love, blessings

Charles Baxter wrote, "When you’re in love you don’t have to do a damn thing. You can just be. You can just stay quiet in the world. You don’t have to move an inch."

I think that’s really true. I’m blessed to be in love, and I think we do a lot of staying quiet together, just being, not moving an inch. And I think it’s great, because all the hustle and bustle of being single, even watching another person do it, is so tiring. And really, isn’t all of that hustle and bustle just an attempt to find a person with whom you can get to the place where you can just stay quiet together? So finally getting there, being there, is blissful.

Except I don’t think that’s true for a lot of people. I am always listening to women at work bitching about their S.O. And then they act as if it’s a rite. Of course they have complaints, because that’s how things are supposed to be. And the fact that I have nothing to complain about with N just means we haven’t been together long enough. If I wait for it, there will come a time when I have nothing good to say about him, when I’ll be glad he’s away for a night, a weekend, even better a whole week! Well I think that’s sad. Why do we have to drift into these stereotypical responses?

N and I have been married almost five years, together for 6.5. That’s not a phenomenally long time, but it’s a bit of time. And in that bit of time I have never regretted being with him, never wished he would go away, never had the urge to vent to "the girls" about him. I wanted to be with him in the first place because I love who he is, and I still do. That’s not to say that he’s perfect, or that I am or we are. But there is never a day when I am not grateful for him in my life.

This may sound like boasting, and I guess it is. I don’t mean to come across that way. For people who are in genuinely unhappy relationships, I am very sorry. But in general, I think women who are in good relationships still find things to vent about, because it’s fashionable. But N and I don’t talk that way to each other, how fair would it be to him for me to turn around and talk about him in public? I say keep your laundry, whether it be clean or dirty, in your own house. If people could practice being grateful a little more, I think they’d find it catching.

I think it's nice to sit still with N. And we have been so stressed and unstill lately due to the whole fertility fracas. I try so hard not to get in the dumps about it, or whine, but it's hard. I try to remind myself that if I start asking "Why me?" about the bad things, I'll have to ask about the good things too. And although I've had some definite downs, I think my life has been mostly ups. I don't want to forget that. I want to take the time to appreciate all the ups as they come.

Sports Fan

You know you're a baseball fan when you leave the stadium after your home team's disappointing loss and immediately turn the radio to another game to make sure the rivals are also losing. Even better when you get home and, since you have to turn off the radio, run in and find the game on television. If the White Sox lose tonight,the Twins won't have completely screwed themselves by losing this afternoon.

It's interesting to me that I am so into this now, since I used to hate sports. Well, I thought I did. But I never liked gaming until A taught me how to do it right either. And N loves sports, so when we got together he made it fun for me too. The first time I went to the Metrodome I fell in love. It was so cool to see it all in person, hear all the fans, smell the hot dogs. :) Of course, back then I didn't eat them, but I've recently trained my stomach, because it's so much more fun with a Dome dog! The first season I really only cared if we were there. But then I started to get to know the players, and I would watch a little bit if I came across the game on television. Then I started tuning in on the radio on the way home from work. By now, I'm hooked. I'm not obsessed...I don't memorize stats or watch every game. But I have played fantasy baseball, and I do find myself watching other games that have an effect on the Twins' season. :)

I also enjoy watching basketball with N. He says baseball is his number one sport too,but I think he loves basketball more, but enjoys me loving baseball. Anyway, basketball I mostly like when we go to the game. If we watch at home I'm mostly reading and just looking up to check the score or to see a good replay. Football I mostly just put up with. I don't mind if it's on,and I think I mostly get the rules now, but it's not exciting. Unless Peyton Manning is playing, because he's hilarious. :)

So yeah, I guess I'm a sports fan. Who knew?

blogging (mostly)

I really don't want to blog about all the problems I have with blogging, as I've done before. But I am upset that I started this blog three weeks ago and have so few posts to show for it. I wanted to really get started this time. But there are a few issues. One: I never have clever topics or good stories, at least not in comparison to some of the blogs I follow. Two: I have a hard time working up the energy a lot of days...it's just easier to keep reading my book. Three: I've put a lot of writing-related pressure on myself. I like to keep a paper journal, I also have a different notebook for "working things out," I have this blog, and I've been working on some memoirs lately. Well, mostly in my head, but now and then there is some actual work done on them. So there you go, that's my whiny blog about how bad I am at blogging.

In other news, I have set a date. The frozen embryos transfer date has been set. I won't post it, because I don't want anyone to know the actual date. But it is good to have a day to look forward to, rather than the nebulous "future." In the meantime I have drugs to take, appointments to make, blada blada. But now it seems almost fun, in preparation for the big day. Of course, after the big day will be the even bigger and absolutely torturous two weeks of waiting. I'm trying not to think of that right now.

Back to the blog issue for a moment. I haven't told anyone about my new blog yet. Which means I am writing into the void right now. No readers, just me talking to myself. It's probably pathetic. I'm just not sure the best way to go about letting people know, so I keep putting it off.

introvert

I am an extremely introverted person. 90% of the time I am in my own head, analysing every little thought. This is the reason I am so opinionated, and I guess I often come across as abrasive in discussions. I know that I have thought every opinion I have to death, and then thought some more. My faith in the greater part of the population is low, so I don't believe every one has done the same thing, making it hard for anyone to sway me. I don't mean to say that I won't change an opinion, but it doesn't happen easily. If I don't have an opinion yet, you'll find me very quiet on the subject. But there aren't many things I don't have an opinion on.

The strange thing is that I don't think I seem like an introvert. I am pretty well known at work, I spend time talking to people, I seem to share things about my life. My friends always know I will have something to say. But in reality, what I show on the surface is only a little bit of the real me. There are plenty of times that I find myself agonizing over who to call when something comes up, because I realize there is no one with whom I have shared the steps leading up the the newest event, and I would have to share too much to explain it all.

Part of this is also connected to my inability to keep in touch with people. My friends often tease me that I don't call, don't answer my phone. The thing is, sometimes it will take too long to catch up to where we are now, and it seems too hard, so I don't talk at all.

Yesterday I was checking my facebook and I had a cryptic message from my niece. She and I are only three years apart, and when we were kids we were practically inseparable. As we grew up, we grew apart. It's partially because we had very different paths, and partially due to laziness, I guess. I called her to find out what was going on and we talked a long time. I miss her. I was glad that she reached out a little and sent me that message, and I found myself wondering why she doesn't do this more. And then I realized that I don't do it for her either. And unlike my other nieces and nephews, I can't expect that she would come to her aunt for "advice." We are more like sisters, or we used to be, and we should go to each other as sisters would, as friends would.

But I have a problem going to my friends. Ask any of them. I'm sure they could name some of the issues in my life, but I bet they couldn't tell you a lot about the feelings I've shared with them about it. Because, for the most part, I haven't. There are of course, exceptions. There are times I have broken down in a crisis, but it's not an every day kind of sharing. The only person I tell everything to is N. I used to tell everything to A. Everybody else is . . . held at a distance, I guess. I'm not even sure why.

TGI almost F

I'm so excited that tomorrow is Friday. This has actually been a pretty good week, especially compared to the last few. Because of our vacation, N and I only worked two days last week, an d the week before that only three days because of IVF stuff. So a five day week seemed really long.

I did have the worst few weeks at work before this one. I work in a nursing home, and I got transferred from the transitional care unit, where I did admissions, to one of the long term care units to be a nurse manager. The issue was that I was not exactly consulted on the transfer decision. It's a long, drawn-out, painful story. Suffice it to say that I suddenly found myself in a new job for which I had no real training, feeling like I had been strung up by my toes over a pit of vipers. Cheerful. Then some other position changes happened, so now I have a new boss. I think he'll be good to learn from, but also not a micro-manager. This week I got a lot of questions answered, and I didn't feel miserable going in to work every day like I had for the last few weeks. Which is horrible, really, because I've worked there for 6.5 years, and that was the first time I felt like that.

The vacation helped. It was hard to relax, it took us both a few days. We were exhausted, which made the SD vacation perfect - I recommend it to all tired people. We drove out there, drove all around the scenic routes at Custer State Park, drove from memorial to memorial...all in all, very relaxing. Also beautiful. I took tons of pictures of the Black Hills, the Needles, all the memorials, the badlands, and all the animals we saw all over the park. Amazing. If I were on the right computer I would post some pictures. Next time.

About the Name

I was planning on doing a real post tonight, but then I stayed on the phone with my sister for far too long and it's now way past my bedtime, so I'll just do a short one.

I like the name truth monkey because it combines two of my favorite things. I am addicted to monkeys...I likie the word, stuffed animals, monkey-print socks, you name it. And I have a degree in philosophy, so ostensibly I like truth. If you can find it. But that's a discussion for another day.

I'm a nurse, by the way, so some might argue that my degree in philosophy is not in use, but I like to believe it informs my daily life in a way that a job cannot. Or that could be a massive rationalization. But as Michael says (in The Big Chill), "Don't knock rationalizations...they're more important than sex...Ever gone two weeks without a rationalization?"

Anyway, for my senior seminar in philosophy we had to present our papers and the presentation was open to the whole campus. My classmates and I decided that the flyers would read, "Truth and Cookies." After date and time there was small print at the bottom, "*Cookies just might be served." I know, it's not terribly clever, but with the three of us and our professor, it fit. Anyway, when I was naming the blog I thought of that, and then I decided that a truth monkey might rather have truth and bananas. So there you go.

In Vitro Blues

Here's what I don't really talk about: my fertility issues. Okay, that's not true. I do talk about it, a lot, mostly to people at work. But I'm usually just answering questions, filling people in on the steps of the IVF process. This usually makes people extremely excited, so what I usually have are upbeat conversations. So when I say I don't really talk about it, what I mean to say is that I don't talk about how I feel about it. This is for a few reasons.

N and I have had 9 couple friends have babies since we started trying. 2 of those couples now have 2 kids. This is not to mention my niece, several coworkers, and about every third woman I see on the street. While this is possibly the worst thing that could happen to me, it is, of course, one of the best for each of them. It is hard to express anguish in the face of such joy (not to mention inappropriate) and equally hard to honestly express joy.

Most of the above mentioned people have no clue. Not because they are generally clueless people (they are my friends, after all) but because it is difficult, if not impossible, to really grasp what someone else is going through. I've learned this through earlier experiences. As long as they are not grasping it, you can't really share. Much like when mourning, you get a response that is the best they can give but comes across as painfully inadequate.

To make matters harder for people to understand, N and I live a mostly perfect life. I don't mean to sound like a brat, but coming from where I've come from, it's true. We have a fabulous relationship with each other, a beautiful house, great jobs, really amazing friends, we travel fairly often, our families are amazing...
I guess it's hard to grasp why we are so sad about what we don't have. Not only to outsiders, but to us too.

Combine all of this, and you get a difficult, wildly frustrating situation. Especially after 11 new babies and 4.5 years. It seems like the cherry on the sundae, but to us a baby is more like the ice cream...like we have all the prep done, but can't build the sundae without that essential base.
That's not entirely true. We are mostly happy on any given day. But there are moments. These are the moments I don't talk about.

Now, all that said, I should clarify that I love all the babies. And I will be baby L's godmother, which is amazing. I really look forward to everything that goes along with that.

And I hope to soon be looking forward to my own bundle of joy. I'll keep you posted.

Salutations and Introductions

This is not my first blog. I was on Diaryland when that was the new craze, and I have sites on MySpace and Facebook. But I've been having some frustrations lately, and I wanted to have somewhere to work them out a little bit. I could go back to Diaryland, but I lost my Gold membership, and I know only one person who actively uses it anymore. And the networking sites don't really lend themselves to actual blogging. I decided I wanted a new home, so I did some research. I have a friend from college who blogs here, and when I looked into it and realized it was connected to Google I thought it would be right for me.

So here I am with a new home. I hope to be a better blogger than I have been in the past.

By way of introduction; I'm 31, a nurse manager in a long term care facility, married to a super tall sweetheart of a man, own a black lab puppy who is out of control, and live in a beautiful house we bought in December 2007. I like movies, the Minnesota Twins, traveling and reading (I actually read more than is probably healthy).

I guess that will do for now. Wish me luck!