Was It Worth It?

Our first anniversary is fast approaching, and as it does, I reflect upon the experience and upon a simple question that I have been asked.

Was it worth it?

As you've probably figured out from all of my complaining, this wedding was a pretty stressful experience for me.  I put a ton of work into it, and for the last two months, I didn't sleep, I lost weight, I was constantly thinking and worrying about it, trying to get it all together the way we envisioned it.  Several people have asked me whether it was all worth it, whether I'm glad I sacrificed all those hours to create the wedding I wanted, the wedding we wanted.  Well, now that it's been almost a year, I've had enough time to reflect and produce an answer.

The short answer is that nothing is ever worth putting yourself through that kind of stress.  But that's more of a problem with me than anything to do with the wedding.  I get stressed out easily and often for things that aren't really worth it.  I also get stressed out intensely for things that I care about, and for something that lasts as long as planning a wedding, it's even more brutal because the end is such a long time coming.  AND you have to enjoy it when it gets there which just adds to the pressure.

So you see the problem in the way that I think.  I've been fighting the stress monster for a long time, and no matter what kind of wedding we had, that was going to be an issue.  But if I was going to do it again--and I so dearly hope I'll never need to--I'd try to be more relaxed about it, both the planning process and our plans themselves.  Then again, I've already had the wedding I wanted, so it wouldn't be such a burden to do it again...and so lies the problem with weddings; they only happen once.

But my problems were always going to be my problems.  Whether I should have worked harder to abait them does not necessarily tell us whether the wedding we had was worth all that went into it because those problems would have been there for any wedding I had.  There is a greater question to answer here:  was the work I (and I say I instead of we not because we didn't put in a lot of work but because Daniel doesn't need to dwell on this question) put into the wedding worth the result?

That answer is much more complicated.  Obviously, stress is a pretty strong deterring factor here, but it's not the only factor.  I spent hours and hours planning and preparing this wedding, hours of research, hours of projects, hours that could have been spent on more enjoyable endeavors.  Then there's the money factor too.  We didn't spend a ton of our personal money on the wedding, but $5,000 is still a lot when you're not making much.  And of course we made our friends put in time and money as well.  Was it all really worth it?

I think most of my friends and family will be surprised to hear that I think it was.

Yes, it was stressful and time-consuming, but the result was the best party I've ever been to, and we loved it.  While it wasn't perfect, nothing went terribly wrong, and that was largely due to my strenuous logistical planning.  While there were things we didn't have and things we would have liked if we could afford them, I don't think there's any object or piece of decor that we felt was missing or inadequate.  The wedding looked and felt very much the way we wanted it to.  Everything ran fairly smoothly, and the things that did go wrong probably could never have been avoided.

When it comes down to it, we never could have had the wedding we wanted without all of the planning and time we put into it.  If I did have to do it again, I wouldn't feel like I was making up for anything significant because we couldn't afford it or didn't have time for it the first time around.  When I think back on my wedding day, I think of it as one of the best days of my life.  Not the best, but it's definitely up there.

That's important to me.  Being not only happy but also satisfied about the way it turned out, that makes it all worth it for me.

So the long, emotional, and complicated answer is "Yes, it was worth it."  The planning sucked at the end, the stress was awful, but at the end of the day, it was only bad for two months.  I will look happily upon my wedding day for the rest of my life.

The Final Countdown: Wednesday, or Meanwhile...

While everyone else was working on our table name signs, I was working on ridding myself of the Worst Headache I Have Ever Had in My Life.  By Wednesday, I was getting really worried that my headache was not going away.  I had never had a headache that lasted more than 24 hours before, and entering the fourth day was pretty scary.  Something was wrong.  This couldn't just be from stress.

And so it was that I went to the doctor, and we figured out (with some help from Daniel's aunt who is also a doctor) that I had a menstrual headache.  Let me explain.  Ever since I had surgery to treat endometriosis, my period has been a little complicated.  The doctor wanted me to have as few periods as possible, so instead of having my period every month, I take birth control back to back so that I should have my period every three months.

But it doesn't really work out that way.  Thus far, it's been more like every one-and-a-half to two months before my body revolts and has a period anyway.  It's been pretty unreliable, but based on the length between periods I'd had thus far, it looked like I was going to start right around our wedding day and go through the first part of the honeymoon.

Obviously, I was not very happy about this, so I decided to do something about it.  I would just force my period to come the week before the wedding instead.  It had been so irregular that I figured this wouldn't be much of a problem.  What's a week out of two months when it's been jumping around anyway?

Yeah, I really didn't think there were going to be side effects, but apparently that's what caused my headache.  Both doctors were appalled that I would do something like this (which I still think is kind of weird.  Who wants to have their period on their wedding day?  Or honeymoon?), but even with the splitting headache that lasted for a week, I still don't regret it.  My period was so not something I wanted to deal with on my wedding day.

Anyway, I left the doctor with two choices:  one was an intense prescription that would get rid of the headache while trashing the rest of my body for days, the other was Excedrin Migraine.  You can probably guess which one I went for.  The Excedrin knocked out the headache, and while it continued to come back for the next few days, taking that was much better than facing the vomiting and fatigue that the other medication promised.

By Saturday, my headache was pretty much gone.  I took an Excedrin before the wedding just in case, but I didn't have any problems the day of.  Thank God!  I was pretty scared in the days before though.

Did you have any unexpected personal problems right before the wedding?

The Really Bad Stuff

Well, now that it's over I can FINALLY tell you about what happened 3 weeks before the wedding.

Daniel's mom has been having trouble for a long time.  She got laid off about a year-and-a-half ago and has barely worked since.  As her financial situation deteriorated, so did her mental state.  This wasn't exactly the start of it.  She's been a hoarder, the kind you see on Oprah and reality shows, for years, and it is my understanding that ever since she and Daniel's dad split up, she's had difficulty coping with, well, life.

But of course without any money, things became much worse.  Frankly, we have no idea how she's survived for so long without income, but suffice it to say that she's borrowed from everyone she knows, and everyone has given up on her except for Daniel.

When she told him that she was not coming to the wedding in early July, things began to change between them.  For the most part, Daniel has tried to placate her whenever they talk, trying to make her feel better about her situation, carefully choosing his words so as not to upset her.  It's exhausting and painful for me to watch; he's always upset after they talk.  But after hearing that his own mother did not want to attend his wedding, Daniel stopped trying to be nice to her and started actively trying to help her situation even though she fought him every step of the way.  He desperately wanted to get her in a mental position where she could come to the wedding, and failing that, wanted to at least get her on the road to recovery.

I was in Catalina, ready to be all relaxed and not thinking about the wedding or the other crap that was going on, when I got a phone call from Daniel.  His aunt had just received a call herself from the police department, saying that they had received an email from Daniel's mom saying that they would find a dead body in her house.  When they investigated (complete with SWAT team and helicopter), they found no one home.

Fortunately, her suicide attempt failed, and she had gone to stay with a friend.  When the police found her, they put her in the hospital.

Daniel immediately flew down to San Diego to help, and he and his aunt were able to keep his mom in the hospital for the weeks leading up to the wedding.  There was a lot more to it than that, but you don't really need to know about that.

Daniel didn't go back to work again until after we got back from our honeymoon.  Between trying to keep his mother alive, safe, and housed until we got back, trying to get things done for the wedding, and studying for the ethics exam he had to take a week before the wedding to get his BAR license, he didn't have time for his job.

It's hard to describe what this was like for me.  It was a million times worse for Daniel of course, and that was my main concern.  Above all, way above the wedding, I wanted to do what I could to be there for him.  But at the same time, I had already moved beyond stress and into the early stages of insanity about the wedding at this point.  It was really good that I was on vacation and didn't have so much as a computer with me when this happened, or I think my head would literally have exploded.  I'm also glad he did not take me up on coming down to help because I would not have gotten through the next 2 weeks without that break.

Daniel handled the situation extremely well.  His dad and I were both worried at first--Daniel often doesn't handle stress well--but we were both very impressive by how calm and focused he remained through it all.  At the end of the day, he was relieved that his mom was finally receiving help, and the relief overshadowed all of the other emotions he should have been feeling.  I'm amazed at how much he was able to do in such a short amount of time and that he did not let his mother's absence ruin the wedding.

For the most part, I think I handled it pretty well too.  There is no doubt that I had to shoulder an even greater part of the wedding planning burden because of it, and I made several comments I shouldn't have while trying to get through that, but on the whole, I think I was pretty supportive.  Though I must admit I'm very glad he didn't take me up on the offers I made to postpone the wedding.

But I will never forgive her for what she did to him.  Or me.  But mostly him.  I am far angrier with her than Daniel is.

I understand how much her situation sucks and why she would want to take her life as a result.  To be perfectly honest, the attempt did not surprise me though the timing did.  And if it had been after the wedding, I think I could have forgiven her eventually.  I would be sad that she did it and much sadder for how awful her death would be for Daniel, and I'm sure I would still be angry at her for doing that to him.  But in the end, I would understand why.

But the selfishness of doing it 3 weeks before her son's wedding I can never forgive.  I don't know if she thought about what her death would do to him, and I don't care.  If she was too stupid not to see how much that would affect him, then I cannot forgive the stupidity, and if she did think about it and did it anyway...I cannot describe the anger that boils inside me just thinking about it.  Daniel was already devastated that she wasn't coming to the wedding, and she knew that (or should have given the number of times he told her).  To think that she would upset her son that much more so close to his wedding is beyond my comprehension.

It's sad.  We could have had a good relationship once.  The thing about her is that she really is fun to be around when she's not freaking out.  I liked her for a long time.  Seeing what their conversations did to Daniel and trying to help the fallout pass when he got off the phone had already caused my opinion of her to plummet.  Still, there was hope for a good mother/daughter-in-law relationship before this.  Now, I can't see that happening, not unless she makes some really big changes in her life and sincerely repents everything that she put him through.  But even then, I'm not sure I could forgive her.  You don't mess with my Daniel and get away with it.

If nothing else, I think my insane stress level the last few weeks before the wedding was warranted.

I know we're not the only ones out there with these kinds of problems, so if you know someone whose mental state has deteriorated without substance abuse or a diagnosed mental illness, talk to us, and we'll try to help you.  We know how hard it is to find help or even a place to start in these situations, and we'd like to do whatever we can for you.

Shakespeare was full of crap. Names are important.

I've already talked about my opinion of changing my name (spoiler:  I don't like my last name nor do I like his, but I'm changing it because I don't want my last name to be different from Daniel's or my kids'.  I'm not particularly happy about it).  But it's something I've done a lot of thinking about since that post, and I have a theory/observations I'd like to share with you.

You see, I've read a lot of other people's name change posts and talked to a lot of my friends about their feelings on the subject, and there are some trends I've picked out.

Most men (read:  men that I have some respect for) seem to be OK with their women keeping their own last names.  They'd rather their wives share their last names, but they won't put up a fight if their wives keep their names.  This is certainly a step forward, and I'm glad they don't put pressure on women to change their names.

However, it seems most men have an aversion to changing their last names, my fiance included.  It doesn't matter what the change is--hyphenating (though frankly, NO ONE likes hyphenated names), taking the woman's last name, taking a different last name altogether--men won't change their names.

I think changing this is the next step toward name equality.  Although I'm in favor of the couple choosing a new last name altogether, I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect the man to take the woman's last name just as often as the woman takes the man's.  Obviously, we're not even close to there yet, but I think that is what we should be working toward.

Because when you think about it, the current system really sucks.  If the woman doesn't take the man's name, she's the only member of the family with a different last name once the kids come.  And that's a total pain in the ass.  I know.  I have to deal with it at work, and it's just confusing as Hell trying to sort out whose name is whose.  Though I am pleased to say that our gym is almost 50/50 same name vs. different name for the moms.

Anyway, the thing that bothers me is that most men won't even consider a different last name as part of marriage.  Even pro-feminist men like Daniel.  I don't blame them as individuals.  They've been taught that they get to keep their names, and some of their families put pressure on them to keep up the family name.

But if they get that sense of entitlement, why shouldn't we?  Women shouldn't feel like they have to change their names or not be a part of the family.  And why shouldn't we have the option of keeping our family name going?  Keeping your last name isn't good enough for that because the kids won't share it.  And it would be nice if the men shared the name-changing burden.  The paperwork alone is such a monster.  Why should we be the only ones having to make the choice?

In Nicole's perfect world, picking the couple's last name would be a truly egalitarian affair.  Yes, that will make it more difficult, but it is also the only way to make the process fair.

OK, rant over, thoughts?

Money of a Non-Wedding Variety

I have often said that nothing is really going to change once we're married, and for the most part, that's true.  However, there is one really big thing that will be different once we're married, and that is the sharing of funds.

I'm pretty sensitive about money.  Part of this is just that I don't have much of it, but I can also get obsessively thrifty sometimes.  Not something I'm proud of, but it's better than the alternative, the alternative being my parents.

My parents are pretty much the opposite of savings.  Whenever they acquire money, it is spent quickly and effectively, and when they don't have money, things aren't much different.  They cannot save.  Don't get me wrong, they spend money on cool stuff like vacations and my brother and I, but they do have a tendency to spend money they don't have.  Now that they're getting older, this is becoming more and more of a problem, and they know it.

I'm pretty much the opposite of them.  I'm thrifty, I save, and I hate the idea of being in debt.  You know how when children's parents have problems (say, alcoholism), the children often emulate them or overcompensate?  I'm the latter.  I admit it freely.  I care too much about money (or rather, the lack thereof).  Which is especially stupid because I always thought my dad was an idiot for stressing out constantly about money (read:  my mother's spending habits).  Oh look, I emulate them AND go too far in the opposite direction!  Awesome!

Anyway, the idea of sharing everything monetary with someone else, even someone responsible like Daniel, terrifies me.  Legally, we will share earned income, debts, payments--everything.  And since neither of us has much money at the moment, and my husband-to-be has over $200,000 in student loans to pay off, I think my worries are legit.

But I am starting to be less concerned.  We've had lots of conversations about money and problems with shared money, and I think Daniel understands my concerns, and I understand why he doesn't share them.  The thing that really helped me realize how much this wouldn't change though is that we basically share funds already.  Not like we will when we're married--we have a very exact expense sheet, and we balance out how much each of us has paid for shared items every month, something we will not do when married--but when it comes to the big things, like one of us needing a little help or making decisions based on what we can afford, we already think of money collectively.  We based our ability to move the last few times on how much we could afford together, we haven't bought a second car because neither of us can afford it, and we based our rent options on what both of us could afford.  We've been making financial decisions as a couple for years.

I'm still a little nervous about sharing everything, but at least getting married will not make me legally responsible for Daniel's student loans.  And in all likelihood, the biggest change will be that we don't make sure everything is balanced out 100% equally, which really isn't that big of a deal.

And if I'm perfectly honest, I stand to gain more from shared funds in the long run anyway.  Marrying a lawyer does have its perks (btw, Daniel passed the bar!).

So I'm feeling better about it, but it's still an area where we'll have to tread carefully at first.  We'll fight about it and we'll try things out and figure out a system that works.

And hey, that's what marriage is all about, right?  I supposed there had to be something life-changing about it.

Were/are you worried about changes getting married will make to your finances?  Would you consider a pre-nup?  I thought about it, but, eh, I don't really feel the need.

When Not to Get Married

- When you're moving within a year of the wedding, especially if you're moving more than once.
- When you plan on getting a new job or otherwise drastically changing your day-to-day life within 8 months of the wedding, especially if you actually care about said job.
- When you plan on making a career change around the time of the wedding (after is OK).
- When you plan on going through a traumatic or otherwise life changing event within 8 months of the wedding, like major surgery.
- When you have major life commitments like school or a demanding job.
- When your fiance has to do any of these things.
- When you live far away from your wedding location and cannot visit often, especially if you plan on DIYing lots of things.
- When you don't know where you're going to live when you get married.
- When you plan on DIYing lots of projects but do not have much time or much help.
- When you're not ready to get married.
- When you live far away from ALL of your friends and family.
- When you don't have any money.

Obviously, a lot of us do some of these things.  In fact, some of us do many of these things.  And sometimes you just have to plan your wedding around your life.  Nonetheless, all of these factors make planning a wedding much more difficult and stressful, and as I am dealing with (or have dealt with) pretty much all of them, I am starting to get really worried about how far behind we are.  Bridesmaid dresses in particular are becoming disconcerting.  I need help.  So today, Daniel and I went through the list I made a while back of EVERYTHING we need to do before, during, and after the wedding and split it up.  Hopefully, assigning responsibility for everything to each of us will not only take a lot of the planning off my shoulders but will also make it so that I do not have to make sure everything gets done myself.  With the attention I have to give to my new job and the insane scheduling changes I'm going to have to put up with for a while, I'm going to need help.

So newly engaged peoples, learn from my troubles.  Trying to get married while both of you are trying to establish careers and you have to move or travel a lot is a major pain in the ass.

What did I miss?  What obstacles did your lives present while you were planning your wedding?

Becoming an Adult

I got a job!  Actually, I got 4 job offers over the weekend because I'm spiffy like that, and I've accepted 2 of them for the time being.

This is radically different from job hunting last year.  Not only did I get a plethora of offers mere weeks after I started applying, I'm going to be working at jobs I actually want!  And from what I've experienced so far, I'll be working with good people who have their shit together.  Crazy!

So I started the main job this week.  I'll be teaching kids' gymnastics as part of a movement skills development program, and my boss has been telling me a lot about growth opportunities.  Because for the first time at a job, they're actually available, and it's a job I think I may actually stay at for a while.  The franchise is even international.  So my boss has me thinking about careers now, a subject I have been avoiding like the neighborhood cat avoids our pool for the last few years.  And I could actually make some sort of career out of this.  Maybe.

But then, I feel sort of weird about that.  Having gone to Berkeley, I have come to expect either an artsy elitist sort of career or the kind that involves wearing a suit and making lots of money.  Obviously, I haven't tended toward either in my job choices thus far, but it's hard to have gone to all the trouble of schooling to do something that doesn't even require a bachelor's degree.  You know, on a permanent basis.

But I am getting way ahead of myself anyway.  And I should probably be much more concerned with whether I like working here since it would be a first if I did.  Career choices don't have to happen yet, right?

Sigh.  Becoming an adult is hard.  At least one of us knows what he wants to do.  And at least I have a job that I think I'll actually like.

P.S.  I may not be here much longer because my other job is teaching kids to build using LEGOs.  Daniel says once I actually start getting paid to play with LEGOs, he is going to kill me, so if I disappear without a trace, you'll know why.

Another Baby Post

It has officially been 4 - 6 weeks since my surgery (my projected recovery time).  I dearly wish I could literally laugh in the faces of the nurses/doctors who told me I would be 100% healed by now.  Ha!  Well, at least I can work out now if not as much as I'd like.

Anywho, when I went to the doctor 2 weeks after the surgery, we started talking in earnest about controlling endometriosis and preventing infertility in the long term.  I almost started crying while explaining to her why I didn't want to take Lupron, a drug that basically puts my entire reproductive system on hold and would essentially make me menopausal.  My mom had a really rough time with menopause, and while it has become clear to me that our reproductive experiences have been very, very different, I can't risk the stress right now.  I'd say until we're settled in jobs in one place, and until after the wedding, that's not an option.

But when I saw the doctor again this week, she brought it up again, and I've started thinking about it more long term.

Daniel and I both definitely want to have kids.  That's one of the big things that we have always whole-heartedly agreed on.  And yet, we also agree that we are sooooo not ready to even thinking about it for a while.  Like, until we're both set in our careers, and we've paid off a decent chunk of Daniel's loans.

Now, I have to think about it a little differently.  I was worried about having to choose between myself and my future unborn children before the surgery, but it turns out I have a lot more of a decision to make now.  Without Lupron, I have a moderate risk of not being able to conceive.  With it, that risk diminishes greatly.

But here's the thing:  stress aside, menopause has a lot of side effects, and since the whole point of taking the drug is to get rid of hormones, I wouldn't be able to take them to balance it out like most menopausal women.  Obviously, I'm most worried about anxiety and depression, but there are a lot of other effects that do not sound like fun, including hot flashes, mood swings, decreased libido (which I have enough problems with already), and bone loss which is the thing I'm most worried about long term.  When it comes down to it, I feel like taking Lupron to save myself for my potential fetus would deprive me of a normal life in my twenties just so I might have a better chance of getting pregnant.

I just don't think it's worth it.  And I don't know how I feel about that.  On the one hand, yay women's empowerment and not living for your kids.  On the other hand, I like kids.  A lot.  And I want to have my own.  And so does Daniel.  And it would be really great to meet the child we would one day make..........But, I think my life is more important.  And Daniel thinks my analysis of the situation is sound and that he would probably make the same decision in my situation.  So I don't think I'm going to do it even though our chances for kids will be significantly decreased, and he supports my decision.

Of course, I can always change my mind later.  The longer I go before either taking Lupron or having kids, the higher the risk that irreversible damage will occur.  But I figure I've probably got a few years at least, and the doctor said that she was concerned, but that there wasn't an imminent threat or anything like that.  And I think there's another decision we can make that might work better for us.

My former baby plan was absolutely no children before 30, and even then, it would best to draw it out for as long as Daniel will let me (I sound like such a guy, right?).  But now, I'm thinking maybe it might be better for us to try earlier, assuming of course that we are prepared for it.  Basically, instead of waiting 7 years before even thinking about it, it might be better for us to wait 5 or thereabouts.  And at this point, it's probably going to take a long time to conceive anyway, so it might be best for us to start a little early.

I don't know.  We're definitely not going to rush into anything we're not ready for.  But it's something to think about.

And as much as it sucks to have to think about this kind of stuff before we're even married, I'm glad that I know--not just think, but know--that we know what we're getting into, and we're on the same page.

OK, you may now bring on the sympathy :).

Overcoming the Stress Monster

For more than two weeks, I've been packing to leave for San Jose.  For the first time in years, I'm actually on top of it.  And STILL I had a bunch of crap to do at the end and got super stressed out.  I mean, like, really stressed out.

In a word, I snapped.

At everyone in my house, that is.

Who had done absolutely nothing wrong and had in fact been offering their help for weeks.

And now I feel really bad.

Anyway, I bring this up because I think this is good practice for the week of the wedding.  No matter how on top of it I am, and let's face it, I haven't been on top of wedding stuff lately, it's going to be stressful at the end.

And I cannot let what happened today happen then.  That would be really bad for me, the groom, and everyone around us.

But the one thing I can say for myself is that I cooled down quickly.  Normally, when something like this happens, it ruins my day.  Not today.  I cried, I screamed...and I calmed down.  I apologized.  I moved on.

It's a good first step.

Next stop:  not letting it happen in the first place.

Universe, I Hate You. Mostly the God of Uteri.

This is not my day.

My day is not really wedding-related, but it is very marriage-related.  In the long term.

I just came back from the obgyn's office.

I don't think I've spoken much if at all about this, so I'll give you a summary.  Between March and August of 2009, I went to the hospital 3 times with severe abdominal pain caused by what they thought at the time were 3 successive ovarian cysts.   Ever since the third one, I've had annoying to severe abdominal pain in the same area as the cysts.  I've spoken to several doctors about it, and each individually came to the same probable diagnosis:  endometriosis.  I'll explain.  The sciencey side of this is that the uterus leaks blood into the surrounding area that creates tissue that should not be there, and this process causes pain.  The practical effects are that I have debilitatingly painful cramps during my period, frequent ovarian cysts, and pain in my right ovarian area on a rather frequent basis.  The pain is off and on, but there's been enough to cause me to want to do something about.  That is, have surgery.

Surgery is the only way to know for sure whether it is in fact endometriosis, but the ultrasound I had yesterday produced some rather unexpected results (btw, sticking a plastic tube with a camera on the end up your vagina is something I hope you never have to experience).  Turns out, the most likely cause of the pain I've been having for the last year-and-a-half is not in fact endometriosis but a mass attached to my fallopian tube that has been slowly growing and messing shit up in there.  I am not particularly happy that the 3 ultrasounds I had previously mistook this mass for an ovarian cyst, but on the other had, my health insurance wasn't good enough to do anything about it most of that time anyway (say what you will about the health care bill, it is going to save my life [not quite literally but close enough] by allowing me to be back on my dad's health insurance).

Anyway, now I have to have surgery to remove it, but the issue lies in what exactly will be removed.  I won't fixate on the details of what will happen if they need to remove part of my bladder or cut into my urethra.  I have much more interesting, marriage-related, and more likely results to brood over.

The mass is very closely attached to my fallopian tube.  They won't know how closely until they cut me open, but there is a decent chance that they will have to remove it, making it impossible for me to have children naturally using the right ovary.

When the doctor told me this, I was concerned but not too fazed.  I can still have kids using the other ovary, right?  I asked her.  The answer was a lot more disconcerting.  Whatever's causing this could be affecting both ovaries but only causing pain in one.  The other could be infertile or need to be removed despite its apparent OKness.

Long story short, there is a decent possibility that I won't be able to have children.

More worrisome right now is that I have to consent to how much they can do, but they won't know what needs to be done until the surgery is in progress, so I have to consent to, say, removing both of my ovaries before I know whether or not it will happen or I'll need to or whatever.  Basically, I have to decide how much I trust my doctor to make the right decision or if I should say, "No, you can't remove that" beforehand.

I pretty much told her she could do whatever she thought was best, but I haven't signed anything yet, and I can still retract that consent.  But the thing is, I don't think I can make an informed decision without knowing what will happen.  How am I supposed to judge how I will feel about actually removing an ovary when it is more likely that I'll be fine?  But then, I can't really not remove stuff either because if the tube does need to come out, I'd still be in pain and probably couldn't have kids anyway with that tube.  But if both of them have a problem?  Or if the other one develops problems later?  I don't know.  I don't want to do anything that 30-year-old Nicole will regret, but I also do not want to be in pain for the next 7+ years while I wait to be ready to have kids.  And if I did, it would just get worse, and the other consequences we discussed would be worse, and I could actually have some major internal organ failure if I don't do it.  So I guess I really should just consent to whatever she thinks is necessary.  But still...

I want kids.  I always have.  I love them.  I mean, I was a toddler teacher last year for a reason.  There's never been any doubt in mind that I will one day have them.  And there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I cannot handle having one now or any time in the next few years at least.  I would so regret not getting my shit together before having kids.

It's just hard being 23 and being told that your fertility is in doubt.

And I mean, it will probably be fine.  It's just having to make decisions without knowing that makes it hard.

Daniel took it really well.  Said he'd love me regardless and just wanted to know about all the possibilities.

I really would be all right with adoption, but I'd still like to have at least one of my own, and who knows how I'll feel by the time I actually want kids?

It's just hard.

And to top things off, I got a call on the way home from the doctor from our potential ceremony site saying that the site we want cannot be rented for weddings nor can any other park in Tiburon!  Yeah, I found them through a list of locations you could get a permit for, but apparently they do not want structures in any of their parks, and apparently a chair is a structure.  The lady from the city of Tiburon was rather snarky.  I was not pleased.

I'm really glad we're going up to NorCal this weekend.  I won't have to apply for jobs (and I have no idea where I should be applying now or when I'll be able to start), we need a new effing ceremony plan, and most of all I'll be able to talk to my friend Dana.  I don't know how this started, but Dana and I sort of ended up being relationship and abdominal pain buddies, so it's a good time to get to talk to her in person.

I hate my life a little bit.  I so do not want to deal with this.

Can I please just have a break from life?

Today we're going to talk a little bit about why I quit my job and what it means for our relationship.

I'm hopeful that if I start this with a clear topic and goal I may avoid the general ramblings that usually accompany my personal posts.

We'll see how it goes.

I am a mess.  Daniel often says that he has to take care of me (physically and mentally but mostly the former) because I won't take care of myself.  Though I maintain that he is a bit excessive about it, the boy has a point.

Ever since I was really young, I never really put my health and well-being first.  In middle school, I used to rank my commitments by importance, saying that school came first, then cheerleading (or gymnastics or dance), and then my health.  That really was the way I saw it, and in high school, it really started to be a problem, especially after I had stopped cheerleading and no longer had a built-in balance between school and physical activity.

When I got to college, I realized that if this was ever going to change, I would have to be the one to do it.  But by then, never putting my own well-being first was so ingrained that even trying to change was exceptionally difficult.  My senior year, things came to a head.  I had a lot going on and was so burned out that I just stopped.  I dropped a class which lead to dropping one of my majors (history--so glad I didn't have to write that 30-50 page research paper) and finished my last semester with only 2 real classes.  It was the first time in my life that I had ever put academic success after my own sanity.

After that, I was addicted.  Addicted to making choices based on what I wanted and not what an admissions officer wanted or my potential employers would want or on anything besides what would make me happy right now.

Then I graduated during the worst economy our country has had since the Great Depression (Remember that history major business?  My concentration was American history.  Yeah, I have a really good sense of exactly how bad things are right now compared to every other period of our history, and they really fucking suck).

Things have been pretty interesting since then.  I graduated in May 2009, and since then I have had (as per my tax forms) 8 jobs in 3 geographical areas and 2 states.  Nothing makes me happy because I am so sick of waiting for my life to get better and doing things so that it can be better down the line.  Working hard in high school may have gotten me into Berkeley (the school I wanted), but once I was there, it was just the same thing all over again, and having a degree from Berkeley hasn't gotten me jack except for my last job which I hated.  I am so sick of doing things that are supposed to make things better for me later on and not having things actually get better.

Which is why my resume is a nightmare of unrelated jobs, none of which I have stayed at more than 6 months and most of which I only had for 3.  I quit my last job to look for one I actually wanted, but I am starting to worry that nothing will make me happy because I don't want to keep waiting for things to get better, and with all this competition, even getting crappy jobs that I don't want is a struggle.

But I could probably make it happen eventually.  I could volunteer, work part-time somewhere I didn't really want to be until I could get a job that I wanted, and live at home for a year or two until I could make it work.

But that's not really an option because it's not just me that I have to look out for.  Daniel has his own problems which are far worse than mine at the moment.  I can't be financially irresponsible in case I have to support him.  I couldn't quit my job for 2 months even though I hated it so much it was causing me physical pain because I had to lend him money so that he could live.  And if he gets a real lawyer job in the remotest corner of California, we have to go no matter what I'm doing.

In short, I still can't put my personal well-being first because I have to put ours first instead.

This has been the hardest thing about getting married for me because I so desperately need to be able to put myself first for a while, and you just can't do that in this kind of committed relationship.  This is why I broke off our engagement the first time, 4 months after I broke down and dropped that class, because I knew I couldn't make that kind of commitment to someone else while I so very much needed to fix myself.

I still need that.  A lot.  But the reason I decided to get married anyway was that I needed him more.  And the only thing I'm proud of in all of this is that this time around, even though allowing Daniel to take the time (and money) he needs to get his shit together has been really difficult, I haven't wavered, I haven't had cold feet or second thoughts, I haven't for a second considered not spending the rest of my life with him.  And after thoughts I have had in the past, this gives me glad that I have at least got something right.

Things are not going well for me right now, and I still really need someone to cut me a break.  I want a job that will make me happy, and I don't want to have to spend years more waiting for it.  But it does help to know that at least I'm happy with him.  Finding a husband this young will never be good for my career, but it is good for my personal well-being.  And at least my hodge-podge of shitty jobs shows that I have been attempting to make things better for myself while still being conservative enough to accommodate him.  And hopefully he'll get a decent job that will allow me to be selfish for a while and do whatever it takes to get a career going for me.  Hopefully, someday soon.

P.S.  The career I really want to get into is photography, so if you know a good, experienced photographer of any sort in Orange County or LA County who might be willing to take on an assistant, paid or unpaid, let me know.

And So I'm Back!

For reals this time.  Sorry again for the blatant absenteeism.  I just can't stand staring at a screen for 8 hours and then coming home and doing it some more.  It's been a real adjustment for me.  So for the time being, I'll probably mostly be writing on the weekends.  Maybe I'll try to do some posts that automatically spread themselves out.  We'll see.

ANYWAY, part of the reason I haven't been on here is because I have nothing to report really.  I'm working normal business hours now and commuting for 2 hours a day, so it's been really hard to try to get anything done wedding-wise, but we really need to get on it, so hopefully I'll have things to report soon.

For right now, let's talk about life.  A couple of weeks ago, Daniel went to his 10 year high school reunion, and on Thursday, I turned 23.  These things make you think about your life, and for us, this wasn't necessarily the most pleasant experience.  He's still unemployed and trying to finish up law school when what he really wants to be doing is starting a real job (instead of looking for an easier to find temporary one) and studying for the BAR.  Meanwhile, I'm very grateful to have found a job so quickly, but the attitude I've had toward finding a job is starting to worry me.  I pretty much just concentrated on finding a job that paid decently that I could get, and while this job is better than some things I could be doing, it's not where I saw myself going a couple of years ago.  I've become complacent about finding a career because the jobs I originally envisioned having are either far too competitive for me to get or are not available.  Have I mentioned I hate this economy?

What I'm trying to get at is that a lot of us in our twenties are really discouraged about the job market, whether it be finding the job you want or just finding a job at all!  And even though we're getting married which is at least some sort of accomplishment (you know what I mean), I for one feel like I failed at life a little bit by having such a ridiculously hard time finding a job last year and then being more concerned about a paycheck than a career this year.

But at the same time, getting married adds pressure to the system instead of adding financial support.  We all know how much weddings cost, and I would like to have enough money saved by next summer to have a little buffer zone in case we go over budget (and let's face it, we all go over budget too, especially those of us with little budget to begin with).  Plus there's that whole I don't want to be away from my partner or plan the wedding from afar thing which seriously inhibits my ability to find a job.  And I don't want my WEDDING to interfere with my career, but at the same time, I really want to enjoy my wedding.

OK, clearly this post fails at organization.  I guess, I just feel like life is hard enough right now, and I'm a little peeved at my wedding for adding pressure.  Of course, I also am so grateful to have someone to share that pressure with, and I have truly enjoyed having an excuse to write and having something to look forward to, so maybe it's not such a burden.  I guess I'm still a little jealous of my friends who truly have the freedom to do whatever they want (if they can get a job they don't hate), go wherever they want, and spend their money on whatever they can afford while I have to plan around someone else and am currently supporting that person (though I've got to admit, I'm pretty happy that I am capable of supporting someone else.  I never thought that I would be the bread winner in the relationship, and even though it's temporary, I feel like that's an accomplishment).

So in conclusion, the economy sucks, getting married in this economy sucks, but wanting to get married to your partner definitely doesn't suck.

Most of you are older than me.  How's your career going?  Do you have any advice for someone trying to get started in life?

How Do Models Survive?

All right, so after my last post, I feel I should follow up with a caveat.  You see, it worries me that 95% of brides seem to feel the need to diet.  I mean think about it, that means almost no one is comfortable with their weight.  That's scary.

I know you all know you should diet healthily and not too fast and not with scary products, yadda yadda yadda.  But I'm going to tell you a story about how easy it is to go too far because people just don't think about it as much as they should.  Not about going anorexic or bulimic or anything like that, but about how a reasonable person can make small choices that greatly affect the way she sees herself.

During my senior year of high school, I developed a weird stomach condition took away my appetite.  It was sort of like acid reflux disease; the high amount of acid in my stomach kept me from wanting to eat because eating basically gave me a stomach ache.  Heaven for most people, right?  There is no better way to lose weight than not wanting to eat (except of course the stomach flu).

I wasn't uncomfortable with my weight before this happened, but I was conscious of it.  I wasn't really dieting, but I did start watching what I ate at the age of 15.  Most of the time, it was just cutting unnecessary sugar out of my diet which was healthy.

But at the onset of this disease, I did the most unhealthy thing possible.  I didn't eat.  I didn't want to, so I didn't.  Not to the point of starvation of course, but enough to lose a lot more weight than I should have.  10 pounds in 2 weeks to be exact.  And people started to notice.  It wasn't until my dance teacher pulled me aside and basically asked me if I had an eating disorder that I realized how bad it was.

I didn't do it on purpose.  I didn't even realize what was going on.  But I could have stopped it, and I didn't because I liked it.  I liked looking like a model.  I was happy when my weight finally dipped under 100 pounds.  I liked it so much that it took someone telling me I was sick for me to realize something was wrong.

After that encounter, I did something about it.  I went to the doctor, was told this was caused by stress (also something to think about!), got on acid-reducing pills, and learned what foods were easy on the stomach and basically ate just Wheat Thins and Triscuits for weeks.  I couldn't even eat the food at my prom for fear I'd get sick.  Eventually, I started gaining the weight back and feeling better.  I wish I could say that I was completely happy about that, but it took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I'd have to give up looking like a model to be healthy.

It took years for me to get over the way I looked during that period and years for me to realize what a healthy weight for me was and that I would have to stay at it even if it didn't look perfect.

All that from 2 little weeks of self-indulgent thoughts about my weight.

I don't usually tell people this story because they assume that I had an eating disorder.  It wasn't like that because I wasn't really trying to lose weight.  I was just happy that I did.  And I think that's really telling of a lot of girls out there.  We don't want to be unhealthy, but we still have images in our head that we'd like to live up to.  Sometimes the image wins, and there can be major consequences, both psychological and physical.  To this day, I can't skip meals, or I'll get really dizzy and black out.  And I don't think it's from the disease, I think it's my body's way of forcing me to get enough to eat.


What I'm trying to get at is, a lot of people have a goal of what they want to look like, but if your goal isn't realistic to your body, getting there can have consequences.  And it's always better to feel good about yourself regardless of what you look like (because that's so easy after all).

I'm not against dieting or anything.  I think being at an unhealthily high weight is also bad.  My point is, being healthy and being skinny are not the same thing, so don't try to kill yourself.  It won't end well.

Job Applications = Procrastination, or Tips for the Wedding Diet

Unlike about 95% of brides (from my personal observations), I am not going on a wedding diet.  I don't want to brag or sound bitchy or anything, but I just don't need to.  I'm pretty happy with this:

Personal Photo

But just because I'm relatively thin doesn't mean I don't work at it.  My friends seem to have an immense amount of difficulty understanding this.  Yes, my metabolism doesn't suck, but going the extra mile from normal to slender in my case is due to choices, not luck.  So I thought since there are a lot of you out there trying to lose weight that I'd share what I've been doing since I was 15 to get a body that I'm happy with.

1.  Portions:  Portion sizes are probably the most important element of weight loss.  You can eat anything you want even while dieting as long as you keep the portion sizes down.  For me, the easiest way to do this at home is to eat from small plates, bowls, etc.  In high school, I would come home everyday and fill a small cup with ice cream.  It was still less satisfying than 4 scoops, but using a cup instead of a bowl made me feel like I was eating more than I was, and even ice cream became a low-calorie snack.  Restaurants are obviously more difficult, but you can always try to order something small (like an appetizer) for your meal or save half to eat another day.

2.  Eat from Home:  I lied.  This is the most important aspect of weight loss.  Eating out is ALWAYS worse for you than eating at home.  Obviously, I don't expect you to never go out, but eating at home and bringing food with you to work, school, etc. will decrease your calorie intake immensely and allow you to have more control over what you're eating.  I seriously believe that if everyone in America brought their lunch from home everyday, obesity rates would plummet.

3.  Fruits and Veggies:  I'm sure you all know that they're good for you, but they can also be a useful and healthy way to fill your stomach when you're hungry.  When I pack a lunch, I usually include a main dish of some sort (something that will satisfy) that contains fewer calories than I need and then fill the rest of the calories in with fruits and/or vegetables.  You'd be amazed how much better raw carrots taste when you're starving.  Truth be told, I despise vegetables, but when I'm hungry, and they're all I have, I'll eat them.

4.  Count Calories:  I don't do this anymore, but everyone I know who has dieted by counting calories has had good results.  The hard thing is that you have to stick to it, and you have to find out how many calories you're getting from EVERYTHING you're eating.  Sometimes it's good just to look up the calories of your favorite snacks, drinks, or fast food places just so you know what you're eating.  If you want more information, www.weightwatchers.com is a good place to start if you're going to count calories.

5.  Drink Water:  More importantly, don't drink anything but water.  Seriously.  Sodas and even juices have way more calories than you need and really are not very satisfying or good for you.  Water of course is always good for you, and sometimes it will help fill you up a bit.  If you want to drink something besides water, drink milk (great source of protein!).  Just remember to add its calories into your daily count.  Oh, and if you frequent Starbucks or somewhere like that, check out how many calories are in your favorite drinks.  You'll be amazed (and horrified).

6.  Exercise:  I hate it too.  And to be perfectly honest, exercising does not make that much of a difference in weight for most women.  However, exercising can actually decrease your appetite to a certain extent if you do it in moderation.  On that note, moving around all day can also decrease your appetite if you eat when you're bored (like I do).  I know many jobs make this difficult, but I always feel better when I do something physical in the evenings or on the weekends.  Anyway, the best way I've found to exercise without hating it is to do a sport or something that will keep your mind occupied, so you don't concentrate on the pain.  Personally, I enjoy aerobic dance like Zumba, but if you're not a dancing kind of gal, look for an adult sports league or a gym class that does interest you.  And walk.  Walk whenever you can.  It's better than nothing.

7.  Indulge Yourself:  Never try to kill yourself dieting.  It doesn't work.  I learned this the hard way.  Sometimes, you have to give up on the dieting and go eat something fun.  You don't want to be hungry all the time, and you don't want to exercise to the point of exhaustion.  In all likelihood, doing these things will cause you to eat more than you would have if you had given yourself a break.  It's all about moderation.  You also don't want to think about food all the time.  I know from personal experience that that can be hard when you're trying not to eat too much, but the more you can get into a routine with your eating habits, the less you'll be hungry, the less you'll think about food, and the less you'll want to indulge.  And once you get to your goal weight, staying at it won't be as bad as getting there.

All right, well I hope that didn't sound too much like a dieting brochure, but I do feel like hearing these things from real people is more helpful than from people getting paid to say them.  If you have any questions or want any personal advice about any of this, please don't hesitate to email me:  danicole2011@gmail.com.  Also, though I may not be going the wedding diet route, Daniel kind of is (not so much on the "wedding" part, but timing-wise, if he sticks with it, the wedding may be a good goal date anyway), so perhaps I can convince him to share his experience via "Groom-inations."

What's worked for you?  What weight-related advice would you give to other brides?

Oh Shit, I Have to Do WHAT?!

For the first time, I am genuinely experiencing a time crunch.  Now I know how much I really should have done while I was still in Chicago.  While I now have the ability to look at venues, I lack time to research, and as much as I really want to get the ball rolling on the wedding, getting a job and making our living space livable are just more important right now.  For both of us.  Plus Daniel has to study for the BAR, and so once again I seem to have just enough more time to be the one that all the wedding stuff falls on.  Great.

Things that really must be done before the end of October:

Book a venue
Open a joint bank account
Obtain money from contributor(s?)
Figure out my own money contribution situation
Finalize initial guest list
Create and send out STDs
Obtain contact info for everyone who will receive a STD
Finalize wedding theme
Figure out my dress situation
Finalize wedding party and officiant
Choose official date, haha

And that's just the wedding list.  My "things to do in order to survive until (and after) the end of October" list is much longer.   Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Working on the Bucket List

As per my I love you, but I want to do something with my life, Goddamnit! post, I have created an updated bucket list that is "realistic."  And by realistic, I mean I didn't include "touch every single piece of ground on this earth" or "sail around the world" or even "visit all 7 continents" (Antarctica, you pesky little pieces of ice, you), not to mention "go to Hogwarts" and "learn how to fly."  Anyway, I hope that by writing down a list that it is humanly possible to complete someday, I'll have a better chance of getting through the things I really don't want to miss out on.

If you would like to see what my version of "realistic goals" is, you can view my bucket list at http://thefirstnet.livejournal.com/.

I am so screwed btw.  I am not going to be having kids until I'm 45 at the rate of this list.