It’s inevitable in marriage that you’ll speak about the possibility of having chidren one day.  For many years, I didn’t think I would be one to have children. Look, I know it’s screwed up, but maybe my mother’s voice was always in the back of my head with these annoying little affirmations “You have no motherly instinct; you never liked playing with dolls and didn’t babysit a lot.”  Or there’s the classic “I don’t think you’d be a good mother.”  I have wondered lately if her voice is what has been keeping me of even trying to think about having kids. You know, because I’m obviously going to be a bad mom without that instinct and all.

Dan and I had a conversations a few weeks ago where we were trying to figure some things out. Picture out lives without them. It would be  a lovely selfish life, to be honest. Loads of traveling, no doubt about having funds for retirement thanks to not having to send any kids to college, a clean house, less sicknesses because we don’t have a child in day care or school picking up every single little bug possible. Life doesn’t sound to shabby! We’d have our dogs and we’d be happy.

But completely writing off kids in my mind, made me feel unsettled. Not necessarily happy. Some people live that kind of life and are ecstatic and SO would never have chosen differently. But I don’t know if that could have been me. And I wasn’t sure if I could wake up one day at the age of 40 and finally decide I should go ahead and have a baby or adopt or whatever. I think once I hit that age, forget it. I don’t want to have children too late because I don’t think I want a walker at my child’s high school graduation, ha.

This whole thing has been spinning circles in my head since we talked about it. I sat down  with Dan this week…To start putting together our 3-5 year plan. And kids were a huge part of the conversation. We want them. We know that we know little to nothing about taking care of them and we know it will be hard.  We know that it will be hard on our budget some days, but we just feel the need to make our family…bigger.  While not on topic completely, we also know that we’ll be staying in Michigan for a little while. For at least a few more  years (up to 5!). The thing is…if we do want to bring a baby in the world? I want to do it near my family and friends. The people I am the closest to. Because being that we know absolutely nothing, we might need to lean on a few of them for advice and for breaks of sanity.  The other reason we are deciding to wait is so I can gain a few years of experience once I graduate…Then I’ll be able to go. Especially if I decide to stay with hands as a specialty. I need more than a year or two of experience for people to even look twice at my resume. I need to be close to the point where I could possibly earn my CHT (certified hand therapy credentials).  After that? We’ll end up in either the Carolinas or Florida. Any place where there is a lack of winter will be fine, really!

Life is changing. Every day our dreams change and we have to adjust. And we have to be realistic. If we had the funds, we’d leave today. But we have to save a little money first!  My first year of salary? Will be split. A certain portion goes into our savings toward a downpayment for a new house, another portion going directly into the house spending area, and another portion for student loans. The portion going towards house spending and expenses will be smaller. And we have to stick to this plan. HAVE TO. At the very least for the first year.

We’re putting our house on the market this spring. And our plans are to store a lot and live in an apartment while we save up money. So keep us in your thoughts. We’re fearful about the condition the real estate market is in…But there is no way we can live comfortably in this house should we decide to bring a baby into the family.

Holy crap. We’re going to have a baby. (SOMEDAY! NOT NOW!)

This weekend, I went to a friend’s house…Let’s call her Carrie. We were all getting together for a little planning meeting for a certain event that is taking place this year. That fantastic thing called a 10 year high school reunion. How I could have possibly got suckered into the whole charade, I have no idea, but maybe it was because there were a few people I didn’t mind getting back in touch with! Carrie, for instance, is one.

I got to her house early…Only one more of our friends were there. They were cleaning, getting some appetizers together and just hanging out. Carrie seemed a bit disheveled and told us before all of us got there that things had ended between her and her boyfriend. They had been together for 2 years and it had happened the day before. I knew that she hadn’t been happy. She had in confidentiality told us about it….about his odd depressing mood swings…and other stuff she was tired of.

The worst part of the breakup was the way it actually happened though. Oh so lame. She went out to run errands on Saturday and came back to find a note. Breaking up on a note? In her words “he might as well have texted me!”.

Regardless of her unhappiness with the relationship…break ups are easy on NO ONE.

I don’t want to get into a ton of details…but that poor thing had a nice large share of wine yesterday…hadn’t eaten in over 24 hours….And I had to help get her into bed a little before 8pm.

I’m not sure what else to say…I’m not sure why men still continue to surprise me in this manner…Another jerk of a man came out of the wood works to make a successful, confident woman completely fall APART. It’s so frustrating…

I’m just glad I could be a good friend to her yesterday… I think I’m going to write a little note card to her to make sure she has a good week!

I feel like I’ve lost touch lately, with my closest friends. There’s not a get deal of reciprocity happening, I guess. Maybe I feel like I’m the only one that ever writes, ever calls. At least with some. It’s kind of hard. Sometimes I like to pretend it doesn’t even bother me all that much.

But it bothers me today.

In class today we got to write goals for a partner in class. My friend Jessica and I wrote goals for each other. And we each wrote a meaningful, measurable goal that we would have to track.

For me…I hate talking on the phone. I don’t like calling people. I don’t like always having to be the one to call people. Seriously. I don’t. It’s exhausting. I’m busy as HELL with life and I always end up having to do all the work in almost every single relationship. Family. Friends. Everyone. I didn’t rant like this at Jessica.  Just to you guys.

Anyway. So my goal is to basically get over that anxious feeling when I pick up the phone to call my friends and family.

“Melissa will call 2 different friends each week for 4 weeks to help her reduce her anxiety of talking to someone on the phone.”

If I have your phone number? I might be calling you!

Oh RIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHT. This one.

Blogging has NOT been on my mind lately. In fact, I’m sure you’ve already noticed that by the very little I ever write these days. I recently went on vacation and in the past, I was all gung-ho about getting online when returning home so I could tell everyone all about it. But there’s nothing much to tell. Went to Florida. It was chillier than expected. Ate a lot of bad food. Spent lots of time with the husband. Relaxed a lot. Looked a bit at the local real estate. Came home.

I’ve got nothing else to say and I’m a bit embarrassed about it I guess. I have a lot to do this weekend, which includes catching back up on homework before Monday. And I just don’t have time to blog.

I don’t want to go on a break. And I don’t want to take the blog down. But I feel like blog writing right now is just a chore.

I will write when I want to write, I guess. And while some people get all bored and can’t stand when people only talk about their fitness, diet and weight goals, I think I’ll still choose to talk about that at least weekly on hear.

I just can’t promise more than one entry a week right now. Maybe later.

Just not now.

That’s right. It’s time for a vacation. Somewhere warmer than Michigan.

Be back in one week!