Taking it Seriously

Rob and I are maybe, possibly, probably moving (official announcement when the lease is signed).  We are going from a sleepy little town with almost nothing in it (we only have three Starbucks.  I mean, come on) to an over-the-top bustling city.  We haven’t lived in a big city since we lived in London.  And yes, I know most of you are like, don’t you live in LA?  We live in LA County.  It’s a big place.  I am not telling you my address thankyouverymuch.

And with planning to move back to a city means difference.  Changes.  We have gotten used to where we live.  This is the longest we have ever lived someplace together, ever.  This is the longest I have lived in one place since high school.  We are pretty nomadic and given that neither of us have packrat tendencies, it is fine.  But I am nervous.  Excited nervous, but still nervous.  Our time in London sucked.  Royally.

There were a lot of things about London that made me feel as if I was constantly gasping for air.  The cramped quarters that we lived made me feel as if I was feeling suffocated.  I look back and still don’t know how we survived our first year of marriage in a studio flat in a bad part of town.  Our flat was smaller than my dorm rooms were in college.  I had trouble feeling like I could never actually see the sky.  I grew up in suburbia.  Green grass, picket fences, the whole shebang.

Part of me worries that moving back to the city will cause this whole suffocation feeling that I really am not eager to repeat.  But I remind myself of the differences.  We will have a car.  We will have a bedroom and a living room and a kitchen.  We are fancy, y’all.  And I am reminding myself of why we are moving.  Cheaper rent.  Actual nightlife, friends included!  Better apartment.  Actual things and places within walking distance.  Rob and I used to love going on late evening walks, where we are moving will be amazing for that.

One of things that Rob misses desperately about England is the neighborhood pub.  We just don’t have that kind of thing where we live now.  And, I admit, we don’t really have the same culture regarding pubs and grabbing a pint after work that there is in England, but where we are moving has not one, but several pubs within walking distance.  Hurrah!

And wood floors, and a great hospital, and places to study, and carpooling opportunities.

Sometimes, maybe I am just nervous for the sake of being nervous.  I think nervous is the state at which I idle.

Eventually, I take the leap.

Image 1, Image 2

For Ashley

As requested, this is me in my formal dress from last year.  It has now been given away and has a happy home where it can be worn!

A Practical Wedding

One of my favorite websites is featuring our wedding today.

Whoa Nelly.

HERE

Fist pumps all around.

Around Christmas time, I thought I was done.  I had lost about 75 pounds and was feeling comfortable.  Small.  Collarbones and all.  But then it just kept coming off.  I was annoyed.  I had bought new clothes.  I was enjoying fitting into clothes.  And then, all of a sudden, two weeks ago, my size 10s didn’t fit anymore.  They were sliding off.  My butt was looking… baggy.  I had to admit it; I had lost another 10 pounds.

And part of me is fist! pumping! but the other part of me is annoyed that I have been to three Old Navys and still don’t have a second pair of size 8s in the cut that I wear.  I am specific.  It is the only cut that fits my thighs and butt and gives me no muffin top.  And I am annoyed that I need ANOTHER blazer, in a 6.

I continually feel this division.  The me that jumps up and down when I fit into a size 8 fights against the me that says, No more! You can’t spend any more money on clothes!

But mainly, mainly what I feel is astonishment.  Jaw dropping astonishment.  I was a size 14 when I was… 14.  Before this I had never been in single digit sizes.  I had never had collarbones.  Or wrist bones.  Or a spine.  I had never jumped up and down gleefully without feeling winded.  I had never walked up three flights of stairs without wanting to die.  I had never sat on my husband’s lap without feeling uncomfortable and painfully aware that I was totally squashing him.

As of today, I am 160 pounds, which is still considered overweight.  My BMI is 25.1.  To be considered a healthy weight my BMI should be between 18.5 and 24.9.  So, I might have a ways more to go.

I might not.  I don’t have a goal number.   I don’t have a goal size.  I wanted to feel healthy.  I felt healthy at 175.  I feel healthier at 160.  So maybe I will feel healthier still at 140?  I assume I will stop getting smaller when my body is ready.  Until then, I try will do my part to feed it good things and not sit at my desk for 14 hours straight.

I had a request for more before and after shots.  So, here is February 2011 and February 2012, at our law school formal.  Next week?  More on how I eat and how I get it right sometimes and fail a lot of the time.

 

 

Both

With summer quickly approaching in southern California I am fighting the urge to run.  I am sitting in a windowless room, studying.  And I don’t mean run away from this life I created forever, just for a little bit.  Just to sit quietly, in the sun.

As I inch closer and closer towards this goal of mine, it becomes increasingly apparent that I am fit for my chosen career path in a myriad of ways.  I am comfortable enough to love it, but uncomfortable enough to find it challenging.  It suits my personality, including all anxiety related neuroses.  But there is a small part of me that still wishes I could live on a farm in the middle of nowhere, raising children and corn.  I suppose it is down to too many Little House on the Prairie books when I was in fifth grade, but I find that type of lifestyle to seem endlessly calming.  And I know that it isn’t true.  People that live on farms still have the internet and crime and Facebook and there just isn’t any solution to that.

But what it does make me consider, seriously consider, is bringing children into the mix.  Rob and I have talked and talked and it is turning into a sooner rather than later conversation.  I am ready.  We are ready as a couple.  We have been together five years and still aren’t tired of each other in the least.  We have come to agreement on things like money and housing and nursing and schooling and so many more ‘ings’ it becomes irrelevant.  We both knew going into this relationship that babies were on the horizon.

And what makes me think of this is one year left.  One year until, God willing, I graduate from law school.  And as insane as it sounds, graduation time might coincide with baby time (once again, God willing).  And there is this thought, in the back of my mind, that I have to be a woman who wants a career or a woman who wants to be a mother.  You can’t want both equally.  And I want both.  I suppose if I had to give up on one I would have to choose, but I feel pretty strongly about having both.  About doing it all.  And if means being a mother means that I skip opportunities for advancement and don’t climb the ladder quite as high as I had hoped, I am okay with it.  And if having a career means that I actually need to pay someone to care for my children, then I am okay with that.  And I know there are women that are okay with neither of those options.  And that is okay.  Because as women, or people, for goodness sake, we get to pick what is important.

And for me, I want to be a mother and a lawyer.  And I want to see the sun.  Is that so impossible a dream?