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I can’t possibly complain about not seeing a milestone save when there was simply nothing to save, can I? Once we finally got there (a rant for another day, I’m sure), it was a fun game. We had great seats on the third base line, the rain held off until after the game, and the right side won.

Sorry, Orioles, but you need to have at least a couple of pitchers that can get it done, and it’s becoming all too obvious that you don’t have that. To be fair, Ponson looked really good for the first few innings, but once he started getting hit (eight runs on nine hits in the fifth), he just couldn’t seem to get back on track. Combine that with some seriously hot bats on the other side, and there’s not much the rest of the team can do.

I’ll be watching on television when Mo hits the 300 mark, and that’s just fine with me.

I don’t normally hope that the closer for my favorite baseball team won’t get a save, but this week I’m doing exactly that. I really want Mariano Rivera to get only one save (or maybe have a game rained out) in the next two games so that I can be there when he hits 300. I’ll be there Thursday night, so that’s when I want it to happen.

Three hundred saves is a lot - it takes tremendous skill, a good chunk of longevity, and no small amount of luck to hit that kind of milestone. Great pitchers are at the mercy of the teams they play with to hit milestones, since it takes years of consistency to get there. It probably won’t happen on Thursday, of course—we usually manage to miss milestones by a game on one side or the other. But when it happens, it will be well-deserved.

Four years ago today, after six years of putting up with each other, I was lucky enough to marry the one person who believes in me completely. He is my best friend, my biggest cheerleader, my light in the darkness, my unfailing support, and the one person I’d choose to never live without. What’s more, he laughs at my corny jokes.

He’s also frequently disorganized, pathologically averse to housework, excessively attracted to computer games and cheesy sci-fi movies, overly excited by techno-gadgets, and incapable of leaving the house with everything he needs on the first try.

In other words, we’re perfect for each other.

Happy anniversary, babe.

Just over ten years ago, I ran away from home. It may not seem like “running away” when you know that I was 23 years old and moving to take a job that paid almost three times what I’d been making, but that’s what it was. I was also dropping out of college and getting away from a seriously toxic relationship…I would (and did) deny it at the time, but I was definitely running away from home.

Within a few years, though, home followed me. First my father decided to “retire” to a different job…right here in DC. I’d been gone just long enough at that point that having my parents around seemed like a good thing, and it was. Soon after that, my little brother was stationed less than an hour away with the Navy, and the whole family was here. By that time, J. and I had been together for a few years, and we were happy to see the end of the holiday shuffle. We could have our extended families all together for holidays, and no one had to travel at all…we loved it.

This past winter, my father decided to retire (again) and my parents decided to move away. I wasn’t thrilled about that…I’m still not, to be honest…but at least they stayed in driving distance, so we can visit for long weekends. Then my brother left the military and decided to look at where they might go that has more opportunity for both of them and a better (and less expensive) environment to raise their kids.

They’re in Florida. Already gone, and didn’t even really say goodbye. He called today to give me their new phone number and to tell me about their new jobs and their new apartment. I knew that they were going somewhere, but I guess I had my heart more set than I realized on seeing them a few more times before they left. I was also really holding out hope that they’d still be within decent distance for visiting…not a two day drive or a plane trip away.

I know that this is the right thing for them to do, and I hope that the opportunities they’ve found will be everything they hope for and need. But I’m selfish, and I want those babies closer.

I’m freaking out a little bit about this doctor’s appointment tomorrow. Now that we’ve sorted out a lot of the other medical stuff (tumors eliminated, death staved off another day, a more or less healthy status quo obtained), it’s time to get serious - read, “significantly more aggressive” - about the preganancy situation. After much discussion and research, we decided that we really need to move to a dedicated infertility clinic with a much larger staff than the individual doctors we’ve been seeing. Our first consultation is tomorrow afternoon.

I’d be lying if I said I’m not a little scared. I’m worried that they’ll think we’re stupid for waiting this long, worried that they’ll say that I still have too many other problems for them to work with me, worried that we won’t be able to figure out how to finance what we need to do, worried that we’ll be able to swing the financing but it won’t work anyway. I’m just one big bundle of worries right now.

Today is Mother’s Day, and I’m still not a mother. There’s definitely a part of me that says that’s my own damn fault, since I haven’t even been to see a doctor in over six months. If I’m being honest, though, the break was both necessary and incredibly helpful. It may not be obvious from the outside, but J. and I are in a much better place now than we were a year ago…a lot of emotional and psychological detritus has been cleared out of our lives in the last few months. There’s still a long way to go in some regards, but we both feel much freer and better equipped to handle the difficult road ahead of us.

Unfortunately, part of the difficult road is the same part we'd hoped (once upon a time many years ago) would be one of our biggest sources of support and comfort. I'm not talking here about financial support, but emotional presence and active caring. While I know that my parents love me, it's sometimes a little disheartening to realize that they'll never be the kind of support presence that I wish they could be.

I get tired of people asking me why my parents are moving so many hours away from us rather than staying close by their children and grandchildren. I don't know what to say when people ask how they justify spending a lot (a LOT) of money building a huge house for two people when we're selling off everything we can to finance medical treatments to avoid going over our eyeballs in debt. 

How do you explain to people that they don't "justify" moving away and building a huge, expensive house…it just doesn't occur to them to do it any differently? In thirty-some-odd years of being my parents' daughter, I've learned that my parents have very firm ideas of how things are (should be) done. I've learned that arguing with them about those things is a really good way to get a headache and sometimes a little bit of a broken heart, but it won't ever change things. It's a little bit of a blow to realize that maybe this isn't the way all families are, and to find that the majority of people who know the whole story are taken aback when I tell them that I don't find my parents' actions surprising or strange.

My parents firmly believe - and I wouldn't argue with this, really - that this is their time. They've (well, my father has) worked hard to reach the point where they can retire and enjoy life a little bit, and if they want to do it on the furthest edges of nowhere…well, that's their right. I'm not asking for money—I don't know that I'd take it even if they offered—but it's tough when person after person is shocked that they haven't offered and that they've made it very clear that they won't offer.

What I do find strange and a little hurtful is that my parents seem to believe that their job as parents is done. They brought us into this world, and they reared us as best they could and sent us off into the world, and from here out it's on us. It's not that they're disowning us or breaking off relations with us, but they've made it very clear that our problems are our problems, and while they're very sorry, that's just the way it is. We love you, good luck, let us know how it goes. And come for a visit when you have the time.

It makes me sad to know that I get more support from my in-laws and my friends than my own parents, and it's not the way I hope to be if I do manage to have children of my own, but I've learned not to ask for more. I could obsess over it and cry over it (and maybe I do a little during the really bad times), but trying to change them is a fool's errand.

But I'm 33 years old, and it's Mother's Day, and sometimes I still need my mama. And it hurts when she's not there.—>