Life is a battlefield.
November 6, 2009
I’ll be honest.
I’m slow to anger.
Quick to get over it.
I always have been.
The idea of holding on to something so tightly that you keep those negative feelings with you is so alien to me – but I realize that it’s quite natural for some people.
Some people wouldn’t have a clue how to get past things even if they tried.
Because they don’t come very natural to me at all, I’ve always thought grudges were a waste and unhealthy.
I still do, but apparently, at the moment, I am the object of one.
Rather sad, considering the person who is angry with me – not someone I’d ever want angry with me. I love them dearly.
And I’m also flabbergasted.
The event that happened – and I’m not naming her or the event – happened on my wedding day.
Some things I don’t remember about my wedding day, especially the beginning of it.
I remember being so nervous that I was throwing up all morning.
I remember feeling as though I were moving through a fog.
I remember the constant phone calls, giving directions, answering questions, getting last minute decor and items to where they needed to go – or at least delegating that part.
Some things couldn’t be found.
Some things STILL have yet to be found.
One of those things lost on that day (but found a few days later) is at the root of this problem.
A gift that this person put TONS of hard work into. Hours you can’t even imagine.
I chose not to mention on the day of that this item was missing and in doing so either made the impression that it didn’t matter or she wasn’t appreciated.
I’ve apologized days later when I realized (as my brain calmed down) that I hadn’t before.
To no avail.
She’s a grudge holder.
And I love her dearly and hate this negative feeling that she holds. I hate it for her.
Especially since she does have a reason to be hurt and angry. Had I explained on the day of, perhaps this would have been taken care of.
The situation itself was one of those things – not planned, but regretted – that happens in our lives.
I couldn’t have taken upon the responsibility of finding the item that morning.
And those that tried couldn’t make heads nor tails of the chaos the day brought.
I have no idea where it was during the search or how it ended up at my apartment afterwards.
But my apology was sincere.
I do sincerely regret that she was hurt.
I am actually very selfishly regretting the missed photo opportunity, which I’ll be honest enough to admit upsetted me on the day of more than most anything else. The gift is gorgeous and I’m materialistic.
I’m not sure if I could do more to make up for it.
But grudges are unfamiliar creatures and I can’t battle the pathways of one and come out sanely.
So I’ll sit back and wait for her to work through whatever one has to work through.
It hurts though.
It was my wedding day.
And I’m frustrated enough to note that she never asked about said item nor brought up afterwards that she was upset with me.
I don’t think that’s fair – not after this many years of friendship. I think that’s really unfair.
But honest enough to know that admitting organization fault immediately should have been my first choice.
I don’t want to count this heavy cloud of awfulness as a memory on my wedding day – a pall on it.
But I suppose it is/will be.
Have a lost a friend for good?
I don’t know.
It would seem very silly if that were the case.
An absent-minded bride is hardly an unusual thing.
If sincere regret and apologies don’t help, well.
I have no weapons to fight this battle with then.
I suppose I’ll have to retreat and regroup.
And wait for her to make the first move.
What would be on YOUR list?
November 5, 2009
Thirty Things to Do While (and maybe slightly before) I’m Thirty.
1. Go on a REAL honeymoon. That means more than a weekend.
2. Exercise to the point where I can run a 5k without stopping.
3. Volunteer during the holidays.
4. Pay off my school loans.
5. Learn to ride a bike on busy city streets.
6. Start – and hopefully finish! A Real Career search. Find out what it takes to get there. Start.
7. Go camping with my family.
8. Become comfortable cooking on a gas stove.
9. Cook more vegetarian meals.
10. DRASTICALLY cut down on cooking/eating with unhealthy materials or in unhealthy ways.
11. Convert the house to majority recyclable materials… AND RECYCLE THEM.
12. Have a regular family night every week.
13. Go on at least one date with my husband every month.
14. Finish making a blanket of my own.
15. Train the dogs to be better-behaved.
16. Encourage my daughter to find and keep a hobby outside of school that doesn’t involve social time on the computer or cell phone.
17. Take cooking classes.
18. Finish Christmas shopping before my dad’s birthday.
19. Learn to make Granny’s cornbread dressing.
20. Try one thing a month that my husband suggests without arguing.
21. Make 3 wedding albums – one for us, two for our parents.
22. Print out and make picture albums of the photos I love from Flickr and the photos I already have stored – organized and fun albums!
23. Go to another big drum corps show.
24. Keep my house totally organized so that my family can be relaxed in their space.
25. See Nick play softball at least once.
26. Make at least 1 good new friend in Minneapolis.
27. Eat an entire apple without getting sick.
28. Get up every morning ON TIME for at least one week without hating everyone on principle.
29. Make my bed every morning.
30. Send one handwritten letter/note a week.
Happily Married.
November 5, 2009
It seems that most of my posts revolve around marriage at the moment and that’s fine.
There’s not much going on elsewhere – questions about where I am and where I should be that constantly pop up in an adult’s mind as they go through life.
For instance – I’m supposed to move back in with Mom and Dad in order to save up money for a house down payment – after all, Nick can’t move in with someone else so we’re not paying for two residences… there’s no one there!
So that burden falls to me.
Not that it’s really that much of a burden. I love having my own space – mostly the pain is giving up that bit of mental freedom and feeling of responsibility and self worth that goes along with it. I suppose it won’t disappear – I CAN support myself and my daughter. I just am choosing to sacrifice to have a better option for my entire family later on.
I need to remember that.
So I need to pack, to make sure that my lawyer still believes what I’m doing is okay, and I need to do it before December.
Ah. this hurts.
I want so badly to be in a home with my husband and child before Christmas, to celebrate my first married Christmas with them as it should be.
But life is life is life.
Ben’s lawyer quit on him a few weeks ago. The reasons are known but shall remain unmentioned on the internet, as my battle was never with her. Though I didn’t think much of her class considering her strategies.
Still, doing your job isn’t the same thing as having a flawed character, most of the time.
So I wish her the best in her uphill battle.
I don’t know if he’s gotten a new one yet.
I hope that the new lawyer is less effective at upsetting my parents. They’ve given Ben and I so many chances that it seems entirely unfair to put them through such hell when the consequences may end up being not great for Abbey and my family.
The guilt.
I’m questioning my career. I think the people you work with change how you feel about your job. And it occurs to me that working with women is not necessarily what makes me happy.
I don’t tend to like working with women much. They’re rather gossipy and the judgmental attitudes! Empathy seems to be an endangered species here.
Men, however. Men I can work with. If you do your job they tend to get along fine with you. In the south they tend to treat you like a queen as well.
I like that.
So maybe I need to find a job that challenges my mind and allows me to work with men. Real men, not metrosexual office boys who worry about their hair and get manicures.
Abbey’s convinced her dad is having an affair again. I never entirely know how to respond to her when she brings this up. Knowing Ben and hearing things around town makes me think it’s likely. I just don’t want to speculate and cause my daughter more problems. Things have been relatively benign on that front and I’d like to keep it that way.
Abbey still complains, but for the most part she’s been handling the chip on her shoulder more maturely – or, more likely, confiding to her friends instead of her mother.
I can’t fix that though. Could never fix Ben – am too disinterested in the effort now to even try. It won’t work. He won’t change. And why waste my breath when I have a wonderful family just waiting to make sure her needs are taken care of?
Still, she clutches every single second spent with her father to her as thought it were a crown jewel – his greatest weapon in this battle as well as his achilles heel.
As far as Nick and I go, well, we’re happily married.
It’s hard not to be when you’re this far away.
Our conversations are fewer. Arguments about wedding plans are nonexistant, so what do we have to talk about once the day to day catching up is over?
I feel very solid in our relationship. Happy. I feel like things are unfair that we can’t be together right now. I’m ready for that portion to start. Scared of that portion starting and more than anything, I pray every day that the three of us will end up in the same household.
I deserve that and so does he.
But mostly, Abbey deserves that example, that effort and that stability with ME – the person she already uses as a mark to define her life and her surrounds and sense of self worth.
That’s a lot of power I hold in my hands. A lot of responsibility.
And nothing on Earth seems as worth it as that job title.
I believe with me is best. I really do.
But the whims of a 13 year old weigh in. And I’m a guaranteed person in her life. Her father is not.
I don’t know how to compete with that.
Love is a lot, after all.
But love without a foundation, without realistic expectations of a person and a relationship, well,… it’s doomed for disappointment.
Ben’s not going to be more of a father because she might choose him.
But there’s that hope.
She knows what she gets with me.
still, there is something to be said about stability.
