Public Service Announcement

Dear friends and readers,

Many of you folks are intimate friends and family, and some of you found me in your internet wanderings. I welcome comments from all of you, but if you are one of my "real life" friends, please keep in mind that I refrain from giving Husband's name or showing his face to protect his privacy. I hope you all will do the same.

Thanks!
Molly

What I have in common with the Obamas:

If you know me, you know that lately I've been obsessed with the Obama family. Everything from what kind of dog they might get, to where Sasha and Malia would go to school has cought my attention. So, when I heard that Michelle Obama would be featured in the cover story of this month's Vogue, I ran to the store to get a copy.

I finally got around to reading it last night and was disappointed to find that it couldn't really tell me much about our beautiful new first lady that I didn't already know. It talked about how "real" she is, and what a dedicated mother she is, etc. What did catch my eye, however was actually a line quoted from a 1996 New Yorker interview with Barack: "

"I'm extremely happy with her," he told Mariana Cook in a 1996 interview with
the couple recently published in The New Yorker, "and part of it has to do with
the fact that she is at once familiar to me, so that I can be myself and she
knows me very well and I trust her completely, but at the same time she is also
a complete mystery to me in some ways.…It's that tension between familiarity and
mystery that makes for something strong, because even as you build a life of
trust and comfort and mutual support, you retain some sense of surprise or
wonder about the other person."

My best girlfriend may remember me saying somthing similar to this on late night on her family's front porch during the somewhat embattled early years my relationship with Husband. Husband and I had a hard time back then. We fought a lot, and I often found myself in tears and he found himself not knowing what hit him. I often asked myself why I stayed with him when he made me so upset sometimes. I found myself conflicted with my rational self telling me to ditch him and my emotional self telling me that I couldn't live without him. (This all sounds very dramatic, doesn't it? I don't mean to be so gushy.)

But why? How did I manage to fall so stupidly in love with a man that I have so little in common with--a man who just didn't get me, and I didn't get him either? That night on the front porch I realized that the question was the answer. The fact that Husband is such a mystery to me is what made him so enthralling. To this day, I tell people that I just don't get him, and I like it that way.

In the time since we've been together, Husband and I have each learned so much about how the other thinks and operates. I understand why Husband has chosen certain weird hobbies and that has helped me accept them. I understand why Husband doesn't like parties and other large gatherings of people, and I often go by myself. I also learned that he and I each have different ways of showing our love for each other. Now, the raging fights that we used to have on a regular basis are rare.

Reading over what I've written, I can see that I appear to be trying to sound like an expert on relationships. I'm really not, but I have decided that it was important for me to question why I chose Husband and why he chose me, and to question frequently why I choose to stay with him, especially when the answer seems the most unclear. To this day, I find that the answer is that I still havn't solved the puzzle.

Valentines Day

I had a big long post planned about how Valentines Day is a fake holiday invented by retailers to force men to give women gifts in order to get a piece of ass. I was going to write about how Husband and I haven't really celebrated Valentines Day except for when we first started dating and still had something to prove to each other. And then I was going to confess that even though I feel that way I still get a little disappointed when I see other women being wined-and-dined.

I was going to write all about all of that until I found the diamond earrings that Husband strategically placed in my path today.

Losing Control

This morning, I woke up having recovered from a particularly difficult day at work which led to a particularly happy happy hour. Dehydrated as I was from the three vodka-tonics I’d had the evening before, I groggily wandered into the kitchen to get some water. When I looked around I realized that I’d lost control.

There were dirty dishes on the counter tops, a pile of clean clothes on the couch waiting to be folded; miscellaneous papers, boxes, receipts, and a couple winter coats lying on the dining room table; and an air of general dust and untidiness hung about the room.

After all the hard work I’d been doing to keep my apartment clean, Husband finally pitching in, at some point in the last week I must have gotten overwhelmed and let go. I couldn't’t tell you exactly when I stopped bothering. I think it must have happened gradually. I probably gave up somewhere between being extraordinarily busy at work, and realizing I’d gained twenty pounds and declaring I would go on a diet.

So here I am, back where I started at the end of 2008: fat, in frumpy jeans, a tee shirt, and fleece pullover, hair a mess and pulled back into a ponytail, and sitting in a messy apartment.
But, as I repeated so many times in Mr. Thomson’s high school drama class, “Yes, yes, I am hemmed in on every side, but don’t imagine all my battles lost.” I’m determined to get back in control. This weekend I will get my apartment shining again, and in the meanwhile, I’m going to continue following the diet I started last weekend, and one day I will live within 30 minutes of my office and all these things will be 100% easier.