Some days I just really don’t want to be a parent. I know that I’m not the only mother, or person for that matter, who feels this way occasionally. Today is one of those days. Because the moment I picked Sophie up from school she was all in a grumpy panic because she’s been assured there would be Barbie stickers after soccer and apparently there were none. I hate this part of her personality. I hate that one small, completely insignificant, thing like an ungotten sticker can ruin the evening for both of us. Because once Sophie’s in a rotten mood, it’s hard to keep it from spilling over. No matter how jovial and cheery I am, she hangs onto her misery as though her very being depends on it. But because she is so stubborn, she denies that her foul temper has anything to do with the sticker in question. Nice.

And so now, the thought of having to pay my daughter any attention, or of making dinner, or of doing anything that isn’t quietly reading or napping alone, leaves me bitter. Particularly since all it takes to lift Sophie’s spirits is a few minutes of watching T.V. But me? I’m too tired to feel better that quickly.

Would you be likely to call someone up at 6:30 in the morning? Like someone who you’re not particularly close to? Someone you were friends with like fifteen years ago, but have only spoken to a couple of times since then?

I wouldn’t.

So then, by my estimation, chatting someone on Gmail at that same hour, when they’ve only just gotten out of bed, and are checking the weather before dressing their child for school, is equally unacceptable. Especially, when you’re not actually chatting for any reason other than to observe that it is really early and I am awake.

Am I wrong here?

I just received the fetal doppler and after a few unhappy moments of looking in the wrong place, I managed to locate the wonderful sound of my baby’s heartbeat.  This thing rocks.  Both the doppler and the baby.

I can’t wait until Sophie is home from school.

A morning of reading in bed;
A marigold;
A handmade card, complete with poem;
Brunch, complete with painfully stuffed belly;
My daughter’s newly confessed love of turkey bologna;
My daughter’s newly discovered love of $16/lb. cheese.

As John and I were lying in bed this morning talking, he mentioned that a friend of ours was recently surprised to learn that our relationship is far less dramatic than he’d thought.  Our friend reads this blog and had always assumed that because it was fraught with emotion and, as he deemed it, drama, that our relationship was filled with regular flare-ups and emotional turbulence.  Which made me chuckle.

I forget that my blog primarily covers the part of our life together that is me.  I am emotionally intense and dramatic.  I frequently feel like the world might fall down around my ears at any moment.  I agonize and analyze, I over-think and expect and freak out and worry.  That is me.  And while that is me 90% of the time, it only effects about 5% of our marriage.  Maybe.

In my everyday world, during the 95%, or more, of our marriage that doesn’t make it onto the blog, John and I are a blissfully unexciting couple.  We go to brunch and spend an hour exchanging views on literature and language and the way culture can impact both.  We spend our evenings on the couch, in front of the television, watching reruns of CSI or Law and Order or something newer that we’ve DVR’ed.  Occasionally, we’ll download and watch a whole movie, or waste an entire Saturday surfing the net with the Lord of The Rings trilogy playing in the background.  John plays a lot of computer games.  I do a lot of crossword puzzles.  That is our life together.  It’s wonderful.

Once a month, at the most frequent, for about an hour, we may experience some sort of emotional shit-storm.  Typically this is the result of my trying to communicate to John some feeling that I’m having which I don’t want getting out of hand and doing a poor job of it.  And so we wind up fighting for a bit until realizing that we’re actually fighting on the same side of an issue, or else that we just didn’t understand each other in the first place.  Then we laugh at ourselves, mock one another and it’s over.  To be clear, even at only an hour, the degree to which these times are unpleasant is almost inarticulable.  I mean, John does not ruffle easily, which is why our relationship is so calm, but as a result, when we do fight, it’s pretty brutal.  And we’re well matched as foes, so it’s a very fair, if bloody, battle.  Which is probably why it’s never very long lived.  Because there is some sort of twisted respect and honor in the handling of it all.  And there is never a clear winner or loser, because that’s not what our fighting is about.  Like I said, this is really rare.  I’m not even sure that in our nearly four years together we’ve had enough actual fights to count on the fingers of both hands.

It is because I could never get away with any of my usual bullshit, emotionally speaking, that John has always been the perfect partner for me.  The night that we met, someone saw us making out in a corner and remarked that “yeah, if anyone can handle Irina, it’s John Fucking Lester.“  Of course, it works both ways.  Because there is such beautiful security in my knowing and accepting that, between the two of us, I am a total basket-case.  I feel everything and internalize it deeply.  And need to understand what it might mean.  But I also know that this irrational quality is part of what makes me charming.  It’s part of why my husband loves me and continues to be fascinated by me.  I know that it’s my deal and not John’s and that it’s okay if it’s just mine.  I’ve learned to love that zaniness about myself too.  And, more importantly, I’ve learned that just because I feel a certain high level of emotion, doesn’t mean that it has to impact on the people around me.  Last night is a perfect example.  I wrote a post about how cranky I felt in an attempt to minimize the building rage I was feeling because sleeping and eating were not within reach at that specific moment.  And it was rage that I was feeling.  Which is crazy; I know it.  But although I was obviously a little pissy and distant on the outside, I never let on to John just how ridiculously out of proportion my feelings actually were.  Because, why would I?  I knew how stupid it was.  And I knew that if I didn’t just withdraw a bit until dinner arrived, that I would probably start a fight.  For no reason.  But I didn’t.  Because it was my problem.

Which is a whole other explanation of the drama in this blog.

By the same token, other women might see John as emotionless; his own mother has nicknamed him the robot.  Because when we’re talking about children and poverty and education, or some other difficult social/political topic, John takes the fact-based, clinical position, while she and I speak largely from the view point of the boundless, irrational, heart.  Which is frustrating and compelling.  But I know that while there is a seemingly clear disconnect between brain and emotion in my husband, he is one of the most loving, warm, available people I’ve ever met.  His heart is huge, so he can afford to stick to cold-ass reason all of the time.  And anyone who really knows and cares for him, understands this.  I believe.

And this is obviously why we work so well together.  Because we completely accept, if not always understand, one another.  And we want each other just that way.  Which is not to say that there isn’t personal effort involved in growing used to living around a person who is wired so differently from the way you are.  But it’s the kind of challenge that makes you a better person for being more aware of who you really are.

So when I heard that my blog gives the impression that life around here is as dramatic as it reads, I felt I had to counter that implication.  I put a fair amount of consideration into my posting-matter; and, oddly, it’s when things are copacetic, that I have a hard time updating my blog.  Because I don’t imagine anyone being entertained by our eating dinner and vegging out together before getting into bed to read at nine p.m.  And I’ve felt for some time now that as I’ve stabilized emotionally, as I’ve overcome my ED and my history, as I’ve learned who it is that I really am, that this blog has become less interesting anyway.  Because there is so much less drama around here these days.  Because it’s hard to sensationalize bath time or homework or the value of each moment you spend with the people dearest to your heart.

Which is just fine with me.

John came home from work a little early today, which was awesome.  And promptly dozed off, which sucked.  Because tonight we’re supposed to go out on the late side to meet up with friends.  And I’m usually in bed by the time we’ll be leaving.  So if anyone needs a nap right now, it’s me.  I’m already feeling tired enough to call it a night.  It just doesn’t seem fair.

I forgot to mention that Sophie is still home.  So I have to stay awake, since there should be at least one conscious adult present.

Additionally, I am starving.  But I can’t eat because Sophie is probably getting hungry too, and she’s having dinner with her dad tonight so I can’t ruin her appetite.

Right now, the baby hates everyone.

Have you ever noticed that if you make an effort to stick to your budget and not spend money needlessly, you find yourself suddenly needing to hemorrhage money in one big rush of purchasing?  This weekend we are going to a rehearsal dinner and a wedding, both of which require clothes.  Well, I did my best to keep the solution fairly economical.  I bought a dress a few days ago for around one hundred dollars, which is fair for a going out, but also hanging out, kind of dress.  This is something I can wear all the way through my pregnancy.  And, if I feel that I’m not going to need it as a maternity dress again, I can have the front shortened and wear it after having the baby too.  See?  See how economical that is?

But then I realized that I don’t have anything to wear to the dinner.  And worried that the dress I bought was too casual for the wedding.  Except that it is perfect for dinner.  So I pulled a slinky black dress out of my closet which has served me through weight changes and weddings and my first date with John.  And, of course, because it’s clingy cotton jersey, it fits beautifully.  Okay then, done.  Right?  Not quite.  Because the dress has very thin straps.  Which means I need a strapless bra.  And although I bought a bra just four months ago, that guy is about three sizes to small in the cup now.

So I headed into the city with a list of things I needed to get.  The list included: a black leather clutch (something I’ve been needing/wanting for a few years now and have shrugged off as over-indulgent), a black shawl (both for temperature and to hide the giant ladies in the event I feel self-conscious in a room full of, what I’m sure will be, smaller chested women), very thin underwear (I wasn’t kidding about the clingy), foundation (figures I’d run out this week), insoles for John’s new shoes, some way to repair my favorite black pumps (which have been bagged to go to a cobbler for well over a year now and look perfect with the new dress), a lint roller.

I went to Bloomingdale’s first, where I knew I would get the make-up and the clutch, but was also hoping to find an affordable shawl and maybe even a bra.  The purse and foundation were easy.  The shawl was priced at over two hundred dollars.  I didn’t even bother looking for the bra.  Instead, I went over to Linda’s (I know this is the most fascinating minutiae you’ve read in a long time) where I found a bra (the exact one I bought four months ago and can’t wear) in the right size and a pair of perfect underwear which cost twenty dollars.  That’s right.  Twenty fucking dollars.  For underpants.  This is the power of desperation tinged with limited energy.  It’s what every retailer dreams of in a customer.

I walked into a hardware store (which I felt was a little kick back from the universe since it was right there along my path) and bought contact cement for my shoes.  I was skeptical, but I can already say, having come home and immediately fixed them, that the guy in the hardware store is at the top of my list for good karma right now.  He single handedly saved my favorite shoes.  Just like that.  Oh, you want to fix leather?  Sure, here you go, this is the best thing.  Just like that.

I still had the black shawl.  Again, I’d meant to buy myself a black pashmina more than a dozen times and just never did.  And I am definitely at the point in my life where I don’t see why I shouldn’t get the exact thing I need if I know I’m going to use it FOREVER anyway.  I would already have used these things (shawl, clutch) dozens upon dozens of times by now.  I’m an idiot.  But I learn.  I knew that the one place I could get my pashmina, for a price that was acceptable, was Century 21.  In Bay Ridge.  In Brooklyn.

I’ll confess now that the main reasons I dragged myself out there to get this shawl was the Burger King a block away from the store.  I really wanted a whopper jr.

But now I am finished.  Dressed for both of these events.  And, since I’m likely going to another wedding later this month, my small investments will soon pay for themselves since you can be sure I’ll be wearing the same outfits then.  Still.  I can’t shake the feeling that all of this buying was horrible wrong and evil.

Some years back, during the year before John and I met and through the beginning of our dating, I had a dear friend. We had a very quick and intense friendship. We lived three blocks apart. I considered her my best friend and she saw me through the shit-ass relationship that started my flirtation with eating disorders. We saw each other all the time, talked about everything and were unwittingly damaging for one another.

We were just both in such a bad way during that year plus of our friendship. Even though we cared for one another, and I believe that we did genuinely care, we enabled a dozen bad behaviors in each other and held one another back and down the whole time.

When our friendship died off, after she moved out of our neighborhood and became pregnant with her second child, I missed her terribly. I missed talking to her and seeing her. I missed sharing my life with her. And I had no idea why we weren’t in touch anymore. I didn’t understand what happened. I had no idea that our friendship might be hurting her. Or me.

Years passed. Sophie was entering the first grade and her daughter was starting kindergarten. At Sophie’s school. So she sent me an email explaining everything. Which I was both grateful for and a little scared to read. But suddenly I saw our friendship in a whole new way. I understood how much we’d managed to screw it up for each other the whole time. How frequently we wound up talking at cross purposes or not really hearing one another properly. It’s so easy not to hear what’s really going on. Even when you love someone.

Once I’d digested the email, I intended to write back to her. To apologize and to let her know that I took full responsibility for my share of the harm. I wanted to tell her that if we did run into one another at school, I was still more likely to give her a huge hug than to ignore her. But then time passed and I felt like it might be better for her if I just backed off and faded into the dark. If I didn’t try to rekindle anything or explain anything. I thought that silence was a better indication that I’d heard her at last and that I respected her feelings. And I was also afraid to know for sure that she wanted nothing to do with me ever again.

Last week I saw her and her daughters in the park across the street from our building. And I couldn’t help but stand at the living room window and watch them for a while. And I couldn’t help thinking that it was incredibly stupid that I was standing at the window watching someone I cared for deeply from a distance. That I actually worried about running into her on the street.

Today, on my way back from the playground with Sophie, I could see her and her daughters playing in the park in front of the building again. And I actually wondered whether I should go around the long way. Because I couldn’t see how this wouldn’t be weird and awful. But I didn’t. I walked past her and smiled and we wound up talking for a while.

And although I don’t expect that we’re going to be insta-friends again, I feel really happy and relieved that we can at least acknowledge each other when we’re picking up our kids. That we can maybe stop and chat on occasion.  Look each other in the eye and smile our hellos.

Although I spent a fair amount of the weekend feeling queasy and tired, it was really nice to spend some time with close friends we rarely get to see.  It was a quiet weekend, which may have been the result of my needing to nap and take it slow, but we did get to drive by some truly ridiculous houses, take in a movie (in the theater) and eat some delicious food.

The best part for us, as a couple, was the opportunity to just lie in bed in the morning and cuddle and talk, which is something we haven’t done in a very long time.  Long enough that I honestly don’t remember when it was that we last did.  I think sometime before we hit year two?

I love coming home.  I love knowing that I won’t be going anywhere else for a while.  That there isn’t any packing to do or plane to sit in for hours.  I love my bed and my neighborhood.  And I love being back with Sophie.  It’s always hard to be away from her, even when it’s short and a good idea.

Coming home, however, also means that I have a wedding to dress and accessorize myself for this weekend.  Which is harder to do now that I’m showing than I expected.  A friend mentioned a boutique here in Brooklyn, which I went to yesterday and which did have a really cute dress that I bought for the occasion.  But now I need to figure out the shoe, bag, jewelry situation, since the dress can easily be dressed way down with a pair of flip-flops.  I still have no idea what to wear to the dinner the night before.  I’m not saying these are the world’s most pressing problems, but they are problems for me.  For the next few days.