Me vs. Rut...

i still do

there are times when i just want to let it all go

too tired to care

there are times when i look at you

and your beauty takes my breath away

there are times when i wonder why we are together

and if we would be happier apart

there are times when i cant take my next breath

for fear that i could ever be without you

there are times when we laugh so hard

i feel as though if i died at that very moment

it would be okay for i have found true happiness in this life

there are times when i am far too unkind

and far too caught up in my own sadness

to realize just how fragile and priceless you are

there are times when i question the person you are

and want so badly to change you

yet there is never a time

when i do not love you.

.

.

.

happy anniversary, my husband and dear friend.

a house is not a home

well.  so my quasi melodramatic fit over typepad is over.  <sigh>

anyway, so heres the thing.  i really dont want to move in with family this may.  dont get me wrong - i love them deeply, and cohabitation will be fine.  and i definitely appreciate the opportunity.  but...

when i got back to my crappy apartment after being down there...  i really missed it.  i mean, down with the family, there is:

a washer and dryer in the house, looooots of space, the ability to sleep with the windows open thus breathing in fresh air, a full eat in kitchen, a yard, actual cell phone reception, an office with a beautiful new computer, and it is close to all my immediate family which means that i will have transportation.  we will have a live-in playmate for muppet and (drumroll please...) a tub!!!  whoo hoo!!!

and that is all great.  but we wont have:

the ability to walk around sans clothing,  a bathroom right next to the bedroom, the convenience of having just 2.5 rooms all right next to each other - so we dont have to walk far for anything , the ability to hole up in here for the weekend with no outside interruptions, privacy, the ability to leave dishes in the sink due to momentary laziness, complete authority in regards to visitors, full monopolization of the fridge space, the ability to blast the heat/air conditioning with no monetary repercussions, and... basically... the intimacy of this small space.

the loss of freedom, in a sense.

so i was thinking about what options 2 broke students (one without a real job, both with ridiculous amounts of student loans) and a baby have in terms of housing options.  and my friends, the pickins are slim:

-exorbitant rent and working 2 jobs each to afford it and be able to put anything in the bank

-subsidized income based housing with loooong waiting lists

-this job i was looking at online that comes with an apartment

but the reality is, none of those options are really feasible. 

and this is the only place we have ever lived - together.  ours. ours.

we are moving into a house, yes.  but we are leaving our home behind. and it chokes me up a little.

home and kinfolk

i look around my home, and i realize that it is quite... shabby chic.  quite unintentionally.  and quite without the chic.

there are 2.5 rooms.  the first is about 13x9.  it contains a pseudo mini-kitchenette, a twin bed that we call "the couch" (we do have a bunch of throw pillows to make the bed look like a couch, so the room looks like more of a "living room") and 2 dressers that serve as the tv/vcr/dvr/laystation stand.   they are lovely blonde wood dressers with a beeswax rubbed finish - back from my young, single, i-have-nothing-to-spend-my-money-on-but -beautiful-furniture days.  they are draped with cream colored linen to both protect the tops and to dress them up a bit.  there are also 2 ikea chairs against the wall that hold books and a stunning hand carved chair from kenya, africa.  the chair is carved from the trunk of a tree, and is, essentially, my throne.  (another peice of furniture from my old days.)  the bedroom consists of a full sized bed and a bookshelf.  thats it.  no more space for anything else.  no, no.  wait.  next to the bed, there is one of those little plastic 3 drawer things on wheels.  i use it as both a night stand and breast pump stand. 

then there is a teeny bathroom, with no tub.  yeah.  and thats it.

now, what is the point of this post?  you ask?  because when we move, we will be moving in with family to save up for our own house.  and it will be years till we live alone again.  and...  i think i will miss this little, crappy hovel. 

because it was our first home, you know?  this was our first home as a married couple.  my water broke on that bathroom floor.  i brought my baby to this home from the hospital.  there are memories here. 

okay, but really?  this apartment sucks.  sentimental moment over.  i cant wait to bathe my child in a bathtub.  i cant wait to let her move freely on the floor.  i cant wait to sit at a damn table to eat my meals, like a normal person.  i cant wait till she has a yard to play in.  till we all have room to walk around without bumping into each other.  till we have CLOSETS!!!  whoo!  the luxuries that i used to take for granted!!!  not to mention the fact that she will have my nephew there, who is 2, and who loves her already.  (he sees her picture and starts asking about her by name.  when they are together and she is unhappy, he kisses her, offers her toys and wipes her tears.  they scream in unison, giggle in unison and babble back and forth.  they are such a joy to watch!)  they will hopefully become inseperable, as they will be living in the same home, down the hall from one another and will both be in the same child care center. 

cant wait till....  its all said and done.

update on the wee girl:

she has 5, yes FIVE teeth now!!!  and she can now say "choo" (juice)... i'm sorry, that was misleading.  she now says "CHOO! CHOOOOO!" and of course, it is always when i sit down with my nice, chilled, icy glass.  so i have to share, and she makes my straw all drooley.  but its okay, because i love reinforcing the use of words to communicate.  so i always give her some when she asks.  but dammit, i dont smile about it!

lastly, i want to point all of your eyes to brookes site.  this post (like many of hers) just makes you aspire to be a better mom.  in a good way, though... there is no intimidation, just hella admiration. 

alright, time to go take care of a smell that just accosted my nostrils.  no, not poop.  garbage that i asked hubby to take out.  ah, married life.  joy.

todays black fact:

well, actually, instead of a fact, i will leave you with two quotes and their source:

"... in his book The Strengths of Black Families. In it, Hill outlines five strengths inherent in the African-American family, and they are: 1. strong kinship bonds..."

"...Despite the diversity of traditional African societies, one feature shared by nearly all of them was that life was organized around the family. Julius Nyerere, a scholar and former leader, states that the traditional African family lived together and worked together and the result of their joint labor was the property of the family as a whole. It was the extended family ties that were the basis for care giving. According to well understood and accepted customs, the results of joint efforts were divided so every member of the family had enough to eat and a place to sleep before any of the family, even the head of the family, had anything extra..."

source

a rose by any other name...?

i do not want my last name. 

let me explain...  i have never liked my last name.  my current/married one is unique, not spelled phonetically, and screams "FOREIGNER!!!"  (although true, that last one was a "haha-funny" as my husbands family is actually not american.  please dont send me hate mail.)  i have been asked why i didnt just keep my maiden name.  reason?  I HATE MY MAIDEN NAME.   my maiden name was common... in fact, the 3rd most common in the country.   it fell at the end of the alphabet, and thus i was always called last or near-to-last in school.  that sucked so much!

on a less juvenile note,  although tradition is nice and all, i dont necessarily want to be tagged with a family name if i dont feel that i belong in it.  i adore my father and would have happily taken on his first name as my last name. but frankly, there are many people in his VERY LARGE family that i would rather disassociate myself with.  i am not close to about 95% of them, and i always said (as a teen) that i couldnt wait to get married and get rid of the last name.

well, i got married.  and i realized that i didnt like being passed off into a name, either.  it is a nice enough name, actually (funny thing - it is very very similar to my fathers first name!!  haha!)  but i dont identify with my husbands family either.  i dont want to be lumped into association with others (and thus held accountable, judged by, etc.) due to a name.  again, i would take on hubbys first name as my last.  that might be cute. 

but i dont want my last name.  never did.  dont think i ever will.  i love individualism (okay, is that even a word?) and would like to stand by that in name and deed.

so what do i want to be called?  well, i love my given first and middle names.  in fact, want to see something pretty?

that is the masculine version of my middle name.  (thought about getting that tattooed on my body once.)  anyway, i would love to be identified as such.  but now that i have a baby, and her last name is her fathers, i wouldnt want to have a different name than her.  so i am stuck.  unless she gets married and changes her name... haha!  (funny story, hubby said that he doesnt want her to change her name if she gets married.  that she will keep her maiden name to pass it on to generations.  i told him that he must be smoking some powerful stuff, and that she was free to do whatever the hell she wanted with her name.  besides, even if she did keep it, wouldnt it stand to reason that if she married a man and had his children, that they would have their own father's last name?  men, i tell ya. can you tell he wants a son??!!)

so yeah, i would love to drop my last name.  although... hubby would be crushed.  not to mention that it has taken me 13 billion years and more effort than i have put into damn near anything else to finally get my name changed on all my documents, licenses, banks, irs stuff, student records, etc.  i'll be damned if all of that was for nothing.

queens

its amazing what an eyebrow waxing can do!  my mothers birthday party was yesterday, and since it was a fancy shmancy shindig, i figured i'd get all "cleaned up."  i had my eyebrows done and WOW what a difference!  it opened my whole face up, it gave me the appearance of having on eye makeup, it made my lips stand out, and my hair went from rainy-day-disaster to boho-chic-fabulous!!  i wish i had taken a before shot.  damn.

the party was lovely.  it was catered at the same banquet hall in which my wedding reception was held, and about 10 minutes into the party, after we all yelled suprise and my mother got to see me in my ridiculously expensive and high heeled shoes, i took them off and promptly gave them to her best friend as we wear the same size shoe.  they were great shoes, dont get me wrong, but they were purchased pre-baby and hadnt been worn in over a year.  they were these kenneth cole pointy heeled number, and the rationale in paying so much for them was the fact that i really did need a good pair of dressy heels.  well - whatever.  they were so uncomfortable, and i looked like a buffoon trying to walk in them! (note - i never have walked well in heels, but  when i first got them, i practiced and was able to manage.  now?  time and feet spreading have destroyed all progress.)  nice to see them go to a good home.  (smile) and no, i did not go  barefoot through the rest of the party.  i put on my non matching brown birkenstock bostons.  hee hee.  ah well.  what can i say.

muppet had a blast!  she got to see all the extended relatives, and my aunts and uncles just ate her up!   i have this one uncle - he is a detective in atlanta, is about 6 foot 2, bald, and has that handsome sleek chocolate professional yet serious-meets-stoic man thing happening.  well, he was muppets favorite.  she rubbed his head and tried to eat his glasses.  they grinned and giggled and had a ball.  the other  3 uncles were right there too, swinging her up and giving her feet kisses.  (the child's shoes were too big, and she kept pulling off the little ruffley socks, so she was barefoot for the majority of the night.)  my aunt...  lets just say a bit longer, and muppet would have to  have been surgically removed from her arms.  the poor baby was covered in lipstick (but of course, my aunt was  covered in drool!)    muppet got so much love, and it was so surreal seeing these people do for my daughter what they have done for me all my life.  the absolute love, the warmth, the bonds that were reinforced.  my daughter got a huge dose.  and dont you know, she loved it. 

my mother?  truly suprised, and so so SO happy.  she is beautiful, my mother.  the woman had on this black cocktail dress with a deep, deep "v" in the back, strappy black heels, sparkling diamond earbobs,  and her hair swept her shoulders with every step.  she was golden and tanned from her vacation, and looked simply unbelievable... no where near the 50 years that we were celebrating.  i swear, that southern debutante lifestyle... i guess theres something to be said about it!!  and she was so graceful, so classy, so elegant.  my mother is royalty, i swear.  and to hear the tributes from her siblings (she is one of 6), her aunt, her cousins, her friends, her inlaws...  everyone knows it.

she danced with muppet.  they twirled on the dance floor and i just sat and watched them.  two amazing women.  all that i am and everything that i ever hope to be.

topsy turvy

when i decided to start this journal, i said that i would not post too deeply about johnny (the hubby) as

1- it is a southern "rule" that you dont "air your laundry"

2- he is a very private person (i am such an exhibitionist! we are opposites in so many ways)

3- because he is not the "rut" i am fighting

that said... today, i discovered another way, a huge way, in which we differ.  i am the type of person - i will do anything for you.  i am emotional, i am sensitive, i am nurturing.  he is practical.  he does things in a very matter-of-fact, sometimes unemotional way.  and quite frankly, it hurts sometimes.

today, i was faced with that, and i dont know that i am handling it very well.  it was a silly  thing really, and i see his side.  but there are times when i need my desires to be priority - practicality be damned.  can a sista be more important than a parking spot?!

so anyway, i am not questioning love or anything like that.  i am just being very reflective - and trying to figure out how to deal with this present situation.  acknowledge that i am upset (well, more sad than upset really) and talk about it?  but i dont want to talk about it, because i know where he stands, i know his thoughts on things like this, and i know that a talk wont change anything.  he is who he is.  should i chalk it up to individual differences and just get over it?  should i be a brat and pout until i get an apology?  no, that would just grant me an empty feeling of victory, not to mention that i am not the bratty, whiny type. i am grown, after all (although i do whine internally.)  also, and more importantly, he didnt necessarily do anyghing wrong. ugh.  i will probably just suck it up and try not expect the things i know he is not "capable" of giving me. (or being for me.)  that doesnt mean that i am settling for anything less than i deserve (i dont think) it just means that i know who i married, and i married him for more important reasons.

i am feeling the desire to eat some ice cream.  bad, bad, bad. 

another thing - muppet did a dive off of the bed while i was sitting next to her.  it happened in slow motion... i was pumping and thus had both hands full.  (haha, pun intended.) i saw her leaning and start to tumble, for some reason, my instinct was to try to stop her with my leg... which just made her fall at a strange angle and land on her face.  mind you, i had to leave for work in about 10 minutes.  she cried with her "super hurt" cry and i felt beyond horrible. of course, i rocked her and kissed her and talked her through it all.  and i know that a vast majority of babies fall off the bed.  but she cried so sadly... in my head, it was a sad, accusatory cry.  and then i had to leave her immediately after.  i was no good at work today.  when i called to check in, she was fine, but still. 

upside to the day?  i am going to have some of my favorite comfort food.  macaroni and cheese.  this is just my 2nd time making it - generally, i eat it at my mother's house. no, it is nowhere near as good as my mothers, but what it lacks in flavor, it makes up with the pride factor.  i would also like some sweet tea (dont feel like waiting for it to be done) and some chicken and dumplings (have no clue how to make it like my mother, so i wont even try) and some sweet potato pie.  alas, i must make due.

other upside? i am getting some "blog traffic" by some pretty hot people! and i am checking out the sites that yall have... and am thus expanding myself even more.  thank you for the comments, they make me feel so good!!  i am trying to figure out how to email yall from the typepad account so be patient with me... just know that i am reading all the comments, and they are opening my head.

signing off, hopefully i will have my extra special, creme de la creme, i-have-been-waiting-for-28-years-to-write-this post finished tomorrow.

peace yall.

my funny valentine

i love him so much.  but not for the typical sappy reasons.  he has never sent me a bouquet of flowers.  he has never taken me to the theatre, dressed in our finest.  he doesn't spoil me.  he thinks a vast majority of my daydreams are pointless and rarely humors me.  he won't dance with me.  he has hurt me.  he has made me cry.

but he has rubbed my feet, fresh out of my funkiest shoes.  he charges my cell phone at night, because i always forget.  he has "managed" my suppository after my c-section because i did not want a strange nurse's hand all up in my hind parts!  he plucks my errant chin hairs (don't act like you don't have them!)  he  picks that nasty white part out of the egg when he makes me breakfast cuz he knows it disgusts me. he respects me. he has wiped my tears.  he has made me sing.

today, my love for him grew a bit.  i had a bad hair day.  no, really.  a really bad hair day.  see, about 5 months post partum, i lost my entire hairline fully across and an inch deep.  handfuls of hair.  just fell out over the course of about a week.   so earlier today, i was getting ready for work and my hair was just big and uncooperative.  i couldnt very well pull it into a ponytail as my edges are just this little spiky fringey frame to my face and i look very stupid with my hair pulled back.  no time to wash it, to comb it, to do anything with it.  you see that picture up there.  there is no last minute quick fix to my hair.  so i stood there looking in the bathroom mirror, and began to cry.  he came into the bathroom and just stood with me, trying to come up with solutions, but not in a "dammit woman, it's just hair!" type way.  in a truly empathetic, concerned, i-want-to-make-it-all-better-for-you way.  i must say, there are times when i want to run down to my neighborhood barbershop and cut it all off and wear it short like i did about 2 years ago.  even it out so it is all the same length. but he doesn't like short hair on women so i let it grow (when straightened out, it is a nice length, a bit past my shoulders.)  johnny looked at me, rubbed my hair, and said to me "you wanna just cut it off?"  bless him.  oh, bless him.  then, the floodgates opened, and i basically said to him that this is a viscious cycle for me - i look horrible, and then i get sad and figure that there is nothing i can do about it, and that crushes me, and i start to eat and ignore myself, and then i realize that i look horrible, and then i get sad...  you get it.  so he tore the room apart looking for my favorite headband.  and he tried to do my hair for me.  and he really, really, really cared about my bad hair day. and the headband really did make me acceptable to the outside world.  and although i was still feeling ugly and scary, i was presentable.   then, my dear sweet husband asked me if i was okay - really okay.  and i smiled, and told him that i love him.

i love him so much.

stay, little valentine, stay.