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.

Back in the Pool

I feel like I'm on the verge of that drowning feeling again. I recently read a post from a blogger who also struggles with depression about how she has been teetering, wondering if she's fallen back into depression. Her descriptions of the endless slew of negative thoughts and feelings both overcome you and leave you wondering if you're actually feeling depressed or stressed or what.

I'm not sure what it is, but the stress of crazy days at work, managing a home that's not mine, saving money for a wedding, planning and doing for the wedding, planning and nightmare-ing about the parents and the wedding, and this nagging cold/bronchitis I've had for 2 weeks now (wah), I feel overwhelmed. Or I'm on the brink of overwhelmed. Sometimes I have a premonition of myself, balled up and crying, trying to escape and cleanse all the negativity, but it hasn't quite exploded yet. Is it about to? I'm not sure, but it sure feels looming.

As if a stereo was blasting white noise and I just couldn't find the "off" switch, feelings of nervousness and anxiety, worries that things won't get done, and fears that I won't be worthy or successful crowd out any joy left in me. Sleep no longer brings rest, and I feel like I'm waiting... waiting to let a breath out... waiting to open my eyes to some relief.

Everything inspires more anxiety. The absence of a smile. The addition of a project. The ringing of my cell phone. The notice of a new email. Why do I think it's all out to get me?

Happy Tuesday.

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.

Strong, but Not Tough (Part 1)

Growing up, I was painfully shy. I remember grocery shopping with the Czar and Queen one day and asking where something was. When they told me I should ask a clerk, I immediately burst into tears. The thought of talking to a stranger filled me with an intense and inconsolable fear.

Whenever the Czar would discipline me with his time-tested method of endless hours of berating and yelling, I was never allowed to speak up. Of course, the occasional yes ("Do you agree with me?") and no ("Do you think what you did was right?") were in the script, but outside of that, I was to keep my mouth shut. I learned very early on that truth and justice had no place, but instead compliance and silent suffering were the easiest way to escape the verbal and sometimes physical lashings. I resolved that nothing was worth looking at that enraged, red-veined eyeball as he whipped me with a hanger, comb, shoehorn, whatever was nearby.

As I grew older, I got the bright idea that I should at least say something if the Czar misunderstood something. Any time I attempted at justifying or even proving my innocence, the result was merely more culpability. Whether it was for talking back or suggesting that they wrong (how dare I?), any words from me were met with more punishment and anger.

I learned that the most my "voice" would ever be was an internal wail of injustice, an all-night crying session, a cold ice-pack on the welts on my thighs. But even nurture can't quiet quell nature entirely. Outside the realm of home, I began to find my strength. Excelling in academics earned me a bit of authority, at least with classmates and teachers, and I began to find joy in others hearing me.

When I moved out for college, I decided to reinvent myself. I didn't want to be the girl that people knew was smart but never invited to parties. I didn't want to be the sucker who always took the blame because someone else told me to. I learned to be friendly. I learned to talk to strangers. I learned to talk to large groups of people. Recently, the boy asked me why I never considered business as a major. I explained that, as a shy person all my life, I never thought a career of working with other people and mingling suited me.

Anyone who met me after high school, knows me as a fairly outgoing, often funny and goofy person. I'm not a natural leader, but I'm not afraid to lead. I wouldn't say I'm combative, but I'm not afraid to call people out or make complaints when it's called for.

But at the root of my being, the insecurity and fear of returning to that once-lonely girl whose pillow was her only audience lead me on a spiral of anxiety. Like an offensive lineman, breaking through a row of bodies, I see everything as an obstacle. Everyone looks like the Czar to me. They're trying to shut me up. They don't believe me. They think I'm mindless. They'll never listen. They'll never care unless I force them. I bite, punch, kick, shove my way to the podium, when there may be no obstacles at all. The longer it takes to reach an assurance that I've been heard, understood, feels like precious seconds of holding my breath underwater. As another second ticks by, my heart quickens, my breath shallows, my mind races, and panic grows. I flail, I reach, but I can't seem to break the surface, find any relief.

While explaining this feeling to someone recently, I mentioned that I had felt weak for so long that I had to teach myself, make myself, be strong. They replied that, while I can be strong, and being strong is good, I didn't have to be so tough. That the forceful and abrasive nature with which I demand from people only recreates the loneliness. Navigating clumsily from one extreme to the other, I guess I haven't quite picked up the skill of asserting my strength with grace. I only know this because I see the one I love most has scratches and bruises from my pointless attempts to be heard.

Runaway Train

When you're hit with a bout of anxiety, whatever the reason, it hits you like a runaway train. You can kind of see it coming, but by the time your eyes have focused and you realize what it is, it hits you. And while it's running you over shredding your body limb by limb, wheel by wheel, you're also standing alongside the tracks watching it pass. Car after car, you marvel at the speed with which it's passing by. It feels like there's nothing you can do to stop it. It's sheer speed and strength make you wish you had shot yourself before it hit you are overwhelming.

Bursting My Bubble

When you don't have much history in the way of relationships, what happens is that your image or idea of what your love life will look like becomes inflated. Like a giant bubble. The more time that passes without experiences to bring you back to reality, the bubble just fills with more and more air.

Lately, as I spend more time with the Boy in the absence of my previous dictators, I'm coming to grips with the reality of the limitations of my relationship with him. In the way movies teach us, I want him to be my all, everything and the only thing I will ever need. But as the book tells us, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. We are so different in the ways we think, and that means that there are so many things that he can't possibly understand or empathize with.

Last night, I thought I was joining in his ongoing conversation about work frustrations, but it was heard as complaining. While silently handling the logistics of so many small and odd details, delegating the honeymoon planning to him was felt as unsupportive. In the grand scheme of things, I can understand that these translate to I don't want you to be so stressed and affected by work, so let me help you and I want to plan the BEST honeymoon for you and I'd like to do wedding stuff together, even the honeymoon planning.

But it seems to me that as women, the capacity of our empathy tanks are ten-fold that of men, and it's times like these where I become painfully aware of this fact. Throw my battles with anxiety in there, and you've got a night of restless sleep, tears, and hour after hour of anxiously wondering and worrying about what's happening next, tonight, and tomorrow.

It seems a little silly to me now, but that's the story of my journey through love. Time after time, every time a bubble is burst, I mourn the slow death of my fairytale. Of course, once you realize you've been living in a snow globe of a reality and that what's real is life, much more worth it than the sterile imagination you've rendered, you know you've traded in your Prince Charming for your soul mate. You turn in your two-dimensional fairy tale for the depth of reality.