Echoes.

Life is moving right along, which is fun.

My brother is being commissioned as an officer in the Navy later this week.  I can’t believe it.  I think it was only yesterday that I met right after his high school graduation.
The years have given him a degree and a future in the Navy. 

My sister is due to graduate with her degree in May.  Another surprise.  Not that I thought she couldn’t do it – more that I wondered if she would.  Parenting and school are hard at the same time, especially with a young one.
But even Brayden is growing so fast.  He starts preschool this year and actual kindergarten next year.
Wasn’t he born yesterday or the day before?!
My little monkey is starting school.

My best friend is having a baby.
Not right this second – these things need a little baking time, but the fact is that she’s a’bakin’ at this moment.
Another shock.
When I was younger it never occured to me that my friends having children was odd.  Mainly because it’s not, it’s biological.
But having seen how my friendships and life have changed having a child, it’s interesting to see how it affects other new parents.
You don’t lose friends, really – they evolve.
And you don’t lose the things you love in life, you just change priorities.

But it is a huge change – you long for the days when you could go to the bathroom by yourself and I can’t wait to see how wonderful a parent she is going to be.
Plus.
I like other people’s kids.

I won’t lie though.
It’s made my clock tick.
This insane little figurative device that kept its mouth shut for years is now screaming at me.
And voicing the words ‘either a puppy or baby!’ to my husband probably wouldn’t give me the answer I would expect.
He’s all for babies.

The sun has been shining outside for the majority of this month and it makes me crazy to be outside.
The pollen levels are high, my grey car has turned a dingy green-yellow, and my eyes are swelling shut but I can’t wait for the work day to end so I can once again be in that happy sunshine.

I told you I was crazy.

Weight Watchers is going well.  I’m smaller and smaller.  I’m still huge, but smaller for me and I’ll take it.
As long as my husband recognizes it when I see him Thursday.
I’ve only provided him with 4 billion hints.
I think he’ll get the picture.

I’ve a grin on my face and the clock is ticking by quickly.
This is turning out to be a great day.

I really hate the sunshine today.
Not that I’m dying for doom and gloom, but a little less brightness would be welcomed for a spell.
My eyes hurt.

Sometimes you sleep.
And then you wake up.
And you trudge to work with a half-awake brain.

And other times.
Like on Sunday night and Monday.
It snows.
Eventually almost 8 inches…
But that was during my naptime.
And I didn’t photograph anything after that.

Where I live this means no travelling – no one can get up or down the hills safely to go anywhere.
It means playing with Alchemy outside – she misses the crazy Minnesota snow and went nuts when she saw the white stuff.

And for this much snow to fall in Mississippi, well, it HAS to mean anything is possible, because I don’t think this has happened in the 30 years I’ve lived here…

So, please. PLEASE let anything be possible – most especially the good things.

(more photos on my Flickr site… these are from le iPhone.)

It’s wedding day once again in the Sparks Labello household and so the running around has commenced.

Okay.
It’s not MY wedding and that’s all that matters.

These kids are getting married at 18… the same age my parents got married. Which really makes me wonder what the HELL they are thinking.
Not that I’m against young marriages.
I just think they’re fucking retarded.

I think it must come with the age. MY age. And the fact that I’m the parent of a child only 5 years younger.
And I’d lock her in a kennel if she thought of doing something so totally life-altering and idiotic.

I want to write.
I need to write.
I have no time to write.
I’m busy losing my mind.

The post office is losing stuff.
Not my mind, but stuff.
I don’t actually have internet access and have you ever tried to type out an entire entry on the iPhone WordPress app?
Yeah.
I have.
Don’t.

18 days before I vomit on dance around in my pretty dress.

Maybe I’ll have a brain cell again then. Maybe.

Most days lately seem full of introspective moments.
I’m marrying in a little over a month, so obviously I must think of every little thing that can go wrong in order to plan for it.
But that’s unrealistic.
I’m not that good a planner, even if the thought were possible.

And the things that tend to go wrong with Nick and I are almost impossible to plan for, as they are generally the most implausible things one could think of, and they often leave me with a ‘what the hell?’ expression at the end of our ‘discussions’ simply because I honestly have no idea where some of the things I get upset about come from.

And it is mostly me.
Not that things never bother him, but rarely does he feel the need to discuss it, tending to look at our relationship as a whole versus at a particular moment.
But to me, the moments stand out and scream so loudly sometimes that nothing that we have done or have been can quite measure up at that moment, and so I need all of the bad to be tempered down into a manageable mass, because I simply cannot take the idea that we aren’t going to be okay.

And there is always that idea, during the bad moments.
The idea that this won’t work, that we can’t make it, that we’re wasting our time.

But we’re not.
It’s just easy to think that way during the bad moments.

Easy to search for a way out JUST BECAUSE.

I have spent a good portion of my time in my relationship worrying that Nick was going to take advantage of one of those times – and he’s tried once or twice.
But I didn’t give up and I fought the good fight.
And I won.
He would say we both won.
And he’d be right.

The end result being that I can say, with a month to go before the big day, that I don’t so much necessarily fear either of us jumping and wishing we’d taken the back door escape route instead, but that I do fear not making him happy in the long run.
That’s kind of a youthful way to look at it, I suppose.
I can’t MAKE him happy any more than I can make him an orangutan, but the notion that we make other people happy is a hard one to let go of.  I can influence his emotions and cast a good or bad light on his day.  I can make his life harder and I can make it easier.  But to be happy is a choice he must make.
And one I’m trying to learn how to make for myself.
One I really want to get right.

But I need him to be happy.  Need him to want me, need him to think that I’m wonderful, even when I drive him nuts.  and being where we are means that on most planes I know that we already have that, he already does those things, but what about on the day to day?
When we’re in the same city, when we’re in the same house?  When he’s putting his junk on the kitchen counters and my head is rotating, is he going to think that I’m crazy?  Or are we going to dig deep, be honest, and find the compromises that will work?

Why do I spend all my time planning for the little things?  Everyone else is planning what they’ll do when they have kids.  ME?  I want to know where Nick’s going to throw his spare change and car keys when he walks in the door – and that he understands my innate NEED to have all the dishes clean before bedtime.

How can happiness live with that kind of insanity?
But so far it does.
He chooses it.
Chooses me.

Maybe it’s that I’m afraid I won’t live up to my expectations of his expectations of me.  Yes, blink at that if you will – take it in once or twice, as it took me quite a while to get there myself.
I’m busily putting words into his mouth, into his head telling him that I can’t BE more.
And he simply wants me to be the most I can be FOR me.  Being happy, finding something I love, doing everything I can to live a happy, healthy, productive life.

How can I, on one hand, love myself and who I’ve become at this age, 29 – sooo much and then doubt that other people can see the things in me that I like?  Or how can I think seeing those things AND seeing the bad have to be mutually exclusive?  They can do both.

If I can, they can, he can.

I think I give myself a harder time than most people do – or perhaps this sort of self-flagellation is a normal hobby of the chemically balanced – but can you blame me?
It’s not easy to give yourself a fair break when you want to be better and better and better because you’re inspired to be so.
There’s this light inside of me since we’ve been together that dances around – and it’s not because he put it there.  It’s because he helped me remember that I’m worth having a light – I have things inside of me that are worth sharing and lighting up and delighting in.

That’s what I need to remember.
What I can make better and keep better about myself.
As part of the bits of myself that I hand out throughout the days and weeks.

If I meet my expectations for myself, I’ll be happy.
And if I’m happy, he’s happy.
Orangutan.