Holy Matrimony

I am recently married. I love being married. I always wanted to be married. Everything about being a wife, as I saw it--- domestic life, having a partner, being a mother-- appealed to me at a base level since I was a teenager.

But I couldn't jump right into marriage- for a few reasons. First, I had expectations placed upon me (by my family as well as myself) to accomplish some level of success professionally. To that end, I gained prestigious work experience and attained an advanced degree. I had a good job and very decent earning power. Check.

More importantly, I didn't have anyone to marry. I wasn't a girl who dated a lot. For the most part, when looking for potential mates, I never got past the attraction/flirtation phase. It seemed that whenever I "liked" someone, the feelings were not reciprocated, or vice versa. I also found it nearly impossible to meet people beyond one random encounter-- especially someone I would like; especially someone I could love. And if I did find someone that I could love forever, I knew that wasn't enough. It had to be more than love- compatible goals and outlooks, similar ideals about family, and that special connection you feel with someone you know is the person you want to be with, every day for the rest of your life. It seemed so unlikely to find that perfect storm. Even having a husband now and knowing plenty of happily married couples, it still amazes me that such connections are ever made. I don't know how it happens.

But it does happen. It happened to me. I did meet him. We had our ups and downs, we fell in love, we worked out the kinks, we got engaged and we got married. What I am realizing now is that a major part of why I wanted to be married is because I thought I would be my best self in marriage. And now that I am married, I am grappling with exactly who that best self is. As much as I reflect on marital status and say to myself "phew, that's over!” I also ask myself, "what now?"

My mother was an accomplished physician who gave up her career to focus on her family. She was a super mom and she seemed very happy in that role. If she had even a modicum of resentment about leaving her profession behind, she never showed it. She was, and still is, an amazing homemaker. She kept the house clean and safe, cooked all of our delicious meals, helped us with our homework and carted us around to our numerous activities. So it's not too surprising that that is exactly who I want to be.

But it isn't that simple. I love the concept of being a housewife and under the right circumstances, would happily devote myself to the operations of the household without even having children. However, we live in a time in which that is not so easy. With kids or without, very few couples can afford to live comfortably on one salary. And being that I do have a solid resume and that I don't yet have children, it seems to make perfect sense to "DINK" (Dual Income No Kids) it for while-- save up for a time when we do have children and might want one parent to leave the workforce.

Lately, when I have bad days, I find myself daydreaming wistfully for a time when I will have kids because at least then, my days would be filled with caring for them, not doing this stupid job. I hate feeling that way. Usually, I love my job. And I certainly don't want to push up my childbearing schedule to justify leaving my career behind. Plus, even though I would proudly deem my profession to be "full time mother", there is a part of me that will mourn my professional self. I can see myself a few years from now at a dinner party-- someone will say, "What do you do?" And I'll say, "I'm a mom. I have two kids." And they will stare at me blankly. I'll want to shake them and scream, "Don't you look down on me! I graduated college at twenty! I worked for Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers!" (The collapse wasn't my fault. . . I don't think.) "I have a Master's degree, goddammit it!" I'm usually a confident girl. I know I'm smart and accomplished, so who cares if others don't? Turns out, I do.

But I do genuinely want to be a mom, and ideally I wouldn't wait very long to start having kids. It's annoying enough that people are constantly asking you when you want to have children even before the wedding, but I find that when I am able to block out that noise and really think about what we want, there are no clear answers. Even if we are financially and emotionally prepared to be parents, we can't be prepared for all of the ways our life will change. For example, I have always imagined traveling with my husband- am I prepared to postpone several desired trips for at least eighteen years? (Interestingly, several recently married people I know, including myself, have been booking all kinds of tropical and historic travel.) I have the sense that when we do have a baby, it will be such a happy blessing that the fact that I never made it to Tokyo won't really seem important. But are we ready to devote ourselves fully to another person? And how will we know when we are?

Another marriage paradox I have been grappling with involves how we spend our free time. Although I would be very embarrassed if you walked into our apartment right now, I do spend a decent amount of time on cleaning and upkeep. So when my husband wants me to join him in watching his favorite football team or playing poker with his friends (which is indeed very sweet), I'm happy to join him, mostly because I love spending time with him, and I like that he includes me. But I have realized that between working, cooking, cleaning, and that husband-time, the things I used to love to do have sort of taken a backseat. Which brings me to my original point. When I was younger, say, in college, I would fantasize about who my fully adult self would be- not only a loving wife and productive member of the workforce, but a person who volunteers, is involved at her place of worship, is active and healthy, and is a lot of other things. But I'm not that person, not to the extent that I envisioned. So when will I be that person? I'm not the single, meandering girl I used to be. I’m no longer primarily wondering when and how I will find my soul mate. My personal life is wonderfully secure. I am out of excuses.

I can get pretty down about that at times. But I figure, the fact that the kind of wife, mother and woman I’ll be is so consuming my thoughts says something about where I am today. I wanted to get married relatively young; did I really think I'd have it all together in my twenties? Or did I think being a mother would magically turn me into an all-knowing entity? That doesn't make much sense. For me, the best thing about marriage isn't feeling certain about who I am. It's that I now feel free to discover who I want to be. I am getting there-- one work deliverable, one cooked meal, one vacuumed room, and one poker hand at a time.

On The Road Again

As I was driving home from work today I happened to catch the tail-end of the old Willie Nelson song, “On the Road Again”, and it got me to thinking that my husband will be graduating from the Carnegie Mellon University MBA program in about seven months. At that time there is a good chance that we will be moving to a new city depending upon when and where he obtains employment. While the possibility of being “on the road again” and moving to a new city will most likely be an exciting adventure, I can only hope that this moving experience will be better than my last.

FLASHBACK

We had found such a great bargain! $550 to rent an 18-foot U-Haul truck for eight days. It was wide enough to fit my standup piano that we would be bringing with us on the 3,000 mile trek across the United States. We sold both of our cars and had fit all of our possessions (which did not consist of much) into the moving truck. Our journey from Boise, Idaho to Pittsburgh, PA was going to be a four-day adventure. I knew very little about Pittsburgh beyond the fact that the city was known for being the “Steel Capital” and that the Steelers NFL football team had a reputation for being exceptional and tough. So off I went on my journey leaving my family and friends temporarily behind in hopes of a better and brighter future.

The first day of the trip was a beautiful drive through Wyoming. The landscape was gorgeous, and at one point we saw two moose standing on the side of the interstate! If only I had known what lied ahead.

As day turned to night we began to grow weary from the long hours of driving (we had driven nearly 1,000 miles the first day) and decided to find a place to stop for the night. Now it was 2:00AM and we quickly discovered that every hotel for the next 75 miles was booked. Tired, grumpy, and exhausted we decided to drive around in hopes of somehow stumbling upon some resting location. After driving through some random small town so small it did not even have a gas station we saw it! A huge red blinking sign – “MOTEL”. It was the glimmer of hope that we needed. As we pulled-up we suddenly realized we were staring straight into the quintessential scary movie scene! As we got closer we couldn’t believe what we were seeing - the motel’s name was “The Generic Motel.”

We were lucky; we had gotten the very last room available – for only $30! After receiving a Skeleton Key that looked like it was pulled straight from the 1800’s we gathered our traveling bags and headed to our room. As we opened the door, we quickly found why it was the last room available. A gust of heat smacked our faces as we realized the air conditioning was broken. We set down our bags, turned around to lock the door and realized the lock had been ripped off the inside of the door! It was 2:30am, in the middle of who knows where, with no locks. Exhaustion must have got the best of us because we decided to stay, but we pushed a table and chair in front of the door to stop the possibility of anyone entering.

To ensure that we did not encounter the same situation the next night we decided to call ahead and reserve a room. We tried to pinpoint where we would be stopping that night, but ultimately were not able to agree. He wanted to stop and see the football stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska. I wanted to get in as many miles as possible. I somehow let my fiancé talk me out of calling ahead to reserve a hotel. I decided to listen to his advice that “we will surely be able to find somewhere to stay tonight – the same bad experience could not happen to us twice.” After traveling another 800 miles (we compromised as saw the stadium but did not stay too long) we were again, cranky, tired and looking for a good night’s sleep. The next’s night disaster was just beginning. Again, it was near 1:00AM when we started looking for a hotel room. We were near Chicago, and unfortunately, there must have been a huge convention going on, because we went from exit to exit could not find a single hotel that had a vacant room! I couldn’t believe it. There was no way we could have had such bad luck. There was a small convoy of four other families who were looking for a room too. We would all stop at each exit, find there were no hotel rooms, and head for the next. Finally! We found a La Quinta hotel that had a vacant room! The only catch was that they wanted $380 for the rooms they had available. Sheridan being the math guru that he is decided that $40/hour for the nine hours we would have been there was ridiculous. It was 3AM; we were grouchy, tired, and frustrated. Somehow I let him convince me that we would sleep in the back of the rented Uhaul truck with alongside of our belongings.

Reluctantly, we opened the liftgate and crawled got into the back of the box truck next to all of our belongings. We made a crawlspace area that we would sleep in near the door because our belonging took up all of the other room. We pulled some towels from one of the boxes to use as our make-shift mattress. We kept the back door partially open so we could get some fresh air throughout the night. I think my fiancé began to regret his decision to sleep in the truck about 2 hours later when it started pouring. And, I don’t mean a few drops here and there, I mean really pouring. It was raining so hard it hurt your hand when you stuck it out the window. He was sleeping closest to the rear gate that was slightly cracked open for air. As the night continued he described it as “Chinese Torture” because the rain would hit the floor of the truck and bounce onto his face.

We made it through the night, and after a lot of laughs, decided that we were going to stay in a hotel the next night regardless of price! We realized our problem was that we were waiting too late to find a room. The next day we called it a night around 7pm and were able to find a room for a reasonable price. Over the 4-day trip, we traveled over many miles of cornfields, drove through 2 huge windstorms, and spent over 40 hours driving and discussing what was ahead for our future. We eventually made it to Pittsburgh, signed the lease on our $500/month Craigslist apartment, and braced ourselves for the challenges that were ahead.

Willie Nelson’s famous lyrics made me smile when I started to remember the details of that crazy trip nearly two years ago. I realized that regardless of how horrible a moving experience or a life experience can be, if you are with the people you love most somehow or someway everything will work itself out. I have found that life’s greatest pleasure consists of spending quality time with the people you love. I don’t remember what restaurants we ate at on the trip, or how much money we spent. But, I do remember the conversations of where our future was heading and what goals we wanted to achieve over the next two years. “The life I love is making music with my friends”.

My dog is dying.

My dog is dying.  My dog is dying.  My dog is dying. 

I practiced saying it yesterday morning as I lay in bed, shortly after turning off my alarm.  A few hours later I was to meet my friend for lunch- a grad-school friend who'd visited me while I was dog-sitting for my parents about two years ago.  It was autumn when he visited and we took my dog to the beach.  No lifeguards, no umbrellas, no crowds.  Just the three of us.  My dog was so excited, he ran ahead on a long leash, looking back at us as we tried to keep up with him.  The wet, salty air pushed back, what I call his "doggie eyebrows" that usually hang in front of his eyes.  He sniffed eagerly the slippery pebbles that lined the reaches of the frothy tide, and the recently-inhabited crab shells that were decorated with strands of seaweed.  "I love taking him here," I told my friend that day.

I knew I'd have to tell this friend at lunch, "My dog is dying."  I didn't want my voice to crack when I said it, so I practiced it.  I whispered it from my bed, out the open window and into the chilly, damp courtyard outside my apartment.

I call him "my" dog, but really he was a gift bought by my grandparents for my little brother.  I remember the fall sun that was shining in 2000 when my mother, grandfather and eight-year-old brother pulled up in front of my college dorm in New York City, on their way back from the breeder.  A cardboard box in the back of the station wagon held a tiny, whimpering, black and tan, furry-faced puppy.  I had come out to greet them in my dorm uniform (sweats) and reached into the box and pulled out the boy pup.  He trembled in my palms.  I held him closer, but still he was unsteady, trying to perch on my arms.  I turned him over, gently in my hands, as if looking for the wind-up key.  I mean, he couldn't be real... could he?  My grandfather shuffled into a nearby Chinese restaurant without explanation and emerged with a takeout tin full of water and he laid it sweetly in front of the baby, who stuck his tiny pink tongue into the water.  My mother and I looked at each other- I mean, I doubt we'd seen a cuter sight.

My mother explained that this type of dog (Wheaten Terrier) doesn't stay tiny forever.  They grow fast, into medium-sized dogs.  She recommended I come home frequently to make the most of his puppy years.  And I did.  I couldn't get enough of his miniature square ears, his black button nose- really, the size of a button- and the padding underneath his paws that looked like leather pillows.

He yelped the first few weeks.  He didn't like sleeping alone in his crate, but my parents were bent on disciplining him.  My sister and I agonized over those tinny cries, that we had strict instructions to ignore.  We also had to teach him to go to the bathroom outside, so we'd put him on the back deck, say "outside, hurry up!" and quickly close the sliding glass door.  He was enrolled in doggie day school, so he knew what this instruction meant, but still he stared at us from the other side of the glass, motionless.  My entire family stared back at him.  He cocked his head, quizzically.

"Nobody... open... the door," my mom said in monotone without parting her lips.  Not one of us moved a muscle.  We stared back at him, waiting.  Each of our days brought to a grinding halt so that the dog would finally pee on his own.  Nothing about this seemed strange to us- five human beings standing silently in the kitchen, so that this animal wouldn't interpret even a flinch as a glimmer of hope that we might surrender.

But we always lost that face-off.

Then my father built a tarp tent right outside that same glass door so that the dog could go to the bathroom while it rained.  He was terrified of the rain, even more terrified of thunder.  When we pushed him out onto the soggy deck (he locked his joints and his tiny claws scraped the tiles as we did this) the scene was the same.  Only this time there was a blue tarp over his head.  The rain pounded around him as he looked in at us.

While he appeared to have something against the rain, the snow was an entirely different story.  Everything you might imagine of children playing in the snow- euphorically, uninhibited- is true for my dog.  He dives into fresh snow, armpit deep, he leaps out of snowy trenches, rolls on his back in packed snow, slides down icy slopes, collects snowflakes on his tongue.

One snowed-in New Year's Eve my mother and I decided not to dig out the car, but instead to walk to the liquor store for champagne.  And we decided to take the dog.  Our quaint street glowed faintly with the mild light of a snowstorm dusk and the Cold-War era street lights that line the avenue.  No one was out.  We started our trek-- each step involved pushing our feet into the snow and then pulling them out.  At first it seemed manageable, but by the time we got up the block to the liquor store, our dog was up to his neck in snow and we couldn't get him to move.  He stared at us.  We stared at him.  By this time he was that medium-sized dog my mother promised he would become and so digging and lifting him out of the snow turned out to be pretty challenging.  It took us a long time to carry him to more firm ground and by the time we got home everyone was milling around, worried and wondering about where we'd gone.

   I've been crying for a week straight-- from the moment I found out, seven days ago, that he'd ben given the dire diagnosis (of certain death within an uncertain amount of time) until right now.  For seven days I've felt like a different girl going through the motions of my life and feeling strange about it.  As if for years I'd carved for myself a routine that no longer suits me.  Sleep seems less necessary.  Food, even less so.  My fall TV lineup... finding the perfect jeans... office drama... finding a better job.  None of this is as important and I'd rather not analyze any of it.  

I've been crying for a week straight, and since I don't like shedding tears in front of people, I've been crying in solace- wrapped in my blanket, in the shower, at the stove while stirring an uninspired pot of sauce.  I know he's "just a dog," but we always cared for him as if he were a child.  I suppose it takes some inhuman discipline not to do this-- to save oneself the devastation of losing a pet, so that it doesn't feel as though you were losing a person.

Years ago my father lined my dog's crate with carpet because he said the plastic wasn't comfortable for him.  We had no proof of this, but we went along with it anyway.  On lazy Sundays when my father watches TV and dozes off, my dog sits at his feet near the couch and also dozes off.  And when my father gets up, he picks up my dog and holds him like a baby and my dog puts his paws and rests his chin on my father's shoulder and my father pats his back as if burping him.

After work my mother pulls the dog into her bed for a nap.  She cooks him fresh chicken to spruce up his dry food and peels carrots for his treats.  She comes home from wherever she is, everyday at three o'clock to walk him, letting him sniff every mailbox, every fence post, every tree trunk he pulls towards.

In the mornings my sister cracks open her bedroom door and calls for him from her bed until she hears the jingle of the I.D. plates around his neck.  He pushes the door all the way open with his nose and studies her for a moment before hopping onto her comforter where he curls into a perfect ball.  She strokes his fur and falls back to sleep for a little while longer.

My brother, now a driving, high-schooling teenager, sits at his computer with one hand on his guitar and the other on one end of a stuffed squirrel doll, while my dog pulls the other end.  My dog thrashes his head around, never letting go of that squirrel baring a row of what I call "baby teeth."  But I bet he thinks those teeth are really intimidating, so I act scared when he does this and let him feel like a man of the house.

When I come home on weekends- out to the beach town from my city life- I am really coming home because I miss my dog.  I don't tell my family this.  But it's my dog, whose apparent appreciation for everything- all things small and mundane- that spark my senses; and his sense of security and comfort that makes me feel the same.

A noise amongst the pine trees in the backyard (that I rarely even hear) is the possibility of an adventure- an intruder, a friendly puppy that's wandered beyond the fence, a wayward turtle.  He rushes to the back door, jumps up, leaving a slimy signature of paw prints on the glass.  When I extend his usual walk all the way across the main road and down a new street, he's frantically jubilant.  Even just pulling into the driveway when I first arrive he rushes out, wagging his nubby tail looking as though it could propel him into flight.  And there's the way he jumps up, pushes the curtain out of the way, and with his front paws on the window sill, watches me pull out of the driveway when I leave.  I wave to him until he's out of my sight.

But it's those trips to the beach with my dog that bring me the most peace, and sharpness.  The way our two tiny beings fill the landscape- endless in both directions.  Just us and the sound of the wind and the water.  And then the millions of details:  the grainy red and black sand, the layer of soft, white sand, the receding dune grass, the shell fragments by the water's edge, and the creatures that wade in the shallow ocean before the sandbar...the Twinkies wrapper that my dog dwells upon with sleuth-like sniffing.

I suppose if it gets to a point where we must put him down to end his pain I hope this is where he believes he is going.  I know that everyone says that dogs don't have memory, they only have routine.  But I hope when he is drifting off that last time that he begins to feel the pull of the salty September air, and the cold pebbles under his paws, and the icy water that reaches for him and then disappears into the horizon.  And I will be telling him I love him until his very last breath.

My dog is dying.  My dog is dying.  My dog is dying.

An Introduction

I judge people on the metro. I mean I really judge them. My favorite are the middle-aged women who insist upon shoving their way up in front of the door so that they are RIGHT in front of the door when the train stops, because heaven forbid they have to be the SECOND person off the train. I also laugh at 50-year-old men who carry insulated lunch bags; and I can’t help but wonder if they actually picked it out themselves at the Costco, or if they shirk out the door each morning hoping that their loving wife won’t notice that they left the ugly looking thing on the counter on purpose. I can’t stand the guy sitting next to me with his iPod turned up so loudly that I can hear every word of the song that he is mouthing to himself while he taps his toe to the beat. Sure—there is an unspoken rule in public transportation that you’re supposed to stare into space in such a way that no one really notices where your blank gaze is focused. I try to read the paper in the morning to avoid the eye contact, but on the days when the train is too crowded to get a seat, I can’t help but scanning my fellow passengers and chuckling to myself as I start the day.

I also eavesdrop. Sometimes you can’t help it—like frat-tastic boys who talk about last night’s conquests as though no one can hear them; the pretentious the law student boasting to her friends that she has the best outline for her evidence course; the tourist staring at the map on the wall and asking everyone who passes by if we’ve reached their stop yet; or the annoying woman trying to answer her phone over and over again despite the fact that signal has cut out every time we’ve gone into the tunnel between the last three stations. But then there are the conversations you cock your head ever so slightly to be sure you hear them right—like the colleagues who brought their water cooler stories about their boss’s affair on to the train with them; the awkward conversation between squabbling couple; the young congressional staffer talking about what their boss did instead of going to the floor to vote; or one friend helping the other fill in the blanks to the prior night’s black-out-drunken evening. The thing about eavesdropping is that you can do it even while you’re reading the paper—the trick is simply to hold in your laughter/disgust/shock until you exit the train.

And I know I should feel bad about it. But I just don’t. Maybe it’s that I miss the sunlight of driving my own car downtown, rather than burrowing underground in the depths of the public transportation system. Maybe it’s that when I get off the train in the morning, I walk like a lemming down the street, surrounded by others in suits. Maybe it’s that I’m bitter that I’m getting in to work early only to have to wait for two hours before my supervisor gets back to me with my next assignment. Maybe it’s that I’m frustrated at how much longer I’m going to have to be in the office than the bureaucrat sitting next to me with his ID tags hanging around his next on his agency lanyard. Or maybe I don’t feel bad about it because I actually enjoy it. And I know I’m not the only one.

They Pick Me Up When I’m Feeling Blue

I had my heart broken again on Saturday. I couldn’t have imagined that it would happen on such a peaceful, warm fall day, but it did. Have you ever had your heart broken? I’m not talking about by a man, I’m talking about something deeper, something more meaningful, something more stop-you-in-your-tracks, take your breath-away, heart-breaking. I’m talking about that friend you made all those years ago, who you thought was really your soul mate. You were her Thelma, she was your Louise. But it ended and however conscious or subconscious it was, it still hurts like hell.

It all starts out wonderfully. You meet, in college perhaps, at a party. Or in the dining hall. Or in a classroom somewhere. Who remembers exactly? She starts to talk about how she once broke that SAME arm when she was in high school and if you need her to take notes for you, she’d totally do it. So before you know it, you’re planning weekly dinners where you spend too much on margaritas and not enough on cheap Mexican. You hang out in her room, she hangs out in yours. You call all the time. She calls. Not just every day, but when she needs someone to talk her out of learning how to knit, or when there’s a new episode of Felicity on, or when she thinks she has mono and needs someone to come over and help her remember who she’s made out with in the last two weeks. And so time passes this way. She comes to spend Thanksgiving with your family because going home is too expensive, you spend New Year’s with her friends in the city because where else would you rather be?! She’s there by your side for every break up, every make up, and you’re there for her when she goes through her blue-hair phase.

You graduate, you even move to the same city, into a tiny apartment where you drink beer and sit on cinderblocks bailing water every time it rains. You stay out late, you go to the Bahamas. Then in Cancun. You don’t let anyone tell either of you that you’re too old to go on Spring Break. You don’t make fun of her when she pees into her laundry basket one drunken Tuesday night (but you do tell everyone you know). You teach her the words to Sweet Home Alabama, she teaches you how to ride the subway. She’s by your side when you ‘round the corner and see someone breaking into your car, and she’s the one who talks to the cops when you’re crying too hard to speak.

And then she meets someone. Or you move away. Or she moves away. And it ends. Just like that – as quickly as it started. It’s now that you begin to realize the distinction between equal and unequal, people who are good at keeping in touch and people who aren’t. People who live in the past and people who live in the moment. You are the former. She is the latter. You still needed her, but she doesn’t seem to need you anymore. She was the outgoing one, the one who could make friends anytime, any place. You struggle. You try to resist the urge to call to catch up, see what’s going on, but you can’t – she’s your best friend. But it’s one thing after another: she’s in Japan, at happy hour, working late, skiing, on her way to yoga. Has her life always been that exciting, you ask yourself as you turn on the TV and snuggle down at 6 on Saturday night?

You call when you’re in town, she doesn’t answer. She finally calls you, but it’s 1 AM. Hey, it’s ME! I miss you sooo much, please pick up. Call me, kay?! Finally you get her. She says she’ll come to visit, but that Saturday morning, she calls to say something’s come up. Can we do it another time? She asks. Of course, you say, you miss her so much, you don’t know what else you *can* say. You can never seem to catch up with each other until one day she moves to the Left Coast. You tell yourself, we’ll be email friends, it’s fine.

Years pass. You exchange a few emails, she sends you pictures of all the bridesmaid dresses and weddings for friends of yours from college, you tell her about graduating from grad school and your new job. It’s just fluff and you both know it. Then one October morning (or rather very late the night before), she texts. “I’m in a bar in Charleston and they’re playing Sweet Home Alabama, I miss you so much!” Charleston, you think. That’s only a couple of hours away - I could get there, I could see her. You text back. And you wait. And wait. And wait. Nothing. And your heart breaks again.