10 Years

Yeah, it’s lame.  I know.   A single, solitary tear ran down my cheek.  And honestly, I couldn’t even really tell you why.  Later I can blame it on hormones and being completely and utterly exhausted from pregnancy.  And being a mommy.  And life.

He got married this weekend.  When I saw the initials on his sister-in-law’s Facebook, I knew it was him.  Instinctively.  And I went back to check later, just to be sure.  Not that it’s any big deal.  I’m about to have my 3rd baby.  I have a completely different life than I did then, one which he wouldn’t even remotely understand, let alone approve of.  Not that I care.  It’s just all in perspective.

Take a little piece of your heart, they do — those firsts… and I don’t want that piece back.

It was a very strange time in my life.  Very difficult and confusing beyond the normal bafflement of growing up.    And it affected me more than I realized until I saw the pictures.  To have your life turned completely upside down by your family, the family you grew up believing was perfect, is not something that is easy to navigate.  To have the one person you dream about and scheme ways to see, to have him notice you and at least let you believe you are worth a shadow of something to them is, at the very least memorable.  When life is normal.  When it’s not normal and that is the one nice thing in your life, it is slightly more than memorable.

I was 14…

He was the first boy I ever kissed.

And there are parts of me that will never feel older than 14.  That still wonder what it would be like to have the fairy tale.  That don’t have a clue about life.  That needs someone else to be the grownup.  That is scared out of  their wits.  That still has an innocent, romanticized, unjaded view of life.

I’m 24.

I’m married.

He’s married now, too.

Yes, I cried.  One tear.

Say what you will.  Judge me however you must.  I had to say it.  Let someone else know what happened.  It was too important a thing for me not to tell someone.

We only ever went on ‘church dates’.  And they weren’t even dates.  I just rode in his car.  But they were the happiest moments of my 14 year old existence.  These moments most likely meant more to me than they did to him.  I will never know.  It doesn’t even matter.  I just hope that with her, he is as happy as we were in my little teen girl dream world.

Once on a field trip, I saw his name painted under a bridge.  I got my picture taken in front of it for him.  For his birthday, I made an acrostic of his entire name–first, middle, & last–with a Bible verse for each letter.  And framed it.  At church, we would pass notes to each other when we shook hands.  I’m sure everyone was aware of my obsession, embarrassing as that is.  They all told me he was too good for me.  That he couldn’t possibly have any attraction towards me.

But he kissed me.  And I gave him my 14 year old heart.

And 10 years later, I cried when I saw the photo of him kissing his new wife at the altar.

Current Fave

I have a confession to make.

I have been sucked into a sitcom; a soap opera of epic proportions.

My favorite blog, as of the moment, is MBP.  I say ‘at the moment’ because I do recognize within myself the propensity for fickleness.  Tomorrow I may find it only mildly entertaining due to overabundance of chick-hosting-parasite hormones, or in other words, I’m a flaky prego…  However amusing or possible, this loss of interest is not likely.  A new post is up every few days and the hater comments are just as gratifying to my need for humor as the bachelors’ gut-busting, down-to-earth, walk-right-up-to-the-line-and-put-your-toe-over-it honesty.

Calvin & Jake chronicle for the vast expanse of cyberspace, and therefore, me, the adventures of their dating and/or love life.  Or lack thereof.  The slightly embarrassing thing about it for me is that from time to time, maybe more than I’d like to admit, I relate to some of their escapades, if only in the emotion and mental processes and not the actual experiences themselves.

The are human.  Mormon.  Young.  I’m going to assume slightly above average in looks.  I like to picture them that way.  Not too gorgeous so as to be obnoxious, yet not so plain as to be forgettable, which I’m sure is also helped along by adorably imperfect personalities.  The kind you like to read blogs about, pretend are your good friends, and would kill several times over if you married.

Oh, wait, that happens anyways…

Nevermind.

Calvin & Jake remind me that I’m not as old as I feel.

They also make me look ahead to when my little boy will be their age… Yikes!!  And I feel old again.  Which makes me think that I have a couple of issues of my own to work out…

And when my little girls will be their age.  I shall hide them in a closet and not let them know boys exist.  Or let boys know they exist.

Because I was there once, or twice…

And I know boys do exist.  They do, indeed.  Very much so!  Boys like the Mormon Bachelors who have hearts and– well– how shall I say it, humanity.  And fun.  They have fun.  And the silly girls they date have fun too.  And I, who am no longer in the dangerous and highly adventuresome world of being mostly single, get to live vicariously through their witty portrayal of life without the hazards of emotional distress, possible heartbreak, or the fine art or science of inflicting said distress and heartbreak onto another when the need arises.

They take the day in and day out ordinarity ( I just coined a word! teehee!), and transform it into light, engaging, and intriguing-to-the -point-of-addicting literature.  If I may be so brazen as to call periodic postings on an internet portal literature.  Yes, I will.

They endear to the rest of us the imperfections of  humanity and remind me that the things that are different about all of us are also the things that make us the same.  The likes and dislikes of one person may clash with those of another, but it in no way makes that person better of worse than the next.  I may be rated a 7 to one guy or a dozen.  To the next dozen or so, I am probably a 4.  And there is the chance that 1 or 2 may see a 10.  Or a 2.

The point is, while few of us want to admit it, even to ourselves, we all have a facet of shallow within us.  We all have a rating system.  We all have a feature that in others we may find acceptable or repulsive.  We despise the shallowness in others because we want to pretend we aren’t cut from the same mold.  We are threatened by admitting to ourselves that we are effected by more then just personality and that we aren’t as saintly as we would like ourselves to believe.

The truth of the matter is that being with an ugly person does not prove you are good.  God made beauty.  He made us in His image.  He made us to appreciate the beauty that He created in the world around us.  Part of that beauty is in the people around us.  Some of that beauty is outward.  Some is inward.  And we are all different enough to enjoy and aspire to the different beauties in the various people in our lives.  On a variety of levels.

And I think I will by a Team MBP t-shirt.  Because I am not too uppity to admit that a part of me is shallow enough to hope that if I were to run into the Mormon boys on the street, that they would rate me no lower than a 6.

And I don’t think I’ve ever met an ugly Mormon boy.

A t-shirt of epic proportions

Counting Down…

I think y’all would like to know that I am a mere 15 days from being delivered of the watermelon that currently resides somewhere in the region above/between my pelvic bones.  The very cute — I’m sure — watermelon that will wake me up several times each night for a few weeks.  People are always telling me to enjoy the time I have now and the nights that I can still sleep through.

So far...

I have this to say to you: Have you ever tried sleeping with an elephant laying on your internal organs?! That’s what I thought.  Amen.

I do not sleep more than 2 hours at a time at night.  I have to pee constantly.  I cannot walk across a room without pain shooting through my hips and/or back, stomach muscles, any other body part, etc.  If I am waking up several times each night, I would like to know something is resulting from it besides my crankiness and shortness of temper.  Like a parasite, I mean baby, gaining a pound or 2, and my losing a pound or 3…

I rant and rave.  I really hate being pregnant.  The truth is, however, that I like having babies.  I may feel at times that I have earned the right to gripe and complain from time to time since I have managed to be pregnant for 27 out of the last 39 months.  (Yes, that’s 69%…)  I adore the 2 munchkins I have and the 1 I’m about to not be hosting.  If I could go back and have it work out the way I planned: have Levi and maybe think about getting pregnant with #2 about now, I wouldn’t.  I’m sort of in love with the ones I’ve got.

There are already people placing bets on when I’ll announce that #4 is on his/her way.  Apparently, I am incapable of not being pregnant regardless of what I do to prevent said condition.  I am not going to be surprised if it does indeed happen that way.  I may lose the last vestiges of sanity on which I now maintain a tenuous hold, at best.   My family may run screaming for lack of coping ability.  Jim will wish he moved the futon out to the shed long ago.  I may move it out there now for his sake…

Whatever.

Molly Moo

Really.  Look at that nose.  And the chubby cheek.  And the little chin. And the little girly lips.

Maybe I’ll call it quits and adopt a Haitian baby.   Who may or may not be able to block my powers.

Again.  Whatever.  I am excited about giving birth to this kid.  I get all the drugs they’ll give me and I actually get to enjoy the experience that way. I scheduled the induction because I don’t like  not knowing.  Just kidding.  It’s really because if I didn’t, I’d still have Levi and Emberleigh in there, too.  Little buggers get too comfy and won’t come out.  I told my OB that since they overbake anyway, I should set the oven timer to kick the door open when the buzzer goes off.  In less obnoxious words…

Everything is unpacked from last month, I mean year, when Emberleigh used it last.  I have nothing to do but wait.  And do laundry, and dishes, and bathe my other children, and change diapers, and make meals, and sweep the floor, and… oh, right.  I guess this 2 weeks should fly by.

That reminds me… 3 in diapers!  Y’all need to send up some serious prayer on my behalf.  Though I do think that keeping Levi in diapers a tad longer is worth it for the sake of my sanity and the safety of those around me.

Changing diapers v. cleaning up puddles?

Diapers, most def!!!