Countdown till our Wedding!
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Here goes nothing
Maybe this is being written because I am too jazzed up on tea to sleep. Maybe it is being written because I have to wait up till midnight to register for my grad classes for the spring. Maybe it’s because I had a terrible day with the kids at work, followed by a 2.5 hour meeting with all of Kate’s parents. Or maybe it’s because I haven’t put my thoughts on “paper” for a long time. Either way, here we are.
Tonight, the idea of my new responsibilities with Kate became all too real. Before, I feel like the idea of being step mother Jill never really kicked in. I was always daddy’s girlfriend who liked to have rules and a clean house. But tonight, sitting across the table from Sarah and Ivo discussing schedules, consequences and ultimately what’s best for Kate, something jolted with me. I am in this for the long haul. And I don’t just mean until I get sick of it, or he gets sick of me… this is my future. This little blonde haired girl who my fiancé loves more than life itself is it. Sarah is my future. Ivo is my future. Years of working with them, meetings, parent teacher conferences, proms, homecomings, a wedding, grandkids… it all revolves around a working relationship with these two people.
For a long time in the early stages, I resisted the idea of working with them. I despised Sarah’s presence in Ryan’s life. She made things hard for me. I was always wondering if he loved her more, or if she was going to sneak in and decide that she wanted to be a solid family with him. She has a kid with him, it only made sense. But tonight I realized that this isn’t about the past relationship. This is about the future relationship with Kate. This is about making her life as easy as possible. This is about giving Kate the life that none of us had with our divorced parents. And now, my feelings of resentment towards Sarah have turned into feelings of jealousy of Kate. This kid is so lucky that she has 4 adults who want to get along for her. Who communicate every day, multiple times a day, to make her life smooth.
It makes me wonder what my life would have been like if my parents would have been adults when dealing with me as a child. Here I am, at the age of 23, and I am just now getting to know my father… just now having the conversations that we should have had all along. It’s hard to fully trust his new found excitement for my life, in fear that this has all been just a sick joke played on me by his increase in Prozac.
Ryan can’t understand my hesitation. He has made peace with the idea of not having his dad in his life for a long time. So had I. I used to think that life would easier if he would just succumb to his heart attacks and leave us all. Now, with his heart still in peril, I fear the inevitable heart attack that we all know if going to eventually take his life. It sounds stupid to be so negative, but the proof is on the paper. Lord knows the man is going to outlive us all…
One side of this that is positive however, is that I think had my parents been civilized, and had they not fought and made every Thanksgiving, Christmas and Birthday a dreadful “pull Jillian in 97 directions” affair, then I wouldn’t be open to working with Sarah and Ivo. It has taken me a long time to coming around to the idea of being a united front. In the early stages of Ryan and my relationship, I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to get over the presence of Sarah. It was a constant strain on our relationship. A few things happened in early summer that made me realize what an ass I was being about the situation. One was a fight where I heard my step mother screaming in the background… and I just thought, “I don’t want to be like her. I don’t ever want Kate to have this feeling.” Maybe Chris’ tantrum made me a better parent in the long run. Maybe I should be grateful about the years of hurt feelings and my missing father because it made me fall in love with Ryan’s commitment to Kate. Maybe all of my past with my dad was to get me to be a great parent to Kate. Maybe all of the hurt was worth it after all.
In the next coming months, I know this blog is going to blow up with written entries. I feel like my mind is constantly spinning with everything that’s changing all at once. It feels nice though to be spinning again after months of being stagnate.
So here’s to being a new mom, a graduate student, a future wife, an understood daughter, a fun aunt (hopefully!), a new partner and friend, and the owner of the best beagle ever. Here goes nothing…
Tonight, the idea of my new responsibilities with Kate became all too real. Before, I feel like the idea of being step mother Jill never really kicked in. I was always daddy’s girlfriend who liked to have rules and a clean house. But tonight, sitting across the table from Sarah and Ivo discussing schedules, consequences and ultimately what’s best for Kate, something jolted with me. I am in this for the long haul. And I don’t just mean until I get sick of it, or he gets sick of me… this is my future. This little blonde haired girl who my fiancé loves more than life itself is it. Sarah is my future. Ivo is my future. Years of working with them, meetings, parent teacher conferences, proms, homecomings, a wedding, grandkids… it all revolves around a working relationship with these two people.
For a long time in the early stages, I resisted the idea of working with them. I despised Sarah’s presence in Ryan’s life. She made things hard for me. I was always wondering if he loved her more, or if she was going to sneak in and decide that she wanted to be a solid family with him. She has a kid with him, it only made sense. But tonight I realized that this isn’t about the past relationship. This is about the future relationship with Kate. This is about making her life as easy as possible. This is about giving Kate the life that none of us had with our divorced parents. And now, my feelings of resentment towards Sarah have turned into feelings of jealousy of Kate. This kid is so lucky that she has 4 adults who want to get along for her. Who communicate every day, multiple times a day, to make her life smooth.
It makes me wonder what my life would have been like if my parents would have been adults when dealing with me as a child. Here I am, at the age of 23, and I am just now getting to know my father… just now having the conversations that we should have had all along. It’s hard to fully trust his new found excitement for my life, in fear that this has all been just a sick joke played on me by his increase in Prozac.
Ryan can’t understand my hesitation. He has made peace with the idea of not having his dad in his life for a long time. So had I. I used to think that life would easier if he would just succumb to his heart attacks and leave us all. Now, with his heart still in peril, I fear the inevitable heart attack that we all know if going to eventually take his life. It sounds stupid to be so negative, but the proof is on the paper. Lord knows the man is going to outlive us all…
One side of this that is positive however, is that I think had my parents been civilized, and had they not fought and made every Thanksgiving, Christmas and Birthday a dreadful “pull Jillian in 97 directions” affair, then I wouldn’t be open to working with Sarah and Ivo. It has taken me a long time to coming around to the idea of being a united front. In the early stages of Ryan and my relationship, I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to get over the presence of Sarah. It was a constant strain on our relationship. A few things happened in early summer that made me realize what an ass I was being about the situation. One was a fight where I heard my step mother screaming in the background… and I just thought, “I don’t want to be like her. I don’t ever want Kate to have this feeling.” Maybe Chris’ tantrum made me a better parent in the long run. Maybe I should be grateful about the years of hurt feelings and my missing father because it made me fall in love with Ryan’s commitment to Kate. Maybe all of my past with my dad was to get me to be a great parent to Kate. Maybe all of the hurt was worth it after all.
In the next coming months, I know this blog is going to blow up with written entries. I feel like my mind is constantly spinning with everything that’s changing all at once. It feels nice though to be spinning again after months of being stagnate.
So here’s to being a new mom, a graduate student, a future wife, an understood daughter, a fun aunt (hopefully!), a new partner and friend, and the owner of the best beagle ever. Here goes nothing…
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