dearfuturehusbandblog

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

My Family Is So Damn Inept

Dear Future Husband,

If I had to make a list of the things that are most important to me when it comes to creating my own home, right now the top three would be: 1. Communication 2. COMMUNICATION and 3. MOTHER F***ING COMMUNICATION

We have this friend of the family I've mentioned before that my mother kind of views as a daughter and refers to this friend's children as her own grandchildren. This friend has ka"h 6 children between the ages of like 11 and 1, with another on the way be"H.

This friend is a school teacher and her husband sits and learns.

And I have thoughts on this.

I haven't shared these thoughts with anyone other than immediate family, but I have thoughts.

And these thoughts start with "you signed a kesuba that requires you to provide financially for your family, yet your 8 months pregnant wife has to keep working even when she's sick because otherwise you can't pay your bills...???"

And I know that it's none of my business, and I know that they have their own situation worked out between the two of them, and I know that finances are in Hashem's hands....

But I still have thoughts.

Regardless of those thoughts, as MotherLivelyHeart sort of fills that mother role that this MomOfMany needs, she constantly feels like she has to provide for this ka"h growing family. This means making meals (when she has the leg strength to do so otherwise it ends up on me to do, as seen in our last episode), or driving by randomly with little gifts or nosh or whatever.

And this week, MotherLivelyHeart decided to invite them over for Friday night dinner.

Yes, all of them.

Yes, without talking to me (and I'm assuming BigSis) about it.

Yes, after we had finalized the menu and done most of the shopping.

And she decides to tell me this in a whatsapp message yesterday morning.

Starting at 8:30am with: "I invited the MomOfMany family for Friday night."

That's it. No preamble, just this is how it is.

This message was followed by an updated menu for Shabbos, which includes things we hadn't discussed or put on the shopping list. And this is AFTER a whole conversation about how finances are tight this week, and "I'll help as much as I can." Which is to say hardly at all because she literally can't stand to cook, and has to work today.

With an added and bolded "Please get *this additional unnecessary thing from another stop you hadn't planned to make or factored into your schedule* this afternoon, but not too late!"

And why. Just why does she do this?

I would love to have a home built around orchim, especially those who I know need the additional support, because that's true hachnosas orchim.

But I'm so tired this week. There was no discussion about any of this. We already did the majority of the shopping, and as far as I was aware, we only needed 2 things from the grocery store and suddenly the list was expanded.

When I saw her a bit later, she told me that MomOfMany reached out to her early and asked if they could come for Friday Night and "you weren't up yet, and she needed an answer, so I just told her yes."

But how hard would it have been to tell MomOfMany "We'd love to have you but let me just run it by the girls first"?

Just a small sign of respect for the other two people who LIVE HERE and will be doing the shopping and cooking. Instead of steamrolling us with this information that we just have to accept and deal with.

I didn't respond to that or the following message and then she messaged something about a car repair and called me when I was on the phone with someone. I responded with "okee dokes" which she gave a heart reaction to and then she followed up with "Is that a confirmation of all the messages I sent? Or just a select few?"

I responded "Mostly the last one" aka the car repair one. And she reacted to that with a sad face.

I said MOSTLY, not ONLY. But I'm guessing she took this as me not being happy with the invite, which I'm not, except in her mind it's probably more dramatic than I'm just too tired to think about anything right now and don't want to deal with a house full of kids that will inevitably yell and fight this week.

Either way I'll stick a happy smile on my face and pretend everything is ok, but I just can't stand when she does this. And BigSis can't either, but she has at least established "I'm an introvert and if I don't want to be around them I will just disappear into my room." Whereas I, the people pleaser, will have to stick around and just make sure these people don't feel snubbed, because this situation isn't even about them per se.

So I managed to get work done for like an hour yesterday before I had to go get the car repaired and then do the remaining shopping, which pushed me farther off schedule than I had anticipated.

I managed to get out of the repair shop at like a quarter to 5pm and had to run by the local bakery for challah, which was a bit of a rush because they close at 5pm.

I raced from there over to the other stop she wanted me to make for the unnecessary things, because they close at 6pm.

I called MotherLivelyHeart while I was there to ask her an immediate question about the thing and she asked me how long until I got home. I told her I had to run by the supermarket for the updated Shabbos shopping list and then I'd swing by to drop everything off before I could get to work. She was like "well, neither of us are dressed, so we need a heads up before you swing by."

CAN WE JUST ESTABLISH THAT ON DAYS LIKE THURSDAY WHEN YOU NEED ME TO DO SHOPPING, AT LEAST ONE OF YOU STAYS FULLY DRESSED!? WHY IS THIS A SHOCKER EVERY MF WEEK!?

Well, I went through the parking lot of the store and there was no parking close to the entrance. It was like 15 degrees outside and I remembered that MLH and I had discussed me running to a different store about 15-20 minutes away for two things, so I made the executive decision to go to that other store first and then do the grocery store on the way back.

So I messaged telling them about the change in the plans so they could have an hour or so to prepare themselves for me coming by.

Yes, it's as pathetic as it sounds.

I went to the other store and MLH had said she "added a few things" to the list from that store (I was working off of what would have been an instacart order) and the list expanded from two items to nine. You wouldn't think that's a huge increase, but when you have to circle the store to find things, because they just rearranged the entire store, and a couple of the items are things you've never purchased before and you don't know where they'd be found... yeah. It was annoying.

So I finished up there and when I got outside, it was snowing. Fan freakin-tastic.

At this point it was like 6:20pm and I felt like I was making decent time, but that didn't account for the weather or stupid drivers or anything.

On my way back to the grocery store, I got a text from a friend that I've been helping out a few times a week since she had twins like 2 months ago. I kind of just go over and hold one of the babies, give them a bottle, and rock them to sleep. Sometimes we schmooze, sometimes I chat with the other kiddos.

Usually I reach out to her when I know I have time in the evening and see if she could use the extra hands that night and there have been a few times where she declined, but otherwise it's usually a huge help. But last night she texted me, which said to me that she really needed the assist, so I decided I'd push of the work stuff a little bit and I'd go help her. But first I needed to get to the grocery store.

I arrived at the store at about 6:45pm.

My list included 5 things.

AN HOUR LATER, I finally got the groceries into the car.

And why, pray tell, did it take AN HOUR for FIVE things?

I'll give you three guesses.

But my favorite part of the whole exercise was that, after driving me crazy zig-zagging the store, while I was picking out the second of three "one last thing" for MLH, and I was trying to clarify which one she wanted, she messaged me "Okay, I'm suffering from texting fatigue so I'm going to hang up now. Just blow up the phones when you're in the neighborhood"

Just so you're reading this correctly:

WHILE I was messaging her a question for clarification about an item SHE asked for, she messaged me that she would not be responding to any more messages.

FMMFL

I sent my message anyway, and it took her two minutes to respond. Which, by the way, when you're standing in a grocery store in front of a display, waiting for an answer, IS AN ETERNITY.

I asked her how many she wanted and ANOTHER TWO MINUTES ticked by before she answered again.

But whatever. I got the last last thing, and finished up at the store.

I got outside in the 12 degree weather and loaded all the groceries into the car and notified them I was back so they could come get the stuff from the car.

BigSis came and got the groceries, but she wasn't waiting when I pulled up, so I had to start pulling everything out of the car before she got there, which was annoying. It was almost 8pm and she had known she had to be ready and waiting for over 2 hours already.

But whatever. She took all the groceries and headed inside, while I headed "back to work." (No, I have not told either of them about the help I've been giving this friend.)

Just so it wasn't a total lie, and also because I had to go to the bathroom, I actually ran by the place where I work for a minute before heading over to my friend's house. I figured I'd be there for like an hour, but I didn't end up leaving until like 11:30pm. Part of that was on me, because they hired a night nurse to help with the babies and she and I got to schmoozing for like a half an hour. lol

But I still had to take care of a couple of things at work and grab my stuff, so I headed over there and took care of a few things before heading home.

I got home around 2am.

I walked into the apartment and HALF THE GROCERIES WERE STILL NOT PUT AWAY.

And yes, MLH and BS were already asleep.

There's been an egg shortage because of avian flu or whatever, so one of the items I wanted from the store that's like 20 minutes away was eggs because I saw it was in stock on their website. I got five dozen because MLH increased the amount that I'd had in the cart. AND THEY WERE STILL SITTING OUT.

Now, please keep in mind, I live in the USA, where eggs are washed as part of the "processing" and therefor have to be refrigerated.

And I had done that shopping like EIGHT HOURS PRIOR.

And yes, it was like 3 degrees outside, but these were sitting out in the living room while our heat was running.

WTAF

Granted, our fridge was (chasdei Hashem) pretty full, so upon opening it there didn't seem to be much room, but this is why we played tetris as children, you guys. In less than five minutes I was able to rearrange things so that the eggs all fit, as did the four quarts of chicken broth and bag of 10 chicken breasts that were all defrosting on the counter (just in a bag on top of the drying rack because, I guess, we're all about cross contamination now???).

If I could do that in less than five minutes WTF IS THEIR EXCUSE!? THEY HAD HOURS TO DO THIS.

Somehow when I do the grocery shopping myself and it's all on me to take care of, everything gets put away 99.9% of the time in a timely manner. Yet, when I require their assistance, they do the barest of minimums.

Sure, the two other perishable and some vegetables were put away, but literally everything else was just sitting on the table.

Not only that, but there were dirty dishes all over the counters. And I had gotten chicken bones to make new chicken broth to replace the ones we had pulled from the freezer (yes, I know how stupid this sounds, but initially we weren't going to get new chicken bones for broth so it was just going to be the ones from the freezer, except that the bones were on sale so it made sense to get them now), and we always filter our water before cooking, but there was no prepped water for the broth.

And this could literally have been solved with some simple communication like "hey, so the fridge is pretty full and I can't seem to make room for the eggs; what can I take out that you'll eat/use tonight" Or, I dunno, literally just put stuff on our balcony which gets like 1 minute of sunlight a day, and at least during the night would function as a fridge/freezer.

So at 2am, having not eaten anything practically at all the entire day aside from coffee and like 2/3 of a protein bar, I needed to TETRIS things about so that food doesn't go bad and cook the chicken broth which required going to MLH's room multiple times while she was sleeping, because stupidly that's where the water filter is, just so I could set up the broth to simmer overnight.

I'm so damn tired.

And that doesn't even include the rest of the cooking.

For guests that I'm just too tired to deal with tonight.

This was supposed to be a simple Shabbos. Our menu was literally soup and chicken with like one veggie side dish. For 3 people.

Now it's a whole thing with multiple dishes and larger quantities for 11 people.

Yet I'M the one who gets blamed for being "a poor communicator" and of course I get that "from your father."

WTF. WTAF.

And yeah, maybe I'm not always the best communicator in the world, which is why I'm an advocate for couples therapy. I think, especially in this world, before getting married all couples should go take a class on how to communicate well with each other to build the foundation of their relationship on the solid ground of understanding each other.

I crave that so badly for my own life, yet this is the crap I deal with all the damn time.

The number of times I've had to exasperatedly say "ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS ASK!!!!!" probably numbers in the thousands at this point.

Would I still be too tired to make Shabbos? Yeah, probably. But if I'd been included in the conversation about having the MomOfMany family, maybe I wouldn't have been blindsided, which has its own emotional ripple effect. Maybe we'd have worked out another, simpler menu. Maybe a lot of things.

It literally starts with just the simplest, barest modicum of decency. The most basic of communication.

I'm sorry this is the life and baggage I come from, my dear future husband. I hope we can get past this.

-LivelyHeart

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

Let's Get Medical, Medical 🎶

Dear Future Husband,

I normally don't talk about these things with anyone, but I think I'm at a point where I need to just lay it all out there.

My body is a mess.

And nobody knows why.

Just a heads up, I will be talking about female reproductive health here. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

I started writing this a month ago, but life and times got in the way, so here's where I started, and I'll update where needed:

Let's shuffle back in time a bit....

My siblings and I were all born with a lot of hair, but apparently mine was impressive for some reason. My mom had a friend who would say something like "the girl is 2 but her hair is 16!"

Which is to say that it was super noticeable when I started to lose my hair as a teenager. Mostly because by the time I was 16, my hair was as thin as a 2yo's.

Did that lady make an ayin hara? Or is it just life being life? Who even knows.

Between food allergies, migraines, obesity, emotional neglect, meal skipping, chronic stress, anxiety, and depression... it's kind of shocking I even made it to teenagehood.

Yet, there I was - 16 years old, having never had a period, obese, and losing my hair. Also I had noticeable strands of gray hair.

I was tested for anemia and that came back negative. So MotherLivelyHeart dragged me around to a few specialists who did exams and blood work, and one even tested a birth control pill on me to see if they could diagnose or rule out PCOS.

Everything came back inconclusive.

And because I was surrounded by a lot of shrugging adults and nobody pushed for real answers, everything was just kind of dropped.

When I was in seminary, away from my family for a year+, eating 3 meals a day with my peers, and walking everywhere, I actually ended up starting and maintaining a fairly regular cycle. And I lost some major weight, which I'm sure helped.

But I was manipulated into coming back and starting college immediately. Manipulated into thousands of dollars worth of student loan debt. And I was living at home again with my dysfunctional family. Fun.

My cycle stopped again in under 2 years. And over those first like 6-7 years I gained all that weight back, despite eating a balanced diet high in vegetables, whole grains, and protein. The meal-skipping probably didn't help.

It's been about 10 years since then and if I actually kept track, I could probably count the number of periods I've had on two hands.

But because I'm a mess of a human, I haven't actually tracked that properly. And at this point, if some kind of spotting I had over the summer wasn't an actual period, it's probably been 2+ years since I've had one.

Because of the lack of proper menses, the hair loss, the obesity that's hard to lose, and some significant facial hair (particularly on the chin that end up as in-grown hairs that lead to acne), the presumed diagnosis has always been somewhere in the range of PCOS, despite all the results coming back inconclusive.

Now, I'll be honest - not having a period doesn't really bother me. It probably should, but it means I don't have to deal with monthly mood swings (I deal with enough mental anguish as it is), and I don't have to spend money on pads or tampons or anything, which makes whatever this condition is pretty budget friendly for someone who's barely making it by paycheck-to-paycheck.

The biggest thing that bothers me is the hair-loss. I hate it. I hate how I look. I hate how I feel. I hate how people stare. I hate how everyone questions it. And I hate that I live in a community where only married women cover their hair, so if I cover mine I get comments on the covering.

I literally had a conversation with a woman at work a couple of years ago (stop me if I've told you this before) who asked me what my maiden name was and when I told her lightheartedly "oh, I'm not married, I'm just wearing a hat" she berated me for "being deceptive" and "lying to people."

As though I was doing it davka to offend her and not for my own self-esteem.

Yeah. She can take a long walk off a short peer.

Since I've gotten with this new doctor this year, we discussed ruling out or getting a formal diagnosis for PCOS. So I've had multiple blood tests.

And wouldn't you know...

All inconclusive.

Again.

In fact, as the doctor put it to me when I saw her in person, "it's almost abnormal how normal your bloodwork is."

Well, isn't that a relief.

It's concerning how unconcerning my results are.

Fascinating.

Aside from elevated liver enzymes (fatty liver - a family trait), low vitamin d (I'm now on a supplement), and high cholesterol (I think that's a relatively new thing because of some other things I was doing this year)... every other result came back almost smack dab in the normal range.

One of the other things she had me do for the PCOS diagnosis was get a trans-vaginal ultrasound.

I wanted to die.

I don't even like to see my own naked body, let alone let anyone else see it. Let alone insert anything into it.

The last time I'd seen anyone for anything below the belt like that was around 2007, I think. And that doctor did a gynecological exam in a brightly lit room, with my legs spread wide open.

As a minor.

I wanted to die.

So I thought this was going to be the same type of situation. But shock of all shocks, it was almost like going to a spa. The room was dimly lit with warm lighting and beautiful paintings on the walls.

The sonogram tech walked me through how the whole procedure works, she had me use the bathroom to fully empty my bladder, and then back in the room she handed me a sheet to cover myself and situate myself on the table, and then...

She instructed me to insert the f***** thing into myself.

I wanted to die.

"You need to do it because you can tell what's most comfortable for you," she says to the mid-30s woman who has never had sex a day in her life.... "I'm going to put some lubricant on it and hand it to you under the sheet, insert it into yourself and when you're comfortable, I'll take over."

She was very nice, very respectful, and the whole thing was over relatively quickly without her seeing any of my nether regions.

But I still wanted to drive into a brick wall when I left.

Especially because, although the appointment didn't take that long, the hospital had recently moved the department to another "zone" of their campus and google led me to the old entrance, so I parked in the wrong parking garage and had to trek 10-15 minutes through the hospital each way to/from my car and ended up overshooting the free 1 hour parking by like 6 minutes, and I forgot to ask for validation, so I had to pay for parking.

But I digress...

The results of that ultrasound came back and there was no evidence of PCOS on my ovaries. In fact, quite the opposite. Not only were there no cysts, but the ovaries for people with PCOS are apparently usually larger and mine are on the smaller side. Also there were no visible follicles.

Lack of visible follicles can usually be attributed to a hormone imbalance, but... my hormones are all in the normal ranges.

So yet again, everything is inconclusive.

And none of it makes any sense.

The last thing of note from that exam was that my endometrium is a bit on the thicker side and has an irregular texture.

This means that I now have a gyno appointment in a month for further exam and a pap smear.

I want to die.

I don't think I can fully express to you how visceral my body reacts to even thinking about these appointments. I literally want to throw myself out a window.

But whatever. It was one moment in my life and I can forget it ever happened, right? These people are professionals. They do this all the time for countless individuals. I'm one of a billion and they'll never remember me.

"But what if they do......?"

Yeah, I can't shut my brain off.

In addition to all of that, I attempted to get a celiac diagnosis because I've been off of gluten for almost a decade now because even a 1/4tsp of pasta water sent my stomach into convulsions.

And yet.... in order to do the celiac testing I've had to eat gluten every single day for about two months and not only did the antibody results come back negative, but I've been able to eat gluten every day for two months without pain.

I also did the genetic blood test and that came back with only one of two markers for celiac, so yet again negative/inconclusive results.

Nobody knows why for almost a decade I had to avoid gluten.

Nobody knows why all of a sudden I can eat it again with no problems.

NOTHING MAKES SENSE.

It's like when you take the car to the mechanic and describe the insane noise it's been making for the last week and the mechanic turns it on and it won't make the noise.

I can describe in great detail all the issues I have but from a scientific standpoint, all my blood markers say I'm relatively normal and healthy.

Other things have been upsetting my digestive system, so the doctor also wants me to see a gastrointestinal doctor.

Which means more probes. And probably a colonoscopy. Fantastic.

And I have to get glasses.

And I have to get the fillings that were just refilled for the first time since like 2009 rechecked because I'm having sensitivity in one of those teeth.

And figure out what the hell is wrong with my feet.

And maybe see an audiologist or neurologist to figure out why I have tinnitus in my 30s.

And then probably see a dermatologist to determine what the hell is causing the hair loss because after all of this, if it's not a hormone imbalance and isn't associated with PCOS, "it's probably alopecia" which doesn't explain why it came along with delayed puberty, underdevelopment, and is more like male pattern baldness....

Because FML, right?

Because everything is wrong and nobody knows why.

On paper, I'm a healthy individual.

In reality, I haven't had a proper menstrual cycle in like 15 years, I'm wildly overweight, and have almost no hair on my head.

The wild thing about this state of "infertility" is that it would be nice to have a diagnosis. It would be nice to have an explanation. It would be nice to know why this is happening and have a clear path as to how to fix it.

But I don't have that.

I have vagueties. (Is that a word?)

And the vagueties are what allow room for miracles. Because Hashem works in the gray areas.

Ok, here's the life and times update:

So, since I started writing this a month ago, the appointment with the gyno was actually yesterday.

And I'm an idiot.

I scheduled my whole life to be there at 3pm, assuming that the 2:45pm I had put on my calendar was me factoring in an additional 15 minutes for traffic and paperwork or whatever, but it turns out that's when the appointment started. And after dealing with stupid traffic and everything, I walked in at 2:57pm.

Because I'm an idiot.

The gynecologist is super nice and super pretty, which sucks. Why does a pretty person have to look at my ugly body?

We did the initial "tell me about your life" stuff (kind of rushing through which I didn't realize was my own damn fault) during which she mentioned that she would probably diagnose me with PCOS but she wants new tests just to double check everything.

Apparently there's something called the Rotterdam Criteria for PCOS, which she recommended I look up. Turns out it's essentially the same criteria I had discussed with my primary doctor, but without the fancy terminology, yet my primary came to the conclusion it wasn't PCOS.

So... huh?

The criteria are:

Irregular menses Menstrual cycles that are shorter than 21 days, longer than 35 days, or fewer than eight cycles in a year 

Hyperandrogenism Elevated levels of testosterone, DHEA-S, or clinical signs like acne, hirsutism, or alopecia 

Polycystic ovaries At least 12 ovarian follicles measuring 2–9 mm in diameter in one ovary, or an ovarian volume of more than 10 mL in one ovary 

And for diagnosis, 2 of the three are required.

My primary doctor's conclusion was based on no polycysts on the ovaries and my hormones coming back normal.

My gynecologist, however, said that since I have things like the hair issues, that's a clear indication of hormone imbalance, even if when tested the hormones are coming back normal.

I literally don't understand the science of medicine.

Either way, that's what we're looking at diagnosing now.

Again.

Then she sent me off to an exam room, instructing me to "get fully undressed, put on the gown and tie it in front, and sit up on the table with the sheet across your lap."

Fun.

And I guess it makes sense that the exam room has to be sterile and brightly lit.

But I still wanted to die.

Like, you talk about vulnerable positions to be in, but damn. Being an ugly human, mostly naked in a brightly lit room, legs open wide with a beautiful lady poking around your nether regions... this is immediately something I want to erase from my brain as something I've done in my life.

"I know this is uncomfortable, but just remember I do this every day, so it's not as uncomfortable for me."

*super awkward laugh of "ok, that literally doesn't make me feel better but thanks"*

She did the pap smear and a breast exam (which I didn't even know gynecologists do, but I guess you learn something new every day, eh?) and I should note that she asked me if I wanted each of those things, so I did consent to them, despite neither being strictly necessary.

For those who don't know, a pap smear is a test they do to check for cervical cancer. Which is primarily associated with the HPV virus, which is generally spread by sexual contact in that region.

Reminder: I have never had sexual contact in that region.

Here's the fun explanation I found online of what they do: A speculum is inserted into the vagina to widen it. Then, a brush is inserted into the vagina to collect cells from the cervix. The cells are checked under a microscope for signs of disease.

She said she didn't see me as being a high candidate for the virus or for that type of cancer, and that as I'm an adult woman I have the right to say no, but she would recommend it just to be able to check the overall health of the region and rule things out.

According to the internet, a pap smear may be uncomfortable, but it should not hurt. For some reason, for me, it stung. I have literally no idea why. As I'm writing this, it's been over 12 hours and I'm still having mild discomfort in that region. So, that's fun.

Maybe it's cuz I've never had sex before and don't make a habit of sticking things down there that stretch the space open? I have no clue. She didn't seem all that concerned, despite me clearly stating it was stinging. So maybe it's just nothing.

She didn't spend a lot of time down there, so I'm not sure how much of an exam she actually did aside from the pap smear part, but after informing me that my breast tissue feels normal, which is a good sign, she sent me off down the hall for some blood work, then I scheduled a follow up for two weeks from now to discuss results, and that was really the end of the visit.

At this point, I have no idea what the future holds.

When we were doing the patient history portion of our conversation she clarified with me that I wasn't and hadn't been pregnant and then she asked if I would like to be.

And I honestly didn't know how to answer that.

Because I honestly don't know.

I joked that I don't mind so much not having to deal with periods like my friends and family members, especially because my family members get crazy when hormones factor in, which obviously happens around that time of the month.

But that's not a real answer.

On the one hand, I would love to know what it feels like to carry a child inside me. To have a child literally built out of love. To hold that baby in my arms and know that I worked so hard to bring that being into life. To see which of my features this tiny human has.

On the other hand, I don't want to repopulate my genetics. I don't know how my body will respond to the stress of a developing human. I don't know if I have the emotional or physical strength to be a mother. And I don't know if I want to raise children is this screwed up world that seems to be getting worse every single day.

And I don't know if you, my dear future husband, actually exist or if this is all just a hypothetical anyway.

Every day of my life right now is one step closer to 40 years old.

And in the great scheme of things, especially in this age where people are living older and we still bless "to 120," 40 years is literally just the first third of life. That's not even middle aged. Yet at the same time, being a first-time parent at 40 is tough. Especially when you consider that the body starts breaking down at that point and my body is already a mess. I've felt like I'm 80 years old since I was like 8 years old. I guess if that age were accurate I'd be closer to 120 already....

And I'm still dealing with financial problems.

And family problems.

And emotional problems.

And the world just flat out suuuuuucks right now.

And I still don't see an escape from any of this.

So... do I want to get pregnant?

I guess in an ideal world, yeah.

In a realistic world, I would say "that's up to Hashem" except that it seems that "up to Hashem" is my body not functioning in a way conducive to having children, so I guess that's my answer.

They say that every single problem you could possibly have in life can be found in the Torah. And barrenness is something that afflicted 3/4 of our imahos as well as Chana, all of whom eventually bore their own children.

But I'm not a Sarah, I'm not a Rivka, I'm not a Rachel, and I'm not a Chana. And I don't see how knowing that they were able to have natural children when I still know some amazing women who haven't is supposed to make me feel better about my circumstances.

Women are supposedly on a higher spiritual plane than men. We're supposed to be more in tune with our neshamos, with our connection to Hashem, which is what allows us to be the bearers of new life.

What does that say about me? My connection to Hashem sucks and this doesn't really make it better.

I know everyone has a different role in life, and some aren't meant to marry or have children because they wouldn't be able to accomplish what they're sent here to accomplish with those commitments in their lives.

But some people seem to be able to accomplish great things while juggling staying healthy and having a family and working high powered jobs, etc.

And I suck at literally the bare minimum. Literally just existing sucks for me.

And knowing that "my role" isn't "their role" and "that's ok" doesn't make me feel better about any of it.

But it's almost 6am and I'm awake for no reason and heading off on tangents of mental health sadness while the whole point of this was just the physical stuff.

Oh! And speaking of physical stuff, I literally forgot to mention that when I went to get the blood work done, I got a medical text telling me to schedule an appointment. It said "advanced radiology" and stupid me just closed the text, thinking it was for the blood work which was what I was already doing.

But no.

Apparently the gyno put me down for ANOTHER transvaginal ultrasound.

And by the time I realized that, the doctor's office was already closed so I couldn't ask her about that, because we went over the fact I'd had that done recently and didn't recall her mentioning I'd need another one.

So FML.

#1 thing on today's to-do list.

Fun.

So anyways, that's where we're at now. I either might have PCOS or definitely not have PCOS. Regardless, I will probably have to be poked and prodded yet again in regions of my body I'd rather forget exist. All to get a diagnosis for something that may or may not be meaningful, depending on whether I can figure out if having children is something I ever even want to do in this life.

And I don't know. I just don't know.

I'd say I'd leave that up to Hashem, but He's the reason I'm fat, ugly, balding, unmarried, and childless now, so.... that's helpful.

-LivelyHeart

Edited to add: I contacted the gyno and it turns out the second sonogram was ordered by mistake. Good thing I contacted her and didn't just schedule the exam!

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

I Need To Eat Something

Dear Future Husband,

Tomorrow is a fast day but I’ve accidentally been fasting today.

It’s just been one of those, “I’ll do it in an hour” days where one hour turns in 12 and I still haven’t eaten anything.

It’s also been just a flat out annoying day.

We were snowed in for a few days, so today was my first day back at work this week and I have the flexibility to set my own schedule, so I picked a timeframe that would work for most people and told them to come then.

But today MotherLivelyHeart had a day off of work for some odd reason, and instead of going out and taking care of anything for Shabbos, she decided to stay in, so all the errands were left to me.

I don’t generally mind that, it’s kind of my Thursday routine to do the shopping for Shabbos+ after work, but we had decided yesterday that Shabbos was going to be food we already have in the freezer and there wouldn’t be any shopping (or not much) for Shabbos this week.

But BigSis had to go and upset the plans because the thing we were going to eat apparently makes her gassy. Except that a lot of things make her gassy and she doesn’t refrain from eating those, so why couldn’t this Shabbos be any different from normal?

So instead, it was decided we would do soup, chicken, and salad, all of which required ingredients we didn’t have at home. So shopping for this week went from like $10 to about $250.

This also meant that my plan to come home after work and not shop in the 0 degree windy weather was shot to hell.

But prior to that, although I had told people a specific time I'd be at the work for them to stop by, MLH needed me to run two of the errands she had all day to run but didn't, and of course didn't tell me this until I was about to head out to work. FML.

So I ran the two errands which should have been like 15 minutes but ended up being FOURTY. I was almost an hour late to work, almost an hour later than I had told multiple people I would be because my mother couldn't run these errands earlier.

And the most frustrating thing is that it was only two stops, one on the way to the other and then back home. A trip that should have taken 20 minutes MAX.

But is that my luck? I'm sure we can all figure the answer to that one...

You see, there are two basic routes to get to the first place. Heading on the main road, I have two options where I can make a left turn and both of those streets take me to a parallel main road where I make a right to get to the first location:

I usually do option A. But for some stupid reason, I went with option B today. And option B presented me with something fun - you see at the second intersection on this route, the one up near the B, there is a turning lane that allows for right-turn on red, which keeps the traffic flowing because it's a one-lane road. But on this particular day, there was something going on with trucks from the city and they had cones blocking off JUST that turning lane. Which meant that whether the traffic would go straight through the intersection, make a left, or make a right, we were all waiting in the same line and it seemed like everyone wanted to make a left, which meant waiting for traffic coming from the opposite end to stop, and although there's hardly any traffic from that direction, today there was a lot. I was there for at least two cycles of the light.

After I turned, I ended up behind the slowest driver on the planet who couldn't decide where (or if) they wanted to turn. There were two intersections between that turn and my first destination and I got both red lights.

But whatever, I got the stuff for MLH and headed back, and that same intersection where the turning lane had been closed off WAS OPEN AGAIN. Which means it was solely an obstacle to make me late. (yes, I'm aware it served another purpose, whatever that was, but remember that Hashem orchestrates everything and takes everyone's inconvenience into account when doing so, and I was doing kibbud em, which is why I was almost an hour late to work.)

Because I was late, some of the people who I'd been in touch with weren't able to come get the things they needed. So that was great.

I stayed a few hours later than I'd originally planned so that I could take care of a few things that I was originally going to wait to do next week, but I wasn't on a time crunch, so it didn't really matter.

Or did it.

Because shortly before 8pm, MotherLivelyHeart messaged asking where I was. I told her I was still at work and then this exchange followed:

I didn't even want to respond to that last one.

Must I remind you that I'm an adult in my mid 30s?

Regardless, I headed to the store to do the Shabbos shopping like 10 minutes later, after MLH had sent and refined a shopping list.

Aside from it being like zero degrees outside and my hands drying out like little raisins just walking to the car, that part of my night was relatively uneventful.

But MLH stayed in pajamas today because she wasn’t working or going out, and BS gets into pajamas as soon as she gets home from work around 3pm. So I not only have to shop in the freezing cold (my hands were frozen INSIDE the store, and when I packed the groceries into the car, the wind was whipping up), but then I had to get out of the car so I could go get one of our building’s wagons, load the groceries into it and bring it inside, run back out to park the car in our space, come in and schlep the groceries up to our apartment, unload the groceries, and take the wagon back by myself because they “can't really help - we're not dressed.”

And, like, it's not normally the biggest deal because I do that kind of schlepping all the time, but it was zero degrees outside today and they didn't even offer to help. They didn't even put away the groceries (they RARELY assist with that too). I had to do that.

(But when MLH does the shopping she 9/10 times “needs” help putting everything away and usually uses the line “I want you to see what I got so there are no questions later.” Which never actually prevents questions later….)

But here’s the thing, majority of the day outside of work, MLH and BS have headphones in and “hold on! I have to pause!” before either of them can answer a simple question. It’s infuriating, particularly because I make it a point to only have one headphone in when I’m not by myself, and I rewind whatever I was listening to, if need be. More times than not, I respond immediately to any interaction directed my way without the need to wave my arms and shriek like a banshee “hold on! hold on! …what do you want?!”

So I come in from doing the shopping, and instead of recognizing I'm there and automatically pausing what they're listening to in order to interact with me, they both just kind of nod and go back to their screens.

But a bunch of things I purchased were for MLH, so I went over to discuss two of them and had to wait while "hold on! hold on! hold on!"ed me (despite me standing there silently waiting for her as I always do). I walked back out of her room and less than a minute later, started to tell her about one of the other things I got and she started yelling “hold on! hold on! you know I’m listening to something!”

Which, no, I did not, actually, I thought we were in the middle of a conversation about the groceries.

She was like “I have to get up early tomorrow! I’m trying to wind down now! Whatever you got is FINE! Please! I just - we can talk tomorrow.”

This is my stupid life.

I can't even have normal conversations with these people I live with. It's exhausting.

But maybe I'm just blowing this crap out of proportion.

Maybe it's just that my blood sugar is low.

Maybe I just need to eat something.

-LivelyHeart

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

I'm A Bad Jew

Dear Future Husband,

"Of all the 613 Mitzvos in the Torah, which one is your favorite and why?"

That's the question that led to my mother crying on Shabbos.

Or maybe not so much the question as the conversation that came after it...

Did she have the right to be the one crying?

I feel like I should have when she took the opportunity to get in my way erev Shabbos and tell me to my face that my "inability to tell time" is a trait I get "from your father."

On the rare occasions she mentions him, she doesn't use his name. She uses vague terms like "him," calls him Mr. LastName or she refers to him as "your father."

She knows I don't speak to this man.

She knows some of the major issues that I have with this man.

And yet, anytime she has a problem with something I do, she's the first to loudly point out that it's a trait I get from my father.

Like, ok...? I'm so sorry I share genetics with him when I totally wouldn't if you hadn't married him and had children with him in the first place???

Like, I'm so sorry I lived in the same house with him and was basically trained from birth in the dysfunctional mess you two created for all of us?

Like, I'm so sorry my patterning is half HIS but also, WTF because you don't always have the best time-telling skills either, which you ADMIT to us several times a year....

Honestly.

She looked at me after she said this, like she wanted me to respond. But respond HOW? How on earth do you respond to a condemnation like that? It's borderline harassment, if you think about it.

Then she added that MyBro "had the same time-telling problem when he was younger. Somehow he's been able to grow out of it. I'm not sure how he did it, but he's doing great."

MyBro, who I speak to almost as much as myfather, because he's separated himself from this asinine dysfunction and somehow rebuilt a relationship with MotherLivelyHeart but couldn't really care less about the rest of us (yet somehow it's my responsibility to reach out to him and connect? "just don't close that door on him." HONEY, HE'S THE ONE WHO SLAMMED IT SHUT BEHIND HIM. He's literally said to us that family is meaningless and only reaches out when he needs something we can provide for cheap or free)

But I didn't cry. When she left the room, I rolled my eyes and cursed under my breath and then I moved on. It was erev Shabbos, after all, and there was too much to do...

So how exactly did that question lead to her crying on Shabbos?

Well, let's backtrack a smidge:

Despite my complicated relationship with Hashem, there are certain times of the year that I feel like indulging in secular content is not exactly ideal and I try to avoid it, Chanukah being one of them.

To fill my time I usually watch stuff like Aleph Beta, various shiurim on TorahAnytime or youtube, and listen to Jewish music.

This year, I started listening to the Living L'Chaim podcast on youtube. Yaakov Langer has some really fascinating interviews, and that was most of what I listened to and watched during the week of Chanukah.

At the end of each of his interviews, YL has a few questions he usually asks everyone, one of which is some variation on "of all the 613, which is your favorite mitzvah?"

And, as us delusional people often do, every time he presented that question, I would ponder it as though I were the one being interviewed and asked (despite having nothing of note to be interviewed about and being mortified of having my face and name out in the real world doing something like that...).

But I digress.... I didn't really have an answer for myself.

Which one of the 613 is my favorite?

How do I choose one I like the most when for the most part I wish I wasn't even alive on this planet or in this world at all? I have so few interests in life in general, so few things I feel remotely connected with, and now you're asking me which of my religious parameters I like the most?

But that's just me, obviously. Sad little me.

One of the answers I did hear quite a few times for that question from these interviews, though, was "Shabbos!" or "Of course, Shabbos!"

And every time I heard that answer, my face would automatically jump from its natural resting state into what I'm sure is a look of disdain, before morphing into a more dubious frown.

And I would wonder "do these people truly feel this way or is it just the first thing that comes to mind?" Or maybe even "there's no way that's true... maybe they're saying that because they think that's the expected answer..." Or even "that response just makes them sound holier than they truly are/feel."

Now, obviously, all of these thoughts and reactions are quite negative and most likely untrue. But I can't help it; I'm a skeptic.

So fast forward to this past Shabbos....

On Friday night, we ended up with a dilemma. You see, the food I made for Shabbos lunch was meat with what ended up being a very loose sauce (unintentionally). And that's all I made for Shabbos lunch. A one-dish meal with quite a lot of (basically) liquid.

So the dilemma was whether or not we were allowed to warm this dish up for Shabbos lunch, because we use an electric warmer as a blech, which apparently has the same status as a flame with a metal plate over it.

Of course this question came up after we finished Shabbos dinner, when we realized that the liquid hadn't solidified at all when we went to put it in the fridge (it baked until after candle lighting and had to cool). Also I have no idea where the rav we'd ask even lives, not that I could really get to him because I don't trust the "shabbos door" our building has (long story). And I don't know anyone healthy in our building we could even ask a shaila like that to. So... it was a real-life on-Shabbos dilemma.

After MLH and BS went to bed, I found a Shabbos melacha book on our shelf that had an answer - don't warm it up. And unfortunately, this was not a nuanced answer with all possibilities, so it didn't say anything like "the sauce can't be heated but the meatballs can" or "removing the meatballs from the sauce is separating, so you can't warm up any part of it at all." So even after learning that the sauce was most likely too liquidy to be warmed up, there was still no clear directive on what exactly we could do. Because YayTorah. Also, it was like 28 degrees outside on Shabbos day. But based on my understanding of what I read, one of the biggest issues with warming foods up on Shabbos is really just maris ayin (giving the impression of wrongdoing that would influence others to sin) - and in this case the maris ayin would be someone glancing over and thinking that we're cooking and then thinking it's ok for them to cook on Shabbos. But here's the thing - NOBODY COOKS ON A FRICKIN WARMING TRAY. Also we didn't have anyone over or come by on Shabbos, but regardless, IT'S A FRICKIN WARMING TRAY, NOT A STOVE TOP OR OVEN. Ok, granted there may be a minority of people who do actually cook directly on a warming tray, but the grand majority of people who use a warming tray do not cook with it! It's literally in the name - warming tray! Then you get into the whole complication of "how liquid is the liquid" because you can't warm up soup, but technically a gravy is fine, despite the fact that gravy changes its state when heated while soup does not. But it has to do more with the preferred way to eat the liquid, which, OF COURSE PEOPLE WANT HOT FOOD. THAT APPLIES TO MOST FOODS.

Adding to that, I forgot to cut an avocado before Shabbos started and wanted to make guacamole because I'm on a weird diet again and avocado is one of the things that's supposed to be fine. But apparently you can't remove the pit from the avocado (and some even say you can't separate the skin from the fruit) without it being considered the prohibition of separating, so I had to attempt to "oops" the pit out of the avocado, which really just resulted in me nudging it harder than I should have, which means I probably just violated the separation rule. So FML.

And, honestly, in case you can't tell, I was super frustrated.

So there we were, sitting at the Shabbos table on Friday night, dinner basically over, and somehow we ended up on the topic of some of the interviews I've been listening to, and I asked MotherLivelyHeart the question, curious to hear her answer.

"Of all the 613 mitzvos, which is your favorite?"

And before giving her answer, she wanted to know what a lot of these people tend to answer, so I told her that a lot of them say "Shabbos."

And I said that weird because it prompted her to ask "and is that your answer?"

To which I basically grimaced and said, probably stronger than I intended, "NO."

And she was shocked by this information. So instead of giving me her answer, she wanted to know why it wasn't my favorite mitzvah (As though it was supposed to be, cuz I guess it's everyone's?)

So I told her straight up that it's stupid things like the dilemma about being able to warm up the only food I made for Shabbos lunch because of the liquid situation, and literally just cutting an avocado (not to mention it can't be mashed on Shabbos...), that drive me crazy.

I understand not making fires. I understand not building things or making art.

I do not understand things like "hey, the only food you made for a freezing cold day can't be heated up even though it's fully cooked" or "you should look your best today because you're in front of the Shabbos queen but also no, you can not brush your hair or brush your teeth normally, and no, you can not clean that stain that you just got on your pretty dress."

I follow the rules anyway, sure, but I do not understand them.

And they frustrate me beyoooond and I just feel no connection to any of it. Which I told her honestly.

And she wanted to know why.

Dear Lord in Heaven, she wanted to know why.

So I told her what she already knew, that we grew up in dysfunction where the weekdays were already stressful, which just made the time crunch and getting everything cooked and cleaned and ready and sorted and organized and set before the buzzer went off that much most stressful.

And I added how hard it was to live so far away from any of our friends (if we even had any, but I didn't mention that uncomfortable tidbit...) which meant that Shabbos always meant forced time spent at home with the same people who caused me stress during the week, except with very few distractions because meals together were mandatory and we couldn't watch/read anything*.

There were so many other things I could have mentioned about what made that day so stressful and unenjoyable, but I refrained. I actually tried to limit my response to things that were common knowledge so that she wouldn't feel extra bad.

But regardless, MotherLivelyHeart went right into her whole "I'm sorry I couldn't impress on you how beautiful Shabbos truly is.... I'm a terrible mother...." shtick. Because I guess it was the beauty of Shabbos that drew her to yiddishkeit in the first place?

She said, "well, it must have been better in seminary, right?"

To which I again made a face and responded, "no! If anything, it was worse!"

Of course, she wanted to know why, which I again explained to her as something she already knew about because I'd talked about this before - in seminary we were not allowed to stay in our apartments for Shabbos.

The school wanted us to go out, meet people, and see how other people live and make Shabbos meaningful.

At least, that's what I assume because it was never actually explained to us...

But it was the same for pretty much every other seminary I've ever heard of - girls are required to make Shabbos plans.

And yet... welcome to the frum double standards - the boys yeshivas (at least all that I've heard of) have never required the boys to make Shabbos plans outside of their schools.

But of course, the rabbeim at the yeshivas try to encourage the boys to go out for Shabbos and see the world and meet people, so when the girls need places for Shabbos but aren't allowed to be at the same Shabbos table as the boys, and the families are already having boys (who are not mandated to go anywhere for Shabbos), the girls have a super hard time finding places to go.

"Well, if you can't find a place, just use the sign up and the school will assign you to a family."

I did that twice. And Lordy, Lord, Lord, Lord, if those Shabboses weren't the most awkward, disjointed, dysfunctional, unhealthy, weird Shabboses of my entire life, outside of my own family. I don't know who vetted those people but they shouldn't be having anyone over ever. (Maybe I'll share stories another time.)

Either way, every single week for 10 months (not including the chagim, which was an additional challenge!), we had to find places to go for Shabbos.

EVERY. SINGLE. WEEK.

Regardless of the stress of school work and projects and trips, etc, we had to then make dozens of phone calls and hope to God that after finally getting a yes for meals that included sleeping accommodations, that we wouldn't get a call on Wednsday or Thursday telling us someone had gotten sick or something and we would have to find a new place.

Then we had to make sure we had the funds for gifts, buses or taxis, and after fighting with dozens of girls over just a few available showers, make sure our clothes were clean after fighting with dozens of girls over just a few available washing machines, that we had enough time to get to where we needed to be (early enough to help, but not too early to be a hindrance, and definitely not late enough that we'd miss the proper transportation to get there), that we didn't forget anything, etc.

EVERYYYYYY WEEEEEEEEEEEK**

NEWS FLASH TO ALL THE SEMINARIES: THIS IS NOT A WAY TO FOSTER LOVE OF SHABBOS

So, no, MotherLivelyHeart. No, seminary did not make Shabbos more special and meaningful for me.

And she told me she was really disappointed and frustrated to hear that, because some of the things I was saying sounded a lot like reasons that MyBro gave for why he went off the derech. And she was basically immediately alarmed that's the direction I'm going in.

So I joked/not-joked that I have too much Jewish guilt to go off the derech and that upset her. FML.

I reminded her that MyBro and I are two different people and while it's unfortunate he found nothing to connect with and just walked away from it all, despite my frustrations, I've found my own things that I connect with that are meaningful.

I don't remember how we kind of segued that conversation to a close, but she said something about me joining her for one of her therapy sessions so that I could "unload" on her. And I was like, "uh, that wasn't unloading" and she went, "that WASN'T!?" And I told her, "honestly, if you think that was unloading, you don't want me to unload."

And she didn't know how to take that.

She was heading to bed anyway, so she closed her door, and less than 10 minutes later, BigSis and I heard her talking to herself (like normal), and sniffling and blowing her nose (not like normal).

So, great, I'm responsible for that now too.

But seriously. She knows about the dysfunction because she lived it! She knows about the stress because she lived it! She knows we didn't have friends in the neighborhood!

If she can't even hear the things she already basically knows without bursting into tears, how would I EVER tell her anything else!? There is no growth, no development, no healing, no conversation to be had, if everything causes her pain and mental spirals.

It's been a few days since that discussion and she hasn't brought it up, but I keep trying to figure out if there is anything I actually enjoy about being Jewish or Torah observant. And I'm not sure there is.

Most of that comes down to not wanting to be alive at all, but in the mental state of "as long as I'm here, I may as well make the best of it," most of the things I like doing aren't even specifically Torah mitzvos.

For example, I enjoy cooking for people. But I wouldn't categorize that as v'ahavta l'reiacha kamocha, which is one of the 613, because if I loved others the way I love myself, I would do way less for them than going out of my way to cook for them. Because I don't love myself and there are days I fast just because I'm not in the mood or mindset to get up and do anything, let alone food prep. So cooking for others would probably just fall into some vague "bein adam l'chavero" or gemilus chassadim thing, neither of which is, strictly speaking, a Torah mitzvah.

Which brings us to - what exactly are the 613 mitzvos?

We talk about that like it's a thing we should all know, but if someone put a gun to my head and said "write all 613 mitzvos or die," I'd be dead in a second.

I literally had to google "what are all the 613 mitzvos." And I thought that maybe if I could read the full list, I'd be able to better understand what I connect to and maybe find what mitzvah is truly my "favorite."

I tried reading the Rambam's Sefer Hamitzvos on Sefaria but even the intro was too wordy, so I pulled up chabad.org and started reading through just a straight up list of the 613 mitzvos. (Which, side note, did you know they had a daily "mitzvah a day" study of the Rambam's sefer, because I didn't until now. I'm not chabad and have some issues with the hashkafos of chabad, but, credit where credit is due, they truly are a fantastic resource.)

I didn't even get to 200 before I was overwhelmed with what I was reading, which sounds pathetic if you actually read them. But, out of context, some of them don't really make sense, so I was following the links over to read what the context of the mitzvah is and then going back to the list, and.... "that was a lot, Robin."

Also, I realized I was doing this without having said birkas hatorah for the day, and I don't even know if I was technically allowed to be reading them without having said the bracha, so that was fun.

Now, I know that some of the mitzvos apply specifically to the Bais Hamikdash or to men or to Kohanim or to Eretz Yisrael or to specific zmanim we don't currently live in (like ones relating to idolatry or prophets, etc), so not all 613 mitzvos will apply to me as a woman in today's world, but I literally only looked on two websites so I don't know if anyone has a filterable list of the mitzvos to figure out which ones apply to me that I could even choose a "favorite" from.

In my head I was joking around that if I was ever asked what my favorite mitzvah was I could sarcastically say something like "oh yeah, my favorite mitzvah is definitely 'Do not pass your children through the fire to Molech'" or something like that. Because while I get what YL is trying to ask his interviewees, most of these mitzvos are so weird or not applicable, so I don't know how anyone being interviewed even really has that many options to pick from.

We look at "mitzvos" as "good deeds" but that's not what they are. They're commandments. They're literally things we're commanded to do and not to do, which include a whole bunch of weird things that are just strict rules, even if they're not technically applicable today.

Gemilus Chassadim are good deeds. I think what YL is really asking is what good deed or positive Torah commandment the interviewees connect with the most, though that's not how it's phrased.

The crazy thing is that you can hear people like Frank Meeink, the neo-Nazi turned Orthodox Jew, talk about how he loves the mitzvos like Kosher, which seem restrictive, because it's a reminder of how Hashem cares about every little part of his life, even what seems inconsequential.

And I'm just here like "does He tho?"

These people who grew up devoid of all of these rules and restrictions and who discovered them later in life and found meaning in them have such a profound connection and I'm just here like "UGH" to most of it.

Maybe that's my gilgul's battle in this life. Maybe I was given a life where everything is frustrating and difficult because I'm supposed to slog through it all and find the meaning in it, to connect with it.

But if that's true, then my neshama has just kinda' noped out of life, because I don't feel the holy spirit inside of me ever. I didn't even feel it as a kid, which is the purest time in a person's life; as a pure little baby neshama, devoid of all sin, I felt stress and anxiety and depression. Where was the holiness then? Where was the love then?

Even at the times I'm most optimistic and feel the desire to do more and learn more, it's always with the caveat that I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It's like feeling full after a good meal but still being worried you don't know where your next meal will come from. Like, yeah, I feel good in this minute, but I'm pretty sure I'll feel like crap later.

Unfortunately, my dear Future Husband, I don't really have a concise conclusion to all of this.

On Shabbos I left the sefer with the "psak" open on the table and someone still warmed up the food on the blech (albeit on top of another pan so it wasn't touching the surface of the warming tray), and despite knowing that I probably shouldn't, I ate it anyway because it was 30 frickin degrees outside and the food was hot.

And I made the guacamole.

And I ran the tap on warm because it was physically painful to use the cold water and I live in a building with non-Jews, so I rationalize myself into a corner of "it's prooooobably fine...."

Which means I was probably oiver on the whole don't do melachos on Shabbos thing.

FML.

They say 30 days before a baby is born a Bas Kol calls out who that neshama is destined to marry. Sometimes I hope you screwed up and married someone else and are happy in your blissful ignorance of my existence.

Cuz at the end of the day, I might be a decent person, but I'm really a bad Jew.

-LivelyHeart

-----

*To be fair, when I was younger we would get library books to read on Shabbos and I think it wasn't until high school or post-HS that I stopped reading secular material on Shabbos, even though my mother decided to try influencing us to stop reading "non-kosher" material on Shabbos when I was probably in middle school... but even if I was still reading secular books on Shabbos and feeling like an apikores, if we didn't have a chance to get to the library, we didn't have many options at home for Shabbos reading. Also, this would lead to "I'll only read these books in the bathroom" which inevitably would lead to being in the bathroom for too long just so I could read, which is obviously unhealthy for so many reasons

**Ok, this one is a slight exaggeration because we did have several shabbatonim with the whole school, specific ones with our mechanchot, and there were the occasional Shabboses we were allowed to stay in our apartments but had to go to our Eim Bayit for meals so they could keep tabs on us or whatever. There was one Shabbos that a few of us had plans cancelled last minute and we couldn't go to our Eim Bayit because they were having boys for both meals, so we made our own little Shabbos in our apartment and it was the most relaxing, lovely Shabbos of the entire year. Literally no stress, we got to hang out with people we liked, didn't have to buy host gifts or stress about travel... We literally lamented we couldn't do that every week.

I asked ChatGPT to put together a list of all the mitzvos that would apply to me as an unmarried woman in today's world (ie, none of the taharas hamishpacha stuff or the kohein, Israel, prophecy, etc stuff) and this is what it came up with:

If I use it as a checklist for my life, I do most of these things, but I don't do them well. And sometimes I just don't care enough to try harder.

I am forever jealous of the people who found this life and find meaning in it, because I was born into it and practically couldn't care less.

If I woke up tomorrow and found out a huge mistake had been made and I'm not actually Jewish, I would not convert. Despite this being my whole frame of reference for life, I would probably just keep the Noahide laws, but up and move to a whole new city where nobody knows me and start fresh.

Because I am just a really bad Jew.

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

Was It Something I Said?

Dear Future Husband,

It’s so weird to figure out someone blocked you and not know why. Like, I’ve literally never interacted with this user. Never even seen their name on this site before.

How do I know I was blocked? Good question!

“Some responses have been hidden” on a post just a few hours old.

I copied the link and viewed it incognito and there’s one comment there.

I copied the person’s link and tried opening it in a normal tab and “there’s nothing to see here.”

But opening it in incognito lets me view their entire page.

So…. Either it’s some mad glitch or I’ve been blocked.

And I’m not even really offended by this, just curious. Like, what was it that I posted that offended them so hard that they went immediately to blocking? Particularly because their bio says something about following everyone.

I rarely venture beyond my daled amos here. And as someone who enjoys conversing and learning things, I’d have loved to know what the reasoning was for the block.

But alas…. Earwax.

-LivelyHeart

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

I'm Not Sure How To Feel...

Dear Future Husband,

Wow. I almost wrote Deaf Uture Husband, which is either ironic or a Freudian slip of the fingers, because that's literally what this post is about.

I grew up with a disabled, lazy, mostly-absentee, so-many-other-problems, father.

And someone just sent me the resume for someone similar.

Now, the truth is, I don't know him all that well.

But I do know that he's deaf (aka disabled). And that (at least in the beginning, especially around the divorce) he has been kind of an absentee father. And that he was kind of pushed into working despite not really wanting to, so he basically works a minimum wage job.

I know all this because he's the ex of a family friend.

Yeah.

Also he's a lot younger than me, which on it's face isn't necessarily a problem, but it's the lack of maturity more than the "youngness" that bothers me.

The friend who sent the resume is one of the absolute sweetest people you could ever meet in your life.

We were in middle and high school together, though we didn't share too many classes and weren't in the same social circles, so at the time we were more acquaintances than friends.

But recently I signed up to bring them a meal after she gave birth and I've since been helping her out with the kids a few times a week and we've definitely moved from acquaintances to friends.

Since it's been less than 2 months though, we are still getting to know each other and I'm not sure if the resume was her idea or her husband's. I don't even really know if they actually know him or just read the resume and thought it sounded good for me. But she had asked me if the last name had ever come across my desk before and I just thought to myself "it caaaan't be who I think it is...." so I told her to feel free to send it over, because the best case scenario is that it's someone I've never heard of and the worst case scenario is I just say no thank you.

I considered how to word it when I saw that it was exactly who I thought it was, and ended up just telling her how funny it was that I actually did know who he was and that it was just not shayich for a bunch of reasons, but I'd keep him in mind for others.

Diplomatic, closed the subject, and now we can move on.

Or can we....?

Because this is the second guy suggested to me this year who is a little off.

And I know that kind of comes with the territory of being an "older single".

And I know that people think that I'm the sweetest person and therefore would entertain the idea of these guys because I come across as a nonjudgemental person, the exact type these guys would need to marry.

But at the same time, I'd like to think people deem me worthy of at least a 6, you know?

Neither of these guys are ugly, per se, but they're just ambitionless.

And I know, look who's talking, right? But the truth is, I do have ambitions, I just have no way to make them happen because I don't have the mazal for it.

These guys could have all the mazal in the world, but they just kind of couldn't care less, I guess.

They kind of lack personality.

And I know I have friends who are all personality who married very mild guys, but I feel like I need someone who I can have a conversation with. Someone I can be a bit combative with (in a healthy way). Someone with thoughts and ideas and who wants to do things.

Does this mean I just don't come off as my authentic self to the people who are trying to set me up? (Not that I really think I'm ready for marriage yet, but since Hashem works in mysterious ways, I don't just shoot down whatever ideas are floated my way)

The first guy who was suggested to me this year I did actually go out with. Since I was away for the summer and he was staying like an hour and a half away from where I was staying, he took a bus to come meet me, which I totally didn't expect to happen.

He was nice enough, but awkward and probably on the spectrum. I did most of the talking and it was like pulling teeth to get him to open up about most things, so I kept it light and did mostly ice breaker type conversation while we walked around a park a little bit. Then I drove him to catch his bus and that was kind of it.

The girl who wanted us to go out was an old family friend I hadn't seen in at least 15 years, but I ran into her at a simcha and she had her mom (who used to be a shadchan) do the shadchan thing.

Just based on his resume, I had a feeling it wasn't going to work out because hashkafically we were in two different places, but I figured if he was up to meet, then the least I could do was give him an hour or two of my time, because maybe I'd know someone who is right for him.

The friend later told me that he never dates because he's too shy and she'd been trying to get him to go out for several years and I was the first person he'd said yes to. She tried to get me to go on another date with him, but like I said, hashkafically we were just on two different pages though if he's interested in talking tachlis, I'll go out again, but he kind of agreed because he didn't want a second date either. (She kind of figured if she could get me to say yes then maybe he would too. I think she's just trying to get him out of his little rut, though I don't know if he wants to leave it, to be honest...)

For example, I'm looking for someone for whom attending minyan is important, whereas he prefers to daven by himself, if at all.

And I'm looking for someone who has a regular learning seder multiple days a week, at the very least over the phone if they're unable to connect in person, and he learns about once a week, if at all.

I want a Shabbos table that revolves around Torah, sefarim, and zemiros. And he... I guess doesn't?

In general I'm just looking for someone more serious about and more settled in their yiddishkeit and I didn't get that impression of him in the resume or in person (and then the shadchan confirmed those impressions too).

And as for this second guy I was just suggested... I get the feeling it's the same type of situation. I've met him several times and he just reminds me so much of my father in terms of his apathy towards yiddishkeit and being a father.

That's not at all what I'm looking for.

And I know this friend who sent the resume for this second guy sees the world through such positive, beautiful glasses, but I can't help thinking that it's kind of offensive people think that little of me.

Again, maybe that's not at all what she was thinking. Maybe she doesn't actually know him and was just passing along the resume for someone who on paper looks great. I mean, the resume looks decent. The blurb is short and hits all the important positive points, so from the outside it is similar to what I'm looking for.

But knowing the person and the way things went down with the divorce and everything definitely changes the whole perspective. His ex was literally in tears on multiple occasions that he seemed so disinterested in his role as a father and just showing up and being present when the kids wanted him.

So I guess at this point I'm just hoping she doesn't actually know him and was just passing along the resume because it looks decent.

Either way, dear future husband, he is not you. Neither of them are. I can say that with confidence.

-LivelyHeart

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

This was literally me while reading a sefer earlier. I had to reread the same few paragraphs like 4 times before I actually comprehended what I was reading because my brain was just coming up with other things to think about.

And at that moment I wondered if maybe that's why I did so poorly in school as a kid....

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

The Stupidity Doesn't End

Dear Future Husband,

Yesterday was an okay day and today was an okay day. No major hiccups or blowups or stupidity. Things were actually relatively okay.

But of course, that means nothing, because everything can change in a split second.

There's a Little Old Lady in our building who is moving to an old age home soon and MotherLivelyHeart decided that we should have a goodbye party for her.

The discussion of this party went from "we should invite everyone she knows to come say goodbye to her" to "we'll just keep it a building thing."

And every time discussion of this thing came up, I kept saying we should do it in the party/conference room that our building has, but MLH has some unexplained hatred for that room and always nixed the idea. She wanted "to do it in my home. I have a beautiful home for a reason."

The last discussion we had about this party earlier in the week (after she agreed to doing the mealtrain thing on Thursday and before she decided she doesn't want to do that again for quite a while), it seemed decided that we would have the party in the hallway near Little Old Lady's apartment with a tiny table set up with a little nosh and a bunch of chairs, instead of in our apartment.

When MLH bought the stuff for the mealtrain breakfast, she also grabbed a boxed cake and boxed brownies. And at some point she scrounged up a bag of popcorn. And erev Shabbos, BigSis baked the cake and brownies.

Then, on Friday, MLH pinned an event in the building whatsapp chat reminding everyone to come say goodbye to Little Old Lady and the time that she posted was 6:15pm-6:45pm or "after havdallah." And the location she posted was our apartment.

Now, time is important for a few reasons. One of which is that, recently, for some reason unbeknownst to me, we have started following a different havdallah time than we used to.

When I was growing up, we waited the longest time for havdallah because my father thought he was chassidush or something and that's what he'd been taught. But it became an issue when he wasn't davening with any chassidush minyan anymore (and hadn't since I was like 2) and we were the weirdos, having heard havdallah at our friends' houses and still unable to do anything after shabbos (like get a ride home) until the proper zman.

My parents spoke to a rabbi* about it who told them that since they had chosen this time as baalei teshuva who didn't really know anything, they could change it. But it was a one-time change and they couldn't adjust again after that, and to be sure of which time they wanted to switch to.

So when I was in high school, we all of a sudden started keeping the "one hour" that most people keep. I believe this is the opinion of The Gra...?

And so, 6:15pm this week becomes important when, out of the blue, we're not ending Shabbos at like 5:30pm if Shabbos started at 4:30pm, but instead at what I think is the offical Tzais HaKochavim time of around 5:45pm. Because by the time Shabbos is over and we've cleaned up from shelosh seudos and actually finish havdallah it's after 6:00pm, which gives us only 15 minutes to set everything up.

And right before havdallah is when MLH decides to tell us that she forgot to get small plates. Oh, and also we don't have any drinks.

This was something SHE was planning. She didn't ask for any help. In fact, ada raba! She told me point blank that she didn't want me making a big deal over this and buying or baking anything for it. "I'm just going to pick up some cookies or something." I was like "fine, this is your thing, go for it."

Well, Little Old Lady showed up at like 5 after 6pm and parked herself right between the kitchen and dining room, when we had just barely finished havdallah, and nothing was set up yet.

We now have 10 minutes to get everything ready which includes finding a folding table for the hallway, making sure we have a tablecloth for it, tracking down small disposable plates and some drinks.

Because none of this was done before Shabbos.

Then another neighbor shows up and she sits next to Little Old Lady and now the direct path from the kitchen to the dining room is blocked, despite us clearly needing that area cleared to be able to get things set up. But whatever. God help our cluelessness.

MLH makes some statement about getting the hallway set up and BS all of a sudden goes "why?" And MLH says "because that's where we're setting things up." And BS makes a face and says "why? it's cold out there." And MLH goes on some mini diatribe about how our apartment hasn't been tidied up and it's so embarrassing, devastating, and humiliating.

Yes, in front of Little Old Lady and Other Neighbor. FFS.

Well, BS's resistance settles the topic - we're doing it in our apartment.

Which shouldn't really be much of a shock, considering that MLH set the location for the event as our apartment and nobody knew the original intention was to have it in the hallway to begin with. But whatever.

Right after Little Old Lady arrived, MLH started cutting the brownies and needed a tutorial on how. Like, seriously? While she was cutting the brownies I asked her what she wanted to do with the bunt cake.

Her response: "Well, we could do an icing or a drizzle, but that means pulling out the confectioner's sugar and vanilla and making a mess... we could cut it up and put it on plates, or just leave it plain and let people do what they want. It's a cake; don't overthink it."

So fine, I left it alone.

Then at about 6:20pm, while she's cutting the brownies into ridiculous shapes despite what I had shown her, she asks me "What do you want to do with the cake?"

I said, "I don't know, it's your cake, whatever you want."

And I get back a condescending remark through forced smile and gritted teeth: "Thank you so much for your help."

Because, I'm of course the bad guy.

Because she "planned" and did a piss-poor job of it.

Because I clearly needed this right now.

I should add that I've been having issues today with the arm that I broke earlier this year. I don't know the cause of it, but I've been experiencing pain for hours, which she knew. And I even made a comment to her about how the most pain is when I have to rotate my arm and grasp things which is required for cutting and carrying.

Yet she kept trying to get me to cut and carry things.

It's almost like she wants me to say no so that she can be upset.

I don't get it.

Anyway, so now we're hosting this little party in our apartment that is "so gross and disorganized and unclean and an embarrassment" or whatever, and while guests are literally coming in she's puttering around tidying random things and muttering under her breath how embarrassed she is at the state of the apartment.

Which, granted, is a bit unorganized, but isn't unclean. It's just not "host-a-party" clean because we didn't clean to be hosting a party.... because it was supposed to be in the hallway and not in the apartment....

So at around 6:30pm, about halfway through the time she alloted for this "party", MLH was fuming at the embarrassing state of our apartment and my inability to be helpful physically (or idea-wise, considering I just parroted back the whole not overthinking the cake situation to her and I guess that was the wrong thing to do), BS started putting together a glaze for the cake, and I sat down on the couch, out of the way, and checked a few messages on my phone and started cataloguing my thoughts.

And MLH took that opportunity to ask me in a whisper across the room "are you going to join us?" To which I was like "what?" and she said louder "are you going to join us at the table?" and I was like "I don't know, maybe" and she said something like "well, then, just go to your room. this is not nice." Because I guess me sitting on the couch on my phone while things were still being pulled together and Little Old Lady was shmoozing with two neighbors, was the rudest thing I could possibly be doing.

Should I remind you that I'm in my mid-30s?

And being reprimanded like a child.

For being in pain and out of the way while people set up a party that I was told straight-up to not do much for.

I frickin' hate my stupid life.

Shabbos was decent and this is how my week starts.

I'm over it all already.

So, my dear future husband...

Here's wishing you a shavua that's tover than mine.

-LivelyHeart

*and just because my life is ridiculous and stupid, this rabbi was someone my mother was doing work for at the time, and who has since been locked up for being a disgusting pervert who went off the rails when he was found out and arrested. I don't even know if he's frum anymore, not that he truly was if he was really doing all those gross things he was accused of, which I kind of don't doubt, based on the piles and piles and piles of evidence....

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

Rip Tide

Dear Future Husband,

One thing I hadn't anticipated with finally seeing a doctor this year for the first time since I was about 18 years old (outside of urgent care for like an ear infection or whatever) was that the medical center/hospital that this doctor is associated with has some kind of collaborative care initiative with mental health.

I don't know or understand all the inner workings, but I'm now signed up with a therapist that somehow gets to bill through my insurance as regular medical care instead of separate mental health care.

I had my 5th appointment with her a few hours ago and she said something that just seemed so wildly accurate I can't stop thinking about it.

I was describing how interconnected so many aspects of my life are because I deal with Z because of Y, and I deal with Y because of X, and I deal with X because of W..., and I can't just change Z because of the ripple effect of all the things that came before it and how they're enmeshed.

And she referred to it as being caught in a rip tide.

She said that with every stroke towards shore, I get pulled farther and farther into chaos, and I need to find a way to put a stop to it.

She didn't use the word radical, but she was basically saying I need to make some sort of radical change, pull some sort of emergency break to halt this thing, because there's no way things are going to stop and change without some sort of abrupt interference.

This is all something I basically knew already, but it's the analogy of the rip tide that really struck home.

I've used the snowball analogy in the past to explain the compounding effect of everything, but that doesn't really express the 'ebb and flow without reaching the goal' aspect of this surrounding chaos.

We also discussed a few options for where to go from here and I'm still not sure what any of that will be because most of it comes down to the basic tenets of bitachon and emunah.

I can go on as many interviews as I can find and still not get a job if that's not what Hashem wants for me.

And I guess that's the root of where things suck the most.

I have full faith there is a god and that He runs the world. No doubt about that part.

The part I have issues with is believing that everything is truly for the good and that Hashem has my best interests at heart because if He truly did, then why is my life as screwed up as it is? Why has it been this way since literally before I was born? And why is it so hard for me to break out of and gain some sort of footing as an "independent" person?

Rip tide.

The craziest thing about the accuracy of that analogy is that a rip tide is a narrow "problem area" in the ocean. It only affects those who are actively caught in it. But you could be swimming next to one and not be affected by it. And without understanding it's there, if you see someone struggling in one, you'd think their struggle is ridiculous, like "dude, stop making things so hard on yourself and just swim to the shore like everyone else."

That's literally my life.

Surrounded by people who either don't see that I'm struggling or think I'm just actively making things harder for myself, despite my circumstances truly dictating how hard things are, while I'm just fighting to keep myself afloat.

They say the way to avoid drowning in a rip tide is to swim parallel to the coast line, which means making a 90 degree turn from the direction you're being pulled in.

It means throwing a wrench into the situation and making an abrupt shift.

But when you're tired from treading water for so long, when you're just barely keeping your head above the surface, that's not the easiest thing to do.

In which case, the advice given is to just float along with the current and signal for help.

I always pictured a knight on a horse coming to my rescue like all the childhood movies promised me I'd have.

I guess I never stopped to consider that maybe what I really need is the coast guard.

And maybe that's you, dear future husband.

Or maybe I just need to get myself there alone, before I can be the best option for you and for me.

Everything in its right time, yeah?

-LivelyHeart

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

Why Is This My Problem?

Dear Future Husband,

I try to help people when I'm able, especially when that means I get to cook for them.

I guess you could say feeding is one of my love languages.

But when I do it, I choose the date, I choose the food, and I work it into my schedule.

For some reason, MotherLivelyHeart doesn't do that.

She wants to do a lot for people too, but somehow HER chessed always ends up involving me.

For example, we have a friend of the family who is expecting her ka"h 7th child and her oldest is maybe 10 or 11.

This friend has issues with her own mother who lives out of the country and is hardly helpful when she does come to visit.

I don't recall if I've mentioned this friend before (it's possible I have) but my mother has sort of adopted her kids as grandchildren. Which is super nice since her own grandchildren live in Israel and she can't really spend a lot of time with them. (Obvs not the exact same thing, but it gives her purpose, so whatever)

I may have mentioned before that MotherLivelyHeart is a better mother to children who are not her children than she is to her own children. Ie me and my siblings.

So she decided that to help out this MomOfMany, she would make them dinner a couple of times a week.

But MotherLivelyHeart has medical issues that makes standing to cook very difficult and BigSis "does not drink of the milk of kindness" or something like that (she literally used such a weird phrase like that to me a couple of weeks ago), so whenever she needs help with these things, they always end up getting dumped on me.

And then she apologizes profusely for having done this and promises it'll never happen again. And yet.... it always does.

I frickin' hate parenting my own parents.

Even the days when she manages to do it on her own, because we share a vehicle, it usually ends up becoming problematic for me because she needs to deliver the food by X time, which often interferes with my work schedule. Because of course it does.

Anyway, yesterday afternoon I got a series of unrelated messages from MotherLivelyHeart, one of which was a link to a meal train for the family of someone she knows that I've literally met like once, and a sad face emoji. I think one of this lady's parents passed away or something, but I don't really have the funds or time at the moment to cook for a whole host of people.

Later in the day she sent this message:

I don't usually need the car early in the morning, so I appreciate the heads up but otherwise it doesn't really impact my life too much.

Then about 20 minutes ago she messages me this:

Which.... why is this my problem?

My information about this shiva house was literally "there's a mealtrain" and then "I'm sending food early Thursday".

Now all of a sudden I'm involved with the planning and shopping for this mitzvah? I wasn't even asked to participate, let alone agree to it.

This was followed up with a message about a particular bread item our local grocery sells that she wants to include for the breakfast that is about $7 for three and she wants enough for 10 adults. We're $21 out the gate, and that's literally just bread. The thing she said she wants to do with the bread is also not cheap.

And her message about the bread thing was "Also I'm going to need several packages of this thing" like I'm the one doing the shopping, which she at NO point asked me to do. Does she expect that I have them laying around the house and she wants to use them? Or does she expect me to be going to the store for her? There's been ZERO communication, so I have no idea.

I messaged her back the price and this was her response:

Which says to me that she just came up with an idea, put it on the mealtrain and did no actual budgeting.

But now it's on me to correct it all? It's on me to tweak this?

This was supposed to be HER mitzvah. Why am I involved?

If she wanted me involved, she could have asked. She could have checked with my schedule to see if there was any conflict. Especially because yesterday was a day basically dedicated to her with a work thing she needed the car for and a doctor's appointment, which means one less day I had to take care of work stuff this week.

I'm not sure at what point in time she plans to cook this thing either if it's a breakfast. Which means she'll probably be stressing herself out over something that was so easily avoidable. She will most likely get frustrated and loud and blame things on me.

Which means Thursday is going to absolutely suck.

So yay.

-LivelyHeart

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

God Is An A****** And Other Life Updates

Dear Future Husband,

2024 was supposed to be my "year of health." Or at least, that's what I decided towards the end of 2023 when everything I ate was upsetting my digestive system and I was convinced I had developed some weird tumor or something. But suddenly, out of the blue, I had health insurance (I don't think I've told that story yet....) and so it seemed like 2024 would be the year I could just get myself in order.

Well, it's now December 2024 and I can confidently tell you the lie detector determined THAT was a lie.

Not only was it not my year of health, it has in fact been quite the opposite.

At this point I don't know if I'll ever get back to that draft about the beginning of this year, so I'll just tell you - in January I had a bad fall and broke my arm, which led to surgery, PT, and essentially three months of being unable to work.

Which leads me to include that 2024 was also supposed to be my year of financial stability.

Oh, if you could hear the raucous laughter in my mind right now.

Why did I ever assume Hashem would finally grant me one good year? The entirety of my relationship with Him is built on the confidence that I'm his punching bag.

Why do I even still allow myself hope? It always just ends in heartbreak.

So January I injured myself.

February I had surgery.

March I had PT.

April I finally started driving again, and I was back at work but still couldn't do heavy lifting which severely crippled my abilities to do my job.

Now, back in January, a few days before I fell and maimed myself, I got a speeding ticket from a highway speed camera that was outside of a work zone but claimed to be in a work zone. I was just trying to keep up with traffic and I have no idea how nobody else got ticketed. Maybe cuz they weren't in the lane closest to the camera.

Well, I alerted MotherLivelyHeart to the ticket before it even arrived in the mail because I'd seen the flash when I was driving, and had full intentions of paying it.

But then I was out of work for like three months and all the funds I'd had up until that point dwindled while paying bills so that when the ticket came in the mail, I couldn't afford the $30.

Based on our conversation about it, I was under the impression MotherLivelyHeart was going to cover it, since the car is in her name (I think I've discussed this nonsense), and I'd pay her back when I was working again.

But come MAY and it's still not paid and now they've increased the fine.

Great.

So since I was working again, I paid all $42 of it.

And now it's December. And it's been SEVEN MONTHS.

SEVEN MONTHS where we've had radio silence, as far as I'm aware.

And NOW, SEVEN MONTHS LATER, they've sent us a message in the mail that the car has been flagged because of the citation in January/May and with the flags on the car we can't renew the license plate or something.

WTF.

Oh, but wait, the story gets better, because of course it gets better.

I discussed briefly in my last post that I was going away for a month and a half this summer. I can't go into the details of why I went away, but what was supposed to be 6 weeks ended up being 12 weeks.

That's 12 weeks of bliss away from MotherLivelyHeart but also 12 weeks of not working.

So in total this year, I've worked approximately 26 weeks. At part time wages. For a business that my boss can't decide if she wants to keep open much longer, so inventory is dwindling and business sucks because we never have anything in stock.

FML.

I've been working for this company for about 8 years as a 1099 employee, except a 1099 is not an employee, it's an independent contractor... but I'm an employee. And basically the only employee. Which I just found out makes my 1099 filing essentially illegal, since there are some benefits that employees are supposed to have which is why it's a different filing of w2.

FML.

But getting back to the whole "I basically work full time in a part time job position" thing... I didn't make a lot in 2023. And with bills to pay, I didn't have a lot in January to begin with, but with my January wages I should have had enough to pay my taxes.

Except that in January, the beginning of my new year of financial stability, Hashem caused me not just an injury but a work-stopping injury. Which means I not only had to stop working while still paying bills, but the money that I had originally allotted for my taxes was not only not there, but also not enough.

So FMFL.

But wait, it gets better.

I created an account with the IRS's payment portal (id.me or whatever) several years ago and I signed up using my home phone number.

Well, BigSis was the one who paid the bill for the phone line and at some point she stopped paying it, which meant that when I tried to log into my IRS account to see what my options were or try to make a partial payment, it wouldn't accept my information because I couldn't confirm my phone number because I no longer had access to it.

Great.

So I tried to do the other things it wanted with photos of my state license and passport and it stuck me in a loop and wouldn't accept either of them.

GREAT.

So there I was, injured, in pain, not working, not able to keep most foods down, my tiny allotted funds dwindling, and not able to log into my IRS account to figure out what to do.

So yeah, it ended up getting back-burnered.

I know it's stupid. I knew it was stupid then and I know it's stupid now.

Especially because last year I made barely $11k at that job and the IRS wants $1,100 of that. Which is to say, they want more from me than I made in a single month.

FML.

I kept getting these update letters in the mail of the IRS adding on interest and increasing the amount, and I somehow hoped that Hashem would show me the way to be able to afford to pay it.

But no.

Because FMFL.

So now I've been notified by the IRS that they want to seize my property.

Over $1100.

But also, what property? I have nothing.

Literally not even the car I drive is in my own name.

So, just to recap:

I've worked approximately 26 weeks this year (part time financially, full time stressfully)

I now owe $1200 to the IRS that I don't have, and that's just for the 2023 taxes, not even including what I'll owe for this year

The car may not be able to be renewed because of the flag for the speeding ticket I got in January that I already paid off and that I've heard NOTHING about for SEVEN MONTHS

Should we keep going? Sure, let's keep going.

SPIRITUALITY

After a nightmare of a year, I can't really explain why but I had some kind of spiritual awakening at the beginning of 5785. I davened more this past R"H and Y"K than I have the past like 10 or 15 years combined, including during the Aseres Yimei Teshuva and through Simchas Torah.

And I decided this would be my year of Bitachon.

I was riding a spiritual high and I had more calm and positivity for about a month than I've had in a long time.

Spoiler alert: that's gone.

One of the things that affected that deeply was that I had one sefer in particular I decided would be my guide this year for all things Bitachon. And less than a month after deciding that, the author of that sefer was diagnosed with Stage-4 Non-Smoker's Lung Cancer.

Do I feel like my personal bad mazal rubbed off on him by mere association? 100000000000000%

WORK

Because things have been weird at work and I'm not sure how much longer my boss will be keeping the business open, I starting looking for a new job.

Using my new found bitachon, I discovered two businesses in my neighborhood that were hiring for a position I could do in my sleep, and were willing to pay well were open.

Such mazal! Hashem must be working His magic!

I had a phone meeting with the first company that was excited to have me in for an interview. We arranged a date and time, and then that day a few hours before I got a text that something came up and they'd like to reschedule.

That was.... a month and ten days ago and I've heard nothing.

The second company called me for an in-person interview which I went to erev Shabbos and thought it went really well. They said they were hoping to hire before Chanukah and they'd be in touch.

That was.... a month and nine days ago and I've heard nothing.

Now, for the second company that could have been my bad. It's been so long since I've had an interview that I forgot the etiquette to send a thank you note afterwards. I also answered the question "what do people critique you the most for" honestly by saying time management. Though I'd think that showing up 10 minutes early to the interview itself would have been enough to assuage that concern. I also did explain that it's something I'm working on and the rest of the conversation seemed to go really positively so I guess it's just Hashem giving me hope again just so He can pull the rug out from under me. Again.

MEDICAL

I started writing about this in its own post and still might but let me just go over the highlights here:

I haven't had insurance for like 5 years.

When I signed up for the insurance originally I selected a DO for my Primary Care Physician because I want a doctor who will treat the whole person and understand how different aspects of the body interplay with each other when it comes to diagnosis.

Well, fast forward to me suddenly having insurance for the first time out of the blue motzei yom kippur (if that wasn't a bad omen....), the DO I selected five years ago is no longer accepting new patients.

Fine. I'll look into new doctors. Whatever.

Except, no! Because then I broke my arm.

And did you know that before surgery you need a workup done by your PCP?

And did you know that if the doctor listed on your insurance isn't accepting new patients, you have to run around like a nut last minute to find someone who will do a workup so you can get emergency surgery?

In the end I went with a local urgent care that could handle that kind of thing.

Fun.

And when I was finally clearheaded enough after the surgery (which took over a month, mind you) I scheduled a new patient appointment with the other DO in the same practice as the first one I'd chosen (five years ago). She was booked out until October.

Fun.

So, fine, I scheduled for October.

Then I went away for the summer and in September I got a voicemail from the doctor's office that the doctor would be leaving the practice at the end of October and did I still want a new patient appointment with someone I wouldn't be able to see past that month?

Mygod.

I went back and forth with the staff of this place several times before we decided I'd go with the new patient appointment anyway to at least get preliminary stuff out of the way and start a series of blood tests to try and figure out what the hell is wrong with me physically.

I had one appointment with her, got bloodwork done, and October was over.

My files were switched to another doctor in the practice who could read the results of the blood tests and order more if needed. Which she did.

And all the results have come back inconclusive.

Because getting an actual answer is just too much to ask for, I guess.

Oh, and also the doctor I'm working with now is about to go on maternity leave and once she comes back she'll be working from a new location that's almost an hour from where I live.

FML

And that's not even everything. That's just what I have the energy to write right now.

I'm so tired of this life.

I'm tired of having hope and being let down constantly.

I'm tired of financial stuff being the literal bane of my existence.

I'm tired of being tired.

I'm so over this life that my brain has just stopped recording information.

One of the things the doctor set me up with in October was a collaborative care thing associated with the medical practice that's supposed to help get me on a good path mentally, so I've been working with a therapist, but we've met maybe 4 times and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be getting out of these sessions other than explaining to her how my circumstances just absolutely suck over and over again in more detail.

Except that every week or two weeks she asks me how I've been since our last session and I literally can't remember what I've done or how I've felt.

I'm just so over all of this nonsense.

I keep doing things to try to give myself purpose in this world, like what I was doing over the summer, or reconnecting with this high school friend that I've been spending time with on the weekends lately, or helping out old acquaintances who just had babies, but all I feel like I'm doing is creating a larger pool of people to mourn for me when I'm gone because none of them know the real me.

I'm not suicidal but I do just wish I'd die already.

I don't see the purpose in any of this life.

I'm stressed beyond stress and Hashem isn't helping.

I feel like I've been set up for failure and if failure is my goal, then I'm the most successful failure that's ever existed.

I'm still broke.

I don't know if I'll have a job in a few weeks.

The IRS wants to seize my nonexistent property.

I may not have a car to drive soon.

Nobody knows what's wrong with me medically.

Every goddamn tap in my apartment has issues (literally my shower, toilet, bathroom sink, and kitchen sink all have problems).

My ceiling is still open to the elements. (yep, that's still a thing)

Oh, and I lost 40lbs this year between January and June, and gained basically all of that back since September.

FMFL.

Can it just be over already?

Sorry, I'm not in a good place right now, my dear future husband.

I mean, you're a fantasy anyway, so who even cares.

-LivelyHeart

Every day in harachaman in bensching we say

"וְאַל תַּצְרִיכֵנוּ ה' אֱלֹקֵינוּ לֹא לִידֵי מַתְּנַת בָּשָׂר וָדָם וְלֹא לִידֵי ה��לְוָאַתָם, כִּי אִם לְיָדְךָ הַמְּלֵאָה הַפְּתוּחָה הַקְּדוֹשָׁה וְהָרְחָבָה".

"Do not make us dependent, Hashem our God, on the gifts of flesh and blood or on their loans, but only on Your full, open, holy, and generous hand."

And yet... Hashem has not provided for me, despite my begging and pleading. Despite my davening and working really hard on bensching after every meal.

We also say "פּוֹתֵחַ אֶת יָדֶךָ וּמַשְׂבִּיעַ לְכָל חַי רָצוֹן" both in bensching and in davening - "You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living being."

And yet, my desire is to not be in debt with the threat of losing things. But somehow, here I am, and where is God?

So maybe random strangers are the tools of Hashem, and relying on you all is really me relying on Hashem "working in mysterious ways" or whatever.

I don't know, but if you care and have anything to share, I have a cashapp: $HaShemshouldblessyou

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

"You Need To Go To Therapy"

Dear Future Husband,

Apparently I need to go to therapy.

At least, according to MotherLivelyHeart.

Go ahead. Ask why.

Ok, I'll tell you:

Because she interpreted a message from me in a way I didn't intend it.

Oh, you wanna know the message?

I responded to her 7:15pm message of "FYI You should be heading home now" with "I'm like a minute away. You said 7:45"

And apparently she took that to mean, "I'm in the car and driving and only a minute away, I'll be there shortly."

Which I did not.

My meaning was "I'm at a location only a minute away from you, so why are you messaging me to head home right now when you need a ride in a half an hour and not this instant."

Now, rereading my message I can see how one would think that it might mean "I'll be there in a minute."

Except that she responded with "I just don't want you to cut it too close." And then TWENTY MINUTES LATER said that she was on her way down to wait for me in the lobby of our building.

I pulled up in front of the building at 7:45pm and she was PISSSSSED.

She has a ladies thing on Monday nights at 8pm that was on haiatus around the chagim and tonight they're back at it.

And she told me earlier that she wanted to leave at 7:45pm because the thing is about 8 minutes away and she didn't want to be late.

I'm going out of town for a month and a half and leaving TOMORROW.

I told her LAST WEEK that I had some stuff I needed to get done before I go and really hoped she'd get a ride to the thing but she had every excuse in the book.

"None of them live in the area."

"None of them are running errands in our area."

"Why would they go out of their way to pick me up?"

And my favorite:

"The ladies in the group are.... I don't want to say anything bad, they're really nice ladies, but I don't want to bother them."

We NEVER discussed whether I'd be giving her a ride or if she'd be taking the car. Since in the past I've given her a ride, I assumed that's what we were doing.

So she was pissed that (a) I was "late" because she'd been waiting downstairs for 10 minutes and that is just so "unbelievable" after telling her I was "a minute away 30 minutes ago". And (b) that I was taking the car to get some stuff done while she's at her thing because I'm LITERALLY LEAVING TOMORROW and it would just be sitting while she's doing her thing.

But there was no "thought you said you'd be home in a minute" message or "should I meet you for the car in a minute?" or anything like that.

She thought I was going to be home in a minute and then twenty minutes later told me she was going downstairs.

That's not a conversation!

Though she considers it one.

There was no way for me to clarify anything because she didn't even give me a hint that she had misunderstood what I was saying.

But I'M THE ONE with a communication problem.

And I'M THE ONE who has a time-telling problem.

And I'M THE ONE who needs therapy because we have "too many" of these misunderstandings.

I'm pretty sure it's misguided rage. Because I'm pretty sure she's pissed she can't be there for the birth of her second grandchild (b'shaa tova sometime soon).

LittleBean is turning 3 this year and they live in Israel so MotherLivelyHeart doesn't get to see her and she won't be there for this birth or get to hold this baby as a newborn.

But she spent the entire car ride over to the thing telling me I need to be in therapy, whether with or without her, to deal with this communication problem that WE have because she did not clarify or ask for clarification for a message that I don't know how to even reword to make it simpler to understand without it sounding wordy and condescending.

FML

"I'm only a minute away" has the same connotation.

"I'm not that far away" is the same thing.

"I'm right around the corner" - same problem.

In fact, I almost wrote "I'm right around the corner" and then thought THAT made it seem like I was driving and literally around the corner, so I didn't use it because I DIDN'T want to be misleading.

How do I phrase "I'm at a location that is the distance of hardly a minute, let alone a half hour from where you are" without suggesting that I'm in the car and driving to her right this very second????

And how do I add "you told me you wanted me back at 7:45 so you could make it to your thing at 8pm without walking in the door at 8pm, but it's only 7:15pm so I still have a half an hour and since I'm only the distance of like a minute away, why should I be on my way back home right this minute?"

HOWWWWW????

"It's almost like you do this on purpose."

EXCUSE ME!?!?!?!?!

HER misunderstanding a message from me is somehow MY fault!?

That's gaslighting, right?

You know, gaslighting - the very phrase she throws around like everyone is doing it to her because she's the victim all the time?

I'm so done with this crap.

I just want to disappear into nothing right now.

Just cease to exist.

I can't handle this stuff anymore.

Yeah, I need to be in therapy but not to deal with OUR communication issues.

I need to be in therapy because of this crap she does to me.

And I'm never going to escape this until one of us dies.

FML.

So, my dear future husband, if you actually exist:

I'm sorry.

That's literally all I have for you right now. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for who I am, I'm sorry for where I come from, I'm sorry for the baggage that I'll bring to our relationship.

I'm just sorry.

-LivelyHeart

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

Autobiography

Dear Future Husband,

I recently reconnected with a friend from middle/high school. We got to schmoozing over text and last week I went to her place to hang out and chat for a while.

She's currently going through a lot and there were certain things we were able to relate to each other about.

While we were schmoozing I found myself saying "ok, yeah, so let me tell you _____ but it's a whole story" and after a while I was like "I'm so sorry everything is such a long story!" and she said "no, it's great! you should totally write a book! I'm hooked!"

The thing is, I've actually tried. I've started multiple autobiographies and it's so hard for me to focus my story because there's so many outlandish things that have happened, especially things that were supposed to be simple like getting my ears pierced as a kid turned into a whole ordeal, and I just haven't been able to keep it on track.

But maybe it just needs to be vignettes. Chapters kind of like these posts are.

Except that even here I feel like there's not enough backstory and I have to backtrack constantly...

I don't know.

Maybe it's just not worth it.

Who would read it, anyway? Literally one friend? lol

Most of the time I write just to get things out.

I have this belief that "a diary is for oneself, an autobiography is for others", which is to say that there has to be a takeaway from one's story for it to be worth writing it into a book.

But I don't know what the takeaway from my story is.

That I suck at everything? That God likes to create little punching bags, one of which is named LivelyHeart? Don't judge a book by it's cover?

I literally don't know what anyone can takeaway from my life except that maybe someone out there can relate and feel less lonely because they've been through crap too. But that's why blog sites exist in general, no? People share TMI on social media too.

So if it's not a book to learn something from or for entertainment, what is it for....?

On a sidenote, Meaningful Minute just posted this podcast with a young woman who was born with a disability called TAR, so a bunch of her limbs are wrongly proportioned and she has basically no arms and I'm jealous.

I'm jealous of the support system she had and still has today.

I'm jealous of how the schools she attended bent over backwards to accomodate her disability.

I'm jealous of her emunah and strength.

Because I had "hidden" disabilities. And everyone couldn't care less about my struggles.

She said she never experienced bullying in her childhood.

I did.

She had friends in and out of school.

I didn't.

She had/has parents who are such strong advocates for her.

I don't.

She understands she may never get married but she still has hope that the right guy is out there for her.

I barely do.

She says Hashem is her best friend.

Well, He's not mine.

And it's insane to me that I should feel any kind of jealousy for someone who has the struggles she does.

She told that mashal of if everyone put their problems in a big bowl and got to pull out someone else's to try on for size, they'd always want their own back.

Yeah, I don't know if that's true. I think mine feel familiar because I've lived with them so long, but there are people who don't live with the kind of dysfunction I have and I would much rather struggle with something else than walking on eggshells around the people who are supposed to love and support me unconditionally.

Because everything comes with conditions. And I'm so sick of it.

I saw another video recently where this girl who used to be in Hollywood and had a short-lived music career before ending up with a serious drinking and drug problem described some of her struggles and how her sobriety is going, and she said the one thing that saved her was a friend who was her unconditional support system. Because every time she failed and ended up on substances again, her friend was there to pick her up and say "no, we're doing this again, and we're going to get you clean."

I don't have that in my life.

I'm addicted to despair and nobody can pull me out of it.

And it's so damn hard to do alone.

So if I wrote my story, wouldn't it just depress people? Wouldn't it just make them feel bad about their lives too? Focusing so much on negativity just invites more negativity, doesn't it?

I don't know.

I just hope at some point God decides I'm worthy of feeling love and support in my life.

It would be really nice to experience that for the first time.

It would be really nice to experience you.

-LivelyHeart

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

"I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO KILL US"

Dear Future Husband,

Today I drove MotherLivelyHeart to a doctor's appointment. I ran a couple of errands while she was in there and then picked her up.

On the way home, we were on a two lane road that has signs at every intersection "no left turn 7am-7pm" and ended up behind an idiot who was sitting there with their left blinker on, trying to make a left turn.

I put on my blinker, merged into the right lane, and was trying to get around the lady who was trying to make the illegal left, when she realized that she couldn't and decided to go straight.

Except that that street stupidly allows street parking, and there was a car parked in the right lane.

So what I was attempting to do was make an arc around the lady in the left lane, which meant sliding back into the left lane in front of her before hitting the parked car.

But little miss moron figured out at just the wrong moment that she wasn't allowed to turn there and essentially cut me off by just continuing to drive straight.

MotherLivelyHeart let out a strangled cry and I came to a quick stop behind the parked car. And she took that moment to berate me for my driving. "I knew she was going to do that! I already saw her moving!"

Here's the thing though, as the driver, I was watching the pedestrian who was getting into the parked car, the light ahead of us, the bus and cars behind to make sure I could merge, and internally calculating angles. And it's not like I was speeding.

So, yeah, you may have been paying attention to one person on the road, but I was paying attention to many and she essentially became a blind spot.

But the terminology MotherLivelyHeart used wasn't "I thought we were going to crash" or "I thought she was going to hit you" or "I thought you were going to hit her"...

No.

MotherLivelyHeart's response to that situation was "I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO KILL US."

Sure. Blame totally on me. Everything my fault. And attempted murder is exactly what I was intending.

The insane thing is that I pulled back into the left lane and she continued the conversation we'd been having right before that as though nothing even happened.

So I'm internally fuming at her for yelling and berating me. And she's not caught up in any emotions for what just happened or for talking to me like that.

Nope, it's business as usual.

And I literally do not understand how she can just flip those emotions and interactions on and off. This happened like 2 hours ago and she's just doing whatever while I'm still frustrated by the entire thing. She'll probably never even remember this one thing happened, but every time I drive past that intersection I will remember.

I'm so fed up with being treated this way.

And it's never going to change.

I need an escape.

I'm hoping one day I'll find someone who can pull me out of this insanity.

I'm hoping one day he'll be you.

But I also don't want you to have to live with this insanity.

It's hopeless.

-LivelyHeart

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

Mother's Day

Dear Future Husband,

If it's not already evident, my family is unusual.

I didn't go to nursery, kindergarten, or a normal elementary school, so I never made any of the mandatory mother's day gifts in school.

And at home we never celebrated secular holidays except for Thanksgiving because my grandparents always made it a whole family thing, where everyone would come into town and often it was the one time a year we were all together.

In fact, we so never followed the secular holidays that it was kind of a joke in our house that my mom would get gifts on father's day. (I think father's day always had the better sales or something...)

There were the odd years where we would get a small gift or card, but it was a small nod and then we'd move on with our lives.

But overall there seemed to be a disinterest in these holidays because they are all consumerism being marketed to us to sell flowers and cards and candy by Hallmark and Hershey's and other such companies. And why should we give into their whims when there's no Torah basis for any of it, it's a waste of money, and there are other ways to show someone you care about them. Right?

So color me surprised when on Sunday MotherLivelyHeart started going on about how sad she is that we never do anything for mother's day.

Like... what?

It came totally out of left field.

So we had a conversation on Sunday where she said "I don't want this to be lashon hara.... let's just say I was in a different place back then."

She later clarified that her mother basically demanded that mother's day be a whole thing, so she had a negative connotation with it. And then later on she felt like if they made a big deal out of mother's day, they should make a big deal out of father's day, but because my father was such a problem in the relationship, our home, and as a father, she didn't want to make father's day a big deal.

But now that her mother is gone and my father is not in her life, she sees all the mother's being doted on by their kids and going out for brunches and dinners and stuff and she's sad that we don't do that for her.

Except that we weren't raised to do that. BY HER. We were raised to basically abhor the stuff and to grimace at the cliche waste of money and everything. BY HER.

And now she suddenly wants us to just pretend as if that conditioning doesn't exist and make a whole big thing.

I do get where she's coming from, but at the same time, it feels like emotional manipulation.

She was like "I dunno. It would just be special to go out to eat with my children or something."

I asked her, "and go where? and eat what?" Because we're all basically on restrictive diets and can't eat restaurant food.

And she was like, "I don't know! It would just be nice!"

Like... what??

I didn't mention the emotional manipulation part, but I did speak to LilSis because she had asked me if I could get MotherLivelyHeart some flowers from anywhere since she had an issue ordering them online and the order never went through. I told her I'd see what I could do. In the meantime though LilSis also wanted me to look into a gift card to a spa so MLH could get a manicure or something. I told her I'd see what I could do.

I had to give a BigSis a ride, so I asked if she could get flowers at a store nearby to where she was and she gave me a whole "really? so because she just decided this we now have to give in to her whims?" response. I was like, she's sad, can we just do this one small thing? And she was like, I can't afford it right now. So I told her if she could even see if the store had flowers I'd run to the bank and get some cash.

She sent me pictures of some flower options and a cute card, and I figured the cheapest like $5 ones would be fine and beautiful and just what our mother would appreciate.

I gave BigSis a $20 and she brought me back like $6 in change. I was like WTF because the flowers were only like $5 +tax and she said, "well, the card was $7. I sent you a picture." Which omigod I had not seen in the photos. It's so nice how she's willing to just spend all the money I don't have on a greeting card that costs more than a dozen eggs!?!?!

Whatever.

When we got home MotherLivelyHeart was napping, so I started making dinner for myself and when I came out of the kitchen I noticed the flowers on the table and said something like "we should sign the card" and BigSis was like "yeah, it's on the table." But when I went to sign it, she had already signed it from "all your girlies" which included LilSis and LilBean. Which I was like... ok, but now there's nothing for me to sign since my name is already on it...

Weird but whatever.

After MLH woke up, our out of town, off the derech brother called. He never really talks to us, just MLH, so I have no idea why exactly he called, but they schmoozed for a bit. While they were schmoozing, she passed by the table to go into the kitchen and didn't notice the flowers or card, so I grabbed a vase and set it up nicely so she'd see it when she came out.

Which she did. And stopped MyBro mid-sentence with an "awwww! did you get me flowers!?" And he was like "what? no?" And she was like, "no, your sisters."

She then proceeded to sit down and read the card to herself except the "Love all your girlies" part.

While she was talking to MyBro.

Which made me feel so awkward that we didn't even consider asking him if he wanted us to sign his name in the first place. Not that I even signed....

So when MotherLivelyHeart finally hung up, I messaged MyBro and told him that the flowers were a whim and asked him if he wanted to contribute to the spa gift card, which he said sure and asked where to zelle. So I told him that LilSis was going to zelle me and I'd be getting the gift card and he could just send it to me.

Then on Monday I was talking to LilSis about the pricing and she said "oh, I already told MotherLivelyHeart that I'd just pay for her thing when she goes in later this week."

Which, great, because I wasn't privy to that and that's not what I told MyBro. (Not that he ever zelled anything...)

But it's like all this stupid stupidity for stupidity's sake.

I guess that driving MotherLivelyHeart to appointments, doing grocery runs for her specific requests, asking if she needs anything while I'm out, making her dinner... you know, all the little things that I don't actually have to do... none of those say "hey, I'm thinking about you and making sure you feel cared for."

A vase of flowers and a $7 card. That's what does it.

Guess I've been overworking myself all this time.

So, my Dear Future Husband, if we ever do meet and fall in love and marry, please don't think you need to do these stupid secular holiday things.

And please don't expect me to do them either.

They're stupid and expensive.

And in some cases, emotional manipulation.

Sorry, but I'm not interested.

-LivelyHeart

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

Sometimes when people say "I can't do it" what they mean is "I'm so overwhelmed just thinking about it that I wouldn't even know where to start and I need some help." But nobody interprets it that way. They just say "Stop saying you can't." -Me, in case that wasn't clear.

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

Honestly, WTF

Dear Future Husband,

Have you ever wanted to just scream at your mother "OMIGOD! SHUT THE FFFF UP!!!!!!"?

Cuz if you haven't I don't know if you'd ever actually understand me.

I went to a shiva call last night with MotherLivelyHeart and one of the sons of the deceased is a man in his mid 50s, who has been divorced multiple times.

He's a funny guy. He seems nice enough in general. His job is something minimum wage (I assume based on the description) that he has been doing for a long time despite having the background and knowledge to do something more with his life. (I know, who am I to talk, right?)

Well, right before we left he asked my mother about her husband (spoiler: she doesn't have one) and he asked me about my age and situation (spoiler: mid-30s, not married). And he then asked why I'm not married (spoiler: just read this blog). I told him that everything happens in its right time.

While I was saying that he (as a cross-talker from a family of cross-talkers) asked something like "you're just not ready?"

And MotherLivelyHeart, she should live and be well, started going off about how "SHE IS READY! She's BEEN ready! She just needs to get married already and MOVE OUT!"

Except she went on longer than that about all her kids and our situations and how it breaks her heart and all that crap. Like, OMIGOD SHUT UP. THIS DUDE DOES NOT NEED TO HEAR THIS, NOBODY NEEDS TO HEAR THIS! STOP ASSUMING YOU KNOW WHAT I AM AND AM NOT READY FOR! STOP TALKING ABOUT MY SITUATION WITH A TOTAL STRANGER, AND OMIGOD JUST SHUT UP!

(Also, I guess she's already forgotten how much I actually do for her and how much help she needs on a constant basis because of how much pain she's in all the time, but whatever.)

So anyway, then this man said to me "I know a guy. He's a doctor." But considering all the jokes he'd been cracking earlier, I kinda' thought he was kidding in that old NY Jew kind of way "I knowa gai, he'sa dakta'." You know what I mean?

My mom then cracked some quip about all Jews being doctors, he laughed, and we left.

Well, on the way home, my mother says to me "You know he's been divorced multiple times, right?"

And that seemed kind of out of left field so I was like "Uh... Yeeeah?"

And then she said, "I think he's interested in you."

So I said, "No, he said he knows a guy. He's a doctor."

And she said, "Oh, I didn't catch that."

I was like, "What? I thought that's why you made that joke about all Jews being doctors."

And she said, "No, I just heard him say the word doctor and thought it was apropos."

Like, what?

But either way... what the hell was she trying to get at there??? I think he's interested in you. Like, ok... and?

Was she trying to tell me I'm oblivious to guys' interest in me? (spoiler: I'm not)

Was she trying to gauge if I was interested in him? (spoiler: I'm not)

Was she trying to tell me I shouldn't be interested in him? (spoiler: I'M NOT)

Did she think I WAS interested in him!?!?!? (spoiler: I'M NOT)

I left that entire interaction so confused.

It's been hours and I still have no idea what she intended to say with any of that.

Regardless, dear future husband, you are not he and he is not you. For I would never marry a man old enough to be my own father.

Cuz ew. Just ew.

For the record - yes, I am an agist.

Because ew. Just ew.

-LivelyHeart

Ps - absolutely no shade to anyone who does date way out of their age range because everyone has different tastes and different life experiences that color their tastes. My taste is "not someone young enough to be my child or old enough to be my parent."