Desperate Fashionista Diary

[Vishenka69]

Re: Desperate Fashionista Diary

Our one and only friend couple here is going through a breakup and it's really taking an emotional toll on me. They're both expect us to side with whoever is bitching at the time and I can see both points but obviously it's easier for me to side with the non-medical partner.

They've been having problems for a while but the medical half of the relationship didn't want to acknowledge or deal with them while he was busy with the residency/boards/etc. Now that he's finally done with all his crap, he realized it wasn't working out. Meanwhile his partner has put up with the residency/boards/moving around crap for 5 years and is now feeling used. He feels that he has given enough opportunities to end the relationship in the past but was convinced that the next move will give them a clean start. I can totally relate to this but obviously DH doesn't see it that way and is siding with the dawkter.

Slight tangent - over the weekend a couple that we knew from DH's med school days came over to visit. They have also been together since college, so the girl's husband went through all the same stages I have.

So today, we were discussing the couple that's breaking up and DH says, "I was talking to K about this over the weekend and we can't believe how you people keep going on and on how 'WE went through residency,' and 'WE took the boards,' I get that sitting home alone sucks but you didn't do any of the hard stuff." I was so close to exploding and hitting him over the head with something. I really thought we were have settled that issue and didn't expect that from the girl.

I can't believe that all those years later they still don't get it. I never implied that he wouldn't have successfully finished med school or residency on his own but he didn't exactly fish me out of a mud hole to bestow his dawktership on either. I'm finally realizing that we'll never come to an agreement on this issue. I hope I can be ok with that.

[Vishenka69]

Re: Desperate Fashionista Diary

I thought blue moods mostly happened in the winter when it's cold and yucky. Now all these "where the hell is my life going" posts are totally getting to me. I spent the whole day feeling sorry for myself and missing NY. I'm not sure I want to move back, I don't know if I can do that pace on daily basis again but today for the first time I started questioning if this is the right place for me. I think a lot of it also has to do with the fact that it's been exactly a year since we moved. While there definitely have been some positives - I got into yoga, I learned to drive in pitch dark and not be afraid, I started baking, I know where most places are, I learned to play tennis - I don't feel that they're enough.

I miss being me. In NY I was always my own person. It was my city and I knew where I fit in it. Being married to DH was just one small piece of the puzzle. Here I feel that I'm just one small piece of the puzzle. I feel lost and insignificant, like I lost my voice. I'm having a hard time finding people I have something in common with. They're all very nice people and they're trying hard to reach out but it's such an effort to find something to talk about that lately I don't even try. I'm scared that one day I'll become just like them. I don't think I'm better or that they're simpler, they're just so different but I'm not sure it's my kind of different.

I think it's PMS, our friends' breakup and this one year anniversary of the move are all really getting to me this week. Plus I just finished a really depressing book.

I'm not even excited at the prospect of shopping. There must be something wrong with me. If alcohol doesn't cure it, I've got nothing.

[Vishenka69]

Re: Desperate Fashionista Diary

Our friends have stopped crying and mopping for the most part and I feel better. I also seem to be absolutely crazy busy. We literally schedule social visits weeks if not months in advance. I have no idea how people with kids have time for anything.

I had a very bizzare dream last night. I was dreaming that I had 10 kids but somewhat puppy style. As in I gave birth to 5 (all at once) and then since it was all open already, I said, "well, while we're all in there already, why not do 5 more and get the whole thing over with." I have no idea who I was talking to and I didn't seem to be in pain, just fuzzy. Then at home, I couldn't tell them apart and they all wore onesies with their names. And I remember thinking, there's no way I can remember 10 names that start with J, I need them all to be different. But that's pretty much as far as I got. I didn't wake up in cold sweat though and it wasn't a nightmare, so I'll take it as a positive sign.

[Vishenka69]

Re: Desperate Fashionista Diary

Lily's last thread and replies to her posts have got me thinking. (sidenote, I seem to be really easily influenced lately )

Med school and residency did not bring out the best in either of us. I think during that time we got a good measure of each other's ugliest sides. Looking back I'm hoping that since we stuck it out during those years, we're in the safe zone but who knows what the future will bring. Some days I'm still shocked that we decided to go through with the wedding. By the time the wedding date rolled around I haven't seen the man I fell in love with for close to three years. And he's only started to slowly surface in the past few months. We both must have been extremely young and hopefull that what we had before MS2 would return.

The other day DH promised to unload and reload the dishwasher when he gets home. On his way he called to say that it was a tough day and he was very tired. Without a second though, I emptied the dishwasher myself to help him out. When he got home, he told me that he didn't mean anything by saying he was tired and really doesn't mind helping and I should just let him do his share. If someone told me a few years back that he will be insisting on doing stuff around the apt, I would have laughed in their face. But it's so much easier being nice and helpful to someone who's being nice and helpful back.

Back in med school and residency I had so few nice days that DH was geniunely surprised when I would do something for him out of the blue and ask if I'm about to kill him and just softening the blow. It got to be a running joke, "Why are you so nice to me? Are you going to kill me later?" He hasn't used it in months. I take it as a good sign. We now regard being nice to each other as the norm. It took only 8 years to get here.

[Vishenka69]

Re: Desperate Fashionista Diary

Why do MIL's have to be such evil witches? Granted at least mine has always refered to me by my actual name, she can still show her true colors. One of the reasons I've insisted on our move is to put some distance between us and for DH to see the need to focus on our family for a change. It worked and he has and now instead of a whole weekend, we only spend a few hours with them. A few torturous hours.

Some of her comments yesterday:

1. DH is explaining that they need to learn to rely on him less and to use the actual doctors they see and that he's not trained as anything but an anesthesiologist. He tries telling her that he has his own family on which he needs to focus and she smirks and says "Clearly you've showed that over the past year." I was standing right there. We both just blinked at her incomprehensibly.

2. She's completely mopping about BIL's upcoming wedding as if it was someone's funeral. DH pressed her yesterday saying that she was subotaging ours for a stupid reason that I wanted to have it in NJ and now that she was having her Brooklyn wedding, what the hell was the problem. She's embarassed by FIL's Parkinsons. She didn't even tell any of her co-workers that BIL got engaged because she doesn't want to invite them because if she does, they'll know her husband is sick. WTF? Even DH just rolled his eyes at her and told her she's crazy. For the record, it's not cultural, I've never heard of something so ridiculous before.

3. On top of Parkinsons, FIL also has some nerve pinched and has pain on his right side. One of our very good friends is a PMR attending, DH suggests that FIL go see him (a short subway ride away). MIL says, "He can't go to Manhattan to see a doctor because he can't walk and I can't take a day off to go with him. I took him to our internist around the corner." Then DH has to spend an hour convincing her that the internist has no idea how to treat this problem and he needs a specialist. After all this, MIL sends FIL (who supposedly can't walk a block to/from subway) to get Chinese takeout about 5 blocks away in the rain.

I just don't get that woman. I've stopped trying but her mere exitence still bothers me.

[Vishenka69]

Re: Desperate Fashionista Diary

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hate when DH says, "I have a problem and you have to fix it." He refuses to deal with anything outside of his work. Anything. It's just so frustrating. We're having problems with the downstairs neighbor again. And of course I have to be the one to fix them.

Last night I went to visit friends in Poconos, so he couldn't sleep because I wasn't there to tell the neighbor to shut up. And now he's all pissy because she's doing it again. I did go down and talk to them yet again but he's already all worked up as to why I insisted on renewing the lease for another 9 months. Um, because I'm not moving to yet another rental all by myself. Because I don't think moving to another apt will necessarily solve the problem and I originally wanted to rent a townhouse but he vetoed it because it was 100 sq ft smaller than this place. But now I'm the one who has to fix this.

Oh, and then he wants to know why I'm so stressed out by house hunting.

[Vishenka69]

Re: Desperate Fashionista Diary

The dawkter was able to take a nap this afternoon and then felt guilty enough about yesterday that he even did some chores. Nothing makes my day like DH doing chores. It's way better than flowers or even jewelry.

So we saw this house yesterday. We both kind of liked it. Well, DH liked it more than I did. There's really nothing wrong with the house other than it's not old (doesn't that the charm of an old house) and isn't in a neighborhood with sidewalks. It's not in a development and although a newer construction (from the 80s) has lots of nice upgrades and is all brick. DH thinks we should look at it again and is generally nudging me toward buying. I could make enough changes to personalize it but it's definitely not my dream house. But then it's only our first house and how often is that a dream one. We're young and there's still time for a dream house in our future. And perhaps this house would even alter what I consider a "dream." Aside from old architectural features (some of which we can still add) and sidewalks, this house has everything else we're looking for. The sidewalk neighborhood we were looking in is only a 6 minute drive.

I hate making decisions. Especially the ones that cost this much.

[Vishenka69]

Re: Desperate Fashionista Diary

A childhood friend from Kiev is visiting us for 2 weeks, so I won't be around as much but will still try to check in as much as possible.

[Vishenka69]

Re: Desperate Fashionista Diary

I haven't posted here in about a month and we're going away again next week, so I feel that I owe an update to everyone, including myself.

We're still struggling with the decision of buying a house. It's just such a huge leap of faith for us. One one hand we're dying to get away from our awful neighbors and finally have our own place, on the other hand neither one of us knows first thing about houses. But we got to start somewhere, right? The practical house that DH likes, just went down in price, so we'll be looking at it again this week. I've been thinking way too much about it, comparing our 3 finalists in my head over and over again. First house is great and cheap but will be a tight fit and is on a semi-busy corner (car-wise), second house is gorgeous but most of the square footage is upstairs in the bedrooms, third house is the most practical one all around but isn't old enough for me. I think that's the easiest problem to fix though (with some interesting moldings, change of doors, etc.). DH promised I can go as crazy as I want to and even paint the shutters pink. I just hope that our real estate market won't plummet after we buy and that we're pretty close to the bottom already.

I'm getting used to seeing DH during light hours. I had a doctor's appt in his hospital today and he came down to have coffee with me beforehand. That was so nice, I never would have dreamed that his schedule would allow for that. He's also about 98% sure that he wants to stay with the practice. He still has bad days but every job has those and most of his issues are not practice specific and the partners make an effort to keep the new guys happy, which I think is important (and not very common). He really gets along very well with the new people and in 2 years they'll control about 20-25% of the votes.

[Vishenka69]

Re: Desperate Fashionista Diary

Now that I've had DH all to myself for the past 4 months, I realize why "normal" people start having kids within a year of getting married (as oppose to waiting 8+ years for training to end). When DH is around while wide awake and not pissed at the world or buried inside a textbook, he's so helpful and attentive that my doubts of sharing his time and attention and dealing with the addition all on my own evaporate into thin air. I've realized that I stopped having nightmares about being pregnant or having kids before I'm not afraid anymore. I now know that he'll be here for me to help and his mind won't be on some upcoming exam. He's also been much better about putting some distance between himself and his family. Evil MIL tried to guilt him into coming to Brooklyn for his grandfather's 80th birthday but instead we'll be taking a little romantic getaway as planned. He actually told her that if she has a problem with us coming a week later (actually a month after the actual birthday) then it's her problem. He also told her to book with us a month in advance like everyone else does. I was so proud of him for finally standing up to her and not just dropping everything and running like he used to. It took forever to get to this point, but I'm glad I let him do it in his own time.

My friend, who was visiting (and has a Ph.D in psych) said that she was shocked we actually needed counseling back in residency. She thought we have a great relationship now. DH was kind of surprised she said that, "But what about our fights?" They're not real fights though, but more along the lines of pouting over something stupid and then realizing how stupid the whole thing was. I can't believe how long it took us to get here.

[Vishenka69]

Re: Desperate Fashionista Diary

For some reason, I'm really not excited about this trip at all. I'm dreading going. A simple long weekend has somehow morphed into something else. It was suppose to be only us and a gay couple (who recently broke up), then our friends from NY decided to come along too. Then the gay couple invited another couple that we're sort of friendly with and the NY couple invited another couple. Now there are 10 people who are all completely different and on different budgets. When the gay couple split up, they were planning on selling the Cher tickets and exchanging their flights, so we made dinner plans (to expensive restaurants) with our NY friends. Then they decided to come "as friends" but they can't afford to join us for dinner and I'm so psyched about those restaurants, I really don't want to cancel them. Everything just got so complicated. At this point I just want to stay at home and avoid all the drama.

[Vishenka69]

Re: Desperate Fashionista Diary

For years I've been looking forward to DH working less and having more vacation time. I was dreaming of exotic destinations that we can afford to visit and exciting restaurants that we'll get to eat at and fascinating shows we'll be attending... Well, now I feel like a glorified personal assistant/travel agent and the thought of another vacation or outing is making me nauseated. I don't care anymore, I don't want to go anywhere. All I do is plan, pack, unpack and go back to planning. I just want to sit at home and do nothing for a change. Even going back to work seems good right now, because that would mean that I don't have any free time to go anywhere and hence there'll be nothing to plan.

On the house front, we're as undecided as ever. DH has the need to find the most impressive house and I want a comfortable place to live. The two don't overlap at all. When I see the houses he likes, all I can think of is the extra work that the house will mean for me, all he sees is how he'll be enjoying it while I slave behind the scenes. We've never lived in a house before and there's bound to be a learning curve, and I'd prefer a less of a slope, because I'm the one building the slide. He on the other hand wants a nice ride down. At the same time we're both sick of the rental and can't wait to get into our own space. So where does the compromise lie?

[Vishenka69]

Re: Desperate Fashionista Diary

I was just watching a Russian adoption story on Discovery and it was so touching. I think I would definitely want to do something like that. DH dead set against going to Russia any time soon (it's not dangerous but he's very much against supporting the economy in any way), but I'm pretty sure there are plenty of kids in Ukraine who need to be adopted.

On the house front, we still can't figure out what to do. We like COMPLETELY different things. Why can't there be a house we both love?

[Vishenka69]

Re: Desperate Fashionista Diary

So I'm watching TLC while checking my email and what's new down here. Currently it's various baby shows marathon. For some reason I'm getting all mushy and not bored and grossed out like I used to before. We have been talking more about this lately but still, my reaction is scaring me. Plus every time I turn to Discovery there's a Russian adoption story. This has been 4 times (on different days) just this week alone.

DH recently became addicted to audio books and the most recent book we've been listening to is The Last Lecture. It's a very sad book but very moving. It made me think as to what my dreams are and how to achieve them. I've been so focused on just doing things that need to be done at the moment that I never spent too much dreaming of "what if's," there just wasn't much sense in that. In the book there is a lot of talk about brick walls and charging through them. I'm the kind of person that sees a brick wall and thinks that it's too much trouble to knock through it and I'd rather take a nap in it's shade. I've been doing some soul searching and digging to find a spark that would propel me through the wall. Hopefully I'll find one soon.

[Vishenka69]

Re: Desperate Fashionista Diary

I haven't posted in a while because I've been feeling kind of blah lately and didn't want to have a blah post. But then decided that we have committed to each other in good and in bad and I shouldn't feel pressured to present only a happy side of me.

For years I've used DH's career as an excuse for not setting or following any goals for myself. I kept saying and convincing myself that my schedule needs to be flexible that we'll be moving around that I'm too busy running all aspects of our lives to truly dedicate myself to my own career. Well, now I have plenty of time, financial ability and full support of DH to do just about anything I'd like. The problem is I still don't know what that is. I just never had the luxury to dream about unattainable. I had to move forward and deal with issues at hand. At this point many of the immediate issues have been solved and I feel out of place. I'm a problem solver, not a dreamer.

If I could only get over my inherit lazyness. Sigh.