Dorie Morgan’s Rising Up
Navigating Twenty-Something Suburban Life
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Archive of "choices" Category
Thank you President Bush
When I was in 9th grade, our history class took a month to discover our political beliefs under the guidance of Mr. Kennedy (who would not tell us his own beliefs until the very last day of the school year but only with the promise that we would not tell the 8th graders who would follow us). We had debates. We wrote essays. We took political quizzes. All of this was to determine which party we belonged to. Are you a Democrat? Or are you a Republican? There are your options and you must know who you are.
I landed in the Republican side of things. There was only one other kid in class who was farther in than I was but it seemed like his reasons were based more on not liking anyone and not being interested in even helping his own family whereas I ranted like a lunatic about Social Security and what seemed like a crazy system (some things never change).
I stuck to my party ever since.
I voted in the 2000 election for George W. Bush but my little Republican dream was John McCain in the White House.
I voted in the 2004 election for George W. Bush – although for that I argued was a choice between inconsistency and incompetence. At least I voted for the man who was consistently incompetent. At the very least, smart people might be around him. I wasn’t happy but I took the options presented to me.
But I haven’t been happy with Bush for quite some time.
So as I wrote yesterday, I voted proudly for Bob Barr. I made a financial donation to his campaign. And for once, I didn’t feel like I had to sacrifice my beliefs for the options in front of me.
I also changed my Republican status to Libertarian. Next time, I’ll be a registered Libertarian.
It turns out there are third parties. You do have other options.
During the 2000 election, I had no idea third parties existed until I got to college. There I discovered the Green Party but every collegiate Green Party member I met appeared to be a ranting, paranoid whack job. It wasn’t exactly the best advertisement for third parties.
This time, I did my research. I learned. I explored again with the same enthusiasm I had in the 9th grade. I needed to do this.
My dissatisfaction motivated me forward. And for that, I want to thank George W. Bush. I truly believe Bush was the best thing that has happened to the United States of America.
Before you get mad, think about it. Yesterday I stood in a record breaking line at 6 in the morning because people were so dissatisfied that they had to do something. Yesterday morning, for the first time in my life, I stood in line at a polling station that wasn’t just filled with white people. Even people from the Fleetwing section of Bristol (which is known for being worse than Philly neighborhoods and is also an open air drug market) were there to vote. And while some of them scared me slightly, it was important to see that they were there. They never came before.
I wanted to be the first voter at my polling station yesterday morning but there was an African American family ahead of me. They never voted before – it seemed fitting to see them go before me.
As of six o’clock this morning, Barack Obama received over 62 million votes. And they are still counting. That’s more votes than received by any other president in US history.
It seems to me that maybe we all had to get really uncomfortable to be motivated. Bush broke our apathy. And we should thank him for that.
Life with Don
I keep finding posts and articles about Gen Y and moving back home stumble flash across my browser and I think it’s time I say something about it. Mostly in the form of a confession.
Brian and I have spent the first 18 months of our marriage living with my father-in-law, Don. I usually try to avoid saying it flat out but I know I’ve alluded to it in the past in both comments and posts.My name is Dorie, I’m 26 and I’m a boomerang kid.
I moved back home follow graduation. Which was horrible. I am convinced that the only way possible for my mother and me to function as rational people is for us to live in different zip codes. Life post graduation in my childhood bedroom was mind numbingly horrible. We fought constantly, I tried to be drunk for as much of it as humanly possible and I was stuck. It’s a miracle anyone survived.
Then I met Brian, we decided to get married and I moved into his father’s house. Most women fear moving from their father’s house and directly into their husband’s house. Brian and I were flat broke and that wasn’t an option.
We spent the first six months on a futon on the floor of his high school bedroom. For the last year, we’ve actually had a bed to sleep on. It was by no means comfortable living but we did it.
Part of the weirdness comes from the fact that I run my late mother-in-law’s household. It’s her organizational systems that I maintain. I cook in her kitchen. I use her washer and dryer for the household’s laundry. It kind of feels like limbo. Because it is limbo.
So why did we do it?
1. Housing in Lower Bucks County is really expensive. A one bedroom apartment in the bad part of town will set you back at least eight hundred dollars a month. For about four hundred dollars more, we could get a mortgage. Since we were committed to the Philadelphia area, why rent when we could buy?
2. We could not afford to buy a house right away. We did not have enough money for a down payment. It took about a year for us to save enough money for a down payment. Had we been renting, we calculate it would have taken 3 to 4 years to save enough money.
3. We wanted a place we could stay rent free while we renovated a home. Brian is a carpenter. It made sense to get a handyman’s special.
4. Nine months before our wedding, Brian’s mom passed away. Moving was just too painful.
Now that our time in Brian’s childhood home is wrapping up, I catch myself reflecting on the time. There are a lot of pros and a lot of cons too.
Pro: It taught us how to fight. Having someone else in the house to hear it when we were disagreeing helped us to stay kind to each other. Because it’s one thing to have in-laws. It’s a whole different thing to have your spouse’s family hear your disagreements. The upside is that we’re pretty good with disagreeing without yelling.
Con: Sometimes you just want a good fight with no one listening. Sometimes I want to rant and rave like an absolute lunatic and not have my father-in-law listening to my insanity.
Pro: It’s broken down the typical “in-law” issues. Brian’s dad isn’t just “my father-in-law” but Don. He’s a real three dimensional person, not just someone to deal with at family functions. These living arrangements have connected me to Brian’s family in ways our marriage couldn’t do by itself.
Con: It makes it harder to be “Dorie” in terms other than “Brian and Dorie”. Limited living space a couple means that there is also limited space for me to still be home but alone. For the first 6 months, we were literally on top of each other because our “bed” was so small. We now live in two rooms but it can still be a challenge.
Pro: We didn’t have to buy what was available. We were able to be fussy about the house we purchased because we didn’t have to worry about when a lease would be up. We also were able to start our renovations without having live in construction or pay rent. It took a lot of pressure off.
Con: Sometimes it took a little too much pressure off us. To the point of becoming lazy. It becomes easier to say “no, I won’t work on the house today because it is raining” instead of saying “I have to move in a month, I have to get to work”.
Pro: We were able to save a ton of money. We were able to have money for a down payment for our home and still have money left over for renovations. I won’t say we are rolling in cash but we are able to get by today without too much panic.
Con: Sometimes it was really tempting to spend that money. Sometimes we were able to practice self control, other times we just couldn’t do it. While I may have loved coming home some days to random jewelry surprises (“Hello Sapphires, I love the way you look on me too”), it did not help our plan to put money aside.
Overall, living with Brian’s dad has been very good for us but I’m not sure I would recommend it to anyone else. If you do find yourself in a situation where you are married and living at home, set some ground rules first and get those rules in writing. Some questions you should ask:
1. Are we expected to pay rent? How much? What day should I give you money?
2. What household responsibilities are we responsible for?
3. What household errands are we responsible for?
4. What are your responsibilities are you response for as the home owner?
5. How will we handle the holiday seasons?
6. What are restrictions for having guests over?Treat everything like it is a business arrangement. It may sound impersonal but it is a key part of maintaining a functioning family in an awkward situation.
And don’t forget to make an exit plan too!
Safe and Comfortable is not enough
While I was making dinner last night, a young woman came to the door to talk about our voting choices. My father in law may have gotten to the woman first because I may have a habit of hassling the kids that go door to door on a campaign and it may make my family uncomfortable. No one else seems to be as entertained by it as I am. (My favorite question involves Gen-Y, student loans and what will whatever politician do to earn my vote.)
My f-i-l has a brief conversation with the girl. She had to have been 19 or 20. She had that “I’m a college kid and I can change the world” level of excitement, which I love. I wish we all had that level of excitement in our daily lives. But is excitement enough?
She was campaigning for Barack Obama in a predominantly white, suburban neighborhood (there are only two African American families on our street which is kind of impressive because most houses on the street are owned by the original owners). Her accent and use of language implied that she probably did not grow up in the best Philadelphia neighborhood. She was an African American. She had a look on her face that said “I work hard for everything I’ve got and I’m proud of where I am going”.
She was also dressed as if the moment she got done walking through the neighborhood, she was going to the clubs, not the burbs.
This was not the face I expected in the neighborhood. Usually our door to door campaign kids are dressed like they are headed to the office. And they usually come in pairs and are smiley - not passionate.
This girl had all of this enthusiasm which was inspiring and amazing to see. I might not be a huge fan of Obama but his ability to excite people is something I really respect. She conveyed his message with passion and commitment.
But I couldn’t help but wonder about the package that message came in.
Could the message be hidden by the form that it was delivered in? Would my 90 year old neighbor across the street want to open the door? Then again, my 90 year old neighbor doesn’t even open her front door for girl scouts selling cookies.
This isn’t just politics. This is everyday life.
I once heard a sermon that Jesus has become a safe package for us to accept salvation (I cannot remember for the life of me who I heard it from so if you recall, let me know). But Jesus wasn’t a safe package to accept two thousand years ago. Two thousand years ago, salvation in the form of Jesus was pretty radical concept. It wasn’t safe and it wasn’t comfortable but it did change the world. Regardless of your religious beliefs, Jesus changed the world you live in.
Things or people that change the world are rarely safe and comfortable. But people who get hired usually are comfortable. They make the interviewer feel comfortable with the decision to hire. If you aren’t safe and comfortable, you have to be so brilliant it hurts to be hired but even then, you’ll probably be an entrepreneur and make your own terms.
Safe and comfortable also helps when you want to get married or when you want to be part of a long term relationship. Part of why I married Brian was that he made me feel safe. And having that safety in my marriage makes it easier to not be safe in my other life decisions. It is easier to be bodacious by day when there is a comfortable harbor to return to at night.
From where I am sitting today, it seems as if our next president needs to be safe enough to make us feel comfortable with our decision but still have the courage to make changes. It isn’t enough to change the world and it isn’t enough to just give warm, fuzzy feelings to the voters.
I didn’t get to talk to the dressed up campaign worker. I could only overhear what was said. But when she left our house, she left me thinking.
What if we bailed out student debt?
My husband and I were watching the news over the weekend, listening to commentary about the bailout.
How it is a bold move.
How it is the largest bailout since the Great Depression.
The kids I haven’t even made yet are going to be paying for their grandparents’ mistakes. And, to quote my grandfather, it “really burns me up”.
It kills me that the tax payers are going to be paying for this situation. I haven’t asked you to pay for my mistakes, why should I be paying for yours?
I really wonder about what kind of benefit this bailout would have.
While I ranted like a lunatic at Brian about the situation, I started spewing out random ideas that I thought would be better.
And one of them might actually be better.
If people are insistent that there be some sort of bailout, why not bail out student loans? After all, something around 50% of recent college graduates have student loans. Studentdebtalert.org goes so far as to say that 39% of college grads have “unmanageable” levels of student loan debt.
What would happen if that $700 billion dollars was used to bail out current students or graduates? How would that impact the economy? How would that influence our economic future?
At the moment, my student loan payments are larger than our mortgage. And our mortgage is cheaper than renting in our area. What would an extra thousand dollars in our pocket do for us every month?
And we aren’t the only ones in this situation. Every couple we know has student loan debt. And Brian and I are lucky ones because he doesn’t have any student loans to pay. We only have to carry my debt with us while most of our friends have payments to make for two people.
I should also make sure I say that I don’t believe that a student loan bailout would be a good idea either but playing with the “what if” is always a good idea.
If your student loans disappeared, how would it change your life?
Would you still be in your current line of work or would you pursue something different?
Would you stay in the part of the country where you live now or would you have more freedom to explore new places?
What would you do with that extra money?
Passion: Best D-cup runner in the state!
Sophomore year in college, I spent a semester living with this girl named Erica who I met in freshman Spanish. We weren’t really friends when we moved in together but I was desperate for a roommate and she had an extra space in her room. We were like night and day. She ran cross country and would willingly stay up all night to study organic chemistry while I would hide out in the theatre instead of doing actual work. And I wouldn’t run even if my life depended on it.
Surprisingly, we got along great. She ended up being one of the best people I have ever lived with and I’m still a little disappointed the opportunity to live together never presented itself again.
One of my favorite things about Erica was the way she started every idea or observation she had with the same opener.
“Dorie. Can I tell you something. Let me tell you something.”
What followed would range from “My mother is crazy” to “I got to the exam and I couldn’t figure out why I studied so much”. Her opener was this staple of her vocabulary just to get the conversation moving. (Side note: This past week she pointed out that her boyfriend starts everything with “Let me ask you a question”. I’m not sure she realizes that she does the exact same thing, just with slightly different language.)
One day, she followed her opener with the statement “If they placed track meets based on cup sizes, I’d be the best D-cup runner in the state.”
And it was probably true. When I’d go to her meets, I’d see this sea of long, lean skinny people. The women were tiny and none of them were all that curvy. And then there was Erica, with her hips and her breasts and looking like a woman. She was/is gorgeous.
She ran because she loved it. D-cups and all. Her body may not have appeared to be built for it but it was passion that pushed her.
It is been almost six years since I lived with Erica. She still runs. Because she still loves it. And she applies that passion to other areas of her life. Her career as a lawyer is a great example. Passion is always something that can benefit us, no matter what field we are in.
Your passion doesn’t have to be your life’s work. If Erica wanted to be a professional athlete, she might not get very far. But since Erica wants to run because she loves it, she can be the “best D-cup runner in the state” and then be okay with being just that.
Because she motivated by the internal reward of her actions, the external rewards are nice but they are not the be all, end all of where she finds her self worth.
I used to define passion as something that I love to do, no matter what. But maybe that isn’t totally true. Maybe I need to start defining passion as something I love to do for only the internal rewards. Maybe a better way to realize passions is to look at the matter in question and be able to say “The external rewards are nice, but that’s not why I’m doing this”.
Babies? Maybe Later
After nine months of trying, my best friend is finally pregnant. Thank God. I’ll miss calling her weekly and starting the conversation with “so, are you knocked up yet?” but it is a small price to pay for her happiness. She’s wanted a baby for a while now.
Brian’s older sister is pregnant too. She’s due in October and expecting a little girl. She started trying around the same time my best friend did but things worked out a little faster. I have to admit, I’m looking forward to being an aunt again.
Even our next door neighbors at the new house have a new baby boy. I think their six year old daughter was confused when her brother turned out to be a baby and not a kid her age to play with. She also wants to know when Brian and I will be having babies because “there aren’t enough kids around here”.
It seems like there are babies everywhere. I guess it is a side effect of actually being an adult now.
I’ve always wanted to have a big family. I may not have dreamt about being a bride when I was a little girl but I dreamt about being a mom. I am an only child so I used to daydream about a house filled with chaos and madness and kids everywhere. The idea of a big family still sounds very appealing. But when the 6 year old asked me about having kids, I froze.
I am not ready to be a mom.
I am not ready to give up my freedom.
I am not ready to stop being selfish.
And I don’t think I should be making babies until I’m ready to put a child first. As an educated person who understands how babies are made and can take the necessary steps to avoid premature baby making, having a child before I’m ready is just irresponsible.
The downside to this line of thought is that I keep hearing that there is no “right time” to have a kid. Because children are messy and inconvenient. They say things that make the neighbors cringe. Kids are expensive.
And once a child arrives, you can never go back to not being a parent. It is one of the most permanent changes you can make. (At least if you are a woman. In the case of my birth father, it didn’t seem to slow him down.) Children change priorities. They change your life.
And that change is appealing, but not yet. There is so much I want to do with my life before I start to worry about the dangers of vaccinating children and start to focus on providing my children with a strong start in life. I want to travel, to write a book, to actually finish renovating my house. I want to be a wife and appreciate my time with my husband. I want to see what I can accomplish in my career. I want to be able to take off on a weekend trip on a moment’s notice and not worry about tracking down a babysitter.
I told my new 6 year old friend that there would not be any babies anytime soon but my nieces and nephew would come to visit. And in typically 6 year old fashion, she quickly moved onto the next topic that interested her. It was adorable.
Here’s what I’m ready for – I am ready to be the favorite aunt. I’m ready to do the fun things with kids and not worry if the homework is done or if they are behaving correctly. I’m ready to rediscover the world through the eyes of my niece but I am not ready to rediscover the world through the eyes of my daughter.
I really thought someone would have shot me
Preemptive apology for the disjointed nature of this post.
Last Thursday my grandfather fell at his nursing home and broke his hip. On Friday, he had surgery to replace that hip. On Sunday, he woke up seemed very confused by me. Yesterday (Tuesday), he finally woke up and knew who people were.
It has been a rough couple of days to say the least.
Partially because we weren’t sure he was going to make it. Partially because we were afraid he would make it. And so we sat in hospital chairs, murmuring back and forth that everything was going to be okay.
I did a lot of writing since Thursday, but all of it was intensely personal. I thought about posting it but I realized that if I got one negative comment on what I wrote, I would be devastated. And if I can’t handle the criticism for what I write, I shouldn’t be sharing.
But yesterday, my grandfather woke up. And this time he knew who I was.
It is really hard to see him like this. Because this is so different from the way he lived his life. And when the person you respect most in the world looks at you and says “I really thought someone would have shot me before I got to this point”, it can break your heart.
After I fed my grandfather dinner last night and left the hospital, I started wondering about how you measure lifelong success. Or if you can even measure it at all. In the twilight of life, what are the markers of success that really matter?
My grandfather wrote a list of things to be included in his eulogy in 1985 when he retired from his career. I was three years old at the time. He ended it with a statement about spending his retirement with his granddaughter and living happily ever after. Twenty three years later: Did he really live happily ever after?
If we look at the 1985 list of accomplishments and then ask the question “was this life successful”, I think it is easy to come to the conclusion, that yes it was. But when we move forward over twenty years and ask the same question, reaching the same conclusion becomes complicated.
The last twenty years have been stagnant.
And maybe that’s what he really wanted.
But it seems at conflict with the first sixty-five years of life. And I have a hard time believing someone worked so hard for 65 years just to let it all go so quickly.
Maybe the apathy is a symptom of a larger problem that I am just not seeing.
I think this is so disconcerting to me is because I see a lot of my grandfather in me. And I fear living my twilight years in the same condition that he has lived his.
I would hope that I would keep growing and changing well into retirement. I would hope that I would continue to do one thing that terrifies me each day until I die.
So now I’m left with questions. How do I live my life? Do I need to change the way I live now in order to ensure my own happiness sixty years from now? Will the decisions I make today impact my ability to die with dignity?
At this point, is it worth it?
My friend Erica is a lawyer. More specifically, she works in patent law for a firm in NYC. She has two secretaries, she’ll make partner in eight years and she makes at least three times as much money as I do. She has a fabulous boyfriend and she’s thinking about buying a condo in the city.
She also works at least 65 hours a week. And that’s a conservative estimate on my part. She tells me its only sixty hours a week but I lived with this girl in college and I know Erica has no sense of time when she’s working. I also know that her secretaries think she is working too much as well.
When you think about all of the things you need to do during the week, just as basic aspects of life, how is it possible to consistently work 65 hours a week? And when a case gets hectic, is it possible to have any hope of a home life available to you?
At what point is the money just not enough?
I’ve read that statistic about 40k being the magic number, but Erica brought up a really good point that I tend to forget about: the difference between making forty thousand dollars annually in, let’s say, Fairport Harbor, Ohio and New York City is monumental. Even the difference between Levittown, PA (where I live) and NYC is monumental. But so what?
What makes the money worth it?
I have mixed feelings about all of this.
On one hand, I kind of like the idea of working as hard as you can until you are ready/want to reproduce and then cut back. But realistically, that’s not going to happen. You’ll either put off kids because the time is just “not right” or you’ll pay a fortune for childcare because you won’t want to give up your career and you can’t get more than six weeks maternity leave without losing your job.
On the other hand, I know myself. If I don’t work hard at finding balance, I never will. If I don’t set clear boundaries for myself, I’ll neglect my own basic needs. And while that could benefit me in my career (depending on where I was working), it would not benefit me in ensuring my husband would be in my bed when I came home at night.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the money she makes doesn’t tempt me. And when I hear her tell me that I could easily do the work she does, it makes it even more tempting. But since I know I can’t really have it all and still have my sanity, what are the pieces that I really care about?
Is blood thicker than water?
My mother gives me a lot of unsolicited advice when it comes to married life. I suppose it’s a natural and overwhelming urge for her to pass on these gems of wisdom. Nine times out of ten, I strongly disagree with what she believes to be true, which is making me wonder how I lived in the same house as this woman from birth until adulthood.
Lately, the advice has been relating to interacting with his family. Since I am an only child and an only grandchild (yes, I know I blogged about my cousin last week but she’s actually my step-cousin), I need all the advice I can get when it comes to interacting with siblings. While I spent the first 24 years of my life learning how to be quiet by myself, Brian learned how to survive having 3 older sisters.
When it comes to healthy family relationships, I am in over my head.
So my mom gives me advice to make up for the fact that reproduction is not my family’s strong point. She seems to think that if she passes on enough pieces of truth from her own life, it will make up for some of the confusion in my own life.
But really, her advice is just getting under my skin. “Blood is thicker than water” is her favorite phrase to utter over the phone during my commute home.
The way I catch myself interpreting her advice is that biological family ties will be the bonds that trump all other bonds. I’m not sure that is what she really means but it is what I keep hearing. And in my life, there are so many things wrong with that mentality.
For example: I don’t know who my birth father is. Despite the fact that he was married to my mother when I was both conceived and born, I have not seen him since I was six months old. In my house, we don’t talk about it. I don’t know what he looks like and no one will answer my questions. Which then leaves the question: If blood is truly thicker than water, is the blood flowing through my veins just really crappy? Is it less bonding than other blood?
Take another example: My step dad adopted me when I was thirteen. I’ve called him “Daddy” since the day he married my mother. He gave me away when I married Brian. But despite a slight resemblance, I share no genetic material with the man I identify as my father. There is no “blood” between us. If blood is truly thicker than water, does an adopted child only have a chance at a deep relationship when they grow up and have kids of their own?
But more troubling, my mom’s advice makes me think of baby boomers and the waves of divorce I have watched my friends survive. Even as adults, the experience of watching their parents divorce has shaken the world they live in. And the shared blood through their children still was not enough to make things work.
If blood truly is thicker than water, how does a marriage survive and thrive? Will sibling relationships always take the cake for closeness?
And then I wonder about my life and my marriage. And I wonder about the world of twenty somethings and their budding marriages. Will our ability to learn from our parents’ mistakes enable us to change the face of American marriage? Could we decide as a generation to make the difference between family and friends irrelevant?
Internal Interviews: Was this really a good idea?
I recently applied for an internal posting within my company and then had the chance to sit around and be paranoid for a while as they decided whether or not I was interview worthy. The whole situation is like dating gone horribly wrong – I’ve already been on this “date” for the last year and a half, I’ve asked to take the next step and the other person is standing there and thinking about it while I feel awkward.
Now that I’m trapped in the internal hiring process, it is really starting to click in my head how many problems really are in this system. I’d love to say that being promoted from within is a win-win situation for everyone but now I’m not entirely sure.
For starters, what is going to happen to your career within the company if you are not selected for the position? Will that be remembered in the future if you apply for other positions? For example, could the ABC department turn you down because if the XYZ department didn’t want you, there must be a reason? The last few days, I’ve been thinking about this like a marriage proposal – does the relationship really survive after a rejected proposal or does it just limp along until someone has the guts to call it quits?
Next problem: I would be moving out of an administrative role but it isn’t unreasonable to think that I could be perceived as the new department’s copy ‘n staple bitch. Would I forever be seen as the coffee girl or could a truly become a vital part of the new department? Would I really be able to make the impact I am capable of making?
Finally, if this new position should work out, I’d be leaving my present boss in a bit of a bind. She would have to cover the work I currently do until they find someone to replace me or I could be expected to cover both positions until someone new could be trained. I really don’t want to leave my current boss in a bad position (I have a really great working relationship with her) but at the same time, I don’t want to put myself in a bad starting position.
My big interview is scheduled for tomorrow so I’m hoping I’ll know by the end of the week how this will pan out for me. Keep your fingers crossed it works out well for me and I’ll keep you posted on the process this week.
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