I'm the Crazy Aunt

If Jill is the resident asshole of the blog, then I am going to claim the title of resident wacko. I probably haven't shared enough personal shit on this blog for readers to know why I claim and am deserving of that title, but people who know me won't have any questions or misgivings as to why I have bestowed it upon myself. I'm all right with the assignation.

Jill makes light of how many times she and John have moved...I make light of the number of relationships I've been in and the belongings I still have to retrieve from the people in those past relationships (pretty sure I can still rock those boots from 2008 once I get them back...). I'll be 40 exactly three months from today and I've never been married (hasn't been a blip on the proverbial radar) and I don't have any kids. I have multiple tattoos and piercings, I drive a dented 1999 Buick and I don't have a 9:00-5:00-I work two part time jobs I am overeducated for. I have a gypsy soul.

I don't want many of the things society tells a woman my age I should want or lament that I don't have. Not exactly your typical on the brink of 40 woman, especially for someone living in the Midwestern U.S.

So...in that second paragraph, there is enough there for any reader to surmise why I am the resident wacko. Of course, there is more, and that may or may not be shared in good time. I probably drink too much and think too much...both double edged swords, in and of themselves (as they say, no good story ever started with someone eating a salad). I'm the daughter neither of my parents know what to do with, regarding life philosophy and life choices. I've been fortunate over the years to have honed a circle of friends who love me because of and despite all of that.

It has probably been in the past five years that I began the journey to embracing the self-designated title of wacko (I remember when my nephew Trevor was really young I stated that we all knew I was going to be the "crazy aunt"). I think it is one of the most beautiful and authentic things about me. In my opinion, those things about me that are outside the normal bell curve that is Midwestern US society give other people the confidence to be a little wacky themselves or at least talk to me about the things they might be self conscious about, feel vulnerable about and find some kind of comradery and understanding without judgment. I can't count the number of times someone has been talking to me and said to me...I don't know why I'm telling you this, I really don't just tell people this, I haven't talked about this in years...it just feels comfortable to talk to you.

I also love my life. I just got back from a vacation last week and I worked twelve hours at both of my jobs the next two days after that, starting at 5:45 a.m. The fact that I was not stressed or cranky but excited and happy to go to both jobs was a startling and joyful realization for me and a testament to how right for me the sometimes difficult career choices I've made over the years have been. I felt so fortunate to be a person that felt that way about going back to work the day after getting back from an awesome getaway.

Will I be upgrading from my '99 Buick or retiring anytime soon based on the amount I make piecing things together from two part time jobs (neither with benefits of any kind)? Not a chance...and that's okay with me because I'd rather drive an old car that has a random silver strip hanging off the side (still not sure  how that happened or what to do about it so I'm choosing to ignore it for now) and love coming back to my life than deal with the reverse situation...a shiny new car and the outward trappings of "success" in this society and the stress of a job and life I don't want to come back to.

I started writing this blog post in a way that is uncustomary for me...I normally have an overall point or intention I want to make and lead up to it (I had two awesome contenders that will be seen at a later date). This time, I just started writing about something that felt important to get out there...and now that I'm asking myself why I started writing about this, I think it is partly as a "confessional" or a way for readers to get to know a little about my life. I think more of what I write in the future will make sense given the context this blog post provides. I also think it was for me...a public way to acknowledge and affirm my wacko life that I love.

The Only Thing Constant In This World Is Change

Yo! It's your resident asshole on the blogski this week.  For those of you who have read my prior blogs, you should know that I try to refer to myself as an asshole at least one time per blog, preferably two on a good day.  Mission accomplished in the first sentence this week!  I’m only half joking most of the time but this week I have yet another example of why my parent of the year award has been placed on perma-hold.  John and I decided that we are moving…once again.  After 1 year of my commuting 2.5 hours to work for the military and spending three nights away per week from my kids, in a time span of all but 30 minutes, John and I, the brilliant masterminds that we are, finally came to the conclusion that our only option was to move our family closer to my work.  In order to make the situation work for the past year, we had concocted a spider web of life lines that kept our family semi-functional.  All of this changed after I returned from Fort Polk, Louisiana.  A couple of the tethers that we had spun snapped or weakened and, without getting into specifics, our whole delicate web that was sustaining us seemingly imploded.  So there it was.  The decision was easy at that point as it was the only option we had left.   

I’m deliriously happy about this decision as the driving and being away from my kids was taking its toll on my physically and mentally.  I’d like to think lesser women, but probably smarter and happier women, would have put their foot down a long time ago.  But we wanted to give our kids security, we wanted Trev to stay at the same school, and quite frankly I burned all of my goodwill I had with John on the prior move from eastern Iowa to Nebraska (more on that later).  So I have been living somewhat of a nightmare for the past year.  At the time I was going through it, it made perfect sense to me.  I didn’t want to be the nagging wife, I didn’t want to uproot my kids (again), I didn’t want the burdens associated with moving, etc.  I justified it in all sorts of ways and I put all the pressure on myself to make this shit work because of the guilt associated with moving my family three times in a relatively short time period.  So, I did what needed to be done.  Suck it up and drive on, I would tell myself as I got up at 4 a.m. to drive to work.  It wasn’t sustainable, I recognize that now.  It wasn’t a question of if we would move again, but rather, when.  Now that I see we have been on this path the entire time, driving to work has become nearly unbearable.  But by trying to avoid the inevitable, to do the “right” thing, the ridiculous part is that I made a mess and created more chaos.    Now, Trevor has to switch schools mid-year.  We are putting our house on the market in the slow season.  We are leaving a community that I had grown to like.  We haven’t owned our house long enough to justify a sale.  One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.      

All of this, unfortunately, is old hat to us.  This will be the third house we have sold since I returned from Afghanistan in 2011.  That’s even worse than I thought.  Writing that out stings.  Three houses, five years.  Ouch.  Each time, though, I have learned an important lesson. For example, our first house in Sioux City was in a terrible location, a rougher and older part of town.  At one point, we lived next to a crazy scrapper who was married for three days before he left his wife to return to scrapping, a drug dealer and a former El Forastero motorcycle gang member.  After I returned from Afghanistan, I found a new job, wanted to start over and so we moved.  We lost big on that house.  We had purchased it before the market crash of 2008 and the market in Sioux City hadn’t improved much in 2011.  I can still remember seeing the closing documents with a big old negative in the Seller’s column.  I learned that location is everything.  If you have a diamond in the rough, when it comes to real estate, the rough diminishes the diamond substantially.

Next, we moved to a better location in eastern Iowa but made the mistake of buying a two-story house that was dated.  When I found my "dream" job prosecuting sex crimes (or so I thought) we sold again so we could move to Nebraska. Chance of a lifetime I told John. He didn't want to move. I did. He moved for a dream that never would be realized by me but he believed in me enough to try. I can still smell the ashes of my goodwill burning as a result. During this sale, I discovered John and I have shitty taste.  No one seemed to like what we did to the house.  We finished the basement and made the floor look like marble.  People wanted carpet.  We painted the basement gray as it was supposed to be the new beige per HGTV but it turns out people still wanted beige.  And a two-story?  Well, everyone wanted a ranch house.  We put a lot of money into making the garage a man cage with epoxy floors and a work station in order to appeal to male buyers, also a tip I took off of HGTV.  We didn’t get the money back out of that endeavor either.  Man caves are nice but they don’t increase the value of the home that much.  We lost money on that sale as well but not as much as we lost when we left Sioux City so that was a huge plus relatively speaking.

We purchased the home that we are in now in a small community outside of Omaha.  We planned on living there until the kids were out of school. But my dream job turned into a nightmare and never blossomed into what I had hoped and prayed for. I had prayed to God to get the job and then found myself praying to leave.  Then, all of a sudden, the military was unexpectedly looking for a lawyer 2.5 hours away from where we lived.  I never thought I would work for the military full-time again after Afghanistan.   But, here I am.  The only illusion is that we are in control I guess. 

So, once again we have done work to the house that I suspect will not meet everyone’s liking (like the fact our garage is bigger than our home).  But I am growing to accept the process of change.  I am trying to figure my life out, sort through some things and do right by my kids.  It’s a tough balancing act and I make mistakes, for sure.  I regret the small fortune we lose every time we move but especially the guilt that comes with uprooting my two children and ripping my husband out of his career as well. It's no wonder people are surprised that I'm married. It takes a unique person to put up with my brand of bull shit. Regardless, though, I’m confident we will come out on the other side.  I guess that is what Afghanistan has done for me—taught me that no matter what, I can come out on the other side of most things.  I also know and stand firm in believing that I can make more money and that my children will learn to be resilient assholes, just like their mother through all of this transition (which is the PC way of referring to ripping your children from their home).  All joking aside, perhaps they will also learn that change, even though it is hard, is always good as long you as simply keep moving forward, putting one foot in front of the other even when it is difficult.  Maybe they will learn to appreciate adversity because it can be the greatest teacher.  Perhaps they won’t be stymied by fear of failure or looking stupid because they have seen their good ole’ mom fail and look stupid and get up and try again.  In the end, I have to believe that my kids, although they will likely require psychotherapy at some point, will also understand that the only way not to make mistakes is to do nothing and that is, paradoxically, the biggest mistake of all.

Live the Life You're Afraid to Live

It’s Sunday evening and I really just remembered that it was my turn to write the blog at the last moment. I was laying on my bed and now anymore if I’m not doing work of some sort for school I’m going over every possible thing in my head that I could be doing and/or still need to do. I have all my lesson materials made for tomorrow, so the blog was the next thing that popped into my head that still needed to be done. So, here I am writing it.

As I’m writing the blog, sitting on my couch in my two bedroom apartment, I can’t help but reflect on how much this once foreign place to me now feels like home. When I first moved to Memphis approximately 4 months ago, my life seemed so surreal. Being in college at the University of Iowa was such a strong part of my identity that allowing anything else to infringe upon that seemed absurd.

There was a little part of me that didn’t want to let go of my old life in Iowa. I wanted to keep in touch with all of my old friends on a weekly basis. I wanted to stalk Facebook and see what everyone was up to and what events were going on in that state. I often imagined what life would be like if I still lived in Iowa or even what life would be like if I ever returned to live there again. That little part of me didn’t want to let go because I was afraid of moving on, afraid of creating a new life, my own life. This was something I had never done before. Sure, you create a quasi-new life when you go to college, but so much of that life is thrown at you and it requires very little of you to be proactive in the creation of it.

As time has passed and I’ve been living in Memphis for four months, I now find myself calling this non-Midwestern city home. I find myself glancing at the Mississippi River view outside of my apartment and thinking of how I chose a great place to live. I find myself going out with my 2 best friends, Jennie and Soren, on Beale Street and thinking how lucky I am to have found people down here just as awesome as my college friends. I find myself sitting under those Friday Night Lights watching the Fairley football team even after I have spent an entire week around my students. I find myself going to bed at 10:30 p.m. on the weekends and waking up at 8 a.m. even when I have the opportunity to sleep in. I find myself with an “adult” daily routine. I find myself thinking about adult things such as retirement, investments and long term career goals. I find myself getting excited to go grocery shopping and buying home decor for my bedroom and apartment. I find myself actually doing laundry, dishes and cleaning my bathroom on a regular basis. I find myself loving the life I was afraid to live.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think of the family I left behind in Iowa, the friends that made my college experience so meaningful, the desolate, corn filled scenery and the many memories that go along with it. But that’s just it, those are all memories. I am no longer the crazy gal that could go to Club Car on a Sunday night just because and that’s okay. That memory will always be one of my fondest memories of Iowa City and college, but as of right now, I am that crazy, overly positive Spanish teacher from the state that no one has ever heard of, living in the extremely diverse, beautiful city of Memphis, TN. Growing up is a little bit scary, not only because of all of the responsibilities that come along with it, but because you fear that you may become more comfortable with the person and life you grow into more than the one that you knew. Embrace that fear, fore it is within that fear that we grow <3.

Dissident Daughters Invites You to Share

Dear Readers...one of the (many) reasons we started our Dissident Daughters blog was to dialogue and connect with people...whether s/he agree with us on specific topics or not. To this end, we are inviting any and all of you to guest post at some point in our blog cycle. We ask that you contact us via our personal facebook pages (message us), text us if you have our numbers or comment on a post.

We would love to hear your personal post ideas and determine when the stars align for you to guest post. For as was so eloquently stated by St. Thomas Aquinas, "Just as it is better to illuminate than merely to shine, so to pass on what one has contemplated is better than to merely contemplate". Please use our forum to pass on your contemplations and let us begin to dialogue with one another.

Monday Metaphors

I just painted over the last of the green trim in my apartment. It took me exactly 3 years to get to this point.

I moved into my current apartment in August of 2012. I had just finished grad school in Nashville, Tennessee, and I was moving to Des Moines to start a chaplain residency position at Methodist Hospital.

To be honest, I was personally a complete and utter wreck when I first moved into my apartment in August 2012. I don’t want to go into too much backstory, but suffice to say, I was literally at the lowest point of my life thus far that particular August. In the past 6 months, I had “lost” nearly every dream and piece of my identity that I valued. I was drowning in grief and loss, and I couldn’t figure out how to come up for air. I…felt shattered. It may seem melodramatic without context, but I had honestly endured more in that 6 months than I had the rest of my accumulated 26 years. I was so broken, with no dreams or self-worth to help me stay afloat.

Because of that broken state, I moved from Tennessee to Des Moines without a place to live. I literally just packed up everything I owned into a Penske truck, and I drove to Des Moines without any idea where I was going to live. And oh yeah- I was scheduled to start a new job in less than a week.

I did have the wherewithal to know that homelessness was not ideal, so I started searching for a place once I arrived in Des Moines. I viewed one duplex that was within walking distance of Methodist hospital (my new future employer). On paper, it seemed like it was a place that I would like, but something just didn’t feel right to me. My potential landlord drew up a lease for me, but I hesitated to sign it. I didn’t understand why, so I started playing around on Craig’s List as I processed my reticence.

While I pissed around on Craig’s List, I stumbled across a listing that I hadn’t noticed before. I almost gasped when I saw it- it just seemed perfect. It was near a university. The price was very affordable. It had a fireplace. It was a duplex. It had both a front and a back porch. And it had a basement! I called the number listed, and the landlord offered to show it to me that afternoon.

UGLY UGLY GREEN TRIM. GOODBYE.

I walked into the apartment, and within two steps, I just knew that the place was home. I felt the first flicker of excitement that I had experienced in months. I told the landlord I wanted it before we even saw the whole apartment! I think he was rather surprised by my exuberance, but he agreed to rent it to me. And the best part- I could move in immediately. So I wouldn’t have to live in my Penske truck. J

Now, I know that I have painted a rather fairy tale portrait of my apartment thus far. Part of that is because I’m looking at it through rose-colored hindsight glasses. However, I do realize that my apartment definitely wasn’t….problem free. First, the interior was incredibly ugly. There was hunter.green.trim. everywhere. Seriously, the ugliest trim color I have ever seen.  The walls were a faded white. I had no furniture, except for a cheap Wal-Mart couch that I “lovingly” referred to as a ‘car seat futon’ (because it was such a piece of crap that it more closely resembled a removable car seat from a van than a couch.) My TV was an old tube TV that my family had gotten when I was in elementary school. I honestly didn’t even know how to use it- I just kind of kept moving it around thinking I would eventually use a TV. I did have bedroom furniture, although it was secondhand furniture that could really use more nails to keep it together.

It’s been quite the process to make some changes. First of all, my landlord refused to let me paint when I first moved. I think he was fearful that I was going to leave after a year, and then he would have to re-paint everything for a new tenant. Additionally, despite having my Master’s degree, I was basically paid pennies for my chaplain residency. So I didn’t have the financial resources to make many changes. In fact, I was donating plasma twice a week just to ensure that I was able to pay my bills and eat.

AFTER! Crisp white trim with an accent wall

But slowly, my apartment has evolved over the past 3 years. I found an amazing couch and chair set at Nebraska Furniture Mart that my friends have deemed some of the “comfiest furniture ever.”  J I have discovered some cool secondhand stuff at Goodwill/Craig’s List that I’ve spent time DIY-ing and fixing up. I bought my FIRST ever TV. And I finally, finally, convinced my landlord after 2 years that I was trustworthy enough to paint my apartment. And so I’ve spent the last year finding time to paint my apartment. I painted my dining room, living room, and kitchen last summer. I painted my bedroom this past winter. And I just completed my bathroom this August.

And it’s amazed me how the correlation between my apartment’s evolution has mirrored my own personal evolution. It’s one of those correlations where it’s hard to articulate how one affects the other because they become so intertwined.  I graduated chaplain residency after 1.5 years, and I found an amazing job as bereavement coordinator for hospice. I am just about to start teaching my second course for Simpson College- a course I created. I just had a great summer with friends and family- I officiated my sister’s wedding in the Virgin Islands, I officiated my best friend’s wedding in South Dakota, I went to two bachelorette parties, and I spent time at a friend’s cabin by the lake. And… I’ve gained enough physical strength that I’m able to climb up 20 feet of silks.

This is usually the part of the blog post where I draw everything together, and I write some of my own conclusions. But I’m not going to do that here for a couple of reasons. First, I could pontificate for HOURS about the meanings and reflections I’ve had from the past 3 years.  Reflections on creation, God’s grace, intuition, and patience- I could go on for quite awhile. Second, I want to leave this post primarily as metaphor and let readers draw their own conclusions and meaning.

So I’ll close with this. I just finished painting the last of the ugly ass green trim in my apartment. The last of it was in my bathroom, and I just finished painting over it this August. The green trim is still there underneath the 6 coats of white glossy paint. It will always be there, but it no longer shines through.

My apartment isn’t finished. Not by a long shot. I still have plans and ideas for projects that I would love to do.

But the green trim is gone.

Happy

 

Hello, friends! Just a quick blog from yours truly this week. It’s been over three months since Larry and I were married in beautiful St. John. We’ve had a busy summer and have just started reuniting with people whom we haven’t seen since our wedding celebrations. It’s been nice meeting back up with folks, reminiscing, saying ‘thank you’ again in person, etc but that’s not the point of this post. The point of this post is to talk about the question I’ve been getting the most lately (almost as much as the obligatory “how are you?”) That is:

“How’s married life treating you?”

I struggle with answering this question.

First of all, neither Larry nor I are overly emotional, excitable people. For the most part, we are pretty private. There are many aspects of our relationship that we both believe are just between us. We’ll hold hands in public and show other displays of affection but we aren’t that couple that is going to be shown on the kiss cam or the couple that is going to be shouting our love from the mountain tops. It’s just in neither of our personalities. So when people ask me this question, I FEEL like I should be effusing about everything that’s great about being married but that’s just not me.

Second, not a lot has changed. Larry and I lived together BEFORE we were married and had a house together before we were married so it’s not like we are adjusting to living with each other and his/her routines, habits, etc. We were already used to the chores that somehow became our respective chores and we had already adjusted to each other’s timelines, quirks, annoyances, pet peeves, messes…you get the point…that sometimes you can only learn by living with another person. Further, minus the rehearsal dinner, we paid for the entire wedding by ourselves so we had already adjusted to a lot of the first financial challenges and discussions surrounding those challenges that many couples may not have to deal with until after the wedding.

So to most people I have been simply responding with “It’s good. Not a lot has changed but it’s good.” I kind of feel like this is a piss poor answer. Even though most people who know me realize I’m not the type to gush, I still feel like I’m not telling the truth. Because the truth is, after reflecting upon this question, I have realized that something actually HAS changed. I realized this after talking to my girlfriend Naomi recently and telling her that lately I just want to be at home. I love my job and all my other extracurricular activities but most nights I just want to rush to get home to Larry and our puppy Daphne. I had this feeling of just wanting to be home before the wedding (it’s not like I avoided being home) but it’s even more intense now that we are married and have our own little family with Daphne. For the first time ever over a drill weekend, I was truly a bit homesick whereas in the past, I would have just been so concentrated on working over the drill. So why is this? I guess I don’t know. I think it’s partly because as I stated above, we have our own little small family with Daphne so I not only want to be home with Larry but I also want to be home to care for and spend time with Daphne. But I also think it’s because now that all the planning and rushing and events related to planning not just a wedding but a marriage are over, we finally have time to just relax, be, and enjoy our time together. For me, I think I am just really content right now. And maybe I don’t need to explain why or try to understand “why is this?” Maybe I just need to be content with being happy and start telling people the truth: married life is happy…no gushing or effusing required.

 

A Fraud Like Me

Well, I'm writing this in balmy Fort Polk Louisiana.  I have been here for almost two weeks. I traveled here on an overnight bus ride sitting next to the crapper for 16 hours as I was the last person to board the bus and it was the only seat left.  The emergency exit on the bus kept popping open during the journey so it was eventually secured with duct tape which held for a good 30 minutes.  It has reached 108 degrees at times. I sleep in a bunk bed and our room has a distinguished visitor of the rodent kind that occasionally makes an appearance.  Normally, two weeks of duty doesn't bother me. Piece of cake I usually tell myself. Sometimes, I tell people, "Hell, I can do ANYTHING for 14 measly days." Other times I joke, "At least it ain't Afghanistan." Great sound bites for a fraud like me. 

The reality is though...it ain't easy. All joking aside I'm absolutely questioning myself and my choices. My husband was gone for three weeks of miltary schooling before I left. I left the day he returned and we didn't see eachother as I had to leave in the morning and he returned in the afternoon. My kids have had one parent since July 8 and I feel like a total failure to them.  My feelings are a patchwork of guilt, worry and anxiety. I've grown to call this melencholy state of mind my mini-depression.  A war wages within disrupting my thoughts. 

Am I screwing my kids up? What the hell am I doing? Are my kids going to be irreparably harmed by the military? Or, am I showing them a good example of a strong woman? Am I modeling responsible behavior? Am I a role model? Or is that just window dressing I hide behind to make myself feel better? Is strength having the courage to stay home instead of doing this? Is strength listening to that quiet voice that questions if my kids deserve more of me? You see, I'm proud of what I have done and who I am and what John and i have built together. But it's a bit uncommon and somewhat outside what is considered normal. Or is that just in my head, too? I don't know, I guess. But I worry. Will my son never get married because he has this asshole of a mom as a female role model? Will my daughter suffer like I have if she turns out like me? Do I want either of my kids to turn out like me? Deep down the answer that I unequivocally know to be true, is that no, I don't. I don't like myself that much to be honest. Not today at least I don't and maybe most days. The choices I've made, I've made them so my kids don't have to go through what I have,  but have I done the right thing? Have i passed these crippling and ridiculous thought processes on to my kids? Would they, could they, be better off, more normalized, if they didn't have a mother like me? Did they inherit this stupidity I've steeped myself in?  Sitting here in the doldrums of Fort Polk Louisiana my mind is a battlefield with no clear victory in sight.

But I make a decision. The outcome of this battle, and ultimately, the war is within my control. It is up to me to once again be strong...what that looks like for me and not anyone else, even if it is just fraudulent strong. I decide, right now, that these thoughts and war games I'm playing in my head are ridiculous and counter-productive. It's how I've survived this long and I once again take control. As I do this, a clear victor begins to emerge. The girl who remembers all she has to do is just the next right thing takes over and puts one foot in front the other. Two more days and a wake up, she murmers. And with that, the battle is over.  The war, however, will live to fight another day.  It always does. Love you kids. Someday, maybe it will make sense.