Obsession...or not

My current Facebook status =

Jennifer Watson is laughing. Chris sees me sitting in our living room tap-tap-tapping away on my laptop and says with a huge grin, "OK, I think it's official that this is now an obsession."

I look at him, knowing in one way that he is right, but also knowing that he's also just a little bit wrong.

"It's not an obsession," I say.

"I know," Chris replies. "I just think that it's kind of funny."

"No, really, it's not an obsession," I persist. "We've been living so long just the two of us that it feels really good to be reaching out to other people."

And it's true.

Chris and I are both very extroverted introverts.

We love to see friends and family and do social things, but both of us tend to regenerate much better with down time...alone. And sometimes we get in the habit of not necessarily reaching out to other people to make plans. So a weekend rolls around and it's just the two of us.

We kind of get in a rut of hanging out as Just The Two Of Us.

Don't get me wrong - we always have a great time together even if we have no plans. Chris is wonderful, fabulous and extremely entertaining company (and I hope that I am, in turn, wonderful, fabulous and extremely entertaining company for him...he keeps me around so I'll assume that I am.)

However, there is that danger that we sometimes let ourselves slip into a world of Just The Two Of Us and end up feeling like we don't have enough friends.

And so along comes Facebook.

I'm embarrassed to say that I have poo-poo'd FB for a very long time. Thought it was something for kids. A waste of time. Dumb. Etc.

I stand corrected.

It's been a wonderful and fascinating experience to open myself up to people via this social networking site. So far I haven't done any of the games or the causes and I'm not a "Fan" of anything or anyone. (And I doubt that I'll pursue any of that aspect of FB anytime soon. Not really all that interested...) Nor have I made it my goal to have 682 Friends. Good heavens, I can hardly manage the few that I have already. I don't think that I am quite ready to make all kinds of new virtual friends.

What I am enjoying is the contact with my "actual" friends and family near and far. And reaching out to people with whom I haven't had contact in weeks, months, a few years or even many years. It's nice to read their "walls," see what's going on in their lives and let them know what's happening in my life and thoughts. Nice to be making plans to see folks who live near and perhaps to open us up to future visits to people who live far away.

The closer I get to becoming a parent, the more I realize how vital it is to seek out and open myself up to friends. To create and shore up that support system for me, my husband, our child.

Our family.

We can't and shouldn't try to do it all alone.

Or end up doing it alone out of complacency.

It takes work to maintain relationships. Something I can't say that I've always done very well in the past. I've reached out to people and enjoyed their friendship for a time only to pull inside of myself and let the friendship languish during times when my life was difficult. There are a lot of e-mails in my "Sent Items" box with the subject line "Long lost friend says hello" and the first line of the e-mail reading "I'm so very sorry that it's been so long since I've been in touch."

I don't want to send those e-mails anymore.

And so I am on Facebook and working hard to reach out to people. To forge and re-forge relationships that I haven't shepherded well into my 41st year. To maintain those relationships. To share myself not just when it's convenient or only when I'm feeling really up. But also when things are hard and when I want to pull away and retreat into myself. To keep reaching out and know that there will be people there for me during the hard times.

And for me to reciprocate. For me to be there for friends and family during their hard times. For me to be part of their support systems and to reach out when they need it.

So maybe I'm spending just a wee bit too much time on my laptop these days, but I'm fairly certain that this is temporary and will pass. Eventually I imagine that I will have some kind of routine and will limit myself to a certain amount of time of FB...and, of course, the needs of the Little One will likely severely limit my computer time!

But for now....yeah, a little obsessed.

See you on Facebook!

Time...and Energy

Yesterday was a down day...not "down" like "Oh, I feel so sad and down", but down as in doing nothing/relaxing/foozling.

Having stayed up crazy late on Friday night I slept in ridiculously late yesterday, which is always weird for me because my actual preference is to head to bed early and be up relatively early. Sleeping in always leaves me feeling super groggy. Luckily it was a gorgeous day - just the kind of day that I wish we had all summer long - not quite 70 degrees, sunny with some poofy cottony looking clouds floating gently across the sky, and a cool breeze.

I spent the afternoon reading a book while laying in a lounge chair on our deck.

Lovely.

It occurred to me last evening that these kinds of down days are soon going to be a thing of the past and that Chris and I should take the time to enjoy them now before the arrival of the Little One.

"We're not going to have quiet days like these anymore once The Kid arrives," I say to Chris. He greets this statement with a wry grin.

(I've received loads of advice to the effect of, "Do everything that you like to do as an adult now because soon....")

While we do joke about this, one of the things that I do continue to worry about a bit as we move forward along the adoption path is my energy level. I have always been a person who needs "down time" - time to read a book - to watch a little TV - to just be quiet with my thoughts. I am an extroverted introvert who loves spending time with people and being very social, but regenerates best by myself. Once the Little One arrives I don't imagine that there will be much down time at all for me to regenerate. Chris is likewise a person who seems to need down time to regenerate so I imagine that parenting for us while maintaining our energy levels may pose some challenges.

How to make sure that we both have the time to regenerate?

Will we be too exhausted to parent effectively?

When we first starting talking about adoption I mentioned to Chris a few "must haves" for me to move forward as a parent. And the more I think about this the more I realize that one of those must haves is a little bit of down time each day. And I'm sure that he'll need that, too. So my thought is that we may need to be very intentional (as much as circumstances allow...) about the way we parent to allow for that little bit of time each day to regenerate.

One thing I've noticed about my wonderful husband is that he loves to read the news online in the mornings. And on Sundays the New York times (the "real" one...not the cyber version.) If we have to get up and get going on a weekend morning he's fine, but I notice that he is definitely more cheerful and happier throughout the day when he has had his time with the news in the morning. Once he's read the news he's perfectly happy to get going on house projects, errands, being social, whatever.

I'm the opposite - If I sit down on a weekend morning to read it's pretty much all over for me for the day. You'll find me hours later in the same spot with my book and I am loathe to get up to do anything else (see above for my description of spending the entire day on the deck!) If I get up and get going then I tend to be pretty "good to go" for a while throughout the day. This makes me think that when the Little One arrives that on the weekends I'll take The Morning Shift - getting The Kid up and out of the house for a while thus giving Chris time to foozle and read his news.

Since my energy tends to flag in the late afternoon and evening, I am hoping that Chris will take The Afternoon/Evening shift with the Little One thus giving me a little down time to regenerate.

This is probably a very overly optimistic picture of what life will be like on the weekends with the Little One. While we may have our plans and want to be very intentional with the way we parent...each kid is so different and I'm sure that every parent I know will tell me that the best laid plans will go very awry based on the whims and moods and needs of a particular kid. Still, I'd like to try intentional parenting as much as possible and to make and stick to plans as much as The Kid allows.

Today looks to be a bit grey outside. No lounging on the deck for me. And I probably ought to get up out of this chair very soon or Chris will find me a here hours later foozling around on the computer and getting very little else done...