What was THAT????

No one would believe the Jerry Springer-like quality my life has taken on in the past month, if it hadn't happened to me.

Let's back it up to May. LaMar finally proposed marriage. We planned a November wedding at a seaside retreat along the California coast. Beautiful and romantic, and the wedding and marriage of our dreams.

At the end of July, he called me up one day out of the blue and said it was over. Fin! That's it. Don't call, email or show up. And if I showed up, he would call the police and have me taken away.

WTF? No really... WTF???

I still have no idea. But the next week I found out that we have a little bun in the oven. It's not even a joke that I would play on someone I hate. Talk about feeling helpless. My heart is in pieces and it feels like my life is over.

Yet... new life is just beginning, right below my navel! LaMar received the registered letter I sent, but he has not responded, and quite frankly I don't know if he will.

But my choices are now clear: provide for and protect the baby. All else is irrelevant.

She's wearing a Used Car on her hand?

Well, it's not exactly a used car, but you've always seen those women whose engagement rings are more expensive than your car. Two or three carats, total. Shiny and sparkly.... that innate sense of them simultaneously bragging about their spendy fiancé *and* "I'm taken, but don't you wish you could have me"?

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Quite frankly, I think that being a fiancée to my partner is way sexier than girlfriend or wife... just like I thought that Seventeen was way hotter than being either Sixteen or Eighteen. It's the in-between phase where you're old enough to know better but too young to care.
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So my dear love LaMar is delaying the inevitable proposal because he's saving up for a bigger engagement ring. I am struggling to understand why, as a man, he would go in that direction, especially since he hates the aforementioned women who flaunt their rings. He never has a kind word or thought for them, but I wonder if he wants other men to look at me as part of that club - unavailable and taken care of?

Guess when it happens, I'll have to get a hand-truck to wheel around that bad-boy. (the ring, not the man). Ooh... perhaps I should name it? The Hope diamond has a name (isn't it cursed, as well?)...

Yes, I will have to name it. And have it blessed... Oh, I guess that's what the preacher-man is for, right? Now... should it be called Big Lucy or Jim? Or something else entirely?

About that shopping trip.....

So I admit it: I don't blog when I'm happy. It's been a loooong time since I've been here and I'll tell you what's eating at me now:

My awesome, wonderfully charming and handsome boyfriend took me to Tiffany and Company on Boxing day, to pick out an engagement ring. He hasn't asked yet, but I'd say the odds are at least in my favor.

That day was exciting and things have been wonderful... but I'm starting to have a semi-heart-attack about planning the darn thing! I mean, I've already been married once, and it was hard the first time. But I'm a scientist, a career-woman, a student!

Too much to do and not enough money to do it, either! My pulse has been racing for hours. I am going to tell him I either need a wedding planner or go to the court house. Bleh...

Weird

I started a new job at the same work place. Finally getting ready to go back to the gym and realizing how content I am with life.

That mono-bout really knocked me in my bum, but the fatigue has finally lightened up.

Good friends, good family, awesome man in my life. Sigh. It's all good baby.

Sick! Sick! Sick!

That's me: mono-girl for the last entire month!!! I haven't been working. Only attending class, doing homework, and allowing friends to come over to check on me from time to time.

It's really boring. Really... freaking... boring... But I've stopped consuming pre-packaged food (except for the 2 mini brownie bites from Starbux on the way to class), and comPLETELY stopped drinking coffee. Did I ever profess my undying love for coffee? Because I love it. Utterly. But it doesn't love me, my tummy or my nervous system. And thus I've stopped. I'm eating fresh veggies every day. No red meat. Fresh fruit. I love California. Produce... with a heavy emphasis on the "fabulous".

Still incredibly fatigued, and starting to wonder if I'll ever get better and be able to go to the gym again. I had myself convinced that I had some rare and horrible disease, the likes of which I would never recover. Imagine my happiness that it's only mononucleosis? But it's beleaguering. It's draining me.

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But with all of this free time, it's occurred to me that, with the notable exception of the lack of a partner and babies... I've accomplished all of my major life's goals. And I'm only in my mid 30s! I've exceeded Expectations! Even my own!

All summer, I vowed to go without goals. This was scary for me, because frankly, I always feel that if one is not growing, they are dying (always my harsh words.. always they come back to bite me in the ass). So I've felt weird and without goals until a few weeks ago when I discovered something and thought to myself "I should do something about that".

Well, much to my chagrin and that of my "never-wanna-be-an-African-Missionary" sister... I learned that in my field, data from Africa is scarce. Not because it's not there, but because it hadn't been published in English. And I thought to myself, oh-so-casually... "huh... I should go and do something about that".

Hold the presses. I just said what??? I just said, "I, Dorothy Gale, of Kansas, but not in Kansas, wish to go to Africa and rectify the lack of climate data". I said it. I basically said that I want to be a missionary. For my cause.

Jayleigh once said that we have to be willing when we hear the call. That's why she and I both prayed and prayed and prayed that we would never hear the call to Africa. We were scared. But of what? The unknown? Who knows now... it just seemed horrible.

But we never knew one thing: God would never make us go do something without making us WANT it.... He gives us the desire. The one that I have now.

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LaMar wants to go to Africa. Very Bad. See how this is coming full circle? We spent the first year of our dating relationship at home, dreaming and scheming about the future. He's not a dreamer nor a schemer. It's hard when it's like that.

But I swear I've never felt like this toward another human being. I've noticed that I'm keeping my mouth shut more because NOT that I like it or it's easy... but because I care about him and want him to know that I value his words. It sometimes scares me that I care about his happiness and our happiness as a couple, just as much as I care about my own... but isn't that the way it's supposed to work?

Apparently, I'd always just assumed that the planets and sun orbited around me. Not anymore. I want a partner. I want this partner.

Dot.