When I am an Old Woman I will no longer worry...

I am beginning to think that this is what I will look like by the time we make it to October. I am worrying myself old! And not in the good or wise or well earned old way. I am just becoming pessimistic and cranky. Just ask my husband!

I was doing really well with all of this stuff up until about yesterday. My patience had been wearing just a tad thin. I found myself happily playing along with the Hubbs' "Ahw babe I'm so tired give me ten more minutes" routine one second and twenty minutes later seething with resentment that I was trying to wake him AGAIN. I am finding myself at shorter and shorter ropes with nebulous time lines and ambiguous deadlines. This is certainly not the Hubbs' fault. Not all of it anyway. Yes, he could decide that my sanity is a teeny bit more of a priority and just suck it up and wake up when he says he's going to. I KNOW how exhausting the half sleep of duty is. Sorry babe but I don't care. I am out there doing it too and I feel it in my bones too. The shitty part is that there is no one to take up the slack for either of us when it comes to shit getting packed, sorted, cleaned. It is either you or it is me. Every day you say you are going to get up and get something done and then decide to sleep in feels like you are saying "Meh, it's not that important after all. Someone else will do it." It's like pouring gasoline on my already, nearly constantly smouldering fire of overwhelmedness and exhaustion. I know but cannot fully comprehend the stress of being the financial 'only' right now. I am sure it puts it's own gut knotting stress on top of the oh, so relaxing act of moving and wedding planning. I KNOW....the thing is that I am drowning. I see all of the shit that needs to be done and all of the shit that is past due. I am tired of being the one who is "on top" of everything, the one who makes sure that things keep rolling. I want help. UNCLE. As sweet as the little sis is I don't want her help I want HIS help. I want to be important enough to him to inspire him to overcome his aversion to taking part of the helm when things get shitty and confusing. I don't love that we have fallen into the habit of me being the only list maker and timeline writer. I want more partnership than that. I want him to get engaged in "making it happen". If he is reading this he is upset with me by now. He is thinking that I am being demanding and overbearing and that I don't get what it is like in his head at ALL! He's right. I don't. Partly because he doesn't tell me. I think he doesn't tell me because he doesn't want to worry me and he is right. It worries me to no end when he tells me all of the things he is afraid of and I am shitty at listening to it.

I think this is my "Wife Work" right now. Just what I needed right? More homework! But this is important shit right here. This is THE stuff our lives together depends upon me mastering. I need to listen without absorbing the awfulness of worry. I have enough worry for both of us and I can learn to just hear his concerns without internalizing it all. I am not entirely sure how I will do this but I think that's what the next fifty years are for. I hope it doesn't take all fifty.

Anyway, the other side of all of this is how well I have been doing. I made it well past a month before losing my shit and then really only lost it after getting the crap news that we no longer had a solid closing date. I feel more and more committed to my life with G and here in the city. I am feeling more and more excited about joining the ranks of the midnight superheros who stand watch so everyone might sleep. I am struggling more days than not right now. I mean really struggling. I miss my folks and I miss summers on the boats and everything seemed simpler. It is hard to keep my forward momentum in the relative moments of day to day. In spite of all of that I have a more absolute sense of peace on it's way. My dear friend S pointed out to me yesterday that I only have to survive 63 more days and then it is all done. I will look around and see my lovely little house, my diploma on the wall, the wedding flowers drying in the window and my warm, wonderful, infinitely supportive husband by my side. I will work hard right up to the end and I will get to look back and feel pride in my efforts and joy, knowing all of this bullshit and indigestion was worth it. In the mean time....I need to keep my mouth shut, practice taking deep cleansing breaths, work hard at interning, eat well, run often and further and further and kiss my Hubbs. We will work out the partnership divide when the dust settles and we can talk without such high risk of hurt feelings. We will take our notes from this war and craft a better battle plan for the next such challenge....Yesterday as I sat at the table crying into a box of packed up dry goods I begged for a promise...."Promise me we will never try to do everything all at once, ever again?!"...He said "Yes honey, next time someone is trying to finish school and we are having a housing transition I am sure we will only have one or two kids and you'll just be pregnant so, yeah, that will be way easier..." He has a point. While I hope to not repeat this cycle of intensity often if ever again, life does not slow down much from here on...at least not for a while. Not until my hair is the color of that woman's and my eyes as wise as hers....like I said, that is what the next fifty years are for.

What The Hell is Wrong With Me?

I have had the good fortune to vacation with my husband at a beautiful hot spring utopia in the woods of Oregon. We went for a beautiful and quite successful long run. We soaked and walked and napped and generally hung out on the beautiful grounds of this peaceful place. I am still on break from the most stressful year ever....I don't have to go back to work until tomorrow night. Yet, here I am....I am cranky and petulant and bitching at my darling husband in my head over stupid shit. Selfish shit. No good reason to be bent out of shape shit. He isn't doing anything wrong. He is loving and patient and silly and most importantly he is not taking my mood personally. We are supposed to be sending out our wedding invites today and I am SOOOO not in the mood. I am not in the mood for anything. I am cranky and wishing I had all the freedom in the world to run to the airport and take the next plane leaving for Kathmandu. I feel spring fever amplified to life fever right now. I am quite certain it is not about The Hubbs or about anything but the general undercurrent of hard all around me right now. This too shall pass. I just wish my timing didn't suck so much right now.

Updates and Realizations...AKA: Random Blog Day

I had a huge test today. It sucked. It was hard and it was overwhelming and I wanted to cry and go to bed afterwards. It certainly didn't help that after trauma conference we sat around as a class and "shared" our clinical experience thus far. I have felt frustrated about my personal clinical experience but hearing my classmates talk about the exciting experiences they are having made me so sad and frustrated. I wanted so badly to be at my hospital because I felt a connection there. I wanted to believe that because I think so highly of the hospital and because I feel like a vested member of the team there they would value me and want to teach me. I never would have guessed that I would be ignored, shut out, and generally dismissed the way I have been in the last two weeks. It has been so awkward and generally humbling (not in the productive way but in the demoralizing way) that I don't ever want to go back. That's NOT because I don't like intubating because I do. I really do. I think it is interesting and exciting and would have loved to do more. I am bitter about it yes. It is only exacerbated by the fact that my program director actually wants me to buy them a 'Thank you gift' for accommodating me. I would like to buy them a "screw you" gift instead but I do understand the need to make nice for future classes should they find themselves looking at my hospital as an option for clinicals...NOT something I would recommend BTW! OK, enough about that...long story short....I am miserable right now...with school that is. It feels like last term was challenging but this term feels nearly impossible! It feels disorganized from the scheduling of assignments to the grading on up...nightmare!

Random musing number two is on the fitness front. I have been resisting the urge to put my wedding dress on every other day to see if my hard work has been paying off. In fact, I had resisted the urge since the day after Christmas...resisted that is until Monday. I broke the box out of it's deep dark plastic wrapped hiding place and slid the delicious fabric over my head. My heart was pounding as I put my arms down and reached for the sipper. Last time I tried the dress on it had been tight through the chest and back, and it had clung to some of the wrong places over my hips and belly. Monday night I zipped it up and turned to face the mirror and was shocked to see the change. I am only 9.5lbs down since starting all of this in the middle of December but there is no disputing the change in my body. My arms are beginning to take a more proper shape and the "bubble wrap" under my boobs and on my back has begun to fade. My belly is even taking on a more toned shape...no more food baby, baby! Even the Hubbs has pointed it out. I know it is hard to notice things like subtle weight loss and body shape changes when you see someone everyday but we were at the gym the other night and he got on the treadmill next to me and said "honey your butt looks smaller. You ARE losing weight!" He is not the smoothest operator out there but I could tell he meant it because it was all awkward and surprised. As nice as it is to hear that stuff from him, I am not doing it to "get" him or to make him think I am sexy...God help him, he already thinks that! I am doing all of this so that I feel sexy to me and feel healthy, so I can feel good about growing a baby in this body or raising a baby in a healthy lifestyle. I am doing this for the wedding dress too. So far I am down a pant size and making huge strides in the dress department. I'll keep you posted.



Random musing number three...Things that have changed since getting married. #1: We "fist bump" ring hand to ring hand. Vomit! I know, but the Hubbs thinks it's like "the Obamas honey...it's cool". I humor him. It makes me happy to see him all silly over our rings. It makes me happy to see him happy...more vomit, I know. Thing #2: We graduated from therapy the other day. It was never hard to go or to work on things in between meetings. I really think Tim (our guy) just helped us trust in the strength of our relationship even in the face of our struggle this fall. I think I more than Hubbs needed an outside, unbiased, uninvested voice of professional reason to help me clear away the mental clutter so I could see how good I have it. How good we both have it. He was so sweet as he told us he thought we were on the right track. "You can always call me or email me to make an appointment but I don't think we need to set anything up at this point. You two seem very happy and grounded right now. I see good things to come". It was so nice. I feel that way too but I think I am biased and I am always afraid I am deluding myself...What makes me even more nervous is that I don't even care if I am deluding myself. I am so happy with Hubbs and so happy to be married that it doesn't matter what anyone thinks. Thing #3: Is in the same vein as thing 2. I realize that sometimes I am high speed and he is not and vice versa. Today was a perfect example. After my test I was despondent. I was hungry and exhausted and pissed off. I mostly wanted to eat melted cheese and go to sleep. Hubbs was on full boogie talking about the EMS research he thinks he would like to conduct but knows politics will never allow. He was going a thousand miles an hour explaining all of this and I was for all intents and purposes Homer Simpson...all drooly and "Ghaargh". I have almost no idea what he said. It is not that I lack interest or that I routinely do not pay attention. What I am reflecting on is that this never seems to be a problem for us. We take turns being worthless and vegged out. The important thing is that even when exhausted or despondent or maxed out we go to one another. Just spending time be it sleeping, running errands or walking the dogs, is quality time together. It is what recharges us. Being together is always better than being apart. I spend plenty of time on my own, 4 nights a week in fact. I like my alone nights but I love snuggling in between a dog and my husband. Even if he or I am yammering away while the other one actively passes out. It's just better together. I know this is all a leeetle on the random side but it has been a long day. I am mostly ready to head to bed and am now just waiting for the Hubbs to get home so I don't pass out before he gets home.

Fitness day 46
Down total of 9.5lbs! Woot!
Get-ups x 7min
Water aerobics

"You're a Married Woman Now...."

All the romantical travel magazines and wedding sites would have a girl believe that once married she will spend a little time in the following way....
Lounging about on a beach looking post-coital and blissed out. Or maybe wearing white, flowing garments and walking hand and hand on the beach....or better yet sitting barefoot in side by side hammocks sipping umbrella drinks. Bliss bliss bliss! Well, I am here to tell you that it ain't so. Instead, I am wearing the sexiest of blue scrubs, a hair net, a surgical mask and a stethoscope about my neck. I am trolling the halls of the OR doing my best to looks smart and capable in hopes that some anesthesiologist will give me a shot at an airway.

The paper wedding is still mostly a secret as there are just some family members who would be hurt or upset about it and we don't want to hurt anyone or cause any strife. We did what we did because it was what was best for us and our particular situation. We made it more than just signing papers because it is MORE than just paperwork when you commit to spend the rest of your life with someone. We wanted to be able to address how special the occasion was without making a super involved process out of it. As I have said before, this was about us and September is about our families and friends....but I digress.

I initially decided to write this post in response to another blogger's post about her feelings about family. She writes about how she doesn't want kids and how she feels about the liberty people take expressing their opinions about young married women and "family". She tells the classic stories about the unwelcome opinions from the little old ladies saying "Oh, you'll never feel complete until you have children", or "Someday you'll wake up and realize you missed something". She doesn't see it this way. She expresses thoughts that she would feel trapped and angry if she found herself going though pregnancy and motherhood. She points out how once you get married you are supposed to want babies and how married people get pregnant and keep the babies and if they don't often there is a great deal of struggle and discord between families.

This is interesting to me. I want babies and the Hubbs wants babies too. In fact, we are crazy for babies and I am really looking forward to 18 months or so from now when I get to take the breaks off and see if I can even GET pregnant. However, six months ago I had a friend call and tell me she was pregnant. She had a sweet boyfriend who was a victim of the current economy, she had amazing parents with very liberal minds who would have likely been very happy to help her, and she had a good strong head on her shoulders. She also had just received an acceptance letter to graduate school. Her life's dream was to be an engineer and she had the chance to achieve that goal. She called me because I am that girl. My mother was a Nurse Midwife and all my adolescent/adult life I have been little miss women's health information. I talked with her about what I knew. There is a great clinic in the city where she lived at the time, one where they really respected women and their options. My friend 'N' knew that if she told her boy or her mom they would want her to keep the baby. She knew that was a death sentence for her dream. Long story short she decided not to have the baby and she is now working her way through graduate school. This spurred a conversation with my mom. I told her about my buddy and told her that I didn't know what I would do if it were me who was pregnant. I had just been accepted into a 11 month paramedic program that would definitely NOT be conducive to a pregnancy and would actually be out of the question in the last few months. It would be impossible to complete an internship filled with CPR, intubations, and stretcher fetching while enormously pregnant. Also impossible would be doing all of this while nursing and not sleeping during the first few months of motherhood. The upside would be that my program is very accommodating and I would be able to take the time off to have the baby and get my feet under me again before they would set me up to finish my education be it testing, interning, whatever...They are great. They have accommodated illness, fire academy and serious family situations in the past. That is not the point though. I had told my mom that I didn't think now would be an OK time. I thought mom would be all supportive and proud of me for being sensible and driven. Weeeeeell, my mom had other thoughts. She gave me the "talk" of a lifetime about how unrealistic women of my generation are and how it is getting us into more trouble than we realize. She says all this waiting for the "right time" is part of our controlling nature instilled in us by the culture of our time. She pointed out that I am (was) in a fantastic, supportive relationship with enough income to have a nice place to live, good insurance through my job as well as his, supportive family near by...all good things. All more than a lot of families have when they first start out. She had a point. I had long waited to be in such a good place in life. I had all the fundamentals in place. It would not be convenient but it would be OK. I was flabbergasted to think that I was *here*. I was in the zone where it was no longer insane to think of having a baby in fact, I am almost to the "you're not getting any younger" stage. It was no longer a "teen pregnancy". When the F did I get so OLD!?!!?? I know 26 is not geriatric but it is also not teenage anymore (thank god!). I just don't remember getting here. It was a real head trip to think about reaching this phase of my life. It was even stranger to realize that my friend 'N' was theoretically, there too. As modern women we had reached that diving board where we were about to start making those decisions about life, education, family and our futures. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I don't think her parents know to this day. I don't know if she ever told the boyfriend. I regret to report I haven't talked to her in quite some time as we are both pretty overwhelmed with school right now. But the message is in there none the less.

As women we are being told that we should be sexy, smart, driven, sensitive, organized, spontaneous, laid back, committed and family oriented. We are being told to be Betty crocker, June cleaver, as well as the CEO with a corner office. Who can do this? I am not saying we have to choose career or family, success in the outside arena or a happy home but I DO want to point out that women these days are expected to make a home, grow people inside of them....breast feed and rule to corporate world. The expectations and opportunities of the modern times have not absolved us of the "responsibilities" bestowed on us by our mothers, grandmothers and the many way backs before them. It's sort of insane! To add insult to injury we are damned if we do and damned if we don't. Women who marry and have families, who "settle down" and do the wife/mom thing while they are young are labeled sell outs, unmotivated, gold diggers...Women who decide to forgo the "family life" in the traditional sense, are labeled as cold, ball busters, selfish, or worse, barren. If you don't "dare" to take on the balancing act or *gasp* don't want to for whatever reason you are judged. Why People?! Why can't we just let people have their choices and lives? Why are women the target of this? Men don't get this shit. If a man is sitting around with his buds and says "nah, we have decided not to have kids" his buds are likely not going to say "Ahw brah, you HAVE to have kids! You won't feel complete, your clock will be ticking, you'll feel like something is missing..." It just isn't common. Anyway, my aim with today's post is to point out the insanity of what we put married women though as a culture. I am not trying to leave the single ladies or the dating ladies out of this particular post but lets face it, married women fall into a whole different puddle of expectations after the I Do. I am lucky enough to have supportive family however, I am also looking forward to babies be they homegrown or adopted. I don't have to go though the process of going against the grain of my family's opinions and hopes for us. That process was saved for the name change process which is another post all together.

Fitness Day 44
15min free weights and get-ups
35min aquajogging.