Five Reasons I Skipped Your Christmas Party

Posted on December 28, 2021 by Belle of the Library

When I was a little kid, Christmas seemed to last for weeks. Every year, my brother and I celebrated with my paternal grandma and all of my aunts, uncles, and cousins, then again with my maternal Gramma, my mom, and dad, then again on Christmas morning with just the four of us, then again with my dad’s extended family (aunts, uncles, cousins, and so on) and finally, we had Christmas with my paternal grandfather, since my dad’s parents were divorced.

As a child, I was closest to my Gramma, but my only cousins were on my dad’s side. Playing with them was the number one appeal of his family’s Christmas parties. We had a blast, dressing up in our parents’ old prom clothes, piling everyone into a plastic wagon and running down the hallway as fast as we could, trying to quiet the cries of the youngest when they inevitably got hurt. I loved these moments almost more than my Gramma’s over-the-top Christmas gifts. Those celebrations with all of my cousins are some of the holiday memories I cherish the most… but that was over twenty-five years ago.

Things have changed, y’all. I’m married to a man who has his own family and now we have two baby girls. It’s our turn to make memories with our children and I don’t intend to do so while spreading ourselves so impossibly thin over a half dozen family celebrations. More importantly it’s our girls’ turn to make magical Christmas memories. That’s a lot more difficult to do if we’re always leaving parties early to make other parties and mom and dad are stressed out and fighting on the way. I want us all to enjoy the holidays, so as much fun as I had with my weeks of Christmas as a child, a couple of these gatherings just don’t make the cut anymore. So, how do I decide which ones to nix?

I don’t want to talk about my body.

Growing up, I was the fat kid… and with my family, that apparently means that my body is up for discussion for the rest of my life. Having lost around 100 pounds in my early twenties, I’ve kept to a relatively healthy weight since and it is still my family’s favorite subject. Like many people, I put on ten pounds of Pandemic Pudge last year, but uniquely me, I also had twins this year. I cannot stress enough how little I want to talk about my weight six months post-partum with twins. I have spent the entirety of 2021 listening to dehumanizing remarks about my body. I am baffled at how there are so many people who still think this is okay and how I happen to be related to all of them. While the occasional vague compliment is appreciated, I was asked point blank if I had lost all of my baby weight at my girls’ baptism celebration, three months post-partum.

I cannot think of any social interaction I would enjoy less on Christmas day, than one focused on my weight. In fact, as Jake and I pulled out of the neighborhood on the way to our first family party, he asked me what was wrong, noticing I’d gone quiet. I immediately burst into tears, “There are just so many people who are going to be so happy that I’m fat again!” So, when it came time to decide which gatherings to skip, it was the ones that would make me feel the worst about my own body at this sensitive time of life.

I don’t want to discuss Covid-19.

Nearly two years into this pandemic, it seems everyone has been radicalized to one extreme or the other and my family is a microcosm of this effect. At the beginning of the pandemic, I actually missed social media for a brief moment, having been isolated to my own home. That feeling was fleeting, however, when a few family members relayed the drama surrounding the discussions of Covid-19, vaccines, and various mandates that were taking place on Facebook. I’ve been exposed to so many different viewpoints, from one extreme to the other and I’ve come to a simple conclusion: you’re all fucking crazy.

Even the family members who insist they want none of this drama do so by finishing with their own dramatic and polarizing opinions. Well, my mother died of heart problems after a battle with Covid-19 put her on a ventilator for a week, before the vaccine was readily available. I was then diagnosed with heart complications during pregnancy and told by my cardiologist that the vaccine might have played a part. We all have our own complicated feelings to sort through in regards to the pandemic, so how about we all just shut the fuck up about it for one day of the year?!? I chose to attend the Christmas parties where this was likeliest to happen.

I don’t want to spend Christmas with people I don’t particularly like.

As kids, my cousins and I were able to bond over the shared experience of being children at the same time and that was enough. We played with the same toys and watched the same shows and shared the same childlike sense of humor. As adults, I’m willing to admit that we have virtually nothing in common.

I’m neither far left, nor far right, and am uninterested in any discussion of either that’s fueled by feelings over research. Politics are off the table. I cannot fathom the appeal of reality TV, preferring to spend my binges on teenage melodramas, while occasionally branching out toward high fantasy and dated fandoms. Bonding over our favorite shows is a no go. My girls are only six months old, so I’m hesitant to make broad declarations about my future parenting, but I can guarantee that the antagonistic style employed by much of my family is not for me. This means we can’t even really connect as parents. I have little to no desire to gossip about the people who aren’t present, which is their self-proclaimed basis for entire social events, while I have more than one DnD group where we pretend to be sorcerers and paladins. I’m definitely not interested in being a part of anyone’s round robin of apologies after they’ve had too much to drink… again.

It’s not that I don’t love my family. I do. I just don’t particularly like them, en masse. Whereas one-on-one, we might be able to find some common ground, my status as The Weird Smart Cousin is never more apparent than when facing the collective. That’s when my aunts battle it out in Dirty Santa for the ugliest purse/home decor/stemless wine glasses. That’s when my cousin makes a racist/homophobic joke that will surprise my redneck, cowboy, cattle rancher of a husband. That’s when everyone gets drunk and makes fart/sex/rape jokes. It takes a lot of energy to be just the right amount of excluded, so as to not come across as fake or preachy with my family.

Objectively speaking, I get that many people would think my extended family is a blast. I can appreciate that as an outsider aware of social trends. We just don’t really click and that’s fine. They’re not wrong (racism and homophobia excepted) and I’m not wrong. It took me years to come to terms with that, but I have. Truly, our only common ground is shared history and that’s become nearly as distant as our bloodlines. So, I chose to spend my holiday where I felt like I might more easily connect with some of the guests, because some relationships just aren’t worth the effort they take.

If I don’t have the bandwidth for seven Christmas parties, my baby girls really don’t.

Oh, family. It can be so wonderful to spend time in their company, while simultaneously taking so much work. I loathe the terms “introvert” and “extrovert” almost as much as “ambivert.” People aren’t that simple, nor are their needs, and the definition of “ambivert” is to be both an introvert and an extrovert, which literally just makes you human. That being said, I’ve realized in the last few years that while I love the holiday season, the gatherings themselves stress me out. Knowing how little I fit in with my own family, how socially inept both of my parents could be, makes me hyperaware of social interactions. I spend the majority of holiday gatherings worrying that I’ve said the wrong thing, that my parenting is being judged, that someone overheard me snap at the child who just ran past the infant on the floor. It takes a lot of work to talk to that many people, accept that many hugs, watch that many people pass my babies back and forth.

It is, of course, my hope that my girls will never feel this uncomfortable around family when they’re older, but right now they’re babies. They spend the majority of their time at home with mama, broken up by the occasional visit to Great Gramma’s and snuggling with our DnD pals. One day, maybe they’ll look forward to their numerous Christmases as much as I did as a child, but right now, it’s a lot of work for them to be talked to by that many people, accept that many hugs, and be passed between that many humans. It’s a break in a very predictable routine, a lot of stimulation, and a lot of germs, so we chose to skip the largest of the gatherings. After nearly a week, they’re still worn out and one of them is actually sick. When they get older, even with fortified immune systems, those gatherings will still be made up of a lot of names and faces my girls don’t remember, because I barely do. I’d rather spend our energy and time at smaller, more intimate get-togethers.

We’re setting a precedent.

This year, my baby girls’ first Christmas, was the start of many new traditions. We chose our tree and decorated it as a family, hung the stockings I made myself, opened a door on the new advent calendar every evening, read Christmas books, sang Christmas songs, watched Christmas movies, opened gifts fitting the “something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read” theme, wore our Christmas jammy jams and listened to daddy read The Night Before Christmas on Christmas Eve.

We also set a precedent for future Christmases, stating quite plainly, that we will not sacrifice the enjoyment of our holiday for perfect attendance at everyone else’s. My girls will not be forced to end their play with their cousins so we can rush off to visit more distant relatives. I will not bake seven different dishes for seven different parties. We will not buy gifts for people we barely know, just because I once shared a great grandparent with them. I will not listen to hateful remarks about my body or heated political arguments for one day of the year. Boundaries are best set firmly and early on and I refuse to make the holiday season something to dread… so I skipped your Christmas party.

How Luck Prepared Us for Disaster

Posted on April 14, 2020 by Belle of the Library

Right now, I have a firm grasp on positivity… which of course means that later, I’ll have a firm grasp on a bottle of whiskey. My highs are really high and my lows are really low. I half-ass nothing.

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So, in my latest up moment, I’ve been considering all the ways that I’m at an advantage during this pandemic, either by good decisions I’ve made that have ultimately prepared me for disaster, or the more likely scenario of pure chance. I’m a firm believer that where liberals tend to underestimate the role of moxy and self-determination, conservatives tend to underestimate the role of luck. So here’s a mix of both.

We’re used to eating at home.
Zetus lapetus, I don’t know how you people eat out all the time. Jake and I split a McDonald’s burger and fries (no drink) to celebrate Easter, since it was already the lamest holiday ever and it cost $7.26. That’s why we never eat out and y’all are crazy. Fortunately for us, this means we’ve got quite the cache of recipes, because we’re used to cooking. We’re not eating pasta night after night, but instead we’re eating soups, stew, salmon, enchiladas, salads, burgers, garlic green beans, battered fish, fries and tots, coconut haystacks, chocolate chip cookies, cake mix cookies… We’ve developed a lengthy menu over the years. Since we come home for lunch, that includes lunches. We are not scrambling for meal planning ideas.

I’ve been cutting our hair for years.
Zetus lapetus, I don’t know how you people get your hair cut all the time. A few years ago, I decided I wanted bangs, but I knew they’d need more upkeep than my twice annual haircut, so I bought some hair sheers on Amazon for $15 and started doing it myself, with tips from YouTube. A year ago, Jake asked me to cut his hair, so we could save the $20 every couple of months. For the cost of one of those haircuts, I bought a trimmer on Amazon and have been doing it ever since. Despite all salons being closed, there are no shaggy folks in the Granger household.

I own walking shoes and workout equipment.
I’ve had an elliptical for years and purchased my rowing machine about a month before the pandemic really hit. I also bought a good pair of walking shoes about six months ago and live in an older neighborhood with large lots and wide streets, so walks are a great way to get out of the house.

We don’t have kids.
We want to do the baby thing soon, but we haven’t gotten around to it just yet and I’ve gotta say, what a time to be childless. I cannot imagine going through the highs and lows I hit in one day with small children in tow. I miss my job and the days feel long and meaningless, while I’m constantly terrified that I’ll get news that there won’t be any paychecks after a certain date. I can’t sleep, because I wake up and remember we’re in the middle of the apocalypse. It’s exhausting and I’m so glad I’m not solely responsible for another human’s health and well-being at this very moment of my life.

We have stable(ish) jobs.
They’re furloughing nurses and doctors in my state, during a pandemic. No job is 100% safe. Jake and I, however, have been lucky enough to keep our jobs and pay thus far. While I’m home, I am doing three remote programs a week with my homeschool kids, to justify that pay and none of my managers seem worried that we’ll lose it, let alone our jobs. Jake is essential, if people want to continue getting water in their homes, and he goes to work every day, as per usual.

I have a contingency plan.
If the bottom falls out, I just passed my school media certification test to add another subject area to my teaching certificate, which I’ve kept going all these years. They will always need teachers and I can always teach… even if that means eventually relocating to Jake’s home state, where teachers are better compensated.

We already bought a house.
Realizing that Cherokee property values were soaring and recognizing that if we waited to buy until we had a 20% down payment, we’d price ourselves out of the market, we purchased our 2,300 square foot, 1980’s flip on over an acre, for $210,000 with 5% down in 2018. Since I have no idea what Covid-19 is going to do to the housing market or mortgages as a whole, I’m really glad we’ve already bought a home that we plan to stay in for at least the next 15 years.

I just refinanced that house.
Literally, two weeks after the lock down, we signed the paperwork on a lower fixed interest rate and a lower monthly payment, which stated that we’d already earned 10% equity. We won’t have to make a mortgage payment until June and can use those payments to secure our financial position.

We’ve paid off a lot of debt and are now nearing an ideal financial situation.
I married a man with a nest egg and that is pure luck. Do any of y’all remember my rants about Fifty Shades of Grey and how I’d let a man hang me upside down and gut me like a deer if he’d only pay off my student loans? That happened!

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Not that part… the part about the student loans. While I still owe on my federal student loans, they’re on an income based repayment program that only counts my income and comes out to about $220 a month, while the remainder is due for public service student loan forgiveness in 2024. My private student loans, however, were killing us. We were paying $300 a month just to keep the phone calls at bay, because we weren’t even touching the principal… that is, until my romantic hero swept in and paid them all off, along with my car and credit card, ultimately lowering our overhead by quite a bit. We’ve also paid off multiple credit cards since then and managed to secure a car payment of about $200 per month, while maintaining a sizable emergency fund.

I like my husband… and for some reason, he likes me.
I’ve seen a lot of memes and articles citing the stress that this pandemic is putting on marriages. Maybe it’s because Jake is still going to work each day or because we have a lot of space to offer each other, but I just don’t feel that way. I have thought a hundred times how much worse this pandemic would be if I were single. I could barely handle getting iced in all alone during Southern snowstorms in my twenties, and those only lasted a few days. I would go crazy with no one but my pets, sitting around 24/7 reading articles about the end times.

During Armageddon, Jake gives me a reason to be in a good mood, to be sober, to keep a clean house, to make healthy meals, as opposed to my famous single girl dining experience of Lotso Snack Foods. Marshmallows and maraschino cherries for dinner anyone? Jake provides comfort and company and someone to share sad McDonald’s burgers as we celebrate Isolation Holidays with video games and drinking. For some reason, he’s grateful to have me around too and I’m beginning to think that’s it’s just his provider instincts. When crisis hits, he needs something to take care of… enter me.

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What I Love About Jake

Posted on January 29, 2020 by Belle of the Library

I watched Netflix’s Emmy nominated Marriage Story, last week. I can’t say I particularly enjoyed the tale of two people, who were somehow both overindulgent and selfish parents, going through the most privileged divorce ever… but I also can’t say that’s an inaccurate portrayal of most divorcing parents regardless of income, either. One thing I did enjoy, however, was the opener. Each spouse listed the things they loved about each other, as a part of a counseling or mediation session. Why do we, as married people, only do this as a Save the Marriage measure? Why not now? So here goes. What I love about Jake.

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It has always been easy.
Jake and I met on a Tuesday afternoon, for sushi. I tried to talk him into coffee, just in case we didn’t hit it off, but he insisted. I’ve never claimed to have experienced some kind of spark or love at first sight, because this is not a paranormal romance novel, but the conversational chemistry was instant. We shared our core values, alongside humorous anecdotes with ease. We talked and laughed so long, the waitstaff had to ask us to leave, so they could close between the lunch and dinner hour.

When things started getting a little physical, I told him one night that since he hadn’t called me his girlfriend, I was going to keep my clothes on, thank you very much… and then I was his girlfriend. I asked him to join my parents and me for dinner on my birthday and he enthusiastically agreed. He asked me to meet his family and then his friends, to go skiing with him. We began discussing marriage at a year and I had a ring at a year and a half. We had a short engagement, rented for a year before buying a house, paid things off before agreeing to try for babies. We have just always been on the same page, at the same time. It seems as though, after all I’d been through before him, God saw fit to make my second relationship… easy.

He takes me exactly as I am.
Y’all Jake is the life of every party, both charming and funny and if he’s not someone’s cup of tea, he literally could not care less. The last time he cried was his senior year of high school and I’m pretty sure that was also the last time he was embarrassed. He is everything I am not. I’m a very emotional person. I can have fits of crippling anxiety, go on lengthy rants about everything from the movie Titanic to censorship in libraries, and burst into tears because my husband ate my fortune cookie. Just yesterday, Jake came home for lunch to find me on the couch crying over In Cold Blood, because this tragedy happened to real people and they must have been so scared and even the dog was scared… and you know what? He hugged me as I cried and genuinely consoled me. There was no mockery or laughter, just agreement that maybe true crime is not my genre.

Jake has never, not once, made me feel as though he’s embarrassed or ashamed of me, whether I’ve asked him just a little too loudly if he was checking out that waitress’s butt or nearly gotten both of our butts kicked for throwing M&M’s in a movie theater. He’s never insulted my weight or appearance or suggested I wear something else if we’re going out, even if that means I’m wearing a hand crocheted Christmas tree hat. He’s never shamed me for my tears, despite his lack thereof. I’m clumsy, nonathletic, far from outdoorsy, awkward, and sometimes too loud… and he has made it clear, from that very first date, that he likes me, very much, just as I am.

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He’s cheerful.
As great a likeness to Ron Swanson as Jake may have, he is generally a very even-tempered man. It takes a lot to truly rile him and, although he’ll go on and on about how Cherokee doesn’t need a Starbucks and this country needs a flat tax and how everyone sucks at Call of Duty, he’s not one to complain about his lot in life. After leaving a high paying position in oil, at my request, Jake got a job working for the City of Cherokee, where he’s been for three years. He literally spends days trudging through raw sewage and he never complains. When he calls his mom and she’s in a terrible mood and quite unpleasant, he rarely comments. If I text him and ask him to pick up shredded cheese and my prescription, they’ll be there when I get home. He tends to roll with the punches and do it with a smile and a joke, which is not my strong suit.

He’s hardworking and ambitious.
Jake likes to work. His “hobby” is working in the yard. He likes fixing things and starting projects. His is much more of a brute force energy than a creative energy, like mine, but the man can get things done. I dream it and he does it. Pair that with his good ol’ boy personality and even-tempered willingness to play the game and he’s already moved up with the city. I suspect one day he’ll own his own business or run his own cattle. Regardless, I know he’ll always provide for us, which is not something I’ve always had in life.

He doesn’t conform to traditional gender stereotypes.
Jake isn’t just hardworking in his career field. He’s a doer at home, as well. More often than not, he spends his lunch breaks cleaning the kitchen and immediately starts working in the yard when he gets home, on a nice day. In the middle of a conversation, he’ll grab the push broom and sweep the great room. He feeds the dogs and takes them to the vet, if I’ll just schedule the appointment. He’s the only reason things are actually clean, as opposed to just looking clean. When his mother comments, in her horror at Jake’s suggestion that he needs to clean the windows, “You mean Belle hasn’t don it?” he tells her “Mom, we both work 40 hours a week. We pretty much split the household duties.” When she concludes “Well… I guess you two do things differently than we do,” Jake simply responds “Yup. I guess we do.”

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He doesn’t hold grudges.
As is destined to happen in a marriage of stubborn individuals, Jake and I have had some pretty heated disagreements. Last summer, I got the news that my grandmother had fallen and gone to the hospital, while I was at work. I didn’t call Jake, because we were in the middle of some argument or another and I didn’t think he’d feel like consoling me. When I got home, I barely spoke to him, which he naturally read as the silent treatment and went to work in the yard. He came inside to find I’d fallen asleep in front of my comfort show, Star Trek: TOS, and realized this was no silly tiff. He asked if something had happened and I tearfully explained that my grandmother had fallen and I wasn’t there to help her. He asked why I hadn’t called him and I told him that I didn’t think he’d want to hear from me. He assured me that that was never true and I could always call on him.

Jake has proven the above statement time and again, most recently last weekend, when he was angry that I’d demanded he go sleep on the couch after my dental surgery, because I couldn’t sleep due to the pain and his snoring was making it even more difficult. At 4:00 in the morning I came in to ask him if he could call his parents later to see if they had any stronger pain medication and he invited me to lay on top of him while I cried. No matter how bad the quarrel, if I’m hurt or upset about something unrelated, it’s as if it never happened.

He’s gentle.
I think one of the things that attracts me to Jake the most is that as tough as he is, he can be incredibly gentle… with me, the cat, the dogs, his nieces. While I’ve never seen him start a fight, I have no doubt he could finish one, but he treats me with the greatest care, not just physically, but emotionally, as well. When I tell him I feel neglected for his video games or that it feels like we only watch the things he wants to watch, he listens. When I cry over a book, he holds me. When I’m anxious at a party, he talks to me.

He’s a Christian.
One of the fundamentals of my dating search was common religious beliefs. I didn’t need to meet a Catholic, but I had to meet a Christian who was open to Catholicism, which can be a tall order in the South. Jake was more or less lapsed when we met, but in the past three years, he’s grown a great deal in his faith, attending Mass and bible study with me. When I’ve gotten down about dissolved friendships, he’s been there to remind me that they weren’t good people and didn’t make me a better Christian. Neither of us is perfect, but it’s wonderful to have someone with whom to move in the right direction.

He is dedicated to this marriage.
I, of all people, know that it takes two to make a marriage and you simply cannot make another person commit (or be sane, but that’s a different post), so I’m not throwing stones at divorcees in my glass house, but I have every confidence that Jake will never suggest divorce. He might be a relentless buttface sometimes, but he’ll never cheat on me. He’ll never get a drug or gambling addiction. I’ve never seen a man as attached to their wedding ring as Jake, who religiously switches out the golden band I gave him on our wedding day with his rubber work band each morning and back again each afternoon. He doesn’t look at pornography or visit strip clubs and he doesn’t make crass jokes against our marriage with his coworkers. He is all in and so am I, because Jake is the best decision I have ever made.

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Belle of 2030

Posted on January 17, 2020 by Belle of the Library

Happy new year! We’re officially past the verbal awkwardness we’ve experienced since the 90s, with our inability to clearly indicate the current decade. It’s “the 20s” now and it’s only a matter of time before my library teens start telling me that with just a dash of snark, reminiscent of Cher Horowitz and Zach Morris.

If you’re a longtime follower, you know how much I love New Year’s and that’s only amplified in a milestone year, such as 2020. This isn’t just a continuation of the… the teens (see what I mean?!?!). It’s a new chapter of my life! Perhaps it’s because I was born so close to a decade marker, at the tail end of 87, but celebrating 2020 feels almost as big as celebrating my thirtieth birthday.

You see, as 2019 came to a close, I read of lot of news articles and Reddit posts emphasizing reflection on where you were 10 years ago and while I think that is so important, to help us grow as people, I don’t want to think about where I was at the start of 2010, because I’m pretty sure I was literally cutting myself or couldn’t get out of bed.

Debilitating depression is so much cuter in GIF form.

Y’all twenty-two-year-old Belle was not doing well. She needed a hug… and a divorce decree… and a job… and to lose 100 pounds.. and therapy. While every other year, I enjoy reflecting on the past, 2020 is a time to look to the future, to plan… and I love to plan, not just for the next year, but the next ten. So, instead of writing a pep talk to 2010 Belle, that she can’t read, I’m going to write to 2030 Belle, who likely can, because this blog is already seven years old. She won’t have to ask herself where she was at the end of 2019/beginning of 2020 or what she wanted for her life, because it’s all here.

Belle of 2030,

It’s 2020 and I hope that you’re as in love with Jake in 2030 as I am now. He’s infuriating and stubborn and bossy. He always makes me watch dude shows and ignores me at rodeos and thinks $20 spent on whiskey is somehow wiser than $20 spent on Kindle books. He also takes me exactly as I am, whether it’s crying hysterically because an animal died in a book, binge-watching teen shows, ranting at a pitch only dogs can hear, giggling while trying to sexually role play Carl Jung, or single-mindedly obsessing over some new craft/book series/ blogger/self-improvement project. He is my favorite person in the whole world and I never thought marriage could be so wonderful. I hope you still feel that way. I hope both of you still laugh uncontrollably during foreplay, ruining the moment entirely. I hope you still cook together and clean together. I hope you still drive with the radio off and talk. I hope you’re nice to each other and communicate better. I hope you’re still best friends, after twelve and a half years of marriage.

I’m trying to get pregnant right now. Though it’s only been a few months, I pray you’re a mom in 2030… that you have healthy children and you don’t take the years for granted. Naturally, I have ideas on a perfect family size and how I’ll parent, but however many you have, I pray you can afford to send them to Catholic school, that you emphasize family and time together over things, that you practice what you preach as best you can, that you and Jake parent as a team, not as opponents. I pray you’ve broken some cycles and that you’re proud of yourself.

Gramma is probably gone in 2030. I can’t imagine how the world will crumble when she goes, because she’s been the foundation of my entire life, the house that built me. I tell her about the fights Jake and I have and get frustrated with her when she takes his side… which is always. I’m excited for the day I get to tell her she’s getting more great-grandchildren and I’m pressuring her to move into assisted living nearby with the emotional bribery of being able to see them more. I don’t call her as much as I should and I’m sure you’ll hate me for that, when you’d give anything to do so. Sometimes I call her and she hangs up on me, because her football team lost and I can’t talk to her for a couple of days. I hope you remember her laugh. She was the original light in your world and I pray she got the chance to hold your children, to know another namesake.

I’m building good friendships, with people who make me a better person: a harder worker, a better friend, neighbor, coworker, a better Christian, a better wife. I’m avoiding relationships that center around gossip and vitriol and learning to balance standing up for my beliefs with kindness and tolerance. I pray you still appreciate the differences in people, their worldviews and backgrounds and the way they think, that you don’t isolate yourself in an echo chamber of like minds, as tempting as it may be in tense social and political times. I hope you’ve grown closer to family and formed lasting bonds with your steps and in-laws, with Jake’s family. I hope your children are close to them. I hope you see your brother Bo more… or ever.

I’m a teen librarian now and I love my job. I’ve just started playing role-play games with my teens and public and home school kids alike are thrilled by the low-tech, low-cost fun. As happy as I am, I sometimes consider going into teaching, particularly at a private school, when my student loans are forgiven, so I can have more family time. However it may work out, I hope you’re still championing teenagers, giving them a safe place, an adult on their side. I hope you’re making a difference in the world. I didn’t care how naive that sounded at 22 and I don’t care now.

It’s 2020 and I obsess about my weight just as much as I did 10 years ago, though I’m 100 pounds lighter. You probably look at pictures and wish you were this size again… but I hope not. I hope you’re kinder to yourself than I am, that your inner-dialogue is less hateful. Jake and I cook healthy meals nearly every night and if I can convince him, we go on walks together. I hope you still do both. God willing, you have children, but I pray you still make time to read, to crochet and sew, to write. We paid off my private student loans last year and I’m depending on my Public Service Loan Forgiveness going through in 2024. We’re doing well financially and I hope you spend your money well, that you have little debt, that the house is ten years closer to being paid off, that you and Jake don’t have that stress in your lives.

If 2010 is anything to go by, you’re a completely different person now and I hope it’s for the better. I pray you’re happy, that some of these things, if not all, are true for you. I hope you’re still keeping this blog, so 2040 Belle can read your thoughts, because this is the closest you’re ever going to get to time travel.

Acting Twenty-Something With My Husband

Posted on August 30, 2019 by Belle of the Library

I met Jake on June 9, 2015, when I was 27 and he was 30. While I was working two jobs, hoping to be promoted to full time librarian, Jake was working in oil, not entirely sure what the future held for his career. Regardless, we were generally considered responsible adults. We were finished with school, lived without roommates, had more or less established careers, paid our bills on time, and the odds of being arrested for any weekend mischief were low. We were grownups and while I’ll always support the claim that that is the best time to meet your future spouse…

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… there are a few things we never got to do together… like act like irresponsible college kids. I mean, sure, we’ve gotten drunk together and we’ve gotten really drunk together, but it’s always been responsibly so, at home or a friendly gathering, away from cameras or judgmental (::ahem:: Jake’s parents) eyes… and that has mostly been the extent of our dual shenanigans. Of course, the more familiar of my readers realize that’s more or less the extent of my shenanigans as a whole, since my college years were spent barely getting by and my grad school years were devoted to working two jobs with the occasional interruption of predominantly wholesome and Cheap as Free fun. Picture the college years in Boy Meets World.

Jake… well his college days were more of the Van Wilder bent. From what I understand, the nine years it took my dear husband to get his bachelor’s degree, comprised many a scene directly from a coming of age college comedy, including putting a woman’s head through a wall during vigorous (consensual) trailer house sex, mopping up the vomit in his best friend’s honeymoon suite with his commemorative wedding t-shirt, and once drinking so much that… well, I’ll spare you, cuz ewwww. So, while we each had our share of high jinks and tomfoolery…

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His

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Hers

… they were entirely independent of one another. All the reckless, crazy nights of rodeo queen sex and yarn bombing… of house parties and Potterthons happened long before we met. Moving to a new city, starting over in our careers, buying a house… all of that has been wonderful, but now that Jake and I are talking about having children, we want to make sure to have all the experiences together that we can, while we can. So when Jake’s mother sent us our tickets to the induction of his grandfather and his horse into the Rodeo Hall of Fame (true story), we decided that it wasn’t just an excuse to take a vacation, despite the crazy expenses of our summer, but to be impetuous, adventurous, and just… young.

Our road trip started at about 4:30 in the morning. The ten hour journey was old hat for Jake, the former rodeo child, but for me…

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In return for not leaving me on the side of the road, I let Jake ramble about politics, sing only the chorus of bad songs he hasn’t heard in years (if I hear No Scrubs one more time), and in the true spirit of devil-may-care road trip movie behavior, kept him entertained in saucy ways neither of us had ever experienced. By the time we arrived at our destination, we were ready for a foolhardy weekend, free of contractor estimates, Summer Reading responsibilities, and financial planning (read: arguing). For just one weekend, we were going to be 10 years younger and it started with the Cowboy Ball.

After what felt like our journey to Mordor, Jake and I had just enough time to check into our room, unload the car, and realize that our search for a marijuana dispensary was in vain, before having to dress for the ball. You see, while I wasn’t a fan of pot the two times I’d tried it, prior to meeting Jake, it was always on our bucket list to do it together. Jake smoked a bit in college and neither of us have moral or ethical objections, but being a grownup, with a mortgage to pay, generally means setting aside any illegal pastimes. Libraries, a super liberal industry, are hugely pot friendly. In fact, after the state to which we traveled legalized marijuana, my system actually revised their drug policy to restrict only “illegally acquired” drugs. While I’m good, Jake’s still subject to federal law, which means he’d lose his CDL and his job if he were caught. That risk has never been worth the experience of getting high together, so we jumped at the chance to do so, legally, over a long weekend, which meant Jake would be clean by the time he returned to work. We just had to locate a dispensary, but in the meantime, alcohol would have to hold us over.

The Cowboy Ball was held in a rodeo museum and included a litany of butt-numbingly dull speeches and an auction full of rich white people bidding on saddles and limited edition guns; basically that scene from Jurassic World, where all of the Evil Capitalists are fighting over dinosaurs. Fortunately, there was also an open bar, so by the time the credits rolled and dinner was served, I was perfectly content to watch men in ten gallon hats fight over T-Rex’s as I tipsily swapped rolls with my neighbor when he wasn’t looking, because his looked tastier.

Eventually, the crowd dispersed and Uncle Bobby invited us to his after party. Jake and I appeared to be some of the only ones dancing, as he, an excellent dancer who refuses to teach his clumsy wife, twirled me around and tried not to clothesline me like he did on our wedding day. I’m sure we were the romantic envy of the evening as Jake drunkenly sang along and I giggled and stumbled in my wedding boots.

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Soon, Jake, who only smokes when he drinks and never in front of family, decided the time had come for a cigarette. Now folks, my husband can be quite charming with a few drinks in him… especially when he wants something. It’s amazing to watch this superpower evolve based on his audience, as well. In a group of men’s men, he’s his overconfident jovial self, but toward women, there’s a subtle shift. I won’t call it flirting, because it’s in no way suggestive, but there’s something about the tailored charm of Jake Who Wants Something that’s unique to a female crowd, perhaps as he’s channeling his college self, the Man of a Thousand Headboard Notches. So it was of no surprise to me when he simply asked the bartenders, with that glint in his eye, if they had a cigarette… nor was it surprising to see the women openly flirting with my husband as they summoned up both a smoke and a lighter. Tipsy and entirely content in the knowledge that I got the ring, I stood by as Jake, forever the storyteller, brought them to fits of laughter over some tale or another, a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other, when I noticed my mother-in-law, Daisy approaching.

Over the years, I’ve come to understand and appreciate Daisy more and more. She’s the Southern rancher’s wife who wants her children to lie to her. It started when Jake and I were dating and he had to stay at my apartment in Shetland, because his duplex in Wellston was impractically far. Daisy would ask Jake if he stayed the night and then she’d be upset when he affirmed. When she asked if we planned to move in together before we got engaged, the answer was no, but that changed for two months for simple practicality’s sake, as the new rent house was minutes from my work. We’ve been married for two years and Daisy has only recently gotten over our cohabitation. I don’t think she’s in denial, based on the laughing conversation we recently had about Jake’s sister, May, quickly putting out a cigarette when she saw Daisy coming, years ago, because her mother had thought she hadn’t smoked since her early twenties. No, Daisy is aware of her children’s antics, as a mother can only be when she’s paid bail and court costs more than once. She just seems to feel that respectful children hide these things and takes it as disrespect when an effort isn’t made to do so, such as blatantly smoking around family.

Jake: ::caught up in a grand story::
Me: “Your mother’s coming.”
Jake: ::laughs at my joke and continues talking, gesturing with his cigarette::
Me: “No. Your mother is actually coming. She’s walking up behind you right now.”
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Me: “Hi, Daisy. How are you?”
Bartenders: “Hey! I love your necklace. That’s so pretty! Where did you get it?”
Daisy: “Oh, thank you!”
Me: ::grab the cigarette from Jake’s frozen hand, quickly walk over to put it out on a table leg, and toss it aside::
Daisy: “Hey, Jake. I’m glad you all came. We’re heading over to Bobby’s party. Will y’all be by?”
Jake: “Yeah, we’ll see you there.”
Bartender: ::as Daisy walks away:: “That is the smoothest thing I’ve ever seen.”
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I’d say the odds are 50/50 as to whether Daisy was successfully distracted or noticed the cigarette and simply appreciated the elaborate effort to hide our indiscretions. Regardless, my mother-in-law’s wrath did not ruin anyone’s night and we soon headed over to Uncle Bobby’s after party at the nearby Marriott.

At this point, I think it was safe to say that while I was definitely not sober, Jake was good and drunk. We had a limited amount of time to spend with his family, before the last shuttle arrived, however, so I figured little could go wrong. Enter Drunk Jake.

giphy-10 I’ve never chosen a more en pointe gif.

Y’all, Jake is not… a man to be lead… when sober, so Drunk Jake is particularly unpredictable, as was proven when his cousins convinced him to do a toe touch, because for some reason still unbeknownst to me, my 34-year-old husband has the flexibility of a 14-year-old cheerleader.

Me: “Are you guys just going to do this annually, until he pulls a groin?”
Cousin Joe: “Yup, or until he tells us he can’t do it.”
Me: “So, when he pulls a groin… because there is no way he’s just going to admit he can’t do it.”

Jake’s cousins, aunts, and uncle cheered him on as he stretched, gave it a go, and realized he’d need to stretch a little more in his dress jeans.

Me: “Maybe you need to take off the pants.”
Cousin Kate: “No! Leave the pants on!”
Me: “Hey, this was y’all’s idea. I tried to make it better and failed, so I figured I’d make it worse.”

Lucky for Jake, myself, and our financial situation, he was still able to pull it off without an ER visit and I now have more photographic proof of this talent, because the pictures from last Thanksgiving and our wedding day weren’t enough.

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We sat down to chat with family and Jake continued to drink… as did I.

Me: “It’s just been a very stressful summer. Our garage bedroom didn’t work out and it took six months to convince Jake that we needed to move into the original master. It wasn’t until I started sleeping on the couch that he relented. He was convinced that between his hydrology degree and his penis, he could find a way to fix gravity.”
Aunt Camilla: ::laughing:: “You know, I think this is the most I’ve ever heard you talk.”
Me: “Well… Daisy is a really sweet person, but she’s very… reserved… and I’m terrified I’m going to offend her. Jake and I were dating for eight months when we went skiing and she tearfully asked him if we were living in sin… which we weren’t, but did she think her 31-year-old son was a virgin? I’m just terrified I’m going to say the wrong thing.”

While I figured Camilla could handle these comments, only later did Joe turn to me in shock.

Joe: “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say the word ‘penis’ in front of my mother.”
Me: “Penis? It’s a medical term. Jake told me not to say ‘tinkle’ and now I can’t penis?”

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Later the next day:

Me: “So Joe seemed horrified that I said ‘penis’ in front of Camilla last night. He told me he didn’t think he’d ever heard anyone say that in front of his mother, but I feel like Camilla has probably heard a lot worse, being married to Bobby.”
Jake: “Well, yeah, but Camilla isn’t Joe’s mom.”
Me: “Wait… Vi was there!?! I don’t remember seeing her! Do you think she told your mother?!?”
Jake: “Oh, definitely. Mom and Vi tell each other everything.”

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After this blunder, Jake’s report on his brother’s meth addiction, and my interjection…

Kate: “How is Craig?”
Jake: “Is he a jerk or is he a jerk with a belly? If he’s just a jerk, he’s on meth. If he’s a jerk with a belly, he’s probably okay.”
Me: “I don’t understand why you people can’t tell the different between Craig on Meth and Craig Not on Meth. Wouldn’t it be nice if he didn’t always act like he’s on drugs? He literally just told Jake, surrounded by pretty rodeo queens, ‘You brought sand to the beach!’ He was at a party with his wife.”

… the party drew to a close, long after Jake and I had missed our shuttle. So, there I was, at 12:30 in the morning, in a foreign city in a foreign state, with a drunken cowboy in my care, who suddenly seemed to get his second wind, as I was trying to figure out how to get to our hotel, just a few blocks over, through the winding, twisting mountain roads. I stood there, waiting for Google Maps to load, when suddenly Jake yelled…

Jake: “I know the way! Follow me!”

… and leaped over a hill like Mario.

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Me: “Jake! Wait! Come back!”
Jake: ::skips back:: “… but I know the way! C’mon!”
Me: “I can see the building, too. Ugh, you’re even patronizing when you’re drunk. I’m trying to figure out how to walk there, because I can’t climb wet hills in a formal dress and my wedding boots.”

I worked my phone one-handed as I hooked a finger through one of Jake’s belt loops, to keep him from bounding off, again. We headed toward the hotel, through the almost deserted streets, me steering my drunken husband as best I could, when comparing my strength to his determination to lead the way. Eventually a car pulled up beside us and the driver rolled down her window.

Driver: “Are you okay? Do you guys need a ride?”
Jake: ::merrily heads for the back door, as I pull him back::
Me: “No. No. We’re fine, thank you. That’s our hotel, right there.”
Driver: “Are you sure? I almost hit him.”
Me: “I… believe you. I’m sorry. He’s really drunk. I’m not, though.”

As she drove off, I looked around for the entrance to the hotel, when Jake suddenly shouted…

Jake: “Follow me!”

… and ran up the hill to the parking lot, as I stood alone on a deserted street, in the middle of the night.

Me: “Did you really just leave me here?!? Boy will your face be red when I’m abducted by highway men!”

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With few other options, I hiked up my dress, sat on the sidewalk, and tugged off my wedding boots, so I could climb a wet hill in the middle of the night… only to realize that Jake had the room key and odds were low that he’d answer the door. I defeatedly entered the hotel lobby, Jake’s cowboy hat askew on my head, boots in hand, and addressed the clearly amused night clerks, who must have seen my husband saunter in 10 minutes earlier…

Me: “My husband has my key. Could I please get another copy?”

It was not a classy moment, y’all… probably the closest I’ll ever come to a walk of shame.

Ten minutes later, Jake was sprawled on the bed, naked, save for one jean-clad leg, because he couldn’t get his boot off. Knowing how loudly he snores when sick or drunk, I tried my best to get him to move to the sleeper sofa, so I could hope for even a little sleep, myself. When he wouldn’t budge, despite my begging, I dragged him off the bed by one arm, where he sat up and drunkenly tugged at his boot, while I pleaded with him to move. Eventually I started recording, so I could show him what a drunken pain in the butt he’d been, the next day. The following conversation was verbatim.

Me: “You really suck for this.”
Jake: “Why aren’t you helping me?”
Me: “Because you don’t deserve my help. You’re a buttmunch. Go lay on the sleeper sofa and then I will help you.”
Jake: ::groans::
Me: “You’re like a big naked baby. Will you go lay on the sleeper sofa? Please?”
Jake: “Will you help me pull my boot off?”
Me: “Once you’re on the sleeper sofa.”
Jake: ::Slumps forward and goes silent::
Me: “Are you asleep? Cuz I guess that’s okay, too. Go lay on the sleeper sofa.”

By the time I dragged my 215 pound husband across the room, I cared little about his comfort. I left him sprawled on the sleeper sofa, spread eagle, butt naked, save for the one boot I still couldn’t remove. It was official. I’d met college Jake.

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The next morning, I woke early, assuming Jake would be hungover. He, however, insisted he felt fine. The whole way to the induction ceremony, he was fine. When we got there, Joe and his wife, Sandra asked how he was doing. He insisted…

Jake: “I’m fine.”
Joe: “That’s his sixth bottle of water.”

After the formalities and pleasantries, family time was over and we were determined to get high together. We doubled our efforts and finally found a recreational dispensary in a nearby town. While Jake really wanted the nostalgia of an old-fashioned joint, it simply wasn’t feasible to smoke in our hotel room, so we settled for gummies. Despite the clerk insisting we start with one, Jake and I were determined to make this experience worth it… and besides, we couldn’t exactly take the leftovers home, so we each took two.

Folks, I love candy… like Buddy the Elf Love… but pot gummies do not taste good. It surprises many to know that the only reason I can identify the smell of weed is through on-the-job learnin’, so I certainly didn’t know what pot tasted like until recently. I’m not sure how children are overdosing on these things, because they are both potent and unpleasant.

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Jake and I decided to head down to the hotel pool until we felt something. After about thirty minutes in the hot tub, however, we realized that we did not want to run into our nieces high off our butts and quickly headed to the room to order dinner. It was right about the time our food arrived that we definitely started to feel something, Jake seemingly more-so with his higher metabolism. Having decided to shower the chlorine off before I was too high to do so, I wasn’t able to answer the door when the knock came… and apparently neither was Jake.

::knock, knock::
Me: “Can you get the door?”
::knock, knock::
Me: “Jake, get the door.”
Jake: “There’s no one there!”
Me: “That’s because you took too long to answer. Call them, before they leave with our food.”
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Jake made it to the lobby just in time to collect our order and I have no doubt that the reason behind the delay was painfully obvious to the man delivering food in a state where they’ve recently legalized marijuana.

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Once we’d gotten our food, we settled in to enjoy our high together and it was really fun… at first. We ate and laughed and did saucy grown up things, until…

::Jake’s phone rings::
Me: “Who is it?”
Jake: “It’s my sister.”
Me: “What does she want?”
Jake: “I don’t know. The girls wanted to go swimming earlier.”
Me: “We cannot talk to your sister or your nieces right now. What do we do?!?”
::ringing stops::

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We settled back in to enjoy an adjacent drugged stupor, when…

::Jake’s phone rings::
Me: “Don’t answer!”
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The phone turned off, we lay back on the bed, completely lifeless.

Me: “I think we might have taken too much.”
Jake: “Yeah… one might have been better.”

I’m not sure how much time passed before:
::knock, knock::
tenor-2 Me: “Who’s that?”
Jake: ::approaches door:: “I don’t know.”
::knock, knock::
Me: “Don’t answer it!”
Jake: “I’m not going to answer it. I’m trying to see who it is… there’s no one there.”
::waits a few minutes and opens door::
Jake: “I don’t see anyone.”
Me: “Well, come back inside. It’s probably just the girls and you don’t want them to see you.”
Jake: ::closes door and waits a few minutes::
::knock, knock::
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We were somehow caught in a state of extreme paranoia, complete with the knowledge that we were being extremely paranoid. Yes, May was calling and would absolutely know we’d been sampling the local goods, were she to see or speak to us… and yes, the girls were knocking and it would be completely inappropriate to interact with them… but there was a door between us. We’d literally planned this activity, in the safety of our hotel room, where there was little chance of social or legal consequence. Such sober logic did not transcend to our current state, however. Folks, I desperately hope that, one day, when pot has been federally legalized for years and the stigma has lifted, we can enlighten our adult nieces to the weekend they reached Troll Level: Expert, because I have no idea how long we stared in horror at a hotel room door, as if a nine-year-old would put an ax through it and yell “Here’s Johnny!”

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My experience with drugs is pretty sparse, but the Ravenclaw that I am, I’d researched the effects of gummies prior to our vacation. Fortunately, I was aware that the high for edibles lasts much longer than smoking, as I lay on the bed rising and rising. The room began to spin and my stomach began to churn, but I was able to remind myself that no one had ever died from eating two pot gummies. I had a pretty fitful night’s sleep, but woke delightfully not hung over the next morning. Jake and I were able to go hiking with his sister, brother-in-law, and the girls, with no ill effects from the night before… mostly.

Shana: “We came by your room last night, to see if you guys wanted to swim!”
Lucy: “Yeah, we knocked and knocked!”
Jake: “That’s weird. We must have been sleeping.”
Shana: “It was like 7:00!”
Jake: “Look at those mountains!”

After a day of wholesome family fun, we conceded that we’d spent about $30 on gummies we couldn’t take with us, so we spent a similar evening in our room, without the paranoia. After all was said in done, we reflected on our experience, as we packed for the drive home.

Jake: “You know, I had fun with the edibles, but…”
Me: “… we kind of just layed there all night?”
Jake: “Yeah.”
Me: “Yeah, I’m glad we got to do that together, especially since we’ll probably have kids when it’s legalized federally, but I’m not sure how people waste their whole lives on that stuff.”
Jake: “Right? It might be fun to do edibles a couple of times a year, maybe smoke a little every few weekends, but I’m kind of good for now.”

And so, after a weekend of youthful shenanigans, Jake and I returned to our pets, at the home we own, in the city where we have grownup careers and all sorts of responsibilities. We left a weekend of being twenty-something together, after just enough time away to enjoy being thirty-something together.

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Between Marriage and Motherhood

Posted on May 29, 2019 by Belle of the Library

Three and a half years ago, Jake took me on a weekend trip, to meet his friends. We’d only been dating for seven months, but we were already beginning to see a future together. It was only a few weeks later that we went skiing and began to talk about marriage in hypotheticals. So it was, that we fit right in with his dating/engaged/married without children friends. The women made Pinterest recipes together and shared first date and wedding day stories. The men played beer pong and told appalling college tales. There were drinking games and card games and movies. It was a great time and I was surprised to feel so included with these people I’d just met. A year and a half later, I felt the same way, on our wedding day, when the women told me I completed the pack. So, this past weekend, when Jake told me his friends had planned another crawfish boil, I was excited.

When we met, only one set of Jake’s married friends had children and it was some time before I met them, as that couple’s weekend wasn’t really a family event. Over the next few years, however, more and more birth announcements, gender reveals, and baby showers came. Some of the new parents were just at that point in life, others perhaps just wanted to be. Regardless of intent, though, the babies came and the first thing I saw when we arrived at last weekend’s party was a swarm of small children.

It’s no secret that I don’t really like kids. I’ve never been drawn to them. Unless they’re family, and therefore require some level of affection and investment, I just don’t find them particularly interesting… and I’ve tried. I substitute taught for six years and I work in a public library, so it’s not for lack of exposure that children just aren’t my thing. Yet, I want my own. The word “trying” seems like a lot of information about my sex life, but Jake and I are… seeing what happens. So, while I can’t necessarily empathize with their day to day lives, I can sympathize with parents. I love watching my husband with our young nieces. I genuinely enjoy them, myself, so I know I have that in me, under the right circumstances. Working with older kids and teens is my life’s work and it makes me want to give my own children a good home life. I’m not there yet and children aren’t my specialty, but I do want them soon, so I can enjoy the company of parents and their families. Too bad the feeling wasn’t mutual last weekend.

I won’t go so far as to say that anyone was unkind to me, at this party. Jake and I walked in and did the introductions and reintroductions. People I’d never met hugged me and joked about erecting statues in my honor for marrying this wild cowboy of mine. Together, we gave updates on our careers and location, before Jake traded some back slaps and insults, on his way to play cornhole and horseshoes with his old college buddies… and I was left alone, in a crowd of moms.

Y’all, I tried. I was excited about this party and didn’t hesitate to sit down at a table of women my age and attempt to strike up a conversation. We traded pleasantries. I asked about their kids, told them we didn’t have any yet, and then… I simply vanished. I’d try the same routine with another group and another, but always, got the same result.

Feeling rejected, I sat down with Jake to eat crawfish, while he and his friends gabbed like tweens. Occasionally, they’d include me and I’d find myself laughing comfortably with my husband and his boys. Not wanting to detract from Jake’s good time by being clingy, however, I mostly watched as he and his buddies played washers and drank beer. Periodically, I’d attempt to start a conversation with one of the women, happy to listen to them talk about their families or careers or literally anything, but these chats never lasted more than a few minutes, before they sat down with other moms; ones they knew and ones they didn’t. Whereas once, when Jake and I were in the same stage of life, I felt welcomed and included among his friends, I now found myself on the sidelines, not out of maliciousness, but with a similar result, because I don’t yet have something I do want.

Jake: “Are you not having fun?”
Me: “I’m okay. Go have fun with your friends. You don’t need to babysit me.”
Jake: “You’re really bad at lying.”
Me: “It’s just… kind of like a middle school dance. I’m either sitting quietly alone or wandering around aimlessly, so I look like I have somewhere to be. No one wants to talk to me, cuz I’m not a mom.”

As the night wore on, it became clear that the only friend I’d made was the dog, who saw my weakness as an opportunity to get nummies… and that he did. Finally, I made one last attempt to socialize, walking over to a group of women who’d seemed friendly earlier. Immediately, I was asked if I had children. When I answered “not yet”, I was literally embraced by a woman named Molly, who launched into an inebriated tirade against the “breeders” who wouldn’t invite her to dinner, because she didn’t have a screaming brat to bring with her. Simply happy to have someone to talk to, I let her drag me away from the group, her husband and another couple in tow, and they all proceeded to long for the days of random hookups and a drunken concert they referred to as “Redneck Woodstock.” I remember hearing about that concert from Jake, on our third date. He told me that so many people just peed right next to the stage, it was like a latrine. When I mentioned this, I was informed that the beauty was in the freedom to pee right next to the stage. Never having been a gal who would enjoy such festivities, I did not mince words.

Me: “That sounds awful. That literally sounds like Hell.”

It didn’t matter, though, because Molly had decided that I was simply her sounding board and she’d had too much to drink to take in much of what I had to say. She told me she knew she liked me, that she just had to look past the pigtails and the cookies I brought. She told me how happy she was that Jake, who’d never liked her, had married a stoner liberal just like her.

Me: “I’m not a liberal or a stoner. I’ve smoked pot twice and I didn’t like it.”

She didn’t seem to hear me.

Jake found me and Molly launched into her defense campaign, talking about how he used to hate her, but she’s totally changed. He joked and laughed with her, but I could tell his opinion hadn’t altered much over the years and that Molly’s behavior wasn’t doing anything to redeem her. I suddenly felt more defeated than ever. The only person who’d shown any genuine interest in me all night was a drunken party girl in her thirties, who referred to anyone who wants children as a “breeder”… and she made fun of my hair and my nice gesture. I had enough friends like that in my twenties and I didn’t even enjoy it then. I certainly can’t relate now. When Jake leaned in and whispered “Molly’s crazy, by the way,” I nearly burst into tears, because I’d gathered as much myself.

Me: “Don’t tell me any more. She’s the only person who’s talked to me all night.”

While Jake finished up his final game of washers, I hung my head and retreated to the car, walking the long way to avoid Molly and company, my shoes in hand as I trekked barefoot through standing water, so I wouldn’t be noticed. I crawled into the car and pulled out my Kindle, retreating into my forever friend: books.

Twenty minutes later, Jake climbed into the car next to me.

Jake: “Do you feel okay?”
Me: “Yeah. I’m fine.”
Jake: “I’m sorry you didn’t have fun.”
Me: “I’m glad you did.”

… and I meant it

The next morning, after I’d had some time to get my feelings in check, I told Jake that I didn’t dislike his friends. On the contrary, they’d been so nice to me before, that it felt worse to be so obviously excluded… and they are nice people. They try to include me in smaller groups… when the wives show. This isn’t a phenomenon Jake has to deal with, though, even though all of his friends have kids. Men’s lives are less likely to be consumed by fatherhood than women’s are to be consumed by motherhood. Men aren’t as naturally exclusionary as women… and Jake is generally the life of every party, so they’d fail if they tried.

I’m certain that none of the women intended to alienate me, that night. There were so many people there, that I imagine it was pretty easy to overlook one. Regardless, being ostracized by the Mom Club felt uniquely awful. Maybe one day, a year or two from now, when I’m once again one of the gang… in the same stage of life as everyone else, I’ll remember that feeling well enough to talk to the woman between marriage and motherhood. In the meantime, I have a husband who at least understands that he’ll never understand.

Me: “I think maybe you should come on more solo trips to hang out with your buddies. I don’t really want to do this again for a while.”
Jake: “Okay.”

Two Vitally Important Years

Posted on May 9, 2019 by Belle of the Library

One of the first Saturday mornings after our wedding day, Jake came into the living room to see my cat, Thackery Binx, crawling into my lap, as I sipped my coffee and ate my donuts, while reading the news.

Jake: ::waves his hand at TB:: “Git! Go!”
Me: ::shielding TB:: “What are you doing?!?”
Jake: “He’s trying to get to your food!”
Me: “No, he isn’t! He’s trying to get to my snuggles. He doesn’t even care about my food. You, ‘GIT!'”

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What Jake didn’t realize, was that Thackery Binx and I have a morning routine, which involves my eating breakfast, around him, as he lounges across my lap or chest. He never goes for my food. He’s not interested in human food and doesn’t think I should be either, if it’s going to interfere with his morning snuggles. It’s literally been our schtick, since I got him as a half pound kitten.

On another early day in our marriage, Jake started to get up from the couch, putting on his Crocs.

Me: “Where are you going?”
Jake: “Nowhere… just to get a drink.”
Me: “You put shoes on to get a drink?”
Jake: “Yeah. I don’t want to walk around barefoot.”

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What I didn’t realize, is that Jake cannot stand the thought of walking anywhere barefoot. I’m not sure if I even wore shoes for the first ten years of my life. I’d go so far as to state that it’s a societal norm, in the mild temperatures of the south, to walk around barefoot, any time doing so is not prohibited by policy or law. Just last week, I climbed a chain link fence barefoot, which I 0/10 do not recommend. It is bizarre to me, that a man who has had his entire arm in a cow’s vagina, cannot handle the thought of walking to the kitchen sink, without having his feet protected.

They say you never truly know a person until you’ve lived with them, often claiming this supports the idea that you must cohabitate prior to marriage. I’ve always disagreed with this insistence, feeling that two mature adults can be honest enough with each other, to reveal any genuine deal breakers, without living together. If it’s the little things that might do you in, like the way she eats her breakfast around the cat or the way he wears Crocs at all times, then you’re probably not ready for marriage, anyway.

After two years of marriage, I stand by this. Jake and I represented ourselves quite authentically, in our year and a half of dating, prior to engagement. We knew each other’s goals and visions of the future, religious and political worldviews, and financial and personal wellness habits. We might not have known all of the quirks, but we knew each other. Still, as we celebrate our wedding anniversary, I must admit that the last two years have been vitally important, as we’ve gotten to know each other even more.

We know how to fight.

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Goodness do we. Y’all, Jake is my best friend in the whole world. Incidentally, he’s also capable of pissing me off more than anyone in the whole world. In the last two years, we’ve gone a few rounds… over life changing things, like buying a home and a car… and over stupid things, like who ate all the Miracle Whip (spoiler alert: him) and whether or not we really needed more candy (spoiler alert: yes).

Whereas Jake is definitely the more prideful of the two of us, I just might be the more stubborn, which has, admittedly, led to some pretty epic standoffs. As a result, we’ve discovered how to fight in the most effective, and least harmful, ways. I, personally, have learned how to explain, in a more timely and collected manner, why I’m actually upset… which is almost never the reason Jake assumes. On his part, Jake understands that I’m not likely to dig in my heels over something frivolous. His pride deflates more quickly these days. He’s better at listening overall, and quicker to apologize. As a result, I’m less likely to make it to irrational and tearfully explosive.

Before I met Jake, I worried that I’d have a bigger personality than anyone I married. I feared I’d be left to make all of the decisions, discipline the children, act as the primary authority and intelligence in my family. That sounded exhausting. What is the point of having a partner who needs his hand held through every moment of the day? Jake harbored similar worries, until he met me. We both have pretty big personalities and, therefore, may have a lifetime of brawls ahead of us… but we’ll never have to worry that we haven’t met our match.

We know how to comfort.

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I’m not great with tears. I used to joke that Spock was the perfect man, completely logical and entirely emotionless; that Louis, from Interview with a Vampire, was a close second, because he only cried one tear every thousand years. It’s not sexist. I can’t handle a woman’s tears, either. In fact, I am at a loss for how to comfort anyone who’s crying; and it is an absolute double standard, because as I get older, I cry all the damned time.

In this way, Jake and I were made for each other, because my husband has not cried since he lost a football game over 15 years ago. A coworker once blamed his “toxic masculinity,” but no one ever told Jake that boys couldn’t/didn’t cry. He was never punished or mocked for it. I’ve seen other men in his family cry, with zero criticism. It’s just as sexist to claim that a man has to cry, to avoid being labeled toxic, as it is to say he can’t cry, when women are allowed to cope with their emotions however they see fit. In general, the men in Jake’s life just work their frustrations out via ranch chores, because there are always plenty to do. When Jake is upset, he works in the yard, because that’s what he knows, what makes sense to him, and what actually makes him feel better. I’ve learned to leave him to it. When he comes inside, I’ll cuddle with him quietly, but I don’t insist he copes in a way that makes sense to me, because it’s not about me.

As willing as I am to cry around Jake, I’m only willing to cry around Jake. When Rupert escaped, a few weeks after I got him, I had to leave work early. My coworkers were just so compassionate and sympathetic, that I couldn’t get any work done and I refused to break down. When I nearly cut off the end of my thumb with the guillotine cutter, I didn’t shed a single tear until Jake and I were on the way to the clinic. If it’s just Jake and I, I’ll cry because I just read the scene where the dog died, but if anyone but my husband is around, I’m pretty sure I cry sand. Jake is the only person I want, when I’m hurt or upset… and he is surprisingly good with my tears, no matter the cause. Throughout this past weekend, as we celebrated our anniversary, I periodically broke dow, over the teen I lost to suicide. Each time, Jake just held me, until my crying jag passed.

I recently told Jake that I didn’t call him about something that had upset me, because we’d had some silly argument the previous night. Growing up, my parents were both the people who would declare “I thought you didn’t want to talk to me” in such a situation. Jake reassured me that, no matter what ridiculous quarrel we were having, I could always call him crying, because he knows he’s the only one I want… even though providing comfort over the phone seems to be his emotional Kryptonite, because he has no idea what to say. Maybe that’s one for the next two years.

We know how to share space.

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I admit it. Living together has as a learning curve and I’d say one of my biggest struggles has been with the fact that human bodies are disgusting, something Jake doesn’t struggle with at all. This was best evidenced by that time I failed to mention I might have food poisoning, because we had free tickets to the amusement park, a few months into our marriage. Jake seemed to catch on, however, when I projectile vomited all over myself, on the way home.

Me: ::crying::
Jake: “Do you really feel that bad?”
Me: “Yes… but I’m so embarrassed.”
Jake: “Why are you embarrassed?”
Me: “It’s just so gross! I’m disgusting! Just leave me on the side of the road to die!”

I have never felt worse in my life and at no point, was Jake ever disgusted with me; a sentiment I can’t say I’ve always had the grace and selflessness to return. It wasn’t just the night that Jake got sick and called for an extra pair of underwear from the bathroom. No, people are just gross. Jake is admittedly better than many, but while there might not be pee on my bathroom floor, there are certainly red beard hairs all over my sink. While he doesn’t intentionally do crass bodily things, we’ve had repeated arguments about how often a grown man should clip his toenails, because I have to share a bed with him.

Me: “You’re going to cut my femoral artery in the night. I’ll bleed out right next to you and you won’t even realize it, until it’s too late.”
Jake: “I can’t cut them. What if I need to climb a tree or catch fish from a stream?”

Sharing space hasn’t been as much of a struggle for Jake as sharing in general. Early in our marriage, there never seemed to be much time to stop and talk with my Gramma for a few hours, on the way home from an entire weekend with Jake’s family. There was always time and energy for video games and the movies and shows Jake liked, but the reserves were tapped, when it was my turn to choose an activity. Financially, there always seemed to be enough money for a bottle of whiskey on the weekend, but strangely, things were tight when I wanted to buy a new cardigan. What was Jake’s was mine, when it came to household chores, but not so much when it came to peanut butter, cottage cheese, apples, and chips.

In the past two years, we’ve learned to choose our battles. I’ve made great strides in overcoming my aversion to the human body and Jake has made an effort to watch more Belle Movies and go on walks before losing himself in a video game. Jake buys discount whiskey and I buy discount cardigans. I still feel lucky if I get any peanut butter, though. It’s like living with a human tapeworm.

We’re growing and changing together.

It’s only been two years and Jake and I are already different people than the day we married. On Jake’s part, he’s more considerate to other people, more religious, a better listener. On mine, I’m more careful with other people’s feelings, more family oriented in my career goals, and a better communicator. We’ve changed, but we’ve checked in with each other, as we’ve done so. When Jake wanted to invest a portion of his IRA, he discussed it with me, before making a decision. When we started thinking about children, we set a timeline and followed up. When I started thinking about a career change, I began talking over the family benefits and financial implications with Jake.

Looking back over the last two years, I’ve never been happier that Jake left oil when he did, because these years without children won’t come around again. These chances to improve ourselves for each other will be harder to come by as time passes. The habits and relationship dynamics we create now, set the foundation for our marriage. These have been two vitally important years.

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Holiday Social Contracts: Landmines for the People Who Would Rather Be Reading

Posted on November 21, 2018 by Belle of the Library

Every New Year’s Eve

Jake: “What do you wanna watch?”
Me: “We could watch Rudolph’s Shiny New Year.”
Jake: “I thought we were done with Christmas movies.”
Me: “That’s not a Christmas movie. It’s a New Years movie… and in seven months, we can watch Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July.”

Y’all, I love the holidays. I don’t mean that the way normal people do, either. I mean aggressively so. I love the decorations, the music, the holiday movies and episodes of my favorite TV shows. I watch and sing along to The Worst Witch and Hocus Pocus on repeat, starting in late September. I love the garishly themed jewelry and t-shirts and hats that are suddenly acceptable on October first, but I pull them out a week early, regardless.

One of the major concessions of my marriage involved selling my six foot tall hot pink Christmas tree and decor that looked like it was stolen from the set of Babes in Toyland. No one will ever convince me that red and green M&M’s, Reese’s Bells, and Christmas Crunch cereal don’t taste better. I love the holidays so much, that I have to fight getting depressed halfway through, because they’re almost over.

I will, however, admit that there is one aspect of the holiday season I loathe entirely…

… and that is the minefield of social contracts.

In my field, anyone who doesn’t consider themselves to be entirely crippled by their own introversion, is labeled an extrovert. This somewhat skewed view means that many of my coworkers consider me to be quite the social butterfly, due to my comfort level socializing with all eleven of them. They’re not entirely wrong, either. I quite enjoy my job. I spend each day with the same handful of people, whose personal stories and worldviews and interests I’ve come to know and respect. I have numerous casual interactions with customers that rarely go deeper than a reader’s advisory discussion on the abusive relationship dynamics present in Nicholas Sparks’ novels. I see the same teenagers at each program, where we discuss who would win in a battle, Doctor Who or The Hulk. Overall, as someone who always scores on the cusp of extroversion and/or introversion, I get exactly the right amount of stimulation in my position… now.

When I first started at the Cherokee Library, I was completely overwhelmed, socially. I didn’t know my coworkers’ backgrounds, religious views, entertainment interests, political affiliations, or tastes in music. If I mentioned my desire to buy a house near the local Catholic school, so I could send my kids there, would I appear judgmental to the nonbeliever? If I told my coworkers I couldn’t handle the ALA Think Tank Facebook group, because of their political hostility, would they shun me for my less liberal viewpoint? If I casually suggested that Taylor Swift lacked depth, would I devastate her biggest fan by inadvertently calling him shallow? Every night, I went home and turned over literally every interaction in my mind, wondering if I’d said the right thing, left the correct impression, presented myself accurately. It wasn’t just that I wanted to be well liked, but properly understood. It was fine with me if someone didn’t like me, as long as they didn’t like me for reasons that were valid. While taking on the new title of Teen Librarian was daunting, the social implications of starting at a new library again, left me emotionally spent. It’s been about a year and half now and I’m finally in my element, because I see these people literally every day. In short… extrovert my ass.

So, while I love, love, love the holidays, I think I’ve finally realized that what I truly enjoy is the build up. I love sitting at home, reciting every word to Hocus Pocus, with the cat. I love watching Thanksgiving episodes of How I Met Your Mother, on my tablet, while Jake plays video games. I love listening to Christmas carols on the Google Home, while making peanut brittle in my kitchen. I love showing pictures of my Christmas decorations to my coworkers, and oohing and ahhing over photos of their pets in reindeer antlers. I love driving through Christmas lights with my husband and choosing a real tree together. What I really love is sprinkling the everyday, homebody familiar, with bright colors and lights and glitter and festivity. The grand finale, though? That stresses me the fuck out, primarily due to the aforementioned endless mandatory social contracts, such as…

Bringing a Dish

On December 22 of last year, I burst into tears when my three-ingredient peanut butter cookies tasted exactly like three-ingredient peanut butter cookies, and angrily tossed them in the trash.

Jake: “They’re fine. Why don’t you just make another batch and cook them less?”
Me: “Because they aren’t good and all the women in your family will be judging me on what I bring. If I take those after taking Oreo balls to Thanksgiving, they’ll all think I can’t cook.”
Jake: “What was wrong with the Oreo balls?”
Me: “They were a no-bake dessert. They’ll think I’m a just a Pinterest cook and they’ll all hate me, because I can’t make cookies!”

Of course, in the end, there were plenty of desserts, too many in fact, which I knew would be the case, but social norms required I bring something.

Being in Someone Else’s Home

Why do I have to offer to help my mother-in-law in the kitchen, when we both know there’s nothing for me to do and little space in which for me to do it? Why does she have to stop what she’s doing to pretend I’m useful and let me spoon butter she’s already melted onto biscuits she’s already made?

Why is there only bar soap in the bathroom? How many people have used this hand towel? How obvious is it that I dried my hands on the bottoms of my jeans? Will I look rude/weird if I get out my antibacterializer?

If I don’t eat these “appetizers”, am I going to hurt someone’s feelings? Can you call a bar full of cheese an appetizer? Literally, there’s queso, next to a plate full of cream cheese with cranberry sauce, two cheese balls, and a plate of sliced cheese. If I eat this, I won’t poop until Christmas.

Where do I sit? I like the chair that doesn’t require me to sit next to anyone else, but is there some unspoken familial claim to this chair? Am I in Uncle Buck’s Chair? Okay, I’ll sit on the couch by the arm and Jake can sit next to me. Why doesn’t he ever sit down? He’s been pacing for the last 30 minutes. I’m like 80% sure he’s forgotten I’m here. Wait. Is anyone else sitting down? Should I be standing? But… I don’t want to lose my couch corner.

Gift Giving

Zetus lapetus, y’all, I do not get gift giving. I’m 31 years old. I make $50,000 a year, in one of the cheapest states in the country. If I want something, I can buy it. If I can’t, no one else can, either. So what is the damn point of gift giving? Why do I have to spend $20 to buy a gift for someone that they might like, just so they can spend $20 to buy a gift for me that I, quite frankly, probably won’t like, and pretend that we’ve done some sort of charitable service, when both of us had $20 to spare in the first place? A couple of greedy, materialistic, little bitches trading twenties is, in no way, symbolic of the gifts the wise men brought to baby Jesus. If anything, we should just all donate that $20 to give Christmas to a family down on their luck or buy toys for children with incarcerated parents or purchase a goat for a family in a third world country or literally any better cause. If I want to do those things, though, it has to be in addition to trading twenties, which just makes the holidays more costly and stressful. I can sort of understand close family trading gifts, knowing the recipients will enjoy them, but why, oh why do the women in my family draw names for each other’s children and trade advice on what to buy them, when they could just all spend money on their own children, whose interests and wants they already know?!?!

Don’t even get me started on Dirty Santa, where I’m supposed to spend $40 on a gift for no one, so I can stress myself out by over-analyzing the social etiquette of stealing home decor from my mother-in-law or leave in frustration when I contribute a gift I kind of like and open a bowl of decorative wicker balls and a diabetic cookbook. If I refuse to play, I’m anti-social and if I bring a gift I’d truly enjoy, I’m the weird one who brought the Spock Bluetooth speaker to Christmas. If we must all leave with gifts, why can’t we each spend $40 on something for ourselves and open them in a big circle with genuine delight? I don’t understand.

Talking to Children

I’m a woman and a librarian, so it’s just assumed that I like children. I don’t. I don’t like babies. They’re fragile and they’re always leaking and it’s inevitable that they’ll start screaming like a newborn banshee and I won’t be able to find the mother. I don’t like little kids. I don’t have the patience or the sense of humor for them. Why are you still telling me this story that I think is about Spongebob? Why did you choose me to tell? Am I sending off pro-child vibes, because I work very hard to maintain subtle anti-child vibes. Why are you making that face? Was I not supposed to ask that? Fuck, don’t cry and get me in trouble.

Give me tweens and teens any day, but the holidays inevitably mean someone will leave me alone with a small child and I will make them cry or tell them something I shouldn’t. Someone will ask when I’m having children and I’ll either sputter through an awkward, but appropriate, answer or make a wildly inappropriate joke about how I can’t get pregnant the way we do it. The build up to the holidays does not necessarily mean associating with children, but the holidays themselves are crawling with them. Yes, yes, Jake and I are planning on having our own children soon, but that’s different, because it has to be or no one would procreate. I’ll figure out children when I must.

Talking to Adults

I love my family. I do… but we do not get each other. I don’t mean that in some sort of coming of age drama way, either. We’re just very different people; or rather, they’re all the same people and I’m very different. My aunts, uncles, and cousins love body humor, the occasional racist joke, maybe something about killing a cat and I just don’t get it.

Jake: ::talking about our Christmas tree:: “When we get home, I’ll take it in the back.”
Me: ::giggling uncontrollably::

Jake jokes that I’m randomly an 8th grade boy sometimes, likely because I spend so much time with 8th grade boys, but the humor is all relatively innocent and is very rarely gross or cruel. I don’t understand why poop is funny and I understand even less why comparing our former president to a monkey is funny. I was genuinely horrified to hear my dad’s cousin giggle over the news story of the teenage boys who were arrested for sexually assaulting their teammate with a pool cue, last year, because apparently rape by instrumentation is funny if it’s done to a boy. Fortunately, my public school administrator uncle was just as appalled and I wasn’t the only one seemingly lacking a sense of humor. My humor is very dry and my family rarely even gets that I’m joking. When it’s not, it’s usually comprised of dorky and innocent puns, which they also don’t appreciate.

These people frequently tell me that they can’t have a conversation with me, because I’m too smart… which they think is a compliment. Conversationally, I’m just extremely intellectually curious. I like to theorize about the average age of parents who shake their babies, the effect of commonplace Photoshop on the children we’re “fixing” when they become adults, how technology is contributing to pornography addiction in teens and apparently, none of this is Christmas talk. I have one or two cousins who seemingly enjoy these discussions, but we’re not the norm. Even my fashion sense is completely off base. They’re Miranda Lambert to my Zooey Deschanel. They wear National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation t-shirts, while I bite my tongue about how much I hate that movie, in my giant hand-crocheted Christmas tree hat and my Meowy Christmas cat shirt. None of us is wrong. We just don’t really fit… and also, they’re wrong and that movie is stupid.

Jake’s family has been nothing but kind to me, but if I thought I don’t fit with my family, goodness I have no idea how to talk to those people. Last December 23rd, at his big family Christmas, Jake must have pulled me aside three different times to ask if I was okay, because I’d hardly said anything, but it was just so much people and we have nothing in common. I don’t have kids. I don’t understand the appeal of rodeo. I’ve never castrated a bull. I don’t want to look at the dead mountain lion in my brother-in-law’s truck. I don’t fry stuff. I am so not playing in the family Thanksgiving basketball game, because that sounds like literal Hell.I will get yelled at and have an asthma attack and/or break a bone.What the fuck am I supposed to say to these people?!?! Trust me, baby, you want me to keep my mouth shut this year, because if pressed, I will randomly start talking about the lack of diversity in the Harry Potter books or why marijuana is not a gateway drug and the benefits of legalization. Just let me be a mystery, dude. Jake, of course, being the most extroverted person on the planet, fits in everywhere.

Me: “I wish I fit in with your family as well as you fit in with my family… actually I wish I fit in with my family and much as you fit in with my family.”

Elf on the Shelf and Santa Claus

I have always hated Elf on the Shelf. At best, it was a brilliant marketing ploy, by its creator, who has sold over 11 million book and doll sets, which doesn’t even account for the new line of accessories.* For most people, however, it’s a slightly creepy self-imposed chore of a tradition, which many parents regret ever starting. I knew, when it became popular, that I wouldn’t be purchasing an Elf for my own children. I’m even more certain of that fact 13 years later, as I watch my family and friends scramble around to perform for their children nightly, for the duration of a season that’s supposed to already be plenty magical by nature. Speaking of which…

I used to be one of the masses, the people who thought parents who didn’t play Santa were ridiculous and depriving their children of the magic of Christmas, but as time has gone by, I don’t really understand why we do this. If you’re a religious person, as I am, then why do you need to add magic to the season with a cartoon character? Yes, yes, Saint Nicholas was a real guy, but the modern depiction of Santa Claus no more resembles Saint Nicholas than Disney’s Pocahontas does the historical woman. We’re not honoring a Saint, anymore… and quite frankly, Protestants never were, because they don’t acknowledge sainthood. We’re revering a caricature, who often overshadows the true Christian value of the season, ironically through the very un-Christ-like means of greed and materialism. If you’re specifically nonreligious, shouldn’t you be opposed to such fairy tales? Isn’t that one of the primary principles of Atheism, that one shouldn’t have faith in what cannot be seen or proven? Doesn’t the modern Santa Claus directly defy both of these belief systems? Isn’t this entirely appropriate conversation for Christmas dinner?!?! Can I please just go home and only talk to my husband and my pets now?!?!

Sources
https://www.today.com/series/holidays-made-easy/elf-shelf-turns-10-secret-history-santa-s-little-scout-t62531

The Beginning of Things

Posted on October 25, 2018 by Belle of the Library

For my entire life, I’ve struggled to live in the moment. On my first day of kindergarten, I was disappointed, because I didn’t have a desk like the big kids. I couldn’t take my lunch to school. I was only able to go for a half day. I couldn’t grow up fast enough. At nine years old, I longed to be a teenager, look exactly like Kelly Kapowski, hang out at swanky diners after school, and have popular boys fighting over me. Spoiler alert: none of that ever happened and I watched way too much T.V.

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By the seventh grade, I was counting down the days until graduation, eager to start my life. I couldn’t wait to go to college, live in a dorm, make a thousand friends, and be appreciated for my intellect. Spoiler alert: none of that ever happened and I watched way too much T.V.

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Just after high school, I was desperate for my life to come together, when I would have the money for the things I needed and a few of the things I wanted, with just enough set aside to cover an emergency. It would all be okay, if I could just get my bachelor’s degree… a teaching job… my master’s degree… a librarian position… full time… meet a good man…

There’s a marketing term, I read about in a college textbook that I can’t find much evidence of online: nexting. It described the concept of wanting the next big thing, finally getting it, and instead of feeling enjoyment, eyeing the next big thing. My favorite Don Draper quote sums it up nicely: “… what is happiness? It’s a moment before you need more happiness.”

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At some point, in my mid-twenties, I realized that I was wasting my life wanting. A survival tactic at 21, my tendency to look toward the future was causing me to miss an equally valid and valuable stage of life. I couldn’t see the trees for the forest. So, I began to make a conscious effort to enjoy what I had, while I had it. I decorated my hot pink Christmas tree every year and yarn bombed the living room making handmade gifts. I watched marathons of teen shows and had midnight dance parties with the dog. I went on dates and took myself to movies and dinner alone. Now that that time in my life has passed, I’m glad I enjoyed it. I just sold that Christmas tree, in favor of new traditions, because never again will I be 25-years-old and single. I’m proud of myself for realizing that and refusing to spend that time longing for marriage and children. It was always an effort, though, not to default toward the future.

By Southern standards, I got started a little late on this whole adulthood thing, which means that, at 31, I am still in the most glorious phase of my life: the beginning of things. This is when it really gets good. Jake and I just bought our house and have paid off a substantial amount of debt. I’m at a wonderful place in my career and have built strong relationships with coworkers and customers, teens and their parents. I’m still reasonably young, healthy, and fit and have yet to struggle with any downsides of getting older. I’m truly in the prime of my life, the point people most long for in their golden years, as is evidenced by literally every conversation I have with my Gramma, about children.

Gramma: “You guys have some really fun years ahead of you. I miss that time the most, when you kids were little.”

Now, I suppose, at 84, it’s normal to spend the majority of your time reminiscing, so I won’t fault my grandmother for it. Lately, however, this seems to be the prevailing thought process for most adults, Gen X and Millennials, as well: to long for the beginning of things, despite the fact that we haven’t even hit our midpoint. As a teen librarian, I frequently speak to kids whose once doting forty-something parents, have obviously lost interest in them, now that they’re less adorable and more opinionated. As I enter my thirties, I hear more and more tales of seemingly frivolous divorces, requested by men and women who long for the younger and freer days of only 10 or 15 years ago. Our youth obsessed culture seems to suffer from the opposite problem I’ve struggled with my entire life: they look perpetually to the past, forgetting that the present and the future comprise some of the most exciting years of their lives.

My twenties were great, y’all… but I can’t recapture that. I’m a married, 31-year-old, home owning librarian, planning for motherhood and there’s not a DeLorean in sight. I cannot go back, but more importantly, I don’t want to go back. This is what I’ve been waiting for and for the first time in my life, it’s not such a hardship to live in the moment.

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That girl, the one who thinks five years into the future, is still here, but her voice is a lot quieter, as she makes financial arrangements to afford Catholic school tuition, instead of panicking at the idea that her life will never start. I no longer have to look to the future as an escape, only as the adventure I always envisioned. I am so excited to have babies to snuggle, toddlers to chase around, school age children to accompany on field trips, teenagers to love unconditionally as we scream at each other, and finally, adult children to support and even befriend. I can’t wait to be married to Jake, my best friend in the whole world, for five years, ten years, fifty years. I’m excited to save money, build equity in our home, start a family, go on rare date nights, take the kids to Disney World, and see my children graduate school, start careers and have families of their own.

No stage of life is better or more valid than any other, be that dating in my twenties or motherhood or adjusting to my eventual empty nest. Just as I fought to enjoy my twenties while I had them, I’m going to fight for every other stage of life, because longing for another time in life, in either direction, will only feed a vicious cycle, in which I miss the most important time: now. We have it all wrong, as Americans. The best time in life isn’t when we’re young, fit, and free. It’s this moment, right here, and if you’re longing for the beginning of things, you’re missing it.

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What No One Tells You About Being a Grownup

Posted on June 29, 2018 by Belle of the Library

I’m not sure when it happened, y’all. Was it my master’s degree, a full time job, health insurance, marriage, turning 30, buying a house? Maybe it was the combination of all of the above, but I recently realized that for the first time in my life, I feel like a grownup.

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I waited for this epiphany for the entirety of my twenties and was ultimately convinced that the concept of “adulthood” was, like the horizon, an imaginary line that recedes as you near it. For me, it wasn’t just about self-sufficiency, but generally just having my life together. I didn’t just want to be able to work and pay my bills. I wanted to build something, a career, savings, a family. Perhaps because millennials openly abhor adulthood, the concept had begun to feel like a fantasy. Then, after Jake and I bought our house, life began to settle and the topic of children came up again, as it does from time to time, more so lately. Out of habit, I defaulted to my usual internal monologue of “Kids? I can barely take care of myself right… wait.”

Zetus lapetus, y’all, that’s not true anymore! It is a rare day when I feel like I need to get a more grownup grownup to handle my problems! For years, my dad and I have had an unspoken agreement that if I called crying, he’d give me money, as long as I didn’t abuse the privilege or require… you know, emotional support, because that’s awkward and messy. It’s been almost three years since I’ve had to play that card! It’s real you guys! That magical place called adulthood actually exists… and here are some of the things that no one ever told me about living in this fantasy world.

My tastes have changed.

As a kid, I hated avocado. It’s now a weekly staple. While I’m still not the biggest pasta person, I can appreciate a cup of Ramen, where once it tasted like nothing, as long as it’s the spicy kind… even though I could barely handle cinnamon gum 10 years ago. I enjoy fancy teas and black coffee. I like sappy romance movies and the occasional Hallmark channel and Lifetime shows. A registered Democrat at 21, my political views have drastically shifted, as have my religious views and my thoughts on various social issues. Whereas once, I thought my tastes were an integral part of me, I now know they’re ever changing and I’ll never stop trying new things.

My financial outlook has morphed.

Once upon a time, I joked that I’d know I arrived when I could afford to buy my panties by the pair, instead of by the package. Well folks, that day has come… and I’m still wearing Hanes. At 24, with a pantry full of generic Spaghetti O’s, a hatchback that rattled like a can full of bolts, and my favorite dress from Goodwill, I felt like security meant stuff. If I could buy the things, it meant I could pay the bills. Now, as a real live grownup, I still buy generic. I still buy in multi-packs. I still shop at Aldi and Ross. I eat at home, almost never eating out and when I mentioned that to my family recently, they thought it meant I had money troubles. On the contrary, because we’re frugal, we know we can afford our mortgage, build an emergency savings, pay off our zero interest credit card before the deadline. Where once I thought having “arrived” meant you could see it from the car I drive, I now know that I can feel it in the lack of car payment.

Being too ambitious is a thing.

I’ve had some miserable years in my adult life, and I won’t begin to pretend that my year in management was one of them, but fuuuuuuuck, I hated it. Desperately needing full time, I was so excited to take on a position described as 80% librarian, 20% supervisor, only to realize that it was, in fact, more like 80% librarian and 100% supervisor. While I love the idea of building people up, making them better at their jobs, serving the community in a more profound way, I cannot tell grownups to do the base level requirements of their jobs, on a daily basis. The entirety of my life as a supervisory librarian was meetings about meetings. It was explaining to 25-year-old pages that they had to show up when scheduled and couldn’t wear their jammies to work. It was listening to my boss, Brett, quote managerial podcasts about labeling employees to better “handle” them. It was supporting policies I didn’t agree with to my direct reports, to prevent complete and utter anarchy. It was crying in my living room, because I hated my job and I went to school for seven years to do so. It was sheer envy toward the teen librarian who got to do what I’d always wanted to do, when I thought that ship had sailed.

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Stepping down from my management position was one of the hardest decisions of my professional life. I was told by people below me, above me, and laterally that I was great at it. The director himself told me he didn’t want me to step down, that he wanted me to run my own library one day. Even I knew that I was a force for good, in it for the right reasons, eager to treat people like humans, instead of going by some new managerial standard, be it True Colors or Strengths Finder. People need that in management. But I needed something else. I needed to be happy in my career. I needed to feel like I was changing the world, not just talking about changing the world. I was shocked to realize that upward momentum was not the only golden ticket. I could be amazing at a mid-level job… and I could be a lot happier.

My social life has been consolidated.

I used to be quite the social butterfly, even if it were in an introverted sense, via social networking. I knew everything about everyone, was hip to all the gossip. I would spend hours chatting with random people from high school, via messenger, and even met up with them in person a few times, just to catch up. I had acquaintances, work friends, and close friends. I was immediately available to every single one of them, too… until the day I realized how exhausting it had become. What had, at one time, fueled my extrovert side, was wearing me out. I realized that I didn’t have the energy to keep up with my marriage, family, work relationships, and the other connections in my life that mattered, if I was constantly stressed out about what some friend from high school thought of me, what my extended family was saying about me at the family party I couldn’t attend, whether or not people found my Facebook posts funny or my arguments intelligent.

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Today, my world is much smaller. I keep my friends local, preferably limited to people I know through work or church, so we have built in opportunities to spend time together and easy conversation topics. Instead of chasing relationships I should have let go of long ago, I’m building bonds with my step-siblings and Jake’s family. My marriage is stronger, since I’m not constantly checking my phone for a message from that girl from elementary school who’s a foster mom now and the friend from 11th grade who’s in a poly relationship. I talk to and connect with my husband more, sharing my stories with him instead of the world… and it doesn’t make me less interesting or dynamic. It just makes me more energized and happier.

My timeline changed drastically.

Y’all, sixteen-year-old Belle would be devastated to hear that 30-year-old Belle doesn’t have kids yet. She wouldn’t even be satisfied with new kids, but would expect, like, school age children, because in the South, that’s what you do. You get married at 22, buy a “starter home” that you still can’t afford, and have all your babies by 26. Your husband ultimately goes into oil to keep up with this lifestyle, as you both begin to realize what you missed around the time you turn 30. You give it another five years before you file for divorce, just as your children are entering their teen years and need you the most. If they’re lucky, they have a public library within walking distance, staffed by a teen librarian willing to give them hugs and hear about their problems, because you’re all selfish assholes.

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If the latter doesn’t happen, the former is still tradition around here. You marry before 25 or you’re breaking the mold and no one knows what to say to you at Christmas. Even when I divorced, feeling as though I were too old to start over (at twenty-fucking-three, mind you), I assumed I’d be working full time in the next year or so, fall in love, and be engaged or married again by 26. What no one told me, however, is that growing up is a marathon, not a sprint. None of the people in the above scenario were any more advanced than I. Most of them were just more comfortable with their place on the conveyor belt, taking on roles before they were ready, often with the wrong people. If you think I’m jaded, just look at where we rank in divorce statistics.

I didn’t just press the reset button on my relationships at 23. After finishing my degree in education, I started at the bottom in an unrelated field, embarking on an additional three years of schooling to advance. Ultimately, at 25, I was where my high school classmates had been three years earlier; in my career, my financial standing, and my personal life… and that was okay. More than okay, actually, it was fantastic. I had a great time in my twenties and, as I’ve mentioned before, I still enjoy recapturing those days when Jake’s gone for a weekend. Now, at 30, I’m exactly where I always wanted to be. I just took the scenic route and now I’ll always have those memories. I’ll know what the grass looks like on the other side, because I took the time to visit it when I was supposed to and I’ll be able to truly enjoy my future adventures, knowing I didn’t give up my past ones to have them earlier.

My limits for my future aren’t as firmly set.

On our third date, I told Jake I was never leaving the Metro, in part because libraries are such a volatile field. Depending on their funding model, many libraries are cutting staff, hiring only part time, even closing their doors. I was very clear that I’d never give up my place in such a strong library system once I got full time and that’s still true… mostly.

I never thought I’d love someone enough to consider leaving my home, my family, my career… and then there was Jake. We’ve been married for one year now and I’ve realized that, if it would make him truly happy, I would be willing to discuss moving to his home state to run the family ranch. It would completely uproot my life, require home schooling our children and only allow for a part-time job, if that. I’d be hours from my family and friends and I’d have to watch animals die on the regular. Even six months in, my response to this scenario would’ve been “no fucking way”…. but now we’re married and I’d be willing to have that conversation.

I am still me, but we’re also we, and I’m willing to consider sacrifices I never thought I’d make. Jake left oil for me, paid off many of my debts, lives much closer to the city than I think he would on his own, and I realize that it’s not just about me anymore and my plans are a bit more fluid than they were five years ago. It seems, there might be many more things I haven’t discovered about being a grownup.

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Belle of the Library

… the musings of a thirty-something, married, Southern teen librarian turned Stay-At-Home-Mom with a 14-year-old's sense of humor, an awkward spirit, and a stubborn, mouthy, redheaded country boy to accompany her through life.

Category Archives: Relationships

Five Reasons I Skipped Your Christmas Party

How Luck Prepared Us for Disaster

What I Love About Jake

Belle of 2030

Acting Twenty-Something With My Husband

Between Marriage and Motherhood

Two Vitally Important Years

The Beginning of Things

What No One Tells You About Being a Grownup

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