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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.

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.—>

The holidays were very good to us this year. I got the one thing I really wanted - a job for my husband that he seems to love and that seems to love him back. (Didn’t mention that here, did I? Apparently complaining about his continued umployment here did the karmic trick - he was working again within the week.)

Of course, I also got a new camera, a bunch of books, a computer game, some lovely new pots for my kitchen, and a pile of CDs and DVDs - among other things - so I’d have to say that the holidays were awfully good to me.

J. made out pretty well himself on the gift front this year - a few new sweaters, a new leather jacket (to replace the one he’s been wearing that’s stained and torn), a new video card for his computer, computer games (and fancy new headphones which are probably as much a gift to me as they are to him) and a bunch of other things that I can’t think of right now. I think he’d agree with me that the best gift of all is the new job, though.

The nicest part of the holiday week was the chance to spend time with both of our families. Monday night we had J’s parents and sister over for Hannukah dinner and celebration. Because scheduling was a bit of a feat on that one, we were both working up until an hour before they arrived, which meant that we were big on the prepared foods from Whole Foods instead of dinner-from-scratch, but no one seemed to mind a bit. It definitely took a good bit of the stress off, at any rate, so I thought it was a great idea.

Skipping over the Christmas Eve stress (courtesy of my little brother and his family), we ended up having a generally lovely Christmas with my parents and the aforementioned brother and family (minus one cranky two-year-old) at our house.

My niece is just old enough at thirteen months that she has no idea what’s actually going on but is game for the unwrapping, the piles of wrapping paper, and - most especially - pulling bows off of boxes and sticking them to her head. There really is nothing like having little ones around at the holidays to remind us that it’s all supposed to be fun and not just another excuse to get stressed about how much we don’t have time to do and how very not perfect we are.

Well, in truth, the holidays were lovely other than the part where my husband had apparently poisoned himself on some poorly cooked sausages the day before, so he spent most of Christmas day - and into today - as sick as I’ve ever seen him. He’s almost well enough now to admit that accidentally poisoning yourself is actually a little bit funny, but not quite well enough that I can laugh at him outright.

I’m going to start checking in here more often, I think, in an attempt to keep my sanity in the coming weeks. After a great weekend, the cough that J has been carrying around turned into a real sick, so he was home at the beginning of the week. Yesterday he went back to work only to be told that they’ve decided that they don’t really need his position after all, thanks-very-much-now-get-out, and he’s officially out of a job.

I’m trying to be optimistic that this will lead to increased creativity in the kitchen (leading to weight loss and increased health for both of us) and a renewed ability to get some of those nagging things done around the house, but it’s mostly just really awful at our house right now.

J is taking this surprisingly well and is very positive about making a change that he’s wanted to make anyway, but the timing pretty much could not be worse, for a lot of reasons, and I (pessimist and worrywart that I am) am freaking right the hell out.

If you’ve been here awhile, you’ve seen this picture before - this is my nephew, older brother to the gorgeous niece. He’s exactly a year older than she is, but this picture was taken last summer, when he was about he same age that she is in the picture below. (Do I need to point out that this one is heavily modified?)

The cutest niece ever:

I love my family. No, really—I do. Sure, they drive me crazy sometimes (individually and collectively), but overall, they’re not a bad bunch.

This weekend was going to be a very quiet one - nothing but hanging out at home and (hopefully) making some progress on the endless list of things that need to be done around the house. Being the antisocial soul that I am, I wasn’t initially all that thrilled to get a call from my brother asking if he and his household as well as my parents could come by for a visit. I’m glad that my higher brain said “sure”, though, since it ended up being a very nice day.

There’s nothing bad to say about hanging out with an adorable and very happy infant, following it up with an adventure to the (huge, very nice, recently upgraded) playground with a two-year-old, and then heading to a steakhouse for a big family dinner.

I needed this afternoon more than I thought. And it beat the heck out of doing laundry and scrubbing the bathrooms.

Tonight was a good night - a gathering of Usual Suspects for fondue at the Melting Pot. In addition to Squeaky, Curtis, Lisa and Michael, all of whom I’ve met before, there were Megan, Ghafla, Lynda and Lisa’s wildchild. It was a really good time; my one regret was that I didn’t get to talk to some of the people at the other end of the table all that much. We had a back room to ourselves for a good while, but then another group was seated in the same room, making it much harder to hear conversation across the table.

Still, a good time. I really should get out more; I never seem to end up hating it, after all! Maybe I haven’t really become the complete recluse and introvert it might seem.

How does this picture thing work? I want to upload a picture I’ve made, but I’m not sure quite how this will go…so here’s something I composed using stock photography and a photo of my nephew:

...Okay, that’s pretty cool. I like that.