If I had the right. I am not good at surface relationships. I hate asking someone how they are when I know they'll say "fine" regardless and so there are many times when I don't ask. I really don't care "how the weather is where you are", although I'll use that to ease into the beginning of a conversation. I love the meat and bones of life, and am a totally open book although I'm not sure what pages people want to read. But I do know that not everyone deserves to know how "you're really doing". That is the stuff you share with your real friends, people that you trust with the good and the bad. If I knew every mother that well, I would ask them these questions:
1. Was your wedding day REALLY the day of your dreams?
2. How long after the honeymoon until you started ploying to get your husband to agree to having kids as soon as possible?
3. How often does your bathroom really get cleaned?
4. Did you decide to have a certain number of kids and when you had those, snip snip, or did you decide but are open to "surprises", or do you think you'll just know when you know you're done?
5. What is the one thing you do simply because you're husband likes it?
6. How heated do you get when someone offers you advice?
7. Would you be able, not willing but able, to tell your kids of mistakes you've made in your life, even if you felt you made some with them?
8. Do you daydream of another life? Not one that would be better, but a different one that you think you could be just as happy in?
9. At the end of most days when you're unwinding to fall asleep, do you feel you got enough of yourself that day or did it go to everyone else and leave you feeling lost?
10. Does your life feel more or less like that "empty canvas" or "unwritten book" than it did the day you graduated from highschool?
I'd just like to know. I'm not even sure why I'd like to know those particular things, and I'm sure my list will ebb and grow as I live, but right now for some reason I would ask those questions if I had the right. And if you'd like to you could answer them, or you could ask your own of me, or you could do both. For now I'll just float them in cyberspace so I can free up those few neurons to decide what to make for supper.
4 comments:
I'll answer them. I'm pretty honest but I'm sure there aren't many of those you don't know about me already:
1. Was your wedding day REALLY the day of your dreams? Absolutely not. It was nice, at the end of it I was married to the man I loved but other than that, I probably wouldn't do anything the same.
2. How long after the honeymoon until you started ploying to get your husband to agree to having kids as soon as possible? I didn't. Abby was a surprise. Kids were years down the road.
3. How often does your bathroom really get cleaned? Once a week, unless needed
4. Did you decide to have a certain number of kids and when you had those, snip snip, or did you decide but are open to "surprises", or do you think you'll just know when you know you're done? When we have our two, after a lengthy discussion and a year or two "just to make sure" we will be doing the "snip, snip".
5. What is the one thing you do simply because you're husband likes it? Cook salmon. :)
6. How heated do you get when someone offers you advice? Unsolicited advice gets my blood boiling a little. Advice I don't like gets it boiling a lot.
7. Would you be able, not willing but able, to tell your kids of mistakes you've made in your life, even if you felt you made some with them? Hmm... maybe when they are grown adults.
8. Do you daydream of another life? Not one that would be better, but a different one that you think you could be just as happy in? Sometimes.
9. At the end of most days when you're unwinding to fall asleep, do you feel you got enough of yourself that day or did it go to everyone else and leave you feeling lost? I usually feel that the day lacked "Me" time.
10. Does your life feel more or less like that "empty canvas" or "unwritten book" than it did the day you graduated from highschool? Hm.. Good one. I'll think on it.
Thanks Jen. I did know most of them about you, but it's always nice to hear answers to questions!
Good questions. This will probably be more than you would want to know about me but I love answering questions! I'd be interested to know your answers too by the way.
1. You know it really was. It genuinely was the happiest day I have ever had (having my daughters were incredible days but there was a lot of stress and pain beforehand!) I wasn't a little girl who dreamed about my wedding day though and I suspect that even if everything went wrong (as long as nobody died) being Paul's wife at the end of the day would make it perfect. I would change one thing though, one of the people who did a reading at our wedding went on to try to cause some problems for us so I'd probably get somebody else to participate in the ceremony!
2. I was very excited to have kids until I started going out with Paul and then I got the coldest feet with regard to children. We didn't even think about it for almost two years, and I think Paul was more interested than me.
3. I wipe down the taps, lightswitches, toilet seat and door handles every night but probably only do a proper clean every couple of weeks. My plan is to do it weekly but it doesn't always happen. I do clean up anything that is crying out for attention though.
4. We had planned to have three, and that may yet happen but given the problems I've had we're not sure if we'll try again. The pill works really well for me so there won't be any snipping!
5. Make baked beans - bleh.
6. To be honest it depends a lot on who it is, and what mood I'm in. On a good day I don't care but catch me on the wrong day and I'd be seething.
7. I think so, hard to know for sure but I already apologise to them when I yell etc so I hope that I'd be able to.
8. No, I sometimes daydream about how it would be if we had more kids, or if we lived in another country but thats about it.
9. It feels very much like as though there isn't much of "me" left. I'm working on that though.
10. No, not at all. It feels like a lifetime ago, and I feel very old some days!
So will you share your answers, or are you still pondering?
OK Amanda, here goes, but I think you should answer them too! :)
1. Not necessarily the day of my dreams (didn't dream about it much) but the absolute FUNNEST day of my life. I loved it. The importance of the day, the celebration of it. How everyone who was special in both of our lives made the effort to celebrate with us. Such fun.
2. We both decided when to start trying. I would have loved more time just the two of us, but I didn't want to be an older mom.
3. I'm too embarassed to answer that question honestly.
And I'm not trying to be funny.
4. I had a certain #, Travis had a certain #, and we compromised on 3 kids and the dog of my choice. But, then the reality of kids is here, and they are not easy, and we are maybe not as gifted with babies as we (he) thought we were, and we're trying to decide what kind of life we'd like to provide for them.... it's certainly not the easy "oh, I'd like 4 kids" decision as I grew up thinking it was. So complex. The snip snip WILL happen, I just don't know when.
5. Have sex. haha, I'm just kidding. :) Seriously though, make phone calls about stuff for him. That's kind of a lame one, and I know there are things I do, but I can't think of any right now!
6. I can take (or leave) advice pretty easily. It's when it's given with the undertone of expecting you to follow through on said advice that I get a bit irked.
7. I don't know. Would depend on the kid and the situation.
8. Yes. I have often thought it would be cool to have a couple of parallel lives going on, following the paths I have chosen not to take. (Though I love the one I'm in)
9. Most of the time, I do not get enough of myself. I have a few things on the go where I will get 1/2 hour to a couple of hours to myself, which I love, and is getting easier to do as the kids get older.
10. I can't believe I've been out of high school for 14 years (shhh). I still feel like there's lots that could and will happen, just don't know what. I don't want to be someone who always just talks about doing stuff, but someone who actually does them.
There you go. Great post Amanda, thanks for getting me thinking!
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