Barnmaven

Extremes and the going to of them

The perfect relationship.  The perfect mate.  The perfect marriage.

SG and I on our wedding day, Nov 2011

 Do these things exist?  Perhaps they are merely chimeras that distract us from the more distressing realities of adult relationships.  When people are ready to discard the fairy tale and acknowledge that relationships are messy and hard and not as constantly satisfying as the diamond sellers' commercials would have us believe, they are faced with the daunting task of sifting through their relationships past and present.  Eventually you have to pick a place to stand, and if the fairytale is the only genre you wish to attach to your relationship, likely you will end up standing alone.  

This is not my "perfect relationship."  In my perfect relationship, my partner and I get to be both together and apart in relatively equal portions.  We nearly always have the opportunity to express our affection in ways that feel good - hugs and kisses, holding hands, a neckrub at the end of a hard day.  When we're apart it is only for long enough to remind us to appreciate each other's presence.  

I find myself continually needing to relearn the lesson of letting go of "perfect" and being happy with what I have.  Some days it is easier than others.  On this Valentine's Day it is particularly challenging.

I find the most difficult part of being married to someone who works for long periods on the road is getting used to being a ping pong ball flying between paddles labeled ALL and NOTHING.  When he's home, he's home 24/7.  When he leaves, I'm on my own.  

When he's home, he wants to help with everything.  I don't know if that's just that he is a person who gains pleasure from doing all that he can for the people he loves or if he's assuaging some level of guilt over not having been able to be physically present, but my husband doesn't want me to have to do much when he's around.  Like every couple we each have our preferences for the kind of chores we prefer to be stuck with, but even if there are few tasks I usually end up doing, he carries the bulk of it.  Meals, laundry, dishes, dogs, getting kids out the door to school.  I had to beg him to stop feeding my horses so that I would be able to have a chance to see them every evening.  In the mornings all I'm responsible for is getting myself out the door.  I come home in the evening and if he hasn't already got dinner on the table he suggests we order something; never does he expect me to come home from work and cook.  He picks up things he knows I like at the grocery store.  I'm spoiled rotten and I know it. 

When SG is gone, I build my own routine.  My days, while lonely, have a comforting rythym.  I am much more disciplined with my time when I am the only one home to tend to things - dishes and laundry get done, things get picked up, meals get made and animals get fed.  There isn't much wiggle room for lollygagging in the morning, so I quickly learn to be efficient and not play so many games on my phone while I'm eating breakfast.  The kids and I turn into a cozy little team.  I involve them in the decision making a little more, we have more one on one time.  I try to find things to depend upon them for so that they learn to be dependable.  I remember to appreciate not only how spoiled I am by my husband but to be appreciative of my independence and ability to take care of things on my own.

Usually it feels like I've no sooner gotten into the swing of my routine when my husband returns.  It is a period of adjustment for both of us -he's been on the road with only his own needs to tend to.  We've both gotten used to having time to ourselves.  Its really hard for me, I think harder because at least SG gets a break from people while I'm at work.  I, on the other hand, spend almost no time alone in my own home.  Between mid-December and yesterday the longest I was alone in my house was one Sunday when SG went to church and I didn't want to go.  

But when he's gone, the loneliness can get unbearably difficult.  There is an ocean of difference between being alone by choice and being alone because you can't be with the people you love.  When the kids are also gone, the first few hours feel like heaven and the rest of the time feels like punishment. 

No, this is not easy.  

But -

I'm not alone because my husband doesn't want to be with me.  He's just as lonely as I am when he goes on the road, at least once he gets beyond those first heady days of enjoying his solitude.  He misses those hugs and date nights just as much as I.  If it were up to me I might not have picked a career on the road for my husband, but isn't my choice to make.   I might be happier if he were here, but when he had a less-than-satisfying job that kept him home, he was really miserable.  I'd far rather have a partner who feels good about his work and his contribution to our family than one who is miserable and angry and feeling trapped.  

I know there are people right now who would be thrilled to have a two-income household even it meant their partner had to be somewhere else for a little while.   So I'll take my first-world problems and I'll remind myself to continue to find positives so that maybe the bad days won't roll around so often.

However --

Valentine's Day can seriously kiss my first-world ass this year.

Hypothetical Advice

If you were to ask me for my advice, which you won't, I'm not sure I would give it to you.  I mean, I could, but since you probably aren't in a place where you can accept what I'm saying, it would probably not be helpful.  Instead I'm here having this conversation in my head with a hypothetical version of you.  Maybe I'm just having it with a hypothetical younger version of myself.

I remember being where you are.  Many times.  In it neck deep with a person who either wasn't as committed to me as I was to him or who loved me but whose modus operandi was to seek distraction from life's pressures by seeking the attention of other women.  (No, I'm not speaking of any one person in particular and even if you think I am, remember this is a hypothetical conversation, so those were just hypothetical men. Or women.  Or cats.  Or whatever. I could never trust my cats to be faithful.  They'll let anybody pet them.)

In those relationships my younger self tried to fix the problem by controlling the other person.  My younger self didn't understand yet that she was substituting the love and adoration of another person for true self-validation.  You see, I didn't believe I was worthy of love.  I didn't accept myself and my flaws.  Somewhere inside my brain I thought that if someone else just loved me enough that meant I was good enough to be loved, and problem solved!  Except that the problem was even farther away from being solved than ever because I was approaching it backwards.  I was making my own crazy and even worse, I was telling other people it was their fault I was unhappy because they didn't love me enough or they couldn't stay faithful to me.  If what I did to myself was wrong, what I did to other people in my life was downright cruel and heartless.

Eventually I had to learn to let go of the need for an illusion.  I had to learn real acceptance of myself, of my circumstances.  I had to take an inventory of myself and discover not only things that are awesome, but to take stock of the flaws in my personality that aren't so pretty.  

What I would tell my younger self now?  This:  That guy you can't trust?  Maybe he can change.  Maybe he can't.  But as long as you twist yourself into a pretzel trying to keep him in the emotional handcuffs you are creating I can guarantee that the only thing you will accomplish is to make both of you miserable.  I know that riding herd on someone to make sure they're not doing something you don't want them to do will make you both insane.  Don't you respect them enough to let them manage their own lives?  If you assume they're incompetent and can't be trusted to do things right without you checking to make sure they are, what does that say about YOU?  Why would you even want to be in a relationship with someone you can't respect and trust?  

Loving and caring about someone isn't enough to guarantee that a relationship will work or that it will last.  You can love someone with all your heart and soul and that relationship can end for many reasons.  Maybe its a bad fit.  Maybe the other person is struggling with their own problems or addictions or weaknesses that make it hard for them to be a good partner right now.  Maybe they will never get any better than they are right at this moment.  Maybe you will never get any better than you are right at this moment (you probably will).

We all want the happy ending.  We love the fairy tale.  We want with all our hearts to believe that love really does conquer all.  And I believe that it does, but not in the way that most people think.  Being alone, being lonely, can really suck sometimes.  I've had times I was so lonely I felt I would die from it.  But I didn't die.  All that time I wasted thinking other people were the solution to my problems, and I had to relearn the truth that the only solution to my problems was ME.  I could run away from them, I could try to solve them, I could try to drown them in alcohol or pills, but ultimately the only person who belonged in the cage match wrestling with my demons was myself.

There is nothing in this world that will protect us from being hurt.  We'll make bad choices and have to live with the consequences.  Other people will do things that we don't like or that are painful for us.  Things completely outside of our control will have an impact on us that hurts like hell.  I tell you this now, hypothetically, that the sooner you are at peace with these facts, the greater capability you will have within you for true happiness.

Once your ability to be happy doesn't depend on other people, you are free to live your life.  

Your problems will still be there, of course.  This person who is still hurting you might still be part of your life.  But you can let go of him.  Who knows?  Maybe he'll keep walking right along beside you.  Maybe he'll grow into a really great partner, maybe he'll have some success wrestling with his own demons.  Maybe he'll walk away.  Maybe you'll walk away because you find its the best way to help yourself.  I don't have those answers.  Not even hypothetically.

 

Relationship math

 

I love to read relationship books.  Whenever I read something that reminds me of my relationship with SG I marvel at how intuitive, how clever, how well researched the author must be.  When I read something that doesn't fit us at all, naturally either the author is a charlatan or we are the exception to the rule.  My husband is more than a standard deviation from the mean, if you know what I mean. 

Anyhow, this current book I'm reading is all about how Attachment Theory is really what comes into play in our love relationships, that our primary relationship with our partner follows many of the same patterns as child/parent attachment.  Similar to the way a healthy parental attachment fosters a sense of security and the ability to be happily independent in a child, a healthy attachment in an adult relationship makes each partner feel safer about indpendence - both theirs and their partner's.  According to this theory, then, a clingy, jealous or insecure partner isn't just being a jerk:  they're dealing with abandonment issues. 

Makes sense.  It helps me see my distaste for SG's road job in a different light; a person whose standard motto regarding relationships goes something like, "Everyone leaves.  Period." isn't likely to feel too secure about having their partner off living the single life for a couple of months at a time. 

Time and love do much to cure the places we are broken, and SG and I have seen a lot of that happening over the course of our relationship.  I'd love to say that I'm completely without insecurity, but I would be lying.  I am, however, much more secure in this relationship than I can recall being in a very long time.  

Which is good, because we're pretty sure he's going to end up going back on the road.

Its not that his in-town full-time job is a horrible job, or anything.  But its not what he's used to.  Its not what he likes or wants to do.  He likes the road.  He likes his solitude.  It doesn't mean he likes being away from me or that he doesn't want to be with me.  But its work and pay that agree with him, and if being alone for several weeks at a time are the price, its one he's happy to pay.  Not everyone has the luxury of choosing what they do for a living.  Hell, at best we choose between several imperfect options and pick the one that's simply the least worst. 

We've had some very long and occasionally very intense discussions about this of late.  We've spent time exploring our feelings about our relationship, about ourselves, about what we want out of our lives and where we want to be ten or twenty years down the road.  We've talked about what's hard about him being gone for me -- being lonely very much the primary issue, followed by being overwhelmed -- and about what's hard for him about about the current situation. 

Compromises in relationships don't mean each party gets what they want and then they hold hands and skip down the primrose path while rose blossoms fall from the sky and birds sing love songs.  Oh, no.  Compromise means sometimes I have to give up more than I think I want to and other times the short stick gets drawn by my husband.  Compromise means maybe my husband goes on the road, but at the same time we get someone to come help with the housework and the yard so that I at least get a break to do things that I want to while he's gone.  Compromise means maybe he doesn't take the six month job that would bring a much bigger payout, but takes fall and spring work and spends the winter at home.   And lets be honest, the days he's here and I get to go gallivanting off on my horse while he stays home and wrangles my offspring there is absolutely no doubt about who is getting the short stick.

So little in life is absolutely perfect.  I would say, if pressed, that SG is the perfect man for me.  I think he would probably say I'm the perfect woman for him.  I know there are times both of us will tell you how the other is driving us insane or irritating the crap out of us, but even then there are billion reasons its worth it to get to the other side of the trying days.

Remind me I wrote this come fall, will you?

Girl things

My left shoulder hurts.  It has for years, but not like it has lately.  Lately whenever I try to put my arm up over my head, do pushups, carry hay or saddle my horse it really really hurts.  I went to see the shoulder guy at the Orthopaedic clinic, and he gave me a shot of steroids but that only worked for a little while, so I was back there this morning.  He wants to rule out a small tear in the rotator cuff before he puts me in physical therapy, so they're scheduling an MRI. 

I'm so excited.

I've never had an MRI.  And what if I have to have surgery?  Another scar to show off!  Cool!

Yes, I'm that person.

I'm the person who sees snow falling and I might pretend to be annoyed, because that's apparently what you're supposed to feel when it snows.  Inside, though, I can't wait for the adventure of driving in it.  There might even be an accident!  I might end up stranded in the wilderness and have to hike through the mountains and eat my companions to survive!

I'm the person who gets a scrape or a cut and the only reason I go looking for a bandage is so I can walk by my husband and kids and say "LOOK!  I'M BLEEDING!"  If the cut isn't bleeding enough I'll probably squeeze it a little to see if I can get more out of it.

I'm the person who hates needles and gets tattoos.  "How many hours did that one take?"  "Four two hour appointments."  "Didn't it hurt"  "Oh, yeah, it hurt like hell.  It was awesome."  And when I'm under the needle and the artist asks if  I need a break and I say that I'm fine and they respond with "Wow, most people would have had to take at least a couple of breaks by now," I'm all "FUCK YEAH."

I'm the woman who will smack a volleyball into the face of the guy on the other side of the net with barely concealed glee, run over the shortstop on my way to second base and barrel through the guy trying to set a pick on me when I'm guarding the guy who's driving the baseline.

I put on my coveralls and a baseball cap, put my truck up on ramps and change my oil, change my filters, refill my washer fluid and try to see if that pesky leak is just a loose bolt that I can fix myself.  I look like a greasemonkey, and I could care less.

And this may sound crazy, but at the same time I like that I can put on a fancy dress and get my hair and makeup all just so and knock my husband's socks off with my awesome female self.  I very much like my femininity and all that it entails.

I'm not alone in this.  So many women I know are just like me, strong and soft.  Tough and tender.  My daughter is one of them.

Pink, bright hot pink, is her favorite color.  She loves My Little Pony and Dragons, stuffed kitty toys and light sabers.  She wants to be a princess and a ninja. She has beautiful hair to her waist and she prefers jeans to dresses.  She came to me on Christmas day to talk about how upset she was when some relatives and friends gave her brother "boy" toys and gave her "girl" things like body wash and perfume.  She was upset to think anyone might think that she was a "girly girl." 

There is so much to love about being a woman.  While its a sure bet that my childhood in the late 60's/early 70's subjected my psyche to a great deal of gender role absolutes, I enjoy wearing makeup and dressing in clothes meant to showcase what I think is attractive about myself.  I care about how my hair looks, and I struggle like many women about the impossible-to-walk line between having fingernails that are neat and pretty or fingernails that allow you to do things like cinch a saddle, throw hay bales and repair fencing. 

In 1983, the year I graduated high school, 95 percent of autobody repair workers were male.  There must have been something brewing in us and the classes of women that followed.   As of a decade ago, the number of women in that industry tripled -- a 369% increase.  Other typically male-dominated industries have seen similar jumps in female workers - firefighting, millwork, engineering and law enforcement, to name a few. ¹  I've been a lot of things in my work life, but the bulk of it I've spent in transportation. 

I might have grown up watching Charlie's Angels, but I think I still understood at a very deep level that those women were still playing to male sexuality and that they represented very little that was real.  Anyone with half a brain knows that television and movies tell you lots of lies about how people look and what they say and do.

So when Amazon Girl complained about some of her gifts, I told my daughter that people weren't trying to be unkind if they bought her "girly girl" presents.  I told her even though she might not be a perfume and flowers kind of young lady that it wasn't demeaning for people to think of her as feminine.  Besides, isn't a gift is more of a reflection of the giver than of the receiver?.  But I get it, as might any woman who in the hormone hell of early puberty was mistaken more than once for a boy.  But I want her to know - to believe - that she doesn't have to be one or the other.  Both aspects of her exist together and there's nothing wrong with that.  There's nothing wrong about being a woman who can both take care of herself and look good doing it.

The dividing line between two worlds that were once very separate has become thin and transparent.  We may be very different physically, we may in large part have critically different ways of thinking and organizing our lives, but in so many ways we have broken free of the gender roles that at one time were used to contain and limit us.  I think thats a good thing for all of us, men included.

So hey, do you want to arm wrestle?

 

^{1.  Bureau of Labor Statistics 2005 Current Population Survey}

 

Thanks Blogher for featuring this post on Blogher.com!

 

 

All its cracked up to be

Someday when I write my autobiography - or someday when I'm dead and someone has the notion to make a television sitcom about my life - the title should be "Six of one," except I'd be borrowing the title from Rita Mae Brown and it wouldn't be a fictional funny drama about one woman's coming out story.  It would be the story of the woman whose life story seems to consistently be pointing how life is this continual mishmash of good stuff and hard stuff - ALL THE TIME with the good stuff and the hard stuff.

I suppose that's my blog theme.  I wish I'd figured that out a few years ago.  Here all this time I thought I was writing about horses and special needs.  See what the wine does?

I hit the grocery store yesterday after dropping the kids off with their dad (hint:  if you take your kids halloween costume shopping do not finish the trip by dropping them off with their other parent.  Kids with new halloween costumes want to go home and put them on, not leave them with you and go to their other parent's house).  Since my Mom has been picking up the kids after school , she does their homework and feeds them dinner, which makes my grocery list rather sparse.  Unless there's someone to cook for, I don't cook.  What's the point?  Its cereal for breakfast and dinner is eggs or soup.  So I'm at the grocery store and putting my things on the moving belt at the checkstand and I realize that everyone in line behind me probably thinks I'm a middle-aged single woman with no kids and a house full of cats. I was half tempted to throw a True Confessions in with everything just to say "La la la, I don't care what you think!" but actually no one even has True Confessions on the shelf anymore and I at least just managed to establish the fact that I'm getting a bit long in the tooth.

Its a big silence to wrap my thoughts around, those first hours after the kids have gone.  With SG on the road everything is at the same time both more and less meaningful.  I put away the groceries, empty the dishwasher, wash the few dishes in the sink.  I have six more hours before I have to go to bed, and I can pick and choose how I want to spend the time.  I'm lonely and not lonely, all at the same time.  I do realize that with a house full of pushy cats and large, noisy dogs that I'm never really alone, but since I'm the only one who can actually talk, its a lot quieter.  Being alone with my thoughts is a really dicey proposition.  I'm one of those people who can go either way -- and sometimes its a matter of a few minutes between happy as a lark and sooooooo lonely and sad.

Is this just part of the human process, learning how to accept while still retaining the option to complain when we don't like what's happening?  There's a distinct line between "doormat" and "punch life in the face." 

Last night life gave me a 90 pound puppy who thinks she's a lap dog and a 22 year old horse who was on the verge of colicking, a chicken intent on sitting on eggs I do not wish her to hatch and a husband whose phone couldn't get a clear connection to give us a chance to connect for five damn minutes.  Life also gave me a nice bottle of wine, a friend on the other end of the phone to be a substitute shoulder, and a nice cold evening to make my dinner of soup ever so enjoyable.  So who am I to complain?

Six of one.  Half a dozen of the other.  It all balances out in the end.  Its all good.

Pick your cliche'.  Any one of 'em will do. 

 

Welcome to our world, fellas.

Have you ever listened to the BJ Shea morning show on Seattle's KISW? 

Me either.  I hate talk radio and morning programs.

Except we were stuck on 405 trying to get out of Bothell and back to the dry side of the state after seeing Bonnie Raitt at Chateau Ste. Michelle the night before, and my random station surfing landed me on this particular show right as the hosts were discussing a most interesting topic.

According to a recent study, women are now more interested in men for their looks than for their money.  Men?  They're more interested in a woman's intelligence than her looks. 

From the reactions of the shock jocks on the show, you'd think this was the worst news EVER to hit the airwaves.  At one point one of the guys was going on about how male movie stars are too good looking and it sets women up to have unrealistic expectations of men and how they look.  Dude, did you really just say that????

Imagine.  Men bemoaning a double standard created by movies and the media that sets an impossibly high standard of physical perfection for one gender.

One of the hosts, I'll assume it was BJ, went on to say how the over-50 women he and his wife knew that weren't married were simply unhappy and that women had better learn to be less picky or they might end up (horrors) alone and unmarried.   Spinsters.  GASP! 

I think he might have been taking the study results a little too seriously and reaching a fairly unlikely conclusion, but then again, it was talk radio, and I know ratings depend on the hosts' ability to get their audience lathered up about something, anything at all.  Even so, as deliciously entertaining as it was to hear men object to being treated like arm candy, I think BJ has a couple of good points. 

I disagree that one needs a husband (or wife) in order to be happy.  Being partnered is great for many people, but there truly are men and women who are quite content to live unattached.  Relationships are hard.  Relationships can help us accomplish our goals, but there are times they can hinder us as well.  When you hook your wagon to someone else's star, you take on each others' concerns, desires, frustrations, needs and wants.   Personally, I'm happy that SG is as hands-off as he is when it comes to giving me space.  As much as I love him, as much as he loves me, we both have things we enjoy doing alone or with our individual friends.   I know myself well enough to know that mostly I am one of those people who wants to be in a relationship.  Even so,  I'm grateful for the times I've been on my own, for learning not just to be okay with that, but to actually like it.  Finding your bliss is a more pure evolution when it isn't being influenced by a partner.   

When it comes to looks, though, my gut reaction is that BJ Shea is correct.  Yes, we are attracted to the people we're attracted to, but there is more to a person than their physical appearance.  If someone is just looking for the chemistry of a fling, I suppose limiting your criteria to simple appearance is fine, but when it comes to seeking relationship material, looks don't count for nearly as much.  Research indicates that the more time we spend with someone, the more likely we are to enter a relationship with them.  Chemistry grows when we find someone who matches our emotional needs, not just our physical desires.

BJ also contends that most men aren't really that shallow.  I agree, but I'll take that to another level and say that most people aren't really that shallow.  I think we all have certain types that we are attracted to, and certainly everyone can appreciate visual appearances, but I think the majority of people are looking for long-term commitment really do pay attention to a lot more than looks. 

Even so, people have the right to be where they are, even if that happens to be a place of depthless interaction and missed opportunity to appreciate others' finer qualities.  Its true that I can still work up a head of steam if I dwell too long in the false standards of beauty our film and print media create for our daughters (and apparently, now, our sons), but its also true that I'm less bothered by this phenomenon than I used to be.  I give less credence to arbitrary rules of beauty set by people whose opinions matter little to the reality of my life. 

Is it more important for one to look good or to be good?

Is it more important for one to be beautiful or to be interesting?

Is it more important for one to be flawless or to be self-reliant?

Its not that you couldn't be both, but if I had to pick one characteristic over another, I'll choose character over looks every single time. And the amazing thing about that, is that the more you know and appreciate a person, the more you are able to see the beauty of them.

Planning ahead

NOW when the number of my years

is all fulfilled, And I

From sedentary life shall rouse me up to die,

Bury me low and let me lie

Under the wide and starry sky.

Joying to live, I joyed to die.

Bury me low and let me lie.

                    ~Robert Louis Stevenson

 

On the days I'm actually in the mood to hear what's going on in the outside world (its an election seasion, mostly I'm not) I tend to listen to NPR's Northwest stations on the way to and from work.  Sometimes I have to throw in a CD or switch to a music station if its early morning and I'm having a hard time waking up or if its the way home and the soothing voice of Robert Seigel starts causing me to nod off at the wheel.  One of my doctors told me once that an attribute of unmedicated ADHD is  tendency to be extremely sleepy in the afternoons.  That was a BINGO! moment for me, as I had been having terrible trouble driving home from work on a daily basis.  Once I started medication it got much better, but I still have days when I'm a little overtired and driving home is a crapshoot.  But I digress.  Again.  I know, you're so surprised!

So a couple of weeks ago Diane Rehms did a segment on aging and preparing for end of life issues.  One of the guests kept talking about a program called Five Wishes.  Its basically a living will but with extras, like telling your survivors what you'd like them to say when people ask how you wanted to be remembered, picking songs or passages you'd like at your services or if you even want services, along with standard advance directives.  In most states, signed by the proper witnesses, it stands as a legal document. 

Its not easy to talk about death and dying, not for most people.  I don't mind it, but my parents have been very open for years about their wishes for end of life issues.  Mom keeps a folder with all the pertinent instructions and information on where all the necessary documents are located.   Other people aren't so comfortable about planning for or talking about what will happen if they get ill or very old or die suddenly.  I suppose most people don't often like to think about the fact that we're going to die someday.  Its the great unknown, isn't it?  It will happen to everyone, but we don't know how or when and we don't know for sure what happens after.  We might believe certain things about what happens when we die, but there's no clear information to be found about exactly how that goes down.  Is there a test?  A door greeter?  Is there really a Rainbow Bridge and will there be a Noah's Ark of all the animals I've ever loved waiting there for me?  Who's scooping all the poop up there in the meantime? 

I do know that I'm not afraid to die, per se, but I'm afraid of dying while my children are still young.  And because my children are still young and because I only recently remarried and I don't have a current will and my advance directive is about twenty years out of date, I really dug into what the folks on the radio were saying.  SG and I talked some about what we would want to happen after Ken died, but we never went ahead and put anything on paper.

When my brother died, it was completely unexpected.  I can't remember ever talking to him about what he wanted done when that time came, it just wasn't something we thought about.  We talked about what we knew our parents wanted, but it never occurred to either of us that we might not outlive our parents.  Because he'd never had those conversations with anyone and because he didn't have any advance directives, his death was exponentially more difficult, especially for my niece and nephews. They are young adults, and my niece was in the position of having to make a lot of decisions without really knowing for certain what her dad would have wanted.  She also had to deal with the pressure of making these decisions with a lot of different people telling her what they thought she ought to do.  Its a position I would never want to be in, and its a position I don't ever want to put anyone else in.

I kind of forgot about the Five Wishes site for several days, but at some point I had a chance to actually use my laptop at home and I checked out the information there.  I was planning to sit down with SG at the next opportunity to talk about the end of life planning and the need for us to outline our wishes and probably get wills made.  And then...

(This is where the hair on my arms starts to tingle a little bit)

...the doorbell rang.  The dogs freaked out, so it took a few seconds to shove them into their crates.  I opened the door and there was a very nice looking older blond lady standing on my stoop, holding a clipboard and carrying a casual looking briefcase.  She introduced herself and as it turns out, she is a sales representative for a local funeral home. 

COINCIDENCE?  Does this stuff ever happen to you?  Isn't it really spooky when it does?

It wasn't really a good time to have her come in and sit down with us (kids rampant, house messy, in the middle of things), but we made an appointment, and she came back a few days later.  We talked for a good hour or so, and she left us with some materials.  One of the materials is a pamphlet we keep even if we decide not to do any pre-planning, where we write down all of our important information, things we or our families would need to know if when we die.

I'm not planning on dying anytime soon, and neither is SG, of course.  Most of us aren't.  But this is a one way trip, boys and girls.  Making plans isn't something we are doing for ourselves.  Its something we are doing for each other and for our children and our families and friends.  When my spirit no longer lives in my body, what happens to my body won't matter to me.  It will matter, though, to the people I love.  And so we plan ahead, hoping that those plans won't be needed for many years to come, but having some peace about knowing that they are made just in case.

(No, SG, I'm NOT having your body shot into space on a rocket.  Stop asking me.)

photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/justintron/6245250507/

 

Finis.

Its better if you do it quickly

I've added another guest to the pasture this week, a mare that was injured after getting her hind legs torn up in barbed wire.  The people who were boarding her didn't even notice she was injured for several days, so she was in some need of doctoring and pain management.  Fortunately her injuries are not going to leave her permanently lame.

Part of doctoring her for the moment involves hosing down her legs until the scabs are softened and then scrubbing them off with a bristle brush so that I can get antibacterial agents into the wounds themselves.  The first time we treated her there were some pretty big scabs that had to come off.  Just scrubbing wasn't working and I had to grab them and pull them off.

Its one thing to grab your kid and pull off a bandage or a scab. You know they're going to yelp, you know its going to hurt, but you have to do it fast and all at once.  And your child is (hopefully) smaller than you are and so you're not taking your life in your hands.

Its another thing entirely to put yourself within striking distance of a 1200 pound animal and do something that you absolutely know is going to hurt like hell. 

I've been fortunate in my years not to have many injured horses that needed doctoring.  Only twice have I ever dealt with having a horse stitched up.  Both of those times I just held my horse and let the vet do their job, then made sure I kept the stitches clean until they could come out.  My friend Michelle, on the other hand, has dealt with a sizable herd for a long time and is no stranger to doctoring horses.  She says that its the uncanniest thing sometimes, even horses you don't think will be able to tolerate what you need to do will actually be very quiet and patient when you have to do something that hurts.  Perhaps they realize that they need your help to get better, and so they stand still and let you work.

For whatever reason, this lovely mare allowed me to grab hold and yank some fairly large scabs from her hocks without kicking, rearing, biting or bolting.  She was an angel, and has been every day since as I clean and reopen her scabs and treat them with Betadine and a gel spray. 

I guess she knows the truth - the only way to take off a scab is to stand still and yank it all right at once. 

When SG and I got married its not like I was unaware of the fact that his current career means he is gone for weeks at a time.  I'm still getting used to it, though.  I liked having him home, having two of us doing the heavy lifting together.  Enjoying each other's company, having him there to come home to at night, to kiss goodbye in the mornings.  With him gone life seems emptier, less meaningful.  Far too stressful.  The part of me that is logical acknowledges fully the need for paying work in a down economy.  My inner drama queen, however, is less inclined to care about logic.  She's far more concerned with her creature comforts.  She wants her man home, and NOW.  She puts up such a fuss and my inner Spockette has found herself drowned out by the brouhaha.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a murmur of further jobs on the road.  Maybe months worth.  My inner drama queen blew up like a unicorn full of glitter with a hand grenade shoved up its ass. Then she stuck her fingers in her ears.

Its been a merry spectacle, let me tell you.  Tears, emotionally charged text messages.  Hangups.  And really, nothing had been decided yet. 

Fortunately, my inner Spockette and I tag-teamed her, stuffed a handkerchief in her mouth, duct taped it in place and shuttled her off to the back of the attic for the time being.   When SG called, inner Spockette and I had it all under control.  He ripped the scab off - he will be going directly to North Carolina from Arizon with no time for a visit home, and he will be gone until the end of May.  Inner drama queen made a barely recognizable muffled yelp and hasn't been heard from for a couple of days.

If you try to pull the scab off a little bit at a time it takes forever.  Every little tug hurts just as bad as the one before it and the one after it.  All you have accomplished in the end is to make your pain last longer.    Even horses know this.  Hopefully my inner drama queen has figured it out as well.

 

Shaming and blaming

In respect to the issue that prompted my last post:

I directly approached someone who crossed a personal boundary and asked them to be more considerate in the future.

I received a response in which I was told that they would, but that I should "lighten up."

I'm sorry, did you hear me giggle?  I giggled.  And I politely responded:  "You don't get to set my boundaries for me.  Thank you for [doing what I asked.]

See, here's the thing.  I get to decide what I will put up with and what I won't.  I certainly can't force other people to respect my boundaries, nor would I want to.  But no one can decide for me what those boundaries are.  I'm old enough and wise enough to be able to determine what is acceptable to me and what is not.   Its not as if I'm going to punish someone for crossing lines, that's not my job.  There's no implicit threat of retaliation.  Its a simple request:  Please don't do that in the future because I find it unacceptable.  The offender is free to continue to offend or not; that's really irrelevant to me.  I've called them out on something and I'll continue to do so if its warranted.  By the same token, I'm perfectly happy to let bygones be bygones and treat others with the same respect I expect them to give to me.

I didn't used to be good at boundaries.  I was married for almost ten years to someone who pooh-poohed my boundaries around a couple of issues.  No matter how I tried to explain that I was really uncomfortable with these issues, all I got in response was "you're being silly."  "It's really not that bad."  "You don't understand."  I got shamed, blamed, and for a long time I tried to ignore what my heart and my mind told me for the sake of keeping peace.  It sucked ASS.  It hurt me.  It hurt our relationship. 

I know better now.

When my heart and my mind tell me something is not okay, I'm going to sit down with that feeling and examine it.  I'm either going to understand why situation x is not okay with me, or I'm going to resolve my feelings around it so that it doesn't cause me a terrible amount of angst.  I'm willing to consider that I might overreact to some things based on my personal experience and history, but I'm also fully capable of understanding and verbalizing what things are not acceptable to me. 

I frankly don't give two shits if you think I'm being silly or if you feel compelled to tell me to "lighten up."  You don't get to set my boundaries for me.  I'm old enough, wise enough and comfortable enough in my own skin to determine what passes for acceptable treatment of me and my family.  If you cross a line, don't waste your breath trying to shame me for your trespass.  I don't play that game and neither should you.

Limping down the aisle

So.

There's been a lot going on around here.  The stuff in my life and the stuff in my head have resisted my best attempts to write about them, and its frustrating.  Hopefully this post breaks the dam and I can wax eloquent more frequently about things that I often think really mean little to anyone but me - but you keep showing up to read, so what do I know?  I'm just an old broad.

Before SG hit the road in September we talked about our future together and the obvious answer was some planning towards wedding bells the following summer.  Then his start/end/start/end dates for the jobs he was going to do changed - more than once - and planning something became rather problematic.  Then he suggesting meeting in Vegas over the winter, which frankly when you're my age and haven't been qualified to wear a white wedding dress in quite some time seemed like a perfectly reasonable option.  Then the discussion of how to include loved ones came up, and then we started talking about a quick affair in between the September and November jobs.  That's where we were when he left, and I was keeping myself occupied in his absence by thinking of wedding plans, then calling him to see what he thought of this idea or that.

At some point in October, I honestly can't remember when, things got a little haywire.  Distance, weariness, job stress and myriad other things put downward pressure on us.  Someone might have gotten grumpy and uncommunicative.  Of course, that someone might not also have been feeling his best, working 12 hour days and living off restaurant and microwave food.  Seasonal depression, which is a guaranteed annual event, had its way with both of us.  Trying to plan became a chore, a point of contention, an added stress.  We wobbled.   Wedding plans were put on hold - not cancelled, but definitely not on the plate for this year -  we agreed to just table the discussion until he was home.  

We spent the rest of our daily conversations being loving and supportive and counting the days until we could be in the same zip code.

He got back last Tuesday.  We spent two days remembering the thousand things that are so amazing about being together - the ease of things, the chemistry, the deep discussions and the delight of companionship.  We cooked and ate and held hands and smelled each other's skin.  We touched and hugged and crawled under the covers, emerging for water and air now and again.  Thursday we took the lid off the marriage discussion.  We talked and talked about where we are and where we want to go and what we might want to do about that.  And then we drove down to the courthouse and got ourselves a marriage license. 

It will be a small, casual affair with a few family members and friends.  But even so, its amazing all the things that need to be done if you are doing more than eloping over the border to the Chapel of Love in Couer d'Alene.  Most of that is my mother at work, insisting there be flowers and hors d'ouvres and proper champagne glasses.  Hell, I just wanted to find a dress I liked.  I did, too -- and when the final choice fell between "bridal" and "hot" - trust me, I chose HOT.  When you're 45 years old and you find a dress that makes you look hot, you buy it. 

So I'm all set with a beautiful blue dress and a kickass pair of low black pumps.  But you know, me being me, things just can't go that smoothly.

With someone warming the other side of the bed, getting up to run has felt like less and less a priority the last week.  I managed to run on Wednesday and meant to do it on Friday and then on Sunday, but it just didn't happen.  So this morning, I doggedly set the alarm for black-as-night-thirty and dutifully put on my running shoes and vest and threw a leash on T-Bone when it blasted me out of a lovely dream.

We hadn't gone very far when I realized my selected route was much darker than I had anticipated.  I thought there were more street lights along that way, but clearly I have questionable accuracy when it comes to memory.  And about a half mile in as I was considering the need to turn around and find a more well-lit path, it happened.  I tripped over the concrete edge of a square manhole cover and fell, wrenching the holy living crap out of my left ankle in the process.  I managed to crawl up onto the curb and suppress my moans so as not to wake people in nearby houses.  T-Bone, bless his heart, sat as close to me as he could, then curled up on the ground, watching every car that passed with a concerned glare.  When I could talk without sobbing I called SG (always, always always take a phone with you when you run) and asked him to come get me.  Then I passed the time until he got there mentally beating myself up for being so damn stupid and possibly ruining my ability to even walk on our wedding day, much less finish my C25K training plans.

Fortunately its just a bad sprain.  My plan is to keep it elevated and iced until about 2:45PM on Wednesday so I can put a flesh-colored elastic brace on it under an opaque pair of panty hose and actually wear my new black pumps and walk on the damn thing.  I have every confidence that this plan will work and I will not hear a word to the contrary. 

We can have the sidebar discussion on just how much crutches suck later.  If I have to talk about it now I may just weep, and that's not in the cards today.  I refuse to be down about this.  It hurts and it looks like hell, but its a small radar blip in what is otherwise a joyous and bliss-filled week. 

So if you have positive thoughts, prayers or energy to send our way, we'll take all of them you can spare.