The way in which people love one another is as interesting and diverse as how they show their love.

Some people love in an abstract sort of way. I’m related to you, so I love you. But when it comes between their own comfort or routine and the more distant needs of that relative, the urgency would have to be great to impel them to do something outside that comfort zone.

Some people love so thoroughly it’s almost smothering, but very comforting. They want to be there for you so much that they practically want to crawl inside your skin and be there with you through the big and little ups and downs of every single day.

Some people love with their whole hearts and it doesn’t matter how long it’s been since you’ve seen or spoken to one another. There’s just always that instant connection of love and togetherness, a bond that just strengthens as you grow. If you need them they will drop everything, and vice versa.

Some people love insecurely, constantly afraid something could happen that would shatter the relationship.

Some people love with small gestures and just sharing their lives each day, being there for the ups and downs and the boring sameness that is most days.

They say animals can give unconditional love. Every day at 4:30 is a special time when the usually-self-contained Leela (who is more attached to Peter than myself) demands loving attention from me. When I sleep in, I also often find Leela curled up next to or on me. Stewie (who attached himself to me as a kitten) has a very needy, but companionable, love. When he gets cuddly, he will look up at me like I’m his world. When he isn’t feeling cuddly, but senses my need for it, he will curl up on the couch just barely within reach or stretch out on the ottoman. When I’m up late, he comes down with me, occasionally yelling at me to get to bed, and then eventually follows me back upstairs.

It’s amazing how many more ways people love that I didn’t even mention. But then, everyone and every interpersonal relationship is different.

Had God given me a loving, supportive family,
But had I not inherited their advantages,
It would have been enough for me. Dienu.

Had He given me my family’s advantages,
But had I not inherited their quirks,
It would have been enough for me. Dienu.

Had He given me my family’s quirks,
But not the wisdom with which to use them,
It would have been enough for me. Dienu.

Had He given me the ability to use my genes to advantage,
But not the appreciation of how we interact,
It would have been enough for me. Dienu.

Had He given me an appreciation of our interactions,
But had not given me loving, supportive siblings with whom to share life,
It would have been enough for me. Dienu.

Had He given me loving, supportive siblings with whom to share life,
But had not blessed me with a loving, understanding, appreciative husband,
It would have been enough for me. Dienu.

Had He given me a loving, understanding, appreciative husband,
But had that husband not come with a wonderfully loving family of his own,
It would have been enough for me. Dienu.

Had He given me a wonderfully loving family-in-law,
But had they not had blessings and quirks they had shared with my husband,
It would have been enough for me. Dienu.

Had He given me a husband with inherited blessings and quirks of his own,
But had his family not loved and supported me as one of their own,
It would have been enough for me. Dienu.

Had he given me a family-in-law that loves and supports me as one of their own,
But not given me a second chance at life and love,
It would have been enough for me. Dienu.

But God has given me a loving, supportive family,
And He has given me my family’s advantages,
And He has given me my family’s quirks,
And He has given me the ability to use my genes to advantage,
And He has given me an appreciation of our interactions,
And He has given me loving, supportive siblings with whom to share life,
And He has given me a loving, understanding, appreciative husband,
And He has given me a wonderfully loving family-in-law,
And He has given my husband inherited blessings and quirks of his own,
And He has given me a family-in-law that loves and supports me as one of their own,
And He has given me a second chance at life and love,
And for all of that, I am truly grateful and strive to be a better me.

Most people see a decade-marked anniversary with dread, resignation, and a little resentment. It isn’t “look how long I’ve lived,” but looking at all the youthful years behind you that you can never experience again. Although 40 is the new 30, it is still seen as that milestone between young, fledgling adult and Adult.

However, this is the first year I’ve had a birthday without a nugget of depression lodged in my brain. This is the first year I’ve looked at all I’ve experienced and look forward to the future. In fact, my thought was that I’ll only get to live those years twice-more-over, if I’m lucky. Compare that to turning 17 and crying that I was still alive. Or last year, where all I felt was pain and all I looked forward to was more pain and disappointment and further making my loved ones lives difficult. Don’t get me wrong: I still see fibromyalgia as something that won’t be magically disappearing anytime at all soon. However, I see hope for having a future with less pain. It will be a long road and there will be bumps along the way (heck, I’m awake now because I’m in too much pain to lie down comfortably and am just waiting until I’m too exhausted to stay awake), but it can and will happen if I do what I’m supposed to.

In any event, I am happy to be turning 30. I am happy to be old enough that people take what I say seriously – I always knew what I was talking about and have always known best, but it’s a lot harder to take from a 4-year-old, or even a 24-year-old fresh out of grad school. But now I have years of experience and a track record to fall back on (and not just in the teaching field). I am happy to feel a separation between myself and my students. But even more, it’s like starting fresh. All the advantages of the ECT, without the post-ECT oh-no-what-did-I-do-to-my-brain-and-what-did-I-do-to-myself-this-past-year crisis that was jumping into way too deep a pool too quickly.

I look forward to see what the next 3 decades (and the 3 after that) bring:  hopefully, love, children, contentment, and chocolate. Oh, and a size 8 figure (I looked hot, but could still eat). Hey, it doesn’t hurt to dream

My mother visited this week. She arrived Sunday, Pi Day, the day after my 30th birthday, and stayed until this evening. Almost exactly 5 full days of being silly, eating delicious food, reminiscing, and – oh yeah – tons and tons of cleaning up my life.

Monday, my mother and I cleaned out my study (and what had spilled into the hall). Even the books that I was planning to bring downstairs, she brought downstairs. It was amazing, the lifting and carrying – and this was only the beginning! The only mess left over is the paperwork and CDs and such on my desk, and the table is still up there but, for now, it’s welcome.

Tuesday, we cleaned all my stuff out of my classroom. It was stressful and sad, and it was so much easier having my mom with me. Then we went to the mall, checked out Nordstrom’s, bought some little things at Sephora and got my birthday gift, and… we purchased new eyeglasses! I know that doesn’t sound huge, but if you wear glasses every day and haven’t gotten a new pair in 4 years, it’s a big deal. I got the same shape I had before, but in blue with some silver accents. My mother got a pair, too: wire-rimmed tortoiseshell glasses that are very round on bottom and somewhat round on top. She says they’re Daniel Jackson from “Stargate: SG1″ glasses, not Harry Potter glasses. My first reaction was that they looked silly, but I got used to them quickly and they look very nice on her oval face.

Daniel Jackson from Stargate: SG1

Wednesday, my mother and I tackled the bathroom renovation. We first visited a high-end tile store and found a perfect tile for the shower and floor and a mosaic tile I really liked, too. They gave us a sample of the tile and we went to Home Depot to look at pre-assembled vanities and linen cabinets, as well as prefabricated counters. Not only did we find them in clearance, but they were just perfect for the tile and the room.

cabinetry

Then, we found tiles that were the same color for 1/5 the price and a similar, but less dark, mosaic tile! It took hours and I was exhausted and just sat down in pain half-way through, but the comparing of similar tiles, selecting the edging tile (which is marble), and just finding what I was hoping for was sooooo worth it, and it would have taken me weeks and left me feeling dissatisfied if I hadn’t had my mother with me.

Due to my pain and flagging energy, I asked my mom to stay an extra day so we could actually spend time enjoying each other and doing things at a more leisurely pace. Luckily, she could stay! So, Thursday, we went sneaker shopping and my mother spent nearly an hour taking every single box and bag and random piece of clothing out of my car and down into the basement, where I will be setting up a room for tutoring and waiting (for parents) / game-playing (for friends who we have over).

I have been driving around with 2 classrooms and 1 cubicle in my car since leaving my PT job tutoring special needs college students in October 2008 for an “amazing” opportunity to head up math curriculum for a national virtual charter school (an alternative to, or version of, homeschooling). I have felt homeless and embarrassed of my situation and it (along with my study) was an albatross I dragged around for years, adding to it, letting it spill into my kitchen to make room for groceries…

I can’t even put into words the freedom and hope my mother has given me, just by helping me with all this. I can totally handle the other projects in my life now that this has been sorted out and dealt with. The bathroom stuff was fun and helpful, but the cleaning up of my – well, of my life, really – was such an incredible weight off my shoulders, I get teary just thinking about it. I feel such hope about being a functioning professional special ed math tutor, with room to have a personal life.

Thursday afternoon and Friday, my mother and I just had fun and watched some episodes of “The Big Bang Theory,” including the newish episode of Sheldon getting stuck trying to solve a problem involving electrons moving through a graphite surface (I believe), the episode in which Penny dislocates her shoulder and Sheldon drives her to the hospital, and the episode in which Leonard’s mom first comes to visit.

I dropped her off at the local Amtrak, but I miss her already. Yes, having a close friend nearby would be nice, but it wouldn’t take the place of the wonderfulness of a visit from my mommy. I wish we could just spend a day together every week, or a weekend each month. However, I still haven’t managed to fold the Earth into the 4th dimension so that travel time would be inconsequential. Unfortunately, we’re both on our best behavior, because visits are rare…We love each other, but we can drive each other bananas. If we lived near each other, tears would be shed, neither of our husbands would be able to put up living with us, and killing sprees might not be an impossibility.

So, thanks to my mother, who cleaned up my study, my classroom, my car, and filled my basement (and my husband, who cleaned up my computer and loves all of me, including my craziness), I now start my 4th decade full of hope and excitement over all the possibilities.

My furbabies, Stewie and Leela, are now officially 8 years old.

In May of 2002, we found a lady with 3 siamese litters born within a 2-4 day period (13 kittens total)  in Schenectady, NY, and so we drove from college to select our little ones.  When we arrived, only 4 kittens were left: 2 boys, 2 girls. Leela, a tiny, opinionated, strong-willed, vivacious little blue-point selected us and then we asked her to select the brother she wished to bring with her. Of the two boys left, both were seal-point and both were nursing from Leela’s mother (the only blue-point mom, and the only voluptuous one, which is definitely Leela’s body type). Leela’s pounced on Stewie’s tail and we chose him.  Since we were graduating within a couple of weeks and they were barely 6 weeks old, we paid up-front, and the kittens as a writhing mass taking over the bathroom were basically gone, the nice woman held onto them for us, using a terry hair-tie as a collar for each. The day before graduation, we picked them up in one carrier and their little mews in the car for the entire hour drive were adorable.

Eight years and four moves later, their mews have turned into yowls, which is far less adorable on a 6-hour car ride, and Leela has gone from being the larger, voluptuous one to the larger, slimmer lady while Stewie has just gotten more peculiar and, although he was slim for years, still really likes his food and now has gotten chubby (although the licked-bare belly does accentuate it). Although they no longer fly several feet in the air to bat at a dangling object, they still have some very kittenish moments and are extremely loving and cuddly.

Cat products state that cats are in their “senior” years at age 7, which is a very scary thought considering the amount of time I spend worrying about, loving, arguing with, or talking to my fluffies. However, considering they are strictly-indoor cats and in fine health (especially if Stewie can slim down a bit and stop the belly-licking), I imagine they’ll be a part of our family for another 5-10 years.

Stewie & Leela together, age 4

Leela, age 4, getting into trouble

Proud Stewie, age 4

Stewie & Leela, age 8