Signs

"Signs" is the game-in-my-head par excellence.  I used to play it when I would have a dumb crush on some dumb guy.  It's not a true game, it's more like a ridiculous list of reasons my future with said guy was fated by the universe.  Most of the reasons would consist of me desperately wishing for something to happen concerning him and then it happening, proof that it was meant to be.  Or worse yet, some kind of absurd repetition, amounting to an uncanny "coincidence," further proof that our future together was written in the stars.

Whenever I reflect on this insane mind game, I'm brought back to the singular moment in my easily besotted pre-husband life when the stakes of this game were at their height.  That time in my early 20s I fell hard for a green-eyed, long-lashed Spaniard the summer I studied abroad in Spain for the first time.  I wished desperately for him to walk me home from that birthday party.  I almost fainted when he asked if I'd like him to walk me home.  A sign!  He came to church with me after he said he wouldn't be able to at first.  A sign!  When I got back to the U.S. and the same Canadian jazz band whose CD he lent me was playing at my university.  A sign!  In my Spanish Golden Age Literature class, one of the pastoral novelists we studied had the same first name as my crush.  A sign!  I played that dumb game so indiscriminately, there was no limit to the realm of possibility of a sign!  So ridiculous.

Now that those intense crushy days are over (thank God), it seems like instead of crushes, I'm putting jobs to the Signs test.  It is so real out here in these streets.  Dissertation still undone, agonizingly waiting to hear back from the places where I've had interviews.  In order to not let the devil steal my joy, I've resorted to playing Signs with this particular job:

1. At first I applied for a generalist position they had open, but an administrator emailed me to request that I reapply for a second position (I had somehow missed) that was more in line with my credentials.  A sign!

2. It's one of only two jobs I applied for (didn't even get a preliminary interview with the other one) specifically seeking an Afro Hispanist.  A sign!

3. It's located within a day trip driving distance from each of our families. A sign!

4. My committee members reported to me after conversations with the search committee head that they were really excited about me and that I was their first choice.  A sign!

5. The former university president of my current institution started out as the university president of this prospective position's institution.  (Like, the university president went from there to here, so that means I will go from here to there!) A sign!

6. It's a teaching-centered institution, and I'm a teaching-centered kinda gal.  A sign!

Jesus, be a fence all around me every day, fix it, work it out, make a way, do what You do, youknaaimean?  Ya girl out here tryna hold it down, keep it real and stop them thug tears from slippin.

Unnatural

For whatever reason, it's still weird for me to conceive of myself as married.  Like, saying "my husband" out loud in whatever situation I find myself in where I'm talking about him or mentioning being married still feels slightly unnatural coming out of my mouth.

I guess considering myself of limited husband procurement potential for so long has taken its toll on my psyche.

I have a sinking feeling this "unnaturalness" with the change of my marital status will also apply when I (in the precious name of Jesus, pleeeease) graduate with my PhD in May.  Will referring to myself (or other people referring to me) as "Dr." ever feel natural?

Always, Mostly, Take Turns

I always...
Clean the bathroom
Dust
Cook

P always...
Takes out the trash

I mostly...
Go grocery shopping
Pay bills

P mostly...
Drives (if we're going somewhere together)
Washes dishes
Vacuums

We take turns...
Making the bed
Making the morning coffee
Washing/drying/folding clothes (we always put away our own, tho)
Making each others' sandwiches/packing each others' lunches

That's how we do.

MLK Day Confessions

So, P and I volunteered during our city's MLK Day of Service today.  I lowkey wanted some well-meaning but slightly misguided person to come up to me and P and tell us that we were the living embodiment of Dr. King's dream fulfilled.

For the Entire Rest of My Life

Hello, last semester of school for the entire rest of my life.

So hard to believe.  But the train has left the station, so I gotta jump on, buckle down, saddle up, do all those things that deal with bootstraps, buckles and all other securative and reinforceative accoutrements and get. it. done.  Dissertations do not spontaneously write themselves.

For the entire rest of my life.  Two things: no more school after this semester, and being married to my husband.  What does forever mean?  When you pledge to spend the rest of your waking days to another human being, what does that even mean?  It's this weird, unfathomable, slightly spooky thing.  This dude.  Glasses-wearing (not in our wedding photos, tho), freckled guy.  Forever.  Forever seems so deep.  It seems so eternal.  So fatalistic.  Signed in blood, serious and binding, to the death.  But paradoxically, what forever looks like day to day is pretty ordinary.  Waking up before he does and watching him as he's still asleep.  Walking to the bus stop together in the morning.  Buying almond milk and wheat thins from Kroger.  Watching The Office on Netflix in our jammies and laughing so hard.  Day to day, forever is mundane.  Simple.  Graspable.  Forever is a warm, crocheted blanket you wrap yourself up in while you sip some pear and green tea.

I never wanted a "there all along" love story.  One where he was someone I grew up with, knew all my life, was as familiar to me as my own brothers, but one day, I began to see him in a different light.  No.  I wanted a new and different person.  I wanted the intrigue of the unfamiliar.  P and I are two different people from two different worlds.  But somehow we work.  There's something holy about the process of taking a chance on someone and loving them.

First Musings of 2016

First of all, I will start out this New Year changing the way I refer to my husband in this blog.  We've already discussed the impropriety of "hubby," but I've recently been informed that "hubs," albeit less undesireable than "hubby," isn't a preferred term either. Therefore, my husband shall be henceforth known as P.

So, P and I have been chilling with my family for the last two weeks in the dirty South, and we're leaving to head up north to spend time with his folks tomorrow.  It will be the first time we will have air traveled as a married couple.  Come to think of it, it will have been the first time we will have air traveled together, period.  First Christmas as a married couple, first New Year's as a married couple, first airplane trip as a married couple...first graduation as a married couple, first job as a married couple, first move as a married couple...(sigh).  Lots of firsts and lots of firsts to come.

I know this isn't true, but sometimes it feels like the life we have right now as a married couple is not "real."  Like, we're both still students and we're living in a student apartment with this student-y life.  Like, although we're completely able to pay the bills with our graduate assistantships/fellowships, neither of us has a real-world job (yet) and we haven't had to deal with any major life issues (yet).  So these things make me feel like our "real" marriage will start after I graduate, get a job, and we relocate.

It's silly.  This idea of waiting for the "real" part of your life to begin.  What's crazy is that I used to believe versions of this at different points in my life: single and working, single and in school, single and living abroad...like, now that I'm married and in school, will my feelings about "real" life change when we both get jobs?  When we have kids?  When we have a house?  When does "real" life really begin?  It's endless.  And it's ridiculous to keep believing that "real" life is actually a thing.  What is it going to take for me to realize that if I'm alive, what I'm living is real, no matter what my situation?

With the spectre of "real life" hanging over me, I realize that there is so much about "real life" that I'm ignorant of.  So much.  Especially when it comes to financial matters—saving, managing and investing money, paying off debt, home ownership, et al.  It makes me feel like I'm not an adult.  And if I think about how ignorant I am and how much "catching up" I have to do (another false idea that I wish I could banish from my brain), it's really easy to feel overwhelmed and succumb to another false idea, which is that I will never be able to reach a place were I feel secure and content.  Funny.  I thought I would feel an everlasting, unalterable sense of security and contentment once I was married.  Surprise!  As I've said elsewhere, each point of "settling" only opens up an entirely new set of variables.

Something else I'm sure I've said elsewhere is that everything is a process.  Nothing happens all at once, so I need to stop expecting it to.  You don't learn everything all at once, you don't get experience all at once, so I need to stop thinking that I should.  A realistic focus this year is to begin increasing my knowledge about personal finance.

In less adult stuff news, I'm also embarking upon a new hair journey this year.  For those of you who know what I'm talking about, I'm getting off that creamy crack.  Yup.  No more chemicals.  "Going natural," as we say.  I'm actually already about 5 months into this process.  Everyone I talk to who's transitioned warns me about how hard it is, and I get it, but I'm just sick of putting unhealthy chemicals into it, and I'm ready to let my black be beautiful and get my kinky curl on.

New hair.  Finished dissertation (fingers crossed!).  New job (fingers super crossed!).  Move.  New place.  This year is going to bring some major change.  So, I need to embrace it.  I need to grow from it.

It's going to have to be my New Year's Resolution if I'm going to make it this year: I will embrace change and allow it to help me grow.