Critical Moments Part 1
James and I had a contentious first year or two. I had a pretty convoluted history of picking partners. Often they weren’t very good for me. I grew up in a family defined by bad habits and addiction. As I later found out, that sort of chaos can become a comfort zone if you’re not intentional. That means that even though you KNOW somethings not good for you, it feels familiar. So you can overlook a lot of nonsense just to feel something that feels ‘normal’. A lot of my dating life has been defined by overcoming that. So, a lot of life hasn’t felt familiar yet. I can read and I can know what is healthy but if I have never experienced healthy it won’t FEEL right.
I distinctly remember, one night, feeling like I had clarity and like I KNEW what healthy and normal looked like and performing this experiment on whether or not I even knew any eligible partners that I felt fit that description. I went through my entire facebook friends list and literally made a list of single people, that I know, that I thought might be healthy individuals. People who were on a good path, they had never been rude to me. It was actually a pretty low bar. Out of over 600 friends, there was exactly one name on my list. James.
James
I ‘knew’ James from college, or I should say I knew OF James from college. I don’t think we ever exchanged any words. He was a year or two ahead of me in the architecture program as well. The architecture program was pretty cliquey and I was a transplant into the third year as it was. Between full time work and full time college, I had a hard enough time even keeping my own class straight most days. I knew James because he was every professors star student. He apparently didn’t even know this but his projects were always the ones the professors used as good examples to emulate. I found it so annoying! After graduation, as you do when you’re in a small industry in a fairly small city, I friended him on social media anyway. They call it networking. I think it borders more on stalking most of the time.
I can’t even remember when I did that but I’m fairly sure we were facebook friends through a lot of life but our lives never actually overlapped. Until this day when I did a weird list making experiment. And then what do you know, the week after I made that list, James was presenting at one of my continued ed lunch programs for work. Weird timing! I had planned on going anyway but now I was excited to find how accurate I was with my character judgment!
He did great
You’ll be happy to know he did a kick-ass job presenting to 45-50 people on how to operate our software. I actually learned a lot. At a point I forgot I was there to judge his character because I was learning so much and taking notes! Afterwards, back at the office, I pull up facebook and send him a message: “Hey, you did a great job at the meeting today, I was really impressed and I learned a lot. Thanks for taking the time to teach us!” Or something like that, I don’t remember exactly. And with our long start of on-again off-again relationship, there is unfortunately zero evidence left that I can actually find on the matter. But we both agree, I did the reach out and initiated contact. It was not romantic in any way, more just opening the door to conversations, should that come up in the future.
Not long after that, that particular user group was having a social get together. The goal was to strengthen the user network. We met at a little tiki bar. I was having too many pina coladas with my friends. James was one of the people in charge so he was staying sober, or at least more sober. I thought, “How very responsible!” and that started a little crush.
After the event was over I started doing a little bar hopping with my friend group. At some point I had told them about my checklist and that James was the only guy I am friends with that I would even consider dating. They joked that I should probably text James and get him out with us. I don’t know if I did it or if my friends did but at some point that night James met up with us.
It was a rocky start
That night didn’t exactly show off any healthy life skills but I attribute it to my being over-served. It escalated too quickly and ended when James told me that he was going to impregnate me. That’s when I said it was time for him to walk that way because I would now be walking this way. He was over-served as well… Not a great first date but to be fair, neither of us were ON a date. We were just hanging out with friends. Still, it escalated to something extremely awkward really fast!
I go home, committed to never talk of this night to anyone. He surely does the same. Weeks go by and then there is another work thing scheduled. Dang it with the networking in a small industry in a smallish city! He reaches out to me and admits that wasn’t his finest hour. I agree that it wasn’t mine either. He says something about this tiny house project I’m working on and tells me that he has always wanted to build a houseboat and he thinks it’s really neat. He also says that he thinks I’m really neat and would love to go on a real first date, with better manners to get to know me better. I agree, that sounds nice.
The date was great, we were normal people. He got pulled over on the way to the restaurant which is still hilarious to me. We’ve been together for more than a decade and I’ve never even seen him speed. He’s definitely not been pulled over since but it really shook him to have interactions with the police on our first date!
We went our separate ways with a desire for a second date. Phew!
I am still a bit damaged
I was not a whole person then. It’s debatable that I am now. I had been dented by alcoholism growing up. I was broken financially. Wounded romantically. Frankly, I just didn’t trust myself to make good decisions if I wanted to. And I feared making bad decisions that could hurt others. Still, James was nice and I thought I could learn some things. We continued dating sporadically.
As I built my tiny, he helped where he could. Two months into our relationship, I fell off my roof and broke my back. I completely expected him to sidestep our dates, back braces haven’t exactly been a strong selling point in young relationships. Instead, he stepped up to help finish the house! I couldn’t lift heavy things and I remember he came out to help my dad put up the last of the heavy materials for me. He was definitely hitting a lot of nice notes.
But also, he liked to party. We were well past college years but keggers weren’t necessarily gone from his life. Being on narcotics for my back allowed me to join him at some parties, mostly sober. I was not thrilled with how much he drank and how regularly he drank. It was pinging some pretty obnoxious notes on my red flag piano. He of course thought I was overreacting. He was a good man in so many ways that it was obnoxious of me to not just let this thing go. But, it mattered to me.
Now, our relationship was new, well under a year at this point. We fought, a lot! I was irrational and crazy (his words, not mine). I was uncomfortable, and would have been with anyone at that phase, honestly. Trying to get a handle on my life was a goal of mine though. I could barely do that let alone try to fold in a partner. We broke up and got back together several times.
Despite common sense
James has always had an interest in income properties. My tiny house was nearly complete. At one of our on again moments, when I was looking for a place to move the tiny house, he mentioned his yard as an option. He knew the risks, and that they were mostly on me, the tiny homeowner. He owned an empty lot. Right downtown, adjacent to his house. It wasn’t moving in together by any means. Worst case, he could charge me rent and we could maintain a platonic relationship. Best case, our relationship can advance. I absolutely see and saw the flaws in this but I did not have a lot of options, tiny houses were a very new concept.
That platonic relationship obviously didn’t work because we actually do have so much in common. Our discussions are unlike any I’ve had with others. We just amplify each other’s ideas in the best way. There is so much good. Only shook by my discomfort on his drinking habits and his discomfort on my discomfort of his drinking habits… we keep trying the dating path.
One day it just breaks
It broke for both of us. I was done. He was done. We break up and he tells me I need to move the tiny house. He’s going on a week long camping trip with his family and he’d prefer if I’d be gone when he gets back. I agree, that’s for the best, the tension just isn’t working and the mood shifts are just killing me. I don’t know if they are mine or his or if we just don’t work. Either way, a new path is the best path.
I prepare for a long week of trying to figure shit out. That night I decided I am going to mourn though. My oldest brother, Dan, and his partner, Jeff, invite me over for dinner. I am telling them how I have just been craving this pizza from the place next to my work all the time. They use sriracha for the sauce and have spicy sausage, pepper jack cheese and jalapeños. Guys, ketchup is spicy to me. I historically do not eat spicy. Jokingly they ask, are you pregnant? We all laugh, of course not, my birth control is on point! On the way home, on a whim, I buy a test anyway. I think, ‘it would certainly explain some stuff.’
It’s positive!
Oh shit.
I mean, I should tell James. But he’s in the woods out of service for the week. Instead, I freak out to my friend. Then I go to my other brother, Nathan’s, house and tell him. He decides he’s going to have a little dinner party. He calls Dan and Jeff up and tells them to come over because Macy has a surprise. I remember Dan said “oh, is it a puppy!” (I was on the search for Denver then), and he said, “Nope, close though!”
What a night!
I didn’t move the tiny house
I figured that there was new information and we may have to figure out a new plan so I would just wait until I could chat with James and we’d decide.
James gets home. He’s visibly pissed that I am still there. I felt small. But I get it, we had made a deal which obviously I didn’t go through with. Now I was just a thing to be dealt with. It hurt knowing what I knew. I reminded myself that he didn’t know what I knew though. All he knew was that I ruined his camping trip and now I’m still here. I planned on having a conversation until I saw his face. Then I stumbled. I felt bad that my entire family and friend group knew this thing that he didn’t even know. But it was too long a week to be left alone with this information, I don’t do secrets well. I decided I was going to slip him the info and then leave him alone to process it and talk to me when he was ready. I go upstairs. He was in the shower. I set the pregnancy test on the counter with a note that I was ready to chat when he was.
Talk about awkwardness! He comes back to the tiny house, asks if it’s real. I get offended that he thinks I would lie about it. I apologize that he wasn’t the first to know. He doesn’t care, he just seems excited to have some sort of reason for the mood shifts. I will still stand by that his mood shifted at least as much as mine… but I will also admit that pregnancy hormones are a crazy force! Either way, Hazel is here and now we have to figure out what we want her future to look like.
It wasn’t easy
I’m not going to say it was easy, it wasn’t. It was all pretty horrible actually. I moved back in with my parents for at least a few months just to try to get some stability. The fights were huge. Hate was regularly there. The stress of figuring out my entire future was overwhelming. I never wanted kids, I didn’t know how to share anything with another person. I didn’t trust anyone, least of all myself. Yet, I could not do it on my own, I knew that. I couldn’t be the mom I wanted to be by myself. Now that I was going to be a mom it had to be in a specific way. I hated having to be reliant on anyone else.
There were a lot of big forced talks and neither of us were happy with the impact this was having on our life before there was even a little creature to impact our life from the outside! It was HARD! We were both trying as much as we could though, when we could. But that was not all the time. And I was mad that he could just set down the trying but I had 24 hour care of this creature and I couldn’t just set it aside. It felt like it was all on me.
I also stumbled on some recent conversations between him and his ex that I didn’t love finding at that moment. I confronted them both. It didn’t help how out of control I felt. That chapter of my life was such a struggle. There was a constant barrage of big moments. They all felt so overwhelming that they all lost their power. It was just constantly too much and I couldn’t prioritize anything because everything mattered.
I’d like to say it got easier after Hazel was born but it wasn’t
The only clear part was that she was amazing and we both adored her and wanted what was best for her. We just had two wildly different feelings about what that looked like. My concerns were not his concerns and he seemed to just have faith that it would work out great. I couldn’t understand how that was to happen without immense amounts of effort from us both to overcome the obstacles of my past! And I assumed of his past. And if I couldn’t even get to a spot where I felt comfortable in our relationship how could I feel comfortable in hers.
James and I hadn’t been dating too terribly long but we were tied by our surprise pregnancy and we both had a desire to have a healthy relationship. I just still had no idea what that looked like, that’s what I was trying to figure out when I met this guy after all. Times were tense for each of us, to say the least. Too much responsibility hoisted too fast. The choice to stay together no longer felt like it was our own doing. In that environment a lot of animosities can brew. I started to wonder if I even liked this guy anymore or if my own choices were to forever be impacted by this new creature living with us. When that happens I kind of slip away and get lost in my head a little.
Which brings me to my first critical moment.
I distinctly remember sitting on the couch, around the holidays, at James’ step moms house. His dad was there along with all of his siblings and their kids. At that phase I was just a thorn in everyone’s side that they had to deal with until their brother figured it out. I didn’t feel wanted there, but I felt respected enough. Everyone was trying to give us time, space and support to work it out. That meant being nice to me but not friendly. I was ok with that. I would not say any of his family liked me then and more than a few disliked me. But they saw that there was a connection to be respectful of and so they allowed me the opportunity to watch their holiday experience, pretty well uninterrupted.
Hazel wasn’t crawling or anything yet. After everyone was able to get their hands on her and the party was settling down, I remember a quiet moment. Everyone sitting on the couches, enjoying eachothers company. His dad, Steve, was hooked up to oxygen watching a football game on the TV with James’ brother Jesse. It was on mute so they didn’t miss any of the conversations. His younger sister and step sister were telling funny stories from highschool with his step mom in the kitchen. There were other conversations about hunting happening with the inlaws and uncles and James.
I just held Hazel, on the chair next to Steve. Across from me, on the loveseat, James’ older sister, Jeni, was just relaxing. Her high school age daughter, Nena, walked over and curled up with her on the couch, nudging her head under Jeni’s hand. Nena loved her mom. Here she is, almost an adult still wanted to hug her mom and be close to her. They sat like that, murmuring conversations and giggling together for over an hour.
No one even acted like it was weird
In my house, that would have been like watching aliens land in front of you. My memories hold less than a handful of hugs and only ever when there was a tragedy to mourn. Independence was valued and interconnection is just not something we have in my clan. We’re all raised to be able to survive on a deserted island. I felt like a deserted island.
That day, in that moment, I realized that I want a relationship like that with my daughter. I didn’t know how James and I would fair, but I needed to know how that was cultivated. It’s just so much different than my experience. I might not have a healthy upbringing, I know that. That moment showed me that my daughter might have lucked into a halfway decent chance for a better outcome. If only I could figure some things out!
I’m trying
Life still doesn’t feel normal yet. I still get overwhelmed fairly easily in what are otherwise normal and healthy interactions. And I do far too well in managing chaos. It’s starting to feel more like a special skill than a survival instinct though.
And I have a daughter who likes to snuggle up and push her head under my hand on the couch!
