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Posts Tagged ‘relationships’

Dear Brian,
Let’s be honest, we have a rocking physical relationship. I’m pretty sure the word no has only been uttered once or twice. It isn’t wild and kinky (ok, it isn’t kinky to the point it would scare others) but it’s not mundane and boring.
With that in mind, I feel confident I can bring this up to you and you’ll be game. I want to change things up for us. I really would like to try something new.
For right now, you won’t see me naked. Oh that doesn’t mean I won’t get naked. You just won’t be seeing it. See, it’s not a surprise that this horrendous weight gain has me feeling a whole lot more than self conscious about my body. Hell, I don’t even look at myself in the mirror naked.
So, until I lose some of this weight, we’re going to have to meet in the middle. The middle of the bed, buried under the covers, lights off. I’m willing to be naked, I’m just not willing to let you see it. Not right now.
I know, you have never once complained and compared to where I was 3 years ago, this is a huge improvement that you are glad to see. Me? Not so much. I appreciate that you try to make me feel better about it, but I can’t feel good about it. I appreciate that you understand what this is doing to me and you’re not ripping on me about it.
But for now, until I can get the South 40 to look less like an actual South 40, it’s going to have to be lights off for us. I hope you understand.

The other night during the girls’ avoiding going to bed chit/chat the sentance was uttered, “[certain family member who shall remain nameless] told us we are oops babies.”

Oops Babies.

This is not the first time this [family memeber who shall remain nameless] has over stepped her their bounds.  It is not the first time they have opened their mouth and told my kids things they had no business telling my kids.  All because they felt my kids should know and didn’t agree with my parenting decisions.

But Oops Babies? Seriously?

I don’t care who you are, you don’t ever tell a child they are an Oops baby.  I know that it was said as a derogatory remark against me and/or their father (mostly me).  I mean, not every baby out there is planned for or at the right time.  And does it matter if we planned for them at that exact time? They are loved and wanted.

I had to explain to them that the comment wasn’t meant to hurt them, but was made in the hopes it would get back to me and hurt me.  (It pissed me off).  I had to explain to the girls that plans aren’t always written in stone.  The planning doesn’t matter, it’s the journey and the love and caring they’ve had along the way.

When it was said, my first instinct, as a mother, was to protect my girls and in protecting them, I wanted to attack the source of the stupidity that had put that hurtful idea in their heads.  I wanted to call [family member who shall remain nameless, unless you want to name her meddling, coniving hateful *ahem*] and give her them a piece of my mind.

Then I wanted to call a different familymember who is removed from the situation and get their take on it.

But I didn’t.  I walked away from it.  The remark was said in the hopes it would piss me off and stir up a whole lot of drama.  If I reacted, then it would be playing into her their hands. I didn’t need to make a big scene out of this. I needed to just blow it off and be the bigger person.

And I need to remind the girls that what [family member who shall remain nameless, but not absent from their life] said it doesn’t make it true and it doesn’t change what truly matters.

Planned or not, they are loved.

Wouldn’t it be nice if at birth we were all given a manual, a how to manual, and when we came up against something we weren’t sure how to handle, we could just look it up in the manual.

Like how exactly do you deal with moving out of your boyfriend’s house because you found your own?  I mean, that was the deal. I move in here until I could find a place I could afford.  I found my new house this week.  I’ve got a week to 10 days before it’s ready for me to move in.  So where is the chapter in that book that tells me how to transition from living with him to living alone?  Where’s the chapter that tells me he will still love me even when I’m not sleeping next to him every night?  Where to find the answers to questions such as “What’s for dinner? Where are my jeans? Can you help me with my homework?” when someone else has answered those questions for 2 months?  Where do I find the reasuring words “It’s all going to be ok. Nothing’s going to change?”

Dear B,

Let’s be honest, yesterday sucked.  Big hairy sweaty balls sucked. Does it matter who said what to who?  Does it matter that my feelings were hurt and I gave you the cold shoulder all day?  Does it matter that the medicine the doctor gave me to help me sleep helps me sleep but turns me into a blubbering bitch who can’t stop crying.  Not so much. None of that matters really.  They are just minor details in the mess that we made of yesterday.

Last night I slept in the bedroom down the hall.  I thought one night apart might give us both a little space.  The offer was enough to bring down the walls we both had been holding up all day.  At the end of the day there was still I love you’s from both of us.

Both of us got our feelings hurt. Both of did the hurting. Neither of us was very nice, or forgiving of the other.  I just want to take a  minute to say I am sorry I was a cold shouldered, short tempered, weaping bitch to you yesterday. I hope that you can see behind all the ick from yesterday, and see the heart that beats beneath.  The heart that loves you.

All my love for the rest of my life,

Becky

She stood at the back of the church, in her white dress.  It was far from the Cinderella wedding every girl dreams of, and much smaller than the big wedding his parents always wanted for him.  It seemed like an over done adult version of ‘dress up’.  None of it seemed real. It seemed appropriate because her family thought him less than Prince Charming and his family thought she trapped him.

The dress was home made, and did a decent job hiding the swell of her belly made by the baby growing inside.  There was the reason for the wedding.  The second blue line.  She had a feeling, a suspicion at the back of her mind for days, but didn’t want to know.  She didn’t want to be pregnant but was afraid she was.  Not knowing for sure let her live in denial.  No matter what she wanted, she had to know.

She remembered the day she bought the test, and took it home.  Afraid to use it, afraid not to.  Praying the whole time, please don’t let me be pregnant.  Three minutes later, there was the second blue line.  If anyone had been home they would have heard her scream “NNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”, instead it echoed through the empty house.

He would be happy, she knew.  He wanted another baby.  She felt nothing but trapped.  This would mean a wedding.  They had made promises they would be married before the next baby came.  She made that promise fully intending there be no other babies.  She had been wrong.

Here she stood today, in her home made white wedding gown, prepared to walk down the isle and she was far from the blushing bride.  She was pregnant and everyone knew.  It was hot, and she was miserable.  Her hair wasn’t as pretty as it had been the day before.  In her mind and her heart, nothing was right.  She stood there looking at him knowing she should love him, she should be happy, trying hard to find both emotions.  Falling short on both accounts.

She had long since come to accept the pregnancy and now loved the baby growing just below her heart.  She could find love in her heart for her baby if not always for her husband.  That word still felt strange and awkward on her tongue.  Would she ever get used to it?  Would it ever feel right or normal or real?

The music started for her to walk down the isle.  No father to give her away, her son walked with her instead.  She had never been more proud of him or loved him more than in that moment.  It was grown up and sweet gesture, just like him.  As she walked towards her husband, she pushed all doubts and resignations from her mind.  This was supposed to be the happiest day of her life.  It was her wedding day.  Maybe the happiness would come later.   She prayed it would.

I really should stop watching romantic comedies while B is at work.  I love movies.  Batman? Not so much.  Although if there’s one on he will get just as involved in it as the rest of us.

They have great lines like this

Will Hayes: Just shut up! Here – I wanna marry you because you’re the first person I wanna look at when I wake up in the morning, and the only one I wanna kiss goodnight. Because the first time that I saw these hands, I couldn’t imagine not being able to hold them. But mainly, when you love someone as much as I love you, getting married is the only thing left to do. So, will you, um, marry me?
April: Definitely. Maybe.

or this

Emily ‘Jacks’ Jackson: That’s just it. I don’t know that Paolo’s the love of my life, but I’ve decided to give him the chance to be. Maybe true love is a decision. You know, a decision to take a chance with somebody. To give to somebody. Without worrying wether they’ll give anything back. Or if they’re gonna hurt you, or if they really are the one. Maybe love isn’t something that happens to you. Maybe it’s something you have to choose.

Know why they have great lines like those?  Because they have great writers who have weeks or months to come up with the perfect words for any situation.  Nobody ever has the perfect words, the most perfectly romantic words for any situation.  Nobody in my life anyway.  Know why?

It’s life.  And that’s the problem with life. It’s nothing like the movies.

I get caught up in the movies and want to say all those things to B, or have him say them to me. (ok, on Saturdays, text them to me from work)  It just never happens. He doesn’t play along.  Know why?

It’s life. And that’s the problem with life. It’s nothing like the movies.

We don’t have screen writers writing the dialog of our life.  We don’t have lighting crews, directors and retakes to get it perfect.  We don’t have wardrobe and hair and make up people.  We have each other.   He’s seen me without makeup.  I’ve seen him hot and sweaty.  He still loves me anyway, and he’s still the morning I want to wake up to every day.

Life is nothing like the movies.

Sometimes it’s better.

There comes a time when you have to decide.  You’ve waited and nothing changes.  You think, One more day. And a day becomes a week.  The weeks become a month.  Before you know it, it’s been a year.  You wake up one morning and wonder Have I missed my last chance at happiness?  Is it too late?  So, you think Nothing is going to change, and you decide you’re going to go find happiness somewhere else before it’s too late.

Then the thought crosses your mind.  What if today was the day.   What if today is the day everything was to change?  What if you decided to leave a moment too soon?  So you stay, just in case, just one more day.

And a day becomes a week.

And the weeks become a month.

And before you know it, it’s been another year.

The day comes when you wonder Have I missed my chance?  Am I too late?

Or if I leave, will I miss my chance?

It’s a vicious cycle.  at what point do you decide that the risk is worth all that is lost, or could be lost? You learn that today is the day, because tomorrow is too uncertain for plans.  It may never come.

Waiting another day, will soon become weeks, or months or years.

When happiness is all you ever wanted.

I put out made the comment on Facebook this week, “I need something to blog about.  I can only ramble about my medication adventure for so long before people get bored and leave in droves.”

Melissa chimed in “Write about me!”  Of course the full message was “Write about me!  Not!”  but yanno, I ignore the NOT at the end because that’s just the way I roll.

Mel is married to my cousin Brad.  I met her face to face 3 years ago, even though we had become friends on line long before then.  I’m not going to detail her whole life, but I will say this.  She is married to an awesome guy (yeah, sort of biased) who probably doesn’t deserve her.  She is the mother of three of the coolest kids I know (aside from my own), she is a teacher most of the time, and in what little spare time she has left, she is a rockin photographer who is becoming more well known every day.  Her business is growing faster than her kids (and that’s saying something) with good reason.

She is responsible for putting the canera in my hands for the first time, and from that point on I was hooked. Although I can only aspired to be half as talented as she is.

She has a way of connecting with the people in front of her camera and finding magic where others can’t.  She brings out the twinkle in an eye, the impish grin in a otherwise stubborn 3 year old.  She can capture the stunning beauty of a soon to be mom and the tender moment between new born and older sister. She sees the dynamics in a family, seeing them as one single unit without losing the idividuality of every single person.

Behind her camera, and through her eyes, she takes us places we wouldn’t see otherwise.  She opens the world of a child to us who have left that world behind long ago.  In a simple click of the shutter she can capture the hope, the joy, the love a new bride feels as she marries her prince charming.  She finds in the groom the love he feels for his bride.

She finds and captures the moments that most of us wouldn’t notice or would think unimportant but at the end of the day, those moments will be memories that are forever captured with the click of a shutter.  Years from now, after the baby is grown, the honeymoon is over, when the hustle and bustle of every day life has worn away the joys and wonder of beginnings, she can take us back once again to the days when life was brand new.

Thanks Melissa for opening doors we would never think to open, for seeing things we wouldn’t think twice about.  For capturing forever, not just the moment but the memory and the feelings of that day.  Thanks Melissa for making ordinary life, extrodinary, forever.

Once upon a time in a conversation with my sister a long time ago, she told me “The cool thing is, there is nothing you can do to make him trust you.  It is a choice he makes. Either he does or he doesn’t.  You can not make that choice for him.”

And here I sit in the same boat albeit the other end.  There is nothing he can do to make me trust him.  It’s a choice I make. Either I choose to trust him, and believe him and relax, or I choose to not trust him, to question him, and doubt everything he says and does.

It’s not that he hasn’t give me reason to question and doubt but still, just like love is a choice we make, so is trust.  He promised me I was The One.  He swears to me “I’m not going anywhere”.  He tells me I heart you.  He loves me, and I know that, and yet sometimes I get that fear in the pit of my stomach.

I know that the feeling is mine and mine alone.  There is nothing he has done to make me feel that way.  I choose to feel that way, or I can choose to not feel that way.

And I am making that choice.  When I feel that fear in my gut, I stop, and remind myself “Trust him.  Believe him.”

Will there come a day when I don’t have to stop myself?  Will there come a day when I don’t question, doubt, when those thoughts never cross my mind?

Britt once told me, “When it’s the right person at the right time you will never in a million years become that girl“  And I’m not that girl.  I don’t check phone bills. I don’t send a gazillion text messages checking on him.  I don’t call/text/IM/stalk him every minute of every day.

But there are times I sit quietly with doubts that I know are my own.

And I hate to admit that there is any doubt at all.  I feel that there shouldn’t be, and there really shouldn’t be.  But there is.  Not without reason, but again it’s a choice.

And today? I choose to believe him. I choose to ignore the doubts. I choose to trust him and us and know that we’re fine.  I choose to remember the text message he sent. Simply “XOXOXOXOX Heart you ”

And know that he does.

Life with Batman right now is good, very, very good.  Yet I am afraid to write about it here.  I can hear the chorus of  “Here we go again” from everyone out there.  Climb the highs, while waiting for the fall.

Even me.

I can’t forget what he did.  I lay beside him some nights and wonder why.  I wonder ‘did she lay here too?”  I wonder “If he said ‘I realized we just aren’t meant to be together’ why am I here now?”  I wonder is this time different?  I wonder will he ever love me?

And so, much like Poppy, I have questions I’m afraid to ask. Maybe I’m not so afraid to ask, as I’m afraid of what the answers would be.  Maybe I’m afraid that the answers are not something I could live with.  And instead of getting the answers, knowing the truth, and walking away if I can’t live with them, I stay silent, wondering.  But I stay.  Silent.

It isn’t just the questions I won’t ask, because of the answers I don’t want to hear. It’s also the things not said, by him and by me.  The things I don’t say, are not things I can’t say.  I have said them, a lot.  It’s the silence that follows or worse the heart crushing “I know” I can’t stand.  So, instead of shouting it from the mountain tops, telling the entire world, I whisper it into his back as he sleeps beside me.  I tell him after every phone call, after he hangs up.  Making love to him, my head screams “Just say it!  Just once.  Please” begging to hear the words, knowing I won’t. Not now.

What does tomorrow bring?  I don’t know.  Will he be here tomorrow?  Next week? Next month?  He says he will.  Will my doubts still linger?  Possibly, but I won’t let them stand in the way of enjoying every minute of every day I have with him.