Last night was the first meeting of the Regent Spouses' Network which is precisely that: women at the end of their ropes because their husbands are working on their Masters. I kid but it was very cool to get around other women who are at such unique parts in their lives. One is in her mid forties with grown children. One was mega-pregnant. One had four boys. There were a couple of us newbies first years who all shared a similar sentiment that we were "so very very not ready for babies and if God is ready for that for us he has some preparatory work to do". Some are American, some were from South Africa.
Sitting around in a circle, sipping coffee and mowing on these bars that were miraculous wadges of chocolate and shortbread and this gooey, melty-mouth centre filling that somehow made me understand why it must be so hard to wean yourself off crack. I could introduce myself to so many girls my age who are married and have husband's studying and that is one thing that I have struggled to find since I got married. I find that Christian circles are like breeding pools for women like that but they can sometimes be...well lets be honest, they can be kind of weird. These ones though ('these ones' makes it sound like they're playing cards), were so sweet. Great senses of humour and really eager to get involved with each other. Conversation did stray at the end, guided by an adorable girl from Cape Town, to the bunk driving in Vancouver. Not only is it a steering wheel on the other side but it's driving on the other side of the road. She and some of the other International girls agreed that it was a hard transition. I made sure they knew that I've been driving on the right side of the road since I started to drive and Vancouver still makes me apoplectic. We shared cheap grocery stores and tips on cool places to go and great places to shop. I'm not local but I live in an easy part of the city to live in. A couple of the girls live very south so it's a train and two buses to get anywhere. Oy. The Americans were very excited about the free health care. I didn't want to ruin by telling them to look at their health care payments on their next paycheck. It only looks free.
We played a nice, simple, Christian-y game of get to know you questions involving Smarties. It made me realize that there are overwhelmingly inane questions associated with getting to know someone. Some of the questions were fine like 'where's your favourite place you've visited' which people are fairly content to answer and 'favourite food' which got a unanimously positive feedback but then questions like "what's your husband studying' and 'what's your favourite thing about being married' that are to the one totally whatever questions and for the second, a question that I don't mind answering but it's just such a vapid question. Whether you're in your first year of marriage or your twentieth year of marriage, the answer to something like that can't be encompassed in seconds or in any situation where it's followed by "Can I eat my Smarties yet?". You want to know someone and trust someone before you can really get into the meat of that question. I also don't think that some people ever think about that. It's something in their hearts that they own but they've never put it into words for someone else before. And sometimes there is no reason to. There are fun, conversational questions that you can ask when you're meeting new people and trying to get a conversation moving. Like something about a hidden talent or favourite joke. Everyone wants to tell something about eating with chopsticks using their feet or their favourite 'why did the chicken cross the road'.
I've been so blessed to see and understand God's presence in our marriage this past week. Coming back to Vancouver this summer after our holidays, I felt apprehensive about the social aspect of our lives. I've learned a lot about myself in the past couple years just about how I operate as a social animal. Namely, I'm not an animal about it. I am timid when it comes to introducing myself and I am shy about sharing things about myself. If I am with someone I know, it is slightly easier but alone I have to consciously prep myself not to be self-loathing and nervous. Moving to a new place always brings to focus this struggle and I have to be careful not to extrapolate that and read it into my self-worth.
In praying a lot about it, I found that the Lord has been bringing me opportunities to push myself in that respect. Westside has been such a wellspring of nurturing community and then being at school I have the opportunity to interact with people that will profoundly shape and challenge me in these coming years.
Scott and Jo got a dog which is so adorable and wonderful. He's a poodle but like a dude poodle not one of the froofy gay poodles. He's all shaggy and his name is Hendrix. We went over the night they got him to see him and he had been so excited earlier that he had thrown up.
~ This is a super cool song.
~ And so it this. This song always makes me think of painting last summer. Such a crappy job but the actual painting was pretty. I was caught by the owners of the house shaking my booty to this up on their roof a couple of times.
~ And this is a massively wonderful song. She totally blisses out at the end but whenever we sing this at church I sob through the whole thing.
Do Svidanya!
P.S ~ Russian is still totally awesome and it will be totally awesome until I have to actually do something with all of those letters. I will let you know how much I cry when I have to conjugate a verb.
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