Porphyrogene!

Okay. I think it’s about time that I try to be brutally honest with myself for a minute.  I guarantee it will slip away from me and I’ll go back to being my witty, evading self - but till then, here it goes:

As a couple - My husband and I mesh extraordinarily well.  We are best friends and would share pretty much every minute of every day with each other if given the chance.   This perhaps is because we are NOT given the chance to spend every minute of every day with each other - but I prefer to believe it is because I Like Him A Lot. 

There are thousands of things that he does perfectly well.  He offers footrubs of his own accord.  He loves to play with my hair.  He is constantly solicitous of my needs.  He cooks for me.  He loves to kiss me.  He tells me I’m beautiful.  He cleans out the litter boxes.  He kills the stray bugs.  He lets me choose the movie.  He let’s me play car D.J.  It does not seem to bother him that my art stuff is littered all over the first floor as though there had been a nuclear craft explosion.  In fact, he enables my craft habits by holding my hand as we walk the aisles of the nearest Craft Mecca.  He always (%99.9 of the time) lets me know where he is and when he’s coming home. 

There are thousands of things that I’ve heard other spouses actively complaining about that don’t bother me or him.  We BOTH leave our socks out.  We don’t make the bed.  Unless we’re particularly motivated at beating them back, our clothes tend to creep out of our closet and take over any available horizontal space (floor, bureau, dresser, loveseat, bed, etc.).  Our car is messy.  Our house has been in the middle of rennovations for 1.5 years now and going - we’re doing okay.  I like to listen to the same song over and over and over again sometimes and he hasn’t eaten me yet.  He insists that our car is a GREAT car - even though it has over 240,000 miles and it’s over 12… maybe 13 years old - and I still smile when he says it. I don’t drive stick and our car is a stick shift, and he drives me everywhere I need to go or I take the bus and the bus, as previously noted, makes me crazy and we still get by just fine.  We chug along as roommates, best friends, lovers, and companions.

And I could leave it at that and just say - Life is sweet (because it is).  But that wouldn’t be the whole picture.

 The whole picture includes the fact that I am a hard ass.  I am demanding and I can be a Royal Bitch.  I am quick and witty! But I am also sharp-tongued and fast to "defend" myself by attacking.  If there is a whit of an inkling of a suggestion of negativity in his demeanor and his comment/question/action could perhaps, in an alternate universe, on another planet, in a different timezone, be interpreted as a minor rejection then I am quite suddenly Upset.  My brain short circuits and I am left feeling as though there is no longer any ground to stand on or gravity to keep me there.  I Freak Out.  Sometimes it is a lesser freak out, but to say that it doesn’t happen would be like walking into a HUGE brick wall and then earnestly asking if anyone else noticed that overly strong wind that just knocked me over.

My gut reaction is to push.  Perhaps I am an emotional bully.  I push him to react to things I say that grow progressively more awful.  I push him away from me because if he gave me a hug, because he thinks I’m upset and I accepted that hug - it would be like saying "Everything’s Okay! I need you! I will now proceed to fall apart in your arms!"; when, in fact, everything is Not Okay, and although I desperately need him - God forbid HE know that.  And although I am falling apart - there’s a small part of me that keeps running around with a staple gun and stapling the pieces into a bigger, scarier, less stable, less real, ready-to-fall-apart-if-only-seriously-confronted-with-a-true-calling-out-of-all-the-ridiculousness me - therefore he’s too intimidated to really confront me, and his "weakness" (which isn’t weakness at all) just drives me to further insanity:

Him: So… then we can go up and take a shower and you can try that new conditioner I picked out for you that will "Smooth and Condition" dry hair!
Me: Are you saying my hair looks dry?
Him: No… No no no nonono.  Your hair looks great! I just thought you would want to go upstairs.
Me: So you paused my show to interupt me to tell me you think my hair looks like shit?
Him: No! I’m sorry *Presses play*
Me: So you don’t want to talk to me at all? 

I nit pick, say things that sting, and complain.  I interpret his questions/queries/comments as insults and tell him so, even if they are of the most gentle nature and I watch as he is dizzied by my ability to spin things around.

And then my head spins around 360 degrees and I walk down the stairs backwards as in The Exorcist.

Yes. I know i’m ridiculous.  The ridiculousness echoes in my head and I hear the bile pour out of my mouth and there are those rare moments when I stop it all by myself.  But most of the time… I don’t.

 I continue this until I tire myself out and the storm dissipates, and either we fix it, or I’m crying, or he’s crying, or we’re both crying, and I crawl into his arms after his 500th plea to hold me.  And then everything’s fine.

You see.  I am fragile.  I fancy myself wonderwoman, strongest of the strong.  Dude, I could totally fight off an attacker on the subway - they could NEVER take me.  I am intelligent. I am well-read. I KNOW WHAT I’M DOING DAMMIT.  Except when I don’t.

 And when I don’t, my world is turned upside down a la David Bowie’s Labyrinth and I no longer know which way is up. The smallest potentially-negatively-interpreted comment from Kyle makes can bring my world crashing down and he hasn’t figured out how not to do that or how to make it all better in a fairly short time-frame.  He’s figured out that food sometimes works - chocolate chip pancakes, or donuts, or souffle and now that I weigh a bunch more than I did a year ago I’ve (mostly) stopped accepting that kind of apology.

But the thing is that I know that at LEAST half of the time - he really shouldn’t even have to apologize because he didn’t do anything deserving even half the explosive reaction that it got.  It’s also not his job to figure out how to snuff the explosion after it happens - but rather it should be MY job to figure out why I explode in the first place.

 But on the explosion goes.

It’s me battling my own demons.  Now, he is NOT without fault, and there are times when he is genuinely hurtful or offensive and we work through those times.  I would even venture to say that those times are easier to work through because there is something concrete for us to tackle with our combined reasoning powers.  But I share the fault for these freak outs. You would think that after a year and a half of marriage to this man who pretty much consistently treats me like the Best Thing That’s Ever Happened to him.  You would think that I wouldn’t be so terrified that I’ll lose him - I mean, for goodness sake, WE’RE MARRIED.  NEITHER of us believe divorce is an option for us - personally.  How am I going to lose him?  And even as I type those words, a million dark swimming things start moving in my stomach and my mind imagines a million ways he could abandon me… emotionally, physically… when I reach my hand out for his and he doesnt take it IMMEDIATELY (even if he literally happened to be looking in a different direction at the time of my plea for hand holding…) , does that mean he doesn’t want me anymore?  It must, right? That’s what it means?

This is not the prettiest part of my psyche, but it is a significant part.  And Kyle continues to struggle in the Gail force winds of my emotions.  And I continue to let the gusts fly. 

There’s a line in a counting crow’s song… American girls are weather and noise.

That’s me. Weather and noise.
And all I can do is keep praying that each day he’ll see through it a little better.

And maybe one day, he’ll stroll right through the storm as though it were a beautiful day, pick me up, slide his hand up through my hair at the nape of my neck and tell me to quit being ridiculous.

He’ll always love me.  

Kyle and I wandered into Le Big-Home-Improvement-Store the other day and after finding everything on our list and then some, I had to body slam and karate chop my man into making steady progress toward the check out registers rather than veering towards wreaths, enormous blow up snowmen, christmas tree door mats, and twinkle lights.  I don’t know why twinkle lights are Kyle’s kryptonite - I, typically, am the one attracted to shiny or glowy objects [as evidenced by the two instructions I was ordered to follow when looking for and purchasing a bridesmaid dress for an upcoming wedding that I’m honored to be a part of: 1. Get it in David’s Bridal Cornflower Blue, 2. Do not buy anything that will make you resemble a disco ball.     I’m fairly certain I was the only one given the second instruction.] 

We already own about 30 strings of white lights that we purchased cheap and in bulk to decorate the reception hall for our wedding — Translate this to mean we could pull a Chevy Chase.  I was not expecting to require the strength to pull a grown man away from said twinkle lights aka kryptonite of the wallet…  I should start working out or something.   After all, I thought the Christmas displays didn’t start until Early November… and here we are, weeks early, being bombarded with reindeer and tinsel.

Not that I’m enormously complaining… even though it may sound like it, it’s all just an illusion.  I’m a big fan of Christmas - both types.  I love the celebration of the Saviour and I love the mistletoe draped in red ribbon.  As I previously mentioned, I am a craftsy type - so last year I made our stockings, a Stable for our manger scene, and more than half of our tree decorations.  I’m excited for the winter season to begin.  But the true purpose of this post is to share with you a flashback I had of Kyle and my first married Christmas Eve/Day together. 

We decided, the week before Christmas, to drive to visit family.  First we drove 4 hours to visit HIS family and spent a day and a night with them.  It is pure joy and sunshine to visit with my in-laws.  I call them in-laws only to avoid confusion as I write this because the truth is that they feel like family, no ‘in-laws’ about it.  Then we drove 4 more hours to visit MY family, meet my brother’s girlfriend, go into NYC, celebrate the holiday, and then we packed up and drove home to the ‘burgh on Christmas Eve’s Day. 

We had lofty plans.  You see, for months we’d been eating healthily and avoiding certain favorite, particularly delicious foods such as donuts or cinnamon buns, or fondue.   Prior to our road trip we made a list of all the foods we would buy, splurge on, to have and share on Christmas day.  Kyle was going to make me Souffle! and Quiche!  I was going to open a role of Pillsbury cinnamon buns and pop ‘em in the oven! It was going to be spectacular!

Did you know all grocery stores (even the ‘24 hour’ ones) close early on Christmas Eve?

We got back to Pittsburgh at around 7:00 p.m. I think, maybe a little later.  We stopped at 3 different Giant Eagles, we stopped at a 24 hour Walmart, we stopped at a Shop and Save.  After driving 6+ hours to get home to Pittsburgh the last thing we wanted to be doing was to be driving around to 80 different grocery stores trying to find 4 different kinds of cheese, eggs, and maybe some milk.  Genius that I am, we decided to save our grocery shopping (ON PURPOSE) for Christmas Eve so that none of our food spoiled while we were away. 

There were several different phases of our mood:  Relief to be back in Pittsburgh, Annoyance that the first store was closed, disbelief that the second store was closed, Freaking-out when the third store was closed, Anger and general snappish-ness as we drove half an hour to get to a CLOSED 24-hour Walmart, unending giggling and silliness as we pulled up to an open gas station and combed all food products for ANYTHING Christmas eve/day worthy.  We came out with some milk, a container of eggs, a block of Velveeta cheese, a pre-made calzone and some donut holes.  Have I mentioned that, at this point, we still had not eaten dinner and it was about 10:00 p.m.?

We went home, defeated and punch drunk.  We ate our food, ignored our stomach aches from the who-knows-how-old calzone, and went to bed — happy.

In the morning, my dream of a husband made me a velveeta cheese souffle (for real) and cinnamon buns from scratch (without oil, or sugar … or flour I think).  As a culinary tradition, I wouldn’t recommend either one.   Then again, the overwhelming love I felt for him as we, giggling, dug into the oddly fluffy-topped, brick bottomed souffle was delicious.

I’m not sure we could have had a better first Christmas.

I am going to jump out of my skin if I don’t express this to SOMEONE. 

First let me qualify what I’m about to say by stating that I like and respect ALL people involved in this quandary, the following is just a matter of inherent differences and is being expressed at a moment of peak frustration.

I have been married for a year and… 4 months or so. Wow… actually, a year and four months today! Anyway - A lot of seasoned married folks note my marriage clocked in at 1 year and 4 months with scoffs of "You’re still Newlyweds!!".  Sure, fine - that bugged me at first, but I don’t so much mind it anymore.  However, I’m coming to realize something that’s actually very different about my relationship with my husband than alot of other marriages or long term relationships - including those of some friends.  Kyle and I are husband and wife AND we are best friends. 

I didn’t think this was extraordinarily significant because - of COURSE we’re best friends, shouldn’t your soulmate be your best friend? Of COURSE we like to hang out, I married him cause I wanted to spend my life with him for goodness sake - not hang out with other people as often as possible or do separate activities.  The best phrase to describe us is probably "attached at the hip".  And maybe it will wear off and maybe it won’t.  Maybe you’re jealous, maybe you’re gagging.  Maybe you think that kind of desire for constant companionship from ONE person may be unhealthy, maybe you’re pumping your fist in the air yelling "MORE POWER TO YOU!" at your computer monitor.  None of it will change the fact that if I could be anywhere in the world with anyone in the world - I would be with Kyle, chillin’.  I am covetous of his time, and he is covetous of mine.

This coming weekend (T-2 days) we’re headed to Kyle’s Family’s Cabin in the mountains.  We’ve invited along four of our friends Maria, Nolan, Maylee, and Taylor.  Maria and Nolan are engaged, Maylee and Taylor are Married and have been for upwards of 4 or 5 years now.  We’ve known both couples for about a year now but could probably be considered closer to Maria and Nolan.   These four people are our ONLY friends in Pittsburgh.  We have alot in common with them, though DEFINITELY not everything, and we typically have alot of fun when we get together with them.  We even went on Vacation to Disney World with Maria and Nolan this past spring - although tiring, it was certainly a blast. 

I think almost all problems begin with expecations.  My expectations for this coming weekend at my Husband’s Family’s cabin with our Pittsburgh Friends have been the following: Finally a chance to relax and chill out - play games, indulge in delicious food, talk, watch movies, laugh.  Kyle has been working 12 hour days five days a week and 5 hours on saturdays for the last month - I had a huge deadline recently and we’ve spent alot of time missing each other.  This will be the first weekend in a long time that I could potentially be with him from Friday at 5:30 pm till Sunday when we go to sleep - Exciting, no?

My problem is that this is fast becoming less of a 3 adult couples who are friends going to a cabin to have a good time and more of a boys club vs. girls club thing.  Maria and Maylee are best friends from Highschool - they grew up many states away from here and just so happened to both move to Pittsburgh with their significant others at about the same exact time in a similar situation to myself.  We, all three, became friends but they are significantly closer because of their hometown ties and the amount of time they’ve known each other.  They are the ones who suggested that instead of splitting the cars up by couples - 1 in 1 and 2 in the other, that we should split up by sex - girls in one car, boys in the other, "Because that way, Taylor won’t have to listen to Rent twice through".  Okay - I can see the logic in that.  And despite being denied four hours of uninterrupted conversation with MY best friend… I can see the merits of a girls car and boys car.

Then Nolan decided a couple weeks ago that going fishing with the guys on Saturday morning is a BRILLIANT idea.   In preparation he purchased 3 fly fishing poles and kits and got the guys together to do a test/teach run this past weekend on Sunday.  They left at 7:30 in the morning - I was told when they left that they would be back at Noon.  Kyle called at One o’clock and revealed that unfortunately they would not be back for another hour.  They returned at 2:40 p.m.   This caused tension between me and my spouse because, after promising to spend the whole afternoon and evening with me - it felt like he left me hanging and lonely.  We vehemently discussed the situation, came to terms with the failed expectations of the day and then tried to make the best of it.

Suffice to say I do not have warm fuzzy feelings about breaking up the group so the guys can disappear for "5" {read  8} hours on saturday morning to stand in a creek and throw hooks at trout that we aren’t going to cook up anyway.   All this aside from the fact that I’m Jealous. OF THE FISHING.  Why is it that only the men are allowed to go fishing?  I have extremely fond memories of going fishing with my grandfather as a kid - I also have extremely fond memories of fishing at camp and crabbing at the ocean.  Baiting the hook isn’t my favorite thing to do, but then again - is it anyone’s?  And besides! There’s no hook baiting in fly fishing! I’m interested - why can’t I go too?  Because I have a vajayjay that’s why. 

No no.  The womenfolk are to stay behind in the safety of the cabin to do our "crafts".  This I resent for all of the above reasons.  I am, for now, (probably irrationally) ignoring the fact that I love to do crafts from knitting and crocheting to quilting to creating discoballs, painting canvases, sculpting clay, and…. oh did I mention I was a studio art major?  So I’m crafty.  This has now turned out to be a characteristic that dooms me to cabin confinement while others get go go out and psycologically abuse wild fish.

Don’t even get me started on the whispered musings having to do with rooms to sleep in … (Single sex sleep over style? Any takers? Any one?)

I think the main points here are that A) This is not going the way I EXPECTED, B) we will probably have fun anyway, C) I’m missing my husband already and I feel very sad at the thought of being separated so much when we COULD be spending time together so easily, D) I’m just cranky.

My last point comes to you via epiphany.  SO although Maria and Nolan are engaged and obviously love each other and Maylee and Taylor are married and obviously love each other… their "significant other" is NOT their best friend.  Maria and Maylee are best friends.  So they probably spend the majority of their every day lives A) Working (or Student-ing) B) With their significant other C) with their best friend and for them, these are distinctly separate activities.  My significant other IS my best friend as we previously discussed… So I could EASILY enjoy twice as much time with him as I do doing anything else.  They enjoy the thought of driving to the cabin together because they’re best friends… but I am put in a place, once again, because I’m a woman when I would probably rather be with my best friend. They enjoy the thought of the guys leaving to do fishing, because they’re best friends and they get to spend the morning together,  I once again feel left behind and separated from MY best friend. My problem with this is that when I mention to either Maria or Maylee that Kyle is my best bud - they look at me as if I have two heads.  I could be imagining it - and I have a specTACular imagination - but I always feel like they view us as either circus freaks or a few cards short of a full deck as in ‘How can your HUSBAND/BOYFRIEND/FIANCE be your best friend?’ And then I vaguely feel like I have to justify my friendship with Kyle… that it is not co-dependant and is in fact a healthy best-friend-ship plus a few marriage vows.

Now we’re all adults here, and let’s face it - this trip will probably go exactly as they want it to go and not as my expectations expect and it’ll be fine - it’ll be fun, even. 

But boy can I work myself into a good imitation of an anxiety attack with a pinch of righteous indignation.

As found in this article on MSN… Everything that I have done in the last (little over a) year was wrong to do in the span of time I did it and will apparently lead to divorce or forever-debt. 

While graduating from College and finishing up an Honor’s Thesis, I planned my wedding.  My Husband-to-be also wrote an Honor’s Thesis, then we both graduated.  A month later, we got married, went on our honeymoon, closed on a house, and moved 4-6 hours away from our families to a city I had only visited once before so that he could enter a 5 year PhD program.   We moved in to a beat up old house that (of COURSE) had a lot of problems we hadn’t anticipated, with one car - stick shift - that I can’t drive, and no human support system.  Kyle started school - I stayed home… for months… looking for a job (No internet, No cable, No phone).  To speed through this saga — I got a temp job, and then a permanent position, Kyle decided to leave the PhD program.  Now I was working and he was home looking for a job.  He got a job a heartbeat after the ‘Nick of Time’ would have occurred and we had to temporarily borrow money to make ends meet.  At this point, we’ve recovered and we’re on our way to saving and paying off his student loans.

But it probably wouldn’t be fair to gloss over the 7 gas leaks, the broken refridgerator, the screw in Kyle’s leg, the bird in our ceiling, the demolition and reconstruction of our bathroom by us, and the despair that accompanied the loss of a good friend (one of Kyle’s roommate’s in College) on a cool April day while he was attending a Civil Engineering Grad School class at Virginia Tech.

I’ll probably address all these little topics in future entries.  But truly, I think the main point is that the only thing missing in our lives is me being pregnant.  In an ‘Ironic’, ‘I-feel-on-the-edge-with-my-eyes-rolling-back-to-show-too-much-white’ sort of way, it would just be ‘Perfect’ to find out something will be ‘Comin round the mountain’ in the next 9 months.

Heavenly Father, please do not take this as a Dare.