intheparsha

[intheparsha]

10 Months...

So, I was looking at the calendar and realized that LilSis and Bobo (as I’ve started referring to him) have been married for 10 months already. That’s insane, right!? 

That also means that I haven’t posted the wedding weekend story and it’s been almost a year since that event.... Shana rishona is almost over! Yikes!

I’m so sorry you guys. Things have just been super crazy and stressful and I’ve barely had enough time for myself, let alone for posting the whole story. I have most of it written out, but it’s pretty emotionally fueled (mostly because I did start writing it after the wedding and tensions were pretty high). 

I don’t necessarily want to censor the feelings, but looking back I feel like it might need to be dialed back a bit. I’ll reread what I’ve written and take stock later on this week and hopefully post it all soon. Maybe in parts though, so it’s not extremely overwhelming. 

Side note, I told my friend A.K. about my blog and she’s been really supportive. So much so that she decided she wants to do her own. She’s created the page http://dearfuturehusbandblog.tumblr.com as well as a facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Dear-Future-Husband-Blog-1702994776655970/  She’s new at this whole sharing your feelings thing, so if you guys could show her some support, that would be amazing. 

[intheparsha]

@shomermitzvah, Yeah, I decided against actually reporting him too. I just blocked him. But I used what you said about parents and rabbeim being ashamed (though obviously with some poetic license there). 

If I’m being honest, I was annoyed about a couple of other things when I saw his message and just felt like certain things needed to be said. He seemed to be nitpicking and looking for a fight, so I gave him my rebuttal and let it go. 

(I was originally going to end off with “goodbye and good luck,” but as I was writing it, I didn’t feel like wishing him good luck at all. It’s petty, I know.)

Pushed Too Far!

Well, he did respond. It was unasked for and unappreciated. He pushed too far, so I pushed back. 

This was my last message to him: 

He decided to be very passive aggressive by taking my starting line and putting it back on me. Here’s what he said:

He was clearly looking for a fight, so I pushed back and after I see that he’s opened the message, I’ll be blocking him. 

I might have been too harsh, but I felt that some of what I said was me standing up for every girl he would possibly speak to. I feel like I should also report him to the site moderators, but I don’t know if I should go that far. 

Thoughts?

[intheparsha]

Pushed Too Far!

Well, he did respond. It was unasked for and unappreciated. He pushed too far, so I pushed back. 

This was my last message to him: 

He decided to be very passive aggressive by taking my starting line and putting it back on me. Here’s what he said:

He was clearly looking for a fight, so I pushed back and after I see that he’s opened the message, I’ll be blocking him. 

I might have been too harsh, but I felt that some of what I said was me standing up for every girl he would possibly speak to. I feel like I should also report him to the site moderators, but I don’t know if I should go that far. 

Thoughts?

[intheparsha]

I don’t want to share the name publicly in case it was an isolated event and he’s really not like that, but oh my gosh, right?! I try not to use the block button if I don’t have to, especially if they haven’t done anything overtly horrible, but it’s kind of appalling. 

These guys just seem to have no clue how to interact with women. Or maybe it’s people in general. I really don’t know. They could all just have social retardation. 

There have been a few guys that I’ve had nice, short conversations with and they were really nice, but we discovered that we weren’t really on the same page in terms of hashakafa, so we ended it, but those guys are so few and far between. More often than not I get the weirdos or the guys that seem normal and then just flip out. 

I think my last message to this guy finally hit home though, because I saw that he opened the message, but he hasn’t responded. Phew. 

Pushy, Pushy, Pushy

Why are some guys so pushy?

I have a lot going on in my life right now, but I’ve kept my jwed account active because you never know how or when Hashem will insert the right person into your life, and things can change at the drop of a hat. 

A week ago I started going through my old emails and saw that I had missed a message from a guy on jwed from about two and a half weeks prior, so I clicked over and wrote a little message apologizing for not having seen the message sooner and courteously letting him know that I wasn’t interested. 

I ended my message with “hatzlacha finding your beshert!” which is a subtle way of saying, “I am not your beshert, so keep looking.”

Well, as I said, it’s been a week and he keeps messaging me. 

He even asked to see my profile picture, which I’ve hidden because there are some creepo old guys from my own community (as I’ve mentioned before) who have messaged me and it just made me really uncomfortable. 

Since I didn’t really want to pursue anything with him, I told him that I didn’t feel comfortable sharing my photo to which he replied, “I can respect that but you’re not pursuing a thing. You’re just showing a a guy what you look like.” Which is something that I don’t really believe. 

I should also mention that his own profile picture is hidden and he didn’t offer to share it with me. 

I explained that I didn’t see it that way and reiterated that from my very first response, I made it clear that I wasn’t interested and that he should just move on. At which point he said, “No offense if you’re not ready you shouldn’t be on the site. Thsts just my two cents. That’s why since you’re still here I’m trying to befriend you. I have no expectations.”

I didn’t ask for his two cents! I didn’t ask for a friend! Jwed and the like are not social media sites, they are dating sites. And my profile gives over my general hashkafos, which should make it clear that I don’t really socialize with guys. 

Why is he trying to force something that I’ve basically told him multiple times I don’t want?

He’s not the first guy from a dating site to try to force a relationship with me and I find that very unsettling. Is this how guys are being raised today? I keep hearing about young couples getting divorced, and while the majority of my friends are happily married and (I can only assume) not headed for divorce, I can’t help thinking that maybe all the good guys are either too young or taken, and I’m just scraping the barrel even trying at this point. 

But that’s why we have emunah. Right, folks?

[intheparsha]

Pushy, Pushy, Pushy

Why are some guys so pushy?

I have a lot going on in my life right now, but I’ve kept my jwed account active because you never know how or when Hashem will insert the right person into your life, and things can change at the drop of a hat. 

A week ago I started going through my old emails and saw that I had missed a message from a guy on jwed from about two and a half weeks prior, so I clicked over and wrote a little message apologizing for not having seen the message sooner and courteously letting him know that I wasn’t interested. 

I ended my message with “hatzlacha finding your beshert!” which is a subtle way of saying, “I am not your beshert, so keep looking.”

Well, as I said, it’s been a week and he keeps messaging me. 

He even asked to see my profile picture, which I’ve hidden because there are some creepo old guys from my own community (as I’ve mentioned before) who have messaged me and it just made me really uncomfortable. 

Since I didn’t really want to pursue anything with him, I told him that I didn’t feel comfortable sharing my photo to which he replied, “I can respect that but you're not pursuing a thing. You're just showing a a guy what you look like.” Which is something that I don’t really believe. 

I should also mention that his own profile picture is hidden and he didn’t offer to share it with me. 

I explained that I didn’t see it that way and reiterated that from my very first response, I made it clear that I wasn’t interested and that he should just move on. At which point he said, “No offense if you're not ready you shouldn't be on the site. Thsts just my two cents. That's why since you're still here I'm trying to befriend you. I have no expectations.”

I didn’t ask for his two cents! I didn’t ask for a friend! Jwed and the like are not social media sites, they are dating sites. And my profile gives over my general hashkafos, which should make it clear that I don’t really socialize with guys. 

Why is he trying to force something that I’ve basically told him multiple times I don’t want?

He’s not the first guy from a dating site to try to force a relationship with me and I find that very unsettling. Is this how guys are being raised today? I keep hearing about young couples getting divorced, and while the majority of my friends are happily married and (I can only assume) not headed for divorce, I can’t help thinking that maybe all the good guys are either too young or taken, and I’m just scraping the barrel even trying at this point. 

But that’s why we have emunah. Right, folks?

[intheparsha]

Updates and Adjustments

Well, we’ve been in the new place for a little over a month. It’s a huge and unusual change, but while I don’t like change very much at all, I handle it well. 

We still have some stuff at the house that’s been taking a while to bring over. Every time we clear the living room of boxes, more show up. It’s super stressful.

Aside from that, my father is still living at the house because his other living arrangement fell through (for an unknown reason) and he hasn’t found another place to live, despite his insistence that he can’t afford the house on his own. The house is supposed to be put on the market soon, so I have no idea what his plans are.

In the meantime though, I haven’t had much time to finish up the LilSis’s wedding story yet. I started writing it back around the time of the wedding and I have 4 parts so far that I need to add to when I have a sec. 

Sorry for the delay! It’ll hopefully come soon. 

[intheparsha]

#Stress

Moving has to be one of the most stressful things I’ve ever done in my life. 

This particular move though, is seriously bad because I’m being passively forced out of my house. The house that my parents bought, just months before I was born. It’s literally the only house I’ve ever known. 

It’s hard for me to call it home, because there were so many parts of “home” that were missing in this house. But it was my homebase. It was the place I always came back to and that I thought would never disappear. 

I have 27 years of life and memories accumulated in this decrepit place, but it was my decrepit place. 

And now it’s disappearing. 

My father found another place to live. My mother found another place to live, and my sister and I can’t afford this place on our own, so we’re going with our mom until we’re both financially independent enough to move out. 

But this house won’t be ours anymore. This house won’t be mine anymore. 

I’ll pass the house on my way to the store or shul or to pick up friends, and I’ll see someone else living here. Creating their own memories in the one place that was mine. 

I know it’s falling apart, I know it looks horrible, I know that it needs a lot of work, but I don’t want to leave. 

I’ve packed up half my room already and you can’t even tell. I have so much stuff in here that still needs to be dealt with, and the movers are coming in the morning. 

Not only are the movers coming, but my mom and my sister both have to work, which means that yet again I’m going to be in charge of something that I made very clear I didn’t want to be responsible for. 

I just want to sleep, but there’s too much work to do. 

#stress

[intheparsha]

I said I was going to wait for things to calm down a little before I post again, but then two things happened:

1. I overheard my father on the phone with his friends calling my mom “a crazy person”.  2. I saw this image on facebook.

The words on this photo couldn’t be more true. I’ll never ever say that either of my parents are perfect parents or partners, because I would be lying. They’re just not, by any stretch of the imagination. 

But along their marriage journey, I’ve been able to see their box. I’ve seen what they put in and I’ve seen what they take out. 

I’ve seen my mother put in hours of her life taking care of her children, her ill husband, cultivating healthy menus and cooking food, working for terrible people to afford that food and the other bills, driving carpools, helping with homework, teaching driving, cleaning the house, setting up for the chagim and disassembling afterwards, shopping for food and clothing for her family, crying over her childrens’ struggles, and putting in the effort to be there. 

And I’ve seen my father take. Everything. He takes time, he takes food, he takes shelter, he takes concern, he takes money, he takes anything and everything. 

I don’t know at what point everything just fell apart completely. I mean, there are a few life events that definitely have pins on the map of their lives together, but they were mostly just on him. 

He’s the one who pulled away. He’s the one who stopped filling the box and started a steady pattern of just taking. 

So what gives him the right to sit there and call my mother crazy? What gives him the right to feel sad that everyone he’s alienated himself from has decided to make that separation permanent? What gives him the right to treat this situation like a petulant child and badmouth his family to anyone who will listen?

My mom kept filling the box while he punctured holes in it.

[intheparsha]

when you writing more???

Thanks so much for asking! It’s nice to see that people miss the blog. 

My father was in the hospital for a few months, following a bad fall, and at the moment, my parents are separating, so I have to help box up my whole life and move. Things are quite stressful right now and I just haven’t had a chance to update, but I do plan to as soon as things settle down again.

As a side note, I think watching this whole divorce unfold is also sort of interesting and may be something I’ll write about here too since it pertains to marriage. 

I appreciate your patience!

[intheparsha]

@shtusspeopleinshidduchimsay is a new funny one I’ve seen. Definitely worth a share.

So I know this is obviously a debatable question, but who are the like “must follow” and the “popular” blogs of jumblr?

Quotation marks aren’t to be snarky, they are to recognize the varietability of those words.

[intheparsha]

Mazal Tov!

It’s been almost a week since LilSis and BZ got married!

I have a whole rundown of the simcha and the wedding weekend, but I’ve been sick since the chassuna, so I haven’t had the energy to really post anything. I’ll try to do it this week. 

Now I just gotta’ get excited for shabbos Sheva Brachos!

[intheparsha]

[intheparsha]

Getting Ready

LilSis has been living out of the house for the past like 2.5-3 years now and has her own apartment, which is where she and BZ will be living.

One of the best things about living alone is that you get an understanding of what it means to truly take care of yourself and you get to learn some independence.

One of the worst things about living alone is that you can get away with doing whatever you want. And with the independence of taking care of yourself comes the independence of not doing things you don’t want to do. Like dishes. Or taking out the trash.

Unfortunately, for the past month and a half, LilSis has been so exhausted from work that when she gets home, she just crashes. Or she goes right over to BZ’s house to hang out or work out. So she’s kinda’ fallen into the second category of not taking care of things that need to be taken care of.

With the wedding so close and BZ moving in very shortly, her place is a mess.

So I’ve been going over to help her out lately. I think we’ve spent more time together this past week than we usually do in a month, just running errands, getting furniture and registry items, and now cleaning her apartment.

She had a kallah class last night that she had to do some homework for and so instead of running to the mall like we had planned to, I took her to her apartment, where she napped and did her homework while I washed 3 weeks worth of dishes and took out trash that had to be sitting there for just as long. Something liquidy got into the bottom and it was making the whole apartment just completely reek. *shudders*

I’m so glad we got that dealt with, you have no idea.

Afterwards, I took her to her kallah class and when I picked her up, she had a second wind of energy, so although it was super late, we went out to Walmart and got some stuff for the apartment like curtains, bedside tables, a shoe rack, a new shower head, laundry sorters, etc.

We grabbed some sushi and put together the laundry sorters, quickly sorted some laundry, and then I left.

I think I left around 2:30 or something. We have to stop keeping these late nights. One of us is bound to get sick. :P

[intheparsha]

Hmm... I’ve never heard that, but that doesn’t mean it’s not accurate. I just find it incredibly inappropriate to talk about anyway, even without the torah saying it’s an aveira, because it’s purely not tznius. If you can find a source, I’d be interested to know.  

[intheparsha]

Pre-Wedding Awkardness

As most people are aware, in the Orthodox community before a young man and woman are to be married, they have to be taught the halachos of taharas ha’mishpacha - which could be understood in the non Jewish world as Sex Ed.

The classes are so much more than that - there’s hashkafah, halacha, mikva instruction, a bit of biology, and ultimately what it takes to keep the husband and wife both satisfied as partners in their marriage (not just sexually). 

But I gotta’ tell you, it is super freakin’ weird when your younger sister, who used to be so pure, starts discussing with you how so many things that she thought were off limits are actually ok as long as they’re done right. Like “quickies” in a closet, or blowjobs. 

I mean, seriously. 

My little sister is discussing these things so openly with me. 

#awkward

It’s also understood that the chassan and kallah don’t touch each other (let alone have sex) before their wedding night, so it’s almost expected that that’s what’s going to happen after the wedding. 

One of my more outrageous friends was having a private conversation with me about family stuff and then all of a sudden went, “have you ever thought about the fact that your sister’s about to have sex?” As shocking as that revelation was, my initial response was, “obviously, that’s what happens after marriage, but I would definitely prefer not to think about my sister’s sex life.” But she kept going, “but it’s weird though, right? like, right after the wedding, they’ll totally rush out of there because neither one of them can keep their hands off each other and they’ll go back to their place and just do it.” At that I rolled my eyes, the international signal for “I hear you. You’re ridiculous. Let’s move on.” And then she said, “In 9 months, she could be a mommy.”

And that one sort of stings. For two reasons:

The first is that I know something she doesn’t know. I know that my sister and her chasson don’t have a lot of money and that in order to prevent financial stress and shalom bayis issues, their rav is having them use birth control for at least the first 6 months. So, no - in 9 months, she won’t be pregnant yet. But it’s that kind of thinking, those expectations, that are so uncomfortable. 

The second is that it’s painful to me. There’s nothing that I want more in life than to have children of my own. And while I was always voted by my family “most likely to succeed”, it hurts that my sister, who is my junior by 5 years, is getting married first. No matter what I say contrary to that and how big my smile is when I say it, it hurts. It hurts that she’s getting married first, it hurts that even if it’s not right now, she’ll probably have kids first, and it hurts that the way my life is going right now, I just don’t know if any of that is in my own future. It just hurts. 

But of course, nobody knows that. And nobody knows that because why should I detract from someone else’s deserved simcha?

So I smile, I grin, I accept peoples’ brachos and pour them right back onto others. But that doesn’t make any of this any less awkward. 

[intheparsha]

Updates

Now that the wedding is right around the corner, most things are taken care of, but a lot of the stress has ended up on my shoulders. 

I’ve been handling the invitations, seating, place cards, centerpieces, discussing seating and tables with the caterer, ordering flowers, picking out ties for the men in the bridal (and groomal?) party, errands involving toiveling keilim for the chasson and kallah, helping LilSis clean her apartment to get ready for her chasson, taking everyone to and from nail appointments, hair trials, makeup trials, and gown fittings, baking and freezing for the shabbos kallah, cooking in advance for the shabbos before the wedding when we’ll have 20 people for each meal, and cleaning our house to get ready for that many guests. 

Not to mention making dinner every night for the family, doing regular grocery shopping, running other necessary errands, taking the car to the mechanic, decorating shoes and shtick for the wedding, and schoolwork.

Needless to say, I haven’t gotten much sleep lately. I also haven’t done laundry in like three weeks. It’s time.

On the one hand, it’s so exciting that all of this is so soon; but on the other, I can’t wait for it to be over. 

[intheparsha]

It Matches!

So, I finally managed to get out yesterday and buy a shell, but I didn’t bring the dress with me, which made guesstimating a bit tricky. I found two shirts that seemed around the right shade, but both were smaller than the size I wear. 

I took a chance, bought them both, and not only do they both fit, but one of them (not the one I suspected) matches the dress perfectly. Praise the Lord and pass the potatoes! 

I went to get the dress hemmed and the seamstress thought I bought them together, she was shocked to find out that I bought the shirt separately. 

For this wedding I haven’t had too much anxiety, but the gown was definitely my biggest concern and I’m SO glad that concern has been alleviated. 

Now we can move on to bigger and better things. :D