A lot is changing in our home right now. In the past few months there have been a lot of events that slowed us down and made us think about where we were headed. My job has become increasingly unstable. I have started looking into grad school and Riley is nearly finished with his Masters. Last month the man turned 30 and I am not all that far behind.
I have been increasingly discontent with life. I have been beating my head against a wall trying to find full time work. Each day without full time work (and a full time paycheck) I have been growing more impatient and more miserable. Envy has taken root in my life. It is difficult not to look around and want not only what everyone else has now, but what my family had when my parents were my age. By the time my parents were our age they had a new, large home sitting on three acres in the country, a full house of children, and took regular, lavish vacations.
The ball started rolling this past week when we decided that becoming vegetarians was not only a health choice we needed to make, but a moral choice we feel we must make. I usually dislike using "we." However, the changes that are starting to happen in my life are tied to the collective adventure we are taking together. During the conversations we have been having I realize how lucky I am to be with someone who not only will humor my "experiments," but has the same passions and values that I have. I am even more lucky to have found someone who patiently waited for me to grow into who I am. He never pushed me so far that I closed my mind to the presented ideas, only far enough to force me to look at my beliefs and examine my discomfort.
I am a documentary nut. I will watch just about anything in that genre. I have watched two hour long documentaries on things like pencils, apple juice, and jelly beans. Netflix recently added Tiny. It is a documentary on a guy who builds a home the size of a parking space. I sat down to watch it partially fearful that my husband would jump on the idea and partially with a morbid, freak show mentality. I wanted to view it in anthropological kind of way I suppose. I merely wanted to learn something I did not know before. There is this scene where he goes to a family dinner and his family is giving him excuses as to why they could never live like that. Hearing the materialistic lies we are all socialized to believe spoken aloud in plain terms I realized how vapid and worthless the arguments against simple living is.
Everything seemed to fall into place this weekend. I am frustrated with my life because I am making plans to work jobs I do not want, to buy things I don't need, to impress people I don't know. More has not been enough. I kept comparing my life to the life my parents had at my age. I saw all of the things I did not have and did not realize the value of the life I have. What I want out of life is not what they wanted. That was the first epiphany. When I got married I bought into the "life script" I was supposed to have. In my mind we were supposed to be working on home ownership, 2.5 children, and a 401k. We were supposed to have nice cars in the driveway and dress professionally. None of those things brings my heart any passion. I want to travel and see the world. I don't want that dream to be abstract or for retirement either. I want to travel now and grow as a person because of it. I want to leave very little impact ecologically on this earth. Lastly, and most importantly, I want to experience life with other people who share my values and be intertwined in their lives.
I looked at my parents lives again. Not just them specifically, but the everyman that they are of that generation. Yes, at my age they had a new home, three children, nice cars in the driveway, and a healthy income. However, education was not valued in their lives beyond job training. My world is larger because I have an education. It opened my life to new ideas and new ways of thinking about the world. Their vacations were tourist attractions that were hardly stimulating and enriching. Growing up, I hardly remember any family friends being around more than four or five years. Lastly, they will eventually be two people living in a 4,000 sq. ft. home. I am not judging that- if that is the life that brings them and that generation fulfillment then more power to them (with the exception of how destructive that generation has been on the earth). I do not want that life though.
We are going into this fairly clueless as to how it will play out exactly. There is a trajectory though. Our actions are going to start matching our passions instead of matching everyone else's expectations. Speaking for myself, I am tired of a materialistic, eco-destructive, isolated existence. There are things that I believe are morally right that are going to be tough. Even the first few tangible steps we have decided on are going to be uncomfortable at first. There will still be some worry about what others think. The first step is going to be a massive overhaul of what belongings we actually need. Once we have figured that out we will find a space that better suits a simpler life. I am excited for what life holds for us and how our lives will change with new priorities.
Monday, July 14, 2014
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Not so "Newly"wed: The Next Tuggle Adventure
I have not talked too much about it, out of fear it will never happen, but we are trying for a little Tuggle. It has already been a struggle, but I know there are many out there who are facing the same struggle- we just don't talk about it!
With all the "Mommy Blogs" out there is it is difficult to keep heart while going through this. Somehow, it is just not a topic that proper ladies talk about. For anyone who is squeamish, stop reading now! Seriously. I am not going to write in euphemisms. Sure, after it has been accomplished everyone talks about those nine months. So for all of you out there who are fighting the fight, here is our journey....
When I was nineteen I was diagnosed with PCOS. At that time a baby was the furthest thing from my mind- I was not even at the "preventing" stage of life and took it in stride. My mother had something similar and had three (fairly) healthy babies. However, about six months ago we stopped all forms of protection and had not been overly cautious for about a year- and nothing was happening.
When it was time to seriously start trying I had not had a cycle in almost a year and I knew it was time to find out why. As expected, my PCOS was out of control. I had also added a few new problems over the years. So, we went the least invasive rout first. Three rounds of Clomid were prescribed and I hoped this would be it.
First round went ok for the first 20 days. I responded to the lowest dose and expected to either conceive or finish the cycle and start a new one. As always, I am high maintenance and it did not work that way. About 30 days in my hormones and emotions were so wonky I hardly crawled out of bed. There was a mild steady pain from that point on. Yesterday I went in to see if my Fallopian tubes were blocked. But, you say, those are way up inside! Yes, yes they are. By the time this is all over I am sure I will be comfortable enough with dropping my pants to be a porn star. I have already dropped them for at least 8 people, and I am certain that number will keep growing.
I expected life to keep going on as it always had through all of this, but there is something about planning for new life that shakes your entire world up. Not being able to initially felt like a failure. Growing up in a staunchly Christian atmosphere many of my friends and roommates are on their 2nd or 3rd babies. There are passages of scripture about the redemption of woman coming through childbirth, and even with leaving the fold I felt like half of a woman. I have a wonderful husband who has been supportive, but in the past, I dated men who would have packed up and left if I was infertile. I had been left before when I told my boyfriends that children might not be part of the deal. I began to fear that the same might happen now and tried to deal with everything on my own and shoulder all of the emotions by myself. This is why I think it is important to talk about it.
Thus far, the journey hasn't been pretty. It isn't like pregnancy where you can dress it up in pink and blue and have the lofty title of mommy. You get to have the label of "infertile" and have gigantic catheters shoved into your vagina. So this brings me to yesterday.
I finished my procedure and uncomfortably sat up on the table. The doctor was astonished that I went through the whole thing silently. Apparently some women are not even able to finish the procedure and ask to quit. I have always seen myself as incredibly weak, so hearing the doctors astonishment over my silent endurance of the whole thing was affirming. A sliver of my bravado shield melted away. Even if I have a long way to go, I accomplished something. I braved the unknown and terrifying and did it with grace. My husband was waiting for me. I came home to be waited on hand and foot. After all the slimeball boyfriends who ran when things got tough, the difficult few years I have have recently faced, and the changes I have gone through since being married, I am married to one of the good ones, and no matter what we face to get there, I am certain our children are going to have parents who love them and each other. I usually hate a nice happy ending that ties everything up, but here you have it. Anastasia Tuggle is admitting to a happy ending. I can't find a single negative thing to say for the first time in my life. This is the first step to cultivating joy. It felt so final to walk out of that hospital. The day in itself was really quite trivial, but it meant so much to me. Here is to the rest of the journey....
With all the "Mommy Blogs" out there is it is difficult to keep heart while going through this. Somehow, it is just not a topic that proper ladies talk about. For anyone who is squeamish, stop reading now! Seriously. I am not going to write in euphemisms. Sure, after it has been accomplished everyone talks about those nine months. So for all of you out there who are fighting the fight, here is our journey....
When I was nineteen I was diagnosed with PCOS. At that time a baby was the furthest thing from my mind- I was not even at the "preventing" stage of life and took it in stride. My mother had something similar and had three (fairly) healthy babies. However, about six months ago we stopped all forms of protection and had not been overly cautious for about a year- and nothing was happening.
When it was time to seriously start trying I had not had a cycle in almost a year and I knew it was time to find out why. As expected, my PCOS was out of control. I had also added a few new problems over the years. So, we went the least invasive rout first. Three rounds of Clomid were prescribed and I hoped this would be it.
First round went ok for the first 20 days. I responded to the lowest dose and expected to either conceive or finish the cycle and start a new one. As always, I am high maintenance and it did not work that way. About 30 days in my hormones and emotions were so wonky I hardly crawled out of bed. There was a mild steady pain from that point on. Yesterday I went in to see if my Fallopian tubes were blocked. But, you say, those are way up inside! Yes, yes they are. By the time this is all over I am sure I will be comfortable enough with dropping my pants to be a porn star. I have already dropped them for at least 8 people, and I am certain that number will keep growing.
I expected life to keep going on as it always had through all of this, but there is something about planning for new life that shakes your entire world up. Not being able to initially felt like a failure. Growing up in a staunchly Christian atmosphere many of my friends and roommates are on their 2nd or 3rd babies. There are passages of scripture about the redemption of woman coming through childbirth, and even with leaving the fold I felt like half of a woman. I have a wonderful husband who has been supportive, but in the past, I dated men who would have packed up and left if I was infertile. I had been left before when I told my boyfriends that children might not be part of the deal. I began to fear that the same might happen now and tried to deal with everything on my own and shoulder all of the emotions by myself. This is why I think it is important to talk about it.
Thus far, the journey hasn't been pretty. It isn't like pregnancy where you can dress it up in pink and blue and have the lofty title of mommy. You get to have the label of "infertile" and have gigantic catheters shoved into your vagina. So this brings me to yesterday.
I finished my procedure and uncomfortably sat up on the table. The doctor was astonished that I went through the whole thing silently. Apparently some women are not even able to finish the procedure and ask to quit. I have always seen myself as incredibly weak, so hearing the doctors astonishment over my silent endurance of the whole thing was affirming. A sliver of my bravado shield melted away. Even if I have a long way to go, I accomplished something. I braved the unknown and terrifying and did it with grace. My husband was waiting for me. I came home to be waited on hand and foot. After all the slimeball boyfriends who ran when things got tough, the difficult few years I have have recently faced, and the changes I have gone through since being married, I am married to one of the good ones, and no matter what we face to get there, I am certain our children are going to have parents who love them and each other. I usually hate a nice happy ending that ties everything up, but here you have it. Anastasia Tuggle is admitting to a happy ending. I can't find a single negative thing to say for the first time in my life. This is the first step to cultivating joy. It felt so final to walk out of that hospital. The day in itself was really quite trivial, but it meant so much to me. Here is to the rest of the journey....
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