More thoughts on marriage and kids

I'm actually a little surprised that it's only been a few months since my last entry, as my general pattern seems to have been once a year posts as of late, but that's okay. Years ago I used to keep a written journal but once that filled up I stopped and have only been using this, so I suppose it's a good way to still get my thoughts out and have some record of them for the future. I have two topics for the day, which are relevant for this point in my life: marriage and kids.

I mentioned in my last entry that Mike and I got married in August.  Now in the time leading up to and after the wedding I've noticed two different schools of thought on marriage, one held by people our age and one by middle-aged people, essentially our parents' generation. Middle-aged people cannot accept that getting married has not changed our lives, because in truth it hasn't. Every time the topic comes up they insist there is some sort of weird change in thought processes that occurs, that it's "just different" than being unmarried. I attribute this to a change in the times... funny I know, don't people always say that? But I am serious, and what I mean is that when our parents were getting married it was not as common for people to live together for extended periods of time before marriage. I know it happened, but it seems now unless people have religious reasons they almost always live together prior. I'm sure we've all heard the fun statistics about people who live together before marriage having a higher divorce rate, but don't get me started on that one. I'll just briefly say that being a statistician I am wary of this because you need to understand what exactly is the cause and effect relationship and also you need to understand the differences between people who do and don't live together before marriage. It's likely that those who don't have religious or other moral reasons for it, and it is very possibly that for many of these people divorce is either not an option or is more frowned upon than for others. Correlation does not equal causation. In any case, back to my original point. Mike and I dated for over 7 years before getting married and had lived together for 4 of those. To me it's getting used to living together that is the bigger adjustment. When we got married we each put on an additional ring and life went on as it had. Our finances were already unofficially shared as well, adding to the "nothing has changed" feeling for us. I've talked to a bunch of younger couples and they agree with me. Generally their thoughts are this: marriage does not change anything, only kids do. My mother-in-law especially seems keen on sharing her marriage life lessons with me, but it cracks me up when she tells me that in time I'm going to learn something when in fact it's something I've known for years. What can you do?

But now my segway into kids. I mentioned in my last entry that I felt that I was not going to wake up one day and "feel the biological clock ticking" or whatever it is people have happen. I still think that's true. It's really a strange thing to me because up to a few months ago I was so sure I was going to have kids and that was that. Then suddenly I hit the point in life where it began to be possible (i.e. I got married) and I was like whoa, wait, do I actually want this? I wasn't sure if I'd ever really thought it through, I just always assumed it would happen. Except now I started to feel a bit averse to it. Did I want to change the way my life was now? Did I really feel like there was something missing in my life? Somehow I'd shifted to a point where I was convinced I did not want kids at all. Now a bit of back story: my mom REALLY wants me to have kids. She's been talking about it since Mike and I moved in together... yes, for four years! It kinda drove me nuts, sometimes to the point where I almost felt like I wanted to refuse to have them just to spite her. Mike's mom was always the opposite. Even though I never said anything about having kids myself whenever the topic came up around me she would get that look like I was about to give her a heart attack and tell me not to scare her like that. I think in a way it's lucky that they both felt so differently because I am often inclined to want to spite people when they try to force me into something, but here I would always be spiting one and going along with the other. So Mike and I had some chats on our thoughts on kids and still remained somewhat on the fence. Essentially we were thinking it was probably an experience we would enjoy but neither of us felt passionate about it. Then something happened to change my mind. One of my aunts (my mom's oldest sister) recently passed away due to a rare illness. She and my uncle had never had children so he was left alone in his 50's, something neither of them had ever expected. I think seeing him in this situation really hit it home for me that having kids really is a good thing because you have someone to love you and be there for you when you age and eventually die. Had my aunt and uncle had kids my uncle would still have a part of my aunt to cherish living on in their children, but now he has nothing but memories. Of course he still has family around but it's not the same. So in the end, I talked to Mike and we feel like the answer is yes, we will have children, just not right now. But here's where I think my mom will win the battle of the mothers, so to speak, because I would like to try maybe in 6 months to a year once Mike's job situation is settled. My mom is hoping we will have our first baby before I turn 30, and for reasons I really don't understand Mike's mom wants us to wait until we are at least 30. I just don't know why 3 more years is necessary... she keeps saying things about us getting settled in jobs, but it sure doesn't take that long. Who knows? In any case that is the general plan, but of course you never know when these things will actually happen. I guess that's all for now folks. TTFN

The past year

Oh it's been a busy one. It seems last time I stopped on here was about a year ago which is becoming my norm... I just don't need this thing the way I used to. Amazing how once upon a time I was on here every day.

The biggest news of the year, and there's a decent amount of it, is that Mike and I got married on August 12th. We started planning our wedding last October, almost exactly a year ago, by looking at venues. With the exception of one they were all country clubs because we wanted a place where we could hold the ceremony and reception and that would offer us nice outdoor pictures. After looking at probably 8 venues we decided we liked the last one, Jumping Brook, the best but did not actually book it until mid-January. We then started on the hunt for other things. I hired a woman for hair and makeup, we found an officiant and we picked out our wedding cake (it was included in the cost of the venue). All of this happened and yet no one knew about it because Mike had not officially proposed yet and he insisted we keep it a secret until that happened. It frustrated me a lot to hide everything from my family but come mid-March he gave me the ring on top of a mountain and we shared the details with our families at last. My family was not at all surprised when we told them we already had so much planned and put the date on their calendar. Mike's parents were another story though. They take a bit longer to get adjusted to things so when we told them we were engaged we did not immediately mention that we already had a venue and a date, which was good because while they were happy they were also quite surprised. Apparently they were expecting us to get engaged a bit later and get married the following year. However, as tends to be the case they took some time getting used to it and then were on the same page as us. A lot of the work already being done at that point ended up being a blessing in disguise because then we didn't have to take any other opinions into consideration. Even when the news was out we told everyone else nicely that we were planning this on our own and that was final. In the end it made everything so much easier because neither of us is incredibly picky. Unfortunately the planning of the bridal shower did not go as smoothly. My mom and bridesmaids had things all taken care of at first: I had told them about how many people I would like to have and they chose a nice venue and a date, of course not telling me what they were. Then came Mike's mom, who insisted we not have the small, intimate shower I wanted but rather invite every woman who was being invited to the wedding. What I wanted to be a 25 person invite list had quickly jumped to 60. Not good. In the end my mom chose to book a larger room in the same venue and a lot of the people didn't come so it worked out fine, but I was really annoyed at the hassle caused over the whole thing. Overall the only thing that went wrong for us in our planning was that we bought too few m&m's to fill the favors and had to go back into the city to purchase more, which was really not a big deal. We also had a minor incident, this time not our fault, when we discovered two days before the wedding that the guy we thought we hired as a photographer was not actually our photographer but the owner of the studio. After the initial confusion was sorted out it really wasn't a problem but did make for an interesting story. We also ended up not having a rehearsal, just the dinner, because there was no time to have it due to a mid-day Kosher wedding the day before ours. The dinner was a disappointment, not because of the food which was good, but because we were supposed to have our own room for it and instead were shoved into the middle of a loud crowded dining room. Not the atmosphere I expected.

The wedding was a lot of fun, although crazily enough the power was out in the town we got married in for several hours. Luckily it was one of the nicest days of the summer so our outdoor pictures and ceremony worked out wonderfully. Even the cocktail hour did not need light as there were a lot of windows and the room indoors was connected to an outdoor patio. When it was time for the reception the sun was going down but the venue had found a bunch of candles for the tables and the DJ had a light pointed at the sweetheart table so there was no problem seeing. It was a little hot due to lack of air conditioning but since the weather was so nice outside it was not as unbearable as it might have been. The lights came back on right when everyone was finishing their food, people got on the dance floor and the night continued. In the end it was a great night. It's also funny because when Mike and I went to book the venue we wanted Sunday, August 14th but it was the only day already booked so we chose Friday the 12th. Sunday ended up a horrible rainy day we were really glad someone else had taken that - I'll take a power outage over an all day storm any day. It was nice too because we had the weekend to relax and pack and then left for the honeymoon on Monday. I wrote a whole long (10 pages!) description of the honeymoon so I'm not going to put it on here but I will say we had 10 lovely nights in Hawaii and then got stuck in San Fransisco for two days on the way home due to a hurricane hitting the east coast. Not going to complain about an extended honeymoon ;)

I guess the only other thing to mention is that only one person from my dad's side of the family, one of his sisters, decided to come to the wedding. Several live in Australia so they are excused but the rest were going together to a beach house the following day and couldn't be bothered to come to the wedding. It might not have made me so mad but the wedding was before their vacation and it's a beach house they have been going to every year. I would never ask them to change their minds because it's not my place to tell people what to do with their lives but I was hurt that none of them felt it was necessary to attend. Half didn't even send me responses. Also, to add insult to injury none of them came to the shower and most didn't bother to rsvp to my mom. What really was the straw that broke the camel's back though is that they essentially acted like it had never happened. I was not looking for any of them to send us gifts - those who did attend, and even some who didn't, were more than generous. However, it would have been nice for someone to call and ask how things went or even send just a card. These people are my family after all, and I can't understand their complete indifference to the whole thing.

Anyway, on to other things of note. Mike finished law school in May and got a job as a clerk for a judge. It's a common thing now for newly graduated law students to clerk for a year with a judge - it gives them a good look into the process and is something big firms find valuable. He started that right when we got back from the honeymoon. While I think he does find a lot of it interesting he's fairly overworked and that stressed him out. Speaking of work I also started a new job in July. I actually hadn't planned to leave the consulting company I worked for but in May I was contacted by a headhunter about a job and decided to talk to him. I ended up doing well in the phone interviews, went in for an in-person interview and was offered the job the next day. At this point it was mid-June, right around when my now-former company was determining promotions. I did end up getting promoted but chose to leave anyway, shocking a lot of people. I hadn't been unhappy there so no one saw it coming... to be fair neither did I. In any case my new job is not bad - they pay well, the people are nice and seem intelligent and the hours are good. My only complaint is that I don't have enough to do, and really there are much worse things in life.

I think that's it for updates on my life and Mike's. As for others, my parents moved into a 55+ community right around last Christmas and Sarah and Bill are living in an apartment with their very large rabbit. Jenn is still teaching - she and Kendall broke up shortly after the wedding because they felt they weren't right for each other. They're still living together and may continue to do so until their lease runs out in February, but Jenn is looking to buy a house and may move out earlier if that works out. Leah and Whit have been busy - Whit went to grad school for a master's in education and has begun teaching, and Leah should be finishing her master's in the spring. They are also thinking about trying for a baby soon since Leah has wanted one for some time and they now feel that their lives are in the right place to do so.

That brings me to another interesting topic: Mike's and my thoughts on children. It's a natural thing to think about at this point but the thoughts are not so simple. The thing is, we realized during wedding planning that we are not as emotional about things as other people. We would have people ask us if we were nervous or excited about the wedding and as weird as it felt we both would say no. We agreed that it wasn't the right question to ask: had someone asked if we were happy about it of course we would say yes, but nervous or excited did not really fit. For some reason before planning the wedding I had always thought it would be as fun for me as it seemed to be for others, but I should have known myself better and realized that I just don't care as much as others do. Even buying a dress I thought would be more fun - it's not that it wasn't fun but I knew I wasn't going to have one of those crying moments when I realized I had found my dress. I put one on, liked it, knew everyone else liked it, and decided to buy it. That was all. So how all this has to do with children is that when I was talking to Mike we both feel that we are not just going to wake up one day and feel the time is right to have kids. Leah obviously got to that point awhile ago, as she has really wanted a baby for a long time. We realized that since this is unlikely to happen we are probably just going to have to figure out when seems to logically be the right time to have them and start trying. What makes things even more complicated is sometimes I don't want to do it at all. The thing is though, I used to. I really believe it's because I find other people's kids to be obnoxious and seeing them turns me off to having kids. I keep reminding myself that if I don't raise my kids to be as horrible as so many others' then I should be able to avoid this, but it's tough to see past when everywhere I go kids drive me nuts. I know it's a recent trend too because when I was younger I used to really enjoy being around kids and was a babysitter for years. It's closely connected to why I chose not to be a teacher: parent today do not want to be parents, they want the teacher to do it, and they are raising lazy kids who think they deserve everything without having to work for it and have no accountability for their actions. So anyway that was pretty crazy but there are my thoughts on kids. Mike's friend Rob's wife Robin is pregnant and due in February so it will be interesting to see someone we know so well have a baby. It's still a bit mind-boggling to me that we've gotten to the age where marriage and children are the norm.

Well I've run out of topics but that was a long entry so that's okay. Guess I'll sign off for now... see you next year xanga. TTFN

Life lessons and my greatest regret

So it's somehow been over a year since I was on here... it's hard to keep track of the time these days. I've been feeling strangely nostalgic and introspective lately, which I guess is what led me back here again. I'm not sure what did it really, but I've been wishing that I could relive some of my younger days. Not all of them, mind you, because quite a few of them sucked and were spent wishing I was older, but there were definitely good times mixed in there. It's interesting because some of my reflections relate to one of my entries from the end of college where I wondered why all my friends kept talking about wanting to live it up before we graduated. At the time I thought to myself that it made no sense, and truth be told I still do now. For awhile I was stuck believing that they were right though, thinking to myself that I hadn't appreciated my time back then. But really when I was honest with myself I know I did appreciate it, I did enjoy it, and while looking back on it does make me nostalgic I do believe that in the end people misinterpret nostalgia and often go on falsely believing that they just didn't live it up enough at the time. I stand by what I said in that entry: if you have already decided while still in college that life afterward is going to suck than no amount of partying will ever really be enough in the end.

Moving on from that thought, I've been thinking a lot in the past few days about what I truly believe is the greatest regret of my life. Again, not really sure what provoked this, but I feel compelled to talk about it on here. It was in eighth grade, and I was head over heels for a guy I'll call W. A guy I'll call S liked me, but I didn't feel the same way about him (and no, S and W are not the first letters of their first names). S flirted with me frequently and made several not so subtle suggestions that something should happen between us. He was a nice guy, and truthfully if I hadn't been so in love with his best friend (yes, S and W were friends) I would probably have given him a chance. But at that point I had complete tunnel vision, and it was focused solely on W, who I was sure would never be interested in me. He was popular, I wasn't. That about sums it up. I was a skinny, dorky girl who wore glasses and hung out with the misfit group, containing a combination of girls with learning disabilities, limited English skills or just girls who didn't seem to fit anywhere else. Don't get me wrong, I really liked my friends, but I longed to be less invisible to the rest of the world, and especially to W. The one thing I had going for me was that I was pretty smart, and if people noticed me for nothing else they did notice that. W was also smart, so some of the only brief conversations I had with him were joking arguments about who was going to have the top grade in science class when the teacher gave out awards for the top 3 students each marking period (he tried but was never able to beat me). Besides that I assumed I was barely on his radar... perhaps I was wrong.

One day a girl who I knew well enough from having several classes together came up to me and asked me if I was going out with W. Caught off guard and confused, I truthfully told her that I was not. She then proceeded to tell me that she'd heard he thought I was really hot and she wanted to know if I was interested in him. Being 14 years old and rather socially awkward, the idea that anyone should find out that I liked W did not fly, and I immediately told her that I did not like him. She left me alone after that, and slowly the horror of what I'd done sunk in... it's continued to sink in for the past 11 years. I knew the girl well enough to be fairly sure that she was likely asking on his behalf, as she was a very nice person who would not have just asked me in order to tell other people and laugh about it. It was my insecurity that did me in, but as much as I sometimes still beat myself up about it I know that the lesson I learned from this was one that I had to learn by experience. As I got older I did ask out guys I liked, and even though they all rejected me I came to understand that other people really were not nearly as concerned about the things I did or the guys I liked as I'd always imagined they were. I don't know that someone could have just told me this and convinced me into it, I think I had to see it for myself. I think that's one of the hardest things about growing up, learning how to take chances on things and recognizing that what other people think does not matter nearly as much as you often believe it does. I learned it the hard way, but truthfully I think we all do to some extent. The reality however is that logically I can't wish to change my past because it would inevitably alter my present as well. I've been in a relationship for the past 6 1/2 years with the guy I know I'm going to marry, and I definitely wouldn't want to change that. It's just hard in the end to live with the regret I feel over the chance I lost out on all those years ago. I guess that's all for now folks, so I will leave you with some lyrics from a song that I learned to love at the same time as W, which is still my favorite song to this day.

Baby's black balloon makes her fly
I almost fell into that hole in your life
And you're not thinking about tomorrow
'Cause you were the same as me
But on your knees

A thousand other boys could never reach you
How could I have been the one
I saw the world spin beneath you
And scatter like ice from the spoon
That was your womb

Coming down the world turned over
And angels fall without you there
I go on as you get colder
Or are you someone's prayer...

Oh the places I've been...

Musings on my life and where it will take me