Please Tell The Dentist To Take His Fist Out Of My Mouth

For the last several days I have been feeling down, really down. I have probably, “presented cranky” and Dcup asked me several times if I was OK. My reply to her was that, “I am OK.” I felt like I could not explain my doldrums. So I just didn’t and I am sorry about that but I appreciate her patience with me.

This afternoon I had a dentist appointment and I knew it was likely that I needed a root canal. My dental health worries me for several reasons, mostly because of the amount of money it will cost me. It pisses me off that I can’t just get the issues fixed because almost all dental insurance plans are sub-par.

I arrived early to the office with my spiral note book in-hand. I proceeded to map out lesson plans for the next week and I roughed out two blog posts, one about today’s weather and school and this paraphrased post which I will not post:

… I am tired of … walking around our … neighborhood … situation…

I decided that I would not post the rest of this, especially, when I realized the real reason behind my recent feelings.

My root canal had complications. I spend almost three hours with a rubber damn attached to my face while the dentist and his assistants took turns with their feet on my chest while they had a shovel in my mouth.

As soon as I stood up from the dental chair and the weight of those three people were off my chest, I realized that I really do hate the dentist, not because of the physical pain but the pain in our check book. Now, that the anesthesia has worn off – I am OK and that blog post I roughed out three hours earlier seems ridiculous.

Twenty Years Of Schooling

On your wedding day, the vows are everything and Dcup and I wrote our own vows for our day.  I admit that I don’t remember exactly what we said to each other but if we read them last year we may have laughed at them as signs of the silliness of our youth.  I think differently, today.  We have weathered so many set backs, worries and near disasters that now I know that we are for each other.

Candidly, twenty years I ago, I wondered if our marriage would last.  In May I was sure we were done.   Stranger things have happened, like the White Sox actually winning the World Series in 2oo5.  But this is not the time recount all the near misses.  They happened and we both have a made a conscious decision to stay together.  There are days when this life is so difficult and I question the direction my life has gone.

Now we are the cusp of our 20th wedding anniversary.   We have had two decades of ups and downs, happiness and sadness and lots of living.  It is time to renew our vows.  Some of these vows between Dcup and I,  need not be spoken but most are negotiated and re-negotiated as needed, out loud. We wrestle to gain position and a place where our marriage will continue and thrive.

LHG, Happy Anniversary (August 21, 1988 – August 21,2008) From DLG.

Us

… tell her to go hell for the first time in your life… Brighton Beach Memoirs, 1986

Can you really know everything about a person? I wonder about that question and surely the answer is no. Can you love someone understanding that you really can’t know everything about a person. Of course the answer is yes.

I have known Dcup for over twenty years (those are real math years by the way) and I am still learning about her. I am not sure that people who know us, real or virtual, realize that there was never a question about our love for each other. I have loved her since that moment we shared a beer from that pitcher and without that love we could not have traveled to the edge of the black-hole and back.

In 2000, the first time we that separated I saw a therapist. I recall driving my ’86 MR2 to and from the appointments and feeling pretty good after each. Now, we go together. It helps us focus on the importance of communicating. I often learn, little things about her that I did not know before. And that makes me happy.

Since the love never stopped and we like each other there is a reason to work at this relationship. As difficult as it is and has been there is nothing more valuable as our friendship and love. That is why we keep coming back to each other and this time for good.

Eye Eye

I have come to hate the phone calls. That fucking … ring tone signifies ever short coming that I have every had. The phone rings and the wind stops. Everywhere we go that song taunts me. It rings in the store, at home and in the car. At first it was ha ha the guy … - Mathman, December 23, 2008

During that time our cell phones symbolized the split between us and the thread that actually held us together. Several giant sized phone bills pushed us further apart. But I am not the type of person who demands to constantly keep an eye on Dcup. Currently, we are making efforts to save more money. Last month all of  our cell phone accounts did not make the combined bill which means there is $240 of un-billed service that will come later. These cell phone bills were kicking our ass. So I went to the AT&T store to consolidate all 5 of cell phones on one shared plan.

Our new cellphone plan is symbolic of pulling our relationship back together.