Note: I started writing this post a very long time ago and never finished it. I went back through my pending posts, found this and it still made a lot of sense today, so I finished it up. My job is pretty great these days, so at least there is that.
Jesus God, y'all. I'm so not funny anymore.
I mean, I already knew this. My thinking, my writing, hell, basically the majority of my life is fraught with pain and tension and sadness and tears. I guess I fake it okay most of the time, but I can only do so much. I have to work, I have to be nice to stupid people all the time, and at the end of the day there is only so much a girl can stand. Three people helpfully pointed out my shortcomings in this area to me in the last month or so and since some of you might still be laboring under this misconception:
I'M NOT FUNNY ANYMORE.
There. Now we all know. Everyone's expectations are adjusted.
The problem is, I used to be funny. I actually wasn't though. Sure, I wrote and said funny things and I had funny life experiences (and I still do, actually. I'm a magnet for crazy people), but the reality was? I was living a lie.
That sounds dramatic, right?
It was.
I had not dealt with a lot of things that happened in my life. In fact, I still have not dealt with the vast majority of those things, which makes therapy a real treat. I start down a path that might potentially lead to healing and then like a turtle I yank my head back into that shell and yell, "Nope, nope, NOPE!"
It's ugly.
There is an ugliness to all of it that I can't yet share. I might not ever be able to share. God speed, Stephanie's current therapist.
So I know what you are thinking right now:
Why is she such a dramatic whore?
Her life is so good!
She has so much!
She's got no problems!
Shut the Hell up!
Or probably some combination of any or all of those things. I know this because I've heard this too many times from other people about other people.
What does she have to complain about? She doesn't have to work! She lives in a nice house and has lots of money! She's thin! Her kids are well-behaved! Blah, blah, BLAH.
That's...not how this works. That's literally not how any of this works. Also? When I hear those kind of things I zip myself up into the tiniest shell I can squeeze in to and I don't want to share anything anymore. Because I know you feel that way about me too.
Just today I was lamenting to my therapist that I have literally no idea what I look like. This sounds actually insane because, hello, I have mirrors. I have eyes. I can physically see myself and I look at myself in the mirror every day out of necessity. I still have no idea what I look like.
Someone took some pictures of me yesterday and I looked at the pictures and for about 20 seconds I felt like, "Okay. This is fine. I look fine. I don't need to lose any weight. I'm okay".
That didn't last long. You see, it never does. Despite what you think, being "thin" is not the key to happiness. I know some of you think that, because I used to think that. I was wrong. You are wrong too. You just are.
My entire life I've been "wrong". Losing weight didn't fix that wrongness.
Having a good job and making "enough" money didn't fix it.
Marrying a fine, strong, wonderful man didn't fix it.
Raising two fantastic children didn't fix it.
Moreover, weighing and measuring my food doesn't fix it. Exercising every day doesn't fix it. Being an overachiever in every area of my life possible doesn't fix it.
I don't know what fixes it.
Don't tell me you understand me.
I don't understand me. Not yet.
Thursday, January 16, 2020
Friday, January 3, 2020
Avalanche
The world is mean. Horribly, horrifically mean.
Don't try to tell me otherwise. I know there is a lot of good in this world, I SEE a lot of good every single day (because I look for it), but really? It's a dog-eat-dog world and I'm wearing t-bone underwear. So are you.
Your house, though? It doesn't have to be that way.
You see, I'm a snowflake. So are my children. We're all delicate. We don't like confrontation or shouting or people being mean, and therefore, somehow, we are fragile and stupid and ridiculous and people to be mocked. People sneer when they talk about us, because WE are the problem. WE are too soft and too weak. WE need to change.
I, personally, need to toughen up. I've heard it a million times throughout my life. Never mind I've sat through customer calls where people were shouting at me, swearing at me, or telling me I should be fired for things like "there was an extra space in this email!". Completely ignore the fact that I was utterly heartbroken by the things that my ex-husband said to me while I was pregnant when he decided he didn't love me and never had. When he found me passed out on the floor and kicked me in the pregnant stomach to see if I was still alive because he thought I might be dead and he "didn't want to touch the body". Never mind the fact that he said he wished I had died and that no one loved me anyway. Forget the weeks I spent in the NICU praying that these little children of mine would not die, could not die. Don't even think about all the times I've been made fun of, taken advantage of, mocked, and hurt.
I survived all of that, but I'm not tough enough. Not for this world.
I mean, I've held my chin up high. I kept doing everything I can to make work tolerable, including being kind and responsive to people who are mean to me. I didn't let my ex-husband break my heart completely and I have been able to be a good partner to the right man. I didn't let my children's rocky start into this world ruin their lives: there is no bubble around them and never has been. Skin your knees, get your heart broken, learn tough lessons: being a preemie doesn't shield you. Mock me, hurt me...I'm still here.
Tough? No.
Mean? I can't stand it.
"Kids these days are so sensitive," people say, pronouncing the word sensitive the way I would pronounce something like, "your giant hairy butthole". Like being sensitive is some character flaw or defect.
It's not.
I'm here to tell you. It's just not.
I hurt. I don't always talk about how much I hurt, but I do. There are so many things that I will never be able to talk about, or write about. That's okay, not every hurt needs to be shared. But just because I carry it all so well does not mean it's not really heavy. Really, really heavy.
I carry it anyway and it's not going to turn me mean.
I've decided that 2020 will be the year that I step away from a lot of people and things that don't bring me joy. It's time. It's past time, really. I've spent the last few years in an almost paralyzed state of pain. I had no idea I knew so many hateful, hurtful people. I feel like my eyes have been opened to so many really awful things in the last few years. I'm hurt. I mean, I guess that's not surprising, right? The poor little whiny snowflake is hurt. What else is new?
It's okay.
Because I deal with my hurt. Snowflakes do that, you know. We talk about our feelings. We work through things. We take extra special care to make sure our snowflake kids don't hurt the same way we do. We sit through hours of therapy, because we need it. You need it too, frankly, but we get that you don't get that. You're tough and we're weak and that's the difference between us.
That's okay, though. Really.
Peace is coming for me.
I hope it is for you too.
Don't try to tell me otherwise. I know there is a lot of good in this world, I SEE a lot of good every single day (because I look for it), but really? It's a dog-eat-dog world and I'm wearing t-bone underwear. So are you.
Your house, though? It doesn't have to be that way.
You see, I'm a snowflake. So are my children. We're all delicate. We don't like confrontation or shouting or people being mean, and therefore, somehow, we are fragile and stupid and ridiculous and people to be mocked. People sneer when they talk about us, because WE are the problem. WE are too soft and too weak. WE need to change.
I, personally, need to toughen up. I've heard it a million times throughout my life. Never mind I've sat through customer calls where people were shouting at me, swearing at me, or telling me I should be fired for things like "there was an extra space in this email!". Completely ignore the fact that I was utterly heartbroken by the things that my ex-husband said to me while I was pregnant when he decided he didn't love me and never had. When he found me passed out on the floor and kicked me in the pregnant stomach to see if I was still alive because he thought I might be dead and he "didn't want to touch the body". Never mind the fact that he said he wished I had died and that no one loved me anyway. Forget the weeks I spent in the NICU praying that these little children of mine would not die, could not die. Don't even think about all the times I've been made fun of, taken advantage of, mocked, and hurt.
I survived all of that, but I'm not tough enough. Not for this world.
I mean, I've held my chin up high. I kept doing everything I can to make work tolerable, including being kind and responsive to people who are mean to me. I didn't let my ex-husband break my heart completely and I have been able to be a good partner to the right man. I didn't let my children's rocky start into this world ruin their lives: there is no bubble around them and never has been. Skin your knees, get your heart broken, learn tough lessons: being a preemie doesn't shield you. Mock me, hurt me...I'm still here.
Tough? No.
Mean? I can't stand it.
"Kids these days are so sensitive," people say, pronouncing the word sensitive the way I would pronounce something like, "your giant hairy butthole". Like being sensitive is some character flaw or defect.
It's not.
I'm here to tell you. It's just not.
I hurt. I don't always talk about how much I hurt, but I do. There are so many things that I will never be able to talk about, or write about. That's okay, not every hurt needs to be shared. But just because I carry it all so well does not mean it's not really heavy. Really, really heavy.
I carry it anyway and it's not going to turn me mean.
I've decided that 2020 will be the year that I step away from a lot of people and things that don't bring me joy. It's time. It's past time, really. I've spent the last few years in an almost paralyzed state of pain. I had no idea I knew so many hateful, hurtful people. I feel like my eyes have been opened to so many really awful things in the last few years. I'm hurt. I mean, I guess that's not surprising, right? The poor little whiny snowflake is hurt. What else is new?
It's okay.
Because I deal with my hurt. Snowflakes do that, you know. We talk about our feelings. We work through things. We take extra special care to make sure our snowflake kids don't hurt the same way we do. We sit through hours of therapy, because we need it. You need it too, frankly, but we get that you don't get that. You're tough and we're weak and that's the difference between us.
That's okay, though. Really.
Peace is coming for me.
I hope it is for you too.
Wednesday, November 27, 2019
The most beautiful day of your life.
"Let's go for a drive," he said.
The new bypass opened in our town. This is big excitement for us. We are old.
It's okay though. It's okay to be old. It's okay to be excited by little things.
During the ride he tells me three stories about various things he's seen on television. He sings me a song he made up for me while I was at Zumba. He tells me two things that I told him last week, but he says them both in a way that I know he truly believes he is giving me brand new information. His memory is not so good these days.
He reminds me that in a few weeks we will have known each other for twenty years.
"Can you believe it?" he asks me.
I can't.
I breathed one breath and it's been twenty years.
He says, "I need to tell you something that I didn't want to tell you" and then he has another story for me. This one is about his doctor. His doctor whose brother has epilepsy. Had epilepsy. The brother died. They checked and it wasn't a drug overdose and it wasn't a heart attack. It was Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy.
It was my greatest fear.
You can't worry, he tells me. It's going to be alright.
We talk about the assault, about that awful, terrible night that our lives changed forever. I hold out no hope anymore that the man will be caught. It's been four years: the anniversary was what prompted the conversation. Things will never be the same. There will never be justice for what happened to him or for what was taken from us and our family.
Yet.
Our life together is actually quite beautiful.
When a traumatic event occurs you can fall apart, or you can fall together. We fell together. Professionally I just had the best year of my life. My stress is down 900 percent. I genuinely love what I do for work. We have our routine down. Financially things are better than they've ever been. Our family is intact and strong. We laugh a lot. A lot.
Sometimes the stress and the fear and the worry of it all get to me. Sometimes I sit in my car in the garage for a minute and finish up a cry before I come inside.
Usually when I come inside, he's at the stove, finishing up dinner. "How was your class?" he'll ask. "I missed you," he'll say.
It's really lovely.
It's not what I intended, but it's where I'm supposed to be.
"Life is hard," he tells me. "This has been a tough year."
I nod, silently. It has been a hard year. Hard years can be good years. It can be both. This year has been very hard on him, very hard on both of us.
"I really have had a charmed life though," he says. "I know I've had some hard times, but really. I'm the most blessed person alive."
And oh.
He isn't though.
But I think I am.
The new bypass opened in our town. This is big excitement for us. We are old.
It's okay though. It's okay to be old. It's okay to be excited by little things.
During the ride he tells me three stories about various things he's seen on television. He sings me a song he made up for me while I was at Zumba. He tells me two things that I told him last week, but he says them both in a way that I know he truly believes he is giving me brand new information. His memory is not so good these days.
He reminds me that in a few weeks we will have known each other for twenty years.
"Can you believe it?" he asks me.
I can't.
I breathed one breath and it's been twenty years.
He says, "I need to tell you something that I didn't want to tell you" and then he has another story for me. This one is about his doctor. His doctor whose brother has epilepsy. Had epilepsy. The brother died. They checked and it wasn't a drug overdose and it wasn't a heart attack. It was Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy.
It was my greatest fear.
You can't worry, he tells me. It's going to be alright.
We talk about the assault, about that awful, terrible night that our lives changed forever. I hold out no hope anymore that the man will be caught. It's been four years: the anniversary was what prompted the conversation. Things will never be the same. There will never be justice for what happened to him or for what was taken from us and our family.
Yet.
Our life together is actually quite beautiful.
When a traumatic event occurs you can fall apart, or you can fall together. We fell together. Professionally I just had the best year of my life. My stress is down 900 percent. I genuinely love what I do for work. We have our routine down. Financially things are better than they've ever been. Our family is intact and strong. We laugh a lot. A lot.
Sometimes the stress and the fear and the worry of it all get to me. Sometimes I sit in my car in the garage for a minute and finish up a cry before I come inside.
Usually when I come inside, he's at the stove, finishing up dinner. "How was your class?" he'll ask. "I missed you," he'll say.
It's really lovely.
It's not what I intended, but it's where I'm supposed to be.
"Life is hard," he tells me. "This has been a tough year."
I nod, silently. It has been a hard year. Hard years can be good years. It can be both. This year has been very hard on him, very hard on both of us.
"I really have had a charmed life though," he says. "I know I've had some hard times, but really. I'm the most blessed person alive."
And oh.
He isn't though.
But I think I am.
Tuesday, July 16, 2019
16 ways to stay married for 16 years
Another anniversary has come and gone. Sixteen now. Sixteen years.
After we'd been married about five years, people started asking me for marriage advice. I found this hilarious at the time, and I still do. Even after ten years I thought to myself, "We're just getting started! We're still figuring this out!" Now we are at sixteen years (almost twenty if you count the time dating). I have stories. I have examples. I still think we are just babies at this though. I still think we have so long to go, so many years, so many miles.
Anyway.
So here's how we did it. It might work for you. It might not. But here's what we did.
1) Marry someone you actually like.
This sounds really stupid, right? Of course you would like the person you were marrying, right? Why would you marry someone you didn't like?
Guess what? People do this all the time. Seriously.
"I love him, but I don't like him"
"I love her, but I hate that she does XYZ"
Or my personal favorite:
"He's an ass"
I mean, everyone's an ass sometimes. There are moments I've looked at my husband and thought, "You are a fool with a double side of nonsense". I'm sure he's thought the same about me.
Overall though, I genuinely like my husband and he genuinely likes me. There is nothing that he does that I consider a deal breaker (like, kick dogs or be mean to little old ladies or whatever). Even when he does something boneheaded, I still know he's a good person. He knows I'm a good person.
2) Don't do everything together.
Jason and I do a lot together. Based on conversations with my friends, I think we probably do more together than most couples. That being said, we also have completely separate hobbies and activities. I could not get him to do half the stuff I do on my own (if you ever see Jason running, you should start running too because there is probably a bomb about to explode) and he could not ever convince me to do some of the things he enjoys. That's okay. We don't have to do everything together. We don't want to do everything together.
3) Agree to disagree.
There are many topics that Jason and I debate. There are many topics on which we agree, fully. There are several other topics that we disagree on. We are both respectful of one another's points of view. That being said:
4) Never marry someone who disagrees with your Hill to Die On.
Everyone is going to have a different Hill to Die On. Personally, I have a few and mostly they involve children. If Jason did not feel the same way about my Hills I would not have married him. Full stop. We might disagree on the way to execute certain things, but if he ever said something to me like, "I don't think my tax dollars should go to make sure school children have lunch during the day" or ever used the term "boot straps" when it came to children, I absolutely could not be married to him. (Also, not at ALL the topic of this blog, but I pay an absolute asston of taxes every year and I would gladly give even more of my hard-earned dollars to make sure that every child in this country had good food and good schools, because children are our future, dammit. Anyway. Moving on)
5) Before you get married, talk about really hard things.
Do you want children or nah? If you do, how do you want to raise them? Where do you want to live? How are you going to earn a living? What about religion? Politics? Family crap? Talk about it. Talk about it again. Talk about it some more. Think up every single what-if scenario you can think of and TALK. ABOUT. IT.
6) After you are married, keep talking about hard things.
Jason and I were mere babies, only twenty-seven years old, when we said "I do". I've admitted this before, but I honestly didn't think about things like the logistics of having two kids in college at the same time and what would happen if one of us got an incurable illness. These are shitty, difficult, painful conversations and you absolutely must have them. You must. Even when they hurt, even when they are hard, even when you would rather curl up in a ball and cry instead. You have to talk about this.
7) You have to change.
The biggest concern it seems that people (okay, mostly men) have about marriage is that they don't want things to change. They say, "I'm happy with how things are! I don't want things to change!"
Well...tough titties.
I mean, people change. You can't stay the same. You cannot remain stagnant. You are not the same person you were at 22 when you are 42 (God, let's hope not anyway). You are going to change. Period. The end. If you want to stay together you have to change together.
(Now, if your spouse decides they want to change into a Nazi or bring in a Sister Wife or something, then feel free to reject that change and walk out the door. I'm talking about like normal, growing up, getting older type changes, not being radicalized or whatever)
8) Be insanely stupid with each other.
Not a day goes by that we don't make up a ridiculous song and loudly sing it to each other. We're considering starting a YouTube channel for which we'll record ourselves watching videos from the 1980's and reacting to them. We talk to the dog like she's a person.
These are all good. I can't be nearly as stupid with anyone else. It's nice.
9) Say yes as often as you can.
I tell my husband, frequently, he is the neediest person I've ever met. I say this lovingly, of course, but he does ask for whatever he'd like from me whenever he would like and frankly sometimes this is exhausting. However, it also makes me happy because he feels 100 percent comfortable in communicating what he wants and needs to me. (Even after this many years, this is something I'm still working on, not just with him but with everyone). He knows he can be open to me. If I say no, he's fine with it. He's never, ever made me feel bad about saying no.
So if he says, "Will you rub my back?" or "Can we get coffee?" or "Will you get me the special ice cream with the chocolate fish in it?" I try to say yes. Sometimes I'm tired and don't feel like rubbing his back. Sometimes I think to myself, good God his coffee costs $5. Sometimes the ice cream that's his favorite is way more expensive than the other ice cream.
Sometimes I just say no.
But for every time that I say yes, he says, "You're the best wife ever!" and he does things like leave me love notes all over the house, and send me text messages in the middle of the afternoon to say he loves me. He tells everyone how proud he is of me. He genuinely, sincerely appreciates everything I do and I know it. I feel it.
So I say yes whenever I can.
10) Dream the biggest, most stupid, most impossible dreams together.
Last year Jason and I were out on a walk and we were talking about our careers and our future. I told him, "It's my goal to make X amount of dollars every year". He immediately said, "That's a lot" and then immediately after that he said, "I believe you can."
This year, I will make that amount of money I said that day on that walk. He is so proud of me that when I opened my offer letter for my current job while we were standing in the Einstein Bagel in the Seattle airport that he started crying (so did I!). Here we were, two hillbillies in the middle of Seattle, crying in the line of the Einstein Bagel and we couldn't even stop it. He kept saying how proud he was of me and I knew it. I felt it. He believes in me the way no one ever has, and I believe in him the exact same way.
We have goals. We have dreams. They sound dumb sometimes. Ridiculous, especially for two people who grew up as poor kids. We work together though and believe fiercely in each other's abilities.
Plus, it's just fun to dream about living on the side of a mountain or owning a restaurant or whatever crazy thing you can come up with. Even if it never happens it's okay!
11) Pivot.
So you have the goals and you have the dreams and you have the plans and you've talked about everything, so you're good right? Well, hopefully. Sometimes though, life has a different plan and comes along and knocks you on your ass.
Someone is going to lose their job at some point, or get sick, or get depressed. Your dog is eventually going to die (and oh, how I wish they could live forever). Your parents will get old. Your kids will grow up. Things are not always the way you plan, no matter how carefully you plan.
So you pivot. You don't fall off course completely, you keep going. Together.
Jason has said to me several times, we are in different seasons of our life. Things change, and a lot of really unexpected things have happened to us. It's okay. Someday we'll look back on this as just another season of our life. We can't let everything fall apart because of the unexpected.
12) Do not talk to anyone in your extended family about your problems.
NO GOOD CAN COME OF THIS. JUST DO NOT DO IT.
You know what happens when you tell your mom about the problems with your husband? She gets pissed at your husband and even when you get over it, she doesn't. Next time you all come over to dinner and you've made up and you're sitting there making goo-goo eyes over the mashed potatoes, she's thinking to herself, "That son of a bitch".
Just don't do it.
Andalsoplus, you are grown people. Resolve that stuff with each other. Don't tell your mom. Don't tell your dad. Don't tell your sister or your brother or your grandma. Tell each other.
If you ABSOLUTELY MUST tell someone when you are pissed at your husband and don't have a good friend, a priest, a therapist, a parakeet, your dog or cat, a houseplant, or your pet rock then tell his mother. She will forgive him anything he does and she doesn't believe you are all that great anyway.
(I'm just kidding about that last part and have literally never told my mother-in-law anything private about my marriage. She doesn't think I'm that great anyway though, that part is actually accurate.)
13) Laugh all the time.
We laugh about the most stupid things. These are the best things to laugh about.
Watch funny shows together. Go see comedy (we LOVE to see comedians live). Read funny things online to each other. Text each other memes. Have inside jokes (ours is Dennis Franz and I literally just laughed typing his name). Laugh about EVERYTHING!
14) Say I love you as much as you can.
I told Jason when we got married that I never wanted to get complacent about that. That, yes, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that I love him, but I wanted him to hear it every single day for the rest of his life.
So I say it. I text it to him. I tell him I love him before he falls asleep at night, before he goes to work, just for no reason whatsoever. He never doubts how I feel. I never doubt how he feels. It's just really, really nice to hear it, even when you know it.
15) Believe that you got a catch.
People used to tell me all the time how lucky I was that I met a man who was accepting that I had two little babies.
They were correct.
Also, he was really lucky to get someone as nice and smart and hard-working as I am. People didn't say that as much, but it is just as true.
So he's a catch. I know this. He thinks I'm a catch too. He tells me this. I tell him this. We both think we are the lucky one. We both ARE lucky.
I tell him all the time how handsome he is. How hard-working and gentle and kind and loving he is. How lucky I am. How much I appreciate him. He does the same for me (not handsome, that would be weird, but the rest).
16) Give 100 percent, even when you don't feel like it.
People sometimes say marriage is 50/50. I think those people are wrong. Marriage is 100/100.
Now, in case it's not obvious from this list, I absolutely adore my husband. Also? He exhausts me sometimes. Wears my ass out. Sometimes I just want to sit on the bed and watch endless episodes of the Teen Mom program, and here he comes asking my opinion on things or wanting to tell me about his day or whatever. Sometimes he wakes up me up earlier than I want to be woken up. Sometimes, I'm just cranky as Hell. Let's be real.
He's more important. Yes, even more than Teen Mom or extra sleep.
So I give 100 percent. Sometimes I don't want to listen or make dinner or buy the special ice cream, but he's more important. Sometimes I talk about my day and his eyes start glazing over and I know he has absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, but he listens. He asks questions. He cares.
He gives 100.
I give 100.
It's as simple and as complicated as that.
So that's marriage. So far. We still have so much to learn. I know this.
I can't wait.
After we'd been married about five years, people started asking me for marriage advice. I found this hilarious at the time, and I still do. Even after ten years I thought to myself, "We're just getting started! We're still figuring this out!" Now we are at sixteen years (almost twenty if you count the time dating). I have stories. I have examples. I still think we are just babies at this though. I still think we have so long to go, so many years, so many miles.
Anyway.
So here's how we did it. It might work for you. It might not. But here's what we did.
1) Marry someone you actually like.
This sounds really stupid, right? Of course you would like the person you were marrying, right? Why would you marry someone you didn't like?
Guess what? People do this all the time. Seriously.
"I love him, but I don't like him"
"I love her, but I hate that she does XYZ"
Or my personal favorite:
"He's an ass"
I mean, everyone's an ass sometimes. There are moments I've looked at my husband and thought, "You are a fool with a double side of nonsense". I'm sure he's thought the same about me.
Overall though, I genuinely like my husband and he genuinely likes me. There is nothing that he does that I consider a deal breaker (like, kick dogs or be mean to little old ladies or whatever). Even when he does something boneheaded, I still know he's a good person. He knows I'm a good person.
2) Don't do everything together.
Jason and I do a lot together. Based on conversations with my friends, I think we probably do more together than most couples. That being said, we also have completely separate hobbies and activities. I could not get him to do half the stuff I do on my own (if you ever see Jason running, you should start running too because there is probably a bomb about to explode) and he could not ever convince me to do some of the things he enjoys. That's okay. We don't have to do everything together. We don't want to do everything together.
3) Agree to disagree.
There are many topics that Jason and I debate. There are many topics on which we agree, fully. There are several other topics that we disagree on. We are both respectful of one another's points of view. That being said:
4) Never marry someone who disagrees with your Hill to Die On.
Everyone is going to have a different Hill to Die On. Personally, I have a few and mostly they involve children. If Jason did not feel the same way about my Hills I would not have married him. Full stop. We might disagree on the way to execute certain things, but if he ever said something to me like, "I don't think my tax dollars should go to make sure school children have lunch during the day" or ever used the term "boot straps" when it came to children, I absolutely could not be married to him. (Also, not at ALL the topic of this blog, but I pay an absolute asston of taxes every year and I would gladly give even more of my hard-earned dollars to make sure that every child in this country had good food and good schools, because children are our future, dammit. Anyway. Moving on)
5) Before you get married, talk about really hard things.
Do you want children or nah? If you do, how do you want to raise them? Where do you want to live? How are you going to earn a living? What about religion? Politics? Family crap? Talk about it. Talk about it again. Talk about it some more. Think up every single what-if scenario you can think of and TALK. ABOUT. IT.
Jason and I were mere babies, only twenty-seven years old, when we said "I do". I've admitted this before, but I honestly didn't think about things like the logistics of having two kids in college at the same time and what would happen if one of us got an incurable illness. These are shitty, difficult, painful conversations and you absolutely must have them. You must. Even when they hurt, even when they are hard, even when you would rather curl up in a ball and cry instead. You have to talk about this.
7) You have to change.
The biggest concern it seems that people (okay, mostly men) have about marriage is that they don't want things to change. They say, "I'm happy with how things are! I don't want things to change!"
Well...tough titties.
I mean, people change. You can't stay the same. You cannot remain stagnant. You are not the same person you were at 22 when you are 42 (God, let's hope not anyway). You are going to change. Period. The end. If you want to stay together you have to change together.
(Now, if your spouse decides they want to change into a Nazi or bring in a Sister Wife or something, then feel free to reject that change and walk out the door. I'm talking about like normal, growing up, getting older type changes, not being radicalized or whatever)
8) Be insanely stupid with each other.
Not a day goes by that we don't make up a ridiculous song and loudly sing it to each other. We're considering starting a YouTube channel for which we'll record ourselves watching videos from the 1980's and reacting to them. We talk to the dog like she's a person.
These are all good. I can't be nearly as stupid with anyone else. It's nice.
9) Say yes as often as you can.
I tell my husband, frequently, he is the neediest person I've ever met. I say this lovingly, of course, but he does ask for whatever he'd like from me whenever he would like and frankly sometimes this is exhausting. However, it also makes me happy because he feels 100 percent comfortable in communicating what he wants and needs to me. (Even after this many years, this is something I'm still working on, not just with him but with everyone). He knows he can be open to me. If I say no, he's fine with it. He's never, ever made me feel bad about saying no.
So if he says, "Will you rub my back?" or "Can we get coffee?" or "Will you get me the special ice cream with the chocolate fish in it?" I try to say yes. Sometimes I'm tired and don't feel like rubbing his back. Sometimes I think to myself, good God his coffee costs $5. Sometimes the ice cream that's his favorite is way more expensive than the other ice cream.
Sometimes I just say no.
But for every time that I say yes, he says, "You're the best wife ever!" and he does things like leave me love notes all over the house, and send me text messages in the middle of the afternoon to say he loves me. He tells everyone how proud he is of me. He genuinely, sincerely appreciates everything I do and I know it. I feel it.
So I say yes whenever I can.
10) Dream the biggest, most stupid, most impossible dreams together.
Last year Jason and I were out on a walk and we were talking about our careers and our future. I told him, "It's my goal to make X amount of dollars every year". He immediately said, "That's a lot" and then immediately after that he said, "I believe you can."
This year, I will make that amount of money I said that day on that walk. He is so proud of me that when I opened my offer letter for my current job while we were standing in the Einstein Bagel in the Seattle airport that he started crying (so did I!). Here we were, two hillbillies in the middle of Seattle, crying in the line of the Einstein Bagel and we couldn't even stop it. He kept saying how proud he was of me and I knew it. I felt it. He believes in me the way no one ever has, and I believe in him the exact same way.
We have goals. We have dreams. They sound dumb sometimes. Ridiculous, especially for two people who grew up as poor kids. We work together though and believe fiercely in each other's abilities.
Plus, it's just fun to dream about living on the side of a mountain or owning a restaurant or whatever crazy thing you can come up with. Even if it never happens it's okay!
11) Pivot.
So you have the goals and you have the dreams and you have the plans and you've talked about everything, so you're good right? Well, hopefully. Sometimes though, life has a different plan and comes along and knocks you on your ass.
Someone is going to lose their job at some point, or get sick, or get depressed. Your dog is eventually going to die (and oh, how I wish they could live forever). Your parents will get old. Your kids will grow up. Things are not always the way you plan, no matter how carefully you plan.
So you pivot. You don't fall off course completely, you keep going. Together.
Jason has said to me several times, we are in different seasons of our life. Things change, and a lot of really unexpected things have happened to us. It's okay. Someday we'll look back on this as just another season of our life. We can't let everything fall apart because of the unexpected.
12) Do not talk to anyone in your extended family about your problems.
NO GOOD CAN COME OF THIS. JUST DO NOT DO IT.
You know what happens when you tell your mom about the problems with your husband? She gets pissed at your husband and even when you get over it, she doesn't. Next time you all come over to dinner and you've made up and you're sitting there making goo-goo eyes over the mashed potatoes, she's thinking to herself, "That son of a bitch".
Just don't do it.
Andalsoplus, you are grown people. Resolve that stuff with each other. Don't tell your mom. Don't tell your dad. Don't tell your sister or your brother or your grandma. Tell each other.
If you ABSOLUTELY MUST tell someone when you are pissed at your husband and don't have a good friend, a priest, a therapist, a parakeet, your dog or cat, a houseplant, or your pet rock then tell his mother. She will forgive him anything he does and she doesn't believe you are all that great anyway.
(I'm just kidding about that last part and have literally never told my mother-in-law anything private about my marriage. She doesn't think I'm that great anyway though, that part is actually accurate.)
13) Laugh all the time.
We laugh about the most stupid things. These are the best things to laugh about.
Watch funny shows together. Go see comedy (we LOVE to see comedians live). Read funny things online to each other. Text each other memes. Have inside jokes (ours is Dennis Franz and I literally just laughed typing his name). Laugh about EVERYTHING!
14) Say I love you as much as you can.
I told Jason when we got married that I never wanted to get complacent about that. That, yes, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that I love him, but I wanted him to hear it every single day for the rest of his life.
So I say it. I text it to him. I tell him I love him before he falls asleep at night, before he goes to work, just for no reason whatsoever. He never doubts how I feel. I never doubt how he feels. It's just really, really nice to hear it, even when you know it.
15) Believe that you got a catch.
People used to tell me all the time how lucky I was that I met a man who was accepting that I had two little babies.
They were correct.
Also, he was really lucky to get someone as nice and smart and hard-working as I am. People didn't say that as much, but it is just as true.
So he's a catch. I know this. He thinks I'm a catch too. He tells me this. I tell him this. We both think we are the lucky one. We both ARE lucky.
I tell him all the time how handsome he is. How hard-working and gentle and kind and loving he is. How lucky I am. How much I appreciate him. He does the same for me (not handsome, that would be weird, but the rest).
16) Give 100 percent, even when you don't feel like it.
People sometimes say marriage is 50/50. I think those people are wrong. Marriage is 100/100.
Now, in case it's not obvious from this list, I absolutely adore my husband. Also? He exhausts me sometimes. Wears my ass out. Sometimes I just want to sit on the bed and watch endless episodes of the Teen Mom program, and here he comes asking my opinion on things or wanting to tell me about his day or whatever. Sometimes he wakes up me up earlier than I want to be woken up. Sometimes, I'm just cranky as Hell. Let's be real.
He's more important. Yes, even more than Teen Mom or extra sleep.
So I give 100 percent. Sometimes I don't want to listen or make dinner or buy the special ice cream, but he's more important. Sometimes I talk about my day and his eyes start glazing over and I know he has absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, but he listens. He asks questions. He cares.
He gives 100.
I give 100.
It's as simple and as complicated as that.
So that's marriage. So far. We still have so much to learn. I know this.
I can't wait.
Tuesday, July 2, 2019
What we don't say
Everyone is struggling.
Nobody wants to talk about it.
I'm more of an Instagram person than a Facebook person these days. Facebook is full of mean, hateful people who regularly call me an idiot because I think or act or vote differently than them (just a day or two ago I also learned I'm brainless, so that's great I guess). Facebook isn't fun anymore. Instagram is where it's at for me.
I post a lot about what I eat and my exercise (and lots about my dog because she's the best) and I follow a lot of people who post about what they eat and how they exercise. I've noticed some of my friends don't follow me anymore, and that's okay. They don't care how I eat or what exercise I do, I guess. It's probably pretty boring, but for some reason lots of people find it interesting and ask me questions. I learn a lot too, like recipes and stuff. New exercises. New people to follow. New products. I like Instagram.
It's perfect though, and shiny in ways that other social media platforms aren't. I've often wondered to myself (and probably aloud), "Who are these people sitting by the pool at 10am on a Tuesday?" "How do these people just fly to Dubai whenever they want to?" and (because again, what I eat and exercise are my main topics of interest), "How do these people just afford eleven pounds of steak on a random shopping trip? What is this life?"
I see a lot of people who are losing weight every month, who are rocking workout routines, who are never having setbacks, who are posing (some of them every.single.day) alongside old pictures of themselves showing every change they've made in their bodies. I cheer for these people and I support their endeavors. I guess it sounds really strange but I am super proud of so many people that I've never met.
What I almost never, ever see is someone saying, "Hey, I'm having a really hard time."
I mean sometimes you can tell. Sometimes people just stop posting or they keep posting insisting that everything is okay, but you can tell that the pounds are creeping on, or they are posting things about having a lazy weekend every single weekend or whatever. But rarely, almost never, does anyone say, "This is hard. I'm not motivated. I'm struggling. This is real life."
Almost no one says, "My husband is sick and I'm increasingly isolated and alone". No one says, "Hey I've lost over 200lbs and maintenance is the hardest damn thing I've ever done in my life." I have never seen anyone say, "I constantly worry about my job, my future, and where I'll be in ten years."
No.
We say, "I'm on an egg fast this week!" or "Here's everything I ate today!" or "I made bulletproof coffee this morning" or any number of things that really don't matter in day-to-day life. We take picture of the gym, or the numbers on the treadmill after we finish, or our Garmin to show how many steps we took today. We don't show the bloody blisters or how bad our ankles hurt or how we had to practically bathe in icy hot because we're forty-three and running is hard.
We don't talk about our fears, our doubts. We don't talk about how this isn't getting any easier, even though by now we were positive it would be. We don't talk about the changing relationships with our children or our parents. We don't talk about the antidepressants we take to just feel normal. We don't talk about how scared we are.
It's all pretty and shiny and perfect. Well, my feed isn't because I'm a horrible photographer and boring. Really boring.
Probably because I don't talk about anything very real.
Nobody wants to talk about it.
I'm more of an Instagram person than a Facebook person these days. Facebook is full of mean, hateful people who regularly call me an idiot because I think or act or vote differently than them (just a day or two ago I also learned I'm brainless, so that's great I guess). Facebook isn't fun anymore. Instagram is where it's at for me.
I post a lot about what I eat and my exercise (and lots about my dog because she's the best) and I follow a lot of people who post about what they eat and how they exercise. I've noticed some of my friends don't follow me anymore, and that's okay. They don't care how I eat or what exercise I do, I guess. It's probably pretty boring, but for some reason lots of people find it interesting and ask me questions. I learn a lot too, like recipes and stuff. New exercises. New people to follow. New products. I like Instagram.
It's perfect though, and shiny in ways that other social media platforms aren't. I've often wondered to myself (and probably aloud), "Who are these people sitting by the pool at 10am on a Tuesday?" "How do these people just fly to Dubai whenever they want to?" and (because again, what I eat and exercise are my main topics of interest), "How do these people just afford eleven pounds of steak on a random shopping trip? What is this life?"
I see a lot of people who are losing weight every month, who are rocking workout routines, who are never having setbacks, who are posing (some of them every.single.day) alongside old pictures of themselves showing every change they've made in their bodies. I cheer for these people and I support their endeavors. I guess it sounds really strange but I am super proud of so many people that I've never met.
What I almost never, ever see is someone saying, "Hey, I'm having a really hard time."
I mean sometimes you can tell. Sometimes people just stop posting or they keep posting insisting that everything is okay, but you can tell that the pounds are creeping on, or they are posting things about having a lazy weekend every single weekend or whatever. But rarely, almost never, does anyone say, "This is hard. I'm not motivated. I'm struggling. This is real life."
Almost no one says, "My husband is sick and I'm increasingly isolated and alone". No one says, "Hey I've lost over 200lbs and maintenance is the hardest damn thing I've ever done in my life." I have never seen anyone say, "I constantly worry about my job, my future, and where I'll be in ten years."
No.
We say, "I'm on an egg fast this week!" or "Here's everything I ate today!" or "I made bulletproof coffee this morning" or any number of things that really don't matter in day-to-day life. We take picture of the gym, or the numbers on the treadmill after we finish, or our Garmin to show how many steps we took today. We don't show the bloody blisters or how bad our ankles hurt or how we had to practically bathe in icy hot because we're forty-three and running is hard.
We don't talk about our fears, our doubts. We don't talk about how this isn't getting any easier, even though by now we were positive it would be. We don't talk about the changing relationships with our children or our parents. We don't talk about the antidepressants we take to just feel normal. We don't talk about how scared we are.
It's all pretty and shiny and perfect. Well, my feed isn't because I'm a horrible photographer and boring. Really boring.
Probably because I don't talk about anything very real.
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