Just When I Figured Out Who I Am

(Please forgive the formatting issues. I have no idea what is wrong with it, and I'm pretty sure it isn't me this time )

My dog changed his name this month, or more accurately, I changed it for him. We moved into our newly purchased home, and along with all of the other address changing activities, I miraculously remembered that I needed to get a new tag for Blue's collar. At Petsmart I selected an appropriately blue, bone-shaped tag in the self-serve engraving machine and then I began to type in the same words I have typed on that same screen every time I have moved in the past six years: Blue Volle. Then I had to stop for a second. In just months I am getting married. Blue is already the pseudo-adopted son of my fiancé, Mike, but when we get married, it occurred to me, his adoption will become final. To non-pet owners, this might seem strange, but pets actually do have last names. At the vet, on their registrations, and, for many of them, on their tags. I tapped the delete key a few times, and then filled in Mike’s last name. I hit print before I could change my mind, and watched through the glass as the electronic engraving arm screeched out each letter on the metal. It’s official, Blue has a new last name, and it didn’t even require a trip to the DMV.

While I understand that marrying someone comes with the option for a woman to change her last name, that thought has only half-occurred to me on and off over the years until I actually stood there in Petsmart as a soon-to-be-married person. It's easy for a dog. I just changed it for him, and he is still the same mutt he's always been.

I’ll be honest, though, I don’t want to change my own. At all.

I am not marrying Mike early in my twenties as was the custom not so long ago. I am 33, and have a 10-year career and a life and an identity, all under the umbrella of the name I already have. I have published work as Cara Volle, and have started a business as Cara Volle, and beam proudly when I am referred to as one of the Volle girls, or the middle Volle sister. When my younger sister got married, she changed her name instantly, and it always felt strange to me to say it. It never rolled off of my tongue or pen, and the dissonance always echoed after I had said or written it. She would always remain a Volle sister to me, but my older sister, who kept her last name, remains a Volle sister to everyone. I always want to be a Volle sister, too, and that is the first reason I don’t want to change my last name.

The other reason is that Mike is the proud owner of a 13-letter monstrosity of a last name. It rarely fits in the allotted space on forms; his email address takes a full minute to type out, and at the request of every customer service person he meets, he has to spell it a minimum of three times, with the tricky double A, and a times-two on S-C-H and then a bunch of other letters thrown in for good measure.

I have a friend who, upon hearing me say Mike’s last name, said incredulously, “His last name is Schnarf-Schnarf?” And while I won’t plaster Mike’s name all over the Internet, I will say that this isn’t far off.

I have frequently seen Mike hand over his driver’s license or credit card, only to provoke the girl behind the counter to stare at it wide-eyed, turn it from left to right in her hands and say something like, “Wow, that is a helluva last name.” That happens to him every single day. Mike has even told me, with a last name like his, that his first name is basically irrelevant. People don’t even notice it. Great. Just what I strive for in life, more irrelevancy.

All humor aside, I think that this name-changing decision belongs to each and every woman who marries, and I think it is personal and that there is not a right answer. We all have our reasons for keeping our names, taking their names, or constructing some combination of the two, or just making something up. The great thing about living in this century is that we can do whatever the hell we want, and I hold that right very dear to my heart.

I have chosen to take Mike’s name, and while there is a large element of biting the bullet involved, I appreciate that it is my choice, and that my reasons can be whatever I want them to be.

I know that my taking of Mike’s name is important to him, and I can respect that he feels that way. He even said, “I don’t care what our last name is as long as it is the same,” which made me respect his feelings even more, although I won’t say that I think he totally meant it. His point was that he wants us to be a family, and to him, a name feels like part of that. That makes me feel a little warm and fuzzy for sure.

Having the same last name as my children is also very important to me. I don’t think it necessarily makes a difference, or that it scars a child in some way to have a mother with a different last name. In fact, I am sure there is a good lesson about strong women with their own identities to be presented in that scenario, but it is a personal requirement, vital enough in my mind to cause me to give up something that I treasure.

I know that I will always be a Volle on the inside, and that I will always be a part of where I came from, part of a family who is hilarious and classy and smart, where sarcasm and hugs are intertwined, and where everyone always gets it and where no one has to prove anything to anyone else. Those are things that never go away no matter what my name is. In addition, I told Mike that I will continue to write under my maiden name and that will be my way to keep a little part of my Volle world in, what is to me, a very big way. As I strive to one day become a published author, I know that I will get to do that as the original me, and I’m pretty sure I can explain that to my future children.

In the meantime, I will stick to planning our wedding and settling into our home and try not to dwell on the paperwork and emotions that will come with changing my name next year, and with that, selling off just a little piece of the person I am. Instead, I will think of my Mike and I a few years down the road, walking off into the sunset hand-in-hand with a gangly child or two and our big scruffy dog. The Schnarf-Schnarf family on their way to living happily ever after.

For Kate. We'll Always Have Vegas

This is my best friend, Katy. She works a demanding corporate job, has a beautiful four-year old daughter, and a husband, and a dog and a home and a busy family life. I have Mike and our house and dog, but we live a fairly carefree, childless existence and have a lot of late nights, and last-minute social events and vacations that we cram in between our jobs and my extracurricular writing and the twelve sports we train for. Mike and I ski all winter, Kate takes her daughter ice skating or to the library on those cold weekends. I stay up late tippy-tapping on my laptop several nights a week, then float in and out of my contract job as I’m needed, while Kate is at her desk by seven AM every day being the boss of people. Mike and I make our home in the heart of the city; she lives a 40 minute, traffic-infested drive away in suburbia. With our crazy and opposite schedules, it becomes really difficult to see each other on a regular basis. We manage to fit in the occasional drink, and I never miss a Chuck E Cheese birthday celebration for one of my favorite little girls in the world, but our quality time has quickly diminished over the years as we have gone from blithe twenty-somethings to card-carrying members of the responsibility crowd.

Katy is a Catholic Republican; I’m an Agnostic, bed-wetting liberal. She’s an organized logic master; I’m a head-in-the-clouds wanderer. She always says the exact right thing in every situation, and I have my foot in my mouth so often that I’ve actually acquired the taste for it. We miss each other.

Our daily emails are hilarious (if I do say so myself) and fill a small void, and the random days when we can sneak away for a glass of wine, though few and far between, are godsends. A couple hours together is a way of recharging that neither of us can explain. We have our soul mates and life partners at home, and we love and appreciate them with every fiber of our beings, however, we share something that only the two of us understand. There is a Gaelic term, Anam Cara, meaning soul friend. My mother was Irish, and my name is actually the Gaelic word for friend, which is maybe one reason why this term has always resonated with me, but it’s also because it has such a strong meaning behind it. I don’t think there are many times in life when people end up being so close that they truly know your soul. Your spouse, a sibling, maybe a parent, but people from the outside world don’t always get it. Katy gets mine, and I get hers. We will be connected for the rest of our lives.

With Kate there are deep, questioning conversations about life and relationships, and politics and careers and who in the hell we are. Then there are the uncontrollable comedy routines where we feed off each other for hours and end up clutching our stomachs and wiping our tears while those around us wonder what happened that was just so damn funny. I can go to Kate with my most confusing relationship problem or my most petty fashion question and come out on the other side with an answer that I know is honest and in my best interest. There are the times when it is completely unspoken, like Katy silently taking care of all the food and drink at my mom’s funeral reception without being asked because she knew I, drowning in shock and grief, had simply forgotten about it. Or the times when we say it all, even the hard things like “I think you’re making a mistake” and “Are you really happy?” and “How do you really feel?” and even “You’re being ridiculous.” or “Maybe you shouldn’t wear that.” The boys definitely couldn’t get away with all of those. Sometimes, we really dig in deep and get to the core of who we are, and other times, there is the pure and harebrained fun.

It is because of the fun that we came to a consensus about the necessity of an annual trip. We needed a weekend together once a year to get away. Away from the boys, from our separate responsibilities, and even away from town. It would be toward the end of summer or beginning of fall, before the craziness of the holidays starts to take over, which, lately, seems like sometime in early October. It was decided. And we were psyched.

As we embarked on the planning for the inaugural trip (Vail), I was picturing the next 50 years or so, spending a weekend in a different random spot in the country each year and exploring together, all while laughing hysterically and having a few glasses of wine. We would start in our wilder years going out on the town wearing sassy outfits, spend the in-between years hitting the cities with the best museums and bookstores while bitching about our teenagers and how our husbands still seem incapable of taking out the trash after 20 years of training, and finish sometime in our early 80’s when one or both of us had just become too old to travel after last year’s trip to the Bingo World Cup or the Knitting Hall of Fame. Then we would reluctantly hang up our annual tradition and rock in our creaky chairs side by side reminiscing over photos and black coffee at the retirement home. There would be no regrets because we would have seen it all.

This week, after returning from a hilarious weekend in Vegas, our emails were flying back and forth, filled with inside jokes from the trip that I will write about someday if I ever find it possible to recapture the actual outrageousness of it all. At the end of about my third email, I said, “Well, I guess it’s time to start thinking about where we should go next.”

Katy responded back in about three seconds, “Why mess with a perfect thing, Vegas again next year?”

The sparkle, I'm sure, was already dancing in her bright blue eyes, and I immediately knew that the World’s Largest Ball of Twine would have to wait.

Here’s to soul-friends, lifelong laughter, and the best comedy partner a girl could dream of. Here's to weddings where the priest sees my underwear, hockey games when you should never have worn clogs, and curly-headed princesses with adorable, itchy butt cheeks. Here's to dead roots, real pearls, and the great state of Connecticut, all at the same craps table. Here's to five chairs here and three chairs there and two girls who aren't with us. Here’s to the memories and the future craziness of it all. Here's to Vegas, Sass.

Why I Tri

I signed up for my first sprint triathlon almost four years ago. It was January, and I was sitting in my cubicle at my old job, my leg splayed out in the aisle next to me encased in a metal brace. It was the armor around my torn MCL that I had damaged while on the ski slopes. I was sad and depressed, and I was 60 pounds overweight, not to mention finding it almost impossible to quit smoking. I felt empty and ugly.

I’m not sure what possessed me to sign up for the race, although I am pretty sure I felt the need to scare myself out of the depression and the pattern of emotional eating that seemed to always accompany my funks. I had previously read about the Tri for the Cure somewhere, but that day I had a sudden surge of guts that caused me to check out the website. It was a sprint triathlon for women only. There would be a half-mile swim. (I hadn’t been in the pool since my days on the high school swim team 13 years prior, and the thought of seeing myself in a bathing suit caused acid to rise into my throat.) There would also be a 12 mile bike ride. (I thought about it as I studied the website some more and realized that the last time I had been on a bicycle was right before I had gotten my driver’s license.) And the last part of the race would be a 3.1-mile run. No problem. I could totally do that. I mean, sure I was out of shape, and heavier than I had ever been before, oh, and my knee was currently in a brace that barely allowed me to walk, but I thought, it couldn’t be that hard. Right? I paid my 85 dollars, and convinced myself that I could accomplish a lot in the seventh months before the race.

Or maybe not.

I spent five out of the next seven months not really doing much of anything except continuing to feel sorry for myself, eating and drinking too much, and complaining about the way I felt and looked, but never owning it and taking action. Two months before the race my friend, Brenna, asked me if I was still going to do it. I hemmed and hawed and said, “I don’t know; probably not.”

And then I made a bunch of excuses. My knee was still bothering me a lot. I needed to get my old bike back from someone I had lent it to. I hadn’t been feeling so great lately. I needed a gym membership with a pool. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Somehow though, she managed to talk me out of the haze I was in and into doing the race. She was signing up, too, and we would tackle it together. She could barely swim; I was vastly unsure of my cycling and running skills. We had two months to figure it out.

My first outing on a bicycle was traumatic to say the least. Brenna and her then fiancé and Mike and I hit the road. All three of them are avid cyclists. Next to that trio, I was a hot mess. I was wobbly and tentative on a hand-me-down bike that was about six inches too small for my six-foot-one, bordering-on-obese frame. I felt like a circus clown cruising around on a child’s tricycle, although I was much less coordinated. My brand new helmet and rolled up yoga pants reeked of my amateur status. As soon as Brenna saw my bike seat, she said, “You’re going to have to get a new saddle.”

Once I realized that a saddle and a seat are the same thing, I asked why. She said, “If you don’t know why when we’re done riding today, I’ll explain it to you”

The brief ride that followed was devastating. I fell just short of having a seizure as each car drove past me. I was in the bike lane, sure, but all I could keep picturing was one false move, me falling sideways into the road, and my head being crushed like a grapefruit beneath the tire of an aggressive Prius. The other three rode ahead of me, going only slightly faster than my snail’s pace of about two miles an hour. They almost couldn’t go slow enough to let me keep up.

When we returned from our ride, which couldn’t have been more than about 6 miles or so, I said to Mike, “I’m going to have to get a new saddle,” and hobbled inside to remove the sandpaper that had seemingly been planted in my underwear

One down.

I dragged Mike to the pool at 24hour Fitness the following weekend, and I was delighted to discover that I could still swim. In fact, I had finally found the one thing I was better at, athletically speaking, than Mike is. Even though putting on my newly purchased, plus-sized bathing suit was depressing, the weightlessness I felt in the water, and the fact that I was still capable of effortlessly gliding through lap after lap did wonders for my severely broken self-esteem. I felt just like myself for the first time in a long time, and the muscles beneath my thick layer of fat felt suddenly useful again. My body was remembering what it felt like to be an athlete instead of a professional depression victim. After swimming for an hour, I reluctantly dragged myself out of the pool, showered, went home, and promptly slept for 10 straight hours. It wasn’t the usual depression-induced sleep; it was a good, tired, earned sleep. While I was sleeping, the old me was just starting to wake up.

Running is the obvious third member of the trifecta. I have always had a weird relationship with running. I actually like it. But I have never been good at it, even when I was really slender. Add 60 pounds to that, and a few more years of puffing on Marlboro Lights, and I was basically screwed.

That first attempt at running will stick in my mind for probably the rest of my life and will keep me from ever becoming sedentary again. I slipped into a pair of XXL sweat pants and a giant t-shirt and put my dog on his leash. My knee was mostly healed, although the strain of weighing almost 250 pounds was still the cause of some occasional pain. With my trusty dog, Blue, by my side, I walked out the door and up the block towards the corner. I told myself that when I reached the corner, I would begin to jog. And that is what I did. As each foot hit the ground, I felt every extra pound that had gathered on my tall body jiggle and jump around. After I heard the smack of Nike to pavement, I would feel the meat of the corresponding thigh continue it’s Jello-like motion for a full second afterwards. A car drove by, and the driver stared openly. Tears started to run down my face as I realized that I must look absolutely ridiculous. I made it one block before I had to stop. My knee was screaming and my lungs were on fire. I walked for about a mile and made another attempt at a run. This time, I made it about half a block and could go no further. This was not going to be good.

Eventually, the day of the triathlon arrived. As I stood in the water with all the other women who were between the ages of 30 and 35 waiting nervously for the gun to start us off, I felt like I was going to throw up. I felt fat and exposed and scared out of my mind about what I was about to do. Then the race started. The water became a whirlpool of athletic 30- to 35-year old limbs and torsos. It was organized chaos, only organized in the sense that everyone was headed in the same direction. I took a foot to the face and got a noseful of water. I freaked, but then realized that my feet could still touch. I thought, I am just going to stand up and turn towards the shore and walk my fat ass the hell out of here. Then suddenly the wake of 100 swimming women picked me up, and I was doing something that I had done naturally my whole life. I was swimming, and I was good at it. I swam past half of the women in my wave, cranked my propeller arms around and around, and felt better about myself than I had in a year.

I finished my swim in a very respectable 19 minutes. The bike and run would be a different story, and it would ultimately take me almost two hours and twenty minutes to complete the race. But complete it I did.

Yesterday, I completed my fourth sprint triathlon. I did it in 2 hours and 2 minutes, feeling slightly defeated because I really thought I was going to break that damn two-hour mark this time. Real triathletes would probably laugh at a time of two hours for a sprint race. It is hardly impressive, and many everyday athletes do it in an hour forty five or less. The elite do it in just over an hour. But I only let myself feel defeated for a few minutes when I remembered that I’m not competing with the elite triathletes of the world. (if I was, I'm pretty certain they wouldn’t feel too threatened) I am competing with the sad, fat girl who started this race three years ago, and I am competing against her with everything that I have. And she is backing down. In this competition, I get a little faster every time. I weigh 47 pounds less than when I first put my shaky toe in that tepid reservoir. I will never touch another cigarette in my life. I can lift heavy things and do hard stuff. When I absentmindedly reach to scratch my arm or leg, I am shocked to find that the flesh is firm and muscular. I sign up for scary things like half marathons and 10k races and then I show up and do it. I log miles and miles running around my neighborhood knowing that the drivers are now staring at my backside in a good, albeit chauvinistic and degrading, way.

Today I turn 33, and I do so knowing that I will never go back to being what I was; I’m in too deep now. Instead of being addicted to ice cream and nicotine, I’m addicted to the endorphins and the runner’s high, and the happy lolling tongue of my dog as we hit mile three. I’m addicted the rhythm and purpose it gives my day and the way it allows me to have an ice-cold Coors Light or two on a summer afternoon without worrying about the calories. I’m addicted to the thought that I will someday raise children who are strong and aware of what their bodies are capable of and who takes risks to see what they can do next. I have more goals to meet along this road: shorter times, longer distances, smaller jeans. There is nothing standing in my way, though. Tri me.

I'll Be Here AND There

I have started something new! Don't worry, I am not leaving MiddleSister. I will be posting here intermittently, (no less intermittently that I already have been) however, please take a moment to join me at my new blog as well, Desolate in Denver. I had to create a new blog that involved me getting out of the house a little because in all honesty, I am going crazy without a job, and housewifery isn't really my thing. So, yes, I will still be here at MiddleSister with the usual goofy stories on as regular a basis as possible, however, I hope you can also get some enjoyment out of the things going on here where I will be writing a little more often and working the advertising angle a bit. Even if you are not living in Denver, I think you might find some fun and interesting stuff to do in your own town. Alpaca farm, anyone? :) See you around!

Due to Trying Economic Times...

Please don’t expect the usual today. I am venting a bit.

I knew it was coming. I started my new job in August; the banks started begging for government money in September. My company made the first round of layoffs in November. I kept quiet, did my work, tried not to cause any problems or be a bitch to anyone, and attempted to look busy even though I really wasn’t. That worked through two more rounds of layoffs, my friend from the marketing department even getting cut two weeks ago. Then Monday morning my boss sent me a meeting invite with no subject. Just me and her. I knew it was going to happen before it actually happened, but for some reason there was a relative calm involved. At least on my part; my boss looked like a wreck. I went back to my desk and turned on my computer. The headline on CNN read “68,000 Jobs Cut Today in North America” I am suddenly not alone.

It was a good job, albeit short-lived. The pay was great, I never felt stressed out, and I left at four everyday with everything in my inbox completed. While writing about electronic components (motherboards, AC/DC converters, accelerometers, microchips of various shapes and sizes) was new to me, I never once found it all that interesting, and creativity in a company comprised of almost solely engineers is seemingly frowned upon. I never felt passion about working there, but I did feel stability.

I write this from my favorite neighborhood bar. Mike and I frequent this place because of the great burgers, nice staff, and the proximity to our house (stumbling distance for sure). I have never really been in here in the light of day, though. There are three older gentlemen to my left talking animatedly about past drinking encounters and establishments. Another man sits to my right in silence, sipping a Budweiser and staring at ESPN, still donning his knit hat with Elmer-Fudd style earflaps. There is one guy in the far corner at a table sitting in front of his own laptop. I imagine that he is working on his resume, which is what I should be doing. The Beatles sing Blackbird out of the speakers. I am so not ready to be out of work again.

I am trying to have a good attitude. Having been laid off before, I have learned that being positive is important. So here are the positives as it stands right now:

I am going skiing tomorrow with my also-laid-off marketing friend.
My hair looks awesome because I dropped $200 on it last weekend before I knew what was coming.
They say the economy should hit bottom and head back up any time now.
I have a few writing projects that could potentially use a dusting off so that they can become more than just projects.
I get a paycheck and health benefits through the end of March.
My dog is very happy about the situation. He knows the drill: more walks, more tennis ball throwing, more rides in the car.
I have some freelance work basically lined up already.
Umm.. I write this from my favorite neighborhood bar.

The last time I got laid off, the company I was working for eliminated their entire marketing department so I had many friends in the same situation. We were in our early to mid-twenties, and they made the mistake of giving us six month’s salary in one check. We did what any other intelligent, unemployed young people would do: we took our giant checks and went to Vegas. I am older and wiser now. With that comes being scared shitless even though I don’t have to be. Mike does well in the recession-proof beer industry, which actually tends to thrive in times like these when people need a cheap way to forget about their troubles. I am not above letting him handle things until I find something. I feel above it, but I’m pretty sure I’m actually not. Life has a funny way of always working out; I know this. Even the shittiest things have a way of teaching lessons and all of that other crap that supposedly makes you a better person.

This could be a chance in disguise, the kick in the ass I needed, or a break with a reason. I know these things. And I know that I shouldn’t be whining right now because there are 67,999 other people who are going through the same thing I am this week, (and apparently millions more since September) and I’m sure many of them don’t have a beer-magnate sugar daddy to save them. Still the visions of buying our cute little Craftsman bungalow and having an awesome wedding are suddenly slipping down the drain, and I am feeling a little pissed off about it. Wasn’t Barack Obama supposed to put on a red cape and come save everyone?

I am going to give our President a few weeks. And I am going to give myself a little time to figure this all out. And I am going to be productive with this time that I have been given. I can catch up on the laundry and be a mooch and write the great American novel at the same time. Stay tuned.

Not Marlo Thomas, But That Other Girl

In the past, I was never one to picture getting married. I never went husband hunting. I never accepted dates with the thought in my mind that I would potentially marry the suitor. I never swooned over white dresses and flowers and never felt even the slightest bit jealous during the seven times I have served as a bridesmaid. I have even been proposed to before in a young, dumb, lovestruck moment, and as young as I was, I still had the wherewithal to say no. Then I broke up with that guy a week later because it was just too much pressure.

I planned on making my own way in the world. Living the single life, getting a couple more dogs and a house with some land, maybe adopting after forty, traveling the world, writing quietly in a sunny corner of my own house, on my own terms, doing things my own way. In fact right now, as I type these thoughts on to the screen of my little MacBook, it all still sounds really appealing.

I’ve changed though.

I don’t know what the life-altering event or moment was, but I have definitely had a serious change of heart. Maybe it was meeting the right guy, or reaching a certain age, or becoming the recipient of a ticking biological clock that I never asked for or expected. Maybe it was seeing my niece and nephew and my best friend’s daughter and how they become more like those people that I love each day--- yeah, I’ll take some of that. Maybe it was realizing that sad and scary things are going to happen in life, and while being independent and self-sufficient will always be considered virtues in my mind, I now know that there will be times when I need a true teammate and he needs me back. Maybe it is a combination of all of the above. I just never thought I would turn into that girl, but I think it may have happened while I wasn’t paying attention.

Maybe just a tiny little bit.

Mike and I are going on four years of togetherness. We are in our early thirties. We love each other and want to be together. We share a home and a budget and chores and furry children. We both want children of the non-furry variety. I was ready just to dive in and start with the babies, but Mike thought we should be all traditional-like and get married first. This discussion took place about a year ago. We’ve looked at rings. We’ve talked about potential wedding venues and styles. We’ve talked about the future children we would have, potentially redheaded, and definitely tall, and surely with golden eyes. Daniel (if I get my way) for a boy, Alexis for a girl. These are real discussions we have had. He even screwed himself by setting a deadline, stating “We will definitely be engaged by the end of the year”

Then my friends started to get in on the action.

Mike and I went backpacking in July and all of my friends convinced me that he was taking me out into the middle of the woods to ask me to marry him. I bought into that theory. It made sense, right? Just the two of us and our trusty dog alone in the wilderness. Side by side climbing mountains, making macaroni and cheese, and sipping whiskey from a flask by the fire. The blue skies, the birdsong, the majestic Colorado mountains on all sides. What a perfect place to propose. Ok, except for the shitting in the woods, and the dog romantically sharing our two-man tent. Giant blisters? Check. Dreadlocks forming in my formerly cute hair? Check. Both of us smelling very similar to large farm animals. Check and check. Maybe the backpacking proposal scenario wasn’t the way to go.


A couple weeks later, I raced in a triathlon on my birthday. A girlfriend became convinced that Mike was going to propose as I crossed the finish line. She spun a romantic tale of me triumphing over a major physical challenge on the same day I turned 32, and then being rewarded at the end of it all with a giant romantic and public gesture from my ultra creative and adoring boyfriend. I was horribly sick during the race, and it was 97 degrees outside that day. There were a couple times during the last stretch of the run where I thought I might not make it. The thought of Mike asking me to marry him as I crossed the line pushed me through. As I finished the race, Mike was standing at the line poised to go down on one knee, when suddenly he whipped out his effing iPhone and began telling me what my splits were (worse than last year when I was not in the throes of bronchitis, and when it was 70 degrees outside). My dad stood beside him and said “You don’t look so good, Cara; you’re very red.”

Needless to say, there was no romantic marriage proposal.

There have been other opportunities over the past few months, too, but no such luck. However when the holidays rolled around and Mike voluntarily booked a romantic, secluded, riverside cabin in wine country where we would stay for two nights before heading down to his parents’ house in San Francisco, I knew what was coming. He did this voluntarily. He PLANNED stuff out that didn’t involve purchasing furniture or six hundred-dollar ski boots. He did it all on his own.

I told friends and co-workers that this was it. That was a really dumb thing to do.

Upon arriving in the Russian River Valley, we stopped at the grocery store before heading to the cabin so that we could enjoy a light dinner of wine and cheese and fruit and dark chocolate. It was all very romantic. I began to analyze every move furiously. I applied lipgloss approximately every three minutes. I fussed with my hair and tried desperately to make my 22-hour-roadtrip sweatpants look as sexy as possible. We sat in front of the fire. We sat in the hot tub. We snuggled up on the couch. We gazed into each others eyes. And then... nothing happened. Except for that I started to get a little tired of being so polite and ladylike.

The next morning we were going to taste wine at several vineyards. I put on a little extra mascara and actually blew out my hair.

I wasn’t real smart at the first tasting. Mike was buying wine from the guy behind the counter, and apparently when they find out you’re buying, they start to get a little more liberal with the pouring. I was really enjoying myself. I was sampling champagne and pinot noir one after another, a lethal combination. As we were leaving, I stated tipsily that I needed a sandwich to which Mike replied, “You are so cute.”

Ummm, just for the record, neither one of us say things like that very often. I mean we both dish out the compliments on a regular basis, and we are affectionate and loving, but we really don’t dote that much. I knew it was a sign. But first, I needed that sandwich.

That night, back at the cabin, we cooked together and talked and laughed and joked around the way we do all the time. After all that fun, we went to sit on the couch in the living room in front of the fire. Mike dimmed the lights and handed me a glass of wine. I got super nervous. This was it. I was going to get engaged right then. I was going to say yes and spend the rest of my life with this crazy redhead whom I adore. I was going to get jewelry! Mike sat down next to me, threw his arm around my shoulders, kissed me haphazardly, half on my cheek, half in my hair. Then he said the words I will never forget.

“Packers-Bears have Monday night, wanna watch?”

And under normal circumstances my answer would have been a resounding yes. Do you know why? Because unlike so many other women, I actually know football. This alone should be grounds for proposal! But alas, it was not to be. And so I did what any other low-maintenance, sports-loving, marriage-quality girl would do. I shrieked at him. And I teared up. And I became everything about being a girl that I have always hated “What in the hell are we doing here? We came here to watch FOOTBALL!?!?” I was aghast and Mike was, well, he was simply floored. Needless to say, it was a long discussion that followed.

His beloved Packers lost to Chicago that night, and I lost the game I had been playing with my own emotions. I admitted defeat, and gave up trying to control everything. I am not proud of my behavior. I am not that girl. Adding insult to injury, a girl who is dating one of Mike’s buddies told one of my best friends that all I talk about is getting married. I don’t think she realized she was talking to one of my closest friends and that it would get directly back to me, and you know how girls can be sometimes. But still, as a smart woman with what I believe is a lot to offer intellectually and conversationally, it stung a little bit to hear that. (in my defense, another girl at the table had just gotten engaged, and we were on the subject, but whatever)

So, I am going to take a moment to write my own vows. Only these aren’t wedding vows.

I am vowing to let it go.

I vow to not mention weddings or marriage to Mike or to anyone else until I actually have a wedding and a marriage to plan. And even then, I will keep it to a bare minimum, because everyone knows that girl, too.

I vow to wait patiently for what I know will happen in due time, even though it makes me feel like one of the secretaries from Mad Men waiting around for a man to save her. Still, I vow to enjoy the moments we have together as a young, childless, unmarried couple while I still can.

I vow to not again, in passing, say things to Mike like, “Did you know that babies born to women over the age of 35 have a forty per cent increased chance of Downs Syndrome?” and then glide effortlessly out of the room, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

I vow to be the low-maintenance girl he loves, and I vow not to put pressure on him.

I vow not to be that girl anymore.

Till death do I part.

A Cabbage Patch Christmas Special

It was December 1984. I was an eight-year old third grader dealing with a serious issue, and I needed some answers right away. Some of the kids in my class had started fairly somber discussions about the fact that Santa Claus may not actually be real. I joined in with a couple of the other believers, arguing the fact that Santa Claus did indeed exist and offering proof in the form of munched-on cookies that I had left for him last year and a pink bicycle under the tree that I was certain my single mother could not afford. This debate going down right in the middle of Mrs. Green’s class was a heated one, so much so, that I turned to my mother for some adult wisdom. I knew she would be straight with me.

However, instead of being straight with me when I asked her outright if there was a Santa, she pulled off a skilled Freudian move. “Do you think there’s a Santa?” she asked me in the way she had of always talking to children as if they were grown ups.

I thought about it a lot. What did I think? Was it possible that I had been a victim of a cruel prank each year for my entire life? Was my mom really the one putting the gifts under the tree each year like the kids were saying at school? It seemed totally plausible and absolutely impossible at the same time. That is when a genuine stroke of genius hit my tiny eight-year old brain.

The holiday season of 1984 went down in history as the year of the Cabbage Patch Kid. There were stories all over the news every evening about how the illusive dolls were impossible to find. Mothers and fathers were fighting and pushing and yelling in order to get their hands on one of the ugly things for their precious children. There were brawls in the aisles of K-Marts across the country, and footage on CBS of grownups playing angry games of tug-o-war with the innocent, dimpled cloth children. It was mayhem, and my little sister and I watched enrapt, totally impressed that a toy for kids our age could garner so much adult attention. The news stories were all saying the same thing: it was completely impossible to get a Cabbage Patch Kid.

I’d only seen one of them in person once. A girl in my class had one and brought in to show it off. It had blonde yarn hair with wide blue eyes and a blue and white checked dress reminiscent of Dorothy’s in the Wizard of Oz. I asked if I could hold the doll, and the girl was actually a real bitch about it, so I let it go. Some people’s kids. Either way, I knew we were kind of poor, so I understood that this was probably going to be as close to a real live Cabbage Patch Kid as I ever got. Until, of course, the aforementioned stroke of genius.

I told my mother right then, about two weeks before Christmas, that I would know there was a Santa Claus if I had a Cabbage Path Kid waiting under the tree for me that year. I even added on that my Cabbage Patch Kid would have green eyes like me, just to make sure that Santa, whoever he or she may be, knew that I meant business.

Had I been old enough to notice such things, I’m sure there was an obvious twinkle in my mother’s eye as I said this. I know the twinkle well from my older years, but as a kid, I just wasn’t as attuned to those nuances.

Sometime during the previous July, my mom had been out shopping while my sisters and I were at my dad’s for the weekend. She had picked up a couple of strange looking dolls on sale thinking that they might make cute Christmas gifts for me and my little sister. She stuck them up on the top shelf of her closet with a few other gifts that she had purchased throughout the year and there they sat. Those poor little Cabbage Patch Kids sat in the dark closet for the next six months, never realizing how popular they had become out in the real world. My mom just sat back and watched all the crazies with what could have only been a slightly smug look on her face.

On Christmas morning 1984, my sister and I ran down to the Christmas tree the way that small children are wont to do. We tore into our stockings and the piles of fabulous gifts under the tree. Among many other things, there were Cabbage Patch tee shirts and cassette tapes for each of us, and while I appreciated these items, I was still vocal about the fact that they did not count. Just as I was about to throw in the towel and write off Santa Claus for good, my mom pointed out two larger wrapped boxes, side-by-side, tucked at the very back of the tree against the wall. Bingo. I knew the shape of the box by heart. I grabbed my sister by the sleeve of her nightgown, “Courtney, look!”

Hungrily, we ripped the paper from our respective boxes. Two Cabbage Patch Kids with green eyes. Mine was a pigtailed redhead named Lee-Ann Lottie (scarily, this is what my real children may actually look like if I hang on to Mike). Courtney’s was a brunette who actually bore a striking resemblance to her. They had been delivered to us straight from Santa Claus, and we were basically the luckiest kids in the world at that very moment. It was a Christmas miracle right there in our little townhouse. Just for that last bit of proof, I pulled Lee-Ann from her box and yanked down her tiny pants. Sure enough, right across her right buttock was the signature. Xavier Roberts. It might as well have been signed by Santa himself; I was officially a believer again.

A few months later, because she felt it was time and because I was obviously a little too dense to figure it out on my own like all the other third graders, my mother explained to me how the whole Santa thing really worked. I took it sort of hard, but told her that I understood. She then asked me not to tell my sister, who was only six and was still young enough to believe. I promised not to…

…and then went directly upstairs to find Courtney. I found her in the bathroom sitting on the toilet with a Berenstein Bears book in her lap. “Corky, we have to talk,” I told her, trying to portray the seriousness of the situation on my face. I went on to explain to her everything my mom had asked me not to. She got upset and went running to my mom who had no choice but to confirm the bad news. I had done what I felt I had to. It was only fair that we should both be given the option of grieving the loss of Santa at the same time. My mom told me a few years ago that she got a call from Courtney’s teacher not long after my spilling of the beans. Apparently some of the other first-graders’ parents were upset that Courtney was explaining the Santa concept to their children prematurely. I’m sure my mom wanted to strangle me at that point.

A couple of months after we lost our mom in 2006, I randomly opened one of her boxes of stuff right before Christmas. I am not sure what I was looking for, and I had been pretty reluctant to open any of it until that point. But for some reason I opened a box that was full of random paperwork and photographs that had been haphazardly tucked away. I sat on the floor of my little office ,which had been converted into a storage room for my mother’s things until I could figure out what to do with them, and I went through that single box. There were a few old bills, a 1950’s picture of my great grandfather and his dog back in Ireland, some random photographs of my sisters and I as little kids. I pulled out my mom’s nursing license and her citizenship papers, probably two of the most important papers that she had in her lifetime, and right beneath them were the two most important papers that she had left behind. Two ornate birth certificates from the summer of 1984 for two very special dolls, signed by Xavier Roberts. Right then, right when I was so broken, so devoid of holiday spirit, and so desperately craving something, anything at all to believe in, I got all the evidence of Santa Claus that I will ever need, and I will never doubt again.