Two Years

Today Greg and I celebrate our second anniversary. I realize that's pretty small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, but it is still worth celebrating and I welcome the chance to reminisce.

I didn't feel any anxiety about marrying Greg. We fell in love quickly, but it was the real deal. We were both ready to start our life together, side by side, through thick and thin.

I love being married to Greg. I love our late night pillow talk of everything ranging from economics to our future family to how we would handle a zombie apocalypse. I love starting a road trip with an hour long discussion about affirmative action. I love playing Super Mario until we're each blue in the face because of how dumb the other is being (wii Mario multiplayer is some crazy stuff). I love going on walks and planning our budget and savings goals. I love how we both just look at each other and bust out laughing over the same. dumb. things. I love how I can just talk and talk and talk about the same thing over and over and over again, completely psychoanalyzing myself and reciting my entire train of thought from start to finish. I love how quiet, introspective Greg, who doesn't tell anyone what he's feeling, opens up to me.  I love that I get to see a side of Greg's personality that no one else gets to see - a silly, goofy, talk-in-weird-voices and make-weird-faces-side of Greg. A sensitive, thoughtful side of Greg. I love that we're on the same team and working towards the same goals. I love that we are both independent enough to be comfortable doing our own thing when we want to. I love that we can both stand up to one another and flat out disagree and debate and respect our individuality. I love having a safe place to be myself 100% and to continue on the constant journey of self-discovery.

When I think about how much I've grown and changed and about all that I've been able to accomplish over the last two years, I realize that I would not be the person I am today if Greg wasn't in my life. Before we got married, I had no intentions to pursue a career. I had no feminist inklings. What if these changes had happened with someone much less supportive of my non-traditional thoughts? Without his love and support and the comfort I find in him, would I have done the internships I did? Would I have decided to pursue a career and found my current job, which I love? Would I have gone on this journey of trying to understand what I really want out of life? What other Mormon man would encourage me to pursue a career and sacrifice so many of his own potential opportunities to support me, without even batting an eye?

I'm not sure I quite live up to all Greg has done for me. I worry that I fall short, but he assures me that I don't.

I can't speak for all marriages, but being married to Greg is the easiest, most natural, and most meaningful friendship and relationship I have ever had.

In our natural habitat - Camping at Mesa Verde

Thanksgiving 2012 - Chopping down the Christmas tree

 Thanksgiving 2012 - Christmas card picture

 January 2013 - Birthday Dinner

Another natural habitat - playing games

 April 2013 - Graduation!!

April 2013 - Emily and Eric's sealing (we try to clean up nicely)

Historic UP 844 Steam Engine

Teamwork! 

 Kansas City for the Cheifs game

Working full time is hard. So was school, but this is a different kind of hard.

In school, you have a bunch of different classes and they're all at different times. My Monday schedule was different from my Tuesday schedule. Add into that the variety of group meetings and other "extras," and each day was different. I had several hours throughout my day where I wasn't in class and could relax and read, watch tv, or catch up on homework. I was busy, but my day was very spread out and I had a lot of control over where I was and when. I could choose to skip a class and could choose when to schedule meetings and when to do homework.

Now, my day is like this: I was up at 6:30, leave at 7:20 and get to work a little before 8. Then I sit at my desk until 11 or noon, when I take my lunch break. Then I go back to my desk and sit there until 5 (There are meetings here and there, but I just go where I'm told). Then I go home, getting home around 5:40. We watch Big Bang Theory reruns and talk about our days. Tuesday is So You Think You Can Dance, Wednesday is Master Chef. I squeeze in about an hour of studying for the CPA exam (I take the first section at the end of August!) and then head to bed around 10.

I have time at home from 5:40 till 10. That's a little over 4 hours, which is a decent amount of time. But it hardly feels like any time. I am so. freaking. tired. I just feel so lazy! The last thing I want to do is even think about what is for dinner. I just want to sit on the couch and watch TV and not think about anything. Forget about cleaning anything. I get things out and don't put them away. I can't tell you how many times I've walked into the kitchen and found the mustard/eggs/milk I left out on the counter the night before. It doesn't help that our kitchen isn't visible from the living room and I hardly go in there. I can't focus on anything!

I need to figure this out. There really is no excuse for not accomplishing anything in the 4 hours I'm home at night. And let's be real, all I did at work was sit on my butt, why do I feel the need to do that all night? I think it's just that I need "me" time. I need to just do what I want to do. I have a really hard time with people imposing rigid rules on my life, and it honestly kind of hurts my spirits to have expectations of when I will arrive at and leave from work.

But I'm getting really sick of feeling like this. Sick of just wasting time... when you don't do anything, 4 whole hours feels like nothing.

Any advice from you expert full timers out there?

Doubt

Greg introduced me to the movie Doubt. It's a really good movie that is an adaptation of a play, and it has Meryl Streep in it, so hello. It is about a Catholic church/school and at the beginning of the movie, the priest gives this sermon:

What do you do when you’re not sure? That’s the topic of my sermon today.

Last year, when President Kennedy was assassinated, who among us did not experience the most profound disorientation? Despair? Which way? What now? What do I say to my kids? What do I tell myself? It was a time of people sitting together, bound together by a common feeling of hopelessness. But think of that! Your BOND with your fellow being was your Despair. It was a public experience. It was awful, but we were in it together.

 How much worse is it then for the lone man, the lone woman, stricken by a private calamity?

‘No one knows I’m sick.’

‘No one knows I’ve lost my last real friend.’

‘No one knows I’ve done something wrong.’

Imagine the isolation. Now you see the world as through a window. On one side of the glass: happy, untroubled people, and on the other side: you.

I want to tell you a story. A cargo ship sank one night. It caught fire and went down. And only this one sailor survived. He found a lifeboat, rigged a sail…and being of a nautical discipline…turned his eyes to the Heavens and read the stars. He set a course for his home, and exhausted, fell asleep. Clouds rolled in. And for the next twenty nights, he could no longer see the stars. He thought he was on course, but there was no way to be certain. And as the days rolled on, and the sailor wasted away, he began to have doubts. Had he set his course right? Was he still going on towards his home? Or was he horribly lost… and doomed to a terrible death? No way to know. The message of the constellations - had he imagined it because of his desperate circumstance? Or had he seen truth once… and now had to hold on to it without further reassurance? 

There are those of you in church today who know exactly the crisis of faith I describe. And I want to say to you:DOUBT can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty. When you are lost, you are not alone.

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

When Greg, my dad, and I were en route to Omaha, I expressed how excited I was to be heading somewhere that had real storms. Storms (and trees) are what I miss about Georgia - Utah just doesn't do real storms! I love the thunder, the lightning, the pouring rain, the wind (as long as I'm safe inside, of course). I love the sound, the smell, and the look of a good storm.

It has apparently been a very wet summer for Omaha. Last year there was a drought and this year there is a surplus of rain. It feels like every other day is a storm! I'm not complaining though - I've only had to drive through it once and have yet to have to walk through it. We've had evening storms where we've been able to open the window to listen to the rain and thunder and I've sat in front of the window, mesmerized by the lightning and vicious wind. I'm on the 18th floor at work, so when there are day time storms, I can see the sheets of rain being blown by the wind and the lightning arcing to the ground. It is legit.

No matter where you live, people are convinced that "*fill in the blank state* has the worst drivers." I'll hand it to you that people in Provo are terrible drivers, but that has way more to do with the fact that it is an overly congested college town than that it is in Utah. Let's be real - no matter where you live, people suck at driving and they're all a bunch of idiots. Nebraska is no exception. I've noticed one particular trend out here - people don't hesitate to pull out in front of you, even if it means you will have to slam on your brakes for them. People are also very comfortable driving vastly below the speed limit (we're talking 10 under). And they are really slow about changing lanes... like they'll straddle the line for a solid 10 seconds

Nebraskans like to hate on Iowans. I've actually only heard people bring this up a few times, but it makes me laugh. They have acronyms for IOWA - Idiots Out Wandering Around and I Owe the World an Apology are the best I've heard. It makes me laugh that pretty much any other state in the country would turn their nose up at Nebraska, and then Nebraska turns its nose up at Iowa.

Shut. UP.

A guy I went to high school with posted this awful video about modesty (The Evolution of the Swimsuit), with a hearty "This is FANTASTIC! I encourage everyone, especially young women, to take time to watch this video and share it with their friends. What this woman says is not opinion; it is truth! How will you use your beauty?" First of all, eww I hate men telling women what they need to watch especially when it's like "Hey womenfolk! Listen up! I'm a man, which means I'm a huge perv! If you don't believe me, just watch this video, it will help you really understand how pervy I am!!" ... Do you people realize how you sound?

Anyways, I commented "I did not like this video. The more we reinforce this idea that men can't control themselves and women need to be accountable for men's 'animalistic nature', the more that becomes true. How insulting is that to men? "You are nothing more than your instincts, so we need to make sure women are aware of that and take responsibility for you." We can't keep blaming women for men's poor actions. We are all accountable for our own decisions and the focus needs to be on making men responsible for their own responses, not women."

Some random guy I don't know commented later and said, "I am a man and I am not offended at all. I loved it. I feel like I am very in control of myself; I am not in control of which lobe of my brain is activated when I see something, though. If women want to stop being objectified, they need to stop making themselves an object."

I didn't feel like getting into an argument about how much of an idiot he probably is (I considered something along the lines of "I guess I just hold the men in my life to a higher standard... you know, different than the standard I would hold a dog to," but decided against it. I'm not a fan of internet arguing. But I did take BIG issue with one part of his comment: "If women want to stop being objectified, they need to stop making themselves an object." Uhhh... WHAT?! So a women who dresses immodestly... BAM OBJECT.

Do people not realize that this approach to modesty lessons incites this type of reaction? "I'm a man, I'm ruled by my penis, women are objects." Uh... hey buddy, you're dragging your knuckles a little. And did you really just eat a fly out of your friends hair? Because that's what this type of crap makes you sound like - an unevolved animal. This guy literally just excused anything a man does to a woman, if she was 'making herself an object.'

So I commented back "Women are never objects, no matter what they are wearing. A woman could *never* make herself into an object."

A little later I hear a ping from a facebook notification... sure enough, it's this guy. As I clicked on the link to see his response, I was expecting something like "OK that wasn't the best wording, you know what I mean." So I imagine my surprise when I saw:

"Disagree."

Oh. My. Gosh. I about peed my pants. What an a-hole. How can people think this????? How can people be OK with this? Do they not hear themselves?

Every time a modesty lesson like this is taught, there is one more tally in the "it's women's fault" column, rather than the "I am accountable for my own actions" column. I'm sure men are also getting that reminder, but they're hearing this crap far more often. Cut it out!

New Girl

When we first left Provo, I was craving a fresh start, a new scene. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with the old scene... it had just been my scene for a while. I moved to Provo in 2008. I was excited to see some new things.

But I have to admit... I don't like being new. I don't like not having any friends. I don't like not knowing anyone. I don't know how to act around people that I don't know. I don't know how to be myself. I am so, so, so quiet around people I don't know.

My goal in this new phase has just been to be upbeat, friendly, positive, and kind. To smile at people that I see and ask them how they are doing. To at least attend social events, even if I feel uncomfortable. And I've been doing that. But I still feel like I haven't connected with anyone, and despite my constant efforts to be someone that people want to be around, I feel like no one really wants to be around me. Not that they dislike me... just that they aren't terribly interested in me.

I feel so boring and different. At church, I'm way younger than everyone else and I don't have any kids. I'm a woman who is focusing on her career - weird. At work, I'm married, don't drink, and didn't belong to a sorority. I try to attend all the social functions but just end up silently listening while everyone tells their stories of drunken escapades and sorority drama. Compared to that, I am boring!

I envy those people who are so warm and open and make friends easily. I am such a private person and I rarely open up about my life, and I can see why that would make people be disinterested in me. I think about the person I am around my friends: goofy, hyper, cheesy, opinionated... yet I find myself just disappearing at work. Silent. Friendly. Boring.

I'm a legit working woman! Well... kind of. We're just doing training now, so I haven't actually started doing any work.

Oh I am so excited to have this job. The things I'm learning at training have gotten me even more excited. I think it's going to be a good fit for me. UP is an awesome company and I can tell they try hard to take care of their employees. There isn't a "weed out" mentality like there is at the Big 4 - they genuinely want you to have your career with them.

Let's see... UP works really hard to emphasize safety. A large portion of their workforce is in very risky environments where even the slightest mistake could be the difference between life and death, so there is a lot of push for safety and this is carried over to the corporate level. Whenever you meet in a larger conference room or training room, the meeting starts with a safety briefing where you identify someone who can perform CPR, someone who is willing to retrieve and use the AED if needed, someone to call 911, where to go in case of dangerous weather, and where to go if we need to evacuate the building.

We've had a lot of socials. They took us out to lunch twice, we had an evening welcome event, and we had a golf tournament this past weekend. A golf tournament! We were on teams and it was a scramble, which means everyone hits and then we pick the best ball and all hit from there until we get to the hole. I. Am. Not. A. Golfer. I was enjoying the first... 5 holes, but then I was kind of bored. We played the whole 18 holes, and it was windy and cloudy and cold!

There are like 50 or so people in the audit department, and the vast majority of them are recent college graduates. The pattern is that you start as an "associate auditor," get promoted to "staff auditor" after a year, then "senior auditor" the next year. At that point you can leave audit and go work for the company in another division, or stick around for one more year as an "audit supervisor" before leaving for another department.

Let's see.. what else has happened in my life - we took an overnight train to Denver last month to buy a used car. I love it, it's so cute. The weather here  has been weird - it bounces back and forth between nice and sunny and rainy and windy. So windy! That's going to be an adjustment. Omaha is beautiful though. I'm surprised - I was expecting it to be really flat and no trees, basically big sky country. But, it's actually very green here, and there are more trees here than in Utah. It's also quite hilly here.. not like Virginia hilly, but some nice rolling hills.

It's starting to feel like home here. It's still hard being away from my friends in Provo, being only a text away from hanging out. It takes me a long time to warm up to people enough to totally be myself, and I have some mild social anxiety from spending time around a lot of new people. I'm not one to overly self conscious about my appearance, but I am totally self conscious about my personality, especially when I'm around new people. But, meeting new people means making new friends, and I know I'll feel better soon.