On resolutions

Resolutions are always tricky things, because inevitably you have to strike a balance between choosing something realistic, yet stretching yourself to be better. I am not usually a “reach for the stars” type of person, but power to those who are. I think eventually I would like to do a list of my wildly reaching, completely farfetched (little voice in my head says: are they really farfetched?) hopes and dreams. But that would entail me getting over being scared of failure and embarrassment. For now, for 2012, my goals:

1) Write, write, write then graduate
2) Do more nice things for people
3) Get a job I love
4) Don’t sleep so much (this is a tough one for me especially since I’m on medication that makes me super sleepy, ALL. THE. FREAKING. TIME)

To my husband

I never thought I would get married to a man whose favorite movie is ‘The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the 8th Dimension’, or who likes to take jumping pictures, or who wears Hawaiian shirts (not ironically, I must add). But God knew exactly what I needed, because he has brought so much joy, happiness and vibrancy to my life. He is ridiculously smart, and funny, and cute, and kind. He is an incurable romantic and optimist. In lieu of trying to make a futile attempt to describe in words why he is my favorite person in the world, I can tell you one of my favorite memories of him. We were at a Chinese national park, walking along one of those trams that transports people within the park (in China, my husband, who is a 6″2, sandy haired Polish American, was like a rockstar. People stared and took unsolicited pictures with him; children smiled and gawked at him). A four year old boy with his family started waving excitedly to him from the tram, and of course my husband waved back. But he didn’t stop there — he started wackily running next to the tracks, making funny faces. The kid and his grandparents were laughing delightedly. He ran next to the tram for about half a mile, just having fun with them. How can I not love this man?

I know life is unpredictable; wherever we go, that’s where we’ll be . I’m just happy and thankful that we’ll be together.

Focus vs. Motivation

As a part of getting a prescription for Celexa, I visited my psychiatrist who asked all the normal questions (and he also shared about his Asian ex-girlfriend whose hair he liked to comb 100 times before bed. And how he was a virgin until his first marriage and how that was the worst mistake ever. Yeah, he is a blunt TMI-er but I really like him). I told him that I had been feeling like I had a hard time focusing on my research, and how it was hard for me to just make myself do it. What followed surprised me — he immediately suggested that I take some Adderall. Now, not for a moment did I believe that I had ADHD and I expressed this to him. I don’t have problem focusing on tasks, but it’s usually when my back is against the wall and I really have to work. Nor do I have trouble sitting through a whole movie, or any of the other examples that he gave me.

However, being human and fallible to temptation, I decided to go for it. He told me that he had helped very many students get their higher education degrees. And although I felt like it would be cheating, another part of me was excited about the prospect of getting on a pill that would not only make you concentrate, but could also make you a “comma, PhD”. while it was at it.

I first tried it on a day when I was (not) working from home. I have to say that it was exactly what I imagine being high would feel like. I sent out bajillions of e-mails (with gross misspellings), talked to my sisters, talked to my fiance, left accelerated ditzy voice messages to unsuspecting people and could not stop moving round in my seat. And it also helped me focus … on surfing the internet. No work was done that morning.

The second time I tried it I went into the office, and again I spent all my time surfing the web, but very decidedly so. The third time, I cut the dose in half because it obviously affected me too much — and honestly, it didn’t help.

As much as I wanted it to be my miracle pill, it wasn’t. I ended up focusing on all the wrong things, not even useful ones such as cleaning out the pigsty that is my closet or twirling around in the snow. I guess it’s back to blood, sweat, tears, and good old-fashioned procrastination followed by a desperate last minute flurry of activity.

The perfect storm

Try working on a PhD, planning two weddings (although my mom is taking care of most of one wedding, but I’m in a complaining mood), having a long distance relationship, driving 6 hours a day every other week for work purposes, going through pre-cana, doing DIY fabric flowers, candle holders, fan programs etc. for the wedding (I know, I brought this onto myself) and preparing for a conference for which you have almost no work done. Add a cute little crazy beagle, and shake. (Note: it doesn’t help that I’m spending a lot of time procrasti…*ahem* doing extremely important wedding related research at  A Practical Wedding).

Life is madness, and I love it.

On perfection

So it turns out that I have lots of anxiety which is manifesting itself in really odd ways. A couple of months ago, when my fiance and I were starting to talk about getting married, I started negotiating with him on who would do what chores. I fought to get my cooking time down from 5 times a week to 4 times a week (never mind that I love cooking and we do cook together for the most part). We also talked about kids and and I tried to get him to agree that he would change all of the diapers since I would be doing all the feeding.

Even though I think it’s a good idea for us to talk about our expectations, I am so afraid of not being the perfect wife. What if I don’t want to cook one day, like I’m supposed to? What if I want to sleep in and just have some alone time?  Having a family, it’s going to change my life in so many ways. I’m really scared and it’s showing in my trying to bargain to keep my life intact. I’m scared that now that we’re getting married I’ll be having to compromise – and I’m a selfish, selfish person. I’m scared that I’m not going to be a good wife or a good mother.

But I guess in the end, the thought of not being a family with him scares me even more. And who knows, maybe I’ll have a little fun along the way (:

It’s good

I’m getting married! My sweet, sweet boyfriend fiance proposed last December. I knew it was coming (heck, I even gave him ring suggestions), but it feels so differently once it’s for real, when we stopped talking in “if’s” and changed them to “when’s”. I am so happy, my heart is just bursting. I tend to be an extremely indecisive person, but there is no doubt in my mind that I want to marry this man. He is one of the smartest people I know, a complete geek and goofball, blunter than a dull knife, and so calm and levelheaded. I adore him.

I’ve always felt the need to temper my happiness with expectations of the sadness that is sure to come. It’s a way to make sure that if I fall, it will be a shorter distance. But being with him makes me feel so safe, I am not afraid to be joyful anymore. Life will bring sorrow and darkness sometimes, but I know that I can overcome it, especially if he is by my side. I can but hope that I will do the same for him.

I dream of Celexa

I’ve been taking 20mg of Celexa since about June. It pretty much affected me the same way the Prozac did: lots of sleepiness (I can knock off for 10 hours, just like that), a lackadaisical attitude towards most anything (or as I call it, growing a thicker skin), and the lack of interest in uh, sexy time.

The one big difference I would say though is that on Celexa, I’ve been having weird, weird ass dreams. And not only are they weird, they seem very real too. I’ve woken up whimpering, yelling out “you suck!” and shouting “you’re a jerk!” to my sweet, long suffering boyfriend. At first I didn’t think that they had anything to do with the Celexa because they only started about a month ago, but doing some internet sleuthing, that’s when it seems that most people get them too.

So far the pros of being on the Celexa outweigh the cons. These last two weeks though, I’ve been having awful nightmares that speak to my deepest insecurities. My therapist recommended that I think of pleasant things before going to sleep, instead of looking at stuff like this which made me dream that I slowly started turning invisible and had to disrobe while dating a Hitler lookalike.  In a bus. It was not as fun as it sounds, y’all.

An experiment

For the rest of the year, I’m going to try to post at least twice a week. I really miss writing.

On adoption

I once told my mom that I wanted to have 12 brothers and sisters. Her response: uncontrollable manic laughter followed by a chuckling “well, maybe when you are older you can have them.” I love, love, love my big family, and I think from early on I also knew that I wanted one, and moreover, that I wanted to adopt.

Fast forward to now. I love the idea of having a big family, and I still want to adopt. But I have a more sedate view of it and do not expect a happily ever after; and the main reason for that change is Tai. I love that little girl to the death, treat her like she was my own kid (mainly: expect unconditional love, and put undue pressure on her so she will graduate from college with a 4.0, and then become an engineer like her mama) but she has also brought her fair share of problems. I got Tai from a shelter as an adult. She is housetrained, but she is a  high stress dog. This meant that in the past, I was used to her having occasional accidents. No big deal.

This past year I have had to travel more (boo, long distance relationship and work obligations) and therefore her life is not as routine anymore. She has decided to act up by peeing. Everywhere. In my carpeted living room, bedroom, and dining room. She has an accident when she’s feeling nervous. Or jealous. Or insecure. When she sees other dogs. When I’m out in the garage taking out the trash. When I need to run really quickly to the store because damnit, I forgot to buy butter for the cookies that I’m baking and I leave her in the same room as my roomate. When I’m in the bathroom and she can’t smell me through the door. She’s like super stealth dog too; I have never been able to catch her in the act.

Needless to say, it’s been very trying. I love my little Tai more than anything but there are times when I just really felt hopeless and angry. After floundering a bit, getting frustrated and getting really mad at her, I realized that instead of trying to manage her behavior, I could manage my own. I tried to create more of a routine for her, and now I’m crating her during the day which has helped immensely.

I now also think of this as a blessing in disguise, because one day when I adopt a little child, I won’t expect it to all be roses and rainbows. I know it will be hard work, but hopefully our family will be better for it.

Back to my regularly scheduled reality

Being in a relationship has both been wonderful and terrifying. It’s been a little over a year and a half, and I can honestly say that being with him makes me happier than I’ve ever been. It feels right. We want the same things, we have the same values, we come from crazy big families. We goof off and can be ourselves around each other; it’s the best relationship I have been in.

Things have been a little more … real lately. Even though I am still crazy in love with him, we are out of the puppy love stage where everything seems perfect. Little things are cropping up that make us cranky. We’re adjusting; as he says, this is the least that we will ever know each other. He’s sweet, y’all.

But, in addition to the normal growing pains that every relationship experiences, I think my depression and insecurity has made it tougher. There have been times when I have spent mornings sobbing because I feel like nothing compared to his exes, whom are gorgeous and smart, and all around nice. In those moods (and well, almost every day) I feel … what is he doing with me? If he can get women like that, why would he stick around? In my eyes his exes were so lovely and accomplished and sweet, and I’m a big ol’ mess all around. Part of the reason I’m getting back on medication is because I can’t be objective about myself and being in a relationship intensifies that – they tend to bring out the very best and also the very worst in people.

Not to say that things have been all doom and gloom over here. We’ve had some amazing times and have been able to spend more time together lately. We went to a Wilco concert for his birthday, lit up some fireworks, visited each other’s respective cities, got to see his family, got to see my family and went on a two and a half week trip to China. Every day, I thank God for somehow bringing us together.