Only

With the way my life has gone the past few months, I needed a book that would make me feel better about being me, about how I came to be the person I am. I needed to know that I am not alone in the way I think, feel, hope and act.

Only Child: Writers on the Singular Joys and Solitary Sorrows of Growing Up Solo provided just the ticket.

Growing up, whenever I was asked if I had siblings, I always replied, "No, but I have cousins," as though that would make up for being the only child of very loving parents. Of course, I only spent large chunks of time with those cousins in the summers during an eight year period. Both before and after that time, I was very much an only child, with no younger kids to watch, no olders to envy.

Several of the writers, especially Deborah Siegel and Lynn Harris, speak directly to my heart. They speak of being the anchor of a strongly founded triangular family. They speak of not exactly being spoiled, but never having to want for anything, either. The talk about wanting an older brother. That's what I always wanted. And they speak, too, of hoping that maybe, just maybe, their father had some tryst that resulted in a child who would come to live with this triangular family, making it a more balanced square. Of course they, like me, had respectable fathers who loved their mothers and didn't have relationships that resulted in unclaimed children. But fantasizing about an older brother is safe, because it cannot really threaten the status quo. An older brother is simply not going to materialize.

I wanted an older brother to protect me from bullies. To be just enough older than me to have friends I could date, when the time came. It never occurred to me that my imaginary older brother would be a bully target, or, like my own father was to his sisters, a bully himself. We would have a strong, stable, respectful relationship.

I was always proud to be grouped in the "You don't seem like an only child" group. In the past five years, or so, that statement has grated on my nerves, as though I should feel especially proud that I know how to share my Barbies and don't pitch a tantrum if I am asked to eat brussel sprouts.

Unlike some of the writers, I rarely had friends who were onlies. As a matter of fact, encountering one was like running across a unicorn, "I've heard that you existed, but I didn't really know there were others like me." Of course, this could have to do with the fact that I grew up going to Catholic school, and, yes, folks, the stereotype is true, "them Catholics like to make babies." More times than I care to count, even as a six year old (or younger!), I was asked, why I had no siblings. I always knew the truth, that I was a special beloved miracle. And I would generally say something along those lines.

What I would like to say, though, is this, "I was the only one strong enough to claw my way through enough months to survive outside the womb."

Because, there were two before me. There were babies miscarried early on, in the months before I came into the world as a miraculous little butterfly. One of the authors writes about dodging the "bullet" of an adopted sibling, as her parents were considering adoption when she was conceived. They were next in line, and could have said yes to a second child. One of those two other babies, hopefully not one conceived too close to my own conception, might have made it. Then, my entire world would be different. Or I wouldn't exist at all.

Still, there's a part of me that misses them, in some phantom way. At some point in time, before me, two other little lives, blended from my mother and my father, existed. They didn't exist long enough to live in the world, but they were here, on this planet. And I never got to know them.

Maybe that's why I've never gravitated towards the onlies in the world. I was never meant to be one. My parents wanted more children, and tried, repeatedly, to have them. They tried adoption, prayer, anything and everything, before realizing, with finality, when I was about 14, that I was it, and I was plenty.

I kept up hope, all those years, that there would be more of me. I never felt unloved, and I was honored to be a part of the waiting. I practiced being a sibling by bossing around advising my younger cousins. I was patiently waiting, along with my parents, for an addition to our home. As though, if we were all good enough, an angel, or a stork, or Tinkerbell, would reward us with a little wrapped bundle in blue.

And I graciously accepted the compliment about my never seeming like an only, because, you see, I never intended to stay one.

What a Difference a Day Makes

I have no solid answers, but I do have a better outlook on the world today. In the course of, oh, 24 hours, here's what went down.

1) I asked my mom if she could ask a friend with kids at a charter school if the school was hiring (a school I happened to attend way back in its founding years).
2) Said friend started going off the wall, called the principal, e-mailed her son to find out if he thought I'd be a good teacher at the school (yeah, he coached baseball there for two years and hasn't known anything about my life in 13 years...clearly he's the best person to ask).
3) The principal, according to my mom, would be "thrilled" to hear from me.
4) I called the principal. They have openings only in Math, Chemistry and Religion. So, unless they were hoping me to turn out some kids who vaguely remember Calculus, whose greatest success in Chemistry is not blowing anything up and are steadily growing more confused about their Religion, I think I'm not the best choice.
5) But he did add me to the sub list.
6) And the ass-wanker son thinks I'd be "great for the kids" and that I am also "one hell of a writer" (he's read my letters to the editor, claims his mother). Eh?
7) A friend at work -- thank heavens for Canadians who don't celebrate American Thanksgiving -- will switch Saturdays with me, so I will be off that whole block of Thanksgiving days.

It's really number seven that gives me a better outlook.

That and knowing that I've taken a bit of control back and am actively seeking change in my life.

The Loony Bin Office

They'll just love being quoted here.

My mom: Your job is threatening your relationship.

Irenie: I think it's threatening your SANITY which threatens your relationship!

Yep, that puts it into a nice, neat, crazy nutshell.

And what am I going to do about it? And what really is making me crazy?

It's a combination of the following...please stick with me, folks:
*Working such slightly unpredictable weekends (including the Saturday after Thanksgiving, which, in addition to being a holiday, is my birthday weekend and also part of the week that WG has mentioned me coming back to the OK corral with him)
*I'm tired of having to be adept at working with so many age groups.

Okay,who am I kidding? It's really the weekends. If this was a regular 8-5, Monday through Friday job, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Yesterday was my first day back after being off for five days (counting the weekend), and I didn't want to be here. I came in from the parking lot just not wanting to do it one more day.

The weekend before, in one of our serious conversations at the beach, I told WG of my realization that I hate my schedule but love the teaching aspect of my job. He asked me what I was going to do about this problem. I told him what I'll tell you. I don't know. I'm such a whiner that I don't know if anything will actually solve the problem.

I was so excited way back when I interviewed for and got this position, but I was clueless and had no concept of the damage working weekends would do to my social life. I was also completely and utterly single (well, I was dating, but not seriously, and I had total control over my schedule).

So, other than whine to my family, my friends and the Internet at large, what do I do? Do I pursue that whole teaching thing?

What do I say if I end up leaving for three months in the Spring to follow go with WG to Australia? Actually, I have a plan for that one. I'll say that I've been offered an opportunity that I just cannot turn down, though I hate to be leaving my current position. Good, right?

I guess what all this means is that I'm halfway through the whining phase and on my way to doing something about my little situation.

Forget New York City, Just Give Me That Countryside...More or Less

After the longest possible time getting home (although I didn't have to stay overnight in Texas, as some people may have had to thanks to cancelled flights due to "weather"), ahhh, I'm back.

I'm also in *sort of* of a better mood.

There was something about being around 14,000 librarians that made me feel kind of panicky and uncomfortable.

That's why on Sunday, I played a bit of hooky and went to the National Gallery to just wander around by myself. It was SO worth it. I even got to do one of my favorite things, which is enjoy a snack in the Museum Cafe. I love, love, love museum cafes, and I don't know why. I should add them to my favorite things list, though.

Each day I was in DC (had I even mentioned, in all of my recent emotionally charged posts that I would be heading out to the home of the Washington Monument and the Redskins?), I almost enjoyed getting up to take the bus and then the Metro and got around the city just fine.

There were moments when I thought, "I could do this. I could live in a city again."

I hauled my ginormous suitcase around escalators (thus having to face my great fear of tumbling off an escaltor, which was greatly heightened by having a 50 pound suitcase behind me, easily capable of pushing me down). I bought food in restaurants. I fought hordes of librarians for free books.

Then, I remembered hiking through the snow in Boston to get to the T. I remembered being so lonely in my apartment that I couldn't even cry. I remembered having to take a bus to get to the promised land, aka Target, and then having to haul all of my prizes bag on the bus. I remembered starting over from scratch with no one to love me.

And I realized that even if I am capable of doing that again, I don't want to.

One of my last dreams, the one of living a glamorous, metropolitan life, has fallen prey to the comforts of the suburbs, the promise of quiet in the country.

And I don't mind one bit.

Scary

Okay, so I'm surrounded by librarians and starting to feel like maybe I'm not a good enough one. I couldn't name all of the Printz Award Winners or give intimate details about the last ten books I read. In fact, for the last two days, I didn't even bring a book with me on Metro or the bus, because it would weigh down my bag too much. That, like, violates a cardinal rule of librarianship, do believe.

I've discovered a few things since being here:
1) I read to escape and don't tend to notice all the details. With a few notable exceptions in my life, including, most recently The Book Thief and Sex, Drugs and Coco Puffs*, I tend not to remember anything about what I've read after....oh...a day has passed. I'm working on resolving this problem by reading FEWER books, but still...

2) People who worship authors are scarier than people who worship movie stars. Why? Because they know things they had to research, not just things that are readily available in your nearest People Magazine (how do I tend to know so much about celebrities? It's called the grocery store checkout lane or the headlines on Yahoo, people. This is not graduate-level research).

3) While I love librarians, while I love to read, I also want a life that exists in a world of which I am actually a part.

4) Traveling for work feels like work. I've gotten to see friends and have good times, but I also had to get up at 6 a.m. on a Sunday. Not fun. Not fun.

5) I really must eat more often, for the sake of all human kind.

6) I have to get off this computer or I really am going to get hit.

*No links..sorry. I might add them in later, but I'm on a public/shared/free computer and don't want to make people want to hit me with their extremely heavy book-filled bags as a result of my taking ever so long on this blog post.

DC Talk

Okay, so I seem to practically live in DC, at least as far as travel is concerned. I've spent the bulk of my travel days over the last...four years?...here. It's strange to find this place both familiar and compeltely foreign.

I do appreciate that I'm staying with my friend (who's also getting married here in August, so I'll be back in just a few weeks!), because it gives things a less surreal feeling. I get to eat real food and have conversations with people who are not librarians.

The thing I miss the most from home right now, though, is being able to just text or call someone if I get bored. Everyone's three hours behind at the moment...which means when I was bored at 8 a.m., they were sound asleep at 5. It's kind of obnoxious. Why wouldn't they want to hear from me at 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning?

I was hoping that the distance would give me time to clearly think about a lot of things, namely the major issue between the boy and me: religion. It's not THAT big of an issue, but I have a nagging desire to get it solved now so that we can move forward.

This morning, it finally hit me: I don't have to solve it now. I don't want to get married to him for a couple of years. He doesn't want to get married to me for at least that long. There's no need to solve the problem right this second.

There is something I've learned so far at this conference: I don't have to have all of the answers to every question.

This can apply to my "real" life just as much as it can to my work life.

I've got lots of questions and plenty of time for answers.

Simple

On the plane to DC on Wednesday night/Thursday evening, I realized that there is something oddly comforting about traveling. I am only responsible for what I brought with me. I don't have any extraneous things like my cat...or my friends. While I miss all of that, it's kind of nice, every once in a while, to only have a limited amount of space in which to live. I also lose some of my materialism when I live out of a suitcase for several days.

It's nice to escape some of the routines of my life and realize how simply I can actually live.

Consequences

And I so hate consequences
And running from you is what my best defense is
Consequences
Oh God, don’t make me face up to this
And I so hate consequences
And running from you is what my best defense is
Cause I know that I let you down
And I don’t want to deal with that

~Relient K~

Warning (aren't I just full of warnings this week?): This post is full of Christianity and prayer and whatnot.

I've been listening to this song a LOT lately. I've been thinking about what it means. It's mostly religious. Mostly Christian. It's a little bit about relationships, too.

One of the major things that WG and I discussed this past weekend was religion. He's Methodist. I'm Catholic.

He's willing to go to just about any other Protestant church (oh, how I hate that word. I'd really just rather say "Christian"), and I'm being called to put into action what I've said for years: that I could be Catholic but not go to a Catholic Church.

The Consequences song has me thinking about a lot of things. There are consequences to falling in love with someone who will not go to a Catholic Church but who wants to go to the same church as his eventual wife. There are consequences to me deciding it's okay to go to another church, because I'm looking for spiritual fulfillment that the Catholic Church hasn't given me in a while.

I've talked with a lot of my Christian friends, namely my parallel-life friend, about how the workings of Saints and Mary and all of those extra goodies that Christian churches don't tend to have. And she's asked me, many a time, "Why can't you just talk to Jesus?"

"Oh, I do." I say. But really, I don't. I'm not lying. I just don't have heart-to-heart talks, like she means. I pray. I say my prescribed words. And each morning and night, I talk directly to God.

But Jesus.

Oh, Jesus scares me.

I love Jesus. But running from him is my best defense.

I can pray. I can get choked up during Holy Week. But I also know that Jesus was a man and has lived this life. He knows all of the temptations, and He didn't give in to them.

Maybe that's why I want to go to a Christian church. Maybe I realized that it's time to face Jesus directly. Sometimes it feels like the Catholic Church keeps Him slightly at a distance...but that could just be me and how I practice my faith. I can't blame the Church for that.

It seems that the consequence to my spiritual hunger is that I've found the answers in an unexpected place, in an unexpected man with beliefs somewhat different from my own.

I will never put aside the Catholic label, and I will want a Catholic priest at my wedding. But putting myself in a different building. With a different type of practice, where we meet Jesus right there. Well, maybe that's what I need.

When I got tired of running from you
I stopped right there to catch my breath
There your words they caught my ears
You said, “I miss you son. Come home”
And my sins, they watched me leave
And in my heart I so believed
The love you felt for me was mine
The love I’d wished for all this time
And when the doors were closed
I heard no I told so’s
I said the words I knew you knew
Oh God, Oh God I needed you
God all this time I needed you, I needed you

Oh, Are You Here Too?

Warning: This post will make me seem incredibly shallow and, quite possibly, ridiculously immature (not that the others don't also have that potential).

This weekend, after seven, no eight months of being with WG, I finally got that he's in the relationship, too. It's not all about my wants and needs. It's not all about whether he can make me happy, whether he can handle my needs. It's about whether or not he's happy, too. Apparently, there are two people in this relationship, not just full-scale person me and an empty-shell with a great smile known as Wine Guy. What a concept.

For one of the first times, I really asked him questions about his past. I've meant to, and I swear I actually did way back in those hazy, blurry, exhausted first weeks of our relationship, but I'm actually paying attention now.

See, all those months ago, I was on patrol for warning signs, the dangerous flags that might alert me to major flaws that I just could not handle. I was watching him closely to make sure that I could handle his baggage, but once it passed through my security measures, I never looked at what was inside. I wasn't really paying attention to him. Oh, no, of course not. Don't be silly.

After two long car rides in a Mitsubishi Eclipse and several hours of deep conversation in a smaller-than-hoped-for hotel room (with what sounded like no-pane glass) at the beach, I'm getting a better sense of who WG is, how he came to be, what he cares about, and what he wants for his life. Before, I could have answered all of those questions for you, because I knew the facts, but I didn't really understand them.

Now, I'm stoked about asking him more questions and having the chance to understand the man I love.

This is so cool! There's like, a whole other person in this relationship. Wow! Who'd a thunk it?

The Best Laid Plans

When WG and I first arrived in the small beach town on Friday evening and sat, somewhat awkwardly, at the mildly uncomfortable booth in the dark Italian restaurant, I wondered if I had made a mistake.

As you know, he's from out of state, and it's taking a while to cover all of the best that California has to offer. This trip to the beach was long in coming but was also "going away together." The other two times we've traveled, there has been some reason. There was his step-sister's wedding in Las Vegas (although he can't quite get the hang of that relationship and keeps referring to her has his sister-in-law) and my trip to Seattle for library stuff. There have been reasons and a set itinerary.

This was just a little road trip we had decided to take together. This was a weekend I had been anticipating throughout one incredibly long, incredibly ridiciulous week.

And now, here we were, staring at each other.

Actually, there was a reason for my awkwardness.

In the car ride down, my great enthusiasm for the trip had dwindled somewhat as he mentioned, as he had when we first met but as he hadn't in several months, that he still wants to go to Australia to try out the winery scene there. I had always kept this at the back of my mind and had even intended on going with him. I just hadn't intended on telling him that until October or November when he actually completes whatever paperwork he needs to complete and lands an internship.

But when he mentioned it. I took a breath, looked at him (though not quite in his eyes, fearing an answer I didn't want to hear) and said, "So, did you want to go to Australia alone?"

His answer was, "If you go with me, we could rent a house, because we certainly wouldn't live in intern housing."

I think that was a positive answer. But I didn't want to talk about it more. I didn't want to force the subject, and so, by Friday evening, I was irritated about the whole thing, thinking about whether he would even really want me there and just feeling frustrated, in general.

By Saturday afternoon, I was almost angry. I had this knot in the center of my chest that made me want to cry. We started a somewhat tense conversation about the whole thing in a restaurant in the quaint little village. He was, not that I minded, oblivious about why I was anxious. I honestly didn't expect him to know, nor could I entirely explain it myself. After lunch, we headed back to the hotel, and we just kept talking for three hours. We talked a bit about Australia (he wants me to come; it had just never occurred to him that my going with him was even a possibility, that I could set aside my job and go like that), and we talked about other, more serious things, like religion and marriage and raising kids.

By the end of the conversation, we were exhausted and promptly fell asleep for three hours, thus altering my vision of our weekend at the beach, but it was a conversation we needed to have and one that continued after our fancy dinner in another cute town fifteen minutes from the hotel.

We're years away from marriage, but we're in a relationship that's leading there, and being able, for the first time, to talk openly about that, makes a huge difference in how I view things.

I don't need all the details. I just needed to know that we were in this, really, for the long haul.

There is a lot we both need to work out, on a personal level, but I think we can handle those things together.

As we drifted off to sleep, late on Saturday night, I told him, "I know you have questions and concerns, especially about the religion stuff, but I just figure that we're going to make it."

He hugged me.

Daddy's Girl

It's no secret that I'm a Daddy's Girl. I mean, my mom and I have a fabulous relationship, but I am always Daddy's Girl. I love my mom to no end, but there is something different about the love a daughter has for her father, especially when she has as good a father as I do (though, being somewhat biased, I find it hard to imagine that anyone could have a better father than I do).

I applaud my mother for seeing the man my father would become in the boy he was. I thank her, to no end, for recognizing that he was the best husband for her and the best father for her future children.

It's also no secret that, to me, my father is a hero, nor that, for better or for worse, I am entirely his child.

In honor of Father's Day, some stellar things about my daddy:

Three Beautiful Things About My Father
1) He loves me without question and without judgment. He listens to me as I make my decisions and gives me advice when I ask for it. He lets me make my own mistakes and live my own life, stepping only when he sees me making the same mistakes he did, cautioning me about the possible negative outcomes.

2) He loves my mother wholeheartedly.

3) He is a good and honorable man. He taught me to give my all, to try my best and to always, always, act with honor and justice.

Three Beautiful Things About Being My Father's Daughter
1) I get to have his hair color, his eye color, a feminine version of his build, and his walk. This means my legs are strong, that I'm built for running and swimming, that I may be described as long and lean. My feet are not big. My knees are knobby and distinctive. My ankles are weak. I wouldn't change a single thing.

2) Being both an only child and a girl close to her father, I have learned a great deal about what to look for in my future husband. I would never date, or moreover marry, a man my father did not respect. I hope I have even a fraction of my father's judge of character.

3) I also inherited his style of thinking, which means that I am not alone in seeing the world with my own particular, peculiar perspective.

Three Beautiful Things About Being a Daddy's Girl
1) My father would do anything for me. Anything. Anytime. Any place. Thus far, this has involved picking me up from out-of-the way places, lifting heavy objects, having a house filled with a menagerie of pets and threatening to beat up one particularly obnoxious teacher in high school.

2) I know the proper way that a gentleman should treat a lady.

3) I know a heck of a lot more about cars and sports than a lot of women (yes, my love for baseball also comes from my mama, but what can I say, she chose well!).

Three More, Just for Good Measure
1) Watching Daddy walk through the hallway at work, proud, strong, confident in his ability, and seeing people toss admiring glances his way.

2) Knowing that I already know the song for the Father-Daughter Dance at my far-off wedding and knowing that it is the absolute perfect choice (and I'm not telling anyone until that day comes).

3) Knowing that he's saved me a hundred times or more from danger I didn't even know existed. No matter what, no matter what husband may enter my life, Daddy will be my hero.

The Three Best Pictures
1) In the NICU in the hospital where I was born. Me, as a newborn, several weeks early, looking like a tiny little eggplant in his large, solid, dependable hands. Him, young (younger than I am now), with no gray hair, no wrinkles whatsoever, wearing a yellow hospital cover-all and a look of complete and utter excitement on his face as he ponders the future of his brand new baby daughter.

2) The backyard in our first house. It's him, me and our beloved dog Fanny. He's kneeling on one leg, and I'm scooted in close to him with my elbow on his bent knee. Fanny's on his other side. He and I are grinning, and Fanny looks pleased as punch to be getting the attention.

3) My college graduation. Side by side. He's in his black leather jacket and a Cal hat (Go Bears!), and I'm still in my graduation regalia, blonder-than-usual hair (something I'll never do again). He looks proud. I look relieved. We both look a little bit scared about getting back in the caravan of vehicles and heading back home to deal with the mish-mash of crazy relatives.

She's Getting Ready

what'll she look like when she opens her eyes
will she see just what I see
will it be a surprise
to see that she hasn't changed,
her eyes are just a little wider now
and she's getting ready
(Stephen Speaks)

There are moments, early on in a relationship, when any thought a woman has seems like it borders on pure fantasy. Oh, what will it be like when he meets my parents? Oh, will my friends like him? Where will we honeymoon? It's all too early, and she generally knows better than to really say these questions outloud to anyone other than her closest girlfriends (who already know she's nuts) or to her journal, or, depending on the woman, to her mother.

And then, there are those things that a woman decides long before meeting the man of her dreams, or the prince in a car that actually runs. There are those things like: he must be tall, must share my religion, must want to live close to my family. He must have gone to college. He must want oodles of children. He must be pro-life.

There are those things that the woman can decide, haphazardly if she chooses, to abandon. Tall? Well, what's tall? As long as he's taller than me, that's fine. My religion? Do I even have my religion anymore? Children? Well, she wants them, but maybe "oodles" might be more than she can handle.

She realizes that her older, wiser friend was right, that there are some things on a list that can easily be set aside in the interest of the things that really matter, like the fact that he can calm her down, that he listens when she babbles endlessly about work, that he at least pretends to understand why she's upset when she can't find the right shampoo at Target. That he is honest, honorable, and a good man who can unclog the dishwasher.

But there is always one thing on which she will not budge. For each woman, it's something different. As women fall further in love, they worry that they will be called to put into action the stance that they set for themselves long ago and truly still believe. The man she marries must be pro-life. She's budged on a lot of things, but on this one, she remains unmoved.

She didn't really want to have him answer the question, though she should have had him answer long ago. She shouldn't have waited so far into the relationship before getting a real answer, but she also knows that in this day and age, it's hard to find a man with that belief. Especially a man with that belief who is not an evangelical Christian, because she just couldn't handle that kind of religion.

Finally, they talked. They talked openly. She, a former activist of sorts, he someone who has never been touched by abortion in any way. Of course, her feelings are stronger on the matter, but he said those words. He said, "I'm pro-life," and she didn't even need to ask the question.

Of course, after the conversation, she realized how little she had to worry about, which is, perhaps why she hadn't asked the question in the first place. She knew his politics, his religion, and that statement is closely in line with both of those. But still, her heart lept into her throat, and she was flooded with relief.

She would not have to call into question her own stance on what beliefs couples should share. She would not have to reconsider the relationship. An answer she gave herself long ago remains true.

And she is preparing herself for the other questions. The real and possible questions of what it means now that all of her other questions have been answered. Of course, she still doesn't know what his, "I love you," means in terms of a lifetime together. Now, though, she has no qualms about moving forward.

How Much?

After a scrumptious dinner, a group of us were reclining at table, talking about various life things, and the topic of marriage and the future came into play.

I mentioned that, at some point, WG wants to go back to Oklahoma, wants to build his life there.

In the conversation, one friend started to get almost angry that I would consider leaving the wonderfully diverse Bay Area. She said, "Do they even have anyone of any ethnicity other than white in Oklahoma?!" (you see, though we are diverse, Californians are certainly not without their prejudices). "How could you live somewhere, how could YOU raise your kids somewhere, without diversity?"

And this is the point where the real question, the crux of it all, came, "How much are you willing to give up for him?"

WG and I haven't talked in exact words about what "long-term" means for us, and we've only danced around the topic of weddings and marriage. Only in the past two months or so has he more seriously talked about raising kids with me.

My willingness/desire to leave the area has really only come out in my more spastic moments, like the time I practically broke down after he mentioned a job opportunity out of the area, saying, "You're going to go off to Texas and leave me here with these ghetto teenagers!" But that was months ago.

So, the prospect of my moving to Oklahoma (or anywhere else) with him is more of a private matter for me, myself and I to reckon with at this point.

It's true. My family is here. My friends are here. My job is here. Diversity is here.

But. The California family, in all reality, is down to my parents, and they're looking to move after my dad retires. Friends are getting married or getting new jobs and considering moves to Seattle, to New York, to D.C. I can't bet on these friends I adore staying here forever. As for my own job, well, there are, amazingly enough, jobs in other states. I can't set my whole life aside, refuse to move out of the area, on the off-chance the my friends won't move either. And diversity is something I would have a difficult time sacrificing, but I also don't believe that the Southwest is as pale as we Bay Area folks have a tendency to think.

But this isn't really about Oklahoma; this is about one person seemingly giving up more than another in a relationship.

Yes, I would move to Oklahoma or Kansas or Oregon or Australia or England, or basically anywhere. Yes, it would be hard. I would want to hang out with my friends on a random Tuesday. I would want to pop into my parents' house anytime I choose. I would crave San Francisco. I would ache for the ocean.

Growing up is painful. Growing up involves major life decisions that won't make everyone else in life happy.

But, even with all of that missing going on, I would have something that I won't give up for anyone. I would have a marriage.

What You Don't Know Can't Hurt You

I know on the inside that I'm quite a bit different than certain people may remember me, and I realized that my opinions and views of others may also not resemble the truth.

I will always remember that one of my guy friends had a HUGE crush on Brittany Spears. I promised him years ago, as part of a birthday present, not to tease him about it anymore, so I won't mention his name. He thought she was pretty and seemed innocent (even after that "I'm not that innocent" song). No matter what I do, there will be times when I see him as the high school guy who had raging crush on the latest blonde pop star. I promised to let it go, but with the news on Brittany the past few months, I've really wanted to call him up and say, "You had a crush on HER???" But I promised I wouldn't, and besides, he's got plenty of stuff he could call me out on.

Another of my friends...well, let's just say that our lives have some parallels, but my life is like the "light" version of hers. She grew up in a lower/middle class household. Mine was lower-middle class until about the fourth grade, I'd say. She has some of the same arguments with her mother that I have with mine, but her mother could quite possibly be certifiably nuts. And her views on religion and romantic relationships and the relationship between religion and romance are often quite in line with mine. For a long time, I viewed her as something of a role model because she could maintain her virtue and still be in a committed, long-term, loving relationship. I later learned that the reality was somewhat different than I perceived it, and the results of how things really were have been somewhat traumatic for her. I still haven't entirely reconciled the truth of her life with the image I had of it, but I know that I'm troubled by the reality.

I don't mind looking at that couple at church with the two crazy-haired boys and not knowing their reality. I can look at the image and be content to imagine my life as the slightly-frazzled mother who still manages to clean herself and the kids up and get everyone to church on time. I don't need to know what goes on in their house.

But with my friends, I tend to think that I know the truth.

It kind of scares me when I realize that there is so much I don't know about them.

And then, I cover myself back up with my warm, cozy little down-blanket of denial and go about my business.

The Actions That Define Us

I tend to forget that when I was a little kid I had terrible tantrums. I forget them, because I grew out of them. But my grandmother never forgot them, and during one major argument, years later, she told me, "Well, we can just go on like this. You can have your little tantrums, and I can stand here and listen." Well, at that point, it wasn't a tantrum, it was a real argument, but the point is that all she could remember is that when I was little I had a tendency to yell (but never to throw things unless I wanted my butt whooped).

I realized the other day that the way we act early on in a relationship, be it a work relationship, a romantic relationship or even a friendship, may well define us forever in the eyes of the other person involved.

At work, it is hard for me to believe that, for some people, I will always be the girl who worked "upstairs" or the girl who volunteered when she was in high school.

It's highly likely that a few particular friends will always see me as someone who complains a lot and does little to solve her own problems.

And, at least until I can truly prove otherwise, WG will remember that I freaked out over a few things early on in our relationship. He is hesitant to change our routine of seeing each other on the weekend, because everytime he's tried, I've had some kind of issue with it. Well, everytime he's tried, there has been a reason for the issue, and the last time he tried was about four months ago, when I was not in a particularly good place, emotionally speaking. We've talked about that, and he understands that I'm a much more reasonable and ridiculously less clingy woman now, but still, there's a part of him that will always see me as I asked him just one more question about Needy Girl.

A single argument. A few tears shed. You never know exactly what the other people in your life will remember, or choose to remember, about you.

I guess that's why it's so important to think before acting...and WG wonders why I take so long to answer a question.