Michigan

I live in Michigan now. I left my job, packed up my apartment and moved across the Atlantic. I married my husband and thought I would live happily everafter.

It's now almost 18 months later and happily everafter is proving to be a little elusive. The job I had lined up fell through when the American economy started coming apart at the seams, and I can't seem to find a new one no matter what I do. I get frustrated and depressed, and am relizing just how much of my self-esteem was actually tied to my work. It's a learning experience to say the least and it's testing every last shred of patience I possess.

I love my husband. I love him more than I can ever put into words. Can't imagine my life without him. Right now, our marriage is being tested in ways I never thought would happen. If most marriages have to go through this one, it's a miracle the divorce rate isn't higher. I hope that we'll come through this on the other side of it stronger, closer together and loving eachother even more, but at this moment I have no idea whether that will actually happen. All I can do is try my hardest and hope that he is willing to do the same.

Soon

He wrote me a love letter, and in a public forum at that. Of course unless you know the particulars of the situation and/or how his mind works, you probably wouldn’t know what he was talking about. But I recognized what it was… a love letter. The promise of even better things to come. I loved it of course…

At the same time I’m a little anxious. His newly started profile on one of those networking websites says he’s there for ‘friendship, dating and serious relationships’. I shouldn’t overreact, it may not mean anything, but of course it could also mean that I’m not someone he considers serious… in spite of the love letter and recent slips of the tongue that would indicate otherwise.

I’m becoming such a girl. It’s really rather annoying. I have the classical cliché insecurities. I can’t wait to spend two whole weeks with him. Falling asleep together, waking up together, walking around Paris, driving down south. Hopefully spending some real time together will dispell some of my insecurities. Only 6 more days to go…

Sticks and stones

I recently, for the first time in my life, felt an overwhelming urge to put the smack down on a kid. How is that possible, you ask? Well, let me tell you, I’m not a violent person, but a few days ago in a park in Oslo I felt that deep unsettling urge to really cause pain.

I have a little sister. She’s the most beautiful little girl. Dark brown hair, bottomless brown eyes, skin that looks slightly tanned all the time. She’s surprisingly tall for her age considering where she is from originally, and solidly built like her ancestors. She’s good natured and loving, a little shy, especially around strangers, but she has a great sense of humour. Needless to say I adore her.

We were meeting my goddaughter, who is just a year older than my sister, and her mother to play in the park and have lunch together. We were meeting in Vigelandsparken or Frognerparken as it is known to those who live in Oslo, and as we were walking along towards the big sculptures in the park two kids walk towards us. Boys, probably about 6 years old, and not only does one of them make a comment about my sister being fat, which she really isn’t in the slightest, but he also managed to throw out a racial slur so offensive that I’m certainly not going to repeat it. It happened quickly, I’m not even sure my sister noticed, but I just wanted to turn around and kick that kid like a football to the other side of the park. My goddaughter on the other hand noticed and mentioned it, to which I said the kid was talking to me.

I just can’t help but thinking that the kid has picked all of that up somewhere, and if your child feels it’s ok to go around saying things like that to anyone, let alone perfect strangers, then you are seriously failing in your child rearing. We all know kids tease each other, and as much as I hate that my sister may experience some of that, it’s something I’m going to have to learn to live with and help her deal with if it does. But there is a difference between teasing someone in a schoolyard and just spewing shit like this to anyone you meet on the street. And at 6 you should know that it’s not acceptable behaviour.

I don’t live in Norway at the moment. I’m slowly coming to the realisation that I may never live there again, (of course now that I’ve said that, I’ll probably be moving back there within a year). Norway isn’t an easy country to live in. While it’s beautiful, wealthy and on the surface very liberal, there are so many deep-seated prejudices that appear regularly that it makes it difficult to deal with sometimes, whether it is related to race, body image, politics, sexuality. I worry about my sister sometimes. The fact that she was born in Ecuador and adopted makes her a very special gift to us, but to some children who are being taught by example at home, she may just be different enough to be someone to pick on. All we can do to counteract that is make sure that she knows she is loved, valued and worthy. That she is beautiful, smart and funny. And of course I’ll have to continue to control the urge to drop kick anyone who harms her in any way, shape or form.

Whining

I’m in a long-distance relationship at the moment. To make a long story short, I met someone while on vacation last summer, and after a while of not being able to forget about him, I decided maybe he was more than a summer fling. After much back and forth, we agreed to meet again, he broke up with his girlfriend (which he got after we had met, just so you don’t think he was cheating on anyone) and I bought a plane ticket. I adore him. I’m not going to get mushy and talk about how wonderful he is or why he feels so right. Who wants to hear about that anyway?

What I will mention though is how hard the long-distance thing can be. We talk every day, usually both online and on the phone, but I still miss him so much that it aches sometimes. The time difference makes it hard too. Usually by the time he gets home from work it’s around midnight here, which means I’m not sleeping all that much. And of course I get insecure sometimes. I admit it, I get scared. Mainly scared of losing him, because who’s to say that he’s not going to meet someone else who lives closer. There’s also the issue of the ex-girlfriend of course. She still loves him, and I can’t blame her. They have friends in common and I worry about her somehow winning him back. Luckily I don’t feel like that all the time.

I trust him. I don’t think he’ll go behind my back and do something foolish. Ultimately I think the hard times are worth it. At least for now. Of course I realise that if this is actually going to work out in some way, then eventually I’m going to have to jump the pond, but at the moment I’m trying not to think about anything further than the next couple of trips we have planned. I can’t wait to show him Paris!

Bathroom bonding

Most girls have gone through the ‘bathroom by committee’ stage at some point. This phenomenon usually occurs in your pre-teens and will last well into your twenties, and in times when ample supplies of alcohol are involved, a lot longer than that. You know what I mean, you’re out with your friends, and one of the girls has to pee. But this can not be accomplished without at least a minimum of gossip, giggling and make-up re-appliance, so at least one, sometimes several, friends will go with.
Topics of discussion will range from boys via sex to other girls, to fashion disasters and bad pickup lines. The order of the day is usually not plagued by existentialism or current events (unless they’re current events occurring at the party, club etc where you are at the time)

However when you get to my age, the communal bathroom trips become a thing of the past. The only times we go together now is usually either by coincidence, or if someone is really drunk. In these cases the topics of discussion usually remain vaguely similar though.

I assumed this behaviour was fairly well-known all through the western hemisphere, but apparently in France things don’t work like that. I went to high school in a small town in France, and three of my closest friends were three other Norwegian girls. With one of them I shared dorm space, closet space and desk space in addition to all the time the four of us spent together outside of school. We hung out together every weekend, had crushes on the same boys (in one or two cases even dated the same boy), partied together and went to the bathroom together. The four of us would usually hang out with a large group of French people, mainly boys, but some girls as well, and they were all baffled by this little ritual. One of us would get up from the table, and at least one if not all three of us would follow. They wondered what on earth we could be doing in there. Considering we’re talking about boys (and a few girls) in their late teens, early twenites, I’m sure their imagination was having a field day, and they probably should have let their imaginations have the final word on the subject. One day however they decided to send in a spy to find out what was going on. They recruited one of the girls, and when the four of us all went to the bathroom, she tagged along. The disappointment was clearly visible when all she reported back was that we went to the bathroom, talked and waited for eachother, and that was it. No naughty touching, no comparison of body parts or anything else they had been picturing.

The men who never go together of course wonder why we need to or do, and while the truth is never as exciting as fantasy, our bathroom spy actually started tagging along to the bathroom, as usually we shared some laughs if nothing else.

You may have been waiting for something resembling a point around here, but there really isn’t one. I was just reminded of this by someone else’s blog. Maybe next time…