Baby Clover

Baby Clover was born on October 14 at 9:36AM.
He weighed 8lbs 6oz and was 20 and 3/4 inches tall.

Now that he's out in the world, his name is Tiernan. But I think he will always be my Baby Clover.
I love him so much.

Precious Cargo

One of the reasons that Niall and I decided that now was the time for me to get a new car was this:

That right there is a BABY BUMP.

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? ME NEITHER.

Baby Clover (nickname) is due October 16. And if I know anything about babies and due dates, I’m sure that baby Clover will arrive PRECISELY on that date. Har har.

So that makes me 20 weeks pregnant right now. This ish is getting real.

I’ve known I was pregnant since the first moment it was possible to know. I took a couple of those discount peestick tests from Amazon a solid 6 days before my period was due and got the faintest shadow line possible.

Do you see it?

So then I drove to Target and got an actual pregnancy test with, like, a plastic holder part and everything and the tiny line appeared.

How about now? Do you see it?

And it kept appearing and getting darker all week! Niall may have gotten a little weary of me waving peesticks in his face LOOK AT THIS DO YOU SEE A LINE I THINK I SEE A LINE.

HOW ABOUT NOW?

Anyway. We’ve been to the doctor, I’ve had blood tests and ultrasounds and whatnot and it looks like there’s a real actual BABY in there.
And we just found out last week that it's a baby BOY.

Baby Clover

I get to have a baby.
I get to have a baby with somebody who loves me and wants a baby, too. I got married last year and now I’m having a baby.
How on EARTH did I get this lucky?

contact high

When I was a kid, I was lucky enough to go skiing pretty much every winter with my family. I had a child’s fearlessness and boundless energy, so it was pretty much the most fun evarrrr. Whooshing down the mountain at breakneck speed (no helmet, of course), only stopping for a lunch of chicken tenders and fries? Yes please. Skiing was amazing!

In high school I got a snowboard, so I learned how to snowboard. At first I scoffed at the idea of taking a lesson. I was a SURFER, so obviously I could snowboard no problem. But then it turned out that (for me at least) the skill(s) did not transfer from one board sport to the other, so I spent a day careening down the hills and falling violently ass-over-teakettle many MANY times. It’s a miracle that I didn’t break anything. It’s possible that I did sustain an untreated concussion.

Anyhow, the next time I went I took a lesson! And it was easier. And from then on I’ve been a snowboarder. I mean “a snowboarder” in the most literal way possible—a person who snowboards. Not, like a person EXCELS at snowboarding in any way. I’ve never felt completely comfortable on a snowboard. There’s always the possibility that I very well could break every bone in my body. I  mean, it’s fun, but interspersed with moments of panic: getting off the ski lift, getting on the ski lift, looking down while on the ski lift (though this is not limited to snowboarding- can we agree that ski lifts are terrifying?), going too fast, going on too steep a hill, too much ice, too many trees and/or rocks, that moment when you catch your edge and you’re about to fall, falling, trying to get up after falling with people careening around you.

Last year, Niall and I went to Tahoe for his birthday weekend. We stayed in a little hotel by the lake and went out to fancy dinners like real adult humans. On his actual birthday we planned to go up to Heavenly for some fun on the slopes. Niall had said he was going to rent a pair of skis from the local sports shop, and I got the brilliant idea to also rent a pair of skis. Skiing! Hey, I used to be REALLY good at skiing! I probably still am! It’s one of those skills that you retain forever, I’m sure!  I totally should rent a pair of skis and show Niall just how awesome I am at skiing!

As I learned in Tahoe, if there is one thing that can make me feel like an ace on a snowboard it is SKIING.

Holey shirts and pants, you guys. It was so awful. I hyperventilated every time my skis were pointed down the mountain and parallel. Also, I couldn’t keep them parallel. Also,  I didn’t know how to balance facing forward. I didn’t know how to be on my edges  or to lift up a ski to make turns. I spent the entire time with my skis in “pizza” position, body hunched over, and ski poles dragging on the ground, using them like sad little brakes.

On top of all of this, I also couldn’t wear my prescription sunglasses because they were made more for looks than for sportiness. They wouldn’t have stayed on my face, so I just wore regular, non-prescription sunglasses. Not being able to see very well added a nice extra layer of difficulty, so the whole endeavor was frustrating, to say the least.

I managed to take out my frustrations pretty singularly on Niall (on his birthday!). He would shoot off ahead of me and then stop and wait, but the problem with that was that I got mad at him if he waited for me and also if he didn’t. And then he kept POINTING at stuff with his SKI POLE, even though I kept helpfully REMINDING him that the ski pole was the SAME COLOR AS THE TREES AND I CAN’T SEE WHICH WAY YOU ARE POINTING AND ALSO YOUR JACKET IS TOO WHY DID YOU WEAR THAT COLOR JACKET THAT MATCHES THE BACKGROUND I CAN'T SEE YOU WHERE ARE HAPPY BIRTHDAY BY THE WAY.

So.

Eventually I just took the gondola back down to the lodge, hiked out to the parking lot, and switched over to my snowboard. It took me about an hour to accomplish that task (and it was probably the best hour of skiing for Niall).

As you may recall, I recently got married (Hurrah!). Because I’m vain, I decided that I didn’t want to wear glasses on my wedding day.

Sidebar: I still don’t fully consider myself as somebody “who wears glasses,” even though I wear glasses pretty consistently. Maybe that’s because it came upon me gradually. At first I just needed my glasses once in awhile, if I were sitting particularly far back in a college lecture hall. Then I started needing them in all of my lectures. And then all of my classes and at the movies. And then while driving at night. And then a few years ago I went in to get my license renewed and the lady told me to take off my glasses and read the eye chart, so I took off my glasses and the eye chart disappeared. So. Now I wear glasses.

Anyhow, I didn’t want to wear my glasses on my wedding day which mean my choices were either (a) get contacts or (b) possibly not recognize my betrothed as I walked down the aisle. Niall, apparently traumatized by our skiing incident, encouraged me to get contacts.

So I got contacts! I went to the eye doctor and he had me put my head in an assortment of odd devices while he…. I dunno… took some measurements and assessments of my eyes or whatever. And then he gave me a starter set of contact lenses and showed me how to put them in. I spent THIRTY DUCKING MINUTES (literally ducking) trying to put in the first one before I finally got it. And the doctor, while very patient, had to wrap up our appointment. I went home and FINALLY got the damn things both in. They felt like tiny pieces of sandpaper.

People told me I would get used to them and I smiled and nodded, slightly teary-eyed and headachedy. Despite the initial hiccups, I have indeed gotten more used to them over time and have been able to enjoy a whole new world of non-prescription sunglasses, including this baller pair that I wore on my wedding day:

Niall still hasn’t said whether or not he’ll ever go skiing with me again, however.

Married

Okay, so now I’m married.

I'll give you a moment to let that sink in.

WHAT.  Crazy. Who would have thought it???! Certainly not five-years-ago-Jules.

Pretty much everything went perfectly. Seriously, PERFECT.

I would like to take this opportunity to write out a(n incomplete, probably) list of everything that was a brilliant decision. Here goes.

- Inviting plus-ones (or in some special cases, plus-twos*). It wasn’t a huge effort, it wasn’t a huge expense, and people seemed to appreciate it. I had a few guests bring people I didn’t know to the wedding and that was absolutely fine, no big deal.  I also made it clear to the reception venue that I did not want to overset any tables. I once went to a wedding on my own (and RSVP-ed for just me) and was seated at a table that was literally: couple, couple, couple, me, empty chair. Now, I don’t know if that empty chair/place setting was meant to be for my imaginary date OR if they had purposely overset that table to accommodate potential shower-uppers, but EITHER WAY I still remember it.

- Niall packed ham sandwiches for us to eat in the car on our way to take photos between the ceremony and reception. I’m convinced that sandwich saved my life, because OHMYGOD that sandwich.

- Back when we were planning to wedding, Niall had mentioned that most of his Irish relatives would give us cards rather than gifts but he didn’t like the idea of having a card box on the gift table, like we were expecting cards. My solution to this was to supply a post box and some post cards and markers so that people could write little notes to us if they wanted, along with a little sign inviting people to write said notes (It said "Please leave advice and wishes for the new Mr. and Mrs." I was worried that it sounded too demanding and I agonized about it for a good long while before I came to the conclusion that NOBODY CARES). Anyhow. What ended up happening was that the table ended up crowded with children drawing on the post cards, which turned out to be a nice little activity for them. And it was awfully cute to open the box later and find, for instance, a card with blue scribbles and a shaky, toddler-written name.

- Speaking of children, inviting them to the wedding was great. I wanted my nieces and nephews to be really involved in the wedding, so I kind of left it up to guests if they wanted to bring their kids or leave them home. We had a mix—there were people who got a nice night out and left their kids with a babysitter, and there were people who brought their kids. I liked hearing babies babbling and screeching during the ceremony and the older kids seemed to have a lot of fun at the reception. You know who spent the most time out of everyone on the dance floor? My 3 year old niece, that’s who.

- Getting the hotel room for an extra night. We stayed in the same hotel as where the reception was, which worked out nicely for collapsing in bed in the wee hours of the morn after the wedding, reception, and after-party at the pub down the road. The next day, we had brunch with some of our family members and then I had to go back to bed for... oh, four or five hours. I had no idea the level of exhaustion I would feel.

- Having a designated pub destination for after-partying. The reception ended at 11PM and Niall had told me that most of the Irish people would feel like the party was just getting started at that time. So we had scouted the area a few weeks ahead of time and picked out a casual, fun pub down the road from the hotel. It was pretty great to have a few drinks in a casual environment, wearing my fabulous wedding dress and tiara. (Which maybe helps explain the aforementioned level of exhaustion.)

* Niall's good friend who has a boyfriend and a girlfriend. She got the plus-two. I guess that's only one special case.

Couch

The important part of this story is that we have a couch. I guess that means you can stop reading now. You’re welcome.

From the beginning: Niall (boyfriend) and I moved in together. Which is a big step! But it doesn’t so much feel like a Big Step because we like each other and he was already spending most nights at my place anyhow, and I was very very ready to not live in my too-close-to-baseball-traffic apartment anymore (side note: everyone told me that baseball traffic only matters during baseball season. DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG BASEBALL SEASON IS?).

Anyhow. We told my Catholic parents and then we told his Catholic parents and then we found a place and moved in together. I love our new apartment, for several reasons:

1.       We both live there.

2.       Bowie lives there, too.
3.       Two bedrooms (one is ours and one is spare, but Bowie seems to think one is his).

4.       Two bathrooms (one is ours and one is mine).
5.       Both sets of our Catholic parents are happy for us that both of us live there.
6.       It’s like a mini HOUSE. Well, technically it’s a townhouse. Bottom floor is a little garage, and then you go upstairs and there’s the kitchen and living area, and then you go upstairs again and there’s the bedrooms and bathrooms.
7.       The bay windows.
8.       It has a little patio. With a screen door so Bowie can sit and look out at it.

Or stand and look out at it.

9.       THIS SECURITY SYSTEM.

We're still getting settled, but we did make some grand strides this past weekend. Up until last week, this was how our living room looked: one million boxes of my crap everywhere, my old TV, and two chairs.

You'll notice that Niall had no problem claiming BOTH CHAIRS.

I sent the above photo to my family which had the beneficial effect of my sister piping up to offer us one or two of her spare couches, and then the not quite so beneficial effect of everyone else offering us the contents of their garages.

So on Sunday we reserved a Uhaul. Our rental started at 10AM, so naturally the Uhaul place didn’t even open until 10:30, and then when the place did open another couple cut in front of us but instead of saying anything I just passive aggressively tweeted about it. ANYHOW. We finally got on the road, and by that I mean that we stopped at my sister’s house to pick up the couch, and then back to my parents’ house to pick up some bookshelves (and Bowie)

and then stopped again in San Jose (storage) to pick up some chairs and a coffee table that was my grandmother's.

and then drove to our apartment in San Francisco. We carried the two bookshelves and the coffee table and the chairs upstairs. Then we yanked off the blocks from the couch to make it into a couch with no under before attempting to carry it up the stairs

and around the corner.

And we learned that no matter how much we tried, the couch would not PIVOT.

So we went to plan B which was to set it on fire heave the couch over the back fence and through the kitchen into the living room. We carried the couch back down the stairs, loaded it up into the Uhaul again, and drove around to the back of the house. (We had to drive to the back of the house because, as I mentioned, it is a little townhouse. It’s connected on both sides to our neighbors and ours is in middle of something like 20 townhouses in a row, each with their own little wee patio/yard but only access to said yards if you go THROUGH the houses. The yards all back up to the next street over, which is where we drove. Everybody with me?)

Okay, so. Then we unloaded the couch from the Uhaul and heaved it UP ONTO the fence. I held the couch balanced on the fence for a few very precarious minutes while Niall ran down the street, back around to our street and the front of the house, up the stairs and out through the kitchen into the garden, climbed up on a ladder, and pulled the couch over the fence and down to the other side.

This, by the way, is the fence:

Chair for scale.

Then I ran down the street, back around to our street to the front of the house, up the stairs and out through the kitchen into the garden, and picked up the other end of the couch and we brought it into the living room where it will now stay, presumably, forever.

This week Niall is full of energy and I’ve spontaneously burst into tears three times.

BUT WE HAVE A COUCH.

New Year

I think it’s pretty universal that people don’t tend to like blog posts about why someone hasn’t been blogging. But, whatever. This is my blog, and if a gal can’t be insufferable on her blog, then what? There's just nowhere left to be insufferable? Unacceptable. And actually now that I’m about to write it out it doesn’t seem like the long, obnoxious explanation I had in my head: Basically I could never figure out where to start so I just stopped starting. So here I am today because I’ve got to start somewhere with unclogging this bottleneck of words.

I’ve had this New Year’s survey in my drafts folder for… awhile. I just kept half assing answers and skipping ahead and then closing the computer in defeat. I guess I’m feeling more free-form this year.

Last year I felt totally cynical and just plain sad because 2012 had turned out so epically craptastic. So I spent a fair amount of New Year's Eve weeping and then picked myself up, had some champagne, and did my New Year’s Dip with my nieces and nephews to wash away 2012 and I was all set and ready to make a fresh start. Annnnd then I got BUTT MRSA. So I was like, what the hell, Universe? Why would you do this to me? But then I figured it out. You see, the Universe actually wants me to be on the LUNAR calendar. So New Year’s Eve was more of a formality for me, my ACTUAL year began on Feb 10, the year of the SNAKE. I’m listening, Universe. I’m picking up what you’re throwing down.

So. January 31 is coming up, which means I and my Lunar brethren will be turning the corner and welcoming in the Year of the Horse. (I already did my New Year’s Dip, because that’s a family tradition and I’m not going to mess with that timeline.)

Okay, so are we on the same page here? I'm finally going to post my survey, but it's actually not late because I'm on the Lunar calendar.

I’m just gonna cut out the ones I've been skipping over because BOTTLENECK.

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before?
I started suffering from insomnia, mostly related to horrifying nightmares. And as a result I started taking sleeping medication.
Possibly related to this I started liking coffee- caramel mocha frappuccinos to be exact. No, I will never be able to spell that correctly.

I took my niece and nephew on a trip all by me onesie. We visited my other sis and her kids in SoCal and then went to a USC football game. So much fun. And so much spoiling of my nieces and nephews.

I went to South Carolina to visit Sunny and got to do all sorts of fun southern activities and eat delicious things that were either fried or cheese, or fried and cheese. I did get stuck on a grounded plane for 6 hours while flying out there. Not the most fun day of my life.
Speaking of transportation woes, I also took a day-long bus ride from Oregon back to SF. My flight was cancelled because of the plane crash and, strangely, flights to and from tiny towns in Southern Oregon weren’t high on the priority list of getting rescheduled. I rented a car and drove part way, and then I took an 8 hour long bus ride back to SF. Well, actually. I got off the bus to use the bathroom in Oakland and it left without me, so ALMOST to SF.

I went on vacation with my entire family. All 18 of us.

I got MRSA and a needlestick. Thanks, healthcare profession. But I did also get my own office in our new building and got everything squared away for my prescribing license. So it evens out.

I joined Facebook. 

7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
January 1- when I was so so SO happy that 2012 was FINALLY OVER.

February 10- Lunar New Year, when I realized that the Universe actually wants me on the lunar calendar, because that’s when things started to turn around.
February 13- Galentine’s Day, which I have decided to start celebrating.

July 19- the day my clinic moved and also the day I was SUPPOSED to go on another trip to Central America with 0peration Rainb0w, with my dad AND my sister who is also a nurse. I asked for the time off MONTHS in advance, but I ended up not being able to go because my clinic moved. So that week was extremely busy and also infuriating.
July 26- my birthday, which I didn’t get off from work because of the aforementioned clinic move. This has inspired me to ALWAYS take my birthday off from work. Because nobody cares it’s your birthday except you! It was actually not SO bad because it was a Friday and my mom took me to lunch and my boyfriend (BOYFRIEND) sent me flowers. July 26 is ALSO the day when boyfriend and I became, like, official and whatnot.
[This sentence is just a filler so there is something between the previous item and the next one. These two dates are too close together for my liking.]

The weekend after my birthday weekend- will forever be remembered as my rapeiversary. August 5 to be exact, but for some reason the weekend, not just that day, gave me a lot of anxiety.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Finishing trauma counseling. I can't believe how difficult and amazing it turned out to be.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? 

Wendy Davis

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Jerky dudes. Jerky dude politicians.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Rent, student loans, car repairs, my cat's extensive dental surgery.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? 
Vacations. Football season. Christmas.

16. What song will always remind you of 2012?

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: 
a) happier or sadder? Happier
b) thinner or fatter? Fatter
c) richer or poorer? Richer

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Exercise.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Angst and obsess.

21. Did you fall in love in 2013?
Um. Amazingly, yes. Who saw that coming? NOT ME.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Parks and Rec, Chopped, Dance Moms, Sister Wives, Monk, House Hunters. Yikes, that’s a lot of reality TV.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
 No.

24. What was the best book you read?
The Rook, Divergent

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
There was this one morning when I got up and plugged in my speakers and discovered that my computer had been playing Thrift Shop on a loop for 24 hours.
That's 885 plays.
I have since adopted it as a unit of time. 885 macklemores = 1 day. So there are 37 macklemores in an hour. Okay? Good. Glad you're coming with me on this.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Now You See Me, Catching Fire, Pitch Perfect, Frozen

32. What kept you sane?
Vacations, medication, treats, caramel mocha fraps, texting, reading, hot baths, my friends, doing good deeds, twittah, shopping, my job, going out, staying in, bad reality TV, liquor, inappropriate jokes, my family, trauma counseling, going out of my way for other people.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Jennifer Lawrence.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Marriage equality. Women's rights. Human rights.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012. 
Staying in is a perfectly reasonable and lovely thing to do.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Let it go, let it go
And I'll rise like the break of dawn

notes

I love giving gifties. It brings me joy to pick out a present for someone, to find something that I know they will like. For me, giving someone a gift shows the person that I care about them-- I was thinking of them, I know them, and I listen to them. I guess that makes gift giving one of my love languages, or however that's supposed to work.
Anyhow, I love giving gifts! So I would definitely continue to give my nieces and nephews presents either way, but receiving the thank-you notes they send me? Icing on the cake.

Remember the little basketty thing I bought Princess for her 11th birthday? Well she liked it!

I've also recently gotten a bunch of notes from my other nieces and nephews, for their Christmas gifties. It has been really fun for me to open my mailbox and find little kid-handwritten cards inside it.

I taped the notes up on my kitchen cabinets, and they make me smile every day. I love those kids dearly, and I love that they enjoy the presents I got them.

Dollhouse Love

My 10 year old niece got a cell phone for Christmas. I, her 29 year old aunt, got a dollhouse. No, really.

This is from a post a couple years ago that I think should illustrate why I love dollhouses so much:

My grandmother built my dollhouse and I remember it being spectacular. I think I probably remember it as more spectacular than it actually was. But that is because I loved it so much.

It lived at my grandma's house and I played with it pretty much every time I went over there. So, a lot. I would make up stories and scenarios for the dolls. I would arrange them in the various rooms. I would make extra things for the house-- a mailbox made out of a clothespin, a tiny drawing to hang on the wall. I would act out the storybooks my grandma read to me. I would take out all the furniture and things and use my grandma's cleaning products to scrub the carpet and clean the floors and then I would put the furniture back in and arrange everything nicely.

My grandmother died when I was 12 and I was devastated. I miss her more than I can accurately describe. She was really the only person I was completely myself around, when I was younger. I know our relationship would be different if she were alive today. I know that I would never appreciate her more than I did when I was a child.

I'll spare you the rest of the post, which basically describes how I was SOBBING HYSTERICALLY when I found the remnants of my dollhouse furniture mixed in with the rest of my nieces' and nephews' toys. The post was written right around the time of THIS, so I think it is safe to assume that my emotions were all over the place and I may have been expressing some displaced anguish. But. My dollhouse was a big part of my childhood. In some ways I guess I considered it a physical object that represented my relationship with my grandmother. Dollhouse = LOVE.
I was devastated when my grandmother died, devastated again when the dollhouse broke into pieces, and devastated again when I found out that the pieces had been either lost or thrown out over the years. The furniture was all I had left, and so I was happy to see it again, but also disappointed and sad that so much of it had been broken or lost.

In November, my mom and I went to the antiques faire to do some Christmas shopping. We spotted a very sweet dollhouse at one of the stands and went over to admire it.
"It's so cute," my mom said.
"I love it," I said.
We admired it some more and then went about our business. My mom bought a fancy chess set for my dad for Christmas, I bought a couple Breyer horses for my nieces.
"That dollhouse really was cute," my mom said.
"It REALLY was," I said.
"I think maybe you need a new dollhouse."
"I think maybe I do!"

And so, Christmas morning, I came out to the living room and found this by the tree:

Dollhouse = LOVE.

Stages

Denial

Anger

Depression

Comfort Food

Retail Therapy

Care Packages

Kind Words

Ridiculousness

Laughter.

Family, friends, love.

Happiness.

D-lightful

This is D.

I met D on the first orientation day of the crazy accelerated RN part of our program. We were standing in line to get our photos taken for our name tags and I had turned away from this insufferable twit behind me and butted my way into D's conversation with another girl. I think my opening line was something about how heavy my backpack was, she agreed that hers was, too, and we've been friends ever since.
Since my specialty is Ger1atr1cs and D's is Midw1fery, we had all our classes together for only one quarter and then a few here and there for the rest of the three years. We would meet up for dinner or drinkies and I'd tell her about some 75 year old patient with a chronic illness I had seen, and she would tell me about the babies she had caught that day.

I met D when I was still with The Crazy Ex, and she was one of the first people I opened up to about how bad things really were with him. She is one of the people who never judged me, but who supported me endlessly and helped me pick up the pieces of my life after I got out of that situation. We have both gone through some rough times during our three years in school. I tend to get caught up with all the little things and stress and cry and FLIP OUT over everything, but D handles tough situations with endless grace and strength. If something is too hard to deal with at that moment she'll take a break and come back to it. "I had to put it on the shelf for awhile," she'll say. I don't think I could have gotten through the program without her.

D loves music and dances with her eyes closed. She is the girl you see at a coffee shop, studying a huge pile of books. She grows her own herbs. She'll strike up a conversation with anyone. While I tend to shy away from solo social activities and dislike most people, D will go to a concert by herself, meet a new friend on the bus ride there, and befriend the guys living in the park. She has friends named Mama Sue, Wolf, Fuzzy, and Brunch. She's the only person I know who doesn't just tolerate other people, she appreciates and, for lack of a better word, celebrates them.

She went to visit a friend a couple hours away and ended up getting LOST IN THE WOODS ALL NIGHT LONG. She'll tell you the story, which includes her getting separated from her group, losing her shoes, and sleeping in a ditch, and she'll laugh and shrug it off. "It was quite an adventure," she says. While I struggle to be open-minded and easygoing and adventurous and a light packer, D already is all of those things.

D recently moved up north to start working in a m1dw1fery practice. There was a snafu with her (out of state) license so her new workplace created a position for her to work as an RN until she could start practicing as a m1dw1fe, this week. I talked to her yesterday and she said it has been going well, but she's still nervous. I'll tell ya what, those ladies are lucky to have D working with them. Someday if/when I ever have babies, there is no question in my mind that I would want her there with me.

I miss you, girl. I don't think you know how special you are, but the rest of the world seems to. We're all lucky to have you.

Dating me is not easy.

I have a couple new posts in the queue. (Wait. Seriously? That's how you spell queue? How awesome and ridiculous all at the same time.)
Starting over: I have couple new posts in the queue, one about my weekend trip to Vegas and one about my new table from the flea market, but both of those are on hold for right now because last night KC told me that his ex girlfriend is coming to town this weekend and he wants to hang out with her. So the presses have been stopped in order to deal with this breaking news item.

KC wants to spend time with his ex this weekend. And. Um. I just... ugh. Ack.

It that makes me anxious and tense.

It bothers me that he's going to hang out with her, but not in the way you might think.
Despite having screwed over in the past so very much, I actually really do trust KC. He has never given off a shady vibe or made me feel suspicious. He always answers the phone when I call; he's never weirdly unavailable or secretive. He'll leave his facebook page or email signed in on my computer and I feel zero urge to go through it. And if I ever DO have an odd feeling about something he is more than willing to talk to me about it. Also, to KC's credit, he talked to me before hanging out with her, and even waited to talk to me in person about it instead of over the phone. He didn't secretly go spend time with her and tell me about it later or not at all, unlike some people.

I just want to make it very clear that I trust KC so that isn't what the issue is here.
The issue is me and my own insecurities and jealous tendencies. It's something I have written about before, something I hate about myself.


I think that part of the problem is actually MY ex, the crazy one. It's easy to blame things on him because that relationship was such a cacophony of fuckeduppedness, but in this case I feel like it's really true-- I can look back to the time BC (Before Crazy) and see how I've changed.
Basically, what Crazy Ex did was a lot of emotional manipulation, part of which included making me feel competitive and insecure about his ex (are you following?). He didn't want us to get along, probably because he didn't want her to ever take me aside and say "Hey, Jules, this guy is bad news and p.s. I'm MARRIED TO HIM."*
*No, I didn't know that until after Crazy Ex and I had broken up and they were also divorced by then. I didn't know that they had ever been married. You'd think someone in his life might have mentioned that to me during the two years I was with him.

Maybe you will want to tell me that, pshh, it isn't a big deal to not get along with your partner's ex. And that's true, they're exes for a reason and there can be a lot of complicated history and hurt feelings and why on earth would you LIKE someone who dated your boyfriend before you?
But, you see, when you are in a relationship with an emotionally abusive sociopath the regular rules are out the window because you aren't dealing with someone with normal human emotions and tendencies. It wasn't just that I didn't get along with Crazy Ex's ex girlfriend (wife). No no, Crazy Ex purposely manufactured tension between his ex and me, so that we would never get along and that he could get exactly what he wanted out of both relationships. If he hadn't done this, I might not have been her best friend but I don't think I would have felt nauseous and panicky every time I saw her. Just like all the other ways he emotionally abused me, this started slowly (a word here, an old photo there) but eventually wore me down. It got to the point where he would openly compare me to her and and list the ways in which she was better. I got to the point where I felt like I could never measure up, that our relationship would never measure up to what theirs had been.


So. With all of that as backstory, let's go back to the issue at hand. KC wants to hang out with his ex.
When KC first moved to the Bay Area it was with this girl. She was moving here so he basically followed her. And then after a year(ish?) in SF he followed her up to Marin County when she wanted to move there. And then she cheated on him, broke up with him, and left him with a 2 bedroom house he couldn't afford and a lease he couldn't break. And two cats.
So one issue is that I have trouble understanding why KC would even WANT to be friends with someone who so royally screwed him over, but then again being friends with your ex is already a difficult concept for me to grasp.
And my other issue is that, as you can see, she was a BIG part of his life. He was very committed to that relationship and, according to his friends, devastated when it was over. When I'm in the mood to drive myself insane with obsessive thought-circles I do things like wonder if KC will ever be as committed to me as he clearly was to her, or if I'll ever be as important to him as she was, or if he loves me as much as he loved her.

I KNOW that logically I should just chill the hell out and not let it bother me-- I trust KC and if he wants to hang out with his ex then fine, whatever, have a good time.
I KNOW that KC is totally different from my Crazy Ex and that it probably doesn't even occur to him to, like, compare his relationship with me to his relationship with her. To him, letting her come over and see the cats is just letting her come over and see the cats. To me and my insane thought processes, it's them reminiscing about the life they once shared.

Logically, I know it should not be a big deal and that I should hold my head high and just get over it but logic doesn't take away my anxiety.

If you have any words to share that might help me get through this weekend, I'd be very appreciative. I DO have a therapist which is very helpful for when I want to explore my thoughts and feelings. But here I know what my thoughts and feelings are, I know where they originate and why they are so bothersome, but I don't know what to do when they come up. Go shopping? Repeat a nice, positive  phrase over and over in my head? Do something productive so I feel accomplished?
You've gotta give me some ideas because weeping in the shower just isn't cutting it.

___
EDIT TO ADD: I'd like to thank everyone who commented or who separately gave me words of advice or sympathy about this. I think sometimes I overanalyze myself and tend to think I'm reacting to something because of my previous relationships-- I'm messed up because of this or I'm extra sensitive because of that. I was beating myself up over this situation, but I came to realize that my reaction to it wasn't bad or wrong. It is okay that I'm not comfortable with this, even if KC doesn't understand, because my feelings actually matter.

aloha, cousin

This is my cousin, Christopher.

We were at the beach in Hawaii, so the shaka sign is very appropriate. He was probably taking a break between surfing and skimboarding, hanging out in the shade for a little while. I think this photo is from our family vacation when I was about 8, which means he was about 16.
That vacation was pretty awesome, as you might expect. I don't remember a whole lot of details from it, just little snippets here and there... swimming and splashing in the warm ocean water... eating shave ice... collecting macadamia nuts and avocado pits from the ground... walking around downtown and buying shell necklaces... drinking big glasses of POG and playing cards or charades....

My family lived pretty far away from Chris's while we were growing up, so vacations and visits were pretty much the only times we saw each other. Chris would tease me and goof around, in a big brotherly sort of way (or at least that's what I imagine, having never had a brother). Since I was so much younger than everyone else I was treated like a baby a lot of the time. But not by Chris-- he was somehow always able to make me feel included and special.

Seven years ago we all flew out to Hawaii for Chris's wedding.
Six years ago we all flew out to Hawaii for Chris's funeral.

There's not much else I can tell you about Chris. I'd love to talk about his music and his jokes and his beautiful wife, but those stories aren't mine to share. And there are so many things about him that I don't know myself, that I'll never know and I can't ask.
I'll never truly know him. I'll never understand what was going through his mind the night he walked into his garage and ended his life. I can't tell you about his struggles, his pain, or his anguish because I never knew about any of it.
The last time I saw him he seemed like the same old Chris, lighthearted and laid-back. Joking. Smiling. Happy.


After his memorial, we buried Chris's ashes on a hill overlooking the a sugar cane field and the sea. We cried and laughed and told our favorite stories about him. No one asked those difficult questions that I'm sure we were all pondering.
Why...?
and How could he...?
and How could we not have...?



When I tell people about Chris, they sometimes ask me if we were close. It happens more often than you'd think."I was really shaken up-- my cousin committed suicide."
"Oh... were you close?"

They say it sympathetically, like it is meant as a condolence, but the words catch in my ears and infuriate me.
Was I close? To my cousin whose death makes me physically ill?
DOES IT FUCKING MATTER?

Also: It's complicated.
To say that Chris and I were close would not be true. But to say that we weren't doesn't acknowledge what he meant to me, what he still means to me.

He was my cousin.
He was the only boy amongst a whole mess of girls.
He was our grandmother's clear favorite.
He was a jokester, a buddy, a nomad.
He was a musician and an artist and a surfer.
He was... different. I remember knowing that he was different before I knew what that meant or how hard it could be to be different from your family. He was unique and unapologetically himself.

Our family is loving and supportive, but Chris was someone who truly accepted and, for lack of a better word, celebrated people and their individual choices. I don't know how to say this without making the rest of my family sound like a crew of jerks, so let me be clear: I love my family dearly and I know they love me and are very proud of me. But Chris was, as I said, different. I don't think he would have cared that I have tattoos or that I've made some mistakes and done things of which I am not proud. Even if I had done something like quit school, I think he would have been nothing but accepting and supportive.

I remember that while all of us were getting caught up and stressed out about the little things, Chris was always there to see the bigger picture, the important piece.
Until, one day, he wasn't.

So, I feel like Chris and I could have been close. But of course I'll never know.