to 3, mmkay? It wasn't a complete surprise. It was an item that he had been talking about wanting since before we got married. It wasn't even that surprising that it happened when it did, I had heard tidbits of conversations, I had been let in here and there... like a nervous swimmer testing the temperature of a swimming pool. But it wasn't until a phone call with my sister-in-law, casually announcing the information that the purchase had been made... (she was completely unaware that I didn't know.), that I truly grasped that this was actually happening. Had happened.
I won't go into all the details of why this wasn't great timing for us, or why it didn't work even though we HAD the money... I won't even go into the details of why it was so upsetting that he hadn't DISCUSSED this purchase with me.
It's just one of those funny little things that you have to learn in the bonds of marriage. How to help each other. How to include each other. How to communicate.
In the end, we managed to find a solution that, while isn't going to make him happy (the only thing that would is if he got away without any consequences, but isn't that true for everything and everyone?), it's taken some of the stress out of the situation. And I feel heard and included and like he's on board to make less selfish decisions in the future. So we're learning.
Slowly... but surely... We are learning.
Not every man is the same and that goes doubly for women, I would say. So I wouldn't apply this to just anyone. I can only say what happened to us.
My husband has always had two unbreakable habits when it comes to purchases. The first is If I Want Something, I Need It. And the second is Ask For Forgiveness Instead of Permission. Which makes for nearly impossible gift-giving (he already owns anything he could possibly want), and for several head-butting disagreements when he's brought home something completely undiscussed.
It must come from a different type of upbringing, since I can't seem to buy myself a set of socks without making sure it's ok with my dear bread-winner first, and he has no trouble bringing home a 3rd playstation totally on the sly. And there is a small war within myself when this happens. First is the Play-It-Cool, because I desperately want to be the cool wife that he can boast about to his buddies. Then comes the simmering rage of But-Couldn't-We-Have-Talked-About-It, where I try to be rational and feel included and he could have still ended up with it, to the ULTIMATUM- You. Owe. Me.
There is a certain amount of guilt that goes along with the lecture, because I don't work. I don't bring in any money. I don't go out and deal with people everyday. A certain part of me wants him to have everything his heart desires because he puts NO pressure on me even though I don't work. But another part of me is all, "I clean the house. I cook the meals. I take care of the pets. I AM A HUMAN PERSON WHO SHOULD GET A SAY DESPITE MY LACK OF MONEY-MAKING!"
And he always returns my vehement reprimands with the grinning chagrin of a man who knows he's done a naughty thing, and promises to think and talk about it the next time.
He's awesome like that.
But there was recently a 3,000 dollar purchase made without my knowledge. To be more accurate, it was 2,800, but lets just round up to 3, mmkay? It wasn't a complete surprise. It was an item that he had been talking about wanting since before we got married. It wasn't even that surprising that it happened when it did, I had heard tidbits of conversations, I had been let in here and there... like a nervous swimmer testing the temperature of a swimming pool. But it wasn't until a phone call with my sister-in-law, casually announcing the information that the purchase had been made... (she was completely unaware that I didn't know.), that I truly grasped that this was actually happening. Had happened.
I won't go into all the details of why this wasn't great timing for us, or why it didn't work even though we HAD the money... I won't even go into the details of why it was so upsetting that he hadn't DISCUSSED this purchase with me.
It's just one of those funny little things that you have to learn in the bonds of marriage. How to help each other. How to include each other. How to communicate.
In the end, we managed to find a solution that, while isn't going to make him happy (the only thing that would is if he got away without any consequences, but isn't that true for everything and everyone?), it's taken some of the stress out of the situation. And I feel heard and included and like he's on board to make less selfish decisions in the future. So we're learning.
Slowly... but surely... We are learning.
Monday, November 21, 2016
Buying a House
Oh my word. How terrifying is this? WE ARE BUYING A HOUSE. A HOUSE. It's pretty much the biggest purchase of your life, right? I mean, at least until your rich enough to afford an even nicer house. But the first one is terrifying. Maybe all of them are terrifying. I don't know yet. But this first one certainly is.
There are so many things you don't know beforehand. So many things you don't know how to understand. There are abbreviations, and taxes, and expenses... things you never knew you didn't know. Words you are given long before you understand the meaning of.
Well now I'm in the throws of it. Sick of apartment life, my husband and I set out to find our dream home for our dream price. There are so many things I hate about house shopping. You always have to compromise somewhere. You find a two car garage, but it only has one bathroom. You find a beautiful big blue house on the corner, but the kitchen is still locked in the 50's. You find a perfect house in a terrible, scary neighborhood, or an almost perfect house in a perfect neighborhood 100,000 bucks out of your price range. You find a home-sweet-home for the perfect price an hour away from your husband's workplace.
Pretty soon every new construction begins to look the same, and things you thought you couldn't live with or without seem totally negotiable.
We loved our mortgage broker right off the bat. She was so communicative, positive, upbeat. So encouraging. She taught me a lot. I had no idea that everyone has THREE credit scores. Three of them. Why wasn't I taught that in high school? Every credit score commercial I have ever seen, there has only ever been one number sitting there on the screen. But no. You have three. And the one they usually go with is the one in the middle. And checking your credit score for a mortgage actually lowers it by 6 points. Every time. You can check it multiple times a month as long as it's for the same thing (such as a mortgage or getting a car). But every different month you check it, it drops. However, it's surprisingly easy to build your credit back up. It can be as simple as making your payments on time. That is something that I didn't know. When we first went to the mortgage broker, we didn't get approved. We knew we wouldn't. But she was able to give us a few simple steps to help our credit shoot up to where we needed it to be, and a few short months later, we got pre-approved. She threw around words like Fannie and Freddie... I nodded along like I knew what she was talking about, but I had to ask my mom what that meant later. They're the loan agents or whatever. They were probably people a long long time ago, but now their just labels for companies that turn a profit by lending you funds to make real life possible.
A few days after pre-approval, I was already fed up with every house on the market, scared that we'd never be able to afford something worth living in, and completely falling out of love with the idea of moving.
Our realtor was harder to like for me. On our first meeting I kind of let my husband run the show He pays attention to things like neighborhoods and directions... things like "North side of town". If someone asked you if you lived on the "North side of town" would you even know?? I would have no idea. I've never looked at my town on a map! So I let him say all the things that were important to him, and I felt so left out of the whole process. I was so discouraged, and I really didn't like her. I felt like she should have been more interested in my opinion, asked me more questions. But she didn't. So I left her out of the house finding process until I was truly ready to give up. And then she texted. I just said all of the things I'd been thinking and feeling and finally said what I was looking for. Within the afternoon, she had a house for us to look at. That was the moment I fell for her too. Hahaha! She was so upbeat and helpful. We liked that first house we looked at a lot. We were able to narrow down what we were looking for a lot by looking at that first house. The very next day she called us and told us she had found it: Our home.
That morning, Petal called me and told me not to leave the apartment because a man had attempted to kill his girlfriend the night before in our apartment complex. That he was on the lamb and was last seen with a knife. Needless to say, by the time we drove to the house that evening, I was ready to fall in love with it. But it went above and beyond my expectations. I loved everything about it. And where we live, the market is hot. Very competetive. She told us to jump and we did. It was so scary. But we made an offer at 6:30 that evening and by 8:50 the next morning we were under contract.
Buyer's remorse set in this afternoon. It's not that it's not home. And it's not that I want to back out or give up on this process. But there are things that you overlook when you've just found home. And when you get a moment to think about living with two sets of stairs to get into your front door every day... when you have a moment to think about buying paint and a washer and dryer and putting in a fence, it gets a little stressful and you start to second guess going 15,000 dollars over budget.
Since my husband is in the military, we're getting VA loan, which is really really nice. No down payment, if interest rates drop, you can go in any time and resign the paperwork to get a better deal. Realtors and brokers waive their fees as a thank you for the service. Most of the time, they can get the sellers to pay for closing costs and things like that. But it's not all roses. It's a lot better than it could be. But it's certainly not perfect. We are not one of the lucky ones, and the closing costs will be on us. We have to pay for the loan appraisal and a home inspection and a radon test and a sewer scope and "good faith" money. It's all incredibly expensive and stressful.
But we get good news, that the house has passed inspection with very little negatives. The radon test passed with flying colors. It's happiness in the household. This afternoon we got the results of the sewer scope. It's an hundred dollar optional test that we thought good and hard about opting out of. Thank GOD we didn't. That 100 dollar test saved us 4,000!! Because we caught the horror show that they called a sewer system before the house closed, the current owners are liable to fix it. Yay! Take all the options, people. DO NOT OPT OUT OF THE TESTS!!
I'm still scared, and excited, and nervous, and so very ready to move. Oh. Yeah. They caught the man who tried to kill his girlfriend in our apartment complex was caught hundreds of miles away in the capital. Still. Terrifying. And last night our kitchen sink took a dive and is now sitting in the cabinet that used to be beneath it. So the stress never ends, and the house looks better than ever.
There are so many things you don't know beforehand. So many things you don't know how to understand. There are abbreviations, and taxes, and expenses... things you never knew you didn't know. Words you are given long before you understand the meaning of.
Well now I'm in the throws of it. Sick of apartment life, my husband and I set out to find our dream home for our dream price. There are so many things I hate about house shopping. You always have to compromise somewhere. You find a two car garage, but it only has one bathroom. You find a beautiful big blue house on the corner, but the kitchen is still locked in the 50's. You find a perfect house in a terrible, scary neighborhood, or an almost perfect house in a perfect neighborhood 100,000 bucks out of your price range. You find a home-sweet-home for the perfect price an hour away from your husband's workplace.
Pretty soon every new construction begins to look the same, and things you thought you couldn't live with or without seem totally negotiable.
We loved our mortgage broker right off the bat. She was so communicative, positive, upbeat. So encouraging. She taught me a lot. I had no idea that everyone has THREE credit scores. Three of them. Why wasn't I taught that in high school? Every credit score commercial I have ever seen, there has only ever been one number sitting there on the screen. But no. You have three. And the one they usually go with is the one in the middle. And checking your credit score for a mortgage actually lowers it by 6 points. Every time. You can check it multiple times a month as long as it's for the same thing (such as a mortgage or getting a car). But every different month you check it, it drops. However, it's surprisingly easy to build your credit back up. It can be as simple as making your payments on time. That is something that I didn't know. When we first went to the mortgage broker, we didn't get approved. We knew we wouldn't. But she was able to give us a few simple steps to help our credit shoot up to where we needed it to be, and a few short months later, we got pre-approved. She threw around words like Fannie and Freddie... I nodded along like I knew what she was talking about, but I had to ask my mom what that meant later. They're the loan agents or whatever. They were probably people a long long time ago, but now their just labels for companies that turn a profit by lending you funds to make real life possible.
A few days after pre-approval, I was already fed up with every house on the market, scared that we'd never be able to afford something worth living in, and completely falling out of love with the idea of moving.
Our realtor was harder to like for me. On our first meeting I kind of let my husband run the show He pays attention to things like neighborhoods and directions... things like "North side of town". If someone asked you if you lived on the "North side of town" would you even know?? I would have no idea. I've never looked at my town on a map! So I let him say all the things that were important to him, and I felt so left out of the whole process. I was so discouraged, and I really didn't like her. I felt like she should have been more interested in my opinion, asked me more questions. But she didn't. So I left her out of the house finding process until I was truly ready to give up. And then she texted. I just said all of the things I'd been thinking and feeling and finally said what I was looking for. Within the afternoon, she had a house for us to look at. That was the moment I fell for her too. Hahaha! She was so upbeat and helpful. We liked that first house we looked at a lot. We were able to narrow down what we were looking for a lot by looking at that first house. The very next day she called us and told us she had found it: Our home.
That morning, Petal called me and told me not to leave the apartment because a man had attempted to kill his girlfriend the night before in our apartment complex. That he was on the lamb and was last seen with a knife. Needless to say, by the time we drove to the house that evening, I was ready to fall in love with it. But it went above and beyond my expectations. I loved everything about it. And where we live, the market is hot. Very competetive. She told us to jump and we did. It was so scary. But we made an offer at 6:30 that evening and by 8:50 the next morning we were under contract.
Buyer's remorse set in this afternoon. It's not that it's not home. And it's not that I want to back out or give up on this process. But there are things that you overlook when you've just found home. And when you get a moment to think about living with two sets of stairs to get into your front door every day... when you have a moment to think about buying paint and a washer and dryer and putting in a fence, it gets a little stressful and you start to second guess going 15,000 dollars over budget.
Since my husband is in the military, we're getting VA loan, which is really really nice. No down payment, if interest rates drop, you can go in any time and resign the paperwork to get a better deal. Realtors and brokers waive their fees as a thank you for the service. Most of the time, they can get the sellers to pay for closing costs and things like that. But it's not all roses. It's a lot better than it could be. But it's certainly not perfect. We are not one of the lucky ones, and the closing costs will be on us. We have to pay for the loan appraisal and a home inspection and a radon test and a sewer scope and "good faith" money. It's all incredibly expensive and stressful.
But we get good news, that the house has passed inspection with very little negatives. The radon test passed with flying colors. It's happiness in the household. This afternoon we got the results of the sewer scope. It's an hundred dollar optional test that we thought good and hard about opting out of. Thank GOD we didn't. That 100 dollar test saved us 4,000!! Because we caught the horror show that they called a sewer system before the house closed, the current owners are liable to fix it. Yay! Take all the options, people. DO NOT OPT OUT OF THE TESTS!!
I'm still scared, and excited, and nervous, and so very ready to move. Oh. Yeah. They caught the man who tried to kill his girlfriend in our apartment complex was caught hundreds of miles away in the capital. Still. Terrifying. And last night our kitchen sink took a dive and is now sitting in the cabinet that used to be beneath it. So the stress never ends, and the house looks better than ever.
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Astrology
Now, I'm not one to buy into something like the stars defining who we are... but reading about your personality through the glass of a theory is pretty interesting.
I think we often do our best to define ourselves... whether it's through stupid quizzes, what we enjoy, or a very strange pseudoscience of reading the stars we were born under. But recently I started reading different sites about astrology, and I have to say, I'm fascinated by it.
I'm a Pisces. And my husband is a Gemini. And if you know anything about astrology, those two signs aren't usually recommended to go together. I rule by my heart, he rules by his head. He is calm and cool and collected, and if I range from furious to playful to sobbing in a day, it's been a pretty normal day for me. But I suppose that's true for most women and guys. Reading about our compatibility was a little heartbreaking, because it felt... accurate. Places it would say we disagree, we do. Things it said we'd have a hard time getting past, we have. And hurt feelings from a complete misunderstanding based on a fundamental personality point... have happened. I'm sure there's not much to these silly theories. And anytime someone says, "This is who you are", you'll try to find pieces of yourself. But at the same time, I can't shake the feeling that I might have robbed him from finding bliss with someone better suited for his calm. Because I read about what life would be like for my Gemini if he had ended up with a Sagittarius. And what's worse... is I know who his Sagittarius would have been.
She wore white to my wedding and sobbed as we said our "I do's". She was there first. She is loved by his mother. She is friendly and child-like and calm. And I'm not saying I stole him or anything like that... if he had truly wanted to be with her, he would have been. But he never was and never really wanted to be.
But with all the drama between his mother and me, I can't help but wonder if I lured him into a chaotic life... one he could have avoided if he had just... "Married the girl of his youth" as the verse his mother read at our wedding said.
His mother is quite passionate about astrology. Mostly because she likes to fit everyone into neat, definable boxes. She will hear two facts about someone, label them and stick them into their box and if they ever try to crawl out, she will be utterly lost. Her passion for it was why I looked into it in the first place. I wanted to find some common ground. I wanted to find a way to communicate with this strange creature.
She is a Leo. And again, Leos and Pisces' don't exactly get along. At all. We are both based in love, but go about it completely differently. I am fluid, sensitive, and idealistic. She is stubborn, direct to the point of insensitivity, and grounded. I am surrounded by the energy of Neptune (if you believe in that) which could be construed as deceitful and fake, and she is surrounded by the energy of bringing Neptune to it's fall (whatever that means), and therefore is on a warpath to reveal my lies. Even if I'm not lying. We will never have trust between us, not naturally anyway... Because our personalities tell us the other is hiding something, manipulating the situation, and being dishonest. It was summed up as her thinking I'm too spacey, and me feeling sorry for her.
And reading that is shocking because it's so close to how I feel whenever I'm with her.
Maybe one day I will blog about my side of the chaos between us... Really talk about the hurt that has happened... the devision that has driven me so far from wanting a relationship with this woman who gave me the man I love. But not today.
Today I wanted to say that astrology is interesting. And it makes you think.
I think we often do our best to define ourselves... whether it's through stupid quizzes, what we enjoy, or a very strange pseudoscience of reading the stars we were born under. But recently I started reading different sites about astrology, and I have to say, I'm fascinated by it.
I'm a Pisces. And my husband is a Gemini. And if you know anything about astrology, those two signs aren't usually recommended to go together. I rule by my heart, he rules by his head. He is calm and cool and collected, and if I range from furious to playful to sobbing in a day, it's been a pretty normal day for me. But I suppose that's true for most women and guys. Reading about our compatibility was a little heartbreaking, because it felt... accurate. Places it would say we disagree, we do. Things it said we'd have a hard time getting past, we have. And hurt feelings from a complete misunderstanding based on a fundamental personality point... have happened. I'm sure there's not much to these silly theories. And anytime someone says, "This is who you are", you'll try to find pieces of yourself. But at the same time, I can't shake the feeling that I might have robbed him from finding bliss with someone better suited for his calm. Because I read about what life would be like for my Gemini if he had ended up with a Sagittarius. And what's worse... is I know who his Sagittarius would have been.
She wore white to my wedding and sobbed as we said our "I do's". She was there first. She is loved by his mother. She is friendly and child-like and calm. And I'm not saying I stole him or anything like that... if he had truly wanted to be with her, he would have been. But he never was and never really wanted to be.
But with all the drama between his mother and me, I can't help but wonder if I lured him into a chaotic life... one he could have avoided if he had just... "Married the girl of his youth" as the verse his mother read at our wedding said.
His mother is quite passionate about astrology. Mostly because she likes to fit everyone into neat, definable boxes. She will hear two facts about someone, label them and stick them into their box and if they ever try to crawl out, she will be utterly lost. Her passion for it was why I looked into it in the first place. I wanted to find some common ground. I wanted to find a way to communicate with this strange creature.
She is a Leo. And again, Leos and Pisces' don't exactly get along. At all. We are both based in love, but go about it completely differently. I am fluid, sensitive, and idealistic. She is stubborn, direct to the point of insensitivity, and grounded. I am surrounded by the energy of Neptune (if you believe in that) which could be construed as deceitful and fake, and she is surrounded by the energy of bringing Neptune to it's fall (whatever that means), and therefore is on a warpath to reveal my lies. Even if I'm not lying. We will never have trust between us, not naturally anyway... Because our personalities tell us the other is hiding something, manipulating the situation, and being dishonest. It was summed up as her thinking I'm too spacey, and me feeling sorry for her.
And reading that is shocking because it's so close to how I feel whenever I'm with her.
Maybe one day I will blog about my side of the chaos between us... Really talk about the hurt that has happened... the devision that has driven me so far from wanting a relationship with this woman who gave me the man I love. But not today.
Today I wanted to say that astrology is interesting. And it makes you think.
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