Me, in my head, "In My Place"

In my place, in my place
Were lines that I couldn't change

Post-marriage family gatherings.  New nieces and nephews smiling, teeth coming in.  A preemie plumping up, he looks just like her brother.

What do you do on a rainy day?  We have Starbucks gift cards from my new sister-in-law.  I have online class quizzes to grade, discussion boards to check, oral exams to open back up in an effort to show professorial grace to students who have confessed and repented over email.

Last weekend was my family.  Well, it's our family, isn't it?  My dad's a big brother.  I get it, I'm a big sister.  Still bossy, wanting to be "responsible."  I have a little brother who's always a little brother in my head.  Even though the little brother is a year older than my husband.  Might as well get over it.  Uncle (dad's little brother), cousins, more cousins.  They were all at the wedding.  Back for a Father's Day family reunion.  This family weekend didn't end with bringing home leftovers for the road.  It ended in my dad opening up the church and baptizing his little brother.  My dad's a big brother.  He's the oldest, like me.

My dad must get over the fact that I am a married woman over thirty.  That's my daughter.  In the arms of another man.  Really?  As if my dad were my boyfriend and I left him for some other dude.  It's like, dude, you're my dad, and the "other man" is my husband.  Fact.  You married us. You signed the marriage license as the officiant.  Remember that?  It's like, do you want grandchildren or not?  How do you think they're going to get here?  It's not going to be because my husband gave me a long side hug.

This weekend is his family.  Our family.  A long road trip broken up with stops, snacks, punk rock and NPR.  I realized they're starting to feel natural.  He looks just like his brother.  When I saw his brother in the swimming pool with the kids, I thought, that's how he's going to be with our kids. Seeing the same things in his brother and his dad that I see in him.  Mannerisms, forehead shape, bespectacled and bent over digging out chocolate icing-covered brownies.

Curly-haired niece (former flower girl) and nephew (former ring bearer) on either side of me bringing book after book.  I read with voices and outlandish expressions.  They sit in rapt attention.  Okay now, give Aunt Chantell (they say "ant" and I say "ahnt," just like they say "pop" and I say "soda") a break.  But I don't mind.

This is what I wanted to say during our visit to the young adults' bible study that I didn't say but finally felt compelled to say at the end: The reason for marriage is for us to understand what a relationship with God is.  That's another one of those things I've heard before, but that I know now.

I'm used to singly feeling my feelings.  Just staying in my own head and letting things rage on there.  Cry if I have to cry.  Worry if I have to worry (which I don't have to, but...you know).  Do my thing and maybe call a friend and bother her about it.  But I have a husband now and now my feelings can spill out and affect him.  If tears run down my face and he's there, he will wipe them away with his own hands.  Marriage forces you to be vulnerable.

There's still a part of me that is afraid to be vulnerable.  There is still a part of me that tries to take on this too-big responsibility.  There is still a part of me which feels like I have some fixing up to do and some sorting out to accomplish before I can allow myself to be loved and accepted.  But that's where the truth of it is like what God is: I'm already loved and accepted.  It's already a done deal.

Very soon, I must deactivate my Facebook account for a long while.  There are so many voices and distractions and I have so much to do.  I feel like I've been squandering my focus and attention.  I have to re-prioritize.  I have to get out of my head, get words on paper and stop being afraid to be honestly me.

One Month Milestone

I've been married for a month already.  Really?  That was fast.

Husband's been going out of town doing fieldwork for his dissertation project (yes, already) so since he wasn't sure whether he'd be back before dinnertime, we had a monthiversary breakfast at this ridiculously good breakfast place.  It's actually the same breakfast place we went to when I met his family for the first time and the same breakfast place we went to the weekend he met my pops for the first time.  Come to think of it, later on that same day he proposed to me.  I'd already met all of his folks, he had finished meeting all of mine...what else was there to wait for, I guess.  Here's one thing I know about my hubs: When there's something he's decided upon or that he's working towards, he don't play no games.  Old boy put me on lock quick.  I ain't mad at him. 

He'll text me in a little while to let me know whether he'll make it back for dinner.  If he does, I'll cook a special one-monthiversary surprise.  If he doesn't, I'll have leftover chicken stir fry.  Win-win.

So, I'm teaching an online class...going okay.  Some technical hiccups, but so far so good.  I've got to stay on top of it.  Doing editing for my prof (nice extra $$) and small translation projects on the side (more nice extra $$).  But the one thing I MUST do has been getting lost in the sauce.  It begins with a 'd.' And it is the bane of my existence.  I just can't emerge from this summer with nothing done towards my next chapter.  Ugh.  I just can't.  

Here's something I realize.  Like, I've been wanting to get married for the longest time, and now that I finally am, I'm super happy, but it honestly feels like regular life.  Because it is.  Like, I haven't transformed into some kind of ethereal being or anything.  I'm still the same me.  It's just that I'm continuing to be the same me alongside my husband.  I'm not saying that our marriage hasn't taken some adjusting to and that it won't continue to take adjusting to.  But I'm saying I don't feel like this brand new, ultra-spectacular me that I have to get accustomed to being.  Getting married felt exciting, but it also felt natural.  It's almost like, my now-husband came into my life, and soon he just became a normal part of my life and I couldn't see my life without him being a part of it, so, naturally, I married him.  That's really how it feels.

Here's something else I realize.  Something else I've wanted for the longest time is to become a mother.  But now that the possibility of becoming one is very scarily stark and tangible and real, I feel myself doing some backpedaling.  I know I had said dat...ummm.  Yeah, I had said...see, I need to think about it, den I letchu know.  I want to have kids.  We both do.  But it's like, darn.  Bringing a tiny, defenseless little human being into the world is no joke.  It's not like we don't have support. My mother, for example, is salivating with grandma hunger.  She is going to be a ride or die grandmother.  I don't even want to think about it.  Seriously though, I'm really thankful we have such supportive families and church family who would be there for us 100%.  But what I'm saying is that I feel like if I have a kid, I am going to be turned inside out and exposed for the inconsistent, contradictory, insecure person I am.  All my anxieties are going to come spilling out of me like marbles because 1. I have the capacity to reproduce and I do not want to reproduce the worst in me, 2. I don't want terrible truths about the world we live in to steal my baby's sunshine, and 3. Having a baby is going to change my relationship with my husband.  

Just like getting married isn't all about a pretty white dress and new toasters, having a baby is not all about cute maternity clothes and getting one of those slings (although I'm super getting one because they look awesome, with the baby all wrapped up in it against the mom).  I'm totally okay with waiting.  I come from a line of fertile women and I'm still on the green side of 30, so it'll be quite all right.

Welcome to the latest edition of "Passive-Aggressive Answers to Annoying Questions"

So, how's married life going?

Really?  It's going horribly.  Oh, my God, it's misery.  It's SO hard.  I hate it.  It's the worst.  I mean, seriously.  Like, what do you expect me to say, other than, "um...good?"  Like, what other kind of answer is there?  It's going pretty much the way I thought it would.  There's a dude I love living with me who gets special privileges.  That pretty much sums it up.

Have you guys gotten into an argument yet?  Aww, you're still in the honeymoon phase, but you'll see...just wait!

Ugh!  Will you sit down and shut your unfunny mouth up?!  Ugh.  Number one, it's none of your big fat business whether we've gotten into an argument, first of all.  And secondly, like, do you really think we've never had a disagreement ever in the history of our relationship?  Please.  And it didn't stop us from getting married, did it?  Get outta here.  I cannot express how annoying it is for people to come around with this patronizing attitude as if we're just in some kind of blissful otherworld right now just obliviously floating around on a love cloud until the other shoe finally drops to jolt us into the grim, gray, harsh reality of "real life."  Get yourself outta my face with that.  Go saddown somewhere with your old wrinkled up boring spouse and your jaded marriage and let me enjoy my brand new, super hot hubs without your prophesies of the impending end of our honeymoon phase.

So, are you guys planning on having kids?

If someone asks me that one mo' gin, I swurr...like, get up out of my reproductive business!  Who died and made you my OB/GYN?  Seriously.  I mean, when and if we have them, are you going to feed and clothe them?  Are you going to buy their diapers?  Are you going to potty train them?  Are you going to set up their college funds?  Aight, den.  Plus, can we live?  Like, can we learn what being married means first before we start piling buns in the oven?  And on top of that, are you going to write my dissertation?  Are you going to give me and/or my husband a job?  Like, the aforementioned things are going to have to happen so that we can support these hypothetical desired children.  So, unless you're going to contribute any energy or money into facilitating my hypothetical children's arrival into the world, you 'ont een need to wurry bout it, tho.

-versary

This past Saturday was our two-weekiversary.  We spent it at another wedding, one of husband's professors.  So, we ended up seeing a bunch of other people in the department who also went to our wedding, still giving glowing reviews on how "wonderful" and "beautiful" everything was.

This coming Sunday is our engageiversary.  June 7 last year is when husband proposed to me.  Good Lord.  We were engaged for 11 months before we got married and dated 8 months before we got engaged.  Say what you will.  When it's right, it's right.

We've already celebrated our first -versary, which was our coffeedateiversary.  That's October 21, the first time we ever spent time together.  We went back to the same coffee shop, and it was probably the most beautiful, sweetest milestone I've ever celebrated.

The only -versary we haven't officially celebrated is our kissiversary.  Yes, I remember the exact date of the first time we ever smooched.  But some things must remain secret and sacred.  Plus, I don't want anyone to judge the time span between it and the initial coffeedateiversary.  Some people might think it's too long and some people might think it's too short and I'm just going to leave it to the imagination.

Name

I'm in that in-between stage where I am so ready to officially be Chantell Marriedname, but I can't move a muscle until that marriage certificate comes in the mail.  I changed my voicemail as soon as I thought about it.  "Hi, you've reached Chantell Marriedname, I'm sorry I'm not available right now..."

I'm in this amorphous state.  Like, if I write any checks from the bank account I've had since I've had a bank account, well over a decade, I have to sign them Chantell Maidename.  Anything "official" that I sign right now or anything that I own that has my maiden name on it will have to be that for now.  I'm only going to be a student here for another year, so do I have to go through the trouble (and expense) of getting a new student ID?  For the class I'm teaching this summer, I'm still Chantell Maidenname, because I was that when I was assigned the class, so that's the name the class is under.  I know my departmental mailbox is going to have my new name in the fall since I've made it public that I'm changing my name.  My FB name is that married girl's trifecta of Chantell Maidenname Marriedname.  That's probably going to be the name I publish under as well.  For little cards and things and whatever personal things I sign, I am totally Chantell Marriedname, marriage certificate in hand or not.

But when I graduate, when I get my diploma (in Jesus' name, by this time next year) will I have Chantell Middlename Marriedname, or Chantell Maidenname Marriedname printed on it?  I completed a good bit of this program before I even met my husband, so part of me wants to honor the me that did that work.  But my middle name is my middle name (and also my grandmother's name) and isn't that a part of the "me that did that work," too?

And what about my email address?  Will it still be partoffirstnamemiddleinitiallastname@gmail.com?  Or will I change it, too, to a married lady email address?  I've had the same email address for a super long time.  There's a part of me that just wants to keep it as is.  But if I'm planning to change my name legally, wouldn't it make sense to change my email address as well?  Sigh.