Tarraguña's Blog

According to OB and midwives it is common to start feeling your baby kick any time between 18 and 25 weeks or so. They say it feels like fluttering or like butterflies. After having nausea for the first 3 months, I was looking forward to feeling something positive from the baby.

On Friday October 23rd after my shower I was sure I felt the baby kick. I had been feeling some fluttering during the week but it had been so light that I had confused it with gas. These kicks were big. I am guessing the baby’s position was just perfect so that I could feel the kicks just under my belly button. I called my husband to come over quickly. He assumed I was going to tell him to feel how big my uterus had gotten. I placed his hand over my abdomen just below my belly button. The baby kicked him and his eyes got really big.

It is absolutely amazing to feel your baby kick for the first time. Words can not describe how neat it is.

Since that last Friday the kicking has subsided some. I can still feel the baby move but it is no longer possible to feel the kicks just by putting a hand on the abdomen. I know soon the baby will be bigger and bigger and kicking me in the ribs and waking me up at night. Hopefully I will still be able to enjoy feeling the baby in the moment.

Ultrasound of our baby at 14 weeks

The Dream

I had the strangest dream last night. All of my dreams that I remember have a surreal strange really weird feeling about them, yet in the dream I seem to know what is going on. So last night I dreamed that we, and by we I mean me and a bunch of people that I know randomly and other I didn’t recognize, all jumped into a golf cart to travel to school.

On the way to school while in the golf cart we all had the feeling we were evading something or someone. The driver took a wrong turn and we found ourself turning around in a large parking lot. The last point of our three point turn found us facing what we were evading. She appeared to be a real estate agent yet we were all afraid of her. She came walking towards us and we all collectively gasped. She reached the girl sitting in front of me and straightened out her collar and then stated that we were all set.

Next we were at school. So then I am walking around meeting people and exploring. It all feels like the first day of school in a totally new school and I have no idea what is going or where I am supposed to be. Then there is an all school meeting where the principal is speaking to everyone in the school. I feel as if I am starting to think it is all really weird. I am thinking to myself as to why I need to be in school as I have already graduated with a Bachelor’s degree. This school feels like junior high or high school. I am going over this question in my head while trying to figure out what is going and then all of a sudden I am with my mom’s side of the family and we are deciding how much pizza to order like we always do when we get together and decide to order pizza.

And then I woke up.

Dreams and Pregnancy

I have read that pregnant women have strange dreams and I have read that pregnant woman remember more of their dreams because their REM sleep is interrupted as they have to get up and pee or switch positions frequently during the night. I can attest to all of this. Since I have gotten pregnant I have had the strangest dreams.

What Does It All Mean

I actually understand this particular dream. It is probably the only one that I have been able to decipher lately. We recently moved to a totally new city in a totally new state with a totally new climate and it has not been going as smoothly as we thought. We sort of feel like we are starting all over at the beginning. Thus in the dream I was back in grade school even though I graduated form college.

I always think that the dreamer is the best person to analyze their own dream as they know about their own life and fears and dreams. I of course was able to find plenty of opinions about dreams on the internet.

Carl Gustav Jung
Dream Semantics
Revelation of Dreams

Wow, where do I even begin…. It has been such a complex, chaotic whirlwind these last couple of weeks. Essentially we moved us, all our stuff and our fish a 20 hour drive away from where we were living before, we left our jobs and are in the process of starting new ones and somehow managed to help out some friends. I have figured the best way to write about it is with an outline form with some details and some pictures.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009 was my last day at my previous employer. After arriving home I spent most of the night putting things in boxes and then later looking for things. My husband spent a lot of time shampooing the carpet. Luckily we were able to have dinner with Sarah, Nick, Erin and Deb.

Thursday, September 17, 2009 my husband drove to a friends house to do some final work on our Toyota pickup truck and I spent the entire day putting everything left in boxes and throwing stuff out. My husband returned with the Truck only to adjust the height and have the bolt break. AHHH. Imagine a truck slanted towards the drivers side. It was obvious and not drivable for 20 hours. Go ahead and feel free to freak out because we were at the time. It was too late to call any place about a replacement part so my husband spent most of the night surfing the internet looking for the necesary part.

Friday, September 18, 2009 my husband was able to locate the part through Toyota parts department and they can send it to the store by tomorrow. Fingers are crossed. The husband’s mother arrived late last night. She wants my husband to load her trailor as she is taking a load of her stuff back to Tucson with her leaving Sunday morning. We tried to advise her that it would be better if she planned her trip earlier so we would have more time or just time to help her as opposed to 2 days before we were planning on moving out of our apartment. You know how parents can be, they don’t always listen. When my husband suggested that she also have her other son and his 2 sons help her load her trailor she got all mad and upset. Apparently she never listened to us the entire last 3 years when we have said we are doing this move nor was she listening the entire summer when we told her we were moving out of our apartment on Sept. 14 and would be extrememly busy around this date. No she interpreted it as we didn’t love or want to help her. Parents can be very self absorbed and unwilling to admit that their children have been adults with their own lives. Odd since that is what they pushed us to be, all responsile and stuff. Unfair as when we were little they were too busy working all of the time and we too busy or too tired to play with us when we wanted them to. I hope to not suffer the same with my own kids. That was the biggest thing today, we had an OB appointment and we were able to see our little baby on a ultrasound. He/She is really little as it is about 14 weeks. It was really neat. The doctors said the baby kept moving around a lot so he/she is definatly our kid, especially my husband’s. After the appointment my husband spent the day loading his mother’s truck full of her stuff so she can drive it to Tucson. I spent the day making sure everything was put away in boxes and started cleaning the apartment.

Saturday, September 19, 2009 we woke up early and picked up our part for the Toyota pickup truck from the Toyota parts department. On the way back to our apartment we stopped by U-haul and picked up our trailer. This left us just enough time to get home, stow the trailer in our garage and then travel south to Greenwood, Indiana. Our friend Kara threw us a small baby shower at Olive Garden. It was great to see some of our friends one last time. We returned back to our apartment at around 2pm. The husband proceeded to fix the truck and I proceeded to clean the apartment. After the truck was fixed we started loading the trailer with our boxes. We also weighed every box we put in the truck so as to have an idea of how much weight would be pulling. We wanted to keep it as light as possible. We did get almost all of it in there. We had to leave a few things behind like the 30 pound paper shredder that we imagined we could easily replace. I don’t even remember what we ate for dinner but we finally finished. It was 11:30 at night and we were traveling north on I-65 to sleep at my parents house as we had packed our bed in the trailer. What do you know there is an accident and we were stuck there at a standstill for about a half hour. We finally made it to my parents house and fell asleep in about 5 minutes.

Part 2 of the moving store will be posted in the next few days.

The move is complete. We are set up in our new apartment. I am working on a very long post documenting the long eventful process. This is why it has been some time since my last post. Way too much chaos interfered. Now my husband and I are in the process of finding jobs. It should be easy as my husband is an RN but it would be a lot easier for him if he had the specific experience that they want. Two years ago, if he had graduated then, he would have has his pick of any job he wanted and he would have been offered at least and 8,000 $ sign on bonus. All talk of the economy is recession and it appears every place is hesitant to start hiring. It is frustrating to be starting our careers in a crappy economy.

As I am about 4 months pregnant, I am just looking for temporary options and signing up with temporary agencies. I have really only got about 4 months to work until I will have to stop and give birth. We don’t need that money to survive at all but it would be nice to add even more to our emergency fund/ savings accounts.

Today after spending the morning interviewing with a temporary agency and the bulk of the afternoon sending out resumes and filling out applications online, I was feeling discouraged and disappointed. I was also feeling a lot of stress and anxiety. It was like my body was buzzing and I could do nothing to relax. At 3 pm I decided I had made all of the progress that I could that day and my husband and I drove to the beach. We pulled our fins, masks and snorkels out of the truck and as we walked up to water’s edge we noticed some reefs. We had been to this beach a few times before but we had not snorkeled there. It was amazing.

After escaping under the ocean and playing in the surf, my husband and I felt so much better. It is amazing how physical activity and exertion cure that over stressed feeling.

Introspect

I took a little time to do some introspective work and that is the main reason I took the writing sabbatical. May and June also happened to be very busy times with all of the various extended family. Too much happened to actually write it all out and then write about it. I was like a different person then. The main important things were:

Highlights of May and June 2009

• Husband’s graduation, Bachelor of Science in Nursing
• Husband’s passing of the State Boards making him an R.N.
• Putting hitch on vehicle to prepare for moving of belongings in November
• We are not preventing pregnancy
• I stopped drinking caffeine about 2 weeks ago
• enjoying the pregnancy/ labor research
• really seriously looking into natural childbirth, birthing centers and home births

Future Writings

I also have decided to become very honest and candid with my future writings. The filter is being surgically removed.

Right this minute

So currently my husband and I are both working full time and hoarding the money we make so that we can pay his student loan off as soon as possible. This would put us in a position of zero debt. ZERO DEBT, NONE ON THE CARS, CREDIT CARDS, NOR STUDENT LOANS. Then I suppose we will have our kids, because we are not getting any younger, and save up for our little house. I have it all figured out, yea right. I got nothing.

Sadly the title says it all to well, Working All of the Time Destroys your Libido.  I don’t think this is as common in men.  It is common in women and I think I know why.  It does of course also have to do with the fact that there are only 24 hours in a day and after you have worked 12, commuted at least 1, fixed dinner/eat 2, domestic work for 2 hours and this all adds up to 17 leaving only 7 left to help the kids with their homework/ sleep/ intimacy/ personal development ahhhhh.  The constriction of time is a factor but I suspect the biggest factor is existing in the man’s world all day as a woman.

The office/ professional environment is the male’s world.  Its about measuring things and being aggressive. A woman spends her day hidding her sexuality so that she might possibly be taken seriously.  Maybe a boss somewhere will overlook her breasts and listen to one of her great ideas.  Trust me guys, it takes a lot for all of us women, and I mean all of us not just the photoshoped magazine cover women, all of us, to cover up our sensuality and sensitive natures to be taken seriously in the world of making money.  It becomes like a huge suit of armor that we pull over ourselves everyday as we enter the office while overhearing talk of the final four or the superbowl or brakets.

All of that extra work to fit in and women still earn 75 cents on the dollar as compared to men.

After 12 or so hours at the office, its all we can do to come home and try to keep it together.  Hopefully this explains why women don’t seem to be right in “the mood” when the guys are.  While time is a constriction it can also be a friend.  Time spent on the mental preparation will be fruitfull.  We should all give ourselves more time and work a little less.  You can’t take the money with you and you will never have ‘enough’.

Whenever I go back and remember all of the things I used to worry about and realize how of little consequence it was to worry and even of how little consequence was what I was worrying about, it helps me remind myself not to waste any time preoccupying myself with worry.

It never fails.  When I am intensely working on something finite and concrete like numbers in excel spreadsheets and money, my creativity wanders off and thinks of some of the greatest ideas for songs or writings.  The more a deadline looms and the more intense the stress is, the more my mind wants to wander off and follow creativity into all of its abstract possibility.

This has never been more evident as this past week and half.  For the past week and a half I have worked 12 hour days and had to come in on both Saturday and Sunday.  This month is the busiest month  where I currently work and the more harried my professional life gets, my personal life feels the need to up the ante.  Our pick up truck’s battery has died and the back lights need to be fixed.  Our other vehicle is leaking antifreeze and I just realized today that our washer does not spin when it is supposed to on the last cycle to get rid of excess water.  This is the reason that I have had to run the dryer multiple times per load the last few times.  Each of these things would not take to long to deal with but all at once it is overwhelming.  Especially considering that this month if I pay my bills on time and make it to work everyday I will consider it a success. 

I should re phrase that.  My mind will view the month as a success but my heart will not.  My heart likes to succeed and thrive and follow creativity a little.  It likes to progress and develop.  Getting through this month will be just getting by.
 

Yesterday out of the blue my future mother in law decided she did not like me anymore.  I can’t say it was totally out of the blue.  If you read the part 1 and part 2 about our trip to Arizona it describes how I expressed my discomfort in staying in my future brother in law’s dirty apartment while he was not there.  I didn’t think this was unreasonable.  For the record I am not comfortable staying in anyone’s living quarter’s be it a house, apartment or a garage unless we have some pre-agreed arrangement like I am dog sitting or house sitting and getter paid. 

Saying anything about her son is punishable by death.  I knew she was protective but this all seems extreme.  She called yesterday to tell my fiancee to remember to send that thing she wanted with her boyfriend as he flies to visit her soon.  My fiancee began to tell her about our finalized wedding plans and she proceeds to break his heart and say she won’t come to the wedding.  I hear her trying to explain why and my name is in there along with her other precious son, which how he gets talked about so much when he has absolutely nothing to do with what is going on is totally beyond my scope of understanding.  He is upset and is telling her that he does not need to know her reasons; especially if she will not listen to him speak.  He hangs up.

She calls back.  My fiancee goes into the bedroom and they talk on the phone for a very long time.  He returns and does not really want to talk about it.  Basically she decided she does not like me anymore.  We hug for a long time.  He is sad and I am enraged.  Not for the fact that she hates me, I always knew that, she hates me because she hates all her son’s wives.  She never stops talking shit about them.

If I allow myself to empathize with her and merge together everything I have heard about her and everything she has said then I think I may have an idea why.  I think she has romanticized the past and aches for that time when her and her three boys lived together in a one bedroom apartment and were close.  She forgets how difficult it was and just wants to have all her boys together.  Her boys having wives she sees as threatening that possibility even though my fiancee says she bugged him constantly about not having a wife and not having kids.  Are parents ever happy with where their kids are in life?  But this is all just if I empathize and speculate so it really does not matter. 

I am enraged that with her hurtful words she had made my fiancee sad.  I am so livid that I kept my mouth shut the entire week we were in Arizona where she constantly criticized the diet coke we drink, the shirt my fiancee likes to wear, what he eats, how she thinks he is fat, how we will just let anybody do anything because we think homosexuals should be able to get married if they want, how we are not serious enough… the list goes on and on.  I kept my mouth shut when I wanted to tell her to shut the f@ck up and mind her own damn business.  I am angered that she is on our family cell phone plan. Why bite the hand that feeds you.  I am not saying she needs the help but damn.  My fiancee worries about her and has future plans to help is mother out.  Does she think her precious favorite son has any future plans that include her in the future.  She lives 1.5 hours from him and he has seen her 3 times in the last year; her grandson barely knows her.  I just don’t understand what she is doing.  She is being hurtful to the one son who seems to try to look out for her. 

But where do we go from here? Where do I go from here?  I want to support a relationship between my fiancee and his mother but I can’t be around some one who hates me.  But my fiancee and I like being together.  He will only be able to visit her without me.  I want my children to have healthy relationships with both grandparents but I can’t allow her to talk smack about me in front of my children. Why do people have to make things so hard?

Yesterday’s post became too long and I decided to split it up.  If you have not read the first part you can read it here or just scroll down the page until you find it.

Arizona: just out side of Tucson and I can’t beleive this picture came out so good as it was taken with the camera on my Samsung Blackjack cell phone.

So right were we left off yesterday as Hermano had just left his apartment….

I express my hubby how I feel and he expresses how he wish he had known and go through all that stuff of how he knew how his brother was so this didn’t surprise him yada yada and how my hubby is sorry.  The Suegra hears us and as she has heard that I don’t wish so sleep on Hermano’s bed as he is dirty she sticks up for him and says how he always baths and dresses himself.  My opinion is that if you bath in a dirty (I am talking really dirty) bathroom and sleep in dirty sheets then you are dirty.  I realize he is busy with his life and all but he knew we were coming and his has a 2 year old there with him.  Did I mention how when we first got there in the kitchen was a sight that left the Suegra and my hubby yelling SALMONELA.  I now know the rules; the Suegra can critisize and complain about anything about Hermano but neither hubby or I can.

Other problem is that there are no clean towels.  We debate on whether to go out at 1 am and buy towels but then we find some and wash them in the washer and dryer.  Another problem was that there we no blankets.  There was one clean cover that we threw over Hermano’s bed while we slept on top while we attempted to use our coats as blankets.  It was like camping only not the fun camping outdoors stuff.  I don’t mind dirt and love being outdoors sleeping under the starts.  Its the haven’t ever cleaned my bathroom or kitchen build up gunk with dirty clothes all over the place overloaded with clutter in a small apartment environment that I rather dislike.

It took us a while to get our sleeping situation set up and dry the towels and I never got into a comfortable sleeping position.  Hermano came back to his apartment at some time after 8:30 am.  I could her him talking some to the Suegra.  He came into his room where we were asleep and grabbed some cloths.  I would have confronted him or told him how I felt but I didn’t want to wake up my hubby as he seemed to be sleeping pretty good so I just pretended to be asleep.  I know that if I had seen a sibling of mine sleeping on my bed and using their coats as a blanket I would have felt embarrased and pretty shity about myself but I doubt Hermano even noticed we were there. 

I finally got my hubby up around 11 am.  I felt like I had to go for a run but I had not slept at all so really I just need to get out of that claustrophobic apartment.  My hubby and I went for a walk and we really enjoyed the Phoenix sun.  It was beautiful.  While we were finishing up our walk we decided it would be best to ask the Suegra to drive us to the airport or have a taxi take us instead of have Hermano take us.  The previous night he had been arguing with us (mine only conversation with him) on how we don’t need to get to the airport that early and how he lives really close.  I prefered to error on the side of caution as the first Monday after Thanksgiving is bound to be busy.  Besides he did not care if we missed our flight and had to buy new airline tickets home. 

This is the part where it gets out of control.  We arrive back at the apartment and ask the Suegra if she can drive us to the airport.  We deliberatly have tried to avoid talking about Hermano around her as she gets really defensive and protective.  remember: she can judge, critisize and talk about him but we can not. But she won’t answer the question she keeps insisting that Hermano should take us as he knows the way and she will get lost. 

I hate it when people won’t answer your question and instead mettle in your plans and try to change your plans or tell you how they think you should do it better.  Of course they have a lot to say, they have nothing to lose and won’t have to deal with the consequences. 

Anyway so we find ourselves in a situation where we have to say what we think about Hermano; he is undependable, he already stated he might not be able to take us but apparently wants us in a position where we are waiting for him to decide, and we also say how if he really didn’t have time to spend with us he should have told us not to come to Phoenix early to see him.  We would have understood.  This launches her defense as we had thrown a gernade and she had retaliated with the A-Bomb.  These were her points:

1. he is really busy with school
2. he is really busy attending to his girlfriend and his ex-wife
3. he is really busy working
4. he is really talented at drawing and I am trying to support him as he needs it
5. you don’t understand because you don’t have children

These were how I wanted to respond but I held my tongue as she was really upset and near tears. She had not listened to a thing we said and had totally misunderstood our point. She totally did not acknowledge how we felt and just stuck up for Hermano. I remember at one point her telling my hubby something to the effect of “hey you knew your brother was like this”, to which I did not even give my hubby time to respond as I firmly stated “well I didn’t know he was like that, I didn’t know”.

1. school: hubby and I both have completed a bachelor’s degree while working and paying for it ourselves, sacrificing living together we lived with family and purposely waited to have kids. He attends a community college and takes drawing classes. Also Suegra would call my hubby freaking out while he was in class and have him leave class and go home and turn off the stove because she left the beans on. She seemed to show no respect for my hubby’s university endeavors so why is it different for Hermano?
2. girlfriend and ex-wife: 1) the girlfriend is unnecessary to attend to or even have and the ex-wife how much attending could there be? I mean isn’t that the reason for the divorce? I suspect they both attend to him like cooking him dinner and stuff.
3. work: he works 3 hour stints at a time as a personal trainer aka he gets paid to work out. I work 10 hours a day and 2 Saturdays a month and I have to work out on my own time. I used my very limited vacation time to visit.  Please appreciate that.
4. he is really talented at drawing and I am trying to support him as he needs it: That is great we support that. We would like for you to support us also.
5. you don’t understand because you don’t have children: I hate when families say this as if your time is not equal valuable because you were smart enough to use birth control and avoid getting knocked up at inopportune times in your life.

Suegra is now upset with my hubby and wishes not to talk to him. I don’t understand we go out to visit spend a week with her. My hubby talks to her weekly and we pay for her cell phone and handle it on our family plan. Hermano treats her like crap. Hermano and Suegra live 99 miles apart and Suegra has only seen her 2 year old grandson 3 times and has to beg Hermano to see him. I think that Hermano likes it when you beg to visit him. He gets off on it and then he blows you off. Suegra is mad at us and not at Hermano. My hubby is uncomfortable with this as I would be if it were my mom. But I give him the advice that he would give if t
he tables were turned. She will need help soon with something and as he is the only one who takes the time to help and worry about her she can’t be mad too long.

THE FIX
How am I going to avoid this in the future? That is what I always try to ask myself to avoid un fun situations. I try to come up with a future game plan. For this situation it is as follows:

• Avoid being near Hermano
• Avoid talking about Hermano
• Avoid hearing about Hermano
• when Suegra starts to mention anything about him I will conveniently have to be somewhere else like maybe the bathroom.

As we rarely see him it should not be an issue at all.

The entire trip where he was not present was awesome and really fun.

I hate it when there is some snafu on the last day of a trip.  It always leaves a bad taste in my mouth and leaves me with a bad feeling about the entire trip.  I have to talk myself out of feeling bad about the whole darn thing and look at it intellectually. 

We left on Nov. 24th and we returned on Dec. 1.  As we were gone for 8 days and I can really only count 2 instances that left me feeling yuck.  The numbers point to it being fun and successful but I wish those 2 instances and definitely the one instance never had happened.

#1
The first instance happened somewhere in the middle of the trip.  I suddenly felt bad, claustrophobic and really frustrated.  This feeling came because of our lodging situation. We stayed with the Suegra in her 1 bedroom apartment.  Staying with anyone for a long period of time does not work for me (excluding my hubby).  I have this part of me that will try to make everyone around me happy at the expense of my sanity.  After a couple of days of me losing myself I have a timer that goes off and smacks me in the face and makes me feel the way I felt on this instance; bad, sad, claustrophobic and really frustrated.  This was my first time staying with the Suegra for an extended period of time.  Now I know that a few nights in a hotel while costly can be worth it.  I am sensitive and creative and I really like my space to be that sensitive creative person that I am deep down.

#2
This instance happened on the last day of the trip and inturn left a bad taste in my mouth.  I really wish this instance had not transpired.  This explination will be long so you may want to grab a drink.

My hubby’s brother lives in Phoenix and as our flight left from Phoenix my hubby asked his brother (we will call him “Hermano”) what he had going on before our flight because as my hubby expressed, he wanted to see Hermano again before we left the state.  My hubby has not seen Hermano in over three years and was really excited to be with his Mom and Brother for Thanksgiving.  Hermano says “hey yea come on down to Phoenix early, stay with me before your flight”.  I am obviously paraphrasing the conversations.  No one can remember exact words, only what was talked about or decided can be remembered.

Our flight left in the afternoon on Dec 1 so we drove to Phoenix on Dec 29 to spend the evening/ night with Hermano.  He had expressed some doubt on his abilty to drive us to the airport as he had class at the time we needed a ride.  We knew we could have the Suegra or a taxi take us. 

We arrived (me, my hubby and the Suegra) at about 7 pm and Hermano met us at his apartment to let us in.  He had been with his son at his ex-wife’s apartment.  Hermano, Suegra and my hubby were talking all at the same time and I was glad that my mom had chosen that moment to return my voice mail.  I steped outside so I could hear and talk to her a little bit.  I had to give her our flight information as she was picking us up the next day.  As I was talking to my mom, Hermano walks out of his apartment with his bluetooth earpiece on and leaves.  I am wonder where he is going and talking to my mom on the phone as he calls out “my family is crazy”.  Had I known at the time that he had just left us to go have dinner at his ex-wife’s house then I wish would have said something like “what the hell, we came here to see you, your brother who you have not seen in over 3 years has traved over 2 time zones and spent a great deal of money on the tickets…and you are going to have dinner with your ex-wife” then I wish I would have punched him in the ear.  Ok, not really.  But yes, you did read that correctly.  He left his mother and his brother in his apartment while he went to eat dinner at his ex-wife’s house. 

My hubby and I then went out to get some Pollo Loco for dinner and as we were finishing eating it about 2 hours later Hermano returns with his son.  His son is cute and all but as we rarley see Hermano we will rarely see his son so I feel very apathetic towards making any effort.  The kid has not been around many adults and is justifiably hesitant to warm up to anyone.  Basically we have now seen him twice and it took until right before each visit ends for him to be able to interact with us.  Any visits will be few and far between so why bother.  I don’t intend to be mean it’s just that he ain’t part of my life and I ain’t part of his and that is it.  I wish the best for the kid but i’ll never know, there is no conection.

The kid loves the star wars movies so we watch about an hour of that movie and then Hermano takes the kid back to his mother’s and he returns to his apartment.  He has sparse conversations with his brother and mother.  He just sticks his head out and takes a break between studying for school with these conversations. 

I was feeling really uncomfortable but I was trying to suck it up for my hubby’s sake.  We came to see his brother before we left but here we were sitting in his dirty cluttered apartment watching a movie while he studied.  The threshold came when at 1 am he went to the door and said he was going to sleep on his ex-wife’s couch so he could already be there when his son wakes up and he could get him ready for bed.    Part of me was waiting for my hubby to say something.  He didn’t have to yell or be angry maybe just say “hey man, the reason we came to Phoenix a day early was to spend a little time with you before we left, if you didn’t have time you should have told us not to come”.  But no, neither the Suegra nor my hubby said anything.  Turns out they were accustomed to this behavior from him…

….This post will continued with tomorrow’s entry as it is getting WAY to long.

I must admit that I was not prepared for the quasi ambush last night, but then again I never usually am. Family should not be a battleground but it always ends up that way. Well, in my case as I usually try to do things that are not part of the normal template life. As I write that I am guessing people are assuming I am talking about an alternative lifestyle like being homosexual, joining CIRQUE DU SOLEIL or becoming a Buddhist monk. Actually all of these lifestyles would be considered normal if someone came from that tradition. So really what I am trying to say is that I don’t feel I am doing anything that strange but as it is not what my parents did or think they would have done then they can’t fathom it.

Here is the background story, for my husband and I’s U.S. wedding we are planning a beach ceremony in Miami, Florida at the end of December. I thought of the idea and thought it would be really neat to get married on the beach there in Miami as we will be in Miami for roughly 2 weeks looking at/ comparing employers, apartments, houses, public transport etc. Neither of us is interested in a big wedding. Really both of us are looking forward to being legally married in the U.S. and starting a family. The wedding is kind of an afterthought for us. Not everyone understands this.

First I thought of getting married, essentially eloping, while we plan on being in Miami and then just telling everyone afterwards but I decided against that. My main reason for deciding against that was I really did not want everyone to give me endless grief about it. I also did not want anyone to take it personally and feel as if I was trying to exclude them by not inviting them. So I decided if we tell everyone and give them the opportunity to come to my wedding they can’t be mad or give me grief, right? And if I plan it, pay for it and take care of everything myself, no one can feel as if they have any right to exert any control over it, right? WRONG.

Let’s start from the beginning if we are telling the story.

Telling People You are Getting Married

It should be easy, right, to tell people you are getting married? “Hey, we are getting married on such and such day so I guess that means we are engaged.” “Hey, that is neat congratulations!” I imagine it to be so simple. With our friends it was that simple. And none of them were really surprised. With the husband’s mom it was also that simple. She was excited and asked if she could come. We said yes. End of story and she is looking forward to seeing us get married.

That same night we told the husband’s mom we told my parents in person. I don’t remember much about the exchange just that it was kind of anti climactic. They seemed slightly uninterested in the ideas we had on how we were going to get married and somehow the conversation drifted to my mom talking about her work. There was enough time to ask us why we had not said anything sooner in the evening when my grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousin were also present. I said we just wanted to tell them, the parents of the bride, in person alone. Right, and then the conversation became about my mom’s work and about my brother. Those are her two favorite subjects. I am happy she finds fulfillment in her job and it is great that she likes my brother but sometimes it would be nice to know she liked me.

The next week my parents went south to visit my brother and his wife. They asked if I had told my brother the good news and I told them that we had not. They said they would wait until after we had told my brother to talk about it with him. But, after my parents visit my brother called me leaving a voicemail saying something like, “hey, call me. Mom said you had some good news”. So I proceed to call my brother and tell him about how we are getting married and the plans. He asked some questions about the plans like “why aren’t you doing it this way..” It is not that I don’t like questions, it is just that I would prefer people not push their ideas of what I should be doing and what makes sense to them on to me. I would have welcomed a question like “does what you’re doing have meaning and significance to you and could you explain to me how it does because I am interested in know more about you”. Oh yea and his first response to “we are getting married” was “oh yea I figured. Mom didn’t exactly say but she led on that”. His congratulations were said like an afterthought.

Am I weird in thinking that an enthusiastic ‘congratulations’ should be the first thing out of people’s mouths when I tell them we are getting married? I am only thinking of how I would respond and if someone told me that they were getting married. I would say something like, “hey that is neat, congratulations, what neat things are you thinking of doing in order to celebrate?”
Yes I am weird.

The next time my mother’s side of the family got together, I made a brief little announcement of how we are getting married and these are our loose plans. Guess what their responses were……. “oh, yea we figured because your Mom eluded to that”. Then some jokes were made yada yada. Then my grandmother started talking as if she were not even considering making the trip. Traveling 726 miles (11 hours, 11 minutes) for my brother’s wedding totally ok and no whining from anyone; traveling 1,195 miles (18 hours 5 minutes) for my wedding and everyone has something to say. Let me also point out the hypocrisy. Everyone wants me to make a big deal out of this day; wedding, guest list, invitations, ring etc, etc. No one wants to be even slightly inconvenienced by my plans. I totally understand others not wanting to be inconvenienced by my wedding. My understanding and easy-goingness somehow becomes interpreted as me being as asshole and I just don’t care who is at my wedding ceremony. I am exhausted just writing about what happened. I have no idea how I survived it. Everyone did eventually tell us congratulations after having picked at us extensively.

I stopped telling people in my family about getting married as it seemed everyone already knew before I told them.

Dissecting The Wedding Plans

Yesterday my parents threw a party for my husband attaining U.S. citizenship. At the party were my mother’s side and my father’s side of the family. It was a fun party. After everyone else had left and as the husband and I were getting ready to leave, my father wants to know about the wedding plans. My Mom and the husband were in the kitchen and my father starts asking questions. I don’t remember all of the specifics but I remember feeling ambushed. His tone when asking questions really gives away what he is really thinking. It was mildly aggressive and I could really sense his disgust. I noticed that his tone and demeanor changed when my mom and the husband entered the room. It suddenly became a more casual conversation about our wedding plans.

I do remember specifically every word of two questions he asked.
The first was “why are you getting married all the way down there?” Oh, and the way he toned and accentuated the ‘all the way down there’ part was horrible. I can’t tell if he was trying to say that Miami is totally inferior to his geographic location that he can’t be caught dead there or if he just does not want to the hassle of traveling down there.

The second question was “do you realize that your grandparents are not going to drive there and they definitely are not going to fly there?” To which my response was, ‘yes, they made that very clear right after we first told them we were getting married.’ He did not allow me time to ask a follow up question like, ‘hey, are you trying to say we should adjust our plans and make all our new plans based on who is willing to show up and where?’ But my family does not allow time for that.

He had another set of questions that I can’t remember how they were worded but it had something to do with timing. He might have just asked why are you getting married now or something, as if he was trying to say weddings happen in the spring why are you getting married in December….are you pregnant? To which I would reply honestly, no. Or maybe the timing was not convenient for him. He does not want to drive through the snow to go south and he does not want to fly. I don’t know.

Looking back I wish I would have just cut him off at the first question of why. I wish I would not have answered the questions. I wish I would have said something like “aren’t I a little too old for you to be asking me these kinds of questions in this accusatory aggressive tone?” If he acted puzzled I could continue with, “well, I am financially independent, have a college degree, legally 10 years past the age considered adult and I am paying for my own wedding, basically you don’t have any leverage on me anymore, you can’t tell me what to do.” While I was on a roll I could add, “quit taking everything I do personally, it is just me living my life based on what I think I should do, just because I don’t do exactly as you do doesn’t make me wrong nor am I trying to push you away, you raised me to be independent while you were at work growing your career, if you don’t understand something I do, just ask, I will gladly explain it to if, if you will listen, keep in mind that I have my reasons just like you have yours, if you don’t want to hassle with coming to my wedding just tell me, it will hurt less than trying question me to death and manipulate me into changing my plans, the only people needed at my wedding are me and the husband.”

As of today part of me is really wishing that we had just decided to elope and tell people after the wedding. Living with their constant disapproval before is worse and will inevitably negatively affect my wedding day.

Part of me really wants to get a dragon tattoo on my arm. 

I have not written a full fledged song since 2006.  It seems so scary and unreal now that I have written it down but yea it has been that long.  I have written, a little bit here, a little bit there, a verse, a chorus, a bridge, a bass line.  I have really great ideas but they come in pieces.  I don’t have writer’s block.  I have plenty of ideas,  I lack the time it takes to develope it.  To put some of the pieces together and come up with a really great song.

I was down on myself for not having done this.  I was giving myself a hard time for not having written like I used to.  But then I realized that creativity takes time and time I have not had since 2006 thus that is the main reason I have not been able to write a cohesive song. 

Then I thought to myself, hey you are just rationalizing your lazy behavior. And I started to beat myself up again.  (this thought process is all happening while the other side of my brain is working on Excel spreadsheets for work) Then I stopped myself.  I did the math and it goes as follow:

• 10 hours at the day job
• 7.5 hours sleeping (sleep deprivation followed by hours in front of Excel spreadsheets triggars Migrane Headaches for me so these hours are important)
• 0.30 hours commuting to work
• 1 hour cooking, cleaning, dishes, eating and anything else associated with dinner
• 1 hour eating breakfast, showering and preparing for the day
• 1 hour training (running, lifting weight etc) I really need these endorphines otherwise…:(

24-10-7.5-0.30-1-1-1=3.2

This leaves 3.2 hours for family, friends, husband, laundry, reading, computer, hobbies, dusting, sweeping, cleaning the bathroom. I can’t even finish all of the things I “SHOULD” be doing let alone have anytime for the things that I want to do.

Conclusion is that I need to factor in some time for creative music-ness and not let anyone or anything encroach upon it. Not everyone will be understanding of this. Well I should not be so vague. My family (parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins etc.) will not like this. My friends I have already lost any regular contact with due to this “SHOULD” lifestyle that I find myself in briefly. Sadly you either make everyone else happy (well, try to, as you usually don’t actually ever make them happy with any appeasements) or you make yourself happy. Is it selfish to do what you want with your life? Or is it just perceived selfish if what you want to do happens to be different from the template?

Sometimes I feel so low that I  must exist below the current level of the ground floor.