Let's Talk About...Responsibility

Let's get one thing straight: I hate responsibility. I abhor it.

This might come as a surprise to some who have known me for awhile because I used to be a ᴠᴇʀʏ ʀᴇsᴘᴏɴsɪʙʟᴇ ᴘᴇʀsᴏɴ who did ᴠᴇʀʏ ʀᴇsᴘᴏɴsɪʙʟᴇ things.
For example, there was that raising a kid thing, which I managed to do without too much damage, I think.
Then there was that corporate job thing in which I was an editor for publications that were worth gazillions of dollars.  I pulled that one off pretty good for a pretty decent length of time but the truth is that I only pulled it off because I saw it as one big stupid game.  Or maybe like I was an actor playing the role of Big Time Editor In Charge Of Important Publications.  That wasn't actually on my business cards but it should have been.

Guess which one was me

Another reason I was successful in my acting career as VIP Editor was because I know big words and lots and lots of ridiculous words, I memorized all the important business-like catch phrases, and I can ad lib my arse off. I could participate very successfully in meetings by saying things like "the flotsam of the jetsam is that the perpendicular velocity of the publication with the mass media marketplace - et al - means that our bottom line can be subjugated to the equanimity of our fait accompli which means, of course, that we are thinking outside the box."  End result?  I kept getting promoted.

Getting promoted was fun because I kept getting nicer offices and even nicer paychecks.  It was also kind of fun to watch my peers try to figure out how I was getting higher and higher on the oh-so-important (to them) corporate ladder with only a high school degree in an industry in which 99.999 percent held impressive degrees from impressive colleges and universities. Of course I even had my own staff and a few of them held master's degrees which made a few people's heads nearly explode.
So much fun.

But I was bored and I also did not like the constant pressure of having to make sure that millions of dollars worth of books got published on time.  It was all way too adult for me.  Obviously I was good at it but no actor plays the same role forever, right?  So I did what any "normal", level-headed responsible  person would do:  I went to bartending school.  But that's a story for another time.

Anyway, let's get back on track...

I am not doing very well with this being an adult thing and I've been in the adult age bracket for a long time now.  I noticed decades ago that I have very little in common with other people my age who are all about being an adult.  Recently we bought a house after years of renting.  It's a great house...no, it's freakin' amazing. And it has caused my already very active anxiety level to go through the roof.  Because we own a house now.  There is a mortgage, there is a furnace that needs to be replaced, there is an invisible tether that only I can see which means that I cannot simply decide to move to Connecticut or Maine or Canada because I like the landscape there or they have good take out.

And my poor husband.  Man, he deals with a lot being married to someone like me.  You know that opposites attract thing?  Truth.  We adore each other but we are polar opposites in a ton of ways.  He is blissful in home ownership, sleeping like a baby as he drifts off thinking lovingly of his low interest mortgage rate.  Meanwhile this is me, languishing in it as I worry myself into exhaustion that will lead to 3-4 hours of insomnia-riddled sleep:

And then there is the guilt.  Oh, the guilt!  I mean, how dare I be anything less than ecstatic about owning an amazing home?  How dare I quake in my boots while my husband busts his butt to make this all happen?
Which, of course, leads to the inevitable daily beat myself up sessions:
I am bad.
I am ungrateful.
Why can't I be like other middle aged home owning ladies?
I should cut my hair off so I look more like them.
Why do I still insist that all my shoes are platforms? Grown up ladies don't wear platforms, they were sensible adult shoes.
What exactly did my husband mean when he said I am definitely related to the guys from the Sonic commercials?
I need to apologize to him for being an anxiety-ridden stress mess (who cracks up a little too hard at the Sonic commercials).
No, I need to grovel.
I should probably not share all the thoughts that are in my head with him.
Why was this month's electricity bill so high?
We should turn off the lights and do everything by candlelight.
And on and on and on...

Which leads me right back in a full circle way to:

Overall, all I really want to do is make pretty pictures and read.

 

My Personal Festivus

• It is 3 days before Christmas and I cannot wait until it is 364 Days Until Christmas!  And I feel guilty about feeling that way and then I get mad at myself for feeling guilty about that.  I am stuck in a holiday-induced vicious circle. I am a Scrooge.
• If one more person writes “Only 3 more SLEEPS ‘til Christmas” I’m punching them in the nose.  The word sleeps annoys me beyond measure.  See “migraine headache” below.
• I had an energy audit done on my house the other day which took 4 hours and involved the setting up of a fan contraption in the front doorway in which they seal the door, insert a large and powerful fan, and then run it for awhile while taking readings to determine something about the air in the house.  The fan was so powerful that it popped open the attic crawlspace door in my office upstairs and seemingly sucked all of the attic dust out which of course flew all around the house which is resulted in me having a headache for the past three days that evolved into a migraine today.  I am fiercely allergic to dust.  Instead of shopping today and/or doing other holiday-related things in an attempt to make it festive for those whom I love, I took medication, took long hot showers, drank a ton of strong coffee which had no effect since I also took about 4 naps. Ho ho ho.
• You cannot imagine how magnified the littlest annoyances are when one has a migraine.
• The sinus/allergy OTC medicine that I have been taking for about 2 decades for my migraines has been discontinued.  Now I have to buy the three ingredients separately.  I am on to their game.
• In the meantime, my mother is supposed to come here on Christmas Eve.  She will tell anyone who will listen that she cannot eat anything because of her stomach issues but grilled me (no pun intended) about what we are going to eat that night and then shot down everything I suggested with an “that’ll probably kill me” comment.  Then she asked if I was baking anything.  Ho ho ho. 
• I am wise enough to know that baking while in the throes of a migraine is a bad idea for everyone which is why I did not attempt it.  I attempted nothing today.
• I still love going out and driving around looking at Christmas lights – or as I like to call them “Ostentatious Displays Of Illumination” -  which we’ve done a couple of nights this week, so there’s that.
• I am aware that it is still a wonderful life.

 

Anniversary #7

2009 was a year of life changers for me.  They seem to come one right after the other, almost all of them bad.  Some of them really, really bad.

December 7th, 2009 was another life changer day.  This one, though, the complete opposite of bad.
It was a Monday - cold, grey.  We chose that day because he always had that day off, no other reason but convenience.  Low key was how it was going to play out...partly by choice and partly because we had been on the receiving end of non-stop drama and weirdness* - some of it from people who should have been part of the day - so we chose to distance ourselves from the madness and not have anyone ruin the day.

So we went and got married on a cold, grey Monday afternoon in December.
Just the two of us.

Our "wedding attire" was t-shirts with 'Bride' and 'Groom' on them because it made us laugh.

We waited to be called in to the judge's chamber on a hard wooden bench in the hallway of the Centreville, Maryland court house.  Sounds terrible but it wasn't.  We sat there giggling and excited, creating fun as we always do together.

Man, can we laugh together.  Anywhere.

Our witness was the sassy court clerk who took a liking to us. We anticipated a quick and cold-ish repeating of whatever had to be said to make it official and got instead a warm, long, and very, very surprisingly thoughtful ceremony.
I remember that we were both genuinely humbled.

We left, hand in hand, still giggling.

We drove to Annapolis for our "reception" ...

...which we decided would be at Galway Bay Irish Pub because it was $5 burger night.

 Afterward we walked and walked hand-in-hand through the Christmas decorated streets of Annapolis.

Later - and still - we agreed that it was the best wedding either of us had ever been to.
Real, raw, perfect in its imperfection.

Just like us.

Here's how I want to finish this:
I love this man.

Like I've never loved before, I love this man.
I respect him...which is a first for me.
I know his past and he knows mine and neither of them are pretty or perfect but still we stand together, looking at each other and being able to say yes, I understand, I get it.
Never, ever being afraid to tell each other anything.  No fear of scorn, rejection, persecution.
No one can make me as mad as he can...until we both crack up because we realize we're being ridiculous.
No one can make me laugh as hard as he can...priceless in my book.
This is the man who saved my life twice.  This is the man who will tell you that I saved his.
I am fiercely protective of him and I will scratch your eyes out if you hurt him in any way.
My life is profoundly and boundlessly better because he is in it.

I am beyond proud that he is my husband.