A technological love affair

Can I tell you about this time I was utterly and amazingly surprised by a gift? Let me rephrase that: I'm going to tell you about this time I was utterly and amazingly surprised by a gift--the most phenomenal, incredible, and perfect gift. I'm going to tell you about that.

I am not really one to like surprises, and I tend to understate the surprises I do experience. Frankly, surprises frighten me (they actually just frighten my anxiety): what if I react incorrectly? what if I fail to be surprised enough? what if I burst into tears (as has actually happened)? It is, admittedly, a fear based in the awareness of being in the spotlight and the awareness of my own absolute awkwardness. I don't like people focused solely on me when I'm not wholly in control of the situation (so rarely, and gee, don't I sound like a complete and total control freak...). I am an introvert. Teaching presents a problem in this regard, thus, the reason I get sick literally every day I have to teach in front of an on-ground class. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, non-reasons, and the other many times gifts are given can exacerbate this strange anxiety in me. Compliments can do the same--a verbal surprise--that "Oh, yeah...yay?". It's kind of terrible. It was, also, a source of strain when I was growing up. I didn't sit with the kids at Nickelodeon Studios shows or at Disney World because I didn't want to be called on since I never knew what they might literally throw at me. Romantic gestures can be a bit like this, too.

Anyway, I digress.

When I finished graduate school, a strange, surreal experience in and of itself, some of my family and Scott's whole family came to visit us in Chicago to watch me walk across a stage and get handed a diploma (again, I fought my stomach the entire time I waited and then stood in line and then crossed that hard-earned and damnable stage). This was one year after I had completed my (rather overly drawn out) undergraduate degree. I was humbled that everyone wanted to be there to celebrate this accomplishment with us (or even just to see Chicago, which is an amazing city) for which we had both worked so hard to make happen.

I had been warned by Scott a few days ahead of time that there was a large-ish purchase coming through the bank account and that he would keep an eye on finances since my checking would possibly reveal the secret he was working on. I agreed, and actually stuck with it. It probably helped that I was so busy wrapping things up at school, job hunting, readying for family, and other things that I had no time to check in on the accounts.

Graduation happened. I waited around that day, I walked the stage, I met the family after, I celebrated with friends, and it was a happy time all around. Once we finally found ourselves back at the apartment,it was a celebration of me. All eyes on me. Robes were discarded, congratulations given, floors and couches flopped down upon in utter relief and exhaustion. And then the presents. There was a box, larger, squarer, and very present in the living room.

Scott handed that box to me, and I think the paper was halfway off before I squealed and launched myself at him, bear hugging him and that box, and asking, "For real? It really is?!"  It was a raw reaction, without hesitation.

The family sat perplexed. It was a white box in the shape of a book with gray lettering.

"Well, what is it?" my dad asked.

And in my reverence, I breathed, "A Kindle. It's a Kindle."

Nestled inside, perfectly pristine in all its technological glory was a first generation Kindle. They had released only a month before, and I was now the proud owner of one.  This was THE KINDLE! I was so enamored and amazed that I took it to the bar that night to show off. Amid the beer, the exhaustion of post-grad school, the others handled it like we had just been given the Holy Grail. It was that new and held so many promises.

It was, and still possibly is, the best gift. It spoke of love, of late nights, of words and promises. It was a gift that was from the heart. I love books, their smell, their feeling. But I love my Kindle (now on my second one after I wore out the first one), and its capacity to store, to save, to hide. I could live without my phone, but not my Kindle.


**I love print books, and we still frequent independent bookstores. We are constantly building our physical library with these books. I do buy physical books after reading them on my Kindle so I have a copy always (in the event that it all ends or the information goes away or I no longer have access to my Amazon account).

Is this my life?/This is my life

I send out email blasts to my students that are original or come from the school. I love tidbits about writers or poets, comics that speak to our topics, or artwork that strikes my fancy. On this last Thursday, after a night of little sleep and a very long week and at the behest of one of my schools, I sent out an email to my humanities students (dear self, it is not humanitites as your typing insists upon, although this typo does wonderfully highlight the predicament I am about to elaborate upon). 

The message was innocuous in and of itself, simply a message that my students had been selected to participate in a diagnostic survey. Easy enough. All I had to do was copy the message (ctrl c, self) and paste it into a Word document (ctrl v, edit)--something in the new Blackboard prevents me from directly copy/paste into any area--and then into Blackboard announcements. Fantastic. Copy, paste, set dates, click "Send email" message.

And then...oh shit.  I felt myself melt into a puddle.

Note: it is always a good idea to check work before hitting the stupid send button. Secondary note: button is only stupid relative to errors made by self.

So, the work unchecked, I sent along without my usual signature of "Best, Anna."  Granted, I was crossed eyed and bleary from exhaustion, but that is truly no excuse for a veteran writer.

Instead, I failed to change the original messaging from the template message I received to this signature, so all of my students received a message signed "Professor X."

That's right, kids. I can now officially open my own school for mutants, for I am officially, and in print, Professor X.

I'm going to continue to sit in the corner here, sip my beer, and consider the (only in my head) amazing implications of this.



**I did send out a revised version seconds after this, but still...

The Spring Fugue

I lied. I'm not posting pretty pictures this time because I don't have my phone/camera nearby and that is where all of my photos are presently stored (or on instagram and I can't do much with those to this, I guess). I do have photos of trips we took in 2012 (Seattle, Alaska, Canada, and probably other places I am completely spacing on at the moment) to post before 2013 gets too far behind me.


Instead, I'm going to tell you a story that is a bit sad. Life is full of disappointments, isn't it? It is also full of joy and random bits of happiness and amazing-ness threaded through. But today's story is a confused, emotionally tangle of a thing because, quite frankly, I haven't fully allowed myself to come to terms with it. Le sigh.

I do have a number of posts in draft mode that I hope to get kicked out for you all soon, too. These lags are terrible, but my writing has been requested elsewhere (thank you, work!).

If you followed the flurry of posts through that rather dreadful spring funk, you know it was low. And for me, low means quite, quite low. Throw a heap of anxiety on that bit of depression, and I was a tangled, mangy mess of a girl. Like stare-off-into-space, existential crisis mess. A mess that, I think, had my mother concerned (hi, Mom!).

big breath

So. Here's what that was a bit about. I had planned to apply to a PhD program--a single, solitary program. It was (may still be) the dream if-I-got-in-I-might-die program. I told some people about the plan. I had application readers. If I were accepted, I would have started this summer. People asked what my summer plans were, and I smiled and told them I wasn't sure yet because I had a little secret, and these kinds of secrets are dangerous. If they get out and things don't go as planned, they hurt over and over again as you admit that things didn't work out. I always felt like an ass when this happened when I was a kid, so I began not talking about it as much, clutching it closely.

I had my ducks in a row, and I was saving my pennies because for this (amazing, incredible) program, I had to put down a deposit of a few thousand dollars. I was diligently working away at the application with two readers who were offering very helpful feedback and were very excited about this prospect of more education (and travel! and things to study! and yay!). I had my rec letters requested and sent in. It was going swimmingly.

And then work slowed to a trickle, and a month later so did my income. My savings went to ensuring we could pay rent, make the car payment, bills, and the other banalities of life. And I agonized over the decision to apply to the program. I held on and held on to it, like the string to a balloon that kept wanting to whip away in the wind. There was a night, I think I was washing dishes, staring forlornly out the window, when I realized that I had to let go of that string because it simply wasn't practical (how I despise practicality), and, oh my heart broke. It broke, and I cried. I wept. I let myself feel that pain acutely. I hurt fiercely. I wanted this, and I had let myself hope and dream. And it was the blasted money--always the damn money, isn't it?--that got in my way.

I worked on other projects, some work shifted and I took on new duties and tasks I hadn't done previously, and I began some new enterprises that I'm still trying to figure out. It wasn't a total loss.

I don't know. Maybe this weird roadblock that was The Taylor Spring of 2013 made something shift in my life. Maybe there is an unseen that only years down the road will I think "that was an interesting circumstance that led to this more amazing, incredible turn in life." Perhaps I'll apply again once the finances even out; at the moment, I don't know. We'll see.

Ineffectual interpretations

There are drafts sitting in my draft folder off here to the side, but I'm going to ignore them for the moment. I'm not ready to deal with them.

I think this...let's call it a sabbatical because that seems more to save my sanity than perhaps "state of unemployment" does and it's a bit more technically correct since I haven't actually lost my jobs or been released from my employers. My classes simply didn't fill this term. So for the moment, I am going to pretend that I'm not concerned with mundane things like finances.

What this is, rather, is a chance to reassess some directions. Obviously the goals that would have required money are put on the back burner. Side note: a lot of things I want to do require money--rather frustrating. And for the last two to three weeks I have obsessed and worried and freaked out over this because the control was wrested from my grip. And there was a lot of moaning and sighing and frantic job searches and a lot of not sleeping.

And then...well, then I just decided to quit doing that. Now when I go to bed, and once I'm done recreationally reading (because I actually have time for that), I breathe--slowly in, slowly out--and I let my thoughts empty out. I think this is meditating? I don't really know because I've never really been good at that. My mother was wary of meditation when I was younger because when you empty, something has to fill it (aka demons?); in yoga I couldn't wait for the shavasana because I could just lie there and yoga was over, except I couldn't be still and would hop up a moment later. I don't chant or hum--I've never cared for the affect of this (sorry to those who are really into chanting and humming)--and I'd probably wake up Scott who would wonder what was wrong.

I guess I am centering myself and just being in my skin, which is something else altogether uncomfortable usually. It's me finally saying "Okay, universe, let's figure this out." And then trying to interpret the things around me.

God, I sound so new agey and ridiculous.  Essentially, it's this: I'm a person who makes things happen, and right now, things are most decidedly not happening the way I expected. So I have to figure out how to make them happen in other ways or figure out what I'm supposed to make happen from this, but I'm also trying to listen (very hard) to what is being said around me, to catch the little pieces to figure out what is going on. It's like a cipher without a key or hearing an unfamiliar language. It's damn difficult, but comprehension is just beyond my grasp. If I keep at it, I'll have it.

I'm going to post some pretty pictures in my next post, and you will all be saved from more of my whining.

On waiting

I don't wait well. I am impatient, ready for whatever it is (vaguely waves hand around to indicate the ethers) to happen. I, like most people, I imagine, have always been like this. I couldn't wait to grow up, to do the next thing. I often tried to force things to happen before their time, or I sit in the present and obsess over the future.

This is where I am now. Scott reminded me the other day, as I was again apologizing for fretting and worrying, that this down time is obviously for a reason. I admit that it's probably true, but I'm ready for it to be over and to have learned the lesson and/or gained the experience and move on.

I keep mulling over the various phrases I have uttered over the last few months, and I fight the urge of thinking "I was so stupid to have said that; I take it back!" to the "Well, what's said was said, so let's ride this thing out." The scariest is just not knowing what's on the other side. I feel like I have been walking (at a rather fast clip) and suddenly chanced upon a very high, large wall. It stretches up, and I cannot see over it. It stretches for miles in either direction, so I cannot see around it. I can always backtrack, but what is the point? I will come again to this wall and will have to figure it out later if I don't face it now. I'm going to have to climb the damn thing or figure out the magic phrase to let me pass through. I am not a fan of heights, but I'll brace myself and deal with them if necessary. As far as the magic phrase, perhaps I just need to find someone to help me through. I keep imagining a figure like Gandalf at this point for some reason.

And so, I wait and try to perfect the art of that. Waiting doesn't necessarily mean patience is required. It is more of finding ways to occupy oneself until the waiting is over. Maybe it is time to face down those stacks of projects I have been putting off because of work. Maybe it is time to commit to the vague promises and ideas that float into my mind and get tucked away. Maybe it is time to hit the job markets again and to seek other things.

Pauses

That moment when it's all just gone to hell in a hand basket? When the rug's been yanked out from under? Light at the end of the tunnel is quite dim (if it even glows)? Welcome to my spring term.

Plans? On hold. That last post? Ugh. I can't even think of it at the moment because I am so overwhelmed by the fact that I am suddenly finding myself rather underemployed. That's the life of the adjunct/freelancer, I suppose, but, good grief, it's uncomfortable. I suppose all great change starts with discomfort. That's what I keep telling myself, anyway. I had a friend back at holiday tell me that I had some major karma coming from the gods of academia, but at the moment I feel smited (usage?) by them. And, yet, my little Sagittarian nature, the damn little engine that could that it is, just won't believe that. We Sags can be so ridiculously optimistic even when being pessimistic. It's annoying, even to us.

It's simply a shift, a change, I keep telling myself. Up, down, up, down. So, things have been put on hold for a bit until the bank account finds a bit more equilibrium. This is infinitely frustrating, and poor Scott has to deal with my nail-biting, broody, moody, fretting self for a while. Maybe it means that our plans need more time to incubate, marinate (see, that Sagittarian optimism coming through). Fingers crossed that this is very, very temporary!

On new things

I have been working on courage and throwing myself out into the ether even more to see what happens this year. I have shadowy dealings and secrets--which aren't nearly as diabolic as they sound, sadly. Let me try this again.

When I am facing down changes, big, life altering changes, I have to fight the very Sagittarian nature to talk about them, to share the details and the hopes. Scott has helped to quell this tendency a bit, thanks to his particularly secretive Scorpio nature (this is not meant as a disparagement, but as a general truth). Part of the reason is because life just doesn't always pan out the way we hope, and if I must be miserable, sad, and disappointed, I would rather it be mine to deal with and come to peace with. When things do pan out, then I can celebrate with others and they can say the usual "Oh! I had no idea you were doing that. Yay for you!"

There are only a few who know things/plans from the beginnings, and then there are others who find out from drunken nights. Give me alcohol and all the secrets come out. I would make a terrible, terrible spy. Spy: "Here's vodka drink; tell us your secrets." Me: "Ok!" What I imagine, though, is probably much less romantic than dark corners, silky dresses and sharp knives and more along the lines of Chunk's confession to the Fratellis in The Goonies. Yep, that's about right.

Courage I have in odd ways: I've thrown myself out of a plane, I've moved with no reassurance I'll land on my feet, I venture into different adventures not knowing the outcome, and more. But the soul-deep courage I falter on a bit. Also the things that may require big money and a longer commitment of time. Those scare the bejeezus out of me. But it's all part of the bigger plan, the bigger picture. We know where we want to end up, but it's going to take some huge leaps like this to get us there. I'm not always the best with slow and steady, and I never really have been. There is a lot of wrestling with my nature to keep this in check and to shore myself up for the long haul. There is a lot of assessing, reassessing, checking, rechecking involved, and I imagine more of this over the next few years as we work toward those goals we have.

I'd answer the "what do you want to be when you grow up?" question with a similarly puerile answer: Can't tell you (yet). *smile*

Breathing

Those moments when life suddenly upends again, and you're facing nothing but freefall? That incredibly uncomfortable moment of omgwth? Completely there. Bottled up, quiet, but there.

As an adjunct/part time full-timer, this is my life. I may have work; I may not. I may be so busy I don't get to sleep for days, and then I'm left with nothing, bereft of the busy-ness that was just my life. Some weeks I may kill eighty hours, but others I may work ten hours. We're up, we're down.

I told Scott I think I'm standing on the edge of something, but what I have no idea. I think we're both facing this in our own ways. And I am, admittedly, quietly, reservedly terrified. My minds skirts around it, this strange invisible thing that lurks in my subconscious. Perhaps it's simple paranoia at the uncertainty. I feel better, though, if I continue to not face it. I'll glance at it in my periphery, but I refuse to look at it head on. But that ache, that squeeze in my chest? I won't face it either.

The scary things in life are like that, aren't they? If I can just ignore it, I'll be okay. I can keep all of the anxiety, the fear, the uncertainty, the doubt at bay. If I don't name it, it has no power. And really, can you name a ghost of a thing? Names create substance, and this is simply a feeling.

February is a tough month, but March inevitably brings change. That shift in the air, and perhaps it's just natural vibrations that I'm feeling. March is the seasons holding their breath, waiting for large things to happen. Fall is the lingering sigh of summer, but spring is a slow inhale. And maybe that is all that I am feeling.

Ye (not so) scurvy rogues

When we lived in Chicago, we struggled through cold winters, and inevitably by February, we were fighting off the vitamin D deficiencies, we were moody and irritable. We would come home from work, throw on the comfy pjs, and curl up. One brilliant thing, though, that came out of these winter doldrums, that tiny death that overtakes us every year, was an organic foods delivery service Scott found (Irv & Shelly's Fresh Picks, if interested, and I noticed that they have substantially grown their box choices now). Each week, we were gifted with a box of bounty. In the winter, it veered toward root veggies and hearty greens. We would get pounds of oranges, apples, and other fruits. It was glorious.

We were forced to figure out just what to do with sunchokes, beets, kale, chard, and other veggies I had not even heard of. I didn't eat beets. My mother had never bought beets. Kale? Asher ate it in a pinch, but not us. I could only handle so many oranges before I was done. And so we got creative. Sunchoke chips, orange marmalade, apple butter, stuffed apples, and on. Spring began to finally break through, and the box came overflowing with green. We had ramps, basil, broccoli, kiwi, wonderfully odd, fragrant mixes of herbs, leafy green things like watercress, and more.


I noticed a while back the delivery truck that would pull up to my neighbors' house each week, leaving boxes on their doorstep. The truck was delivering organics. Well, hot damn. We began looking into it, decided to wait until after the epic holiday trip this year (seriously, 5,000 miles in 2.5 weeks). I ordered while we away so we would receive our first delivery once we returned.

The box was delivered, and it was disappointing. The veggies were wilted, the apples mealy, the bounty not so bountiful. It was sad. The bacon, though, was delicious. So we gave the company the benefit of the doubt and had another box delivered the next week. Chalk the first box up to a post-holiday slump because the next week was good, and it has only continued to get better the longer we are with them. We're using Organics to You now. We order the small bin, which is more than enough for us each week. Our fruit bowl is overflowing, the crisper can't hold everything, and our diet is much improved. Plus, the grocery bill has dropped quite a bit since we aren't visiting the store three or four times a week (we tend to buy by meals rather than one huge grocery run) and buying random items. We are able to get the protein we want (bacon, steaks, salmon, and more) from local fisheries and farms. We're trying out the milk and eggs this week, both from a local dairy. I never check what is coming, so every Tuesday is a bit like vegetable Christmas. Surprise! This week we have spinach! Yay! (five-year-old me would be completely disgusted with the current me for being so excited over vegetables).

Our bin this last week flummoxed me a bit, though. I opened it and sitting at the bottom was a strange celery like bundle and a huge bulb of something dirt colored. Perhaps fennel and celeriac. I checked the site and was spot on, but it was text only so I just guessed as to what name belonged to which vegetable. What I did just check, though, is which is which. I'm glad I didn't grab the bulb thinking it was fennel (as I first supposed). I have no idea what to do with these things. The chard I've figured out (last night was brown rice, topped with sauteed onion, celery, smoked sausage, and rainbow chard--gah, it was good stuff), kale chips are a new favorite snack, potatoes are easy to deal with, celery, onion and leek disappear pretty quickly. The grapefruit (a ton of it) has been slowly consumed and played with: broiled with sugar and vanilla bean, grapefruit curd, sliced and frozen and more. The beets are awaiting a mandolin to be sliced. The apples, kiwi, oranges and pears are obvious (although the Girl Scouts blindsided the healthier options at the moment). But the celeriac? It's huge. Can we eat that much? A friend has it growing wild in his front yard, but he's vegan, and I don't really trust his recipes (sorry, vegans). The fennel seems to be easier. There are lots of recipes with fennel out on Pinterest and various cooking sites. It's a vegetable adventure!

On sleep, or a lack thereof

I'm a procrastinator. I have always been this. I have tried to break the cycle, but it is so hard. Everything else becomes so much more interesting when I have a project to do. Even this post is a form of procrastination as I have writing projects sitting on my desk staring me down. They lurk in my subconscious, quietly whispering "come to us; come work on us." And I ignore them, kind of. The guilt, though, ratchets up, the deadline looms closer, and I realize that, once again, I'm staring an all-nighter in the face. For the third time that week.

I thought I would be done with this kind of thing after grad school, or after being a student at least. But this isn't the case. Instead, I fall into the habit of put it off, work all night, see the sun rise, go to bed, sleep until 2:00 pm and then get up and start the cycle over. Sometimes bed isn't even an option. I have to push through, suck it up, and realize that this is completely a self-inflicted wound.

Perhaps this is part of why I wanted to work from home and worked so hard to be able to do it. I can keep weird hours only known to insomniacs, programmers, gamers, writers and students. There is a reason we are socially awkward. It's those weird hours. They do something to us.

The dark circles under my eyes are a permanent fixture. Sleep deprivation combined with allergies make me look bruised. I also feel bruised. There is a feeling in the body when it is running on no sleep. Everything aches, my skin hurts, I feel like a shell of myself. Sounds function differently, a bit too sharp, a bit too loud. My brain processes slower, sluggish. Dexterity fails. When I was younger, I would run into things or simply fall over because of this. Then I really was bruised. I would lose conversations within my head and start in the middle of one, completely confusing everyone around me.  The irritability kicks in, and I am all sharp around the edges. Brittle in body and demeanor.

I remember my freshman year of college when I lost almost a full day. I was several days without sleep, and I kept finding evidence of things I had done but had no memory of. I found rice, completely cooked, in my microwave and had no memory of making it. A movie half watched on the computer, and no memory of it. I called people asking them if we had been together or if we had talked, only to have it confirmed that we had, in fact, spent time together. It was terrifying. A friend wondered if I had been given something. I hadn't. It was purely sleep deprivation. It was a terrifying realization.

I can understand this as a form of torture. Keep people awake long enough and their defenses quickly begin to erode. Three days in, and the processes aren't functioning. A week? I'm not even sure; I've never made it that long. The body, though, hates it and fights to sleep. Black spots--not sleep--just holes in the memory begin to form. One thought doesn't coherently connect to the other. Admit to whatever those questioning wanted, whether true or not.

Eventually I collect myself for a small change in the schedule, but I eventually slip back into the pattern. I don't even know if it is so much that I don't want to do the work as much as it is an inexplicable fear of sleep. If I go to sleep I give up control. I surrender the small amount of power I have, and weirdly that terrifies me. I'm not scared of the dark; I'm simply scared of the dreams I have--vivid, alive dreams that suck me in completely. I don't dream these things as much as I live them.

And so, I live with the bruises, both obvious and painting my skin and the hidden, aching pain.

The February slumps

February always makes me low. It's the hardest month to struggle through: still broke from the holidays, it's dark, it's cold, the days are still short, and my body just wants to sleep (and sleep and sleep and sleep). It is hard to motivate, but in our world we have to motivate. February is a hinge month; we're gearing up for the next thing (spring, summer, tax season, whatever) and we need the energy to do this, but it's just. not. there.

I'm facing down big things right now, and I have to get them done, but it's soooo hard to do them. It's small steps at a time: write 50 words today, grade 3 papers this evening, apply for that 1 job, do this 1 project tonight. Even getting up, showering, making coffee, and dressing (in that order) are so damn difficult right now. I always think it's depression; I do not suffer depression, but these funks sure feel like it. Just let me stay in bed. Everything feels like it weighs a ton. I feel like I'm moving through water, forcing that foot to step, that food to be eaten, that word to be typed. I don't stagnate, I just simply slow down. Significantly.

It's also the month of indecision for me. I need to go to bed; I don't want to go to bed. I feel whiney, whimpery, and childish. I want to throw tantrums (about what I don't know) and I just don't have the energy.  I'm angry that it's winter still, but I resent the flowers that are already appearing in my yard (it's too early, stupid flowers; you're going to die!). I am resentful and angsty. For no good reason! It's truly bizarre. And it happens every year. And each year, I can't figure it out until someone reminds me that it's the February funk. "What's wrong?" can only be met with "I don't know. Things just feel...off."  Then I suffer through the "ugh, I'm a terrible person because there is nothing really even wrong and I'm complaining." It's a nasty spiral. Blerg.

I think it's probably good that I don't have a full-time, in-office required kind of job life. I'd use all of my sick/personal leave in February. As it is, I just sit and give the papers and things needing grades the stink-eye. "Go grade yourselves," I mutter as I give them a good shove. Write yourself, blog (yeah, we've seen that this blog is not self-motivated to write itself...stupid blog).

The Lenten season give-up

For Lent this year, I decided to part ways with Facebook and bread products. The bread thing already fell through with JaCiva's cupcakes and petit fours, but Facebook is still on. With giving this up, my goal is to focus on writing more, so expect some blog posts over the next forty days!

The lot was cast and then I drew, And Fortune said it shou'd be you.

There have been a few discussion in my life lately regarding marriage and why and how people choose to make this leap and stay together. My mother says it's a covenant for her, friends fall in love and marry for love, some marry for the green card, others for practical reasons. I'm watching numerous friends and family plan to marry and listening to the hopeful ways they think marriage will play out. I'm also watching the first of friends divorce. Engagements are such a hopeful thing, rather idealistic, and so full of promise.

The number these days seems to be that 50% of marriages fail in America. We rely on love--that funny, fleeting, belly dropping, swoony feeling--to coast by on, to drive our sex lives, to make us feel wanted, needed, and oh-so-special. We have friends who married in the "bunny-hump, baby-I can't-get-enough-of-your-hot-body" phase. And when that fades? They wonder what happened, awakening from this drunken, hyper-sexualized place they've been in. And it's a magical, wonderful place. You lose weight, you glow, you feel amazing. And then life hands you a big ole' wake-the-hell-up dose of reality at some point. Hello!

We've been lucky in our relationship. We work hard to be happy and have taken drastic measures to do this at times (our moves are often related to this).  But we've been rather careful, too, in the decisions we have made to keep us afloat. We don't have children; we haven't bought a house; we have odd jobs that allow us to be together and take off suddenly the way we want. We are carefully plotting and planning the next phase, our next steps. We have worked hard for what we have. We had hand-me-down furniture for the first seven years of our marriage. We were broke for most of the thirteen years we've been together. We didn't rush into things (some might say the marriage, but I don't think so: we didn't live together before, we didn't have a shotgun wedding, but we did get married young). We never followed the Joneses or needed everything others had. We didn't jump on bandwagons (kids, houses, cars, boats, dogs, and whatever else). We created our own goofy little niche.

We married for practical reasons. We also left the caveat in our relationship from the beginning that if life took us different ways, we'd be ok with that. We got married because taxes, school, and things like that made more sense to navigate together. We also really liked each other. We got along splendidly (we still do), and we had and have a very healthy dose of respect for each other. I used to think people found someone who could put of with their BS, but now I think it may be more that you find someone who respects your BS and helps you figure it out.

We spend a lot of time supporting each other. Not a day goes by that I am not told that I am loved. Not once, not twice, but many times each day. Not a day goes by that I don't say I love you; again, many times over. Sometimes I need a gentle reminder to put the computer/Kindle/book/distraction away to pay attention to who is right in front of me. And behind that gentle reminder are the words telling me how smart, creative, interesting I am. I don't seek this, but good grief, in a life that batters, tramples, and can be down right difficult and deflating, it's nice to have someone remind me of that, and to remind him of it, too.

It's Valentine's Day--a holiday we generally don't celebrate. Instead, we celebrate our meeting. Thirteen years now. And that is a long time and no time at all.  We've left some stages behind us, but we've found balance, longevity, and a comfortable place to be. No games, no hidden agendas, no faking the single life (ugh, please stop doing this, other people), no friends to keep up with. We still get annoyed with each other, we still fight. Our fights, though, are ridiculous and so self-deprecating, and I've had to break up with tequila because of this. It's not a pretty sight when I'm a mess, his feelings get hurt because I'm picking on the way he cut the limes, and I'm crying that things are so great that the only thing I can pick on is how to cut the damn limes for Coronas. Yep, ridiculous, embarrassing in hindsight, and kind of (admittedly) cute (even though I did not look cute with my wobbly eyes).

I didn't expect my marriage to fail (who does?), but I am a pragmatist and a realist, and I knew that the possibility was always there (it is for every relationship). I'm also stubborn as hell, though, and not afraid to fight for the things I want.  I know what works and doesn't work for my relationship, and I suppose that's the secret, isn't it? Patience, respect, and a huge amount of humor seems to get us through most things we've faced thus far, and I imagine it will be these things that sustain us.


Addendum: I came across this again today and felt others might enjoy reading it. I read it years ago, sitting in a quiet library in the heart of a cold Colorado winter. It's enough to warm you through:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2006/02/true-love/slater-text/1