I am not quite sure how to explain this without you, the reader, thinking I am complaining or super depressed or something. It is true that the holiday season can be rough for the elderly who are alone. It can also be rough for other people who want to love the holidays but have lots of life stuff going on.
Basically, I feel like I am missing out on the big things in life that I really want to be taking part in for myself: marriage, children, hitting the last two continents (South America and Antarctica), being able to save money for a vacation, a car, retirement. Things a 32 year old could, and some would argue should, be able to do.
This is something I have been thinking about more than I should
recently for obvious reasons: CF leaving for another state soon, seeing
my family, not seeing friends, CF's family coming in two days for 12
days, friends having babies on the way or actually having them, family/friends/exes
getting engaged and/or married, the holidays, travel.
Right now, I seriously feel like the only thing I have to show for this is a PhD. Some would argue that is impressive. Whatevs.
In addition to this, I do not feel like I have a place right now. I have no desire to move to where CF is moving. I want to move back to family and friends. If I end up not doing some of the things friends and family have done in their personal lives, I want to be close enough to be an actual part of their lives. Participate and live vicariously in real life, instead of just online.
I will keep applying to those jobs and trying to get my first post-doc publication finished and make it through the next couple months trying to be nice and finding reasons to be happy. Christmas music and a balsam-scented candle are doing it for me right now.
28 November 2011
08 November 2011
I get it...sorta
CF is STILL not done with his PhD. He STILL does not have a defense date. He STILL has not set up a meeting with his committee chairperson.
He is not taking an unusually long time. Although in animal sciences, they often finish on the quicker end, and at the moment he is at the beginning of year 6. He has a job, several publications, lots of presentations, and, oh, did I mention a job? Not that I am in a hurry for him to leave for the job {sad face}, but still. I still, no matter how many times I ask, do not understand why he has not talked to anyone about a defense date.
The irony is that I totally understand how he feels. I have told him I worry that he is not advocating for himself. I have explained that the reason I finished was because I kept pushing, and even that takes time. I have repeatedly pointed out that no one will come to him to say, "Hey! Ready to defend?" As far as I can tell, I am the only person who keeps asking him these questions and pushing him to finish. So I end up being the bad "guy", but I just cannot help it.
Being a pain in the butt has not helped. I wish I could figure out what would help.
He is not taking an unusually long time. Although in animal sciences, they often finish on the quicker end, and at the moment he is at the beginning of year 6. He has a job, several publications, lots of presentations, and, oh, did I mention a job? Not that I am in a hurry for him to leave for the job {sad face}, but still. I still, no matter how many times I ask, do not understand why he has not talked to anyone about a defense date.
The irony is that I totally understand how he feels. I have told him I worry that he is not advocating for himself. I have explained that the reason I finished was because I kept pushing, and even that takes time. I have repeatedly pointed out that no one will come to him to say, "Hey! Ready to defend?" As far as I can tell, I am the only person who keeps asking him these questions and pushing him to finish. So I end up being the bad "guy", but I just cannot help it.
Being a pain in the butt has not helped. I wish I could figure out what would help.
04 November 2011
Very Virtuous
Often, when talking about CF, people will tell me that I am very patient.
At a Halloween party last weekend I was relaying a story about Thanksgiving last year when we were visiting CF's American "families". [In reality, I think they are the equivalent of what you might consider best friends if your family lived close enough to visit more than once a year.] We stopped by parents of one of his exes from long ago and they invited us to dinner the next day. The ex and her hubby were not going to be there, but I do not think that would have stopped CF from accepting the offer. Seriously. And we went. The thing that made it the most sad was that there weren't even homemade rolls, because my Mom's rolls are GOOOD. The two friends we were talking to could NOT believe I had gone. One admitted she was now judging me.
After my moving almost two years ago and CF STILL NOT BEING DONE WITH HIS DISSERTATION, he pushed off his start date for work and intended to stay where he was living. One hour from my new apartment-on-the-lake. With Thanksgiving, his family coming for two weeks, Christmas, and a New Year's Eve wedding between then and his start date. It (surprisingly) did not take much to convince him to move in with me for two months, as he realized the back-and-forth and figuring out family stuff was not going to be fun.
Now I have realized that him moving here is a VERY good thing for practical reasons. He left ALLLLLLLLL his packing until the two days before he was actually moving. He knew I had work to do and could not help a bunch, but asked if I would burn a bunch of paper waste. I was almost done when he revealed that there were SEVERAL MORE BOXES OF PAPER in a storage room. Some of the mail had his first roommate from 3+ years ago's name on it. He said he had kept meaning to use all that paper for a bonfire but kept forgetting. I wish he had let me in on the plan because I would not have forgotten.
Lots of his stuff is in storage for the time being. This move helped him clean some stuff out, pack some stuff he does not need while living here, and most importantly - not leave all his packing and burning and cleaning for between Christmas and New Years.
His 15 minutes turned into an hour and 15 minutes last night while I waited to head out for our first grocery shopping trip together. (We have grocery shopped together before, but not since he moved in on Monday.)
Honestly, though, for me this is a test of sorts. He may not realize it, but I will let him in on the secret some day when he is not being angry at graduate school.
Patience is a virtue, I suppose.
P.S. I started adding tabs to my blog because I was jealous of tabs on other blogs. :-)
At a Halloween party last weekend I was relaying a story about Thanksgiving last year when we were visiting CF's American "families". [In reality, I think they are the equivalent of what you might consider best friends if your family lived close enough to visit more than once a year.] We stopped by parents of one of his exes from long ago and they invited us to dinner the next day. The ex and her hubby were not going to be there, but I do not think that would have stopped CF from accepting the offer. Seriously. And we went. The thing that made it the most sad was that there weren't even homemade rolls, because my Mom's rolls are GOOOD. The two friends we were talking to could NOT believe I had gone. One admitted she was now judging me.
After my moving almost two years ago and CF STILL NOT BEING DONE WITH HIS DISSERTATION, he pushed off his start date for work and intended to stay where he was living. One hour from my new apartment-on-the-lake. With Thanksgiving, his family coming for two weeks, Christmas, and a New Year's Eve wedding between then and his start date. It (surprisingly) did not take much to convince him to move in with me for two months, as he realized the back-and-forth and figuring out family stuff was not going to be fun.
Now I have realized that him moving here is a VERY good thing for practical reasons. He left ALLLLLLLLL his packing until the two days before he was actually moving. He knew I had work to do and could not help a bunch, but asked if I would burn a bunch of paper waste. I was almost done when he revealed that there were SEVERAL MORE BOXES OF PAPER in a storage room. Some of the mail had his first roommate from 3+ years ago's name on it. He said he had kept meaning to use all that paper for a bonfire but kept forgetting. I wish he had let me in on the plan because I would not have forgotten.
Lots of his stuff is in storage for the time being. This move helped him clean some stuff out, pack some stuff he does not need while living here, and most importantly - not leave all his packing and burning and cleaning for between Christmas and New Years.
His 15 minutes turned into an hour and 15 minutes last night while I waited to head out for our first grocery shopping trip together. (We have grocery shopped together before, but not since he moved in on Monday.)
Honestly, though, for me this is a test of sorts. He may not realize it, but I will let him in on the secret some day when he is not being angry at graduate school.
Patience is a virtue, I suppose.
P.S. I started adding tabs to my blog because I was jealous of tabs on other blogs. :-)
02 November 2011
Holiday-crafty
I debated about inviting people over in December to decorate cookies. After seeing this post of homemade ornaments, though, I am thinking that would be fun and involve less monotonous cooking. (I would clearly still bake, because I like to, but just not bake a whole bunch of the same shaped cookies.)
Maybe a good compromise for CF and I to do a tree together is to not use any ornaments from either of our stashes, but to make them all! This could seriously end up being a problem because his tree is always white lights and red and/or silver ornaments. Mine is not.
As an aside, if anyone has a good way to convince another person that light colored curtains and light colored walls and light colored wood and pale flooring and white lights on a tree with no color other than red can get BORING, do let me know.
Maybe a good compromise for CF and I to do a tree together is to not use any ornaments from either of our stashes, but to make them all! This could seriously end up being a problem because his tree is always white lights and red and/or silver ornaments. Mine is not.
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