Birthday Toast

Happy 30th birthday to my gorgeous, kind-hearted and funny best friend. 

I started this post off writing a list of all the funny and happy memories I have of you over the last ten years of our friendship, but it got insanely long, incredibly sappy and frankly, there’s some things I don’t want to share with the interwebs.  So I’ll just say this: Em, you bless everyone in your life with your huge heart, your infectious laugh and your incredible ability to be so present and tuned in to whoever you are spending time with.  You’ve also now become the first wino to break in motherhood and you’re setting the bar high with how gracefully you’re handling all the challenges that come along with that.  My birthday wish for you is that this new decade of life brings back to you all the love and joy you’ve given to others over the years in spades to you.  I hope your house stays full of Claire-giggles, your husband continues to be your best friend and you know how much your friends adore you.  Happy Birthday, darling. 

 

(Thanks for the pictures, Jessie K.  Hope you don’t mind I “borrowed” them.)

Thankful Thursday: Anniversary Edition

Today is our FOURTH anniversary!  I can hardly believe that it has been four years.  Since our wedding anniversary falls on a Thursday, what better way to honor it than with a TT post dedicated to my husband?

Please feel free to stop reading if the schmoopy gets to you.

Dearest Husband,

I am thankful that...

- you mow the lawn.  I did it once and it took an extremely long time and was hot and not much fun.  Thank you for sparing me from that, even and especially when I forget to tell you.
- you are unequivocally the hardest working person I know and yet at the same time, the least likely to complain about how hard you work. 
- you learned to snowboard and you taught me to wakeboard.
- you respect your parents & your grandparents.  And my parents and grandparents. 
- you built me a bed.
- you always tell me honestly how an outfit looks. 
- when I was unhappy at my job last year, you told me to quit complaining and do something about it.  I needed that.
- you have an insatiable interest in new adventures and traveling.  I am 100% certain we will never, ever be bored.
- you don't internalize your work, but you're never cynical or callous about the things you see every day and the patients you treat.
- you know how to shag dance.
- you are decisive.  (Luckily you decided you wanted to marry me!)
- you drive on long trips and late at night, and don't give me too much crap about always falling asleep on road trips.
- you rarely get stressed, and even when you do, you never take it out on me. 
- when I told you I wanted to write a book, you said "So write a book."  You've been my cheerleader ever since, as well as encouraging me with my coaching practice.
- you love the Spuds as much as I do.
- you humored me by going with me to the Gary Chapman talk before our wedding.  I don't think I ever told you how much that meant to me.
- you put your laundry in the hamper and your dishes in the sink.
- you love 90s rock music as much as I do - if not more.
- you value health and taking care of yourself.  And to that end, you'll eat whatever I cook... even when I'm "experimenting." 
- you wanted to grow old with me.
- you asked me to marry you.

****

I am in danger of letting this list go on and on... and though this is basically a "reasons why I love my husband" list, it really is a list of gratitude.  I think gratitude and appreciation are a cornerstone of a solid marriage, and I know that every time I stop to take stock of what I am thankful for my husband and my marriage top that list.  I am, simply put, blessed.  I know that every day, but I am especially reminded of it today.  Happy Anniversary, Matthew.  I am thankful for us.

Celebrating

Happy Birthday, Jacob & Michelle!

It always sort of amazes me when the schedule gods grant us one of those nights where almost everyone has the same night off.  That just doesn't happen a lot when all your friends are residents.

Tonight we got together to celebrate Jacob and Michelle's victory lap of their 20's at Tate's.

I was driving and a teensy bit worn out from our garage sale extravaganza this morning, and sometimes when I'm tired I feel like I'm sitting back and watching things instead of actively participating.  I felt that way tonight, but in a very content and peaceful way.

I love our friends and I'm so thankful that residency brought us all together, and that even more important, we have each other to get through residency with.

I love our city, and I'm so thankful that we've gotten to live here for 10 years and watch this city grow and change as downtown becomes somewhere you'd actually want to be.

See, now usually it's too much wine that makes me all "I wuv you guys" but tonight?  Tonight it's a clear head and calm heart that's letting me look out at this life and feeling my gratitude.

And the best part?

No hangover when you get drunk on gratitude.

The One That Got Away

Doesn’t everyone have this story? The story about the one that got away? The one that you’ll always wonder what if… ? The person who, if you had ended up with, your life would be a totally different story from what it is now. The game changer.

2001

When I was 20, I met a guy and we started dating. Two months after we had begun our relationship, I can remember sitting on my front porch, talking on the phone with my mom and telling her that I had met the guy I thought I could marry. I asked her if that was crazy – I was only 20, after all. My mom, who had met my dad when she was 20 and married him a few years later, assured me that it was not at all crazy and I should expect an engagement ring in a few months.

Okay, she didn’t exactly say that last part… but I may have extrapolated it from the conversation.

I fell hard for this guy. We were a good match on so many levels, and I was certain that we would be together for a long time. One warm April day, 8 months after we had started dating, he broke up with me. I was heartbroken. I hadn’t seen it coming, and in fact, I think I even tried to talk him out of it.

I spent the summer in Durham, working at internship and channeling my sadness and heartbreak and anger at him into the training I was doing for a triathlon. At the time, I was furious that he ended it so definitively (no "on a break" here). But later, after the sadness subsided, I was thankful for how clean our break-up was and the lack of any bitterness or head games that I would see be the calling card of many of my friends’ long-suffering break-ups.

Life went on. I went to Spain. He immersed himself in preparing for post-graduate work. We both moved on, fell in love with other people, had life experiences that shaped and molded us into new people.

2004

One night in the middle of Spring semester, I walked in the door from a fun night with girlfriends out at our usual location, Burke St. We spilled back into our apartment, giggling and rehashing the night. I walked into my room, and out of habit, checked my away messages.

“ANNA! Anna! Anna, get in here!” I screamed to my roommate.

She came rushing in, looking slightly panicked.

“Guess who just IMed me?” I pointed excitedly to the screen.

She looked closely. “No way. When was the last time you talked to him?”

I shrugged my shoulders. Since my return from abroad, we had only run into each once on our tiny campus and it had been pleasant but uneventful. A chance encounter of two acquaintances. Other than that, we hadn’t talked into two years.

I read the IM again. “I saw you at the bar tonight. You looked cute. Thought you should know!” The message ended with the big dorky AOL smiley face. I went to sleep with that ear-to-ear grin on my face. It had been a hard year, and the surprise IM was a bright spot in a stressful spring semester.

Fortunately, the story doesn't end there. The message left to more conversations over instant messenger, tenuous and guarded at first, then quickly progressing to the rapport we had struck up so easily years before. The semester ended, graduation day came and went, and I was in U-haul van headed for NY. Our IM conversations turned to hour long phone calls which, over the course of the next year, led to visits which led to “will you be my girlfriend?” which led to moving to NC which led, finally, gratefully, and wonderfully to “Will you be my wife?”

And suddenly, the one that got away was the one who found me again after all these years. The one that changed it all? The one I would have always wondered how it would have turned out?

Was the one I ended up after all. Lucky me.

Lucky us.

Happy Three Years, Husband. I adore you. Here’s to changing the game.

Limiting Yourself

When I was in grad school, most of my classmates had 5-10 years on me and rings on their left hands. This, of course, made them experts in the realm of dating, and since I was 22 and single, made me the victim of their expertise. I was perfectly content sitting in my apartment on a Saturday night getting tipsy on Sutter Home and IM-flirting, but my grad school friends were intent that I have a Real Life Date. Thus, began a series of blind dates that while often disastrous, were also usually hilarious.

Let’s begin the story-telling by noting that all names have been changed to protect the innocent. Namely, me.

My classmate Rick was a 30-something, Jewish, dual MD/MPH who I think may have died a little inside when we were discussing relationships one day and I told him I was perfectly content being single, and probably not getting married for at least another 10 years. (I was only off by 7.) Rick was intent on finding me a guy who was “marriage-material”. Just what every 22 year old girl is looking for, right?

The week before I went home for Thanksgiving, Rick and I were walking out of our health comm class when he tells me he passed my email along to a friend of his, who had recently broken up with his girlfriend but was really, really nice, and laidback and would be soooo perfect for you. Mark, the friend, emailed me over Thanksgiving and after exchanging some basic niceties, we decided to get drinks at a bar in my neighborhood when I returned.

My first warning that this was about to be a blog-worthy-bad date was the email I got about 30 minutes before I was due to meet Mark at the bar.

“Don’t wear a turtleneck. Wear something sexy.”

I promptly went and changed into a turtleneck. I’m that kind of girl.

Upon returning from my first, and last, date with Mark I sent the following email to my girlfriends:

Top Ten Things to Say/Ask on a First Date to ensure that there's no second date:

1. Are you a wearing something sexy? (As I still have my coat on)

2. Are you looking for a relationship... or just friends with benefits?

3. So, do you like me?

4. My ex won't really let me talk to her anymore... she told me not to contact her.

5. Are you a virgin?

6. (As we're leaving the bar) So are you going to kiss me?

7. I kind of think Federal Hill (the neighborhood I happen to live in...) is a shit hole.

8. I'm a Yankees fan.

9. So, do you like me? (yes... again...in fact, a total of five times)

10. So, when can I see my girl again? (note the possessive pronoun)

When our date had ended, I bid Mark good night and told him, as kindly as I possibly could, that I just didn’t think this was working out for us. I’ve never dumped someone on a first date, but I felt that my intentions better be made known quickly and without any room for interpretation.

The next morning I woke up to an email from the persistent and affable Mark that said that he wanted to see me again, but if I didn’t want to date, we could just be friends with benefits. (Marriage material? Really, Rick?)

I wrote back, in no uncertain terms, that we would never be seeing each other again.

A few hours later, I got another email from Mark and the subject line read: “Limiting Yourself.”

The content:

Meg,

Don't limit yourself in life. You have hard and fast rules for everything in your life and you make obtuse decisions.

Mark

I didn’t bother to grace Mark with another reply and in fact, I haven’t thought about Mark since that October night in 2004. I came across his email tonight though, as I was looking back through old emails trying to find the address of one of my grad school friends. As I scrolled through the few emails from my one-date-boyfriend, ironically on Valentine’s Day, I thought how in fact the best relationship decision I ever made in my life was based on exactly what Mark had warned me against: having hard and fast rules for myself. Limiting myself.

The best decision I ever made in my love life was finally deciding that I wasn’t going to spend any time and energy with any guy where I had to guess what his intentions or motivations were, how committed he was, or how interested he was. In my year of grad school, I had been recoiling from a relationship defined by two people emotionally exhausting one another, I had gone on enough first dates to rival that hideous Drew Barrymore movie and I had had a few weeks-long relationships with guys who were more than just a little hesitant at the mere mention of the idea of using monikers such as “boyfriend” and “girlfriend.”

By the spring of that year, I had decided to set some hard and fast rules for myself. I wanted to date someone who wanted to call me their girlfriend. Who would call me. Often. Tell me he liked me. Be honest and sincere in his interest. Make time for me. They weren’t rules that required jumping through fiery hoops and buying gifts that came in baby blue boxes (although that never hurts)… but they were rules that, in 9 years of being in relationships, I had never bothered to set for myself.

When Matt asked me out, I was taken aback by how straight forward and honest he was. He liked me, he asked me to date him, and that was that. All the “games” that I had been so accustomed to playing in my past relationships never made an appearance. He made it a point to tell me how he felt about me. He made the time to come and see me (not an easy task as we were nearly 400 miles away.) He called me his girlfriend without me asking, without making a fuss, and with pride in his voice.

Setting hard and fast rules for myself made me consider myself worthy enough for someone’s sincere appreciation and love. And when I finally set the bar high enough, in to my life walked the person who was tall enough to reach it. So, Mark buddy, if you’re out there, I’m sorry to tell you that limiting yourself is not always a bad thing. In fact, you may want to give that method a go yourself sometime.

Happy Valentines Day, my sweetheart. Thank you for being you, and for being the "marriage material" I didn't know I was looking for.

Matt & Meg, Baltimore 2005

Matt & Meg, Rochester, 2009

Hooding

Today was my husband's hooding ceremony for his medical doctorate. Although the graduation for all WFU candidates is Monday, this is a smaller ceremony that focuses on just the medical class and I think really just sets aside time for the family of the now DOCTORS to celebrate what they have accomplished.



I'm not a parent, but I imagine one of the first things you do when you find out you're pregnant is start imagining what your child will grow up to be. I wonder what it felt like for all the parents there to sit there and gaze upon their very grown babies and think back to all that they hoped for them. I imagine that that is a kind of happy/proud where words would just fall short.

Ever since I have known Matt (we met as sophomores in college), we have referred to this pursuit as "the doctor's path". Sometimes in jest, sometimes in conflict, but always on mutual understanding of the priority that was given to "the doctor's path." Becoming a doctor has been his single greatest focus for more than a decade. A decade! At 13, he hurt his knee playing football. A trip to the orthopedic later and Matt just knew he wanted to be a doctor. An essay he wrote shortly after this event in 7th grade describes not only how he is going to be a doctor, but he's going to attend Wake Forest Medical School.

I know, right? At 13, I wanted to be an architect. And an author. And a teacher. And, oooh, a psychologist! In other words, I had no idea.

Talk about a single track mind.

The doctor's path has been many things: stressful. challenging. confusing. surprising. bonding. fulfilling. None of these words fully encapsulate the journey I have watched my husband persue single-mindedly for the 8 years I have known him, and the one I joined him on when I became Mrs. To see him stand up there and take the Physician's Oath and know that years and years and years of commitment, focus, determination and sacrifices have culminated in a one single ceremony-filled weekend that marks the transition from student to physician? Amazing & inspiring.

If I write any more, I just may lose it. Congratulations, Dr. I am so proud of you.