It Must be Lunchtime Around Here

I have been having nightmares the last few nights. I think I have post-traumatic stress disorder.

Okay, so that’s a touch melodramatic. But really, what’s a blog without the melodrama, right?!

The short version of the story is: 

Who am I kidding?  There is no short version. 

But here’s the medium-sized version:

Boy meets girl in San Francisco, they fall in lovelovelovelalala and decide to move in together.  Girl is all:  DUDE.  I do NOT want to live together for freakingever without getting engaged.  Boy is all:  Doy.  I know that. It’s all good.

But Boy has issues with wanting to be a good provider and all that.  He wants a successful career underway, with a good salary, before he gets married. (Cue music that says:  FORESHADOWING.  This  will be IMPORTANT later in the story!!!)

Girl says:  Whatever. I can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. (Even though it was Fakin’ Bacon because she was a vegetarian at the time, but now she’s not and mmmmmmm…bacon!  WHAT was I thinking, foregoing bacon???  I’m hungry. Maybe I should have a BLT for lunch.  Mmmmmm lunch.) 

Where was I?  Oh yeah, the story.

So anyway.  Boy gets GREAT new job, it’s a big promotion with a big raise and Boy and Girl celebrate with champagne and pizza.  Not long after, Boy proposes by stuffing ring in a box of cracker jacks and surprising Girl on Christmas morning.  (Which?  Is weird, the whole Cracker Jack thing on Christmas morning thing, and she doesn’t get the holiday connection–why not candy canes for example– but it’s really sweet and she says YES and off they go to plan a wedding.)

And then.  Then, just before Valentine’s Day, the Boy gets laid off, along with half the adult population of the Bay Area, thanks to the Great Dot Com Implosion of 2000-2001.

The Boy uses this opportunity to be very introspective, which is good, and realizes that instead of getting a JOB, he will go back to school and switch fields and basically not earn another penny for the next five years, which is not so good.

So the girl, former partner in bacon-bringing and -frying, becomes the sole breadwinner of the family.  (WHY OH WHY SO MUCH FOOD?!?  Mmmmmm….bread.)

Anyhoo, they continue planning their wedding and eventually get married and face some difficult times ahead, including but not limited to the following:

• Adjusting to the idea of being a one-income family in the freaking Bay Area
• The Boy’s adjustment to not only NOT being a provider, but relying solely on his new wife to support him
• Canceling their dream wedding that was planned for Sept. 14th, 2001 (thank YOU family "psychic" who confirmed that, astrologically speaking, that was a blessed day to get married but OOOPS! didn’t catch the whole terrorist attacks thing)
• Instead of said dream wedding with 100 family and friends present, getting married with 17 people and feeling horribly depressed the entire time
• And, let’s not forget…the JOY of struggling to get pregnant soon after all THAT

But. Life moves on and so did the Boy and the Girl.  They got a dog.  They got another dog.  The Boy studied hard in school and finally graduated, and the pain was not QUITE over thankyouverymuch and he spent a year looking for a job.

And today, the Boy has a job offer and another interview today, which I talked about in the whirley-gig post a few weeks back.  So the Girl (OK, it’s ME) should be happy and relieved. 

But I’m not.  I find I am having flashbacks to the last time BeBop was gainfully employed and how that all came crashing down around us. His getting laid off was a turning point in our lives that set us down a path neither could have predicted.  And much of it?  Neither of us particularly wanted.

So while I try to have faith that things are different now, that we sacrificed and he followed his dream and now everything will finally, finally be okay, it’s hard to believe that.

I don’t want to walk through life waiting for the other shoe to drop, but sometimes it’s hard to trust that history will not repeat itself.  That we’ve done the right things, made the right decisions and now we’re set to create the beautiful, wonderful life that we both want.

I have nightmares of these jobs not working out, and being back at square one. And I HATED square one, people, hated it!  And so I’m NOT going back there, I’m not I’m not I’m not.

Oy.  The stress of growing up and being an adult, of all things.  That BLT is suddenly looking very good to me…maybe I’ll have four one for lunch.