understanding (n.)

of school tomorrow ... at least for this go round.  i haven't necessarily ruled out a Ph.D., but that, dear hearts, is a journey in and of itself.  i haven't started this school year yet, and i know, because i often rule my personal life with clarity, that i love it already.

and i will love being done.

next june will be the culmination of three years of some of my best social work work so far.  i can say with confidence i've put my whole heart and entire being into this masters degree.  but  it is just the best social work so far.  i can't even imagine the amazing things to come once i step back into the field.  i can't wait to add to my ten years of bachelor's level experience.

my school bag is ready.
my alarm clock is set.
i have my first training at my internship tomorrow (while last year was a journey into geriatric psychotherapy, this year marks a journey back into the world and hearts of children and their families).
my first class (social work with children, adolescents and families) tomorrow evening.
i may not sleep tonight.  (i get that worked up.)

it was a good, long last weekend of summer.  shoes and i successfully booked our first choice of a wedding venue -- one that we are entirely thrilled about (even shoes, even though he tries not to be).  we have a date.  the moms and i will be looking for a dress at the end of october.  the attendant list has almost been fully confirmed ... just a few more people to talk to.  my dear friend molly offered the use of her own wedding arch, and molly and i are both so, so stoked that we will both have been married under it.  much to do in the upcoming year.

it does my soul well to know shoes and i are getting married in his hometown.  maybe because i do not have a hometown.   we'll make that the topic of the next post.  hometown.  roots.  where we come from and where we're going.  for now, here's (yet another blurry one due to my amazingly slow shutter release) a picture of me in shoes' hometown.  the gorgeous wheat?  very much a part of the scenery of the venue.

makes me excited all over again.

and why not tonight?  we're all adults.  all ready for this.

seven years ago today, (September 18th, 2004) i got married.  married.  i don't even know how many people we invited, but it was a ton.  all of our family.  both of my work offices.  his education cohort at the university.  our entire church. my friends from undergraduate school. i had a stunning white gown; he looked dashing in his very formal, traditional tuxedo.  we were jubilant and ready and in love and we laughed and loved and our church came together to put it all together.  we had the happiest of ceremonies - performed with abandon and enthusiasm.

people would tell me later they had never been to a wedding that was so ... happy.

as young marrieds, we were in charge of 1st through 6th grade children's ministries.  we lead a church mission to Mexico.  we moved to the vineyard town so he could take his first job teaching english as a second language to elementary school children.

he was young and vibrant and impulsively impish.  the life of the party -- the one you could count on to be just a little bit naughty.  or a lot naughty.  you just never knew what that crazy boy was going to do next.

maybe that is why three years after we married, we were divorced.  that quick impulsiveness never went away, but morphed into something terribly and horribly heart breaking.  no thinking about consequences.  living for the here and now.  wrecked a marriage.  maybe two, but i couldn't keep track of the other marriage for too long for fear that doing so would stir up a sense of revenge within me.  it wrecked my faith in jesus for a long time.  (i remember clearly the moment when i felt i could start walking back to jesus.  it was when my counselor asked me what i thought god thought about my divorce and i blurted out, without thinking, immediately, "god HATES divorce!  and i did it anyway!" and promptly started sobbing. [nevermind that i had a biblical out.  nevermind i had consulted two pastors and my closest, most reliable friends.]  my counselor handed me the tissue box and said quietly, "god doesn't hate divorce in the context that you did something bad and you will now be punished.  god hates the effects of divorce on his children; he hates to see you hurt like this.  you didn't do anything wrong.  you're not being punished." oh, how i wish i could tell that to all of the darling daughters who are in that same spot. something really very ugly broke off of me at that point, and i was able to start standing up to people who looked down on me and said, "love hurts.  you have to love through the hurt.")

seven years later, on september 18th, i am planning a new wedding.  a new marriage.  a new life.

it's more than a bit scary.

i know now, really know, really, really know, what marriage is like.  i know how hard it is.   i know the exact, unmistakable, ear splitting sound of a heart breaking when marriage doesn't work out.  (such the understated euphemism "doesn't work out" is).  it is a risk.  it didn't feel like a risk seven years ago.  it feels like a risk right now.

and i know how amazing it is when it really works out.  when you have a partner you adore.  when you have a partner who is your true ... partner.  at its best, marriage is, perhaps, one of the greatest gifts in the world.

i tell shoes all the time that i do not think i would be doing this again if it wasn't him i was marrying.  i don't want just another marriage.  married just for the sake of being married?  no thank you.  i certainly don't want just another wedding.

it's shoes.  i want shoes in my daily life.  i want to come home and talk about work with him and walk the dog with him and adopt children with him.  i want him to forever poke gentle fun at the way i worry incessantly.  i want to forever turn around and see him standing there calmly.  i want to forever hear him chuckling the chuckle he has when he thinks he's being a little bit evil.

and so, ironically, i think i have something to thank my first husband for after all ... seven years after the wedding date and four years after the divorce. if he and i hadn't shared at least some genuine love, at some point, i think i would write marriage as an institution off ... forever.  but i remember some good times.  i remember that the experience of marriage can be amazing.  and that, in conjunction with same amazing healing from a good god, and the man that shoes is, has lead to some serious hope and possibility.

shoes know this.  he knows this because i've told him.  save nothing else, it's what i want him to know in the midst of all the wedding crazy.  i'm in it because he's in it.  and i'm all in. despite the risk.

it feels right to finally be able to say that.  funny, the places you find yourself getting to seven years later.

and they are a lovely couple.  all of us were juvenile detention officers at one point.  it's where they met.  it's where Shoes and i met.  who would have known?


blurry picture ... (very slow shutter release on the camera) ... but here we are.  i do hate being the tallest girl because it truly does make me look bigger in every sense of the word (the PROOF is in the PICTURES) :-)... i left detention to run the guardian ad litem program ... the bride left detention to work at the local domestic violence victim's shelter ... and tiff (my roommate from the Vineyard Town) is still holding it down in detention...



and the baby tiff had while we were living together?  no longer a baby, but a boisterous, mischievous, live wire  2 and a half year old.



... who ate about a pound and a half of wedding favor m&m's, but we love her anyway.

happy wedding, happy weekend.

I am on my way out the door to the Vineyard town for the most lovely backyard wedding of the best kind.  For the next day or two, I will think only about snuggling in next to Shoes, drinking red wine, staying cool in the Eastern Washington heat and laughing with old friends.

I will not think about the fact that I have two days left at Research Administration in which I have to put together a meeting for Research's heaviest of heavy hitters (30 emails later and we're into late October / early November).

I will not think about the fact that a new Psychiatry mandatory bi monthly meeting has been added to my schedule that I have to work in.  Somehow.

I will not think about the fact that the university's classified employees have a very high likelihood of striking the first week of classes ... and that going to class will be considered crossing the picket line ... and that some have suggested that going to field placement will also be crossing the picket line ... I will not think about the implications this has for graduation / financial aid / me and Shoe's ultimate plan and I will try not to think about how, at the same time, they have the absolute right to strike for their rights.

I will not think about the fact that Shoes and I are struggling (but not arguing) to get our wedding guest list down to 150.  Some brutal, brutal cuts are being made.  Shoes has asked me not to think about the wedding until after I am at least done with Research Administration (next Thursday) and only have one job (Psychiatry) to worry about.  But we meet with the wedding venue on the 23rd, so time is tight ... but again, I'm not worrying about it this weekend.

Right now I'm choosing to be grateful.  That I have a Shoes to go to.  That I have a wedding of the most epic proportions to celebrate.  That my problem is I have two jobs.  That I'm almost done with graduate school (oh please, oh please, oh please let my grad. date stay intact ...).

Pictures of the K. Wedding to come ... this is the best, most fun group ... you never know what's going to happen when the social workers, police, prosecuting attorneys, probation officers get together ... outside of multi-disciplinary meetings ... (but some of you know all too well) ...

Or something.

I don't mean to be melodramatic, but this man is back, this time riding the bus late, late at night after I get off my late shift in Psychiatry up at the hospital.  What's he doing there so late?  Riding the Line 8 around in the middle of the night, nowhere to go, nobody to visit with (except the folks in the ER and the friendly Vet Guards at the V.A.).  Seeing him makes me cranky, but only in the sense that I know things aren't getting any better for him

Only in the sense that I want more than anything for things to be better for him.

It's not the first time time we've been re-introduced, and he has no idea who I am any time we meet (which doesn't deter him from sitting next to me every time [not that I mind]).  His eyes are fully jaundiced (is that the correct medical way to describe that?), he smells fully pickled, sometimes he makes sense and sometimes it's word salad.

It's getting worse, whatever he has ... the alcoholism, depression, I don't know.  I'm not his doctor; not his counselor.  He brightens when we talk and I guess that's enough.  I think he's slowly dying, in the way that untreated, getting older alcoholics always feel like they're dying.  This is not the light-hearted bus humor I usually like to share.

It's just the other thing that happens to me, with regularity, on Public Transit.   I hope he still has his apartment, hope he still has his case manager and I still hope (against hope) that something Super Big happens and he makes it.

Really makes it.

And I hope I continue to ask about his well-being with sincerity, void condescending paternalism.  But in all honesty, I feel like I'm nearing that line ... that there's a little too much sympathy and too much clucking in my voice ... that I'm losing the ability to be genuinely concerned and gaining the ability to front with him.

As if I'm the one who has it bad.

I hope the road turns for you, Randy.  Even just a little bit.  Even just slightly.  Ever so slightly.

Either way, I'll see you on the 8.

I hope you have some new jokes for me next time.

You usually do.

I had my first Pumpkin Spice Latte today (because Starbucks is how I mark my seasons) and waited at the Car Dealership Service Center for no less than 5 hours for them to replace a sensor.

Good thing I had that latte.

And also, Shoes and I went to Mt. Hood last weekend.  O, it was a funny weekend.  I wanted to ride the zip line, not realizing it was all of 500 feet and more suitable for 9 year olds.  I wanted to ride the alpine slides, before we knew that Oregon State Police was holding a fundraiser there.

So we skipped all of that, went on a gorgeous hike and lunched at Timberline Lodge instead.