Tag Archives: Marriage

That Age-Old Question of Carrying on One’s Genes

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This year has gone by like the blink of an eye for me. You have to understand, I’m a really late bloomer. I’ve always been smart, and mature, and people looked to me for advice on what to do with their own lives, while I could barely keep a hold of my own. But I hid it really well. That’s what growing up in alcoholism does to you. You become a chameleon, trying to fit in, trying to find that niche that will let you feel like you belong for the first time in your life.

Don’t get me wrong – there’s not a lot I regret about my life. I’ve definitely lived, and had a great time doing it. I always thought that I just “hadn’t found the right person/job/town/friend/career/etc., etc.” and that sooner or later it would appear.

I didn’t care about things like retirement, 401 K, savings accounts… Green Cards, little things like that. I was sure that I would become a famous singer or actress (or not even famous, but enough to live on) and that would take care of it all. That was my 20s.

I moved to L.A. when I was 30 and spent quite a few years trying to fit in – it was such a culture shock from Boston. I hooked up with one alcoholic/drug addict after the other, and kept thinking, “why won’t they marry me?” It was only after I got into 12-step recovery that I found out I was as much to blame as them. Deep down, I really didn’t want to get married because I thought I wasn’t worthy.

After several years cleaning up my past mistakes, and really learning about myself and why I do the things I do, I was told I was ready to date. I really didn’t want to, as I was in fear of a lot of things, namely rejection, especially in LA. I was terrified but I did it anyway.

I bit the bullet and went on Match.com. I had several really horrible dates; including one where I said I was going to the bathroom and actually walked out the back door and left him there he was so rude. I had some good ones too, but somewhere inside, I knew it wasn’t “right.”

Then, I got “winked” at by this guy on Match.com. I checked out his profile and almost deleted him. But something told me not to go by first impressions and to at least talk to him. We started very slowly and e-mailed back and forth. I let him send me his phone number, and we talked. Short, friendly conversations that didn’t drag on and just let each other know we were interested.

After a while of phone calls, we arranged to meet at Priscilla’s in Burbank. I got there early and waited round the side of the coffee house, until I realized he was late! I phoned my friend and she was going to come pick me up, but I wanted to give him another chance. I walked around the other side of the coffee house, and there he was, phoning his brother saying, “she stood me up.”

After laughing and getting the awkwardness out of the way, we sat down to talk. And we talked, and talked, and talked. We closed Priscilla’s down. He was much more handsome than his picture and so sweet. I felt something inside that I couldn’t nail down but it felt good… I felt happy.

I was definitely hooked. So fast forward to today, three years later… I moved in with him after two years, and the year after that he proposed two days before my 40th birthday. To top that, we got married in San Francisco two months later while we were there for a CAL football game.

That’s where we are now. We’ve been married for three months, and I can’t believe that happiness like this exists. It’s borne out of hard work, respect, and the willingness to work whatever may come up, out. A good friend of mine told me – it’s all about choice. It’s a choice to be married – and if you want to be married, then be married. If you want to be divorced, be divorced. It sounds simple, but it really is a choice to be happy and to want to work at it.

Now, let’s get down to the nitty gritty of what this year has plopped in my lap after all of this. I went in for my yearly exam five weeks ago and was told I have ovarian cysts. Kinda funny since I’ve been on the Pill on and off since I was 16 to deal with this issue. So, in between my amazement that this was actually happening, and wanting to be healthy, I decided to have them removed. This is where it gets good.

It’s not bad enough that my whole life people have been asking, “so when are you going to get married?” but now that I am, it’s become perfectly acceptable and appropriate for strangers, and close friends, and parents, to ask the extremely personal question, “so when are you going to get pregnant?”

I think that this is just the rudest question there is.

How can people be so flip, so carefree, in asking something that should be no one else’s business but your doctor’s and you and your spouse’s? And then add to that insult, injury – “Well, you are 40 you know and you better get moving.” Holy shit! I’m 40? When did that happen? Oh yeah! Right after getting engaged and before getting married.

Listen… I know how old I am. I look in the mirror every day, and trust me, I’m not in denial. Every time you ask me when I’m going to have a baby, you probably push it back for me a few months. It’s none of your business, as well-meaning as you are.

When I had the ovarian cysts removed, they also found out I had endometriosis, and uterine fibroids. I was in a lot of pain, and just thought it was normal. That’s how messed up I am. I don’t know what “normal” is. I’ve got enough going on in my head with learning how to be a wife, dealing with the fact I am losing my job on March 29, and getting up to deal with my cretin of a boss every day without wanting to slit my wrists. I don’t want to even THINK about bringing another life into the world without getting my own together first.

And who knows what kind of mother I’d be? Everyone says I’d be an awesome mother, but I am not so sure. I have NEVER (let me repeat that) NEVER had “ooh” and “ahh” feelings when I see babies. I think that children are adorable (especially when they’re brought up properly with like, manners and stuff 🙂 ) and I like being around them, but I don’t feel that pull, that squinchiness in my belly, to actually have my own.

Genes

I just want to enjoy being a newlywed for a while, is that so wrong? We’re still getting to know one another, learning about each other and how to communicate. I think it would be a great disservice to both of us, since we are ambiguous about the whole thing right now, to bring a child into that.

I love my husband very much. I know in my heart that we will be guided to do what is right for us, and no one else, if we keep growing and learning about one another and ourselves. If that means having a child, then it will happen, or it won’t. It is not the be-all and end-all for me, or him. I’m thankful that we’re in the exact same place about this and have the chance to grow together and decide together without one of us feeling like we aren’t getting what we want.

Photographs are not Memories, as such

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bewitched

Photographs and memories are deceiving. They can cause a lot of emotional distress for perfectly innocent reasons. I’ve been sorting through old photographs of mine, and also of my husband’s, for a project I am putting together for our “wedding.” (We were already married in August of 2007, but we are doing a little celebration for family and close friends in May). There’s a book for me, a book for him, and one of us.

I turned 40 last year, and to help take the sting out of that, someone suggested crafting a book of photos that chronicled my life so far (a “Maeve” retrospective, if you will 🙂 ) It really did help put things in perspective – that high school and college were a fun time (sometimes) but so small in the grand scheme of things. I saw myself younger and full of potential and passion, and it was interesting to see how life and time change your face. It has been said that at 50 you get the face you deserve. I honestly can’t wait to see mine. I’ve worked hard at becoming a better person and to mend fences as best I can so that it doesn’t “wear” on me as I get older. In a lot of ways I feel younger and more focused than I’ve ever been.

God, I love my husband. How did I get so lucky? What cosmic pixie dust blew my way that night I returned his “wink” on match.com? We talked about this yesterday, how much choices influence us, and sometimes, even the wrong choices can put you on the right path. The documentary “Prince of Paisley Park” was on, and I was fascinated by the fact that Prince’s father moved to Minneapolis, MN as a Jazz musician. Now, forgive my ignorance, but Minneapolis MN in the 50’s doesn’t seem to me like it would be the Hub of musicians and a mecca for playing (I’m probably wrong, but just go with me). The circumstances that led to Prince becoming Prince were woven into that choice. A neighborhood that was almost completely white. Clubs and bars that were places to shine, but not really on a country-wide scale. Frustration on his father’s part – maybe enough to set the wheels in motion regarding alcoholism and abusiveness. For better or worse, Prince was forged in this fire and came out the other side, to become one of the most formidable talents and performers of his generation. Who’s to say that if his father had moved to Chicago or New Orleans or some other area more recognizable for Jazz, that his life would have turned out that way? Sometimes the crucible has to be really hot to burn away the impurities and filter the precious metal to the top.

This is how I have to take my husband’s youth. We went through a whole box full of memories and photos, and proms, and dances, together yesterday. I was actually glad he was there to tell me the context, rather than me making up my own stories.

He had a relationship with someone from the end of high school through his mid-20s. There were an awful lot of photos chronicling this era. While I was looking for pictures of him when he was younger, I got to know him a whole lot better. I couldn’t help it, I started to cry when I saw him with this woman and looking so happy and in love, and most of all, young. Proms, dances, sorority functions, they were all there, smiling up at me from their youth. A youth filled with love, excitement, and probably, lots of sex!

I think more than anything I wished I had had a youth like that. I was a late bloomer, and coupled with the alcoholism in my family, I barely remember my teenage years and early 20s very well. I was desperately trying to find out who I was. I never really had a high school sweetheart or a boyfriend till I was well into my 20s.

I am envious of this American phenomenon called “prom.” In Canada, at least where I grew up, we didn’t have proms. We had dances throughout the year, but no “spring formal” or anything like that – certainly nothing that would warrant having a formal picture taken with one’s date, and a different dress and tux rental for each! Date? We all sort of showed up and hoped nobody had puked in the corner of the gymnasium when we snuck over to neck with the cute jock from freshman year. There were only 400 of us in the whole school, grades 9-12. I graduated with about 30 other people that I had gone to kindergarten with, out of a hundred or so total. So high school was more about seeing everyone grow up with you, and having the same friends since grammar school. There wasn’t that anonymity that larger high schools have. In looking at Sean’s yearbook, he didn’t know a lot of the people he graduated with.

So, you see, when I see Sean in his tux, with the matching cummerbund to his date’s dress, I think I’ve missed out somehow.

It helped to hear that his relationship with her through all those years was not the best. Yes, he was smiling, but it was rocky – separations – physical and emotional, studded it through the years. Normal teenage and young adult emotions played a part in all of it.

I can’t be jealous of the woman who got so many of his years through his youth. We met at exactly the time we were supposed to, for exactly the right reasons. She may have photographs, but I’ve got him. I’d like to say I can rise above it and see it through my adult eyes. But somewhere, the teenage me is still feeing rejected, and like I wasted the best years of my life NOT having sex. Cripes – if I had that body now that I did then… OY!!

So, like Prince, our life together was forged by some bad choices, or choices we thought were bad at the time, but turned out pretty well. If he HADN’T had the relationship with her, he might not have ever gone to Berkeley, and then come back to Burbank. If I HADN’T had the brief affair with a friend’s friend when I came out here on vacation, I might have moved to New York instead of Burbank. And I know, deep down, so far, further than I’ve known anything ever before, that we are meant to be together. I know it like I know how to breathe.

Anyway, I did the only thing I could at the time while looking at the photos – wiped away my tears, and instead of focusing on “them” together in the pictures, I tried to look at my husband as a young man, full of promise, and love, and passion – those blue-green eyes so open and honest, those long legs like a young colt – and I fell in love with him all over again. How lucky am I that I got him and that he HAD this fabulous past that he can remember and share with me as we grow older together and get closer. I’d rather have him now, with that past AS the past, than to have loved him when we were younger and lost him, to have a lifetime of “what if,” and “if only.”

And, after looking at all of those pictures with his dark hair and buff body, the sea-green eyes and crooked smile, I did the other only thing any normal woman in love would do – I took him to bed and chased away our ghosts, exorcised them to the past, where they will firmly stay.

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