(nice visual, eh?)

Over the past few weeks, I’ve started to wonder (fear, actually) that I might need my meds adjusted upward. Anxiety has crept in. A general cantankerousness has joined my normally happy demeanor. I’m not excited about my life. And most of all, I find myself engaging in a thought script that involves a lot of doubt about myself, my life, and my choices. All of these are big red flag type indicators that something is amiss. But I’m only now spending the time delving in. Why?

For one thing, I’d be lying if I said pride wasn’t a factor. Yes, I might be on an antidepressant, but I’m on a low dose, and have never needed anything more than that. Pretty stupid, huh?

Beyond that, I have a case of fear-based “what if”s. What if I raise the dose, and that only helps for a brief time before I start tumbling again? What if I am *gasp* irreparably broken? If so, why fight? Why not just accept? Well, there is that teensy issue that life quickly becomes not worth much if I do give in.

Finally, I realized that if I’m needing a dose-boost, perhaps that means that there are non-medication fixes that I need in my life. Okay, not “perhaps” there are, but undoubtedly, there are changes that I need to make. And the biggest change I need to make is that I must — just must — get thoughts out of my head for processing more often. I rarely write any more, and when I do, it’s not of much substance, just a quote and a quip.

So, here I am, with a brain full-to-bursting of ideas, thoughts, emotions, and writing material. Why am I not writing?

Self-censorship.

This is a big deal, one that I’ve touched upon before. Wow, how much things have changed since those days, huh? What remains true is that for me to write well, I need to allow myself the freedom to write whatever strikes me, without worry about who’s reading. Does that mean I should just journal privately? Well, no — I don’t think so. Part of the fulfilling nature of writing for me is in having feedback (even the absence of feedback is feedback)!

Crap. I realize now, I’m censoring myself even in writing about censorship. Crap, crap, crap.

Moving on (since I’m a bit stuck), I moved to my current town (and it IS a town — only 20k people give or take, and an hour+ drive to Santa Fe) in February. As a result, while I have a few “friends” those friendships are more of the acquaintance variety. And, I do have a few very close friendships I maintain remotely, but how much do I want to dump on those folks with what’s in my head? At least one of my good friends, I’ve come to almost develop a complex about how much I’ve used her ear as I’ve struggled (yes, struggled) through the last two years. Yet, just the way my mind works (truly, I am very much an extrovert in how I process information), I must get thoughts out of my head in order to make sense of them. If I just think things over, it’s as if my brain is scratched CD. I’ll move on to other thoughts, just to have my current issue grab me again. If I write thoughts down, I can swim around in them a bit, picking them up and examining them one at a time, rearranging them until they make a modicum of sense to me. I can find patterns rather than being stuck with details. Telling my thoughts as a story, the story starts to take shape. I have a somewhat cohesive (if confusing) whole rather than a million discreet bits of mental debris.

But, if I write about my husband, he has this address. If I write about my beliefs regarding religion, it feels like I alienate people whom I love dearly, but who I know are believers. And in some cases, I have people I know in real life who read, but might not have the maturity of tact when sharing my thoughts with others.

Is it time for a new blog? What does it mean to be authentically myself, complete with the ugly parts and inconsistencies, and how do I balance that with kindness and compassion?

Whatever the answer, I need to find an outlet for all of this clutter that’s in my head. It’s making me crazy.

As of this moment, there’s no way we’re moving to Vienna. Considering that our living room is filled with plastic containers — ones which we were sorting and packing for an overseas move — this is a big, big deal.

I don’t feel like going into the reasons for now, but we’re staying put probably until the Summer, and figuring out some way to move to the Denver area instead. Am I crushed? Nah. At this point, I’m so exhausted from the drama that has dragged out for five months, that I’m simply relieved to have the decision-making power back in our hands.

Harrumph. Huh…my uncle asked what we’re doing for Christmas, and I realized that I have NO FREAKIN’ IDEA. I thought we’d be frantically packing to be ready to load a shipping container bound for Europe. Guess not.

We’re having a boy, folks.

Last pregnancy, my skin was smooth and glowing. This time, I’m breaking out and oily. Oh, and I have extra hairs on my chinny-chin-chin.

Last pregnancy, I craved all-sugar-all-the-time. This time? Chicken. Bring me the chicken, darn it.

Last pregnancy, I got wide, and my belly grew low. This time? Well, I’m still getting wide (sigh…darned hips and thighs), but my belly is way the heck up near my ribcage. Let’s not discuss how much I weigh now at 21 weeks. The idea of piling 19ish pounds on top of that scares the bejesus out of me. Oddly, though, I feel great. I mean really, really great. And I love the belly enough that the butt and thighs are just annoying tag-alongs.

As different as everything is, and from the hint I got from intelligender, I had an inkling that this just might not be another girlie-girl. Nah. It’s a boy-boy-boy.

Gee, ya think? There was no room for questioning at this ultrasound. Not only did baby boy show the goods, he showed ALL the goods (seriously, we could see scrotum), multiple times. “Hi! I’m here! I’m HAPPY!”

He’s developing at a pretty normal pace, too, which relieves me and my fears of “what if this kid has a noggin as big as his dad’s?”

Looks pretty cozy in there, to me. I wouldn’t mind a recliner like that.

Since learning (three weeks ago, sorry to be so late) that this is a he-baby, we sorted through Maya’s piles (and piles) of baby clothing and packed a 30+ pound box to ship to Iowa to Mike’s sister, who’s having a girl next month. No, we haven’t decided for sure whether this will be “the end” for us, but why let all those cute things just sit unused? The universe will surely reciprocate should we have another baby girl down the road. And for this one, friends have given me stacks of boy duds to start with. And, of course, we *had* to buy a few new-to-this-baby items, just because we could. Who knew that boy clothing could be so fun?

We still don’t have timing on the move to Austria. Our last update was mid-October, that the Director General of the IAEA had signed off the paperwork, THEN it was going back to personnel, and THEN it would be sent to us. Maybe by Thanksgiving we’ll have details? Whatever, Mike knows that if we hit mid-January (32 weeks) without a move, I will seriously look at moving to Colorado until after the baby’s born. He says he will NOT let that happen.

So, that’s what’s up here…we’re still preparing for a big move in the December/January timeframe, but getting yanked around about the details. We’re told this is quite normal, and to expect things to move VERY quickly once they finally get us the paperwork. Wait and hurry-up.

Once again, I’ve been a neglectful blogger. Eh, what can I say? This thing’s here for my amusement, and sometimes I’m just too…amused…doing other things to take the time to post.

Still, I must at least post a few quick updates:

1. I’m pregnant. This time, it seems to be sticking (Today is 35 days post-ovulation, aka gestational week 7), and my body has responded accordingly. I’m getting big. Immediately, can’t-wear-my-normal-clothing big. With a little help from Target and Kohls, I have enough bottom half items to make due for a while, hopefully through the end of the summer. Baby was conceived in Japan (like you *really* wanted to know that?), and the due date will be sometime mid-March-ish. My calculations say 19Mar08, but the doctor might say otherwise when we visit with her on Friday.

2. Baby will likely be born in Vienna. Vienna, Austria that is (nope, not Virginia). Mike has been advised that the formal offer from the IAEA (intl atomic energy agency) is on its way — for a job that will move us to Europe for two years, with an option for a third year. You know those inspector guys they send to North Korea? And the ones they kick out of Iran? He’ll be the guy training them. Well, maybe not THOSE guys specifically (they’re the high-level, experienced ones), but the inspectors who are still early in their careers. Coolness. It pays to marry a brainiac.

Lots has happened, and I’m relieved to be home from all the summer travel. You mean I get to stay here? For at least a whole month? Yee-haw! I might even get a few travel pictures posted.

A friend on an e-mail group recently asked us this. I’m going to be 30 soon, and I feel like it’s too late… Many of us responded to her that 30 is not even remotely close to being “late,” and gave ideas for how to make a decision. This response, though, struck me enough that I asked the author permission to post it:

Honestly… I’m gonna be 38 in March… I still don’t know :) But I have learned something. Knowing what you want for the rest of your life isn’t for everyone. I happen to be a person that doesn’t need to know what I want to do forever as long as I can take stock of my life and be content with it. Sounds weird, I know. But it’s true. Every once in a while, I stop and look. Like when [husband] was sick. I realized that being on the fast track to a corner office was NOT where I wanted to go with my life. So I looked for something to do out of my house. I taught myself web design. I look around now…I’m not thrilled with my health, I’m happy with my work, I’m happy with homeschooling. So, I’m changing my ways so I can be happy with my health.

Just remember the rest of your life is a very long time.

(emphasis added)

Sometimes, I have to remind myself that it’s *okay* to not always know. I have a general idea of where I want to head, but don’t feel that I can really do anything about that until after we’re done having children. (That’s a big change that’s come from getting married. Given the chance to actually have another child or two, I want to do so while I’m still young enough.)

As my husband and I discussed my career path (I snorted, “career? I don’t have a *career* — I have a job.”), he commented that there seemed to be many things that I was willing to consider. My online friend summed it up for me very well when: as long as I can be content with my stock in life, THAT is what’s important.

Just thinking…

From Agnostic Mom, Leaving the Church, Part 2:

Extreme Cognitive Dissonance.

I began my own effort to receive an answer from God that The Church was true. I didn’t realize at that time that it was too late. My paradigm had shifted. For the first time ever I had already peeked through Door #2, the door marked “It’s Not True!!!” Once you’ve looked through that door, going back is like trying to pretend that Santa is real once you know he’s not.

Reading this, I feel much as if someone has dipped into my own head. When I began this blog, it was with a “seeker’s” mentality — that I wanted to find The Truth. Thing is, I was comfortable that “truth” would somehow involve the religious beliefs from my childhood. They might have been morphed, perhaps (into a more *genuinely* compassionate and bleeding-heart Jesus-was-a-Liberal variety), but they’d still be there.

I read. And I thought. And the whole time, I buried my head in the sand about what was happening inside of my head and heart. I was becoming — if not atheist — most definitely agnostic. Then came a question from Arwen, one that woke me up. As I wrote an answer, I started to ask myself, Am I Christian at All? After that initial moment of questioning, I quickly resumed convincing myself that I was still a Believer. Whew! Dodged that bullet, didn’t I?

But the thing is, I’d peeked behind the door.

I’d looked behind the Wizard’s curtain to see the old man.

Or maybe I’d opened Pandora’s box. (How fun to use mythology to discuss my losing a belief in religion, no?)

Whatever the label, I’d opened my mind to a train of thought that relied less on fear and tradition and more on what I saw — and what I truly believed. I was on the path to resolving my own cognitive dissonance. I can’t tell you exactly when it happened. This was not a sudden “ah-ha!” moment. Slowly, gradually, I started to realize that when my mouth spoke words about God, I felt like a liar in my head — because I didn’t believe what I was saying. At some point, I finally admitted to myself…I’m not Christian.

There. I said it.

Do you have any idea how difficult that is to write, especially knowing the friends (and family) who read my words here, and for whom this will seem a blow? In part, I think this is why I’ve avoided writing much of late…because this is such a huge shift (yet one that happened over time) in my thinking, that it fundamentally changes who I am, my identity.

The one thing I ask of you, my friends and readers, is this. Feel free to leave comments to this post. Mourn the eternal fate that you believe I’m choosing. If you’re convinced of God’s/Jesus’ work, pray for me at will, if that helps you to feel better. But don’t try to “reconvert” me. Please respect something that isn’t so much a decision I made, but a reality that I’m finally admitting.

So, addressing this post’s title — perhaps the blog name will still apply. It just may be only in the rolling-my-eyes sense…not to be taken literally. But, most likely, to align my blog with my own thoughts, I’ll re-christen (ha!) it, complete with a new subdomain name.

~~~~~

Update: I wrote the contents of this post on December 7, and with the passing of time, I’ve found that the words hold true. I’m no longer Christian — or any other religion, for that matter. This quote tidily sums up my thoughts on the subject:

For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

– Carl Sagan

As a part of what has already existed in my heart and mind for sometime — but I am only now admitting even to myself — this blog will retire. Its mission was one of seeking, whether in respect to dating/love, politics and answers or spirituality and religion. I still will always seek improvement to my life, but not in the way this blog typified.

My new online home is still somewhat under construction (okay, it’s extremely under construction — I somehow thought that I’d have time to finish the theme after returning from my honeymoon in Costa Rica), but it’s open for visitors. Drop in and have a cup of joe, or a beer, or a glass of wine. I’ll be glad to see you, even if (when!) we disagree on some fundamental issues of life.

My new online home:

It is what it is.

Welcome to Reality.
If you lived here, you’d be home now.

Be prepared. About two weeks after the wedding, it will finally sink in, and you will wonder, Oh My God. What Have I Done? This is normal. Just be warned that it will happen.

That’s a paraphrase of some advice my mother-in-law gave me on Thanksgiving (day before the wedding). She had married my father-in-law at the end of October. It still hit her, too — even thought they have been together for seventeen years.

There’s a sense of mourning, of lost freedom, and the clunking sound of expectations falling into line with reality rather than floating up in the air with hopes. It is hard. In some respects, the shell-shock that being newly-married provides is not unlike the first weeks of parenthood. You can be warned. You can intellectually think you know what you’re in for. But nothing, nothing, nothing prepares you for the first month. Did I mention that it’s hard?

When I gave birth to my daughter, I knew that I didn’t know her. I’ve been able to watch her without preconceived notions of the person she’s becoming. In marriage, you’re hitching your future to a person who largely already is who s/he will become. The catch is that no matter how much you know, you never fully know another adult. (My father says that after 41-1/2 years of marriage, my mother still surprises him on a regular basis.) For me, the “getting to know my husband more” phase has largely involved letting go of hopes for who I thought he was — adjusting my expectations with reality. For him, it seems that he’s working it the other direction. Immediately after I moved to Santa Fe, he started to have a series of fears (some justified, mostly not) of who I might become — fears triggered by past relationships, memories of his childhood, etc. So, he’s not as good as I’d hoped he’d be. And I’m not as bad as he feared I would be (at least I hope not).

It’s growth. Growing pains suck.

~~~~~

We’re heading out of town tomorrow for the honeymoon. I’m both anticipating and dreading nine days and eight nights of getting to know my husband more.

In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves. I’m hopeful that my new blog home will be up by the first of the year. Right now, I’m painting the walls and hanging pictures. I’ll move all the boxes (ie, these posts!) after we return.

Allison & Mike
November 24, 2006

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Why yes…we did go through with it!

Thanks a million to everyone who came to celebrate with us — you made it quite a memorable evening!

If you’ve stopped by much at all lately, you know my blogging has dwindled down to pretty much nil — especially since I moved to Santa Fe.

While I *could* blame this on the upcoming wedding, that’s not it. I’ve realized something — I have no time to myself.

What? Wait a second, don’t you normally grouse about having no adult company ever because of working from home? Sure, that’s true. I’m alone all day. But that time is filled with other obligations: work (first and foremost), daily house-stuff, duties that require business hours, etc. If I spend time during the day contemplating my navel, a severe case of guilt ensues. So, I work, but not nearly as well/efficiently as I should. Then the afternoon arrives, and I feel a sense of relief (no more guilt at half-assed work; the day’s over!) as I go to pick up Maya. From there, I’m distracted by a 2-year-old (great distraction tool) from my own thoughts. With that particular cute distraction hanging from my legs, I strain to get some dinnerish food together while keeping her from feeling ignored — after all, she’s been away from me all day.

By the time Mike comes in, I’m fairly desperate for something. It could be some time with Maya when I don’t need to be doing something else (dinner, for instance). It could be that I need some time to myself to simply think and work out what’s going on in my head. The problem is, we (as a couple) also need time together — but I find that I’m there, but with issues. Because I haven’t taken the time to figure out what’s going on in my own head, they (the issues and thoughts I’ve ignored day after day) bubble to the surface and color every interaction we have.

——-

Added: This should have been fairly obvious to me, but hey…remember, I’m not giving myself time to introspect much these days. By the time Mike comes home, my immediate need (extrovert that I am) is for time around another adult. That trumps my need for time with myself. Since he’s an introvert (and has been around people, if not interacting with them) all day, he doesn’t necessarily need the same. On top of that, as much as his 45 minutes each way commute is a pain, it does give him some time for thinking. And I wonder why it seems like every night turns into a Conversation?

——–

This, invariably leads to a “capital-C” Conversation. You know, these are the ones where we’re supposed to be actively listening to each other and improving our relationshiop. The problem is, because I don’t get (or take) the time to get inside my own head, I’m pretty inept about explaining my needs, since I don’t even know them myself.

Maybe I only felt so emotionally healthy before moving simply because I had at least an hour or so every night/day in which I could yank thoughts out of my head and turn them into concepts. These days, I’m feeling somewhat like a feather in the wind, and it’s frustrating, because I know how I *normally* am, and how I should be.

I’ve got to find a way to make my life sustainable. This ain’t it.

I have a phone interview for this job. In fifteen minutes.

Eeep!