Isn't it interesting...

I find it interesting that when you put something 'out there', an idea of sort, it starts popping up all around you.

When I first started looking for articles on friendship and 'breaking up' last summer I really didn't find that much in my google searches. I thought that it was annoying that you could read at great lengths articles on dealing with grief and stress of loosing a 'loved one' but that it ultimately referred to your significant other or close family member. Looking for stuff on friendship was either directed at teenage girls or obsolete. I started thinking that I must be the ONLY one that cared about loosing a best friend or perhaps the only one that actually LOST her bff.

I realize I am not unique, that this happens all the time, but when you don't hear anyone else talking about these issues its easy to start thinking you are alone.

But then I stumbled on to the book MWF seeking BFF by Rachel Bertsche, and subsequently her blog. She doesn't so much as talk about a breakup that she's experienced but about the trouble with finding a NEW best friend while in her late twenties. Very interesting to me, so I bought the ebook and am slowly reading it.

Today my sister-in-law sent me a link to a Winnipeg Free Press article, "It's over - It can be as tough to break up with a friend as breaking up with a lover" by Joanne Laucius which references Rachel Bertsche as well as others' opinions on friendships and why they end.

I think one of the most telling points made in this article, which sums up what I've come to realize about friendship is this:

"Breaking up with a friend, either as the breaker or the breakee, can be just as painful as a romantic split, says Irene Levine, a psychologist, friendship blogger at Psychology Today and author of Best Friends Forever: Surviving a Breakup With Your Best Friend.

We asked Levine about the nature of friendship and breaking up with friends.

Q: We have this idealistic idea that "good" friendships last a lifetime. Is that true?
A: People read novels, watch TV sitcoms, and see movies like Sex and The City that provide a mythical picture of friendships. The large majority of friendships, even very good ones, don't last forever."

As I mentioned in my last post, I have decided that I have a warped sense of what a great friendship should be like based on the fictional characters I follow. I need to work on being more grounded and having realistic expectations.

I am fully aware that I have amazing women in my life that I can confide in and it is not necessary for me to depend on one women to fulfill all of my friendship requirements. My new goal is to maintain diversification in my friendships. I think I'm doing quite well.

That being said... I'm still looking for my Sunday Brunch bestie...

Why I'm a terrible friend...

Fictional characters in my favorite television shows, movies and novels always seem to have that iconic BFF, the one that is with them through thick and thin. I assume I am not the only one out there that wants this for their selves and I have had some very close girl friends for long periods of time...I suppose that isn't a fair statement...I HAVE some very close girl friends.

But with the exception on my sister, who, at the sake of sounding sappy, has been my BFF since I was two, I can't seem to maintain that FOREVER part. I honestly thought I had it twice before but when things got tough we feel apart. For a long time I assumed I just had terrible taste in friends, that I chose 'takers' that only wanted to be my friend when I was doing what they wanted, that it wasn't me that ended the relationships but them...I was the GOOD person in the relationship. I was quite defensive.

Recently I have been giving this more thought and think I may have been a little naive. If I go with this theory then I devalue the relationship from the beginning and I honestly think when they were good they were as great as the best ones portrayed in the fictional world where things are always tied up in nice little bows at the end of an episode. I don't think its realistic that I merely had blinders on for 10 years and fooled myself that they cared about me. I believe that we were close.

I no longer believe that I was the 'GOOD' person in the relationship though....or at least that there was no 'good' person and 'bad' person.

I LET my relationships fall apart because I am too afraid that if I speak up and say that I don't like something they won't like me and will stop being my friend. Well jokes on me because by continuing to sit on the sidelines I allow my relationships to dissolve.

It isn't enough to write a passive aggressive text message or email when we have a disagreement. If I want to have a BFF, who tells me everything, then I need to do the same back. I SHOULD have overcome my uncomfort and picked up the phone or went over to see them in person, and while there I should have told them why I was upset and why they were important to me. And when it was all said and done I may still have been left with the remains of a friendship but at least I would have known that I actively tried to maintain it, instead having unresolved feelings hanging over me.

I feel like I let them down by not showing them that I cared enough to show up. I'm tired of playing the blame game in my head where my defenses are thrown up as soon as a thought like this enters my head and I yell back at it that my 'so called BFF' didn't 'show up' either and I shouldn't have to do all the work! Regardless of what the other person coulda/shoulda/woulda done, I know now what I need to do and I hope I don't forget this.

I feel like my 'breakups' have gone on too long now for me to decide to call them up. A little too late. They have moved on in their lives and probably have other close friends to confide in. Only time will tell if things will ever smooth out between us but I will strive to be better next time, regardless of who my BFF will be...

For right now I have joined the MWF seeking BFF (and yes I actually bought this book recently, but that is another story).

Working Late

It is 10pm on a Friday night and I am just leaving the office right now. I stayed to clean up my desk for Monday so that I wouldn't be behind and the sad thing? I still haven't gotten it all done.

I want to apologize for my lack of interesting posts during this challenge...perhaps not the BEST month to decide to do it. Perhaps I will try again soon with better luck but with only a few more days left I didn't want to drop the ball so this is it!

Our first book club meeting

Today was our first book club meeting, which was suppose happen this evening but because of busy schedules we opted to take a long lunch together rather then reschedule.

None of us have finished The Happiness Project but that worked out fine as we ended up focusing primarily on the first chapter, January, during our hour away from the office. Mainly because it is about the idea of de-cluttering and organization your life to aid in making your life less stressful and more happy...something all three of us would love to do.

I think one of the nicest thing about having something like this is that we can get together to talk about something POSITIVE and PROACTIVE, rather then getting caught up in conversations that deal mainly in the past of What Ifs and/or negativity. We are going to continue with this book for the foreseeable future until all three of us have completed it as I think there is quite a bit of conversation topics in it. Technically we could probably make our monthly meetings about one chapter (month) at a time as she takes on new challenges/themes each month. We'll see how it goes.

We've decided to meet the first Thursday of each month and hold each other accountable for the little challenges we give our selves. I now feel re motivated to finish organizing my house, office and even my Sparks supplies at the church. I'm going to attempt a few projects for the month of March. Because of my busy work schedule lately I'm not sure it would be realistic to turn it into a 30 day challenge were a do a project a day (it's hard enough blogging everyday!) but I'm going to set a deadline of 30 days for some specific projects, and who knows maybe I'll actually blog about my progress.

Making Up

I suppose I should put equal effort into a post about how D is NOT a huge ass. While I was angrily writing yesterdays post I think it was finally dawning on him that this wasn't just a 'disagreement' and that I was actually upset as he made a few attempts to engage in a more casual conversation, but I refused.

I then went upstairs to bed where I read a book. He followed shortly after and silently came up to me and gave me a hug. Of course I had decided to still be 'mad' at him and didn't say anything.

D is not a fighter, he avoids arguments...and by avoid I mean PHYSICALLY avoids, he will leave a room if it looks like I'm going to argue with him. (Which is interesting since he seems to enjoy pushing my buttons all the time and listen to me 'lecture him' but once it gets serious he gets the hell out of there). So when I didn't make any comments after the hug he went back downstairs to play video games.

Of course I seem to be completely incapable of ever holding a grudge when it comes to him so when we woke up this morning and he asked if I was still mad at him I said no.

Men might not be completely stupid....

Disagreeing

Tonight I asked D what he thought of putting our future children in private school verses public. Of course when he found out it cost $10,000/year or more he was completely against it, stating that it was a waste of money. I, of course, disagree but don't really feel that its a decision that needs to be done anytime soon.

Some how the conversation turned to adoption, and how if I couldn't have children (my OB-GYN says she expects me to get pregnant easily in the next few months so this isn't an issue yet...) we would adopt. Apparently D extremely disagrees with this idea. He says that if I can't have children we would adjust and live our lives without kids. To me this is the worst idea I've ever heard him have.

In fact I told him that if that day ever came and he refused I would leave and adopt on my own. You would think at this point that he would realize that maybe this is extremely important to me and that he would at least meet my half way by saying that we could discuss this if it ever became an issue but nope he insists that he wouldn't want to raise 'someone else's kid', that he wouldn't be able to bond or something like that.

My agruement is that if he can bond with his stupid cat (okay we have 3 cats, 2 of which were mine and 1 that was his before we got together - he has a ridiculous attachment to his and I kind of hate it because of that...and by hate, I mean I get jealous of a stupid cat on more then one occasion) then I'm sure he could bond with an adopted child. He then says "That's silly he's not human, its not the same thing". Which I agree "HE'S NOT HUMAN" and yet he loves him. At this point I'm ready to cry because I'm so frustrated with him that I tell him I am really mad at him and end the conversation.

I don't think he gets how important this is as he tried to start up another trivial conversation. I'm currently ignoring him.

Now I realize that in all likelihood this will NEVER be a real issue but it still pisses me off that he can be so shallow. I also realize that if it were a real issue he would probably come around once he saw how important it was to me. It doesn't change the fact that I'm currently frustrated.

Men are stupid. Period.

Why child care scares the bejeezes out of me...

Since I already started talking about child care, kinda, in my previous post I figure I should just continue on that thread.

One of the biggest unknowns for me about starting a family is what will happen after my MAT leave ends and our child turns 1. Ideally I would love to spend as much time as possible with our child(ren) during the first 5 years, before they enroll into kindergarten but I also realize a few important points:

1. If I want a second child I want to qualify for MAT leave again, which means I need to get the required hours to do so in the 52 weeks prior to the second birth.
2. D and I live a certain lifestyle, we aren't over spenders or huge partiers but we also aren't extremely thrifty, which means that not having my income would suck. We would have to rework our budget to either stop/reduce our retirement savings investments or cut out a huge amount of 'extras'.
3. I actually enjoy my job and would like to continue to work.

If I were to go back to work after my MAT leave, which seems the most likely outcome, I need to consider what I will do for child care.

D's mother is retired and would probably love looking after our child(ren) but I don't think it is a realistic option to have her be our full time daycare for the following reasons:

1. She lives 30 minutes outside of the city. If I were to drop the child(ren) off in the morning it would mean that I would have to leave over an hour before my work started as I'd be driving in the opposite direction and then doubling back. Alternatively she could come to our place every day but then we would want to compensate for her fuel (which would still be cheaper then public/private daycare centres/homes). This also would be difficult on bad road days, meaning I would end up calling in 'sick' those days.
2. I'm not sure she would like to commit to babysitting 5 days a week. She also checks in on her mother and sister weekly, as well as takes substituting positions as an EA (educational assistant - which is what she did before retirement) once in awhile. We would not be compensating her her lost wages so that isn't fair to her.
3. I don't really want her to be the one to parent our children instead of me. I think D's parents are wonderful, generous people that raised two great guys BUT I do NOT agree with a lot of their views on things, specifically pertaining to minorities...

I think that I would be able to work out a way that I could work from home 2-3 days of the week and since most of my job isn't time sensitive I could be flexible as to when I put those hours in; during nap time or when D came home from work. This would leave me only needing child care for the other half.

Options for this could be:

1. My mother-in-law for at least one of these days. I think asking her to commit to one day a week would look after some of the above issues and also allow her time with her grandchild(ren).
2. Licensed Child Care at a centre (if I can find one that accepts part time spots AND is somewhere that I would want my child attending) which costs $27/day until they are 2 and then $18/day until 5...not cheap
3. Unlicensed Child Care at some one's home (again if I can find one that accepts part time spots AND I trust to take my child) which can cost even more then licensed child care.
4. Childcare Swap with another mother (or two!), where I would look after their child once a week and they would watch mine once. This is something that I would ideally like to do but ONLY if I could find one or two mothers that I trust...in other words friends.
5. Nursery/Preschool which is an option once they are 3 and then I need to look into somewhere like Balmoral Hall, as I mentioned in the previous post, or a public centre which I don't know how much it would be.

If I can't work from home part time and need to go back full time I will be looking at 20% or more of my net income going to child care in the first year. When I go back to work after the second child that will jump to 30% or more until they are both in Kindergarten. This is doable but not desirable since our budget will already be accommodating 10% of our net income for the presence of a child in our house. Basically child's aren't cheap and I am so happy that we are not low income earners as I'm not sure how they do it!