It's My Life... I Thought

I've been operating under the impression that I am an adult.

There is even actual evidence to support this.

For example, I've paid all my own bills for the past two years.  I've held a job for seven years, and am on the second year of my current job.  I work during the week and on weekends.  I go to work even when I don't feel like it.  I'm a stepmom-in-training, and am generally trusted to be left on my own without supervision (except possibly in a bookstore.)

Plus, I've only killed two houseplants in the last year.

So I'm having a hard time understanding why some people feel the need to so often question my decisions.

Granted, I have in the past made some rather epically terrible decisions.  I fully admit this, and have done so often.  But, to recap: I'm a thirty-one-year-old who is regularly entrusted with thousands of dollars of photography equipment, not to mention my fiance's car.  My marriage was nine years ago, and I've been divorced for two of those years.  I haven't even had a perm in over ten years.  You can't say that my track record hasn't been slowly improving, and I honestly like to think that I generally know what's best for me.

Really, if I don't know what's best for me by now, I'm not sure who does.

And yet.

And yet I still find it difficult to make a decision without dissension from the peanut gallery, or without someone questioning why I'm doing something that I enjoy or believe in.

Will I ever just be happy with one dog and stop fostering?  What do I do with Thunder when I work such long hours?  Why do I want to live there?  Or there?  Why can't I drop everything and do this or that or the other thing?  Why?

Okay.

Maybe, just maybe, I'm a little... overly sensitive to this topic.  Maybe I no longer exactly tolerate the subtle judgements and nudging attempts to get me to go along with what someone else wants me to do.  Maybe this is because I decided that, after seven years of that treatment, I was done with it.  And maybe, I've gotten fond of making my own life choices.

To his great credit, Mark does not at all tell me what to do.  (Or, if he does, he's so good at it that I don't even notice, to which I would actually be impressed.)  He knows by now that I'm going to do what I want to do, and it's best just to trust me if he wants to stay in a relationship with me.

And it's not that I'm not willing to have a conversation about my choices.  I'd love to tell you about why I foster dogs instead of adopting one.  I'd love to tell you that I do all I can to make sure Thunder is as happy and well-adjusted as possible.  Genuine curiosity and conversation is more than welcome.  And if you don't agree, that's fine.  You don't have to.  It's not your life.  But telling me what I should be doing is really not the best idea and generally doesn't garner the best results.

I could also be a little more sensitive lately because I'm more than socialized out.  My calendar is far too full for my tastes, so the additional stress of feeling judged and pressured pushes me a bit into the bitchy realm.

In the end, I just want to live and want everyone else to let me live.  I like to think I show everyone else this same courtesy.

By all means, if I'm making another catastrophic mistake along the lines of my first marriage (or dyeing my hair platinum blonde), please do speak up.  But as for the little things that don't affect anyone besides me and my little family... please don't.  We'll all get along much better that way.

I'm No Expert, But...

Back in college, I once wrote an entire 20-page final paper on Jane Austen in three nights.  This was, not uncoincidentally, also the first time I ever drank coffee.

I was supposed to be working on the paper throughout the entire semester, turning in a section at a time for critique.  Well.  I turned in my first two sections, got miserable feedback, and promptly stopped turning in sections.  I continued reading the books, making notes, and doing research, but as for actual writing?  I didn't do it.

Suddenly, the deadline was looming and panic (naturally) set in.  So I and three other girls in my class spent three nights sitting at Starbucks till two and three in the morning, drinking coffee and writing our hearts out.

I finished the paper (just in time), turned it in, and waited with none-too-high hopes.

The professor, the regrettably late Dr. Lila Kurth, was always a hard grader.  She gave me my only C and often wrote "trite" in the margins of my papers.  But, when I went to go pick up my Jane Austen paper, she handed it to me and then told me she needed to give me a hug, because my paper was "beautiful."

I'll never forget that moment.

It was also the start of my realization that I truly do function best under a deadline.

This has not changed.  Most of my blog entries are finished just under the wire.  And months ago, my friend Jessica asked me to write something for her upcoming wedding.

Why she did this is mostly beyond me.  It seems unusual to ask the (more-than-slightly cynical) divorcee to write something about love for a wedding.  I didn't write anything for my own wedding, much less love poetry about my ex-husband.

And, to be honest, I didn't exactly write much for her wedding until very recently.

(Please, Jessica, don't think I didn't work on this over the intervening months since you asked me.  I did, honestly I did.  I have scraps of poems and ideas all over the place, from notebooks to my phone to the bathroom mirror.  But nothing solid and certainly nothing finished.)

But, thankfully, deadline panic strikes once again (with the help of my now long-time friend, coffee), and I have a not-quite-love poem ready for a not-quite-conventional wedding.

I do wonder if I could have written a love poem while I was still married.  My last marriage was where my writing went to die, after all.  When I did write, it was dark and lonesome words which I still uncover from time to time and which always remind me of how secretly miserable I was.

Divorce, as brutal as it was, gave me something I hadn't had in a long time: the freedom to have my own voice.  I know I talk about this a lot, but as a writer, it's still important to me.  Without my voice, what am I?  Certainly not a great writer.

Not that I'm that confident in what I am at the moment anyway.

The other week, Mark intercepted a text from Jessica asking me if I were a published author so she could put it in the wedding program.  If it were up to me, I would have hemmed and hawed about the answer.  I honestly don't feel that simply being published in my college magazine a few times and once in a local literary magazine really count as my being a "published author," but Mark disagreed and told her so.

And so the decision was made: I'm a published author.

Maybe they're right.  I might not feel that I'm a properly published author, or that I'm the best choice to turn to for a wedding poem, but I've always been my own worst critic.

So while I'm certainly no expert, I'm also no longer mute.

Give me a deadline, some coffee, and a blank page, and eventually?

I'll come up with something to say.

The Biggest Mistake

Nine years ago, I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life.

I knew it was wrong.  I knew it wouldn't last.  I knew I wasn't really in love.  And I knew the wrong person was going to be waiting for me at the front of the church.

I knew all of this.

What I didn't know was one little thing: how to get out of it.

I was too proud, or too ashamed, or too stubborn to tell my parents I no longer wanted to get married.  Everyone was in town.  Everything had been paid for.  I wasn't Julia Roberts.  I wasn't a runaway bride.  I didn't feel like I could ask for help.

And so I went out the night before the wedding (nine years ago this very day) with some of my best girl friends and got drunk.  I outlasted my three bridesmaids, drank til I threw up, drank some more, and got back to the hotel room at 4 in the morning, 12 hours before the actual wedding.  I had been sick for a few days before, but that night cemented the almost complete loss of my voice.

And so I got married: hungover, sick, terrified, and barely able to talk.

Looking back, it wasn't just the literal loss of my voice.  That day was when I started losing my figurative voice as well.  I lost the ability to be honest and became an increasingly secretive person.  From the moment the wedding was over, my life also felt like it was over.  My new husband was depressed, suicidal, and violently angry by turns, increasingly demanding, and went through money like water.  He hid our debt and secretly ate his way through the money in our account.  He couldn't take care of himself or hold a job, and yet was jealous of my paycheck and authority at work.  We fought in the car, we fought at work (fights which I never won), and yet I was shocked when my boss told me my husband was abusive.

One of the first steps to being to being abused is to believe that the person abusing you isn't capable of doing so.

And now?

I suppose it's valid to say that I can be a little outspoken about my life.  There is the matter of this blog, after all, and the fact that I'm more than willing to tell you what you want to know (and often more than you wanted to know).  It's my story, my voice, and my wonderfully imperfect life.  I've slowly been getting it all back, and I don't want to lose it again.

So now here I am.  Nine years out from my first marriage, a year after wrecking my wedding dress, and engaged again.

The more things change, as they say...

Sometimes I think I must crazy to get married again.

Other times (most times), I think I'm so unbelievably lucky to get married again.  I get a do-over, a second chance, a whatever you want to call it.  I get a man who knows me and all my flaws better than any one else ever has and still wants to marry me.  I get someone who feels more like home than anyone or anything else.  I get the relationship I never believed in.

I get a fiancé who comes home, lifts me up into the world's biggest hug, and then says, "We need to talk."

And then, a few seconds later, he allows my heart to start beating again by finishing, "... we really should narrow down a wedding date."

But that, I believe, is a story for another blog.

In the Beginning

First impressions are funny things.  They're tied up into our memories and emotions and personal preferences and can be very fickle indeed.  While I usually pride myself on being a good judge of first impressions (my first impression of my ex-husband, for example, was a negative one and I obviously should have listened more to myself on that one), I have been known to admit when I'm wrong.  Some of the people who ended up being my closest friends are people I originally didn't like.

Why didn't I like them?  The reasons are usually varied and dependent on my mood, the situation, or both.  They were annoying.  They were kindof a jerk.  We seemingly didn't have enough in common.  They talked too much (see: annoying). Or I was jealous of them.

To be fair, I know people have had negative first impressions of me as well.  My friend Julia originally thought I was a bitch because I didn't talk to her, "always looked perfect," and was always surrounded by my group of friends.  Eventually, she realized that I was just shy and she become a very dear friend and confidante.

While I generally remember my first impressions of people, first memories are an entirely different thing.  First memories usually don't stick around for very long.  I don't remember the first time I saw my ex-husband.  I don't remember the first time I saw most of my friends, or my past crushes.  First memories, for me, need to be something more vivid and important or inspiring in order to last.  For example, I still remember the first time I saw Michelle Mynx perform and knew that I wanted to learn how to pole dance.

Last night, I told Mark my very first memory of him.

Please, don't expect some sort of adorable "meet-cute."  This is not a Hollywood movie.  Also, it in no way qualifies as vivid, important, or inspiring, really.  But it is something I've never forgotten (even if he did).

It was thirteen years ago, when I was that awkward young eighteen-year-old joining the community theatre cast of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  (I've referenced this in a prior ridiculously sappy blog, for those just joining us.)

I was standing upstairs at the Miner's Theatre for the very first time with my friend Anna, who had drug me along to this thing in the first place, and the director was explaining that we (these two young girls) were going to be playing some of Joseph's brothers since there was a general shortage of male actors.

In the corner of the room were a bunch of large balls that were painted to look like planets.  Upon hearing the announcement that the production had gained some "Undercover Brothers" (as we came to be known), Mark turned around, picked up two of these planets and, holding them in front of him at waist level, announced, "Here, these should help!" before bursting into the uncontrollable laugh that I've come to know so well over the years.

And that was how I met the love of my life.  With a joke about balls.

My first impression, therefore, probably should have been abject horror, or at least embarrassed amusement.  It should definitely not have been the real-life equivalent of the emoji with hearts for eyes.

I don't know if it was the unselfconscious laughter, the terrible humor, or the big... er, planets, but I was instantly smitten.

Mark frequently tells me I'm crazy for being in love with him.  To be honest, after reviewing the above evidence, he may have a point.

But this time?  I'm sticking with my first impression.

We're Having a Heat Wave

It's hot.

It's really, really hot.

St. Louis is in the middle of a heat advisory, and I've used that as a excuse to not feel so bad when I don't take Thunder on a walk in the mornings.

It's not just the heat.  Being St. Louis, it's the humidity.  It makes for a disgusting, oppressive stew that sucks the will to live from you in the time it takes to walk from the parking lot into a building.  My hair doesn't stand a chance unless I wear it up, which I have been for probably a week straight, in a variety of experimental updos.  

In spite of the heat, I haven't stayed home nearly as much as I imagined I would.  Usually, my summers are spent daydreaming about lounging in front of a fan with the air conditioning turned up.  But this summer?  This summer I've barely been home long enough to do much lounging at all.

Obviously, I have to leave the house for work.  During the week, this means a short drive to and from the office and day spent in blissful air conditioning.  But when I work on the weekends, manual labor and sweating outside is involved, at least to load and unload a vehicle. 

But I've also ventured out in the heat to sweat on my own free will and for, allegedly, enjoyment.

On Saturday, I was up and suggesting brunch to Alexis by 9:30.  That night, Mark and I went to the Muny to see Young Frankenstein from the free seats with his daughter and niece.

On Monday (my day off), I invited myself along to the Science Center to hang out with Casey and her two kids (after Audrey, my biggest fan, expressed her disappointment that I wouldn't see her pigtails), and still managed to go grocery shopping and make dinner.

Tonight we're going out to eat with Mark's sister.

And, somehow, we still might go to the Muny this upcoming weekend, if the heat breaks enough.  And are having dinner at my parents' on Monday.

I feel like ever since I started getting divorced, my life went into overdrive.  Before, time seemed to drag out into the all-too-certain future.  I knew what to expect from each day, each week.  And now, when I have no idea what will happen next?  Time flies.  I'm still trying to figure out what to make for dinner three Mondays ago and, for all I know, tomorrow is Christmas.  

I don't know how it got to be July.  I don't even know how it's already 5:00 on a Wednesday again. 

All I know is that time spent with Mark goes far too quickly.  We never seem to have enough time together, even when we spend three solid weeks in each other's company.  We've been together for three years now, and yet it can't possibly have been that long.  Or that short.  Something strange happens to time with us, something as hazy as heat coming off asphalt.  

And something strange has happened to me, in that I've become something resembling "good with kids."  For being the girl who never wanted kids and was never comfortable around them, I spend an awful lot of time hanging around them lately, and all of it by choice.

As I mentioned, it's been a very kid-centric weekend, and it doesn't feel uncomfortable or strange to be the one waiting for a five year old to go to the bathroom so I can help her wash her hands, or to put her shoes on, or to carry a toddler to the car when she's sad about leaving the Science Center.  What's strange is that it all feels... normal.  

It could be the heat wave, but I don't really mind being a stepmom-in-training, or spending my days off with little kids.  In fact, I usually end up enjoying it.

Definitely the heat wave.

The Pretty Vintage Girl Anniversary Blog

I've hit two milestones in blog-dom, all in the same week!

First: last week's engagement blog was the most well-and-widely read to date, topping out at just shy of 420 views!  I am, quite frankly, a little flabbergasted.  And pretty convinced it will be hard to ever reach similar numbers.  It's not every day I get engaged, after all.  (So far, just twice, and I hope to keep it that way.)

Second: I've been blogging for a year! July 10th marked my one-year blog-iversary.  That baby of a blog was written as I was coming off celebrating a year since my ex-husband moved out and as I was still decidedly new at working full-time for Fish Eye Fun.  It was short and hesitant and I obviously had no idea what I was doing.  It was the literary equivalent of me sticking a toe in the water to see how cold it was.  I had no idea what this blog would be.

And really, I still don't.

Because I don't think I ever would have dreamed that I would write about what I have in this past year.  My original vision for my blog was something much more frivolous and superficial because I didn't think I could possibly talk about the truth.  Talking about shopping and clothes and books would be much easier, and surely more accessible.  After all, who would want to hear about my life week after week?  I'm not that exciting.  I'm a divorced introvert who still carries far too much baggage for her own liking.  I work all the time and spend the rest of the time with my boyfriend.  What's readable about that?

I never thought I'd be able to keep up with blogging every week (well, almost every week).  I definitely didn't think my boyfriend (fiancé, whatever) would be going around passing out my blog address to everyone on his route!  I didn't think people I knew in passing would comment or reach out to me after something I wrote.

So.  One year later.

What's changed?

Obviously, I'm engaged.

And obviously I've been gainfully employed for over a year.

But also, it's been two years since my ex moved out.

I've destroyed my wedding dress.

I got a new furnace, bought a washer and dryer, bought a mattress, and fixed my car.

I went to Mexico.

I turned 31.

I've been spending my free weekends playing step-mommy. And enjoying it more than I ever thought I would, to be honest.

I've eaten a lot of nachos.  I've read not-enough books.  I've gained new friends and lost some who were apparently never really friends to begin with.  I've traveled back and forth across the Midwest, both for work and for fun.  I've gone to a few shows, and tried to be as social as I can.  I've been unapologetic about my life and what I want to do or not do.

A lot happens in a year.  I'm not the person I was a year ago, in many ways.  I'm snarkier, happier, friendlier, and more honestly... me.  I'm less willing to put up with bullshit.  I like the person I am, and I like where this year has led.

Where things are going from here?  I have absolutely no idea.

As I said, I'm still not entirely certain where this blog is going.  I rarely know what I'm going to blog about from one week to the next, much less what I'll be talking about in another year.

As for me?  There are obviously a lot of changes on the horizon.  Right now I'm still getting used to this sharp, shiny ring on my finger and we're not even remotely discussing an actual date.  I have absolutely no idea what the next year will hold, but I know that I'm definitely looking forward to whatever it is!

I'll be sure to write about it, naturally.  And you're welcome to read along, if you like!

A Pretty Nautical Engagement

I honestly can't say that I don't have anything to blog about this weekend, because, well...

I got engaged!

If you've been following along, you know that this past weekend was our first "vacation" together to Chicago.  What you didn't know (and neither did I), was that Mark spent much longer getting ready for our trip than I did.

While I was at work last week, he spent two days building a tiny treasure chest to put the ring in and drawing a "map" to ask me to marry him.  During this time, he obviously couldn't tell me what he was working on, so when I'd ask he'd be uncharacteristically vague and evasive.  He was "working on some old projects," or "running an errand."  Usually these statements would be followed by a description of what he was working on or what he needed to run an errand for.  We tell each other pretty much everything that happens during our day.  Not this week.

Luckily, I was too worried with getting everything ready for the weekend to be overly concerned about why my boyfriend was acting abnormally.

He was also overly concerned with what there was to do on Navy Pier and spent a whole night perusing the Pier's website.  And he wanted to make sure we had "time to ourselves" at Navy Pier before my friends joined us.  My friend Anne asked if there was going to be a romantic lakeside engagement.

I was still somehow oblivious.

It's not that I didn't know there would, eventually, be a proposal.  After all, I'd picked out the ring a few months back.  We've talked about wanting to be married since before I was even divorced.  So it wasn't exactly a surprise.

Except that he made certain that it was most definitely a surprise.

We got to Chicago on Friday and found our way to Navy Pier.  We went in a few shops.  In the first one, Mark found something for his daughter, then told me to go outside and see where the bathrooms were.  That was weird, but I didn't question him too much.  I figured he was just stressed from the trip up.

In the next shop, a nautical-themed store I wanted to go in, I found a pirate-themed coffee mug.  He headed for the register and told me to go look at T-shirts in the other part of the store.  If you know anything about me, you know that I'm really not interested at all in many T-shirts, but I thought he just wanted to make sure I didn't try to pay for the coffee mug.  (Unbeknownst to me, he was juggling around the bag with the treasure chest in it.)

We went upstairs to this beautiful Crystal Garden area, which was (of course) set up for a wedding.  Mark suggests we go sit down on a bench.

At this point, it kicks in.  Omg, he's going to propose.

We sit down, he pulls out the bag from the nautical shop, reaches in... and pulls out a little treasure chest that he's clearly bought, because it's wrapped in cellophane and actually has a price tag on it.

Oh.  Okay.  He's not proposing.  He just bought me something else at the store.  That's cool.

So we open the box.  It's wrapped in a chain necklace and bracelet with nautical charms.  He opens the lid.  "Look," he says, "There's a paper in here."  I pick up the folded paper, still completely unaware, and underneath it is the ring.

That sneaky, sneaky bastard.

Of course, I said, "Aye."

(Meanwhile, the wedding band starts warming up by playing, "All You Need Is Love."  Because why wouldn't the band play a song from one of my favorite movies of all time right at the moment I say yes to the love of my life?)

I can say that this was definitely my favorite proposal.  I honestly can't think of anything else more perfect.

It's almost like he knows me. (In fact, he knows me so well that he made sure to make it look like the ring we bought was still wrapped up in the box he was storing it in after getting it cleaned, just in case I went checking for it.  Which, of course, I had thought about doing.)

I'm also enjoying being engaged a lot more this time around!  In spite of the annoying "just got engaged" questions (no, we don't have a date), it's already going so much better than the last time.  My parents are happy, our friends are happy, and I'm sure one day I'll stop admiring my own hand.

Obviously, this isn't my first rodeo.  Some people have even said that they didn't think I'd ever get married again after what I went through the first time around.  And I suppose that's fair.  Because if it weren't for Mark, I don't think I would.  I don't think I'd risk it for anyone else.

But.  Risk it I'm going to.  And I think it's completely worth it.

Besides, how could I say no to the most perfectly nautical proposal ever?

Along with getting unexpectedly engaged, we were total tourists in Chicago.  I saw several old friends, we took lots of public transportation (and got a little lost), ate Chicago food, and went to the Field Museum.  All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good vacation.

And I've got a really, really good souvenir.