I think this is the longest I've gone without blogging since I started this blog almost five years ago. It's been a tough summer and I couldn't seem to write non-whiny posts. I've been intensely frustrated with my marriage but that's not blog material. (Sometimes in the Catholic blogosphere it seems that everybody is in shiny happy marriages where they're jointly striving for heaven and Communicating Effectively and nobody else is fighting unproductively about the same damn thing for ten years. And counting. Am I keeping it real or bringing things down if I say that sometimes it's really ferociously hard to be married?)
I hope the kids have had a good summer. We've taken some fun weekend trips and had some fun local outings. I felt like a rock star yesterday because I took five kids boating (the two oldest in a canoe with the 6yo between them; the 9yo in a paddleboat with me while the 2yo sat between us) and everyone had a grand time. The 14yo said afterward, "We should do this more often," and given his usual views on my ideas about fun stuff to do together (in a word: dim), I'm taking that as a ringing endorsement. We had a picnic afterward featuring pan bagnat and nobody complained. (The two oldest boys enjoy it as much as I do; the younger kids are not fans. Perhaps they'd worked up an appetite paddling around the lake.)
Classes start soon and I'm wildly excited. I have gnawed off all my fingernails in my moments of "I-think-I-can't" (how's that for a bestselling children's book: The Little Engine Who Was Pretty Sure She Would Fail But Persevered Grimly Anyway). I have a string of happy updates about my new job: the chair asked me to co-teach a second class this fall, which accomplished a few really good things: it gave me clear direction about whether to continue my postdoc on a quarter-time basis; it allowed me to ease into planning a syllabus for the first time, using someone else's established framework. And get this: the subject matter for the two classes overlaps slightly, so my co-instructor said, "Here, want to borrow this book? And I've got a bunch of notes posted on the web if you'd like to look them over." Coincidentally (or not), this is the section of the course I'm teaching alone that had me the most worried. How cool is that?
A week or two later, the chair called me back again to ask if I could teach a second course in the spring semester. It all feels so providential to me: a course and a half in the fall, with the hardest part of my solo course out of the way before my half of the co-taught course begins, and then two courses in the spring with a fair degree of overlap (one grad course and one undergrad). Forgive me for repeating myself, but it's exactly the kind of gig I hoped to land when I started this whole undertaking and it still boggles my mind that it plopped into my lap. God is good and I'm feeling optimistic.
Of course, my daughter still sleeps like a wombat (read: badly. Badly badly badly.) and sleep deprivation does bad things to optimism, so I'd better wrap it up. More soon, about summer reading and summer knitting and TICKS SUCKING MY CHILD'S BLOOD and especially the questions I asked you to ask me back at the beginning of July and then was too morose to answer. Soon.
oh dear, good, very good to have you back. And marriage *IS* *most definitely* ferociously hard. I'm sorry you feel so frustrated, my friend. The boating outing (too much ing, I know) sounds delightful, but I am even more delighted about your upcoming teaching assignments! The Lord is wonderful indeed. Well, I have to sleep now, but I'm glad to be "talking" to you again!
Posted by: Lilian | August 13, 2011 at 11:08 PM
Praying for you...
And yes...marriage is ferociously hard...
Posted by: gina | August 14, 2011 at 01:52 PM
Ok, I think the people in the Catholic blogosphere LIE about their marriages. Or something. Because there is no way they are all striving for the Lord, following all the rules, never fighting, never having a problem. I am sorry, but that's not real life. Ferociously hard? Is real.
On the other hand, yay for the job. That is just awesome. I hope it is everything you want it to be! :)
Posted by: mary d | August 14, 2011 at 07:07 PM
Oh, I am sorry. You know, I think that last time you invited questions I asked about marriage and how to keep on doing it. I really do understand that it's not bloggable,and actually felt very bad afterwards for raising it; but I'm still grateful for just those couple of sentences you wrote above. Makes one feel less like a failure and more like this is Just Part of the Deal.
And if you ever do find a way of writing about issues and how to communicate without sending the conversation into the same old tailspin or how to stop expecting change even when you know you shouldn't... well, bated breath and all that. Or, hey, even a list of What Not To Do, which I bet would be funny and get some of the frustrations out.
Posted by: rachel | August 15, 2011 at 06:55 AM
You've struck a nerve today. You are most definitely keeping it real. I have no words for how hard marriage is. It almost makes it even harder because socially, it's not to be spoken about. I am past comparing mine to other, maybe mythical marriages. I'm just struggling.
But this weekend it finally clicked for me how to knit from a charted pattern repeat (use tons of stitch markers and number the rows from the bottom up) and now I have a stalled project going forward again. I'm a new knitter so this is exciting to have something mystifying make sense.
Posted by: Celeste | August 15, 2011 at 07:33 AM
A comedian once said that 90 percent of the time, marriage means thinking about how incredibly lucky you are to have found your soulmate. And the other 10 percent of the time, you're wondering, "How can I fake my death?"
Posted by: Slim | August 15, 2011 at 12:01 PM
Thank you, Jamie, for writing even this little bit about it. Slim, I think the percentages are more like 60/40.
Posted by: Sara | August 17, 2011 at 07:36 AM
I say you're keeping it real. I'll also admit that when I read too many things in which everyone is Communicating Effectively and nobody is fighting unproductively and we're all striving for Heaven...I feel like I must be getting it wrong as a wife AND mother AND Catholic. Reading about other people who are (as a friend put it when somebody asked him what he thought about salvation and the state of his soul), "works in progress" makes me feel a lot more grounded. Being a work in progress is OK: work has been started, and is progressing, and the Worker apparently thinks the project is worth what's been budgeted for it. ;-)
I tried once explaining to somebody in my church that hearing a priest say, "If you only understood X, Y and Z, then you'd A, B and C," didn't actually help me understand X, Y and Z. I didn't need to be shown all the ways in which I was Doing It Wrong -- because, believe me, I'm aware. What I need is help getting it right.
So, keep on keeping on, and thank you.
Posted by: Kristin | August 17, 2011 at 09:25 PM
Retroville. I'll tell you about it sometime.
Posted by: Svetlana | August 22, 2011 at 08:42 PM
Also, my son, Basil, the 2½ yr old has horrendous sleep. A good friend, mother of 8, suggested a sleep study. If I do it I'll let you know if it helps.
Posted by: Svetlana | August 22, 2011 at 08:45 PM
You are wonderful and I'm right there with you. Not perfect in any aspect, but trying. Almost ten years of marriage and it's hard. Love being married, but it's hard. It takes work. It takes God! I don't know how folks do it without him ... and in fact they don't. They divorce. Not an option for us, so we work at it and see the forest for the trees most days.
Posted by: Rebecca | August 24, 2011 at 09:13 PM