NSA and Lucky

I'm back.  Sort of.  Not that I was ever really gone.  But, you know what I mean.  Long overdue for a blog posting.

Now that I'm three months into working full-time, I find that I am finally ready and able to regain some of what I love about my life outside of work.  For the first month of working, I was literally off to sleep almost right after dinner.  I made it through the day all right, but was exhausted when I got home.  Forget about working out, cooking, reading, let alone blog posting; it was all I could do to get up each day and out the door.  Over the past few weeks, though, I have started to gradually return to many of my pre-ADA routines.  I've started working out again -- not sure if I'm ready to do any marathon training -- and am able to stay up well past 8:30.  I've completed most of the scheduled non-work tasks I had set up for myself before March 7th, like the Avon Breast Cancer Walk (Very Inspiring, though I whittled it down to one day instead of two when I hurt my foot trying to run fast in new sneakers after not having run for over a month), the 2d Annual PURR at PU Reunions, and the MVSO spring concert (last night) for the orchestra that both Julia and I play in weekly.  We still have a swim meet, Taylor Swift concert, and camp departure (hoping to to do Much better this year with my youngest child gone for 3.5 weeks), but they are more attendance-oriented than participation-oriented so should be a breeze.

Enough about me, though.... but wait, isn't this blog All About Me?  Ah, sometimes yes, sometimes no.  Today, maybe yes.

Over the past three months there have been several things I thought I should blog about -- none of which included either Sarah Palin (continues to be completely Unbelievable) or Anthony Weiner (shaking my head as I contemplate his predicament and thank GOD I'm not his spouse or his sibling and Ecstatic that I have a very boring last name).  I'm sure that once I start blogging again on a regular basis, there will be more than enough Incredible news for me to comment on.  But for now, here are the things I'm thinking about...

Yesterday, while on my treadmill, I watched the movie "No Strings Attached," with Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher.  If you haven't seen it, See It!  For adults only, but laugh out loud funny and very lovable characters.  I've never been a huge Ashton fan, but he's has one of the best a... derrieres I have Ever seen (not The best, just One of the best...).  And, he was completely endearing and believable.  As for Natalie Portman, she is quirky and naturally herself, which I love.  Most of the time it's as if she's just being herself.  I have a particular affection for quirky women, in movies and in real life, so the movie was right up my alley.

I wondered while watching the movie, though, if relationships have really changed that much over the years.  I will admit that for a short time during and after college, I had a "no strings attached" relationship with someone I couldn't ever see myself with long-term.  When I look back on it, I chalk it up to immaturity and insecurity, on both our parts.   The way Portman's and Kutcher's characters approached their relationship, though, and the way their friends and associates viewed their behavior, made it seem as if their arrangement were completely normal and ordinary.  All of which got me wondering about whether such relationships these days are commonplace between consenting young adults.  Of course, this was a movie, and the characters fall in love and likely live happily ever after.  It's possible that consenting adults in a "NSA" relationship always have the prospect of potential long-term status in the back of their minds, but I tend to doubt that.  So, I continue to question whether such NSA relationships are common, expected and ordinary these days.  Something to ask my own young adult children about when I get the chance (of course, exceedingly unlikely that they would get near this subject with me, but you never know!).

The other thing I've been thinking about is more boring (sorry).  Over the past few weeks, it seems as if several people close to us have been going through very difficult times, either with regard to health issues or relationships.  People whose lives I believed were as solid as ours -- okay, maybe with fewer kids or siblings, but solid nonetheless -- seem to be suddenly caught up in emotional windstorms, completely out of control.  As I sat at dinner after the concert last night with a few friends, my children, Bill's mom and my mom (and Vinnie, of course), I couldn't believe how Lucky I am.  At this moment in time.  To have three of my children there, to have friends that support me and my daughter, to have a husband I love, and to have a healthy, loving mother.  Totally crazy to realize that when you're young, focused on the status of your job or the vacuousness of your NSA relationship, you really have no idea where life will take you or what will make you happy long-term.  When real life actually starts to happen, it has a way of setting itself on cruise control, with little time to consider yourself, your marriage, your health.  Not until something interrupts the flow -- the death of a parent, an illness, a job loss or economic difficulties -- are you forced to consider the life you actually want and how to achieve it.  Or at least that's how it seems to me.  Which sounds awfully grown up.  But maybe that's the point.