Category Archives: Just me

Just me, Just me

Relationship on a spit…

2 Comments

A few male friends informed me recently that I do not fully recognize how wonderful my husband is. I think they suppose that I take him for granted because I don’t talk about him much. Sometimes I will mention how much certain behaviors of his drive me crazy but other than that I pretty much don’t gush about his biceps, his fantastic personality, and how blissfully happy he makes me.

This isn’t because he lacks amazing biceps and a fantastic personality. Nor is it because I am not blissfully happy. It is simply that after nearly seven years together our fires are, as Hubby puts it, banked. (Actually, he described our fires as being an underground pig roast, with succulent fat dripping into the coals. Banked but delicious. This has led to me teasing him endlessly about sticking an apple in the mouth of our relationship and roasting it on a spit. It drives him crazy.)

I think they don’t understand exactly how much I do appreciate my husband. It’s not just that he earns a solid living, does dishes, likes a clean house, and is a helpful partner. I appreciate him because after nearly seven years of nigh constant contact I still actually like him. I like to be with him every day and I miss him when he is gone. I like to do everything and nothing with him.

Take right now for example. I am sitting at my desk and he is at his. He is torturing himself by looking at the houses we can’t afford on Google and I am writing in my blog. We are listening to Dave Matthews. Otter is asleep and Monkey is watching a movie. The house is peaceful and short of an occassional comment about the number of homes on the market or the fact that I am personally responsible for most of his gray hair, we are quiet. We are together, as one, at peace.

This is one of my favorite things about being married to a man with whom I can simply be.

I don’t mention all his wonderful qualities to all my friends all the time because they are the daily constant in my life. Without him my life would be less lovely, less full of love. I recognize this every day and simply love and enjoy him. Why do I need to tell everyone else about the love and enjoying I do? He knows I value him, I know I value him, enough said.

I like that our fires are banked, that our passion has become something we can warm ourselves with instead of something that sends sparks into the sky and carries with it the risk of burning. I am pleased to simply be with this man, forever.

Just me, Just me, Motherhood, Thank you

Taut

1 Comment

stretched tight, skin aching,

heart beating, loud and frantic.

Afraid if the slightest rip appears, the band will snap!

The page will tear, the fragile hold we have on life will be no more.

So many of the people I know, or know of, seem to be desperately holding on to what they have, blindly putting one foot in front of the other, simply so they can continue to exist. Certain that this sort of blind continuing is what is required in order to survive.

I have discovered recently that the problem with this blind moving forward is that one doesn’t seems to be able to remember that sharing our burdens with each other lessens them, eases the weight they place on our shoulders. When the world seems to be crushing you with its unceasing ability to push your head underwater while you desperately try to breathe, calling a friend is often the best way to catch your breath. Even if that friend is going to spend as much time telling you about their personal suffering as you spend telling them about yours.

Actually no, I would say especially if that friend is going to spend as much time telling you about their personal suffering as you will spend telling them about yours.

I have been swimming underwater without air for so long now that my chest hurts with an almost constant longing for breath. Yet, regardless of how much I know my friends and family love and support me, I can see how tautly they are stretched too. I shudder at the thought of further burdening them with whispers of my troubles. So when asked how I am, I say “fine.” I soldier on. I choose not to burden them with my troubles, which means I also don’t make much time for theirs.

But the other night Hatchet and I took our girls out for an evening date. We set them loose on the park and she and I talked. Really talked. We talked about how much life sucks. She shared her life suckage and I shared mine. Suddenly, there were bubbles of air in my dark, oppressive pool of life. They tickled up around me, caressing my face, arms, legs, like a natural spring sauna, bringing with them life and laughter, smiles and breath.

Three hours of being sad together. Three hours of walking in our muck and shit together and I was lighter.

She and I aren’t stupid people, so we did it again last night, and today, I am lighter yet again.

My life is more possible based on three hours a week of shared suffering than I ever imagined it could be.

So I offer up a challenge I suppose,  make time for each other again. Break out of the routines you have locked yourself in, find that friend you have been convincing yourself you were saving from having to deal with your troubles. Call them up, share your burdens, and ask them to share theirs.

You will find yourself loosening up again, better able to breathe, simply by sharing in each other’s stories.

(Oh and Hatchet dear, this one is for you.)

Just me, Just me

I’m equal to it… fuck that… I am more than equal to it.

5 Comments

I used to believe I could do anything.

Over the past few years I began to realize that belief was born more of my youth and ignorance than it was of any innate capability or superhuman ability. I began to doubt myself, curb my own enthusism, stop tooting my own horn.

Well, as my dearly departed godmother Arie used to say “If you don’t tooteth your own horn, your horn will remain untooteth.”

So today I decided that realization was just plain wrong.

Clearly, whily my youthful self was woefully mistaken about things such as choosing first husbands and the wisdom of pairing three inch heels with stretch pants, she was wise beyond her years in the believing in myself department. This current me could stand to learn a lot from the sheer unmitigated temerity and chutzpah that younger me had when it came to believing what she deserved. Why is that?

Why should a teenaged girl with no credentials be more determined to believe she deserves the world on a platter than a thirty something with a resume peppered with successful interships and clerkships, a pile of degrees, and licenses lining her walls? If anything the roles should be reversed. I should be more willing to demand the world now than I have ever been, or at the least, more willing to believe I deserve it, should my hard work and diligence result in a nicely sized slice.

Yet, here I am. Can I?…. Should I?…. Have I paid enough dues?….Worked hard enough?….Do I have enough experience?…..Is everyone else out there better than me?/smarter than me?/more prepared than me?/better connected than me?…

Oh how that list drones on.

Today I decided to throw the list out. Tear it up, throw it out, tell my older, “wiser” self to shut the fuck up, and start believing in myself again.

Let me tell you something my teenaged self knew intrinsically; no one else out there in the world is going to come along and reinforce you. Your boss isn’t going to come along and tell you how amazing you are, and how much they need you at the company, and hand you a promotion. If you want to get ahead, you are going to have to believe you deserve it, and then make the people with the power to promote you believe you deserve it.

And if you are like me, and you have your own business, no one is going to walk into your door and tell you what an amazing business you have. You are going to have to sell them on it. Opening your doors to the world is like opening your heart and soul. You have to push them open, and them gather the world into them, so you had damn well better believe with ever fiber of your being that you are absolutely amazing. I have never met a client who went out of their way to tell me what an amazing lawyer I was, unless they started out as an old family friend.

So today marks the start of a new era of temerity and chutzpah.

Yes, I can do anything. I have my own business, I have a license to sue, and damn it, I am just that damn good.