Did I mention. . .

that Yetta is dating.  Yes, and they are talking about getting married.  Archer and I are still trying to get a hold of that one.

Not my best

That is how I feel today, not my best.  So I'm blogging during my scheduled writing time in an attempt to get out of my funk.  Why am I in a funk?  It's been a difficult few days for lots of reasons.

Bear's sleeping habits have improved (as in he is no longer waking up every 2 hours), but he still wakes up incredibly early.  This morning, for example, he woke up at 4:30.  He doesn't want to be awake this early, but he won't go back to sleep without help.  And that help, it seems, must come from me.  This is a fairly recent thing, since the move.  Until then, Archer and I had worked out a really great schedule for dealing with Bear.  We simply alternated mornings and nights.  If it was my night to get up with Bear, Archer got up with him in the morning and vice versa.  This meant that we both got enough sleep.  Mind you, we were both tired, but neither of us was exhausted.  At some point following the move, however, Bear has refused to let Archer soothe him in the night.  This means that Archer tries, and Bear screams bloody murder at the top of his lungs.  I can't sleep through this, and to avoid both of us being completely exhausted, I've gotten in the habit of just getting up with Bear.  As I said, most nights this is fine, and most mornings it is as well since he's gotten into the habit of sleeping until 6:00.  This morning, though, it wasn't.  Wednesday night I'd been up twice with Wild Man, who first wanted a drink and then needed to go pee.  Each time I was woken up it took me about 30 minutes to go back to sleep.  Then I was up early with Bear as it was my morning to do so.  Thus, this morning I was hoping to get some extra sleep.  It didn't happen.

After struggling to get Bear to go back to sleep for about 15 minutes, I finally brought him into our bed, as I didn't want him to wake up Wild Man (they are now sharing a bedroom).  After another 15 minutes, most of which Archer slept through (although he says he was awake, I argue that his snoring indicated otherwise), I got up to take Bear downstairs to see if he'd relax on the couch.  Archer woke up and asked me if I wanted him to take over.  Now, I hate this question.  Hate it.  And Archer and I have talked about this.  If he can see I'm struggling and at my wit's end, I'd rather he just take over.  I don't want him to ask me that question because in such a moment I'm not going to respond nicely.  As much as I mean to say, "Yes, please, thank you.  I really need a break," in such a moment, when I'm tired and frustrated and unhappy with my own behavior, I'm going to say something like, "Of course I want you to take over.  Do you really have to ask that question?"  That's what I said at 5:30 this morning.  And it didn't go over well.  Understandably, Archer doesn't like to be snapped at when he's offering to help.  I get that.  He said something like, "You don't have to be such a martyr, M.  Just ask for help."  That, of course, made it worse.  So I grabbed Bear and went downstairs, telling Archer I'd take care of it.  So I was now annoyed and frustrated and tired. 

I finally got Bear back to sleep at 5:30, and he slept until 6:30.  Between his wiggles and the cat deciding 5:45 was the perfect time for a snuggle, I didn't get much sleep.  When Bear woke up at 6:30, I woke up Archer and asked him if I could have a break.  He happily took over, and I lied down.  He forgot, however, to close our bedroom door all the way, which meant that I heard him turn on the coffee grinder 5 minutes later, just as I was dropping off to sleep.  So I got up and closed the door all the way, and that annoyed me more.  To be fair to Archer, our house is old.  Unless you close the door all the way, it will fall open again.  Neither of us is used to this yet, as we've only been in the house for 3 weeks.  I know he didn't do that on purpose, but again, in that moment, it really irritated me.

When I woke up at 7:10 I went downstairs, still tired and annoyed and frustrated.  I expected that Archer would have finished packing Wild Man's lunch, which I'd started packing the night before.  But no.  He'd hung out with Bear.  So I started doing the 45 things that are part of our morning routine.  He came into the kitchen to say good morning, and I rolled my eyes at him.  He knew why I was upset, so he said, "I was coming to do all of those things now that you're awake.  I know you can hear all the activity from the kitchen in our room.  Since you'd been up since 4:30 I wanted to give you a bit more time to sleep.  Let me do that."  To which I said, "Well you could have had all this stuff done if you'd just take the time to close the bedroom door all the way."  Archer walked away, understandably so, and left me to finish everything. 

We managed the rest of the morning routine without speaking to each other, which sucks.  It sucks even more because Bear is knee-deep in the terrible twos, and we normally get through his crankiness by laughing together.  This morning we were barely looking at each other.  On the way to school, I apologized.  I said, "I'm really sorry I snapped and that I was being so unreasonable.  I know you were trying to help me.  I now you probably feel like I treat you as though you never do anything right, and I'm sorry for that.  I'm really sorry I make you feel that way."  He nodded, but he didn't really respond.  I know he needs more time to process everything, and I know everything will be fine by this afternoon.  I'm just so tired of feeling tired and frustrated, and I feel like crap for taking those feelings out on Archer.

Snappy

So Archer and I are in the midst of the end of the semester wrap-up, a particularly stressful time of the year.  The past few days have been rough.  We've both been grading, and we've had lots of other meetings to deal with.  We're having a hard time coordinating schedules, so at least twice one of us has had to rush out to pick up Wild Man on days we thought the other was going to do it.  Needless to say, this means we're being much snappier than usual with one another.  Archer said to me this morning, "I don't feel like I can do anything right."  To which I replied, "I'm really sorry if I'm making you feel that way, but I feel that way too."  It's frustrating because we go through this at the end of every term, and we haven't uncovered any really methods to prevent this or to deal with the stress more effectively.  Right now I feel like I'm just hanging on until we can get through this week, and then I think we'll be able to have a conversation without snapping at one another.

"The Last Kiss"

I recently watched a movie called "The Last Kiss," and I've been thinking about the implications of one's last kiss since. The title refers to the last kiss a person has—as in, the last person you'll ever kiss. The premise of the movie is fairly cliché: a couple, who've been together for 3 years, get pregnant unexpectedly; they decide to have the baby but not marry; the man begins to feel trapped and has a one night stand with a younger woman; his girlfriends find out and dumps him; he immediately realizes he's made a huge mistake and tries to get the girlfriend back. By the end of the film, he succeeds, but I didn't feel like that was much of a happy ending. So here's my question: do some men get so freaked out by the "permanence" of marriage that they would knowingly sabotage a relationship? Do some women? The films genders the answer, as it suggests that women are always ready to commit while men have to be dragged kicking and screaming down the aisle, which I certainly don't believe.

I realize the theme of the film is supposed to be that people get scared, but true love can conquer those fears. I also get that part of the theme is to forgive those we love. But the idea that one needs to have one last fling before committing to one person for life has never made any sense to me. I asked a friend about this one (admittedly a male friend, so I guess I gender the issue some what myself), and he equated it to a prisoner on death row having his last meal. As you can imagine, I didn't like that analogy—my friend equated marriage with a death sentence. I understand being scared about the lifelong commitment, but I don't understand responding to that fear by being unfaithful. But then, I don't get being unfaithful either. Unfaithfulness has affected my extended family a lot in the past 5 years, and C and I have talked about it a lot. Both of our siblings had affairs; my sister's affair ended her marriage (although the marriage had been in trouble for a long, long time), and she's now married to the man she with whom she had the affair. C's brother's affair lasted at least 2 years, and somehow he and his wife were able to work through it. They have a strong marriage now, and I’m happy they stayed together (and I believe my sister-in-law is a much better person than I am). While I think both of our siblings were wrong, I judge their actions very differently. I can forgive (not that I've been asked for forgiveness or that I believe that my feelings matter at all in the separate situations) my sister, but I found I much harder to forgive my brother-in-law. I think my sister treated her ex-husband horribly and that she should have found a different way out of her marriage, but she had the affair out of loneliness and desperation. C's brother had an affair because he felt trapped—that is precisely what he said to C. I've even heard him say that his wife "trapped" him. Well, I was at that wedding, I don’t remember anyone holding a gun to his head during the ceremony.

So I don't get hurting someone you love because you're afraid. I've honestly never thought that C is the last person I'll ever kiss. I'm in love with my husband, and I fall in love with him over and over again all the time. But I'm the last person to romanticize marriage. Marriage is hard work, and I really don't think most people realize that. Despite my liberal views on most everything, I have to admit that I'm fairly conservative about marriage. I believe deeply in the vow I made to my husband—and not from any religious or moral sense either. I made a promise to him that we would be together for life, and I will do my very best to keep that promise. I'm not saying that I don't believe in divorce. My mother divorced my biological father (that's a story for another post) when I was 5, and I believe that was the best decision she could have made. My dad, who is technically my step-dad, is 1,000,000 times a better dad that my BF, whom I haven't seen n 19 years and have no desire to see. I also think my sister made a smart decision when she divorced her husband, but I also think (and she agrees as we've talked about this) that she would have been wiser not to have an affair.

So back to the movie. I'm still trying to figure out why it bothered me so much, and I think I've got it. The boyfriend confesses all to the girlfriend because he can't deal with the guilt (I hate that by the way—don't confess and destroy someone else because you can't deal with your own guilt, especially if your relationship is salvageable). He makes several grand gestures, and she ultimately forgives him. That she forgives him so easily is what bothers me. Despite everything I've just written—and do believe—about the commitment of marriage, I consider infidelity the one unforgivable thing. I do think it can be overcome and the relationship can become stronger; my brother and sister-in-law are evidence of that. But the movie makes it seem as though some flowers and groveling are enough to make everything all better, and that bothers me. But then, as I notice the post has become much longer than I intended, I have to remember it is a movie, and movies tend to do oversimplify it. But I do think the concept of "the last kiss" is odd and promotes the idea that women only want to get married and men never want to get married.