Dear Hypothetical Husband

Hi, honey.  I miss you.  I’ve been waiting for you a long time, as I suppose you’ve been waiting for me.  Or maybe you haven’t.  By this point in our lives--assuming you’re close to my age--you may have gotten married to someone else, perhaps fathered a couple or few kids, and thus... you may not have waited for me.  I don’t know if you know that or not.  You may be divorced.  You may have yet to get divorced.  You may currently be happy in some doubly hypothetical marriage and family.  Perhaps, though, you’ve stayed as single as I have.  I’m losing hope by the day that you’ve stayed as celibate as I have.  I guess we’ll find out the answer when we get to where we’re going.

I can’t speak to your situation, whatever it is and wherever you are, but I will speak to mine and here it is; I’m very, very tired of waiting.  I’ve spent seven or so years waiting on you since I dumped what's-his-face, and I wasted a lot of time doing that when I could have been more successful in my life.  I don’t know if I blame you for not being there when I wanted you to be or myself for not being where I am now or being foolish enough to wait, but wherever the fault lies (and it’s probably with me) I’m done.  I’m really kind of over it.

I love you.  I really look forward to meeting you or realizing you someday, whoever you are.  However, I am done with this game.  You took too long to get here.  I took too long to get here.  We took too long to get here, and I’ve got other places to go, places to see, things to do, things to be.  Your life probably isn’t on hold and I don’t believe anymore that mine should be either.  So I’m breaking up with this hypothetical life of five kids, a minivan, and a picket fence or what have you that I had sketched up in my mind.  I’m going to go be a success on my own terms.  I’ll probably find you along the way.  You aren’t the guy I was looking for five years ago; maybe that’s why I missed you.

As it stands, though, I have to take care of my own self and live my own life.  If I do meet you someday, and if we do have children in this mortality, I don’t want to tell them that I spent all my career years sucking horribly at my work because I was afraid to succeed and lose that success if you showed up in the next few months and we got married and pregnant by the end of the year.  I want to be the sort of woman my potential kiddos could look up to as an example sometimes and not just a cautionary tale of how not to do adulthood.

I love you.  I want to have you forever, when forever comes.  I want us to have a passionate love life when it comes, and I'm working on dealing with my personal body issues and getting over Good Girl Syndrome.  I hope you’re doing the same in one way or another--if you have anything to work through--so we don’t have years of huge sexual hang-ups to overcome.  I know there’s something to be said about working through thing like that together, but I’m not sure I want to remain “ill” until we’re together for the sake of some “romantic” ideal.  I don't think it's a good idea at this point.
 
Until we meet, my love, I commend you to the watch care of gods and angels, and I’ll see you out in the world.

Love always,
Jena, your Wild Woman

Mid Year Resolutions

What?  Because January 1st is some mystical day for change?

• Be more insane with courage
• Save for ATS Cruise 2012, pay by October 15
• Trust that the right people will come into my life and be prepared to act on that
• Learn how to manifest miracles by faith
• Inform myself, give substance to the wise woman seed I've been given so it will grow and bloom
• Balance my check book at least once a month

 I meant to post this a week ago, but... whatever!  It's getting put up and that's the important part.  There's a lot of other goals I have, but these came most immediately to my mind.  Wish me luck!

Mortal Ambitions

I know our time here is limited, and we must at times forego the good in order to choose the better or best things in life for ourselves, our families, and our faith in Christ.  I feel that, having eternity, we'll have ample opportunity to do just about any righteous thing we want to do, have every righteous experience to which we aspire.  Perhaps it will be even better after "this frail existence", when we are strong and whole and able to appreciate them at even deeper levels than we're currently capable, in a perfect sphere of health and awareness.

Still, I must say that I wish I hadn't dawdled the past few years of my life away in uncertainty and dwelling on what wasn't, what had been, and what might still be.  If I could have the past six years of my life back, knowing what I know now, I would have worked much harder, to provide myself a chance to do at least a few of the following.

• Live in a yurt for at least a year
• Go to Ireland
• Go to Alaska, possibly live there for at least a year
• Homestead on at least one acre of open ground, or five would be even better.  A horse, chickens, and a goat or two would be very nice.
• Have five children
• Sing in or with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
• Improve my fiber art skills (sewing, knitting, crocheting, spinning, weaving)
• Be a traveling doula?  At least a few times, if not fully professionally.  The jury is out on this one, but it's an intriguing idea.

My list changes often, in both content and length. I've had lists with a dozen or two or more ambitions.  A lot of them used to revolve around starting an awesome spa, and losing a bunch of weight and marrying the perfect man.  Sure those things are all still there in their various forms, they've just morphed as I've grown and matured.  I don't feel the need to list them anymore because they're just there in the fabric of my life.

I posted on Facebook earlier: 

"So much of what I thought was such a big fat deal over the past several years was really so insignificant. If I'd known I'd have at least this much time in my single life, I would've done so much more instead of hesitating because I -might- meet someone... whom I never did. Oh hindsight. Now, I can either choose to continue hesitating, or just get down to living and let love be incidental to the mess. Hm."

I have posted other, similar thoughts lately, and been urged by others (older, more experienced) to carry on and go for it.  I wish I had my lost time back, but at this point, I may yet have another year or two or more of singleness, and it would be foolish to waste it in the hopes than I'll meet Mr. Right, drop everything, and start churning out kids in a desperate rush to cling to my best fertile years.  Considering that I'm fairly convinced at present that no one but God can heal my present fertility dilemmas, I should probably stop worrying about it.  Does fertility decline after 35?  Probably.  Does pregnancy after 40 have a higher tendency for complications?  Yes.  Does that mean I am guaranteed a biological dead end after January 1, 2017?  No.  Am I likely going to face hardship, even grief?  Very likely.

I know I'm supposed to be a mother.  I don't know what that means yet, but I have that promise, as long as I'm faithful.  These ambitions are good.  In time, I will either fulfill many of them on my own, or with my family.  I should likely plan and aim for them on my own, and if and when a family comes, they can join in the adventure.

Part of me dislikes that I've come to this place in my life, of having to plan to just get on with it and stop watching the metaphorical door, waiting for the right man to walk through it.  However, concentrating on my disliking it only wastes my time.  It doesn't lead anywhere, and it stops me from pursuing more interesting things than moping and pining.  Like living in a yurt.  Perhaps in Alaska.