Following is an email that went back and fort between P. and I this morning. He's made at me b/c last night when he asked me for the checkbook to our savings account I decided to let him know where the checkbook was kept rather than just handing it to him without a word. Enjoy.

P writes:

I'm ok. You really bothered me last night about the checks. I feel like I can't ask you a simple question without some condescending comment about knowing where things are. I intentionally try not to get into your space, since you work there. I respect your space and don't want to mess it up.

As a result, I do not know where things are. If I'm going to get comments every time I ask for something, I'll just need to get my own stuff; like my own checkbook. I've had checkbooks since was a teenager and am perfectly capable of knowing where it is - if it is mine. So order more checkbooks, and I'll keep where I know where it is. You have more than one account, and I don't even want to know what's going on with your business account all the time. It's your business and I have other stuff to remember. Sometimes I just need to get things done and do not want to have the meaningless discussion about whether I'm capable of having a checkbook. I can't live with an absurd commentary every time I want to get something done. We used to use my old Dell lap top. I knew everything about it and knew where everything was in it. Now you dominate that area and your computer. That's fine. Just don't act like I'm the crazy one when I ask where something is in your area (I've seen checkbooks on the table/desk too). If you showed up at my office, I wouldn't offer ridiculous and sarcastic comments when you asked where the appropriate fax machine is, etc.

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So this year I was thinking (again) of a book and I was also going to write him a letter. Last week Oprah had on Mitch Albom, who wrote Tuesdays with Morrie - a book I never read because it just seemed sort of trite and "heartwarming" to me. Now he's written another one, For One More Day, which got me thinking about my dad. He has been my rock all throughout my life, the only person (besides my husband) who I believe has loved me unconditionally and without jealously or judgment. I worry about my dad because he's overweight, has diabetes now, and works too many long hours at a job he loves but that I know is stressful too. The premise of the book, which is what would you do or say if you had one more day with a person you loved but had lost, really got me thinking. Mainly it made me realize that I don't ever want to have any regrets about not telling my dad how special he is to me and how much I appreciate him - that I want to do it now. Thus the letter. More on that later...have to run to knee therapy now...

It's hard not to feel offended, even though I tried not to take it personally. I know that P. was out late the night before, had a busy day, works like crazy and gets tired easily. I also knew that he had taken a sleep drug so that he was going to be extra sleepy. But still. It upset me. Lately I feel that way a lot, sort of hurt and frustrated. Then I take a step back and look at my life, and what really do I have to complain about? (My therapist used to tell me not to do this, that everyone's reality was exactly that to them, no point in comparing it to anyone else's - yet here I go). I live in a great condo with my gorgeous husband who I love immensely and intensely. I have a job that lets me set my own schedule, so that I can wake up in the morning and write on this blog or go to the gym or do whatever the hell I want to, instead of having to slog through the snow to the el and fight the masses. I live in a fabulous city with friends and all of the culture and restaurants and shopping anyone could ask for. We make plenty of money to live happily and save some too.  So WTF?

Sometimes I feel like my life is a little bit empty. I go though this when I'm not as busy with work, and really, it's there even when I am busy, I just don't have as much time to obsess about it. I wish that I could learn to be happy now, to enjoy this easy time when I am the navigator of my own ship, when I can wake up every day and do whatever I want to do. I keep pushing for a house or maybe even a baby but will that really fill the gap? Or once all of the excitement fades from a move or a birth, will I be stuck with this same longing but feel even more trapped by my circumstances? 

One of my favorite college professors always told me that everything I wrote had a deep underlying sense of longing or yearning. I still haven't figured out what would satisfy my incessant craving. I know that every once in a while I find something that seems to help, like running. Or sometimes sugar. It used to be writing poetry back in high school and college - I haven't tried that in years. Maybe it's time to move, or have a baby, or write a book. And if I do all of those things and still feel the same way, then I guess I just have to learn to be satified with and GRATEFUL for what really is a wonderful life.

Sometimes a little shopping is so relaxing - I love to shop, especially when it's midday on a Monday and the stores aren't totally mobbed. The month of December is when I completely avoid the main shopping drag on the weekends; not fun to shop when you can't even navigate the streets or the stores. Working for yourself does have its benefits. So, I began the binge yesterday with a gorgeous cashmere sweater for my sister II - for which I did not pay the price on the website, WTF? It's much cuter in person and I got in an emerald green shade that will look absolutely foxy on her. I totally want to get one for myself now - that's the downfall of holiday shopping, one for a sister, one for me, one for my dad, one for me -- ah! I am going to try not to be that person this year. I don't know what I am going to ask for this Christmas, maybe I would like a nice cashmere sweater. I've never owned anything cashmere. P. and I are thinking maybe it's time to join the rest of the world and get Tivo, but I think that I'm more excited about that gift than he is.

Yesterday I also made it to my new knee doctor, Doctor C, for a second opinion. He thinks there's a 50/50 chance that I have a torn meniscus, but who wants to have surgery if the odds are half that there's nothing to fix? So I'm headed back to physical therapy, intensive this time, 3x a week. The doctor told me that the quad muscles in my right knee are totally atrophied, that just shows you how fast the "use it or lose it" principle works; it's only been about 6 weeks since my injury.

Dr. C. was so different than the other doctor I saw - he gets an A+ for actually listening. I had to fill out a 10 page questionnaire before I even got in to see him, all about my knee and the kind of pain I've been having. He's also strangely attractive - why do I always seem to like the shorter guys? He looked like he'd just gotten back from a week in St. Tropez, or more likely skiing, judging from his tan. He was telling me about the house he's building in Lincoln Park on a double wide lot - major $$. 

I do feel like if I don't have any results at the end of this next 6 weeks of physical therapy, that maybe surgery will be it.But I also believe my knee has been getting steadily better, so hopefully it won't be necessary. At least my new doctor seemed like he was all about ACTION, unlike the last guy who literally told me "there's nothing else I can do for you." Well thanks. You know what? Even if that's true, the delivery is a little lacking - time to work on the bedside manner.

We were at our friend Kristin's house; she and her husband also have an adorable little girl who just turned one; she's the one in the pumpkin patch. Then there was one other couple there too, my friend Sienna and her husband, who have a 2 year old little boy. It was a very kiddie-fied group, but truth be told I kind of enjoyed it. Once the kids went to bed and we all sat around talking and drinking wine, it was just lovely. The part that was not lovely was how I felt when I woke up the next day, and for once it had nothing to do with the wine.

I had a dream, a dream in which I was looking in the mirror and looking back at me was my own face but as if it were 80 years old, saggy jowls and wrinkles, age spots and gray frizzy hair. I don't remember a lot of the rest of the dream, but I remember that part with great clarity and it was terrifying. You know how sometimes a dream can stay with you and color your whole day? That's what this one did for me. In the dream it's not like I was 80; I was supposed to be my 33 year old self, so seeing that aged face in the mirror was disconcerting and upsetting.

I think in the back of my mind I'm worried about getting old and not being able to have/or to keep up with kids. For me the bigger issue, the one that's front of mind, is that I feel like I'm in the Groundhog Day movie; every day I get up and do the same stuff and I never get anywhere different. I WANT to have a house and a real adult life; I am tired of being shoved into this one-bedroom condo, bursting at the seams. Every time I think of moving, it's not even the space issue so much, it's the privacy issue. I want a house where I can walk through my living room in my bathrobe and not have to worry that if my robe is hanging open there are 10 people who can see me. I want a house where I have more than three rooms to decorate. Where I can hang pictures on the walls and where I'm not always thinking about the resale. I feel like everyone I know is moving forward in their lives and I'm still stuck in my post-college existence. I want to move on to my real life existence. Stat.

P. kept asking me what was wrong yesterday and for once I just kept my mouth shut. I feel like we've talked about this issue around and around in circles and then in ovals and squares and yet we're still here with no concrete plans to do anything different. I don't want to stress him out, I know when I bring it up he feels like a lot of pressure is being put on him but quite honestly I am getting to a place that I don't want to be. When I bottle up my feelings explosions tend to happen later on. To be continued...

This is also the time of year when my sister's depression usually sets in. In past years I've been so vigilant, keeping a close eye on her. But this year, I just feel a little bit disconnected. She seems to be pretty happy, she's dating someone and I think she's learned to accept that life keeps moving forward. She's made some new friends and doesn't seem to be as dependent on me or her college buddies, most of whom have kids of their own at this point. It's kind of a welcome relief.

I read an essay yesterday about depression, it's from the book An Uncertain Inheritance. The essay was by Andrew Solomon, who wrote the book The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression, a book that has been sitting on my shelf unread for quite some time now. Maybe now is the time to read it. At any rate, in the essay Mr. Solomon talks about how his dad was his caretaker and really saved him from falling into the darkest places of his depression. One part of the essay really hit home with me:

In depression, you make what the disinterested world judges unreasonable demands on the people around you, and friends and even lovers often don't have the stamina or knowledge or inclination to cope...Most people are repelled by the unhappiness of others. 

I never felt the demands my sister made were unreasonable - I felt helpless because she made no demands, other than to leave her alone.  I wanted to fix her, fix the problem, get her on medicine, I wanted her to choose to be happy. Too bad for some happiness is not a choice. I guess I am guilty of being repelled by the unhappiness of others, just as the author observes.

The author seems to be afraid of her own childhood playing out again if she herself has a child - I think about that too. Unlike the author, I didn't have an alcoholic parent and I didn't grow up poor. But as the author did, I had a mother that didn't take to motherhood with the passion and selflessness that's expected of mothers in our society. I had a mother that would complain endlessly about the burden that her children were to her, how they would "hang" on her all the time. A mother that would come downstairs before school in the morning already pissed off at the world, skinny cigarette in one hand and a coffee mug full of flat diet pop in the other, spewing criticisms and frowning with disgust. A mother who saw her children as walking dollar signs, each representing another bank account in which child support payments would be deposited.

I think maybe if I do have a child, I'd be better off if it were a boy. I used to think I wanted a daughter, but whoa! at the same time the thought of again being involved in a mother/daughter dynamic scares me more than anything. In my marriage, I've had to work really hard to stop myself from replicating the shitty behaviors that I saw my parents act out. Don't know if I want to have to do the same if I have children.