Advance warning: most self-indulgent post ever follows.

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Dear Internet:

10. Ten Years. One decade. 3,650 days. 520 weeks.

May 4th, 2002. I stood up and took vows in front of friends and family, at the historic Long Branch Estate in Millwood, Virginia, just outside of Winchester, on a weekend smack in the middle of their annual apple blossom celebration.

It rained. A LOT. The Sainted Husband and I have a running joke, because he insisted – nay, DECLARED – that it would not dare to rain on us for our planned garden wedding. Despite weather reports, despite the obvious smell of rain in the air, he was convinced that our day would dawn golden and perfect, and that we would marry in the sun.

He then had to begin carrying chairs in to the reception tent from the lawn, in the pouring rain, while dressed in his wedding finery, kilt and all, because the skies opened up with a typical Virginia spring storm: Heavy, grey, and short-lived.

Still, he wasn’t entirely wrong – rain or no rain, we did marry under a kind of sun of the soul. When we met, neither of us had interest or hope in a relationship, nevermind a marriage and a baby and a house and all the rest. He came a veteran of a previous marriage that really did seem to end in a kind of war; I came broken and disillusioned from a relationship so failed that I had lost faith in my own judgement.

Fate – or chance, or God, or whatever higher power to which you may ascribe ( but I am convinced something more than statistics were at work) – led us to one another anyway, and I am grateful every day that something in each of us recognized the other.

“Oh. There you are!”

Whatever it is in each of us that makes us human beings, whatever it is that makes each person uniquely themselves – a soul, perhaps? That seems as good a metaphor as any – my soul nestled within his and has remained there, safe and content, for a dozen years together and, as of today, ten years married.

No journey is perfect, and our wedding day was no exception. The most difficult thing was that  my mother died four months before the event, and her absence was keenly felt then and now. Aside from the rain, which in the grand scheme of things was laughable more than anything, there were other silly little things, of course – the men’s rented celtic finery had no cufflinks included, so they improvised with rubber bands. My car broke down at the hair salon, and I don’t remember how it was we recovered from that, but we managed it; one of my bridesmaids had a wardrobe malfunction that necessitated me giving her my corset to wear and thus wearing the incorrect support under my own gown.

But the overwhelming feelings I get when looking at our sparse collection of photos of the day are of gratitude, love, and a rush of that same giddiness I felt when preparing to walk into the room where he waited for me, so that we could pledge our troth to one another as solemnly as we’re ever capable of doing anything.

So whatever the little obstacles life has wrought, whatever the huge, seemingly insurmountable losses we have suffered together – here we are, on the 10th year of a marriage that is still my bedrock, the anchor of my soul.

Perhaps it isn’t such a milestone for those with the joy of being far beyond us in their notations of anniversaries, but for two people come from homes so broken we still sometimes find pieces lying around, it feels rather huge. While sometimes it hardly seems possible that we’ve been married to one another for ten years, when we stop to consider all the things that have happened since that time, it’s staggering. Thumbing through our wedding pictures, there are people whose outward appearance has changed so much as to make them nearly unrecognizeable from the photos. One of my maids is due any day with her first child; two of the relatives in attendance died this past year…life does, in fact, go on and on. Events happen, people change, lives begin and end – it’s all quite the adventure.

I am thankful every day that I get to be on the adventure with him.

Happy First Decade, baby. I love you.

“The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.”

“So what do we do?”

“Nothing; strangely enough, it all turns out well.”

“How?!”

“I don’t know; it’s a Mystery!”

Good morning, O beloved 9 readers of Liz Squared! Thank you for telling us about your Springtime plans!

The lovely Random Number Generator has chosen:

7!

The 7th comment on our Giveaway post was: Krista!

Krista, send us a note with your contact info (lizc at lizsquared dot com) so we can send you your $25 Amazon gift card!

Thanks so much for playing along, y’all. Happy Spring!

Why is it that I get irrationally angry anytime somebody parks in the parking spot I think of as mine?

Darling Lizzy B.,

I’m going to do what I can to offer up some words for you on this topic of how to handle uncertainty and upheaval (and other U words, as well! /Izzard), but I think ultimately it just boils down to this:

Philip Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.
Hugh Fennyman: So what do we do?
Philip Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
Hugh Fennyman: How?
Philip Henslowe: I don’t know. It’s a mystery.

This is pretty much our house motto – Henslowe’s general philosophy that everything will turn out well (we don’t know how, it’s a mystery) is something we quote all the time. I’ve even pondered posting it on the wall in our living room somehow. Adding it to our family heraldry or something, I don’t know. Anyway, the point is — heaven knows we have been through some seriously awful shiz in the past year. It seems like we’re now coming through the worst of that, but when you’re in the thick of it, there’s very little to be done except keep putting one foot in front of the other.

The prioritization of it you asked about is a trickier prospect, of course, because if you sit down to logically list out all the things that need addressing at any given point in time, it swiftly becomes an exercise in panic attack management when you realize that EVERYTHING is an OMG RIGHT NOW priority, but you’ve only got so much in the way of resources to address things. So. While of course every individual is different, this is a little of how I manage priorities in my house:

1) Family Comes First. This should be a no-brainer, but we found that it is ridiculously easy to let the insidious idea of What We Should Be Doing be the marker of personal success get in the way of What’s Really Important. The Sainted Husband and I are in the middle of something of a relationship renaissance, which came about in part because we went through the past year in Keep On Keeping On mode, then suddenly realized we’d forgotten what we were Keeping On FOR. So. If you sit down to do your priorities list, start off by listing what’s most important to you and your family, would be my suggestion. If that means time spent together, factor that into your other items first. If that means activities, or a particular schedule that needs to be kept, etc. — just remember each other, and what’s important to your household, before you factor in anything else. Because in the end, no matter what seems most urgent in the moment, Family Comes First.

2) Practicality. Once we’ve considered what’s most important to our family, then comes the boring stuff – what’s the practical decision, here? Which is to say, presuming any given list of options from which to choose meets our family needs, then which is the least expensive, easiest to manage, least-difficult-to-obtain or whatever practical reason may arise? This is seldom the exciting or easy section of the prioritization process, but often it settles some anxieties quickly to know that if you follow this least-onerous set of steps, you’ll end up in a tenable position. Probably.

3) Imagination. My favorite portion of a prioritization process, it’s often the one we get to least. This is the Pie-In-the-Sky Probabilities vs. Possibilities game, and I LOVE Possibilities. When Family is taken care of, and then you’ve looked at what the practical choices are, THEN you can consider the Are You Crazy?!? Scenario. This is the stuff that folks tend to shy away from, myself included, but…what if you didn’t?

There’s so much more to it than that, but I wanted to offer up a few words to you in reply in case it might be useful to you or someone else on the Interwebs. Sending love!

Liz C.

P.S. — tomorrow, we pick a winner for our giveaway! I has an excite.

Oh, my darling Liz C.

I’ve been writing a sentence or two and deleting it for a good 15 minutes. For some reason, I can’t seem to find any words to put in this space.

Things are complicated right now. We’re in a state of limbo – the husband struggling with job stuff, me struggling with business stuff. None of it is MAJOR, but there are some big decisions to be made… and those could turn into some seriously huge changes in our lives.

Not sure how to prioritize make those decisions. So, I guess the point of this short post is: How do YOU tackle these decisions?

Smooch,

Lizzy B.

Helloooooooo Internets! It is I, Liz C., emerging from the depths of uselessness to blof for YOU! (pretty sure I did not see my shadow this time. Because I am indoors.)

Also we have a wee gift for one of our readers, so readeth thou down through the blather below and find out how you can get your chance to win one.

How are you this fine spring day? I am finding that Chez C is, much like the rest of Planet Earth, digging out from an unusually mild winter with an insanely early and warm spring, both actual and metaphorical. We are launching from Friday straight into the Spring DC Gameday event this weekend, where I will get to hang with Lizzy B. and other gamers from around our area and from further afield; my daughter had a play at her school today in which one of the other kids forgot her lines, so my child evidently stepped in and calmly delivered them herself; and our garden, badly neglected since some crappy events last spring, is waking up and ready for new dirt-digging and animal-shooing and food-growing.

There is little as marvelous as a house full of friends, lovely weather, and drinks out on the deck. I look forward to partaking in those things shortly.

What are you up to this fine Spring, Internets? Liz² wants to know! Leave us a message to tell us about it in the comments (one comment per reader, please) and we’ll use a random number generator to pick a winner for a wee gift – a $25 Amazon gift card. Just to say thanks to you for stopping by. (and also, for staying classy.)

Love,

Liz C. for The Lizzes

Darling Lizzy B.,

[apply appropriate Rocky & Bullwinkle jokes here]

I’m not crazy about blog apologists, but since Nature provided me with such a useful metaphor this morning, I thought I’d break my blof silence today and tell you about the most recent escapades of our backyard denizens.

This morning as we meandered about the house (LikeYeDo, on a Saturday), I looked into the Back 40 of our yard, which is a county-designated “conservation area”. This pretty much means it’s a big drainage ditch with woods all around it that go on for about a block before some more suburbia takes over. Our property corners a sub-route road and a residential street, and backs to this big conservation area, which is viewable from our kitchen and acts as great viewing entertainment for all of us, especially the cats. It’s kind of like Over the Hedge up in there, to be honest, except with tall trees instead of hedge.

Anyway. This morning, as I said, I looked out over the Back 40 and caught sight of a fox, doing like foxes do among the trees. He was a particularly lovely specimen, all fluffed out in his winter splendor. As I watched, though, he looked right at me (or so I thought) and started to book it towards our house. This was…disconcerting. I am, as you know, Captain Worst Case Scenario, and had decided that perhaps this beautiful thing might be rabid, and how that was going to be a damn shame when I had to call animal control to come shoot him, when about 20 feet past our property line, a large bird swooped across several trees, clearly chasing something. I was riveted at this point, as the fox had just as clearly seen Big Bird coming in, and was headed to see what was up. Wisely so, as it happened — the bird was after what I think was a baby squirrel (judging by its body size and tail length, that is), and as I looked on, the bird chased the squirrel down the tree, round and round, towards the fox who was waiting at the bottom.

Liz. The bird. herded. the squirrel. for the fox.

Not on purpose, I don’t imagine, but it certainly SEEMED as if that’s what was happening at the time, so perfectly timed was the sequence of events.

The squirrel narrowly escaped both attackers by reversing direction about 20 feet off the ground, heading back up the opposite side of the tree trunk, and disappearing into what I assume was a hollow section of the tree. The bird, which turned out to be one of our resident red-tail hawks, settled on a branch of the tree and hung out for quite a while, but so far as I could tell the squirrel never re-emerged. The fox dispersed when The Sainted Husband went out onto the deck and spoke to it, and so peace was restored.

So, my darling Lizzy B., with the pacing Foreclosure Fox a bit further from the bottom of our hometree, and the no-longer-circling Unemployment Hawk, we may not be caught between twin existential deaths anymore, but I am still feeling a bit Trembling Baby Squirrel at the moment, holed up in our nest and not quite ready to peek outside and believe that it’s safe. Or…safe as it gets, anyway.

Thanks for the love while I hermit.

Love back atcha,

Liz C.

Dear Liz C.,

Over the last few weeks, I feel like I’ve finally taken control of my life. Therapy is good. My medicine is working. Work-life balance is finally falling into place. I’m blessed with the ability to watch my baby turn into a little boy, seeing life through his eyes every day. Heck, I’ll even start work on my new office this weekend!

It’s taken a lot to get here, especially given a pretty major depressive period, but now that I’m basking in the glow of the light at the end of the tunnel, I feel like I’m living the fucking dream.

Here’s hoping that, after the tumult that you guys have experienced over the last few months, you’ll hold your dreams in your hands, too. If not, I’ll send Archer to get them for you.

Liz C.! Good news!

So, Lamictal is the brand name of the mood stabilizer that I’ve been slowly introducing to my system over the course of the last 6+ weeks. On Tuesday night, I swallowed two little white pills. 200 mg of the drug. The “therapeutic” does recommended by my psychiatrist.

And, you know what?

That shit is WORKING.

You know how I know? I like doing things again. I want to do things.

I love things.

Yours,

Lizzy B.

Dear Me At Age 11,

I know that things are hard for you. Your parents have some major issues and, you know what? Those issues will probably never go away. You already know they aren’t very healthy people. You know that they manipulate. You know that they lie. You know that they use you as a weapon in the war against each other.

You know that, somewhere beneath the raging storm of discontent, addiction, and anger, they do love you. But it’s a different kind of love than other kids you know.

You know that the divorce was especially hard on your father. But you also know that he uses it as a crutch. You know that he tries very hard to save you from your mother’s demons, but it’s terribly hard to protect someone from 1200 miles away.

You know that you want something different – something better – for yourself.

And, you know what? You got it.

You grew up fast and responsible. You didn’t give in to the addictions and manipulations of those around you. You learned important lessons and held tight to your desire to rise above.

You married an amazing man who supports you, who understands you, and who values the vows you made to each other.

It may not seem like it right now, but – by the time you hit your 20s – you’ll have a lot to be grateful for.

Keep your head up.

–You at age 28