Ramblings of a pseudo intellectual

I have what might be an abnormally conscious fear of death.

It’s sort of hard for me to describe.  There is more than one facet to it.

First of all, I simply do not want to die, and I fear dying young.  I don’t want to abandon my children before they are old enough to know I loved them with all my being, and before they are mature enough to not be psychologically scarred by my absence.  I love life, I love being alive, and I don’t want it to end any time soon.

Then, there’s the fear of dying itself.  I am a secular humanist so I don’t believe in heaven or hell, or limbo, or reincarnation, or any other sort of existence beyond life as we know it here.  I believe that life just ends, that consciousness just ends, and that’s it.  Part of me really wishes I didn’t; if I could believe that when I died, I’d be reunited with my mother and grandparents and all my other loved ones, it would be so much more comforting.  I wish I could find something about death that I could look forward to.  I suppose it is fortunate that I have no reason to believe that death would be better than the life I’m living now.  Still, I dwell on it occasionally, and quite honestly, it terrifies me.  What will it feel like, to slip out of consciousness like that, never to return?  Will I know it’s happening?  Am I going to spend the last few moments of my life scared out of my mind because my greatest fear is happening to me?

I got wrapped up in all those thoughts last night, as I laid with Lane trying to get her to fall asleep.  Oh man, it is not a good or comforting thing to be so aware of one’s own mortality sometimes.

I haven’t been writing the last couple (few?) days, and it’s not from lack of desire.  Life has just been busy!  There’s been lots of running around and playing with offspring and dinners at the in-laws’ and Frank and I actually went on a date on Friday.  It’s been months.

And, to my amazement, I went on a run Saturday morning and didn’t die.  Now, please keep in mind that for me, running is not “running”.  Running is intermittent jogging and walking.  But I like doing it and it makes me dodge that feeling of inertia you get when you don’t exercise for awhile.  I prefer to do it outside, but I’m sort of wussy when it comes to weather, so if it’s too cold, or too wet, or too windy, I won’t be out there.  I totally enjoy running on a treadmill but since right now I don’t have a gym membership, and don’t have a treadmill, that hasn’t happened since October when I did have a gym membership.  We have a gym picked out, and/or once we’re in a house we’ll probably buy a treadmill.  But I ran, honestly for the first time since October.  Egads.  I’ve started the last couple springs with the idea that I want to be able to run a 5K.  Three springs ago, I started out decently enough, and then got three different really bad colds right in a row and that sort of took the wind out of my sails.  Two springs ago, I ran for a couple weeks and couldn’t figure out why I was sucking wind so badly… and then I took a pregnancy test.  Jacob’s pregnancy had me sucking wind if I just looked at a flight of stairs, so any sort of serious working out made me feel lightheaded and ill so that didn’t happen.  Last spring I did pretty well.  I didn’t get to 5K levels, but I was able to increase the jogging intervals from 30 seconds apiece at the start of the spring to 5 minutes at a stretch by the time October and the total life upheaval came about.  Hopefully, I’ll find a way to stick with it again, and maybe push myself even more.  Again, I’d love to run in an honest-to-goodness 5K race, and actually run the whole thing.  Someday!!!

The running got started with me when I stumbled across this training plan, called the Couch-to-5K plan.  It is sooo for me.  I did find that I needed more than a week at each level, so I spent 2-3 weeks at each “week” until I was doing 5 minutes at a time.  Hopefully with a gym membership here, and/or a treadmill, plus the resolve to get outside to run whenever I can, I can get to a point where the idea of running in an actual race won’t seem so daunting.

In other news, Jake’s language has started happening.  Up until now, his communication has pretty much centered around our dog.  He would say “Duh” for dog, and if he saw a dog, or heard a dog, or played with a stuffed dog, he would go “woo woo” which was him barking like a dog.  In the last couple of days he’s gotten the hang of signing “milk” when he wants to nurse, and has also started saying “mum mum” for me, and “ba” for ball.  He may have also said “car” too but it only happened once and I couldn’t get him to repeat it.

Kate got me thinking today, with this morning’s post.  Mostly about life experiences and expectations, and how much they can vary from one person to the next.  How things that are ‘normal’ for one person can be so alien to the next.

Knowing what I’ve heard of the relationships my mom had before my dad (mostly from stories she told me), and knowing that she married my dad, it is safe to say she was drawn to the bad-boy type.  Maybe she liked the drama, maybe she thought she could change them.  I dunno.

Frank is, simply, NOT the bad boy type.  He does not swear beyond an occasional “dammit” and he gives me dirty looks if I do.  He’s quiet and introspective and just generally nice and well-intentioned.  I’ve had to do a lot of training in the ways of chivalry and courtesy because that is apparently not something that thrives in his family, but my touches have stuck and he’s definitely a keeper.

Once my mom realized our relationship was serious — like going on our third year serious — she asked me if I was sure I wanted to be with him.  Her reason?  “Well, he just doesn’t seem all that…. well… exciting.”  I responded, “You know Mom, he doesn’t do drugs, he doesn’t swear, he barely drinks, and I don’t think I ever have to worry about him cheating on me or physically hurting me or any kids we have.  We get along really well and have shared interests and have fun.  He’s exactly the type of person I want to spend the rest of my life with.”

At first it seemed weird to have to justify a relationship with such a nice guy to my mom.  But over time, as I’ve thought about that conversation, that one question has more and more shone a revealing light on many of the choices she’d made in her life.

Yes, it is true.  I am foresook.

A couple weeks ago we had a water outage, and it wasn’t fun.  And I am pretty sure I never bored you with it then, but we were on a boil-water-order for four days after the water came back on.  Couldn’t use tap water to cook, do many grooming tasks, wash dishes, etc.  Fun times all around.

Yesterday I discovered water in our basement.  Long story short, it was because The Schmekl’s toilet line was overflowing.  Ewww.  A plumber has been here, and he surmises that the problem seems to have corrected itself.  I hope so.  I have laundry stranded in the washing machine and dryer below, which will all get re-washed since it shared the same air with The Schmekl’s poop.

We spent most of New Year’s Eve driving back home.  I wanted to stay in Buffalo until New Year’s Day but the weather forecast was not encouraging of that plan, so we skedaddled yesterday.

We have a Magellan GPS thingamabob for our car, which I love.  One spiffy thing it does is it tells you the estimated arrival time for your trip.  The whole trip it was in the 12:15-12:30 ballpark.  We’d make up time (because it assumes you drive the speed limit, silly Magellan) and then I’d have to pee or a child would demand sustenance, and we’d lose the 15 minutes we’d just gained.  With an hour left on the trip, we had it down to 12:04, then Jake wanted to nurse.  I was able to appease him with a ‘biter biscuit’ for a half hour, but 30 minutes from home he just had to have him some boob.  We nursed just enough to make it happily home, and got back on the road.  We ended up being only a few yards from our driveway when the clock in our car struck midnight, so hubby and I were able to give kisses in the driveway and give the kids kisses right on the stroke of twelve.   Not a huge deal if it hadn’t worked out, but it was nice that it did.

We got the car all unloaded, a feat unto itself.  Did some unpacking, let the kids wind down from being in the car, got them ready for bed, and me and the kids were finally asleep around 3:00 a.m.  Then, joyfully, I woke up at 8:00 a.m., one kid on each side of me in my bed, to discover that Lane had her first nighttime accident in two months… in our bed.  Oh what fun it is to change bedsheets in a sleep-induced stupor.  Or something like that.  But we did, and sleep returned, and we managed to sleep until noon.  Ta da.

Now, I’m going to make a very late brunch of waffles, and we’re watching the Sabres-Penguins Snow Bowl on TV.  Not a bad way to spend New Year’s Day.

It seems all the rage on blogs to take a moment to reflect on the past year as it draws to a close.  Well, it’s probably more a human quality, and since humans write blogs, well, there you go.

2007 has led me down an interesting path.  At the end of 2006, I was very pregnant, I’d just finished recovering from a broken foot, I was working full time in a promising career at a Fortune 100 company, we owned a large 4 bedroom house in central NJ.

Now, I have a 10 month-old son…. he is by far the biggest thing that happened to me in 2007.  Jake is simply amazing.  He has a curiosity for the world that is already so apparent, it won’t be long before he’s taking apart our DVD player just to see what’s inside.  And he’s happy.  Nearly anything can elicit a giggle or even a hearty laugh from him and it melts my heart every time.  He already has a first word - dog - although that ‘guh’ sound at the end apparently is just too pedestrian for him to bother with.  It’s a fitting first word; we have a golden retriever and he thinks she’s just awesome.  He’s pretty laid-back too, in general, which is good given his sister’s appetite for wrestling with him.

Speaking of his sister, she’s had quite a year too, and it’s been fun (mostly) to watch.  2007 has brought Lane her 3rd birthday, successful potty-training, and the ability to sleep through the night.  Lest you think that has made our jobs as parents easier, don’t you get ahead of yourself.  ;)  Lane is - how shall I say this - a complicated child.  The hip way to describe her is ’spirited’.  She is as intense a person as I have ever met.  There is not an ambivalent bone in her body, and she feels every emotion and shares every opinion with a strength of passion I hope will serve her well in life.  She also may have a birth defect, that being that her body has mastered cold fusion.  This little girl has more energy than anyone I’ve ever seen.  She can go and go and go and go and go.  Sleep is an afterthought for her.  If there is a point where she can burn off so much energy that she will go to bed earlier, we haven’t found it yet.  Please don’t think for a second I’d change any of that.  Lane is awesome fun to have around.  Her joy and verve and exuberance are contagious, and she’s a constant reminder that life is meant to be lived, and be fun, and what use is it to sit around?!?  This year has also brought Lane an exploding vocabulary and the daily joy of having conversations with her.

Anyway, back on track here!  While I started the year as a working, career-minded (though increasingly ambivalent), homeowning mother, I’m ending it, well, I’m still a mother.  We sold our house to move closer to my husband’s parents in downstate NY.  I quit the promising career at the great company, which was at the same time exhilarating and the scariest thing I’ve ever done.  We moved to another state and are renting an apartment while we househunt for a house that, while it should still be sufficiently roomy and nice enough, will not be the house we left in New Jersey. 

2007 has turned me into a stay-at-home mom to two kids, and though I never knew it, it’s exactly what I always wanted.

2008 promises to be a great one for our family, too.  There will be another move when we buy our new house.  My husband is an actuary, and 2008 should be the year he attains his Associate of the Society of Actuaries, which anyone who is or knows an actuary can tell you, that’s a big deal.  Jake will turn a year old, and will reach a ton of milestones this year - talking, walking, maybe even doing our taxes for us.  We’re going to Aruba in April.  It should be a pretty amazing year for our family. 

And here’s wishing that your 2008 is full of discovery and wonder and joy and love.

I don’t know.

But I have a question for every politico who wants to “protect a baby’s right to life”.

If abortion at some point does become illegal again, does that mean that the government will start issuing social security numbers to every baby as soon as a woman gets a positive pregnancy test?  Do women get to claim miscarriages as dependents for the year in which they were miscarried?   Because if life begins at conception, shouldn’t the tax benefits, too?