Ambergontrail – Trying to get through life without dying of dysentery

Now that the major stress in my life has been removed (getting my license), some things have been popping into my mind. Namely baby #2, especially since the major roadblock to trying to conceive was about my license. And I’ve said it before, it was a totally valid request of Paul’s, and one I had promised would be done before we got married. Five years ago. Oops. Then I promised I’d get it done before I got pregnant. Um… when we started trying four years ago. Yeah. So getting my license has been long, long overdue and I am super glad I held to my part of this bargain (finally, five years later). I can’t even imagine swinging it with a newborn, a toddler and only one licensed adult. It’s madness! And I’m 32, it’s far too old to have to ask my Dad to pick my pregnant ass up at work.

So once that freedom has hit me, that old yearning for a baby. Part of me is scared because how the hell am I going to manage two? I’m tired with ONE. One who sleeps through the night and can tell me what she wants! I’m also a little scared because I know it’ll be our last baby (barring a lottery jackpot), and the only thing keeping me from getting immersed in sadness was the knowledge that we’d be trying to conceive again soon. What happens when the next kiddo is out of diapers? Will that burning need come back? God, I hope not.

I’ve been obsessed with babies again, but I’m always obsessed with them so it’s not that different. I’ve been spending more time on the baby boards, and thinking logistically about life with two kids. I’m still not temping, but I am still using OPKs, and it’s been kind of trying NOT to conceive until that driving test was passed. Here I am now, a licensed driver.

And here I am now, pulling the goalie. Wish me luck.

We had a three day weekend here, and it was nice having a whole day with Paul at home. We ran some errands (with me DRIVING!) and all that… but every few minutes I’d think, “UGH, I have my behind the wheel test on Tuesday” and then I’d totally get lost in the misery that was my nerves.

Monday night I was so anxious, I asked all my friends to please, please send me some luck that I’d pass my test, my mom went to church to light a candle for me, and my mother in law also prayed for me. I took a Tylenol PM to knock myself out and woke up rested with a very upset stomach the morning of my test.  As I laid there in bed next to Paul (who would be meeting me at the DMV for my appointment, I was heading out an hour before the 9am appointment with my instructor to get a rundown of where they usually take applicants), I nervously asked him if he thought I’d pass. “You are past the level of new driver, you can pass this, I know you can, YOU know you can.”

Honestly, it wasn’t even that I was unsure of my driving abilities. I had parked and reversed enough in practice that I was confident that it would no longer be the automatic fail that I had thought it would be. No, now my fears were multiplied as I thought of all the stupid things I could do that would equal a critical error (like driving through a stop sign or driving up on a curb), and I even thought about all the various things I could do that would be a tick off here, a tick off there, all adding up to a fail- simply because I was nervous.

As I waited in the drive test line with my instructor (not the DMV grading instructor), he let me know about the various DMV testers that passed through after finishing up the tests. “That one is nice to you, but he’ll fail you for little things, so you’re lured into a false sense of security” and “That one looks like a bitch, but she lets things slide and sometimes will even text or be on the phone during your test (Which is true, my boss’ son had this very instructor who DID text the whole time)” and finally, “Wow, I haven’t seen HER around for awhile, she’s okay”. Luckily, I missed the guy who was brutal and got the last woman.

My test began, and I was SO incredibly nervous. Dude, it does NOT help to wait in line with the other lemmings who want to get their license too, as you watch people who failed come back dejectedly. I waited for like, a half an hour in that line! By the time I pulled out of the DMV, my hands were so sweaty that the wheel had a hard time sliding back to my hands when I turned.

As we started our tour of the neighborhood, I merged into a lane too slowly (to her, I thought it was fine) and she said, “Well, are you going to move over? You need to think ahead more!” I apologized, and my stomach plummeted. Luckily this wasn’t a critical error and I survived long enough to drive down past my elementary school where I was criticized for something I can’t remember, possibly merging fast enough. After that it was only, “Left here then a right. Park. Reverse until I say to stop (aced it).” Then we cruised around down by my late grandma’s house and up a side street where I grew up (it was the side street that took us from my Grandma’s house to my cousin’s house so I knew it better than my CURRENT neighborhood), and up my cousin’s street. I felt an odd sense of calm, like Grandma was showing me she was there and helping me- crazy, right? Then I made a left and right and she told me to go back to the DMV and pull up along the curb next to the drive test lane.

As I turned off the car, she started talking about the various things I did wrong. “Your turns were too wide, and you need to scan ahead more”, then she said, “You missed 8…” and I thought it was all over, I thought you could only miss 7. Before I could say anything she continued, “You passed. Follow me to the back door of the DMV and I’ll get this taken care of.” I nearly died.

I got out of the car and looked up at the front of the DMV where Paul and my driving instructor were waiting. Paul held his hands up in a “WELL?!” pose and I gave him a thumbs up. Paul and I instructor whooped and high fived. I was elated, shaking and just in disbelief. I WAS A LICENSED DRIVER!!

After I was given my interim license for use until my real one comes in the mail, I walked over to Paul and my instructor and he hugged me as I wrote out the check for the final “lesson” (Which helped IMMENSELY because he took me through all the routes where the DMV usually goes with tips on how to pass and what not to do). Spending 400 dollars on driving lessons was the best money I have ever spent.  We stood there chatting as my instructor and my husband both went over the checklist and what I did wrong, then we heard a huge crash. All three of us turned to find where the noise came from and say what appeared to be an accident in the drive test lane! A teenage boy rear ended the teenage girl in front of him in line during the routine moving up in line. Only thing was- they weren’t supposed to be moving!

As everyone got out of the cars, the kid’s mom began yelling at him emphatically and he looked pissed. Why? It was HIS fault that he started his car when no other cars were close to moving! My instructor told me it was likely both weren’t going to take their tests that day as it was now an accident on the Highway Patrol’s ground (their jurisdiction is the DMV as well as the freeways). BUMMER!

So while I got eight wrong, at least I didn’t rear end the car in front of me! I feel so bad for the girl who got hit, I’m sure it won’t help her nerves any.

Anyway, yes, I am a licensed driver now. I was nervous, but I worked hard to practice when I could, and my fear is mostly unwarranted now. In fact, my fear has mostly been replaced by pride, because I am now a full-fledged adult. I have freedom. I have the ability to take my daughter to the doctor when she needs to. I have… a license.
And now I’m going to have a fat ass because I’m going to be driving for treats ALL THE TIME.

I don’t delete emails. I don’t know why I don’t, in most cases it’s laziness, but in others it’s just pure… sentimentality.  I have all emails from my long distance relationships (Literally three all in a row, ranging from San Diego to Afghanistan to San Francisco), most of them not saved in particular folders, most are just kind of in the in-box. I won’t even tell you how many emails are in my in-boxes, already read and just kind of sitting there.

I rarely read these emails, and sometimes when I think about it, and go back more than ten years for these things, I think about what has changed since these emails were sent. How my personality, my very being has changed. In the early years of my dating life I was needy, easy to please, and meek. I was cheated on, treated poorly, and the last thing in the minds of the men (used loosely) I dated. I’m kind of ashamed of how I was then. I quite honestly don’t recognize myself in those emails, with the overly sexual innuendos that I foolishly thought would attract them, keep them as mine. I used my sexuality as a lure, as a way to bring them in and make sure they wanted me.

I just wanted to be loved, but instead I put forth this persona of a sexual being who was insatiable, and it was wrong. So wrong. I wanted to be the girl they brought home to their parents, not the girl they snuck into the house long after everyone had gone to sleep. It’s sad to think that I put up with that for years. YEARS!

Along with memories both shameful and proud, I keep emails in my in-box. I keep a few pictures, and cards from old boyfriends. I keep things from people that don’t mean anything to me now other than small twinges of shame and sadness for what I was then, and how they made me that way. I’m both cursed and blessed with an amazing memory for the past, a memory for details that fill me up when I’m lying in bed at night unable to sleep. I take myself back to when I was 19, how clumsy I was at affection. I think back to my friendship with my former best friend, and how the relationship we had would go so terribly wrong only a few years later.

Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like had I chosen one path over the other, would we still be friends? Especially at this time when our lives are so similar, yet we move along every day, neither one of us thinking about the other- so different from ten years ago when we were on the phone together or cooking up some crazy scheme. Perhaps our friendship then was just a stepping stone to where we are now. Perhaps it was the way to was supposed to be, needing to be apart to find what we would really become. She’s one of the only people who knew me when I dated Paul for the first time, and she never approved of how I treated him then. So maybe… for the sake of the present time, this is why we’re never going to be friends again.

Due to my unfailing memory for the past, it’s hard for me to let go of things, of people. I tend to hoard things, both physical and mental/emotional. I save old clothes and pictures, and I have a broken mug in our cupboard because it was a gift I gave my dad when I went to sleep-away camp for a week. Of course, one of the things that was most important to me was a gift from Paul for our very first (as in EVER) Christmas, an amber necklace. I wore it long after Paul and I broke up, it became my trademark in a way. It broke after Paul and I reunited and I was too worried to wear it in our wedding and now… now it’s gone. I don’t know where it went and I worry constantly, but I don’t want to put words to this worry, hoping it was just misplaced when we moved.

I keep things to remember. I keep them to forget. I keep them to show Piper someday, because she should know the story of her Mama. While some things are private, most of them are things I’m proud to show her, proud to tell her.

I keep things because some day I know I will forget, and I can’t let that happen.

It’s no surprise that I come from a “broken” home. I grew up amongst fighting, drinking and overall unease. I spent most of my time during high school fighting the urge to be gone as much as possible, while also managing to feel the need that I HAD to be home all the time so any fighting could be intercepted by me, the family scapegoat.

It took a long time to realize that wasn’t how marriage was supposed to be, and it’s also taken me a long time to figure out how to fight the “right” way. For so long I thought fighting was a sign of the end, and I often started them for a lack of a better way to communicate. I had few examples of what love was, and when I encountered them I would study them like an item in a museum- like they were behind glass and if I REALLY wanted to know what made it tick I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.

Even with these examples in front of me, there was always one persisting question in my mind: “Where does it go wrong?”. I’m sure most people don’t have two children with people they despise, you know? So I knew at one point my parents had to have been happy, even if there was never a marriage anniversary to celebrate, there was a time when they loved each other. It made me question everything about marriage.

I knew being married wouldn’t make a difficult relationship easier, but I knew it would make it harder to leave. Instead of one person just moving out and bam, relationship over, there would be legal fees, dissolution of a partnership. In my mind, I thought that would make someone work harder- even for fear of losing a crapload of money. Growing up with my parents the way they were, I lived in constant fear. Fear that someday one of them just wouldn’t come home. In addition I lived in fear that they would sit us down and say, “It’s not working, it is over.” I didn’t know what I wanted from them, other than happy parents. When a question of “Happy parents alone or miserable parents together?” was posed to me by a friend, I honestly had no idea what to say. No one wants their parents to be miserable, but no one wants to split their lives between two families. No one wants to be torn between parents, forced to choose going with the parent you’re closer to (who will not take good care of you) or the one who you resent for various reasons who will make sure you have everything you need- even if it means sacrificing for themselves. I constantly battled with this, and it stayed with me until the time I got engaged.

Since I had so little to base a happy marriage on, I was afraid for our future. Paul was the best man, and had always been. Even through those five years between our previous relationship’s demise and our renewed relationship, I held other men up to him. I knew he’d take care of me, and he’d love me in the way I had always imagined “True Love” encompassed. Of course, I always worried that there would be a time when I’d stop loving him the same way. Or he’d realize I’m not really all that loveable, and not all that tidy, and he’d find someone who deserved him.

During our time trying to conceive, I was convinced I was being punished for not appreciating him before. That perhaps someone didn’t think I was worthy of creating a child with Paul, because I had my chance and lost it all those years before. For some reason, I always think that there is some lingering THING just around the corner waiting to take everything away from me. When Paul is around, I feel complete. I feel warmed and it’s like slipping a flannel nightgown over your head when it’s freezing cold.

Even though I know marriage takes work, and we work hard at ours, I wonder if something is missing here. It’s not because I’m unhappy, or because we’re unfulfilled. No, it’s because we’re TOO happy. So many people talk about how hard marriage is, how hard the first year is, how hard the first year after having a baby is, and I’m kind of afraid because we just don’t… have that difficulty. There are times when he frustrates me and I frustrate him, and there are times when we might argue a little more, but as we crawl into bed, I curl into him and he wraps his arms around me and I know it’s okay.

I’m not trying to boast here, “My marriage is kickass and awesome”. I just honestly don’t know if something is wrong. Should we be fighting more? Am I just SO paranoid of fighting that I let things go too easily, to avoid any strife in the house? I don’t think I am, to be frank. I recognize our faults, and I try to avoid repeating mistakes I had seen as a child, but with every year that passes I wonder, “Is this when my parents’ relationship started to fray?”

The thing is, I don’t KNOW when their relationship got ugly. I remember some good times as a family, when there was laughing and silliness. But mostly, I remember the bad. I remember them being separate, and not that united front parents are supposed to present to their children. And even more, I remember the overwhelming sadness and misery that surrounded us. So as I look at our marriage, at how Paul and I are every day, I think, maybe… just maybe… we are getting it right. Of course, I’m hesitant to even think that, because I’m all about the jinx.

All I know is that when Piper gets unhappy because we’re kissing each other too much and not kissing on her (again) instead, that we are at least doing something for our marriage and family. Piper will not be witness to parents who give each other the cold shoulder, that don’t love each other. I know that as a wife and mother, that’s the best I can do.

I have had my final driving lesson. I have driven into a gas station on my first lesson, not less than ten minutes after getting in the car for the first time. I have driven on the Pacific Coast Highway not once, but twice. TWICE! Over the six hours behind the wheel I drove down to El Segundo and back through the LAX tunnel – which was insane. I drove through Beverly Hills at rush hour, and through the Palisades at 9am. I even drove the windy Topanga Canyon road, and my instructor didn’t have to take the wheel once. I was taught how to pull up to a curb and back up. I only hit the curb once. Well, it may have been driving up on the curb. I need to work on that.

Especially since I have scheduled my behind the wheel test. Tuesday the 21st of February, I will be taking the test to see whether or not I have practiced enough, and am comfortable enough to pass.

Honestly, I feel like I’m definitely proficient enough to drive on a basic city tour. I think I can do that. I can turn well enough (I do  have some problems turning directly into the lane and knowing how far into the lane I am so I don’t drift into the cars parked on the right of me), and I’m confident in my ability to change lanes and stop at a stop sign/intersection at a timely manner. I am also confident that I do really well when encountering bumps/humps (is CA the only state that has “humps”? It kills me when I see those letters) and dips.

Yet I am scared of failing. I’m scared that if I don’t pass the first time, that while I know it’s not the end of the world, that I w0n’t pass it ever. Which I know is stupid, but when I’m around tests I just… panic. It’s “testophobia”- fear of taking tests. Seriously, even when I was pregnant and I’d pee in that cup I’d freak out that I was going to fail (I never did). When I took the permit test I was terrified. And I failed. Then I took it again immediately and passed. I know I need to work on my parking and my turning in order to stay in my lane, and I definitely need to work on backing up straight.

What doesn’t help is Piper’s contribution to Mommy getting behind the wheel. Oh yeah, did I mention that? I drove twice with her in the car. And each time, when I got behind that wheel, my little girl cried. Sobbed. Let us know how  unhappy she was with this situation: “I’m crying, Momom”. “I’m SAD.” As if it wasn’t stressful enough to be driving with my little girl in there with me! No, now it was with a little girl who was just crying the WHOLE TIME. Seriously, the whole time!!

While we’re going to take the car out some more since I have time before the test, Paul said he thinks I’m ready. I wonder if he thinks I’m ready compared to the already licensed drivers out here who have already forgotten the rules, forgotten what an actual stop is. Then I look around and think, “Some of these drivers have likely gotten BETTER as they’ve been driving, what must they have been like when they were just starting out?” I get confident, but then my confidence comes crashing down around me because I just can’t be confident about it. I’m so NERVOUS. My stomach is anxious, constantly queasy about this big new step before me. I need to relax, and coffee isn’t helping.

Driving is the hugest hurdle between Paul and I having a second child. There will be no pregnancy until I can get my license and drive us back and forth from appointments and stuff. And despite how badly I want a second child, I’m ten thousand percent behind him because it’s a reasonable request. Not even reasonable, it’s something that should have been done a LONG, LONG time ago.  I want to be able to drive SO much. I want to be able to pick up friends from the airport, and to quickly drive to the mall if Piper and I are bored (unlike the trip we took on Sunday which was a walk to the mall because all of a sudden Piper’s bff Muno the stuffed doll was missing and needed a new one), meet up with friends for playdates, and visit my in-laws and family without needing to count on Paul. Poor Paul. Throughout the past 8 years of our relationship he has been the sole driver. Responsible for giving me rides everywhere, then it became Piper and I. So much stress for a man who has enough stress in his life.

I’m afraid that I’ll let him down if I fail, and I told him that. He said he’s just so happy I’m finally taking that step towards independence, that even if I fail, what then? Who cares! Take it again! Unburdening Paul of the load he has carried alone is reason enough for me to get my butt in gear and to focus. I can do this. I HAVE to do this, for my family. For freedom. For the plain fact that I did something that terrified me. Over time I hope to become someone Piper can learn from, and I hope this step takes me on my way to bigger and better steps. Finally I can surprise Paul for his birthday and take him somewhere. When I finally get my license, I will be free to do as I choose! I can run to the store! Run to get cupcakes! (Paul promised I could drive to Sprinkles to celebrate getting my license when it happens)

I’m torn between posting the morning of my appointment (or the day before) asking for everyone’s good luck test-passing dust, their good wishes and crossed fingers or not saying anything so I don’t need to tell people if I fail. I honestly don’t know. I am SURE the power of “dust” and wishes for a successful test can help, even if it’s to boost me  up, but I’m scared of disappointing everyone if I fail.

I can do this.