Marriage - Day 67

I've been waiting for a burst of inspiration to make a worthy first blog post after marriage. I just can't seem to decide what that is.

Marriage is wonderful and frightening at the same time. The feeling of coming home to someone who is anticipating my return, greeting me with hugs and kisses (and sometimes even dinner), brushing my teeth next to each other...it's the best. It's frightening because a spouse can often act as a mirror, and sometimes when I'm at my vilest, I catch a glimpse of myself in a pair of hurt eyes and I'm reduced to a crumble of self-hatred.

But my husband says it best when he turns to me every so often and says, "You know...I like being married to you. It's fun."

Countdown - 10 Days

As the wedding draws near, anxiety has become a fixture in my day-to-day life. I'm living my days at about a 6, and the hint of any hiccup...an additional task, a need to reschedule, a missed appointment...they bring me up to an 8. The second I start thinking about my parents takes me up to a 9 or 10.

The past few years, especially, I've endured my share of drama with my parents. After they moved, I felt a sense of freedom...to be able to come and go without ridicule, without the lingering possibility of an emotional and abusive episode at any given time. But as the wedding comes closer and closer, I can't help but worry. And it's not a baseless worry; there's a reason why I know they'll be angry leading up to, the day of, and following the wedding.

I keep telling myself that I should put those thoughts away, enjoy the celebration starting now, and since they no longer live here, to remove myself from situations where I might be verbally or emotionally abused. But it's returning to the scene of the crime...going back to the place where I never felt safe, loved, whole...and it scares me. Those feelings I had of loneliness, isolation, worthlessness, hopelessness...they scare me.

I really hope my wedding is happy.

Nicknames

Muffin. Honey. Honeybuns. Babe. Baby. The boy and I used to always mock couples who have nicknames like these for each other. We always thought it was way too cutesy for us. Individually, we didn't really have nicknames ourselves either, with friends or with significant others.

Of course, having said that, we do have names we endearingly called each other, but we would NEVER utter them in public. So they don't exist...not really. Right?

The other day, the Czar sent me an e-mail just saying hello. That part I could get over. It was surprising but not overly so. The ending was what got me. He called me a nickname that roughly translates to "cutie" in English, something he probably hasn't called me in more than 15 years.

It was a one-line e-mail, but I thought about it again and again over the next few days. A nickname is such an intimate thing in my mind, and "intimate" is not how I would describe my relationship with him.

Maybe I've already told this story here, but it just goes to show how much it's stuck with me. I think the feeling of being a "Daddy's Little Girl" is one of the sweetest dynamics of a father-daughter relationship, but it's one that I'm not familiar with. When I was very young, probably 5 or 6, I remember watching a baseball or football game with the Czar. In typical fashion, I laid my head in his lap. But this time, he told me to get up. I wasn't to sit with him that way anymore. I was too old. The effect was like road rash. It burned and it scarred, and it changed things. It was breaking ground where a huge chasm would continue to grow between us.

So when the Czar called me "cutie," it brought me back to a time where I was Daddy's Little Girl, a short-lived time but a time that did indeed exist. So it IS true. That DID happen.

A Baby's Desperation

Now that the Czar and Queen are out of state, I've been spending a lot more time with the Boy (yep, somehow there's more time to be spent together). During the first 2 years of our relationship, the Boy held on so stubbornly and anxiously to his time, his space, that we fought often about our individual readiness for a serious relationship. Was he ready to commit? Was I ready to let go of my imaginations of love?

There's always a part of me that remembers those times with a twinge of...regret fear unease. I wonder if maybe he'll get sick of me. I wonder if a few days in a row of seeing me will weary him. There are times when a small annoyance on my part will grow into worry that he's silently scheming on how to get more alone time (projecting, maybe?).

Last night, as we spent yet another hour chatting and watching Anthony Bourdain, he looked at me in a way that reassured me he's far from sick of me. Even as I try to keep my distance at times and leave him to his work, studies, or whatever it is he's doing, he'll approach me in a way that shows his longing for me. It surprised me that this morning that I was excited to see him again. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but as if we haven't seen each other in weeks, I can't wait to be near him again.

This past weekend, I babysat for friends, new parents of a 6-month old little girl. Normally, with her and other babies, I've got some magic touch (or extreme body heat, whatever). I'm a baby-monger, and this little one generally falls asleep or is exhausted with laughter when she sees me. No problem, right?

Wrong. She's experiencing some stranger anxiety, and I could not console her for the life of me. She was so genuinely distressed that I was not her mom. As I held her while she cried, slept, cried, slept, and cried some more for about 6 hours, it made me think of friends who are going through the adoption process... how they endure this for weeks at time as their children grieve the loss of their foster parents.

I thought about the weight of being a mother. Not that I have the slightest idea of what that really means yet, but I kept thinking of the deep and utter sadness this little girl felt that she could not see her mother. She looked everywhere for her, pushing my face away. I fed her, held her, sang to her, talked to her, but none of that mattered because I was not her mother.

And it hit me...as my arms burned and my lower back ached from carrying and bouncing little M...the weight of being a mother...the ability responsibility of having such an effect on another human being. This little baby was so desperate and lost without her mother, regardless of what I had to offer. Am I ready to be that mother?

I've always wanted to be a mother. I have dreams of pregnancy and motherhood. I imagined I would get married at 24 (I'm 29 now), and I would have children at 26. Obviously, I'm not pregnant or even married yet. But I'm more sure now that I'm not ready to give up this feeling of excitement for my evening, free to be with my soon-to-be husband, carefree and aimless. I still can't wait for motherhood, but being a wife is excitement enough for now.