not so fireproof in 2013-2014

I feel emotionally drained. Maybe it’s from football? But it’s barely 9:30 and I’m wondering when it’s bedtime. I was asleep before midnight on Friday. Maybe it’s not football.

Work is going well. I’m still not a pro at things, but I’m getting better and at least learning the software enough to recognize when I made a mistake and how to correct it. I still love my office, hate my derelict and enforced web browser, and adore being able to wander and explore during lunch. I checked out the cathedral I can see from my office window on Friday. It was surrounded by a brick wall, so there wasn’t much to see, unfortunately.

We’re in for up to two inches of rain through Tuesday. It’s going to be a long, nasty commute for a while and no walking around at lunch. Yuck.

Friday I took home the catering leftovers and fed the missionaries with it. I also fed myself, and Aaron, two or three times. And there are STILL sandwiches. I separated out the cheese and salad, so I don’t have to buy shredded cheese now, and have some great omelet fillings for this week. Friday night with the sisters we talked about how to feel the Spirit and when we have. They said they had a bad week, so hopefully the brownies and sandwiches and deli fixings I sent them home with helped a little bit.

Right after that, I went to see Aaron since he wasn’t feeling well. When he was cheered up and I was getting sleepy, I came home and went to bed–at 11:30. I’m getting old.

Saturday was shopping and football. We went to Zaxby’s and I don’t know what it was, but between the allergy flare-ups we both have right now and the speed at which I had to eat my disintegrating chicken sandwich, my stomach was on a rampage for a few hours. I didn’t feel solid again until I had eaten a deli sandwich, salad, and two glasses of water. Not even Mountain Dew was sitting perfectly, and that’s usually my queasy-stomach fix of choice. The syrup concentration is perfect, I guess, but just then it was too syrupy.

Of course, after all that water-chugging, I have done nothing but pee today.

Football was wearying, but the (social) media onslaught afterward was more than I could tolerate. I’ve been a college football fan (in the south!) for almost 20 years and I cannot remember a nastier response than this year. I guess Alabama more or less got the same for a while? But apparently it’s acceptable to boo injured kids now because they might be faking it, and the playoff frenzy is unreal. The SEC bias is sucking the joy out of everything. I survived 2007. I survived 2009. In 2014, I am finding myself enjoying the whole thing less and less. I’m babysitting Kara’s kids next weekend during the game and I don’t even care. Maybe I need a break. Maybe I don’t need a break from my team (I don’t; I absolutely adore any team where the QB and the coach’s young son have a secret pregame handshake and the team conspires to get the grandparent-mourning WR the first touchdown) so much as I need a break from ESPN and Facebook.

For perspective, Aaron hasn’t watched football regularly since ever. Not even last year. This year he’s only watched 3 games with me and he’s already sick of the biases and horrendous officiating. He roots for an SEC school and he is sick of ESPN. I emailed a friend for a sanity check–should I be more outraged about things or is ripping a player for being in the stadium while on a one-game suspension completely ridiculous–and he didn’t get it, either.

I hope this bullshit burns itself out soon. I’m so sick of trendy manufactured outrage infiltrating sports. Stop looking for things to be mad about. I just want to enjoy the game again without some kind of souped-up controversy staining everything.

Church today was alright. I was starving and our IHOP before church had been thwarted, so we went off to eat instead of staying for Sunday School and Aaron observed that I either inhale everything or I pick at it over two days. I have no middle ground. This is true.

At home we curled up on my bed with the pre-marriage devotional we found. It’s going alright. This week’s chapter concluded with me flipping through my Bible for the verses on Christ/the church as a metaphor/symbol/something for marriage, and both of us not sure if we fully understood, because it’s so deep and we’re both… naive, I guess. We don’t have the capacity to go as far as the scripture does (yet?).

This week was about three goals of marriage: a mirror of God; companionship; and raising children as a legacy. We got stumped at the mirror of God (where I have barely-articulated thoughts that conclude with we’re learning); we’re maybe too solid on companionship; and we will bookmark children for another day. Obviously, they’ll be raised Christian, with discipline and without a bunch of techie toys, but that’s about as far as we’ve gotten.

(We do talk about kids a lot–when we see something that catches our attention, we discuss it, what we would do, blah blah. It’s not entirely philosophically procrastinated.)

Normally we’re pretty good about talking about things that bother us. The timing isn’t always the best, and we usually end up curled up on a piece of furniture whining like injured puppies because we’re both that averse to arguing, but we’re decent at it. The devotional did bring up the companionship thing, and within that “safe” context (lol) we did agree that we’re rebounding hard from the time apart. We want our alone time and don’t necessarily want to spend every single night together, but like stray dogs, we’re still gorging on that food bowl and refuse to let it out of sight. This’ll pass, this’ll pass. Or so we tell ourselves. This is ironic because last week, within the devotional, he said he wanted me to come to his place more because he felt like he was always coming to see me. We can’t make up our minds.

Wedding stuff is… wedding stuff. President Powell may or may not be able to officiate like we had planned. Remains to be seen. He’ll find out. Aaron has officially been warned that I will nag every single day this week until he gets the building reserved for the day (if I remember) and when he does, I’ll take him out somewhere nice for dinner. I am currently in a giant state of ‘blah’ for… everything. Decorating is overwhelming and I’m not going to rely on my mom. In fact, I am relying on my parents for exactly nothing, and this does not make me happy. They’ve got a lot of financial crap to deal with first. And Jessica, my experienced, sane, pragmatic bridesmaid is out because her baby is due that week. (We’re going to Skype or Facetime the wedding.)

Things just keep getting shot down and riddled with bullet holes before they even really get off the ground. I keep reminding myself that most of it doesn’t even matter in the long run, but it’s a flimsy grasp on perspective when I really just wish I had the money to pay someone to make it all work, rather than cobbling it all together from thrift stores and my imagination. (I can’t fucking wait for the day when I can quit relying on second-hand items.) I keep reminding myself my our engagement and my ring were both Aaron’s third choices and no one ever gets exactly what they want. I keep reminding myself that this is something that God wants, so He’ll make it happen, and he wants to celebrate with us and it’ll be joyous, but right now I feel like I’m going to end up wearing a second-hand dress from someone who is statistically-likely to be divorced and saying vows on a weakly spritzed up basketball court. This is not engendering enthusiasm.

I think mostly I just wish my mom wasn’t depressive, fibromyalgia’d, and so in debt, so she could actually be walking me through this and it could be some kind of glorified female-bonding experience or something.

I wish my parents actually fucking communicated (with me). I wish they ever called about reasons that aren’t money and we could talk about the wedding and basically, I just wish more of my family showed any interest. I’m the only freaking successful kid in the family and I’m the outcast. I don’t even know. My mom mentioned driving a few dogs a couple hundred miles away on Facebook. (I’m sorry, I thought you had no money.) I don’t even know whose they are–they might be mine. It’s not like they’d tell me without me asking outright. I found out Buddy died on Facebook two days later. I wish whenever I got excited about something my mom would just be happy for me. I wish they didn’t get so oddly defensively quiet when I was so ecstatic about a week on the beach with Aaron’s family. I wish when I got my job, my mom hadn’t just dismissed it as “girly work.”

I have fought more with my mom since getting engaged than I have in the last few years. The moving process was ugly and it is not encouraging me about how the wedding will go. Maybe the distance is a blessing. Maybe this is just one more thing I’ll figure out on my own.

But I guess reality wins, and I’ll be sending her another check that’s less than what she asks for and dumping money into my car instead of squirreling more away for the wedding, and quietly trying not to stress out over how I’m not making my savings goals for the year.

Damn it.

Maybe instead of wishing my parents would help me out and crying over how lost I feel about this, I’ll just start praying hardcore about them being receptive to change. We have so little options about the wedding itself that it will probably end up taking care of itself. Maybe I’ll get desperate enough to talk to Aaron’s mom, who is amazing and this will be her third rodeo. Maybe I’ll just prioritize praying for my relationship with my parents instead of this whole stupid wedding thing which is so fucking out of my control.

This is not where I thought this entry would go.

Last updated September 29, 2014