26Apr
We finally pulled into our driveway at midnight last night after a week of celebrating my sister’s wedding. It was a beautiful, beautiful wedding. I’ve never seen a bride so happy before. Ginny looked gorgeous and everyone had a really great time. I’ll be posting a series of pictures this week from the wedding festivities, so be sure you check back for those. But today, I wanted to write about something that happened to Chris and me at Ginny’s wedding.
The past six months have been really hard for us as a family, but they have been even harder on us as a couple. The stress of deciding if we wanted to move to Florida, the anxiety of selling out house in Connecticut, the pressure of finding jobs, the weight of going from two incomes to no income for a while, the excitement of the move, the disappointment when we got here, the patience in waiting to buy a house, the loneliness of missing our friends, the happiness of finally being near family again, the struggle to make a new life here. It has been exhausting and terrifying and nervewracking beyond belief. We have never been through this much stress and pressure for this long of a period in our relationship before and it was wearing on us.
I’ve mentioned the tension in our marriage recently on the blog, but I don’t know if I did a really good job of describing how much of a change I have seen in Chris and I since we’ve moved. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to share that side of our relationship, but I think that even I couldn’t put what was happening to us in words. We were tense, yes. But there was a lot of anger between us. No mistake or misunderstanding went by in our house without the other pointing out the negative. We were quick to judge, quick to fight, and unlike any period of time in our relationship before, we weren’t making up. It wasn’t us having fights and then moving on. It became a pile of anger and frustration and tension that we were building on.
We’ve had good times, too, though. It hasn’t been all bad. We’ve had long talks and we’ve been working together on setting up our lives here. But we seemed to be best when we were dealing with anything else except each other. And for the first time, neither of us seemed to want to or know how to make any changes.
Looking back, I think all of those heavy emotions were not really because either of us was mad or frustrated at the other person. It was just being mad and frustrated with the whole moving situation and not having anyone else to blame or take it out on. The frustrations we have been going through are natural and normal and all are part of a major life change, but when you’re in the middle of that situation yourself, it is really hard to see that bigger picture. Its hard to see anything other than the frustration. And when there is only one other person who is going through the same exact thing as you, that’s the person who is left to deal with those emotions with you.
We had tried lots of things to get ourselves out of this. We tried going and going and going – a trip to Atlanta, days at my parent’s house, spending time alone, spending time alone together, dinner with friends, dinner without friends, date nights, day trips. And while all of those things were fun, Chris and I still walked into our house at the end of the day and barely saw each other.
I think that was the hardest part for me, personally. Chris stopped looking at me. It used to be that at any given point in a crowded room – or even just our house, for that matter – I could usually look up and find Chris smiling at me. Just a little “hello” in the middle of whatever chaos was going on. But its been a long time since I’ve had that happen. I’ve missed holding his hand when we grocery shop and quick kisses hello and goodbye as we come and go. Those little things were just the casualties of much bigger problems, I know. But they were significant to me and I felt their absence like an elephant on my chest.
But something happened at my sister’s wedding.
I was talking to someone and Chris came up, grabbed my hand, and pulled me onto the dance floor. This alone was surprising. Usually, I’m dragging Chris to dance with me. But as we were dancing, Chris whispered in my ear, “I really love you.” As awful as this is going to sound, it was the first unsolicited, un-obligated “I love you” that I have heard in a while. I mean, we said it when we went to bed every night and when we hung up the phone after talking and all those times when we were supposed to say it. But in the past couple months, that phrase that used to be tossed around in our marriage had slowly dried up and blown away. To hear it unexpectedly on that dance floor took my breath away.
With that little, stupid, insignificant dance, I felt the weight of the past six months lift off of me. And for the first time in a long time, Chris and I had a lot of fun. We danced, we drank, we danced, we laughed, we danced more, we flirted. And there wasn’t one time that I looked up that night that I didn’t find Chris smiling at me from somewhere in that room.
I know that we are only in the middle of this transition in our lives and that we have many more months of frustrations and anxiety ahead of us, but I feel like a page has been turned and that we are starting this next phase of the transition in a much better place. I guess my sister and John Michael had so much love on their wedding day that it poured out and helped fix my own marriage.
And I think that speaks volumes about the kind of marriage Ginny will have.
Waaaaaay on back when Bean was born ten months ago (it really does seem a whole lot longer than that, doesn’t it?), I had to adjust to being a working mom. Going back to the office after three months on maternity leave with him was really tough, but I learned to appreciate daycare for the experiences it was giving Bean and I learned to love my job even more for the experiences outside of the house that it gave me. It became a really great thing for our family.
Since we’ve moved to Florida, one of the biggest adjustments I have had to make is staying at home with Bean. I’m still actively looking for a job and send resumes out as often as the jobs come available, but finding a job right now is tricky. Especially when you have a baby. I need to make enough money so that putting Bean in daycare is worth it. If I make just enough to break even on the cost of daycare, well, I’d rather just stay home. At first, I was desperate for a job. I’ve worked since I was sixteen years old. My job has always been my identity. When someone asked, “What do you do?” it was essentially like someone asking me, “Who are you?” And up until this point, I’ve always had an answer for that.
When people ask me what I do here, I was sort of fumbling for an answer.
“Well…uh…I’m looking for a job…”
“Um…I…uh…I’m unemployed…”
“Oh, I…um…am getting us moved into our house and then I’ll look for a job but the market is pretty saturated so I’m not sure how long that will take so for now I’m home with the baby and Chris is working but that doesn’t mean that I’m not contributing DAMMIT!!!”
It was very stressful.
And then last week, Chris and I had a good, long conversation about the State of Our Union. We talked about where we are and where we want to be. And we talked about how we would get there. But mostly, we talked about what we can do to be happy right now. Today. Because we can’t just sit here, miserable, until things change. We have to make ourselves happy where we are – crappy rental house, no money, no job for me. We just have to do it.
Happiness is a verb. Its an action. And we had to actively pursue it.
Now, I don’t fill my days worrying and thinking and dwelling on where I want to be. I fill them enjoying where I am right now. I love that I am able to spend my days with Bean. I am seeing every single minute of him growing up right in front of me. And while I loved that he was experiencing the benefits of daycare when I worked, I do have to say that it is so nice to not have to read about what he did that day on a sheet of paper. Seeing him learn to balance and walk, watching him testing his limits and learning what “no” means, helping him explore the world from his short little perspective. It has been such a blessing to me.
There have been periods of adjustment for both Bean and I. We get tired of each other. We both need time outs occasionally. But during those times, I give him a little space and in no time we are back to giggling and playing again. And that’s when it was nice to have Chris home. He and I would take turns giving each other some time and space, and that has been really wonderful during a time of transition. It had been so great having Chris home with us for the past month. I don’t know what I’m going to do when he actually starts working in May.
I’m sure we’ll all go through a huge adjustment during that period, too. But, for now, we seem to have figured out this part and we’re really loving spending time together. We’re experiencing things that we won’t be able to share when Chris and I are both working, and to me, that has been the key to enjoying where I am right now.
Another thing we are doing now is working from home. In the first weeks we were here, we were consumed with unpacking and getting our feet underneath us again. We then took about a week where we did absolutely nothing. We were exhausted from everything that we had been through in the past few months, and for a week we really just took it easy. We slept a lot and just laid around the house. While that was much needed rest, it was during that week that both Bean and I had little meltdowns. Bean went from being in an active daycare to just sitting at the house. And I went from working full-time and all the excitement of moving to suddenly just sitting in a small house all day. Both of us sort of panicked. (That’s when I wrote THIS blog post.)
In the past two weeks, we have really made a change in our lifestyle. Chris and I were feeling lost and out of sorts and so we made a master list of things we wanted to accomplish during our time off. Now, we get up and going in the mornings and we try to knock at least one thing off that list every day. I am also starting to work on my writing more. I’ve been blogging a lot, working with our web designers on our new website which will be coming later this summer (so freaking exciting!), working on sending out resumes and following up on positions, and working on writing in general. I even started putting together a letter to literary agents yesterday – whoa!
Its a little tricky to get work done from home. Our house is my working area, since its so small.
There really isn’t anywhere for me to go to get in my zone and writing is difficult for me when there are lots of distractions. Which explains why most of my posts lately are just telling you what we’ve been doing instead of any kind of deep reflection on anything. Its just hard to reflect when this is your desk…
And when this guys is shrieking about three feet away from your desk.
But, that’s another plus about being a stay at home mom now. I don’t have deadlines. Anything I’m doing right now is my own initiative and my own responsibility and if I don’t get it done that minute or that hour or that day, well, I’ll still be here tomorrow. And that is a comforting feeling. Its something I have had to learn to embrace though. Before, I had to get all of my own things done in small time frames in the evenings or on the weekends. But I’m learning that my time can be distributed differently now. Bean gets the biggest chunk of it – and that is just CRAZY AWESOME. But that still leaves me with a lot of time to get my own things done. And that is a blessing that I just wasn’t appreciating before.
Life is different every day. But that’s not just because we moved or because I’m looking for a job or because I have a growing baby. That’s just the way things are. And fighting against that change or mourning the loss of the past will be a constant state if you don’t just accept the change and move forward. I’m choosing to do that. And I’m choosing to make myself and my family happy during this time of transition.
Someone asked me this week what I did, what my job was. And for the first time, I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t struggle for words. I didn’t hang my head or apologize or explain or validate what my job is right now.
I am a stay at home mom. And more than that, I am a happy stay at home mom.
So, apparently, Florida has its perks. And so does unemployment. Which is why at 11:00 on a Friday morning, I was able to take Bean over to my friend Sarah’s house for lunch and swimming in her pool.
Bean was a big fan of the water. It was pretty cold, so we eased into it. But once he was in there he seemed to really like it. I bought him a blow up boat so that he could sit in the water and I wouldn’t have to hold him the whole time. It also had a canopy that kept him out of the direct sun so he wouldn’t burn.
Bean has a little car at our house and whenever Chris pushes him around on it, he makes an engine sound, “Grrrrrr…..” So, I guess Bean Man thought that his boat worked off the same engine because the entire time I pushed him around the pool, he made that engine noise.
But his favorite thing was when I would run his boat into the walls of the pool. He loved bouncing off the walls.
After pool time, we took a little time out to play on the patio. Sarah has a dog named Nala who was so sweet and gentle with Bean.
I could almost hear Bean thinking, “Molly! You’re white!”
After romping with Nala, Bean decided to get his groove on with Sarah. He never can pass up a chance to dance with a pretty girl.
I wish you could hear what was happening during these pictures. Sarah had music playing out on her patio and I promise you that every time a Fergie or Black Eyed Peas song came on, Bean would start dancing. When that song would end and another singer would come on, Bean would stop dancing. But the next time a Fergie song came on, he’d start again. It was so funny! He has very particular taste in music, I guess.
Fergie on…
Fergie off.
You know, I have highs and lows since we’ve moved. My lows are pretty darn low. I miss my routine and my house and my friends in Connecticut. I miss working and I definitely miss having two paychecks. But, looking in the rear view mirror makes it hard to keep your eyes on the road in front of you. And I’m learning that adjusting to change means finding the happiness where you are today . And today was pretty fantastic.
Let’s take a moment to dive into the inner sanctums of my emotional being right now and try to understand me for a minute.
When I get stressed out, I get tired.
When I get tired, I get easily annoyed.
When I get easily annoyed, I begin to look for things to be mad at.
When I look for things to be mad at, I find them.
When I find them, I get mad.
When I get mad, I fight with Chris.
Ergo, because I am stressed out, I have been fighting with Chris.
Actually, that’s not true. We aren’t fighting because that would imply we are speaking to each other. Which we aren’t doing. Its not intentional and we do talk about things like what’s for dinner and if we need milk from the grocery store. But that’s about the extent of the conversation lately.
We aren’t necessarily mad at each other, though I am starting to get irritated with the whole thing (SEE ABOVE), but we are both just so stressed out and worried and anxious and unsettled right now that neither of us is taking the time to make the effort that conversation requires. So, I’m starting to pick at that (SEE ABOVE) and now I’m causing real fights with Chris because of the irritation of not talking because of the stress (FREAKING SEE ABOVE). So, then we fight because I have picked at him and then we actually stop talking to each other because we have gotten into a fight.
Basically, what I’m saying is that I need Chris to talk to me more. Except when I don’t want him to talk to me. And then I need him to sit quietly in a corner and wait until I want him to talk to me.
What? You don’t think that’s fair?
Well, something needs to happen because if we keep going like this with the not talking and the arguing and the not talking and the small talking like roommates and the stressing about money and jobs, then I might be forced to rob a Girl Scout cookie stand in front of a grocery store out of sheer desperation. And when they arrest me and take me to court, I will have to tell the judge that my husband made me do it. And I happen to know for a fact that that argument almost never holds up in court.
SO, YOU CAN UNDERSTAND MY TWITCHING LEFT EYELID AND MY ROCKING BACK AND FORTH IN CORNERS, CAN’T YOU?
This is a public service announcement:Â DON’T EVER MOVE.
Moving has been much more stressful than I ever imagined it to be. First there was the leaving of our life in Connecticut, which might possibly have been the most difficult experience I’ve had, but we are starting to slowly get past that part. Every day it gets a little easier and I notice that I think less and less about the life we left. I’ve stopped comparing everything to Connecticut now and that helps me enjoy Orlando for what Orlando has to offer.
The part that is hard now is the change in our lifestyle. First and foremost, money is incredibly tight right now. Tighter than its ever been before. We have a delay for a few months here before Chris gets on the payroll at his new job, and I’m still hunting for a job in a market that is completely over saturated. As if that isn’t stressful enough, our rental home is in a pretty crappy part of town. Just two nights ago, there was a random drive-by shooting about two blocks from our house. Nice, right? And we have been holding hope out that things will get better when we are able to buy a house that we truly are happy living in, but without a job on the horizon and until our money straightens itself out, that house is getting further and further away.
And all that uncertainty can’t help but put a little bit of doubt in both our heads. Did we make the right decision? Did we rush into it? Did we really think this through? Or, are these just the hang ups that come with moving across the country in a bad economy?
So, its not like we don’t have any reason to be stressed out. And I’m sure that this level of stress would make any couple a little tense. But at this particular moment in time, I’m not concerned with whether this frustration in my relationship is normal or is valid or whatever, I’m just concerned with the part where Chris and I are either not talking to each other or are fighting.
We had a big talk about it in the middle of the night last night. We decided that its okay for us to be unhappy with where we are right now, as long as we remember that this is all part of the transition. Even though we have achieved a big goal by moving to Florida, we aren’t anywhere close to where we wanted to be. And the trick is that during these stressful times, we can’t take the frustration out on each other.
HAVING SAID THAT… Here we sit. On the couch. Side by side. Not speaking.
Marriage. Proving every day that common sense has no place in a relationship.
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