Friday, October 29, 2010

Another Language

Every time I watch the movie Avatar there's a scene that speaks to me. It's where this guy Jake is learning about the Na'vi culture and language and he's told that there is a phrase, "I see you," that means something more than just the words. It means, "I see you, I see into you, I see who you are, and I accept you. I love you." I wish there were a word or phrase for that concept in the English language. Sometimes I read blog or facebook posts where I don't really have anything to contribute, and if I post a comment it will just be empty words.

I wish there were something I could say that meant, "I read this, and while I read it, every heartbeat was dedicated to you. I will think about this far longer than it took me to read it, and I will think about it again later today--maybe even tonight, tomorrow, or a month from now. I think about you a lot. I read this and acknowledge your pain/love/sentiment. I was here. You are a part of me and I understand what you are saying. I see who you are--your inner thoughts--and I love you. I just have nothing to contribute at the moment. But I was here."

I suppose I could just go with "I see you," but would that make me something of an Avatar geek?

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Speaking of babies.....

We want one. We want some. We want children badly. For those of you who think we don't deserve one because we'll instill bad values--with all due respect, go jump off a dock. You can have your beliefs and your prejudices, but they are wrong. I am going to be a great mother, and Julie is going to be a great mother, and we will both be mothers. There won't be a "mom" and an "aunt." We are going to have children of our own, and it will be soon. I won't be telling you right away, since it's something that I don't want you to have any part of ruining. There are some of you who ruin everything for me by telling me I'm doing it wrong, by telling me I'll mess things up, by telling me God sees me and is unhappy. Don't pretend you know what goes on in God's omniscient head.

Have you ever watched me or Julie with children? Have you ever seen the love in our eyes? Do you have any idea how much effort we will put into raising the most tender-hearted, educated, humor-appreciating, God-fearing children who will ever walk the planet? It's not like we intend to just "go get knocked up." We're doing this the right way. This child or children will have mothers who love them, and yes! FATHERS who love them! I want our children to have fathers. I know that might blow your mind, but I'm not some man-hating lesbian who thinks that men only ruin things. I think fathers are incredibly important and every child at some point will want to know who had a part in creating them--and I want our children to be able to know and love all of their parents.

So when I call you to tell you we're expecting, if you answer with anything other than "Congratulations!".... if you answer with a sigh, if you answer with a sarcastic "Well, that's great," ... if you answer with tears of unhappiness, you cannot reasonably expect to be a large part of our children's lives--because I don't want them to have to dread coming to see you, knowing how you judge our family. I don't want to drop them off to stay with you only to hear later the lies you've put into their heads. I can promise you that the first time you hurt them by telling them that their family is not a real family will be the last time you see them.

So, speaking of babies... we're going to have them, we're going to love them, and we're going to be prouder of them than anything else we've ever done in our lives.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Officially Annoying.

It seems that suddenly there are a lot of things in my life that need to be officially done. We needed to officially get our marriage application notarized. We needed to drive over to Iowa to get officially married. We got our official marriage certificate but now need certified copies of our birth certificates (which I might have to have the application notarized, since I don't have the original one) and to send our official marriage certificate with it to the social security office so they can send us our new official social security cards. But I'm not sure if I should just drive it down there so that I can hand it to them in person. But I would have to take a whole day off to do that. Then we have to take our official social security cards, after waiting two weeks to get them, and take them to the DMV and hope and pray that the official office will agree to give us new official driver's licenses. Why is this so hard? Why can't Social Security team up with the states and automatically send out new cards when the name change is indicated on the marriage certificate?!? After all that, I have to contact a ton more people to get my name changed, like utilities, credit cards, not to mention my employer, because I need a new name plate—and do I change my email or not? I've been using that one a long time... It's all very frustrating, and the more I think about it, the more irritated I get. I don't have time to get a ton of things notarized, and why the heck don't we have a social security office closer than an hour away? It's not like this town is THAT small!! Oh, big whoop, so we have someone here on the second Wednesday of every month from 9:30am-noon. Seriously? Once a month, there's someone here for two and a half hours!? SERIOUSLY?!?