I will not compare myself.
I will not compare myself.
I will not compare myself.
WHAT DO YOU MEAN VERONICA ROTH, BEST SELLING AUTHOR OF DIVERGENT, IS ONLY 23 YEARS OLD?!?!?!?
I will allow myself five minutes of freak-out.
OMG, I am such a slacker/loser/undisciplined writer.
Why couldn't I have done that? Why do I struggle so much with worldbuilding? Why can't I just turn off my brain, simplify, and DIVE IN?
Will I ever learn to shut up and DO it?
UGH.
*insert frustrated, muted scream here*
Monday, April 22, 2013
Friday, April 19, 2013
Hormones Vs. Crazy, Part 2
It started when I was cuddled up against Captain, thinking. Always, for the love of God, thinking. (Have I ever told you that my therapist once told me she wished she could inject alcohol into my brain so I would think less? Yeah, apparently it's problem, my thinking.) I was thinking about what I felt for him, and about the shadowy moments I have when doubt creeps in and grow fearful. And the fear is easily identified.
This man, this relationship -- they are both things I have never really had before that produced so much happy in my life. It's as if I've tasted the best cheesecake in the world--but what if the manufacturer ever discontinued it? What if the recipe was burned or lost? What if I could never find that cheesecake again?
(Am I comparing my boyfriend to cheesecake? Um, yes, apparently.)
It's that fear I thought of, and the welling of emotion that was wrapping itself around me... and at this point, my memory is going to slide back to the moment:
So I said, "You know, what you and I have together, I've never found with anyone else."
"Oh, yeah, me neither," Captain responds readily, unquestionably.
I hesitate. I speak the fear aloud. "But sometimes, even though I have no reason to, I am sometimes scared I'll lose it."
He looks surprised (as I expected he'd look). "What? Why? I'm not going anywhere."
"I know," I admit. "That's why I said I had no reason for it."
And then I begin a conversation about his visa status and press him with questions, "What if..." and go on and on and on until the only option he concludes he has left is: "Well, then I could leave the country for a year and then try to come back on the same visa. But that's kind of ridiculous."
Not once has he mentioned the easiest of solutions, not even as a joke. I have already thought about the possibility of bringing up that solution, but the fact that it's connected to his visa discussion has never appealed to me. It seems... sketchy somehow, like someone could interpret it as me getting a mail-order groom--even though I know it would not be that.
The hour is late, the Charity filter is lowered. The question bounces in my head, should I, shouldn't I?
"So, not to bring it up in this context," I say awkwardly, staring into the darkness and huddling up closer to his chest. His arm is still around me, lazy-like and comfortable. "But there are other options." I shut up. I stop there. Let him put the pieces in the place, because Captain's smart. He's not like any other man I've dated before, and I know he'll follow the bread crumbs.
He doesn't. Not at first. "Well, yeah, I don't really know what other visa options there are, but--"
"No," I interrupt. "I mean, there are other options that will keep you in the country. Involving me." (I actually don't know if I said this in this way. My brain is mushy about the details sometimes.)
"OH!" he breathes, "Oh, you mean that."
Yes, that. That thing-that-shall-not-be-named. M....
I'm tense in the darkness. I don't know what reaction I expect. I know he's not prepared for this conversation, I know he hasn't given it much -- or any -- thought. This is how Captain is. He is free-floating, spontaneous, fluid, flexible. I am rigid, a planner, organized, and forever locked into thinking about the next five years. His approach to life is what brought him to me in the first place because I certainly would not have been prepared to make two international moves before age 30. My approach keeps me steady, grounded, stable. No approach is better or worse than the other, and in fact, I realize they are very complimentary. I know Captain will not think too seriously/too hard of M... not really. Not because he doesn't want to, but because it's not in his wiring to think that way. I also know that Captain does well when I outline some parameters, not in a serious way, but in a gentle way. This was my way of bringing him to the wading pool of The Future and, well, shoving him ankle-deep into it.
I am prepared to drop the topic. His reaction tells me right off the bat that he is unprepared for this conversation. It also tells me I caught him off guard, but it doesn't tell me is he freaking out?
(Note: it is also not in Captain's wiring to freak out. That's beside the point.)
"Well, I wouldn't want to do that to you," he says, "to put you in that position."
Don't you understand? It's a position I'm considering willingly being in, visa situation aside! I don't say this because now I'm wondering if he thinks I'm offering some kind of mail-order groom deal. I need to set the record straight. "No, I'm not saying that's the sole reason, or even the main or secondary reason for doing it. I'm just saying--"
"--Oh, no, I understand. If the situation was right."
"Right."
A new idea blooms in my head. An ugly one. And I know I have to make sure something is clear, spoken, understood. I sit up a bit, tense again. "Cuz if that door is closed," I say, dead serious, "I need to know."
His hand moves over my arm in soothing, calming strokes as if he's trying to flatten ruffled feathers. He is quick to remedy this. "That's not what I said."
I ease back down. "Okay, because if it was, I'd have to reassess what we're even doing here."
"Right," he says. "I understand."
"I know it's early to talk about--"
"--Yeah, really early." There's no admonition in his voice when he says this, but it's another signal for me. He's not prepared for this conversation. "But I know we'll have to talk about it eventually."
I relax. If he knows that this conversation will need to happen (more seriously, less introductory) sometime, then the door isn't closed and the possibilities still abound. This comforts me, and I am prepared to drop it. We do continue talking easily, contemplatively about it for a few minutes, not specifically, but reiterating that we have time before his visa expires and we're still talking two years from now. He speaks like this is a long while off. I feel like it's not that far off. In a year, I'll have a master's degree. In 8 months after that, my 2-year lease will end. No, two years is not that far away, but I don't say this now. He needs the comfort of time... he needs to get used to the water temperature that I've just dragged him into.
He eases into the conversation, and I realize it's not very tense. I do joke about the awkwardness of it, and he laughs with me. This eases the tension more. And I confess, "My mother has made some comments."
I tell him about those conversations, which tend to be amusing with me imitating my mom's accent. He laughs. He tells me his mom hasn't said anything, but that doesn't mean she's not thinking about it. After all, he reminds me, he's the best chance she has at a grandchild. He doesn't say this as bluntly as I've written it, but we've talked about this before.
And so the conversation slides, away from M... and onto kids.
More to come!
This man, this relationship -- they are both things I have never really had before that produced so much happy in my life. It's as if I've tasted the best cheesecake in the world--but what if the manufacturer ever discontinued it? What if the recipe was burned or lost? What if I could never find that cheesecake again?
(Am I comparing my boyfriend to cheesecake? Um, yes, apparently.)
It's that fear I thought of, and the welling of emotion that was wrapping itself around me... and at this point, my memory is going to slide back to the moment:
So I said, "You know, what you and I have together, I've never found with anyone else."
"Oh, yeah, me neither," Captain responds readily, unquestionably.
I hesitate. I speak the fear aloud. "But sometimes, even though I have no reason to, I am sometimes scared I'll lose it."
He looks surprised (as I expected he'd look). "What? Why? I'm not going anywhere."
"I know," I admit. "That's why I said I had no reason for it."
And then I begin a conversation about his visa status and press him with questions, "What if..." and go on and on and on until the only option he concludes he has left is: "Well, then I could leave the country for a year and then try to come back on the same visa. But that's kind of ridiculous."
Not once has he mentioned the easiest of solutions, not even as a joke. I have already thought about the possibility of bringing up that solution, but the fact that it's connected to his visa discussion has never appealed to me. It seems... sketchy somehow, like someone could interpret it as me getting a mail-order groom--even though I know it would not be that.
The hour is late, the Charity filter is lowered. The question bounces in my head, should I, shouldn't I?
"So, not to bring it up in this context," I say awkwardly, staring into the darkness and huddling up closer to his chest. His arm is still around me, lazy-like and comfortable. "But there are other options." I shut up. I stop there. Let him put the pieces in the place, because Captain's smart. He's not like any other man I've dated before, and I know he'll follow the bread crumbs.
He doesn't. Not at first. "Well, yeah, I don't really know what other visa options there are, but--"
"No," I interrupt. "I mean, there are other options that will keep you in the country. Involving me." (I actually don't know if I said this in this way. My brain is mushy about the details sometimes.)
"OH!" he breathes, "Oh, you mean that."
Yes, that. That thing-that-shall-not-be-named. M....
I'm tense in the darkness. I don't know what reaction I expect. I know he's not prepared for this conversation, I know he hasn't given it much -- or any -- thought. This is how Captain is. He is free-floating, spontaneous, fluid, flexible. I am rigid, a planner, organized, and forever locked into thinking about the next five years. His approach to life is what brought him to me in the first place because I certainly would not have been prepared to make two international moves before age 30. My approach keeps me steady, grounded, stable. No approach is better or worse than the other, and in fact, I realize they are very complimentary. I know Captain will not think too seriously/too hard of M... not really. Not because he doesn't want to, but because it's not in his wiring to think that way. I also know that Captain does well when I outline some parameters, not in a serious way, but in a gentle way. This was my way of bringing him to the wading pool of The Future and, well, shoving him ankle-deep into it.
I am prepared to drop the topic. His reaction tells me right off the bat that he is unprepared for this conversation. It also tells me I caught him off guard, but it doesn't tell me is he freaking out?
(Note: it is also not in Captain's wiring to freak out. That's beside the point.)
"Well, I wouldn't want to do that to you," he says, "to put you in that position."
Don't you understand? It's a position I'm considering willingly being in, visa situation aside! I don't say this because now I'm wondering if he thinks I'm offering some kind of mail-order groom deal. I need to set the record straight. "No, I'm not saying that's the sole reason, or even the main or secondary reason for doing it. I'm just saying--"
"--Oh, no, I understand. If the situation was right."
"Right."
A new idea blooms in my head. An ugly one. And I know I have to make sure something is clear, spoken, understood. I sit up a bit, tense again. "Cuz if that door is closed," I say, dead serious, "I need to know."
His hand moves over my arm in soothing, calming strokes as if he's trying to flatten ruffled feathers. He is quick to remedy this. "That's not what I said."
I ease back down. "Okay, because if it was, I'd have to reassess what we're even doing here."
"Right," he says. "I understand."
"I know it's early to talk about--"
"--Yeah, really early." There's no admonition in his voice when he says this, but it's another signal for me. He's not prepared for this conversation. "But I know we'll have to talk about it eventually."
I relax. If he knows that this conversation will need to happen (more seriously, less introductory) sometime, then the door isn't closed and the possibilities still abound. This comforts me, and I am prepared to drop it. We do continue talking easily, contemplatively about it for a few minutes, not specifically, but reiterating that we have time before his visa expires and we're still talking two years from now. He speaks like this is a long while off. I feel like it's not that far off. In a year, I'll have a master's degree. In 8 months after that, my 2-year lease will end. No, two years is not that far away, but I don't say this now. He needs the comfort of time... he needs to get used to the water temperature that I've just dragged him into.
He eases into the conversation, and I realize it's not very tense. I do joke about the awkwardness of it, and he laughs with me. This eases the tension more. And I confess, "My mother has made some comments."
I tell him about those conversations, which tend to be amusing with me imitating my mom's accent. He laughs. He tells me his mom hasn't said anything, but that doesn't mean she's not thinking about it. After all, he reminds me, he's the best chance she has at a grandchild. He doesn't say this as bluntly as I've written it, but we've talked about this before.
And so the conversation slides, away from M... and onto kids.
More to come!
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Is it the hormones? Or is all that crazy just me? (Part 1)
Let me tell you a little secret. I'm a little crazy sometimes. I think this, and I think sometimes it may be true, but really what it must be is that I'm neurotic, a little weird. And maybe once in a while, I think I'm kind of brilliant. (Those moments are a little rare, but they happen.)
So, I'm just going to lay it bare right now. Sometimes I have to do this on paper, to see the black on the white, to know that the words exist and can be sorted. On a blog, this means I can label and hashtag the heck out of this post so I can figure out what's the deal.
Why I Think I'm (a little) Crazy
I've lived with myself a long while now, and I've grown really accustomed to doing and saying things that make a lot of people look at me with their head cocked to one side and a face that reads: do you know what you're saying? So, when I was single, and so focused on trying to ensure that the things I wanted out of life -- always the same three things I've stated since I was 16: be a wife, be a mom, be a writer -- would actually happen to me, I put myself under a lot of unnecessary pressure. I have never really learned to turn that off (people tell me I should--that I need to, for my own sanity, but I haven't). I figured out that being a writer mostly, like say 90% depends on me, 10% on the market/industry/etc. After all, I have to do the damn work. Being a wife and mom were tandem goals, tied together. In my head, you couldn't have one without the other, and it was all dependent on finding a suitable partner. Talk about pressure. The absolute focus I had on finding someone to marry was... I'd say, consuming for me and frustrating for many of my poor friends who had to put up with my endless diatribes on the horrors of my dating life (or sad lack thereof). The year I turned 27, I started to examine this plan. It hadn't worked out the way I expected it to. Had things gone the way I had planned, I would've found someone in college and gotten married at 26, then started popping out kids between the ages of 28-32.
You know what they say about the plans we make, right? That God laughs at them? Yeah, I'm sure He did.
I had to re-examine these plans when I was 27. And like some magic lightbulb went off in my head, I thought, what if I separated the two things? If I can't be a wife, can I still be a mom?
...why, yes. yes, I can.
It wouldn't be the way I intended for it all to happen, but I know I want that for my life. So, I made a Plan B (and not the pill kind). I decided I was going to try to let the marriage thing go. I hadn't had too much luck in the love department, and things were only getting increasingly discouraging, so I tried to let that part go for a while. In the event I didn't find someone special by the time I hit 30, I was going to go with Plan B--my flying solo flightpath. Here's what that looked like:
PLAN B: Adopt a child from of the county child services, on my own, by age 35. Begin the adoption paperwork processing at age 33. (I was never one of those women who was so tied to the idea of birthing as an essential experience of motherhood--it'd be nice, but I'm not doing that by myself! And I've always wanted to adopt.)
How was I going to manage this? Well, I'd need more money. So I decided that I needed to go to graduate school again. I had tried and failed once before, and I didn't want to have to tell my future kid(s) that I quit something I had once set my mind to do. Plus, I didn't want to have to study too much longer, and if I could pursue graduate school now, I'd be done at age 30. So I applied, I enrolled, and I'm on that path even now--and I'm still on track to graduate at age 30 (on my way to 31).
This plan released some of that pressure to find someone to marry. And by age 28, I was giving dating a wild run. I decided everything I had tried before hadn't worked, so I kind of decided to just try new things. That meant I did some dumb stuff, but I did some smart stuff--like date enough to the point where I became somewhat comfortable with first dates--where there wasn't too much pressure to impress. That pressure dissipated and instead, I found myself just wanting to be sure I even got on with another person well enough. I admit: my attitude towards dating at this stage was in the mindset of "fuck it, I don't care anymore." Turns out, that's kind of the perfect state to be in.
Not that I needed to get into all this backstory, but the point is, when I was in that place--the "Whatever, I don't care anymore" stage, that's when I came across Captain.
In 2 months, it will have been a whole year since I first got in touch with Captain and started conversing with him. In 3 months, it will have been a year since we met. In 5 more months, it will be a whole year we've "officially" been together. (Technically, we never ever dated other people in the 6 week span of time from when we first met to when we made things "official" -- but this is arbitrary anyway.)
There is still enough of that intense planner in me, enough of that girl that was SO FOCUSED on finding someone to marry, to make me think about the possibilities this relationship has to lead to ... well, everything I wanted in the first place. I've thought about this for a while--and there's that saying, when you know, you know. Well, I don't. I don't know when that moment comes, or if it's one of those long-time-coming things. I just know that I found myself amazed at the things I was willing to do, the lengths I was willing to go, the amount of risk I was willing to invest into Captain, into us. And each time I do those things, I find myself going a little wild inside. What am I doing? Why? and with the questions comes the dawning realization that I've never done these things for anyone else in my life, ever.
Do I think I could marry this guy? Do I think I could commit to spending the rest of my life with him? The good, the bad, the ugly, the rich, poor, happy, sad, sickness, health, and Stanley Cup Finals?
I don't even think I have to answer that question, because you probably can tell what my answer would be based on this neurotic novel I'm trying to pass off as a blog post.
And so this conversation has occupied my mind for weeks now. Maybe months. I don't know. I just know that the slow freak out was getting worse, because instead of just thinking about it, I found myself trying to figure out how to find a way to protect myself. How do you fall in love and stop yourself from being too vulnerable? How do you find a way to recover the pieces of you that you've been giving away so readily? How do you bring up a loaded firecracker of a topic and not risk exposing yourself, or your fears, or your desires?
Then, I knew there was a problem. I was trying to think of ways to pull back, retreat. This was not the way I should've been thinking about our relationship and I knew it. But how could I talk about it with him and not send him running for the hills? I already know, in my bones, that the whole marriage and kids thing is more important to me than it is to him. He's one of those easygoing guys--so easygoing, I get the sense he'd be perfectly content to date until some unspecified time "if the situation is right."
And not that he's wrong--he's totally right. But he doesn't live by defined schedules and plans, not like me. That kind of flexibility and spontaneity is what even brought him to me--because I don't know if I could've moved internationally, not once, but twice, just for a work opportunity, but he is that guy. I'm the girl that plans her whole life out, to the point where she already knows just which county she'd be applying for adoption services from and the kind of girl who's already researched that option for her Plan B.
The only logical conclusion I came to was to gently ease into it when the conversation allowed for it.
An opportunity to wade into that pool came this weekend; I took it.
Details to follow, as this post is already longer than I intended it to be. :/ Remember, I'm just trying to sort out my crazy right now. (It's that "week" of the month, and so my emotions are kind of... smeared all over a map at this point. This is why I need to write stuff like this down to figure it out...SIGH.)
So, I'm just going to lay it bare right now. Sometimes I have to do this on paper, to see the black on the white, to know that the words exist and can be sorted. On a blog, this means I can label and hashtag the heck out of this post so I can figure out what's the deal.
Why I Think I'm (a little) Crazy
I've lived with myself a long while now, and I've grown really accustomed to doing and saying things that make a lot of people look at me with their head cocked to one side and a face that reads: do you know what you're saying? So, when I was single, and so focused on trying to ensure that the things I wanted out of life -- always the same three things I've stated since I was 16: be a wife, be a mom, be a writer -- would actually happen to me, I put myself under a lot of unnecessary pressure. I have never really learned to turn that off (people tell me I should--that I need to, for my own sanity, but I haven't). I figured out that being a writer mostly, like say 90% depends on me, 10% on the market/industry/etc. After all, I have to do the damn work. Being a wife and mom were tandem goals, tied together. In my head, you couldn't have one without the other, and it was all dependent on finding a suitable partner. Talk about pressure. The absolute focus I had on finding someone to marry was... I'd say, consuming for me and frustrating for many of my poor friends who had to put up with my endless diatribes on the horrors of my dating life (or sad lack thereof). The year I turned 27, I started to examine this plan. It hadn't worked out the way I expected it to. Had things gone the way I had planned, I would've found someone in college and gotten married at 26, then started popping out kids between the ages of 28-32.
You know what they say about the plans we make, right? That God laughs at them? Yeah, I'm sure He did.
I had to re-examine these plans when I was 27. And like some magic lightbulb went off in my head, I thought, what if I separated the two things? If I can't be a wife, can I still be a mom?
...why, yes. yes, I can.
It wouldn't be the way I intended for it all to happen, but I know I want that for my life. So, I made a Plan B (and not the pill kind). I decided I was going to try to let the marriage thing go. I hadn't had too much luck in the love department, and things were only getting increasingly discouraging, so I tried to let that part go for a while. In the event I didn't find someone special by the time I hit 30, I was going to go with Plan B--my flying solo flightpath. Here's what that looked like:
PLAN B: Adopt a child from of the county child services, on my own, by age 35. Begin the adoption paperwork processing at age 33. (I was never one of those women who was so tied to the idea of birthing as an essential experience of motherhood--it'd be nice, but I'm not doing that by myself! And I've always wanted to adopt.)
How was I going to manage this? Well, I'd need more money. So I decided that I needed to go to graduate school again. I had tried and failed once before, and I didn't want to have to tell my future kid(s) that I quit something I had once set my mind to do. Plus, I didn't want to have to study too much longer, and if I could pursue graduate school now, I'd be done at age 30. So I applied, I enrolled, and I'm on that path even now--and I'm still on track to graduate at age 30 (on my way to 31).
This plan released some of that pressure to find someone to marry. And by age 28, I was giving dating a wild run. I decided everything I had tried before hadn't worked, so I kind of decided to just try new things. That meant I did some dumb stuff, but I did some smart stuff--like date enough to the point where I became somewhat comfortable with first dates--where there wasn't too much pressure to impress. That pressure dissipated and instead, I found myself just wanting to be sure I even got on with another person well enough. I admit: my attitude towards dating at this stage was in the mindset of "fuck it, I don't care anymore." Turns out, that's kind of the perfect state to be in.
Not that I needed to get into all this backstory, but the point is, when I was in that place--the "Whatever, I don't care anymore" stage, that's when I came across Captain.
In 2 months, it will have been a whole year since I first got in touch with Captain and started conversing with him. In 3 months, it will have been a year since we met. In 5 more months, it will be a whole year we've "officially" been together. (Technically, we never ever dated other people in the 6 week span of time from when we first met to when we made things "official" -- but this is arbitrary anyway.)
There is still enough of that intense planner in me, enough of that girl that was SO FOCUSED on finding someone to marry, to make me think about the possibilities this relationship has to lead to ... well, everything I wanted in the first place. I've thought about this for a while--and there's that saying, when you know, you know. Well, I don't. I don't know when that moment comes, or if it's one of those long-time-coming things. I just know that I found myself amazed at the things I was willing to do, the lengths I was willing to go, the amount of risk I was willing to invest into Captain, into us. And each time I do those things, I find myself going a little wild inside. What am I doing? Why? and with the questions comes the dawning realization that I've never done these things for anyone else in my life, ever.
Do I think I could marry this guy? Do I think I could commit to spending the rest of my life with him? The good, the bad, the ugly, the rich, poor, happy, sad, sickness, health, and Stanley Cup Finals?
I don't even think I have to answer that question, because you probably can tell what my answer would be based on this neurotic novel I'm trying to pass off as a blog post.
And so this conversation has occupied my mind for weeks now. Maybe months. I don't know. I just know that the slow freak out was getting worse, because instead of just thinking about it, I found myself trying to figure out how to find a way to protect myself. How do you fall in love and stop yourself from being too vulnerable? How do you find a way to recover the pieces of you that you've been giving away so readily? How do you bring up a loaded firecracker of a topic and not risk exposing yourself, or your fears, or your desires?
Then, I knew there was a problem. I was trying to think of ways to pull back, retreat. This was not the way I should've been thinking about our relationship and I knew it. But how could I talk about it with him and not send him running for the hills? I already know, in my bones, that the whole marriage and kids thing is more important to me than it is to him. He's one of those easygoing guys--so easygoing, I get the sense he'd be perfectly content to date until some unspecified time "if the situation is right."
And not that he's wrong--he's totally right. But he doesn't live by defined schedules and plans, not like me. That kind of flexibility and spontaneity is what even brought him to me--because I don't know if I could've moved internationally, not once, but twice, just for a work opportunity, but he is that guy. I'm the girl that plans her whole life out, to the point where she already knows just which county she'd be applying for adoption services from and the kind of girl who's already researched that option for her Plan B.
The only logical conclusion I came to was to gently ease into it when the conversation allowed for it.
An opportunity to wade into that pool came this weekend; I took it.
Details to follow, as this post is already longer than I intended it to be. :/ Remember, I'm just trying to sort out my crazy right now. (It's that "week" of the month, and so my emotions are kind of... smeared all over a map at this point. This is why I need to write stuff like this down to figure it out...SIGH.)
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