a piece of advice

if you never listen to a thing i say...and you just read this to laugh at the daily nonsense i'm put through...

please at least remember this one tidbit of advice:

marriage counselors are a god send.


this isn't our first counselor...we actually failed with him. I'm not sure if i posted that story or if its lost in the sea of saved, but unpublished entries.

it was ugly. a massacre. a debacle.

a jolly old gentleman who told aaron to stand up for himself...so aaron stood up...against the counselor.

i should have known it would end in flames after the first evening.


i loved the man. he's a pastor at my church. i see him rather often actually. aaron however. well lets just hope they never cross each others paths again.


well Pastor M (i probabaly should have mentioned his name earlier in this post) referred us to Justin.

I personally was ready to give up. I mean seriously, who fails marriage counseling? but we went and met with him. i expected the same thing to happen. we walk into the room where a man who barely reaches 5'9" and somewhere between 27 and 39 - a stocky little man with a huge personality who had the audacity to curse in a church.

it was love at first sight

i must admit that it feels like the conversation tends to turn more towards football, weight lifting and injuries...but real matters get discusses in the middle.

we talk about concerns. he listens. asks questions. poses ideas. turns it into a sports analogy i don't understand but some how issues get resolved.



- - -


we are having some huge cultural differences. that's the only way i can think of describing it. i knew from the beginning that Aaron was from a large hispanic family. That's what i loved about it. all of the laughter and joy. the bickering the making up. Even when we weren't together i loved it. Hell i talked to his mother at least once a month while we weren't together.

but then i got pregnant


and everything changed




all of a sudden i wasn't the GF anymore...i was ONE OF THEM...and my child was THEIRS...and my opinions were the last anyone cared to hear about.


it was like one day everything was great and the next day....no one spoke to me again.


i don't even know if we talk now. they tell me what they've planned. i tell them no thanks we already have it covered and pause. repeat. i swear everything turns into a discussion.


no i don't want to do that

well i think you should

well i really don't want to do that

well we all think you should

well i'm not doing it

well we were so sure that you would

no. i'm not

o. ok...well we really think it would be best if you would.


it makes me want to rip my hair out. Aaron is immune...he just ignores it. pretends to be asleep. walks away. says ok and then just does w/e it is that he wanted to do in the first place.

I don't want to play these games for the rest of my life


my way of avoiding it and just not going over there. just not talking to them.

so now they think i don't like them...but how do i tell them its not that i don't like you...i just don't like how to try to control my life.


its an issue that aaron will have to step inbetween for the rest of our lives together. i just don't have the patience for it...i just don't have the attention span to care about their hurt feelings


but at least last night we were able to talk about it. at least the tip of the iceberg anyway.

and it was nice that the Justin understood where i was coming from. he understood extended families. he understood how crazy ppl get when babies come along. he knew what we needed...


and i appreacitate that.



i'm not saying everythings fixed. i'm not saying that the world is rainbows and unicorns...


but i can say that today...today its sunny out...and i'm not afraid of the ppl that usually make it rain



and i can thank our counselor for that

the grass is always greener

So my borther graduated on saturday. It was a beautiful day for a graduation in UVa is a gorgeous campus. Its like stepping back in time...or into a catalogue...or a onto a movie set. There must have been a dress code of khaki's and sun dresses and I failed to receive the memo.

It reminded me a lot of McDaniel. The small town vibe, even though Charlottesville would eat Westminster for lunch, the county club visitors, the trees. lol. it was nice to visit...it makes me want to get back into school.

The cobblestone was next to impossible for aaron and his crutches...the crowd was next to impossible for me and my stomach, the heat was simply impossible for my mother.

we were able to watch the smaller MBA graduation at the Darden school. nothing too hectic as we chose our seats earlier than my father's arrival with his family. I was luck enough not to see them at all...my mother however ran straight into them as my father ran straight into a pole...

i wish i made these things up.

my brother seemed as shocked as the rest of us about them being in attendance. we had all been dreading the family dinner that he requested, but upon finding out that his other mother was there is simply stated "i'm going to dinner with you, mom. i never intended to go eat with them"

Dinner was nice. It was good to see Trevor relaxed and happy. He is moving to CA at the end of June, just staying long enough for the wedding. He showed us around his apartment and told us about the work he'll be doing...or at least what he think he'll be doing.

I slept for the drive up and the drive back. I was lucky enough to never have to drive. Aaron did most of that...mainly because he doesn't trust anyone else behind the wheel. after watching my mother drive...I can understand why.


the real interesting part of the weekend was the graduation party on the saturday before trevor's graduation. One of Aaron's cousin's graduated and everyone came over for a free for all at his house. There was a lot of touching and questions and advice being freely thrown out...as usual. There was also a bit of a confrontation over pictures as I had previously stated I didn't want taken. i don't care if you consider my child YOURS...as I'm the one carrying them and I said no...then stop and let it go.

MIL didn't appreciate that...but she got over it. or she moved away from me.

I spent most of the night talking to the girlfriend and wife of some of the cousins. it was nice to know that i'm not alone in the random feeling of being "on-the-outside"

I'd never felt that way before...but now there has been a clear division drawn in the sand...and i'm not begging to cross it...i hope they realize my child is staying on myside of the line and they can go suck it.

it was funny. the GF should fit in the most. being hispanic...but her claim to fame is that she's Pentecostal and has no interest of converting. The Wife is protestant as well and black...a double negative for her. she also doesn't drink much and doesn't join in on arguments with the rest of the family.

she's always just stayed to herself.

I asked her how she deals with boundaries. She laughed and we shared Monster-in-law stories for the rest of the night.

family members kept trying to intrude...to find out what it was that we whispered about in dark corners...some sort of fear of the black ppl uniting. we didn't let it stop us...and once we finally were separated i left shortly after.

i feel like boundaries are going to be an on going issue in my life from this point forward. i get it...i accept it...but i'm not going to have ppl walk all over me and i'm not going to allow ppl to think that i'm ok with it. i don't care what hte family has been doing since the dawn of time...thats not how i'm doing it.

if that means we have to stay on the outskirts so be it.


i was actually thinking today. i was trying to figure out how it is that i never realized that they were so over bearing. i think i always knew...its just that they were overbearing to me. they were all in aaron's life. they judged his decisions. they called him dumb and told him what to do...but i just assumed thats the relationship they had with him and that was fine...most of the time his decisions were a little dumb and i appreciated that they cared...


but now that the opinions are pointed at me...its different. i'm not a child. and i'm not really in this family. i don't need your suggestions and i don't particularly care for your opinions. i'm not having family sit downs and i'm not explaining my decision making...its not a discussion its a statement...

they're not going to like me very much...

lol


i don't particularly give a shit...




it was strange at one point...while discussing the differences in W's MIL and my own she said "i think its just different. MIL and Husband never had that close relationship. they were never cute and cuddly. its funny. i would look at your MIL and think 'Why couldn't she be my MIL"

"honey, the grass is always greener on the other side..."

22 weeks 1 day

i actually checked out if i ever get views. i've never done that before. I was surprised that i do. not many...i don't expect a lot. i sense that most melodramatic blogs are similar. maybe i should start writing better. something less dramatic...or more dramatic... something daring an adventure... but unfortunately this is the first real adventure i've ever been on...and i'm trying to find my footing through it all. lets see...what can i update. i'm huge. i can no longer see my feet. i don't know if its due to my boobs or my belly or a strange combination of the two. i've been wearing sneakers for the past week. i can't imagine bending down to find my flats...and for some reason my heels hurt. the things ppl never tell you about pregnancy i need better shoes. i'm thinking about buying some sperrys. i've heard they're amazing for your feet and i need something better than the cheap flats i've been wearing since college. the only thing is i have a slight hatred of the shoes. ok maybe not the shoes...i've never worn them so i can't really have an opinion of the shoe...but rather of the memory of the first time i saw aaron in them and the story of his sponsor buying them for him eh. i just don't want to give him incentive to wear them again one day i'm going to get over my disgust.

hopefully around the time that i wear these shoes.

i bought a rocking chair for the house. invested in a couch and set up my room/nursery. things are really coming together. aaron is moving in in June. it would be earlier if we moved up the wedding, but i really want to keep it on our anniversary in a snap he told me he didn't understand why it had to be that day. "we broke up...that was the past. what we have going on now has nothing to do with then..that anniversary doesn't mean anything..." "so the past 3 years don't mean anything either?" he was silent then. just looked at me. if it was up to him we would have just gone to the courthouse in April and kept things moving. he doesn't want anything big....but he has a family of 573...nothing is every small... we'll see what happen. grrr...baby is kicking...gotta pee....maybe i'll update later