Saturday, November 3, 2007

Help, I'm Turning into My Husband!

Today I realized (once again) that I am no longer the old me that I was before planning my wedding. I used to be this "together" person. There was a method to my madness. I made detailed plans about the order in which I was going to read all my unread books. I organized my email into folders and subfolders. I organized my pictures the same way. I paid bills way ahead of time (assuming the money was available). I wrote papers for school well in advance and worked on about 10 different drafts before turning them in. I used bookmarks and was kind of horrified about using something other than a bookmark to mark my place in a book. I didn't let dishes pile up. I wrote down every daily activity in my day planner. I was an awesome student and employee. I was completely in control. The chaos was organized.

My downfall began last year when I planned the wedding, continued with my grad classes, and worked full time. My brain was so full of flowers and colors and music choices and wedding dresses that everything else suffered. There were nights when we went without eating because we were both too tired to cook a damn thing. I made late payments on bills because I forgot to pay them. I would put together a weak draft of a paper the day the final paper was due. I used a receipt as a bookmark (gasp!). My computer was full of random things that needed to be filed and put away in their proper folders. All of these things were unheard of for me. I wrote them off as characteristics of my bride brain.

Today my wife brain is still controlling me instead of my controlling it. The chaos is out of control, and as a result, I feel less centered knowing there are so many things to be done. What is so silly is that none of these things that I really stress about not doing are all that important. Evenutally they'll get done.

Today I realized that it's not wife brain I have. It's husband brain. I'm turning into Roy. We had a wedding reception to attend this afternoon, and I hadn't checked the invitation to confirm the time or bought a gift for the bride and groom. I was relying on my (failing) memory that the reception started at 4:00 PM. Around 11:30, Roy told me that it started at 1:00 PM. We were 2 hours late because we had to drive an hour and a half to LA to get there. I'm never late. But lately, I'm always late. I guess this is the new me.

I don't know how to feel about this sometimes. Roy is the one who isn't a control freak, who will go for days without noticing anything wrong around the house, etc. And now I'm the same way. For so long I have been organizing my books, filing things, and using bookmarks that I don't know how to let the madness just be. I don't know how to not use a bookmark.

I feel deliciously and oddly free.

3 comments:

weezermonkey said...

I am a messy packrat.
I didn't always used to be. :/

inflammatory writ said...

My husband and I, after two years of marriage, are practically the same person. We'll even wear the same colors (like a black shirt and jeans, for example), totally unintentionally, and one of us will have to change, because no one wants to be THAT couple. I'll also find myself saying things exactly as he does.

Thanks for your comment today, btw. Just having one of those weeks. I'm sure things will work out for both of us. At least we have good marriages, right?

amber said...

i'm still very much the ocd on in the relationship, but it works out okay for us. granted, i can't be as tidy and organized as i used to (that whole making the bed thing? yeah, well, that went out the window as soon as we got married. my husband doesn't do beds and he is the last one to get up in the morning), but somehow i've managed to hang on to a lot of my old tendencies.

although, if the new you is liberating... then i say embrace it and go with it! ;)