2AM, writing...

Yeah, starting this at 2:11AM is not the smartest thing in the world.

However, I need to workout my writing muscles and stay in shape, and there are lots of thoughts bouncing around in my head that need organizing, so here I am.

I confess I gave 2 hours over to watching "Adaptation." That was 2 hours I could've been writing, but I really wanted to watch it and tonight seemed reasonable. Seriously, the kids don't have school tomorrow, so I can afford a late night. Plus, I slept till like 10:30 this morning (so shoot me). I really enjoyed that movie. Nicholas Cage kicks all ass, and the Kaufmans totally nailed writer's anxiety. It cracked me up that they did all the stuff they said they weren't going to do... excellent job all around, though. Great movie.

Before the movie, I watched the penultimate episode of "Sex & the City." I have ranted about this at length over on the TWoP boards (that's Television Without Pity to the uninitiated... go, enjoy, you'll love it; it's snarkalicious) but I have to mention it here, too. Carrie (protaganist, idiot) moves to Paris with her Russian artist lover, doesn't speak French, is a complete ditz... oh, the rants I could compose against her. She's got the opportunity of a lifetime, here, and she's going to sit in her hotel and be miserable because she can't think her way out of a paper bag, obviously.

It pisses me off when writers dumb down their characters so much. In earlier seasons, Carrie actually had a brain in her head. Apparently this is no longer true. Maybe I'm just pissed because the only time I was ever in Paris I was with my soon-to-be-ex-husband and I was pretending to have a good time the entire time I was there, when I was really wishing that I had gone there with the guy I was about to leave my husband for. Lord, that was a horrible trip. France is beautiful, but if you're going as a couple, make sure you go with someone you actually love, and not someone you're just pretending to love so you can get a trip to France out of it, OK?

I think that was what resonated with the Carrie thing, and me: Carrie actually calls up her best friend, Miranda, and says to her, "I keep thinking about what it would be like if I were here with Big," that's her on-again, off-again, ex, who reminds me so much of that guy I left my ex-husband for. YIKES! Suddenly it's 1991 all over again and that was me, except I didn't have anyone to whom I could say that out loud. My heart went out to Carrie but I still wanted to smack her upside the head for moving to a foreign country and not having her own game plan. I mean, shopping and museums can only keep you so busy.

OK, kicker from this ep: Carrie's Big turns up at the beginning with something to say to her, but she just chews him out and walks off, without letting him say his piece. YAY! She chewed him out, he deserved it, but -- c'mon, woman, let the man speak. Later in the episode, through a series of deus ex machina there is no need to repeat, we get to hear him profess his love for Carrie (but not to her). They've been doing this thing for 6 years now, and this is the first time he has shown some emotional growth and desire to commit.

$64 question: is he for real? Can guys like Big really reform, grow, mature? Commit to one woman? I really do think so. My Big, the guy I left my ex-husband for -- we got engaged, then he dumped me when it became painfully obvious that we weren't good for each other. He was very good at doing the White Knight routine, rescuing me from the horribly oppressive marriage I was in, but once I didn't need rescuing anymore, he didn't know what to do with me. There was other stuff going on, too, like I expected him to be that rescuing-type, all the time, because that was the guy I had fallen in love with. Of course that was too much work to keep up, all the time, so eventually he just quit "walking on eggshells", as he put it... long story. Broken heart, much more broken than with my divorce, I was shattered. I mean, we had picked out names for our kids. Planned our retirement. When he broke our engagement, he stole my future.

That was a dozen years ago. I had a rough time for a while but realized he had done the right thing, when he found a woman who, he told me, "loved [him] the way [he] is." I knew what he meant. She didn't fall in love with a White Knight, she fell in love with regular-old-him. The real guy, who, by the way, is a pretty cool guy although he can be a total jerk at times... like everyone, I suppose.

We've kept in touch via email and the occasional phone call over the years. It's so strange because we know each other very well, we can still finish each other's sentences. And I love him, still, but not in that same breath-catching way. He's someone who saw me through one of the hardest times of my life, and someone who put me through the worst emotional turmoil I've ever experienced, but -- I learned so much from him, about myself, about everything. I honestly think that had I not met him, I wouldn't have escaped that first bad marriage, and never would've walked the path that led me to my current excellent marriage and 3 amazing children. That's a lot to be grateful for.

And from this distance, my Big is totally committed to his wife and family, it doesn't seem to me as if he's ever even thought of straying. So it looks like a Big can reform, in real life -- just maybe not with his Carrie? Well, not for my Big and me, anyway.

So... back in the show, Big is finally ready to tell Carrie he loves her and can't lose her again, and I wonder, if me & my Big had stayed single over 6 years, would we have eventually come together, been The One, for each other? Is there such a thing as soul mates, do you get only one in a life time? Does your soul mate have to be your spouse?

My answers: I don't really think we would ever have come together, even though there was great chemistry between us at the time. When it was over, it was over, we never did the on-again, off-again dance, although I wanted to be "on again" so many, many times in the months after our breakup. There was only one breakup, even though there was some flirtatious banter a few times, that was nothing more than a tease (the bastard). The breakup was real, and honest, and true, and eventually I realized that. Gotta respect a guy who's willing to break a girl's heart to give her back her life, and reclaim his own, in the face of two families and an entire peer group's expectations.

Now, the soul mates question, that's an easy one: I do believe there are people we just connect with on a deeper level, and those people I would call soul mates. I have two girl friend soul mates, so I don't think you have to be married to your soul mate -- this is just a person who "gets" you, that you don't have to explain yourself to. When you find these people, you hang on to them, which is exactly what my Big has done with me. I was more than willing to just let him go, because of all the pain there, but once I got over that, I could appreciate knowing him, still. It took quite a long time, though.

My husband, honestly, I don't know if he is my soul mate or not. I know he understands me a lot better than I do, sometimes, but I also know there is stuff about me that he just does not get, which my Big does. That's OK, because the list of stuff that my DH does not get about me is vanishingly small, and he may actually get it, we just haven't ever talked about it. I learned a long time ago that people can understand you but still not agree with your point of view. That was a tough lesson, lemme tell you. My husband taught me that one, where my Big had tried and failed.

My mother once told me, "you can't expect to get everything you need or want in life from one person," and she is so right about that. My husband, though, comes damn close. Lately I just want to run away with him and spend two or three days just hanging out with him, in and out of bed, not having to do anything or take care of anyone else. A beach would be nice, too (I believe I have mentioned this before).

We went to see "Miracle" on Saturday (it was fun), and then went and got coffee at Starbucks, which we sipped while strolling the aisles of Trader Joe's (grocery store). I had an absolute blast. I got totally weak knees when he leaned over in the car and kissed me out of the blue. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in being a mom and taking care of the house and everything that I forget that not only does he love me (the real me, too, the crazy one), he also thinks I'm sexy. That's still a surprise to me a lot of the time.

I've been through the Virgin Recertification Process four times now. By this, I mean that four times in our marriage have we had extended periods where we couldn't have intercourse. We just did other things, which can be fun but is Just. Not. It. The first three trips through the VRP were when I was post-partum; after having a baby pass through your birth canal, the thought of anything going in there is quite horrifying for the first 6 weeks or so, and during that time you're dealing with an infant, plus post-partum hormones, so you're exhausted and messed up and sex just doesn't seem like a great idea... eventually, all those negative thoughts fade and it just feels good again, and there ya go.

Last summer, I noticed my cervix had slid way down and found out that I had uterine prolapse, so I had a hysterctomy at the end of October. From about August through mid-December I was off sex. Until the surgery, it just felt... bad. Then after the surgery, I had to wait until everything was healed up again. Now it's not bad anymore, but I'm still afraid it's going to be. It has been, in fact, mind-blowingly good, but I'm still afraid it's going to hurt. Occasionally it just feels weird, because I have scar tissue that literally does not like being rubbed the wrong way. But it doesn't hurt. So why am I afraid it's going to hurt?

Lately, it hasn't been hurting in the post-op area but up under my ribs where I've got the apparently gallbladder pain. Now, that just sucks. Why should that hurt, there? Of course now it just hurts there all the time, so that answers that question, but a couple of weeks ago, it wasn't an all the time thing, and it just started bothering me during sex which is just so not fair. Cripes. Well, I find out Wednesday when I'm getting the damn thing out and how long I'll have to not have sex again. Maybe it won't be too long this time.

Pain sucks.

Having written all that, I realize it's stupid of me to wonder whether or not my husband is a soul mate. It was probably obvious to everyone but me until I just went back and read what I wrote. Sometimes I am an idiot.

On a more positive note, I sent my first invoice out on my freelance job today. I wonder how long until I'll get paid? I almost don't care because the change in my mental state since I started working has been astonishing, even though I am not getting enough sleep, I just feel -- fantastic. I'm sure I'll go crashing down into a depression just for admitting that in public, but I don't care. I just feel good, I really do feel happy, like, I'm me again! I know I talked about this before but it's still there, that "I'm back" feeling. Weird. Good, but weird. Whatever, I'll take it.

Last, not least... I am trying to smile when I look at DD now. So much of the time I am coming down hard on her, and I finally figured out why. I am terrified of what she may become, because this girl literally has it all, and she knows it. She is beautiful, and smart, and funny, and kind, and loving. And she has the spark, the thing everyone wants. She is so full of life and energy. At her school, everyone knows her and likes her, the teachers all give her hugs. I had her parent-teacher conference last Friday and her teacher just confirmed everything I said up there. This girl can do whatever she wants with her life, and it's my job as her mom to make sure she doesn't grow up to be a manipulative bitch who works her looks and nothing else. Already she will play up her looks and pitch little fits about not getting her way, and so many times, she gets away with it. Not at home, though -- never at home, but when we're out and about, she has no problems bursting into tears at the fact that there is no lemonade or something like that. I've seen waitresses buckle at the sight of those tears, let me tell you. It's scary. She could be such a monster, even though right now she is sweet and kind, she could easily learn that she doesn't need to be that way all the time.

So anyway, I need to stop letting my fears about what she could be get in the way of seeing her as she is now, which is my pretty little girl who is often quite kind, and full of life and love. So, smiles and hugs for her, and she does seem less agitated around me because of it. Kids can so totally get the vibe their parents throw off, even though all parents want to deny it.

DH totally bagged me the other day when he told me that he knew that my oldest is my favorite. I totally love that kid, I understand him, he is a lot, lot like me, only better (and not because he's a boy, either). DD, I admit, I don't understand the way she thinks a lot, and I'm afraid of her, what she can become if left to her own devices. So with her I'm constantly trying to reign her in, which is so not fair to her... gotta lighten up, there. And then there's my little guy, and he has been very needy and clingy and driving me crazy, but I have to get over that, too, and let him snuggle with me and soon he'll realize that the no-snuggling was just a post-op thing and I'm OK and he's OK, too.

Actually, the little guy is just the best because these last few days when I say, "Time for bed!" he says, "Time for bedtime story" and he brings over his favorite Spider-Man books and we read a little bit. This afternoon when they were all bored and fractious we read all of his pop-up books together, after we read "SUPERDOG: The Heart of a Hero" which is just the cutest thing ever, I highly recommend it to anyone with kids under the age of 8. Heck, I'm 40 and I loved it, but that's me.

So, is DS1 really my favorite? Maybe, I don't know. I love them all differently because honestly they all need me to be different things for them. I'm enjoying watching DS2 grow up from baby to toddler to little boy, his face has changed so much. He has the best sense of humor. What he needs is different from what DD needs which is yet again different from what DS1 needs. So I love them all, sometimes I can give more of myself to one more than the others, but then things switch around again. It is, as they say, a fluid situation. I hope to God they don't look back on these times and think, "Mom totally neglected us because of you," or some such nonsense -- because it would be crap! LOL Some days, they all survive in a state of benign neglect as I tap-tap-tap here on the computer.

I think it's OK, though. Better benign neglect (late lunches) than a depressed mom, right?

And that's enough for now.