After sleepless hours and constantly reassuring myself it will all be fine and the cats will accept it and my husband will see how happy I am and everyone will be happy… I realize that this is a lot of crap.

It wasn’t until we were talking with our couple’s therapist tonight that it came out that my husband really, really, really does not want a dog in the house. He can tolerate dogs, and even take some comfort in their company (when they are quiet and just lying beside you on the couch), but does not want one in his home. This means that, regardless of how happy I am, I believe that all he’ll see is how inconvenienced we are as a result of a dog being in our home and inconvenienced = unhappy husband. We came up with a lot of ways that I can get what I need from my husband when he’s home. Probably during my personal counseling session my doctor will try to help me come up with ways I can get what I need for myself as well.

However, I already loved the dog that was coming into my home, and feel much the same way I did when I got my period after a questionably-positive pregnancy test back when I was well and we were trying to have a baby 5 years ago. (It’s worse than having to go on disability leave and abandon my students because, honestly, a lot of those kids were being total jerks to me, personally.)  That space I made in my heart and nested and planned for is just going to go vacant. I will not have someone to drag out of their shell through patience, love, and understanding. I will not have a buddy to spend my days with. I will not have someone else for whom I have to take a walk and stay well (for my husband and my self and the rest of my family, I weigh pros and cons of any activity and accept the consequences in order to do things with him I may not feel up to).

I figure it’s for the best, because if a foster is easily frightened (like most) and my husband reacts to barking or accidents the way he reacts to our kitty Stewie shouting at night… well, it could do more harm than good. Maybe, one day when we have kids (or when we have empty nest syndrome) and a yard, the kids and I will be able to convince my husband to let me get a dog.

When it comes down to it, I want my husband to be happy and comfortable at home above all else. I guess it’s been long enough since he’s been comfortable, that he’s not really willing to accept this discomfort (which, to him, appears to be significant) for my potential happiness, if there’s any way that happiness could be achieved through other means, however elaborately multi-pronged and potentially exhausting they may be, as well as putting greater burdens upon him.

I already emailed the local person and said I cannot foster. I even stretched the truth:

I’m really very sorry, but after bringing our cats to the vet for their checkup and getting some disheartening news about each of them, and then going to see my doctor to find out my recent fibromyalgia flare-up was most likely due to a tear in my left shoulder blade/back muscle, I’m going to have to cancel my application to foster. Apparently I and my family are just not up to it.

Since there’s no going back, in honor of the dog I already loved and never met, here are a few LOLdoxies from ihasahotdog.com:

Approximately four weeks have passed since my last post and so very much is milling around my mind to write about that I am writing this post just to recognize all that I will talk about when I can:

• The bathroom is finished. Finally. It’s beautiful and not completely moved into yet, but being fully used. It was completed Friday night, at 11pm on the 23rd, and we began to use it Sunday evening. I will be fully accustomed to it after everything has been put away for a while… so, in a month or so.

  

  

  

  
  

  

  

  

  
  

  

  

  
  
• The front of our home is no longer a jungle. Perhaps over-pruned, but I can plant at my leisure. It was a gift from my mom.
• L.A. was wonderful. We had really needed to get away from life and enjoy ourselves. I enjoyed connecting with my brother and even got to have a heart-to-heart conversation with him and find out just how very much we both have in common (poor guy). It was also wonderful getting to know Grandma Susie better and meeting Grandpa Bernie and their dog, Patsy, for the first time. Since Grandpa Bernie is extremely hard-of-hearing and is not connected to the internet, I have purchased stationery so that I can correspond with him by letter writing. Seeing my in-laws was also nice, although some comments from my husband’s sister went beyond her usual unthinkingly-self-involved zings into personally-cruel territory and I was very proud of myself for neither physically nor verbally attacking her (or even commenting on it to her). The call-her-on-it-and-get-into-a-hysterical-argument gene comes from both sides of my family on X chromosomes (and appears to only get diluted if a Y chromosome is present), as my little brother pointed out, which made me feel even prouder. Someone must have made her more aware of her need to be a little more sensitive, because she didn’t say anything rude at me after that. Overall, it was a wonderful place to visit, and I wish we could fold the globe into the 4th dimension so I could visit my adoptive grandparents and my baby brother far more often, but I would not want to live in a plastic, prop-filled world.
• I’m trying to get my business of the ground. The website is live and it has a facebook page. I have people saying they will send business my way (including the admissions director of a private school for LD students, a parent of two former students, another parent of a summer student, and the head of a local psych group). I have a now-clean rec room with attached powder room that now has matching “powder room” and “laundry room” signs so those doors can stay closed, a soon-to-be-assembled book shelf and computer desk, a printer stand/filing cabinet, a printer/copier/scanner, a soon-to-be-hooked-up computer and soon-to-be-delivered comfy waiting area furniture. A table upstairs will be brought down for tutoring purposes. The kitchen floor is now clear of boxes and junk and soon the surfaces will be too, so that I can advertise to neighbors a low-cost 3pm-5pm homework help time (to drum up business and make nice with them).
• I’m doing eDiets home-delivery to get rid of a chunk of weight. They guarantee 10 lbs in 5 weeks. In addition, I’ve joined the local gyms and pools, which was a package deal that also gives me more access to community events and activities (to shmooze and make friends). Just spending the past week preparing for the diet has had me lose 1.2 lbs.
• I want a dog. Peter does not. The best reason he has is that my health may one day improve greatly, making FT work possible, which is not conducive to dog-ownership. However, I know a dog would get me walking several times a day, every day, and we could get well or be ill together… I am hoping to foster a senior/adult dachshund. Peter thinks bringing anyone new into the household would be hard on the cats. But me being alone all day and dependent on Peter for amusement (as well as every project that I do, which all seem to involve heavy lifting to some degree) is hard on everyone. Also, doing obedience or agility or just a dog park with the dog would be another way to meet people. Since the summer is a slow time for tutors AND I’m limiting myself to 2 hrs/day of work, and I need an interactive project to keep me from obsessing over buying stuff or food or whatever else I could possibly obsess about, and I’m so incredibly lonely, I think this is the perfect solution.  So, I’m filling out long online paperwork, hoping a good match is out there and that Peter will give in if the house is clean enough and he’s getting enough of what he wants. We’ll talk about it seriously during our couple’s-counseling session Monday (along with the fact that we BOTH HATE that I am so dependent on him to do things that will enable my projects, so I don’t push, but it hurts me when he shows such disinterest in helping with getting my business started or clearing out communal space when I’ve already put a lot of work into it, but he needs some down time and relaxation time because he does work a 40-hr week, which is also why I am okay with him spending so very much time out of the house playing Magic: The Gathering with his friends, even though I am desperate for attention), and he’ll see this sometime before then so it won’t blind-side him.

So, that’s about it. A lot going on, all in a tiny span of time and all making laps around the inside of my tiny, youth-hat-sized skull.

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

Since 2002, A Math Teacher was who I was, and any other applicable definition was secondary, if not imaginary. Since graduating college, the whole of my energies was focused on shaping minds, giving students tools for life, changing lives hopefully for the better. But in early December, my career was temporarily excised from my life, so that I could focus on “me” and get my Self in shape, so I could return better, stronger, faster… but I discovered that I had worked hard to ignore that Self. Who I was in Real Life had atrophied and I had to rebuild it. I had the technology. And I found the willpower. Unfortunately, I could not procure bionic parts. But I’m strengthening what I can, and I am reminding myself of all those subdefinitions:

I am:

• a full-fledged adult
• a daughter, sister, aunt, and not-too-in-law
• a wife who is learning to be a partner
• a cat-mommy of two Siamese, one of whom is “on the spectrum” (kitty version)
• a homeowner and neighbor
• a person who has to solve the puzzle
• a perfectionist who uses micro-planning and procrastination to disguise insecurity over not being perfect
• a person with very defined morals and personal rules
• a person who rarely judges others and finds them lacking
• a naive fool who, regardless of experience, is constantly surprised by others’ rule-breaking
• an American that, nevertheless, isn’t from around here (no matter where ”here” is), and never was
• a regular person (my dream since childhood) who has had the luxury of extraordinary experiences
• a psychiatric patient who took her life back and will accept the glitches that come my way as a result
• a person who lives with fibromyalgia and its ups, its downs, and its limitations
• a woman resculpting her curves to find her body once again (there was a reason I didn’t diet before my wedding: I wanted to look the way I looked 4 years later and 4 years earlier, which I did and I will again)
• a musician rediscovering her instruments and her love for music in all its forms (well, most of them)
• a collector of stories and a story-teller
• a student who will never learn enough
• a math/science geek
• a traveller
• a people-watcher
• a total klutz
• a silly, giggly, goof-ball
• a princess
• an actor in life’s play
• an altruist
• a person who lives for the sake of others when she cannot live for herself
• a person who does for others before she does for herself
• an advocate for people with disabilities
• a person that almost has never felt anger
• an educator (honestly, I randomly start teaching people about thread count in Bed, Bath, and Beyond when at loose ends like this)

I’m sure there are other things people can add to this. But these are the few things I have thought of, mostly in the order they occurred to me, as I sat here over the course of an hour. I miss teaching, and I will either return to the classroom part-time or, more likely, tutor as close to full-time as I reasonably can. But it feels good to be rediscovering who I am and who I can be when I’m not crippled by pain caused by constant overexertion.