From “Me” to “We”

I am still in the newly married category, and I have realized that I need to think more about what it means to do something for “us” rather than for “me.” I think I am still viewing what I am doing, being at home, as a “me” thing. Even though I thought that I viewed it as an “us” thing. For one thing, I have been enjoying myself so much that it hardly feels like a sacrifice or work. I have loved cooking and the cleaning hasn’t been so bad yet. I am also enjoying growing and learning in my other projects as well. But I realized I that I should think about this subject more this past weekend when Joel and I tried to clean up the house together. Really, I wanted us to move in our stuff more, since we still had things that needed to “find a home” and since he has about a million boxes in our room full of books. But as we were beginning to work, I noticed Joel make a comment that seemed so cliché, he said that he has been working all week and didn’t want to clean on Friday. Because he doesn’t work on Friday, so it provides him some off time. As it turns out, we did end up moving some of our stuff around, which I think is good. Joel and I haven’t totally moved in, and we do need to continue to put things away so that we don’t have boxes in the room anymore. But I realized that he really has been working all week and have I? Yes, I have been working too, at home. But I remembered that part of my working at home is to take care of cleaning and putting things away so that he doesn’t have those jobs at home on top of his teaching. I realized that we were a team, I don’t have to prepare for classes, turn in paper work, grade papers, and create lectures. He does that. And thanks to him doing that, I have time to cook, clean, educate myself and do my crafts. It’s not so much that I realized that I should be taking care of everything and he shouldn’t lift a finger at home. But I guess I finally got it that I do want to make sure that he doesn’t have the extra stress of house stuff. He has been doing great with school, but I can tell that he can get a little stressed if he has to worry about much other than school. So I want to do a better job of thinking about us.

I know that when we have kids, I don’t want it to be where I am the only one cleaning every one’s messes, the children need to clean up after themselves. And Joel and I were talking about how we had to start with us. If we have good habits, then the children will cooperate with those habits easier. So Joel does have to pick up after himself, and he does. He does help me fill the dishwasher after eating, and he will clean up the various messes he makes. But every once in a while, maybe because I didn’t have the dishwasher emptied before we ate, then he wont do the dishes after we eat. And I think for a minute that he should be helping me with this. But then I realize, really it is ok because I have the time to do the dishes and he doesn’t. So when we have kids, and when I have less time due to having kids, then Joel might have to do a little extra work around the house. But that is how Joel & I agreed to live. We agreed to not have our roles automatically decided for us, but that instead we should do what makes sense to us in the current situation, knowing it can change when our situations change. So for now, while Joel is a new teacher and is under a lot of stress and while I am working at home without having children yet, I can pick up a lot more housework than him.

Another thing that I want to think more about is preparing for having children. And in this case, I mean preparing for teaching them. I want to prepare my soul for the attitudes I want to take towards my children, prepare my mind for the religious and educational things I want to teach them. So in this regard, Joel and I have started to read the bible daily, and I am also going to educate myself more on homeschooling. Although, first, I guess I have chosen to reread Heidegger’s book called Being & Time because Joel and I had a conversation about one of the topics, and it made me want to read it again. Basically, I want to keep “us” in mind again, though. I want to be sure that the things I am making time for at home are primarily things for us. Preparing for homeschool is something that we as parents need to do if we are serious about it. So that is definitely for us. And working on my soul is important for us too, just as Joel takes time out to work on his soul as well.

Consequently, I just want to keep working on that shift from thinking about “me” to thinking about “us.” It is all part of the process of coming together that we vowed to do.

A Glimpse of our Married Life

When Joel & I were dating, pretty much the only things we would argue about would have to do with deep religious, philosophical or value beliefs. Those disagreements were ugly, difficult and challenging. We would talk for hours, and it seemed we would get paralyzed in our conversations. We would get to a point where we just didn’t agree, couldn’t see eye to eye. We simply held different views and we didn’t see how to reconcile them.

It now seems like forever since we argued like that, even though it has been a little over a year and even though we argued like that for about 3 years. In so many ways, even though it was so tough and unpleasant, we are both thankful for those discussions. We really challenged each other and grew so much. Growing hurts! But I love being able to grow with Joel. I think it showed us that we can stick together since we worked through such difficult disagreements.

During the past year, we both grew closer together and finally reconciled a lot of our differences, hence the reason we felt able to get married (to become one). We know better how to discuss our differing points of view and we also see the other’s perspective more clearly and with deeper understanding.

But now, since we have been married, we are having our first real arguments that are “normal.” I say normal because while other couples I knew were arguing over some miscommunication or “you didn’t call me” triviality, we were arguing over abortion, interpreting certain biblical passages and other issues. Before it was such a strong feeling that we had to work it out or we couldn’t continue on. We couldn’t be together if we held such opposing beliefs. We couldn’t truly become one if we were so different. And so now, I can honestly say that it is a joy to argue over these little things. If you heard us, you will probably hear Joel get frustrated and raise his voice, and me get frustrated and cry, but that lasts about 5 minutes, and then I start laughing. I am able to step back and say, you know what, I don’t really care. I don’t really care that you want to organize your files before we clean the closet together, I don’t really care that you want me to put the toilet paper roll on the holder. Everyone argues a little, and we quickly realize that we aren’t understanding each other right or that we just had different ideas of how we wanted to do something. But it is such a wonderful feeling to know, only 5 minutes into an argument that it really doesn’t matter. That this isn’t a matter that we can’t become one over. This isn’t a matter that will make me question our ethical perspectives. This is just the daily learning to live with another person, and we just need to stop our emotions and learn to see where the other person is coming from. Having those past philosophical arguments make me find joy in these trivial ones. It seems funny, but it just feels great to know that even though we disagreed, that it doesn’t matter and we can work it out easily. And even if we really disagreed on which room we should start cleaning first, we can agree to disagree and begin cleaning separately. So I am just enjoying having little arguments, that are easy to work out and that bring us closer.

Oh the blisses of our married life.

Sun Rise, Sun Set

There are many things in life that we have to do over and over again, pretty much until we die. Some are: cooking, cleaning: house, ourselves, pets, cars, etc…, filling the car with gas, eating, sleeping, waking, exercising, resting, smiling, crying, praying, making decisions, figuring out where to go and what to do, learning, growing, changing, and I am sure there is much more.

A few years ago, I first thought about this daily repetition when I was taking an existentialism class. The existentialists I was reading were pointing out that you are never “finished”, “a good person”, “being” – that instead you are always continuing on, striving to be good, and becoming. It doesn’t matter how many nice things you do, you can lose it all by never doing any thing nice again or by doing something horrible. You have to constantly be making choices that will define who you are.

When I thought about this concept, I really liked it. It seemed true to me, I do have to continue on, I am not finished. And I see many people who think that they are great just as they are, that they have already established themselves as “good” or “smart” and they don’t continue progressing. And just like a car, the less you use it, the less it will work. So the “smart” person who doesn’t continue to learn will eventually be surpassed by those who are continuing to learn.

But you have to really think about what is worth striving for. Do you really want to spend your time striving to be so thin, to be rich, to be seen as attractive by so many people? You have to think about what is worth striving for.

Striving takes energy, a lot of it. Relentless energy. You have to keep eating, every day, whether you feel like making food or not. If you don’t then you will suffer the consequences. The same goes with your mind and soul. They need to grow and learn, and if you don’t feel your mind or your soul, you will become deficient in some way.

These are somewhat old thoughts to me, today’s more recent thoughts have to do with cleaning. I was doing such a great job of keeping the house clean, but I wasn’t doing much else. Recently, I stopped cleaning so much and did a lot of work on my blogs and thank you cards from the wedding, among other things. And now I feel accomplished in those areas, but the apartment is quickly needing attention. This is why I like to schedule. Because it is the best way I can deal with the things that must be done daily, over and over again.

I thought back to existentialism because I recalled being joyous in the idea of constantly growing and striving. I really enjoyed giving a lot of energy to learning, reading, writing, working out and eating. And daily constant things are a nice part of life. They are the part that is the same but different. That keeps things familiar enough for me to be comfortable with, but different enough to not get bored. So instead of letting this cleaning get me down, I want to recall the joy there can be found in constant striving. There can be joy in constant cleaning. Because work always has to be done, but I can reflect on why I am cleaning. I want a happy, healthy, inviting home. One that can welcome people in without worrying about the mess. One that is full of nice smells from cooking. A home that makes you feel comfortable and happy. This is certainly a goal worth striving for daily. And even though I will clean it perfectly once, doesn’t mean it will stay like that. I have to keep it up.

To me it seems like many people view the endlessness of tasks and the constancy of life to be boring and weighs them down. They seem to want action, change, something more. They don’t want to be stuck in a rut. And some feel meaningless. Like the Bright Eyes song where he says the sun rises and the sun sets, from a cradle to a casket, its always the same thing. So the sun comes up and goes down, daily, humans are born and die daily, and its all meaningless. Well, that’s not the way I view it. The amazing things in life aren’t so much found on the outside. When you look at it, it might seem like humans are born and die every day and the sun comes up no matter what, so who cares. But really, the most spiritual, peaceful, wonderful, exciting parts of life happen on the inside. They have to do with the way you face the world. It is true that there are always tragedies happening and wonderful things too, and that there is always laundry to do, but what I think is interesting is how different people can be so happy and so unhappy doing the same activities.

It seems to me that humans are made to do things over and over. Because each time I do those things, I feel myself growing in some way or another. And good things usually come of doing those daily things. It is interesting, but the more energy you spend, the more you will have. I only get bogged down when I don’t think about it. I can’t escape it. I can’t move away, get a different job, go somewhere else. I will always have to do things over and over. If I want to love life, the answer is not going to be found getting away from these daily things, but by accepting and finding joy in those things. So the sun rises, and the sun sets and I am ok with that.

Natural Family Planning or any other Natural Fertility Method

This post is mainly in response to a comment that was left on my recent post. I have looked into the natural fertility planning, it has many different titles depending on who is teaching it. As far as I know, Catholics call it Natural Family Planning, and I have also heard it called Natural Fertility, and now Fertility Awareness Method. No matter what you call it, the method described basically refers to being aware of how a female body works, specifically how her ovulation and menstruation works. After reading many books on it, I am amazed just how little I knew about my body! I truly believe that every girl should be taught the things in these books because to me it isn't a religious thing or anything other than a female thing. We claim to have "health" classes in which we are supposed to learn about our bodies, well I discovered that we learn almost nothing. So I definitely think all girls should be informed about how their bodies work and should talk about the changes they are going through. Rather than be confused, mystified and maybe even scared and grossed out.

I also liked the ideas that most of those books generally advocate, which is that when a man and a woman are having sex, they should just pay attention to the woman's body and work with her cycle, rather than trying to control or change it. I liked this idea because I didn't want to get on birth control pills, and mess with my hormones and deal with side effects or any other thing involved with taking such drugs. But that could be said to be easy for me to say. I know many women with irregular, painful and prolonged periods. I will not claim to know what is best for everyone. But for my body, the natural fertility awareness changed how I looked at my body.

However, just because I can chart my cycle and know when I am ovulating doesn't mean that I can be in control of all the factors involved. And that's what I discovered recently. I thought I would get pregnant the first time because I knew when I was supposed to be ovulating. But I did just have a wedding, with a lot of stress, and I have been moving around, and not eating consistently. And I definitely believe another factor that plays into it is the stressing out over wanting to get pregnant. And so even though I have read about the natural family planning method, I haven't gotten pregnant yet because there is a lot to my body. But thatis just how life is, you can't control or understand it all. Part of life is just enjoying it and praying. So I don't think about getting pregnant all the time. I just enjoy being married and all the other millions of interests I have. And when I am blessed with a child, I will be happy!