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.

So..Yeah, That Just Happened...

This was a scary week. I had my annual exam with my new Midwife on Monday and she found a lump in my left breast. It felt a lot like every other lump in there except it was a little bigger and "funny" on the edges. She told me not to panic but that she wanted to refer me to the breast health center for an ultrasound just to be sure it was nothing. I left the office feeling like a stunned bird who had just flown into a window. I did not see that coming.

In every way I loved this midwifery practice. The woman I saw was just like my mom in her "way" with patients. There was a feeling that finally, I had found someone who would be with me, the way I had always seen my Mother with women. I was instantly very comfortable with her. Then....she did my exam and told me all of this. My mind reeled. I had felt lumps and had written them off as "boob fat lumps". I heard my mom rolling her eyes at twenty-one year-old me saying "it's nothing, you're such a hypochondriac. She told me that "of course, everyone thinks the big C when they hear lump" but she didn't want to freak me out she just wanted to be sure.

She took my blood pressure which was now soundly elevated to about 165/83, did my bi manual exam (always a treat) and then we talked a little more about my health history. I told her yes, I would like to get pregnant in the next two years and I was trying to lose a little weight. She noted that it would be best for me and my fertility to shed some pounds and suggested the high blood pressure diet. Ahhrg! I don't have high blood pressure. My cardiovascular system is in fantastic health. I can run forever! I am over my ideal weight and under the most incredible pressure I have ever felt in my life to "get everything right" right now. Also, I don't sleep normal people hours and I work in a place where people are dead/dying, faking/drug seeking. insane/off of their medications, pregnant and bleeding/miscarrying, or disconnected from the health care system and are using us as a primary care facility. It is HARD to be there and in a job where you get to do very little to make any sort of immediate or long term impact. I am not in a job where I might get a save or make an important call tonight, tomorrow or three days from now. I fetch blankets, dip urine, move people to ultrasound, chart on the broken and dying, occasionally, I do some chest compressions but a trained monkey could fill my slot with very little effort. Sometimes waiting for my job to "mean more" takes a toll. Anyway, all of that plus a fucking lump in my breast is enough to get a girl's BP up. It's not because I am fat. I am pretty sure of that.

So, I left the office in a foggy haze. I kept thinking that I wished I was walking out of there with the happy news that I was pregnant instead of the news of a lump. Wrong kind of lump I thought over and over again. Wrong damned lump! I got in the car and called my mom. I cried and cried. I told her everything expecting that she would give me some sort of "this is nothing" schpeel. Her words were "well how scary is that?" I replied through sobs that it was pretty f-ing scary. I felt so far away from her. So far away from my dad. Shit I even missed The Hubbs mom. I wanted anyone parental around me. I felt like if one of them were there there would be no way some big scary grown-up disease could grow in my body. I knew the odds of this lump being nothing were very very high. I also know that every young woman who has fought breast cancer at a tender age had the exact same odds and there is nothing special about me that should make me any different. Odds are just that, odds.

I got home and the Hubbs was asleep after working the night before. I told him they found a lump in my left breast and he said "oh honey, I'm sorry" and fell back asleep. I didn't begrudge him this at all. I know what REM sleep is all about and I knew that him waking up at that moment wasn't going to change anything. I called the specialist's office and made an appointment for Wednesday. Then I got ready to go to my clinical rotation. That night I was in Labor and Delivery. It felt like some kind of fucked up providence that I would be going to watch women have babies. Warped, I know. Anyway, I went and I observed and it was as miraculous and wonderful as always. I know that sounds dry and devoid of true emotion but my experience in L&D is the subject of a whole nother post on many things including the deep emotions I feel towards women in labor.

The next two days were mostly a big blur. Wednesday came and I got up and ready for my appointment. I walked into an office and filled out some papers with a graphical drawing of two breasts asking me to mark the target area. It felt like target shooting. Next a woman called out "Mrs Melnick?" That was the first time anyone had called me that other than jokingly. Again, wrong fucking ultrasound....Wrong wrong wrong. I went into a changing room that looked like a very fancy fitting room at a department store. I put on this strange cape and a robe and left my pants and shoes on. I was lead to a small room where the Hubbs was waiting for me. A very nice French woman put hot jelly on Lefty and smoshed around for a while. She reported that she didn't see anything concerning but the doctor was in the next room over and she was going to have him come talk to me and have a look. I was half-way to relief. The doctor came is and brought with him a young man about my own age who was a radiology resident. They both took a look at Lefty and there was more poking and now cold jelly. It felt strange to lay on a table with one breast hanging out talking about how I don't have menstrual cycles anymore. Very foreign. He didn't find anything concerning. The lump was a collection of glands and fatty breast tissue. It was normal. I was fine.

I felt happy and exhausted walking out of the office. I decided to scrap the day of school and went home to fall fast asleep in my husband's arms. Sweet sleep of relief. I called my parents and told them to sound the all clear. I was lucky. Barb, Irene and millions of other women are not so lucky. I feel lucky. I will do whatever I need to to loose the pre-baby weight, to stay healthy, to love my own body, to lower my goddamnned blood pressure. I have tasted the fear of illness and I am not ready to fight through it yet. I am not ready to wage that war even with the hubbs at my side. And BOY let me tell you he was at my side.

When I started panicking about the what ifs he didn't tell me I was crazy, when I started fretting that this might mean no babies, no breasts, no...anything...he didn't try to convince me that it was insane. He held me and told me he was sorry I was sad and frightened but that he wasn't yet. He told me he has never doubted that we will have many fat, healthy babies and live a long time together watching them grow up and watching their fat healthy babies grow up as well. He wins! Shit, I win. I married that man. I love him so for all the things he said and didn't say, for calmly going to the appointment with me and for thinking that the most awkward part of the whole day was when the doctor walked in while he was kissing my arm. I love him.

So, the moral of the story is that I don't have the big 'C', I am refocusing my efforts to relax, slim down, get healthy. I went for an 8 mile run with the Hubbs and the young dog today. It was good. I was tired but it was do-able. We had a great conversation about babies and the Hubbs has humored me with the loose goal of Christmas 2011 as the IUD pulling target. I just have to lose the weight and get hired, through orientation, and squirrel away some cash to pay for a home birth.

Midwives, home births, labor and delivery, and nursing school are all topics for near future posts. For tonight I am just thankful to have 2 strong feet, attached to 2 strong legs, 2 lumpy yet, healthy breasts, and the sweetest, strongest, toughest and most compassionate husband ever. And that is more than enough.

The lyrics to an Ingrid Michaelson song seem to sum me up right now.

I don't believe in anything but myself
I don't believe in anything but myself
But then you opened up a door
You opened up a door
Now I start to believe in something else

But how do I know if I'll make it through?
How do I know? Where's the proof in you?

And so it goes, this soldier knows
The battle with the heart isn't easily won

And so it goes, this soldier knows
The battle with the heart isn't easily won
But it can be won.

I sit in the back of a bus watching the world grow old
Watching the world go by all by myself
I took a faith full leap and packed up all my things and all my love
And gave it to somebody else

But how do I know if I'll make it through?
How do I know? Where's the proof in you?

And so it goes, this soldier knows
The battle with the heart isn't easily won

And so it goes, this soldier knows
The battle with the heart isn't easily won
But it can be won.


I am not sure what the battle with my heart is right now but it is an unceasing battle. I feel sometimes like I am on the other side of a window watching everyone have a wonderful time. On the other side of the window the world is in color and the sounds are clear and vibrant. On my side of the window things are dingy and muted and my ears feel like they are stuffed with cotton. I feel like I have been drugged. I am slow and clumsy. I don't respond to things the way I used to. People around me are getting excited about things and I am sinking. I want so badly to be getting excited about internship and the wedding and everything beyond that but right now all I feel is frightened. I am frightened all the time. I feel like I walk around startled and sleepy all the time. I feel like shit. I feel like a shitty wife, a shitty sister, a shitty daughter, a shitty student, a shitty friend. I want to be excited but I feel like if I move too quickly I will shatter into a million pieces and I just can't spare the pieces. What is this? Where does this come from? When will it pass? I am not "depressed" as I am still so able to see the colors and appreciate all the good fortune in my life. I am fundamentally happy. I just can't reach it right now. It is so far away, on the other side of the glass.

I want to be here. I want to be present and awake. I am not. I am tired and scared. I am not available to G and I know he feels it. We went away on vacation and had a really nice time but I was off. I don't know where. I was just feeling disconnected and I had no idea how to tell him I felt like there had been an invasion of the body snatchers. I felt awkward and anxious in my own skin and I know it came off as irritated or uncomfortable with him. It was breaking my heart but I couldn't get ahead of it. I am just so ready to have my own mind and life back. I am ready to be the sunny, cheerful woman I self-identify with. I am ready to feel like myself again.

Anyway, right now running seems to be the only thing I am able to do without trauma or feeling upset. I am going to see an acupuncturist to help with the stress and the physical aches and pains of increasing my training. I feel like if I can just keep running I'll be OK. I do believe in myself. I just need to learn how to believe in myself with somebody else. I need to learn how to believe in this new incarnation of myself. That is not easily done. It is lucky I have G by my side to help hold my hand when things get scary.

Things That Give Me Wings

I have been sick for the last week. Sick like I have not been in a VERY long time if EVER. I can't remember ever, in my adult life, being so sick that I stayed in bed for an entire week and didn't get cabin fever. That was me last week. I had a bit of the slows on Thursday when the Hubbs was feeling under the weather and we went hiking in the muddy wonderful oregonian february spring. By the end of our night at the soaking pool I was feeling wiped out. I didn't even want to 'do it' and it had been about a week since Hubbs and I had been in the same bed at the same time. The next day I woke up feeling pretty puny and I puttered around before work coughing and feeling scratchy and icky throated. By about half-way through my shift I was wheezing, coughing and sweating. I took a gram of Tylenol and 800mg of Motrin and 3hrs later I had a fever of 101.3. That was enough for my charge nurse (mother of 5). She sent me home and I went quite easily. I was hacking my ass off. I would get really winded and breath fast and hack some more. The next night the Hubbs had to go to work and I was wilty on the sofa watching the olympics (perfect sick day viewing BTW!) I was breathing pretty fast just resting and around midnight I spoke to G and he called a friend of ours who was working in the county and just happened to be in the neighborhood, to come over (in her AMBULANCE)and check me out. I was breathing fast at about 30-40 times a min and my oxygen saturation and CO2 levels were normal. She gave me a nebulizer treatment and then got called out to a "real call". The Hubbs called and told me that he thought if I made it through the night and still felt shitty in the morning that he would take me to the quick care. I knew it was viral. I never once thought it WASN'T viral. I was scared though. I have never had asthma or anything else that would compromise my ability to breathe. I felt a little panicked that I couldn't get enough air all the time for about 4 days. It was worse if I had a coughing fit. There was so much pain with just breathing and it became SO much worse with coughing which I was doing almost constantly. I was MISERABLE. I was living in my shower sucking hot steam and eucaliptys. Sunday we went into the hospital. I was working pretty hard to breathe just walking from the car to the door but I begged the triage nurse to let me go to the "fast track" because I didn't want a full work up for chest pain and I knew that if I went to the main ED some over eager resident would order every test in the whole world and I would end up with an ECG and there was NO FRIGGIN WAY IN HELL that the tech on that day was going to see my boobs! Yep! That's how I felt. Silly or not. I knew I just needed a little chest x-ray to make sure it wasn't pneumonia and some NAR-CO-TICS! I needed to be sedated so I could finally sleep! I got just that. She didn't even offer me antibiotics and that was a good thing because I didn't need them. I needed sleep. Sleep. Sleeeeeep. A little phenergan and codiene later and 4 more days in bed and I am a 70% new woman. I am still coughing and still a little winded with exertion but I feel a lot better. We even did it...twice. Yeah, this may be TMI but G has been such an amaizing sport and has taken SUCH sweet care of me (including calling my mother to tell her about my trip to the doctor and delivering milkshakes and cup-o-noodle to me) he deserved to be jumped. I took my decongestant, took my advil, steamed as much crud as I could out of my lungs before he got home and jumped him. He was so happy both for the booty and for the sign that I was feeling better. I love my husband.

So, needless to say my exercise regiment has been a little non-existant. I did lose 7 pounds in fever and coughing. Next week I will start up with water aerobics and running and see how the lungs do. I am excited to be back in action after what was the longest week in my adult life in bed. I am totally behind in school but hour by hour I catch up and the work I am doing is getting me A's so its gonna be ok. The title image for this week came from the fact that as I sit here at work it was time for my redbull inorder to amp up enough to get through the project I am working on as well as the next 4 hours until morning. As I stared thinking about how I manage to make it from day to day the one constant is G. He makes my life possible right now. Paying bills, cleaning up after me, listening to my crap, bringing me food when I am sick, making me dinner while I study, snuggling me to sleep on the rare night that we are home together for bed and being eternally patient with my bad behavior, my short temper, my distracted mind. He loves me. It makes everything "do-able". He gives me wings. He is my melted cheese all the time. Tonight, as he is sleeping in a snow shelter up on Mt Hood, with the Search and Rescue kids doing snow training I am proud of him and proud to be his wife. He makes me want to try harder, be stronger, do more for other people. He is my inspiration.

Sometimes Overreacting Happens...

This is an update on the whole brother thing. After a heartbreaking conversation with my mother last night which ended with me making her cry (accidentally), I contacted our "Guy". The one The Hubbs and I had been seeing for help with our premarital counseling. He is fantastic and works almost exclusively with first responders (Fire, EMS, Police). It may sound stupid to those who have normal lives and jobs where they go do work things and come home, eat dinner and go to sleep but some days are harder than others when either you or your partner go to work code someone, take care of an abuse victim, bag a dead body, or deal with jerk face drug seekers all night and then come home just as the sun is coming up to try to get some sleep. It is a wacked out life. It is a good life for me (us) right now but it is not something that everyone understands and talking to a therapist who worked as a fire medic and now works exclusively with this population means I don't have to explain any of that to him. Anyway, I am going to see him because 1. Mom asked me to and 2. I think she is likely right. I get very hurt very quickly and seem to always be looking for a reason to hate him. I need to work on that. I need to stop reacting in the same patterns I used as a little kid. It's not working for me anymore. It seems to be causing me way more pain than it is worth. I want to figure out how to be more balanced and relaxed and I know sitting is part of that but I also feel like a little work with a pro might go a long way to helping me enjoy whatever relationship I end up having with my brother. So, I go to see my "guy" on Thursday. I am anxious.

In very related news of COURSE my brother wrote to me today saying "sorry for the long delay in responding, I have been traveling. Congrats!...." It was a sweet email and it put the final nail in the coffin that I DO need to get some help with my anger and paranoia (?) regarding him and his behavior towards the family and towards me. So I go....

Things Were Simpler Back Then Right?

I have long struggled with my relationship with my older brother. I can't explain why. I don't actually know what our deal is. I have my theories of course, but I am not aiming to write a blog post filled with negativity towards my brother and unfortunately, that is all I feel right now. Long story short I got married, he lives in London. I wanted to tell him over skype but the time change proved too much for me. I wrote an email...a week ago...radio silence. My family is not known for their communication skills. I am not sure why, but we seem to be communication retarded sometimes. At the important times...someone is ill or depressed or has a sky high PSA and we just keep it to ourselves. Anyway, I am being told that I have "storybook" expectations of my brother. I disagree. I think in the digital age when people don't even take a leak without checking their email (and my brother is one of those guys), a week is too long to not respond in some fashion to news that a family member got married. Call me crazy!

So, beyond the struggle with him specifically, I find the hubbs and I at the point in the story when we are forced to decide who is invited to the ceremony in September. There are a few cousins and such who we have known since day one but we still just don't intend to include in the "inner circle" ceremony on Friday. It's not a measure of how much we love them its just that we can't invite EVERYONE and we have plans to party and celebrate with everyone who wants to come on Saturday and Sunday. It IS in some part, OUR day. So, the issue is that there are several very good friends who we have become close with over the past year who we would love to have participate in Friday. However, we feel obligated to give family first invitations. Why is this? If we have family members who we "SHOULD" invite who we are not as close to as our friends or one step further, if we have family we don't want to see do we have to "stay open" and invite them? Why does our wedding day have to be the charnal grounds for growth and being the bigger person? Why do we HAVE to feel obligated to invite people we don't wish to "deal with" on that particular day? It's such a loaded situation. Its not that we don't want to see the cousins or family or friends, its just that there are people who are easy to be around and there are people who are not. Why does a wedding mean that you have to invite people just because you share DNA? What is it about being "family" that means you let jerks off the hook, overlook bad behavior, or compromise what YOU want to keep the imaginary peace? It seems so opposite!

Anyway, I think this is a super hot topic. People have lots of different opinions about who you have to extend an invite to and why. I would love to hear those opinions. Not specific to my particular situation. I will handle that, but specific to experiences you have had or how you would anticipate handling the guest list for anythng important like a birth, funeral, wedding, anniversary, graduation...whatever. Lets talk about the feeling of obligation to share news, invite, NOT invite (I know this can be a hot one too, feeling like you have to NOT invite someone for someone elses comfort). What is this all about and how do you sort through these tough decisions? Its not as black and white as we would like.

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

What I wrote

I am new to blogging and thus find I do not have the discussions that more established blogs have going on. That's fine... I am boaring and blogging is a baby step sort of thig. Anyway, as paper wedding day draws nearer it has me thining about the big day in Septemeber too. That has me thinking about how much I miss my best friend since November and if we will ever recover from this fall. Here is the email I wrote to Meg over at www.apracticalwedding.com. She is a WELL established blogger and very thoughtful woman. In fact, most of the women who regularly read and respond to her posts seem to be "my kinda gals" to sound like my mother for a second. As I have more studying to do tonight I will leave you with the email I wrote to her and see if anyone here has anything to say. I want to prefice this all by saying that R is my dearest friend. I love her like a sister and that means sometimes I want to kill her. I will likely never stop loving her as my best friend so any advice along the lines of "you don't need her forget her...are appreciated in spirit but wholy unnecissary as I will be completely incapable of writing her off. That said, here is my letter.

Hi Meg,
My name is Anna and I am a recent blog reader writer. I am also a soon to be wed woman. I was wondering how to pose a question to the wedding blog gang and decided I would try emailing you directly. Maybe this has already been addressed and I just need to be pointed to the post. Maybe not. Anyway, my question is about best friends and things you say or don't say about their choice in partners. Here is the context first. I am engaged to a wonderful man and we live 3500miles away from my family and best friend. They have had a few small periods of "get to know ya" time over the two years we have been together. I was home this summer while my best friend had her first baby. She is a fantastic woman. Her husband has always and likely will always drive me insane. He is just not my cup of tea. He comes off as loud and immature at the wrong moments (like the birth of their first child). I spent two weeks with them leading up to the birth and he was a handful the whole time. He isn't the guy I would have chosen for R if it had been up to me. The thing is it wasn't left up to me. She says he makes her happy and that she loves being married to him. I believe her. So I love him because he makes my best friend in the whole world so happy.

This fall my fiancé and I hit a hard place in our relationship. I was freaked out and rattled on top of my baseline freaked state heading into finals for paramedic school. I called R in the middle of it all hoping for my friend to tell me to trust my gut and follow my heart and all the other things you are supposed to say to a friend going through a minor crisis. She took the opportunity to tell me that she "isn't crazy about G". She went on to say that she just wouldn't have chosen him for me, that she loves me so much she isn't sure there is anyone "good enough" for me but he "isn't it". I was devastated. I was already having my faith shaken and was questioning my judgment and now this? She told me that she just felt that way and that I had to swear that if G and I made it through this patch that I would forget that she ever said anything. I felt like someone had punched me in the gut. The wind was totally knocked out of me. I agreed and said that I had to go. That was in November.

I am not angry. Mostly I am hurt. On top of that I feel like it sucked the fun out of my "wedding" planning, as she was to be my lady. I am not having attendants but as my best friend for the last 10 years she was going to be my right hand for wedding things (per her request upon learning of the engagement in July). I don't know what to do with this bomb I feel has been dropped in my lap. I want to call her but I don't know what to say. The last time we spoke I was in tears and now after several months of effort and some help from a therapist G and I are in love and happy and really looking forward to the wedding in the fall. I feel like she has condemned my relationship and I am not sure what I do now. Why is it that once you get engaged the world puts a higher price on struggles? I feel like people struggle and being engaged can sometimes exacerbate that struggle feeling and why should those of us who choose to deal with it promptly, with professional help instead of pretending we have it all under control, be made to feel like failures before we even reach the altar? Why does admitting to struggle become a point of no return after engagement? Beyond that, how do you move past a hurt and get back to the fun of the wedding stuff? What do you say when a friend doesn't approve of your intended and you're marrying him anyway?


There are a lot of questions in there I know. If you know of places that address any of these I would love a good point in the right direction. If you think any of them worthy discussion I would dig that too. As always, you facilitate such great discussions. It has been nice to feel that there are others running into some of the same issues and asking the same questions. Thanks for your presence out there in the bloggosphere.


Fitness day ???
Water Aerobics was AWESOME! 75min
No pilates today...boo

Tomorrow = more running
In other news I am down 3 more lbs! I do so terribly miss cheese though. Maybe taco salad tomorrow night with that only just palatable low fat cheese....

Back in the saddle? I think not!

Today is my second day back to school after holiday break. I am exhausted. I have trauma conference and M&M on Wednesday so the fun started at 5am so I had time to get my things together, run through the shower and pick up my buddy E so we could grab some coffee at the Evil Empire in the basement of the hospital and still hobble our way (well, I am the hobbler she walks just fine) up to the 12th floor or something awful like that in time for Dr Shriber to holler "settle down people! Lets get started!" promptly at 0700. I generally like trauma conference. There is almost always something cool to learn about even if the last case is almost always some boring ass general surgery blah blah about pancreatitis or something...filler usually. I just haven't been in the mood the last 2 days. I am a little fearful that I have lost my mojo. I was very focused and did very well last semester. I worked my ass off! Just ask the Hubbs....this was part of our problem. Anyway, I am feeling a little jaded and burned out on the University and how highly everyone thinks of themselves just for being there and breathing the air in the building. Yes, cool stuff happens there, great research and fantastic docs, nurses and *medics* come out of this program. I am just feeling like I don't want to be around arrogance and competitiveness right now. I am well aware that I must pull my head out of my ass, and quickly to get on track before I have to play catch up. I am just allowing myself this first week back to wallow a bit. I'm still going to do my drug studying tonight....but I'm not happy about it.

Things I am happy about include the fact that the Hubbs got the "invitations" done today. We have decided we want to be low paper and are using a "wedsite" (barf) for RSVPs and information. We went and took pics at our favorite dive bar's old timey photo booth and were holding signs that said "We're....Getting....Married....9/17/10". Not THE most original, I know, but us none the less and lets be honest, it's ALL been done at this point. Anyway, we did that back in Oh, I don't know September? August? I don't remember except that it was a long damned time ago and the picture has been taunting me from the fridge. The Hubbs took the picture to the locally owned mom and pop print shop and had copies made for something sick like 38 cents each! OMG 200 for about 25.00. Now, I just have to make write the letter that goes with the picture. Back to my court dammit! We will also be making about 20 "fancier" invites for some of the older family members who will expect that. I am fine making my grandparents happy. It doesn't take that much on my part.

Other things I am happy about include the book our "guy" gave us. It is called "The Five Love Languages". It is a book to help you learn what makes your partner feel most connected. Basically the languages are Physical touch, Positive Affirmations, Acts of Service, Gifts, and Quality time. I know what you may be thinking, "I don't need a book to tell me what does it for my partner...they like ___fill in the blank." I felt the same way. That said, I now have bimonthly appointments with a "guy" to help me build a better relationship for now and for the future and I think if we are all honest for a second anyone who has been in a long term gig knows that sometimes we fall into patterns of convenience or habit and we should stop every once in a while and ask ourselves if we do what we do because WE like it or like doing it...or if it is truly what our partner would choose. Like I said, I already have a "guy" so why not really look critically at my decisions. So what I found was that I LOVE love notes. They are my crack. Whats more is that getting them...tiny post its on my pillow saying "sorry we didn't see each other today, sleep well, I'll kiss you in the morning", make me want to do whatever it is that will make him feel as loved as that little square of paper makes me feel. The book has a test you take and you end up with a percentage breakdown of your affinity for the 5 categories. Its very simple and the author does not write too much into any of it. It is just a simple tool to reality check yourself and your actions. It has already sparked my heart in little new ways. Here is the cover.



The final straw in my very early, very long, sort of exhausting, yet happily smooth day was my good fortune in stumbling upon a water aerobics class tonight at the pool. I was feeling rather uninspired as I walked into the women's locker room and was met with the sight of 15 women my mother's age laughing and joking as they climbed into swimsuits. I was thinking "Oh, great. I just wanted to listen to my music and do my thing and go home", when one of the women looked at me and asked if I was there for water aerobics. I made a flash decision. "Sure am!" I said with a smile and I climbed into my own suit and before I knew it I was doing bicycles to show tunes and the best of the 90's. It was super fun. It was just what I needed. I think I may try to make it my new Wednesday night thing. Nothing like a little community to spark a girl's motivation.

Day 20.
Aquaerobics 60min
Walking 30min

I think its time to talk a little more about school as well as the upcoming paper wedding stay tuned!