Wonderemployment

Yosemite, February 2020 Today you become the heirs of a legacy of togetherness. Together you will dream dreams. Together you will make plans. Together you will face moments of unutterable joy. Together you will face moments of inexpressible sorrow. Despair not when the inevitable moments of personality adjustment arise, for they may be the stepping stones to higher levels of self-completion. Be not dismayed when the buoyancy of fulfillment is transformed into the fatigue of disappointment, for this is apart of the changing scenery of life. Like the ever-flowing water of the river, life has its moments of drought and its moments of flood. Like the ever-changing cycle of the seasons, life has the piercing chill of its winters and the soothing warmth of its summers. If you feel that the fountain of love is running dry in your marriage, seek desperately to fill it anew; for without love marriage is like a parched and dried up dessert without the refreshing oasis of happiness. If you are te...

Another year has gone by in a blink. The years do seem to fly by faster with age, and I've been having so many moments recently of wondering how time can play such mind games. It's been three months since I finished school, and somehow the rest of my life has swallowed up the voids left from classes, papers, and Zoom calls. It's almost like it never even happened, and those two years were just a brief detour. I'm turning 33 next week. I swear I just turned 30 . Holly is starting preschool next week, after being at the same home daycare for the past three years. I remember agonizing over how much breastmilk I could pump for her and wishing she could tell me anything about her day. Now she talks nonstop about her friends, about who likes Little Mermaid, who likes Elsa, and who got time out. She can write her name, use the potty, and feed herself. She has even told me she hates me. She's really not a baby anymore. Curtis and I can't help but say it every sing...

August is a month of many milestones for me. This year Curtis and I celebrate five years of marriage. And it is also the tenth anniversary of my move to California. It's hard to disentangle the two things because moving here is how I met Curtis, and meeting Curtis is the reason why I've stayed. Interview Trip, April 2008 Growing up in Oregon, I never ever ever thought I'd become a dreaded Californian. Those were the shallow people, the people who drove too fast, the people who were raising prices in our lovely state. There was so much pride in being an Oregonian, though truthfully I didn't have any other points of comparison. In the last semester of college, I got the itch to get away. My thesis adviser forwarded me an announcement for a new program called City Hall Fellows , with sites in Houston and San Francisco. I had never spent time in either place, but I applied to both anyway. By some miracle I was accepted for a placement in San Francisco, and moved here ...

It's been a busy summer around here to say the least. We finally moved into our house, I left my job and started a new one, and I also started grad school. We're navigating new schedules, new commutes, and new responsibilities. Through it all, our anniversary hasn't been anywhere near the forefront of our minds and currently we have nothing planned to celebrate it. This is pretty representative of where we are in our marriage. It's a well-oiled machine humming along in the background, not demanding much attention or thought. I appreciate this, because with so much in flux externally, it's nice to have refuge at home, or as much refuge as possible with a toddler in the mix. I try not to get complacent though, because things don't just "work" on their own and the last thing I want to do is ruin the best thing I have by assuming it will always stay that way. We have talked a lot this summer about how our roles and responsibilities will change with s...

As we get ready to celebrate our anniversary, I want to take some time to reflect on how becoming parents has changed our marriage. I know for me, this transition was one of my biggest fears about having a baby. How would it change us ? Would it ruin this good thing we had going? I hear this anxiety from friends too, who are weighing the question of when and if to have kids. There's no universal answer and I'm sure things will wax and wane with each passing year, but for us, I've been relieved to find that our good thing has only gotten better. I share this not to brag how much I looooove my spouse, or to imply that we're some extraordinary couple without scars and squabbles, but to offer a counter narrative to the one I've heard so much, that having a baby will make you resent your partner, forget about romance, and generally become unhappy. (See exhibit A , B, and C .) It's not that those personal perspectives and research data are not valid, but there ...

Anothe r post from the end of August, before I found out about my lay-off. I filed it away for later since I hadn't announced my pregnancy yet. --- Two years is not a particularly meaningful milestone, but this year has seen some pretty significant changes for us. I started a new job and ended my wonderemployment period, which has had both positive and negative impacts on our life. We have more money coming in, which allows us to breathe a little easier and be able to splurge on more luxuries, like vacations. The downside is that we once again have two people who come home at the end of the day with work related stress and grievances. No one wants to cook, and more chores slip by undone. I was without a doubt happier working part time, but when I reminisced with Curtis recently on how great my wonderemployment worked out, it turns out he did not remember things so fondly. He thought it was stressful and unstable, but tried to be as supportive of me as he could.  I guess t...

Our first wedding anniversary is coming up, which will not just mark one year of marriage for us, but also five years of being together. When you get married, it seems everyone asks, "does it feel different?", or "has anything changed?". I find myself asking people the same things too because it's so variable for everyone. For me, marriage does feel different, in the best ways possible. It feels like... having a slumber party with your best friend every night!!! Just kidding. To me, it feels more like getting a good night's rest. No matter what the next day brings, both will only help. When we got married, I had no idea what the next year would look like, but "wonderemployment" certainly wasn't even a thought on my mind. I was expecting to continue my job until the end of 2014, at least. We are in a strange juxtaposition right now, with him working harder than ever at his job and then each day coming home to study for a professional exam, ...