Thursday, June 20, 2013

Enjoying the Moment

      It seems everything happens in clusters. At least in my life it does. I think we just passed through the wedding cluster. This was where not only us, but almost every single one of our friends and a bunch of cousins all got married within a 5 year period. My husband and I can work a cocktail hour with an open bar like a synchronized dance at this point (“I'll go get our drinks and make friends with the bartender. You go find the waiter with the mini hot dogs. Meet you back here in 10!”).
     It was such a fun and exciting time! Weddings, dancing, friends and family. We were all starting out new chapters in our lives, pretty much at the same time, who could ask for more?
Then the cluster of home buying started. We helped so many people move (I am not helping anyone move ever again, I love you all, please hire movers). We collected lots of second hand things to fill our rented townhouse with. We were not financially stable, we were lucky we were making the rent most months. Buying a home is still not in our immediate future.
     Now we are crossing into the having babies phase. Everyone is having a baby, and if they are not having a baby, they are talking about having a baby. I want this too. We have always talked about having kids, we know we will eventually have a baby, but we don't need to do this just because people expect us to.
     People expect us to? Yes, you read that right, it is apparently expected of us that we produce children. When we were dating people would always ask if we planned on getting married. These questions never bothered me because yes, in fact we did plan on it. These questions bothered my husband, probably because I think it falls more on the guy sometimes to propose and get the ball rolling, also because he hates it when he feels like people are telling him he should be doing something. So when we would be asked by well meaning family members and friends of the family about an impending marriage I would indulge their curiosities. Even more so when we were engaged. You want to know wedding details? Sit down, I will tell you everything you want to know!
     But now we are getting questions about babies. When are we doing this? Also, unwanted advice (You don't want to be an old mother!). To the point where I want to tell everyone to mind their own business. My husband said to me the other day, “Since when did it become socially acceptable to ask me if I am screwing my wife without protection?” Because in the end, that is really what these questions are. It feels like an invasion into our personal business.
     Here is the thing, I am turning 31 one next month (!). Did I think I would have a baby by now? Yes. Maybe more than one? Yes. Do I have the occasional freak out that my eggs are going to shrivel up inside of me, leaving me barren, never able to produce children? Oh, dear God, yes! (But only occasionally.)
I've mentioned before that we got off to a rocky start financially. We are finally, after close to four years of struggling, both gainfully employed. It's still a surprise to have money left at the end of the week to buy pizza if we don't feel like cooking. We can afford to go out for drinks with friends, buy tickets to the burlesque show, buy things for ourselves other than the bare essentials.
     We are even planning a little vacation. Probably a long weekend, somewhere we can drive to, but we are still going away!! We never even had a honeymoon. So yes, let us enjoy each other, with a little extra money to spend. Not that the last four years haven't been fantastic, but I will not miss the money related stress.
A friend of mine said people are just curious, it's something to talk about when you aren't sure what to talk about. That's fine, but when you ask if we are planning on having a baby yet and I say no, stop pressing me. Because I will list all my reasons of why it is not the right time for us. And then when you say “There's never a right time.” I will want to scream.

     So right now we are not planning a specific time. We are being very unplanned and just enjoying the moment. I'm not asking you about your sexual activities, please don't ask me about mine (unless you happen to stumble onto my blog, where I will just tell you all about mine!). Oh and I just joined the roller derby, and I hear it would be hard to roller skate while pregnant.


6 comments:

  1. Hey Roller Girl! You're going to have to post more about that - I think it's awesome.

    As to the baby question - I hated that! I was the last of my sisters to get married and I had the 'when are you getting married' question constantly (even from an ex I ran into randomly- jackass!). Afterwards, it was the 'when are you having a baby' question…ugh…

    I agree, it's just something people talk about when they don't have anything else. But it's still annoying! You should switch the topic to spanking when it comes up again - I bet they never ask again ;)

    Oh, I do have 2 kids now, had one at 31 or 32 and one at 34. My eggs were fine apparently so don't give it a thought. Enjoy enjoy enjoy...

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  2. You're awesome Natasha!
    Ahh the questions. It would infuriate my husband when people started asking us the date of our wedding... 5 minutes after we got engaged. It was like, take a breath people, slow down!
    I am sure I will be posting more about the roller derby, don't you worry.
    And I will try not to think about my eggs (its only sometimes I get crazy). :)

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  3. Ae, come on, it would be so HOT to be the pregnant roller derby girl! Have you seen that photo on FB of the roller dereby chick nursing her baby? It is bad ass.

    But serious...when are you going to have a baby? JUST KIDDING!!

    As the director of a dance company of twenty somethings, I was the first of everyone to do the house, marriage, and baby thing. Which meant no one to give me advice, I guess. But it took me 3 years to get pregnant, and stupidly, I'd made a big deal telling everyone we were trying. I can tell you that after three years of people asking how baby making was going, I was ready to shoot myself!

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  4. I don't think I could roller skate pregnant, it would totally throw off my balance (and if I'm being perfectly honest, I am not all that stable to begin with!)
    I guess we will have lots of people to get advice from, but I feel like we are already looking at half of our friends as the "What Not To Do" examples. LOL

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  5. When you guys are ready, go for it! If not, don't.
    It's that easy.
    Well, not really. The unsolicited advice just keeps coming, no matter what.

    And when / if you do have kids EVERYONE will start telling you how to raise them. LOL. It's never ending!
    Enjoy your hubby and your new sport. :)

    You may want to consider being extra good, until you get better on the skates, though. It would hurt a lot to fall on an already well spanked bottom :)

    Have fun roller chick!
    Hey, you should start a "name me" game. We can all come up with our most creative names for your skating identity!
    :)

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  6. We do want kids, just not this second! It never occurred to me that people will still be giving unsolicited advice once we have them too, ugh, it is never ending.
    I haven't fallen yet, and as much as I like a nice spanking, I have a feeling falling on my butt is not the kind of pain I'm craving!
    When it comes time for me to pick out a neat nickname I will definitely be asking for help :)

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