was this me?

wow

and then, just like that, a couple of months later, i met him. my bear. my lovey. my right hand. my heating pad. my force.

and then there were kids.

i think i need to address this issue with myself. children. the whole thing really freaks me out. from the bodily changes to the birthing process to actually having to deal with a screaming pooping little being 24 hours a day reallllly freaks me out. i have utmost respect for the mothers of the world. i really do. procreation is the most selfless act that one can perform. it is exponentially so because i just don't get it. maybe the maternal instinct hasn't kicked in for me yet. but it just seems there are so many other things to do. its also one of those things, like, if i were to find out i couldn't have children it would be a devastating, life altering event and i probably couldn't recover from it. who knows. but i guess i'm just not one of those twenty-somethings who is pining for a baby. i have myself. i have my fiance. i am so happy just with him, i don't even want to rock the boat. i suppose in time that might change.

but then...i look at his sister. her kids seem to be tearing her marriage apart. or something is at work. the fact that the kids have them tied down and they can't chnage things to try to make the marriage work. that is scary. the permanence of it. that you have to, like, stay in one place and have long term goals for the sake of your children. it is a beautiful thing. just extremely scary.

so i get scared. like what if i never want to have kids. heck, what if i do? that is even scarier. Like, it almost seems kind of the easy way not to have kids. why deal with the challenge? probably most parents iwll tell you it is the most rewarding thing of life.

and then there is that whole "carrying-on the genes" or "carrying-on the name" thing. and like, at one point, what do you do if you don't have kids??? who takes care of you? but what if you raise them and they hate you and don't take care of you?

can i just say...

how sad it makes me that so much of my life has gone unrecoreded over the past two years. it has been such an amazing, fulfilling, life changing period of time. perhaps it just wasn't an appropriate subject for excessive analysis. anyway, i should make a better effort. i feel like i say that every few months that i check in.

i used to be sooooo into reading the blogosphere....there were so many that i was literally HOOKED on...just stuck on people's lives and experiences and reading and seeing what different kids were all about. these days, i just can't find any that pique my interest. or that are work appropriate ;)

oh, the holidays

So... Christmas dinner erupted into an argument about my priorities after my mother insisted that I go to church tomorrow in lieu of going tubing on the mountain with my best childhood friend. Apparently, I am not in my late twenties but rather my late teens.

Like, I get it. I get her religiosity and her committment and her passion. But my priorities are not her priorities and I am well passed the ripe old age at which she should have stopped imposing same on me. Most particularly when I went to church last night! ...and really, are we going to argue about this at the Christmas table? garrrr...these are the things that push me away. I had a striking realization sitting in my childhood church last night....that it had taken a frighteningly long time to get to where i am...a place that i am not devoured by guilt for not holding the same religion as my mother, but still understand and accept its precepts and in a general sense try to live my life in a certain moraled fashion. On the other hand, it took a lot of years of guilt and struggle and tears and fear to get out from under a strict religious upbringing.

it is interesting and perplexing how they (she) have accepted my relationship with my now-fiance...there is not a hint of religion in his life accept acceptance and understanding of my own confusion. this is the first relationship of my life in which my mother has not tirelessly judged and questioned the male's commitment to her (or similar) beliefs. Maybe it is because he is just so simply and genuinely good in a way that no amount of religious commitment can create. I mean, heck, my heart is darker and more conniving times 10 than he could ever hope to be and he was not raised on a 2x per Sunday and once on Wednesday church routine.

In any case, it sure felt good to vent to him and to you and to write again. sigh.