The difference of the M word.
October 30, 2009
I’m not going to lie.
I never wanted to be married. I don’t mean I hated the idea, just never thought about it being for me – about it being something I just wanted to do. Never dreamed about what it would mean, never danced around pretending to be a bride – none of the silly things I’ve seen my sister and my daughter do.
I was convinced of two things when I was heading to the church on my wedding day. 1, that my life was about to change forever and that was scary as all hell and that 2, this was going to feel like some transformation and a giant light was going to go off inside of me and blink ‘married!’ over my head the minute the deed was done.
Okay.
Maybe not that, but I expected to feel thunder and the earth shaking – something that big surely needed a physical announcement of the change, right?
Only.
Nothing really felt different.
Oh sure, I was supposed to feel mega in love on the day of and I did. More scared beforehand. But after, I felt much love for my husband. I didn’t feel like crying, just felt like smiling.
My wedding was full of smiles and that’s the way it should be.
But I felt much the same for my husband after as I did before. I bit in awe of his awesomeness, a bit frustrated at his pigheadedness, a bit o’ lust for his attractiveness and mostly happiness at just being around him, which is something rare in a long distance relationship. Something we’ve been stuck in for 3 years.
But different? No.
At least, not right then.
I didn’t feel the need to dance in his arms all night, other than the general love of having him near.
I wanted to smile and dance and act silly with EVERYONE that I love and I did.
And that was fun.
But no, the differences had nothing to do with the wedding. I didn’t feel it then. Nor in the next few days that I got to spend with my husband (a word I LOVE using ) when we hopped around souvenir shops and lusted after each other – oh yeah, I SAID it.
But. It hit me when he had to leave to go home.
How wrong it felt.
How my level of commitment to him had changed irrevocably and how much I felt that my place was with him – in that sheer old-fashioned way that I never envisioned myself identifying with.
Simply put, my life had changed because in one moment, without me even realizing it, my priorities changed.
I became a wife.
A stand by my man, make sure his clothes are clean, support him even when he’s being ridiculously silly, lean on him during the long days, part of a duo WIFE.
I no longer felt JUST separate. I felt like myself – that still hasn’t changed, but I feel a part of him in a way that I can’t even put into words now.
We’re a team now.
And the arguments we may have HAVE to have a resolution – even if it’s simply both deciding it’s not worth fighting for and moving on to another subject.
We can’t just walk away from this.
And that changes everything.
I don’t know what is coming up for us.
We still have some mountains to climb and I’ve no doubt we’ll do it together.
But we have to try living in the same city – living in the same house… something we haven’t even pretended to try for more than 3 or 4 days at a time in the past 3 years.
And we still can’t walk away.
And while that’s scary there is a comfort in that. A solidarity that makes it easier to apologize, easier to give when I would have fought before, easier to decide that I really can compromise on things that seemed ridiculously important before.
Can I tell you how BIG that is?
So while I didn’t walk out of the church feeling as though aliens had taken over my body and my entire persona had changed, days later I can tell you that it did happen, is happening and is so darned cool and scary and awesome that every day brings a new realization of myself, my husband, my family and just where I want my life to go.
I’m loving it.
Absence
October 29, 2009
Just a note.
Swine flu sucks.
Swine flu and strep sucks more.
Every inch of my body hurts.
More non-whining content later.
One of the battles…
October 20, 2009
I think this article pretty much sums up the difficulty that I see before Nick and me in our marriage: “It took me a long time to accept that Ellen’s way is legitimate…”
Legitimate.
Not that I think it’s the best way, but that it is a legitimate and capable way of doing something that I would otherwise have handled differently but that he has chosen to handle in this instance.
And vice versa.
That’s a battle for me, being so in charge of many decisions in my life as I am, and accepting that he disagrees with me on some.
How can he disagree? It works!!!
But he can and does and he’s right.
Not that I’m wrong, but right in the manner that his way of doing things is a perfectly legitimate way of handling things.
What a neat concept, summed up in a sentence.
I hope I retain the idea – my stubbornness is sure to try and erase it from my memory.
Circular Reasoning.
October 19, 2009
So, Monday is in full swing, the week having begun today – and it seems as though I should be used to this return to normal life.
Only things aren’t normal.
I’m now a married woman and while things don’t FEEL different in a conscious way, my reaction to having Nick here for a week and a half and then gone again has let me know that things are, somewhere down deep, totally different.
I’ve hitched my wagon to his and being this far away from him feels new and painful, though I should be used to it. I should.
I’ve started changing my name on things – I’ve gotten some stuff accomplished, others, well… not so much.
Some stuff has to be done in person and several decisions have to be made. Practical ones, the kind I’m best at.
So that’s okay.
I can’t wait until we’re in the same city. Where the petty little arguments will continue, but we’ll solve and/or ignore them as humans in a real relationship. Where the good times can be celebrated just as soon as we get home from work. And where the nights will be spent listening to him snore – a silly thing to enjoy, but after 3 years apart, I say – in all honesty – you just. don’t. know.
Abbey seems to have jumped on the stepfather bandwagon quite easily, though she came home from her father’s last night in quite a mood.
I don’t know what the problem is, but once we were alone she crawled on top of me and sobbed for the longest time. She didn’t want to talk about it though, so thinking that it has something to do with court is just putting the cart before the horse.
I know their attorney quit this past week – most likely due to her painful divorce – but surely they wouldn’t discuss it with her? (will wishing it so make it true? hasn’t worked so far…)
But there is a part of me that worries that maybe she’s just being happy for me instead of happy for us.
Odd, I suppose. They spent so much time laughing and hanging out together that I’m being touchy – overly sensitive because I’m so unnerved at this missing him in this way. Not in the cheesy romance novel way – my body doesn’t long for his touch or whatever other crap they say, but my ears definitely are missing his laughter.
Each burst seems a bit like a gift, as he’s so cute when he’s tickled.
I guess I just keep praying.
That things will work out for us, for all of us as a family.
Logic tells me that she’s better with us. Though I get why everything can’t be based on facts and figures.
Love matters too.
Surely we can find a balance?
Bullet Points
October 15, 2009
I feel like I’m beginning the tiny lessons that begin in marriage.
Where you still don’t have a clue but know you don’t have a clue and are starting to get whispers of what or where a clue might be.
Patience being the first huge hint of the need to come.
He and I are so different, you see. We compliment each other in a lot of ways, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t still drive each other nuts.
Sometimes, in the middle of the nuts, it seems so odd that we love each other so much.
Our nuts aren’t quite like other folks’s nuts. We don’t yell or name call or fight really. We don’t disagree if there are people within hearing distance, saving those moments for Nick and Lish moments.
But we do still feel nuts on the inside. Not quite right, not quite settled.
A lot of that coming from trying to feel ‘at home’ when you aren’t ‘at home.’
Until we’re in the same house, there is a lot that we can’t do together, including feeling like we’re at a physical address that we belong in.
I can’t fix that now, so I simply work with him on the events that are dredged up because of those feelings.
And during our nuts moments, I listen patiently or he listens patiently to whatever illogical statement the other is making.
And I think that’s definitely a sign of the future to come. A lot of listening – a lot of not agreeing all the time, but a lot of respecting differences.
It’s hard, so far. Not that it hasn’t always been, but there is a certain freedom when you’re not married. An escape clause that I’m just now realizing no longer exists.
We are. Not he and I. WE. And that’s a whole new ballgame that blows my mind up with the hugeness, but rightness of it.
Driving along after lunch yesterday Nick mentions college savings for Abbey. He and I don’t think the same way about so many things, but for him, this is one of the ways he shows love. To make sure that she never has to be panicked about her future or her ability to make her way in the world. He wants to answer those worrying questions for her before she asks them. Sure, he wants her to work hard and not need our money, but the love in him makes him plan for the hard times for her.
I melt.
We might disagree on how we get there – I always give in because I’m mainly disagreeing on principle – he’s amazing with money and planning – but we do have the same goals.
And that matters.
And Abbey being okay is one of them.
Last night watching my husband (!!) and daughter on the couch spending time together was like a balm to my soul – the years of hearing her cry for her father, wondering why he didn’t love her enough to spend time with her – it makes me happy that this time I chose well. My 29 year old self found a good man, and while he won’t be Abbey’s father, and while I can’t fix that situation, I can show her, through example, the kind of man and kind of relationship I hope she finds in her life.
So I guess the point is that underneath the nuts that sometimes float to the surface is this knowledge that I am sublimely lucky, even in my nervousness.
And that the patience I’ll need will be hard to find at times, but my husband and my relationship with him and my family are So Completely Worth It.
Lol, now who do I entrust with that knowledge for the days when he leaves wet towels on the floor and all I want to do is bury him in slime up to his neck for a couple of hours?
Ah. The Mrs. Game.
October 14, 2009
Married.
That’s what people keep telling me I am.
But I don’t feel THAT different about the level of commitment Nick and I share – so I guess that tells you how in the game I was to begin with.
Not that there isn’t a mental difference – there is.
Not that I didn’t feel the winds of incredible change. I did.
But.
Right now I’m still caught in the land of ‘I can’t believe this’ and ‘this is WEIRD’ because it is.
I’m married.
This is in the same version of reality one might say ‘you have a purple head.’
The definition of the word doesn’t necessarily equal what I’m used to using as a description of myself.
And now it’s a major factor in my life.
That’s both weird AND supremely cool.
I definitely haven’t gotten into the gushy happiness thing over the changing of my name, mainly because as much as I love the idea, the practicality of it is a giant pain in my ass.
Mrs. Labello.
Mrs. Alisha Labello.
Yeah. That’s just weird.
Which means how I answer the phone will change.
My email address at work, my signature, my bank accounts… it’s all going to change.
And I’m the person who can’t remember to write the correct year on her checks until at LEAST May.
So I’m thinking 29 years of using one name is going to take a little while to change.
Weird.
I’m married.
Supremely happy.
And leg-shackled.
Wow: the word of the day/month/week/decade/year
October 5, 2009
This weekend flew by in a flash, the last weekend I’ll ever be officially ‘single’ and I must say – that really blows my mind.
For years I ran around, partying hard (if by hard you mean sitting on the couch and watching movies with your closest friends. it totally counts, I swear. Okay. So I didn’t party hard. But I was still cool.) playing with my friends, flirting with folks, having a grand ole time, and all of that sort of got knocked on its rear with the shy smile of a tall Italian chemistry student that I’d been talking to online for a month or so.
I had known that night that I was in trouble, that everything I had always pledged to stand for was in danger of being shaken. What I didn’t realize was that I didn’t really stand for those things, that never wanting to marry at that point was simply that I didn’t know about HIM and the sheer amount of fun you can have with one person for years.
Plus he has these really long gorgeous lashes over these deep brown eyes and well… I’m a sucker for girl lashes over manly gorgeous eyes.
This weekend and this morning has marked a set of days and events that will never happen again.
My last single Monday. My last waking up in bed on the weekend as a single woman.
Perhaps that’s a little overdramatic in words, but the echo of what that means is resounding through my body and I find myself so excited to stand up with this man this weekend.
I’m not entirely sure the wedding is all together.
Not entirely sure I’m not missing a ton of things.
Not entirely sure the money will work out in the end.
Not entirely sure of a lot of things.
But I am sure of my decision.
Of him. Of us. Of us as a couple, of us as a family, of us and Abbey and making the best of life.
So the linens might be crooked. My dress might not be entirely steamed, and I might look like the dough… girl, but in the end the important part will be taken care of and we’ll have hog tied each other in the way only a southern couple can hog tie themselves and well… if that’s not a bit o’ romance, I don’t know what is.
I’m scared, yes. Not of making a wrong decision or of failing, but just in that natural way of things that spell change for my safe little world that I’m used to.
I’m unsure of where this is going to lead me, which is a strange feeling – all of the decisions before were made solely by me, which lent itself to a feeling of control – now they’re joint decisions… and he and I are so different that this will make life interesting.
And I’m not sure where in the heck I’ll end up.
Not geographically but mentally and physically.
And that’s scary but also kinda cool.
Which I suppose is the risk of relationship and the risk of what I’m doing.
But the benefits of leaping seem large and the benefits of staying the same or as we are seem very small in comparison.
So.
I begin this last ‘single’ week with little trepidation and more excitement than many of the weeks I’ve experienced in my life.
How large and grand this seems compared to many of those others.
Abbey and this.
Two biggest decisions I’ve made in my life.
The two best.
Just wow.
