2020 Vision

We started 2020 off with a bang in the Rolleston household. We have finally saved enough to buy a house, and have started trying to have a baby with the help of the great doctors at Cleveland Clinic. The restaurant is also closer than ever, with permits being submitted to the city and timelines finally being put in stone. Driving has been easier for me and I have even taken my first solo highway trip to go grocery shopping.

All in all, things are getting busy. They are also getting a little stressful. Speaking with a mortgage broker was actually way less scary then people have told us it could be. But I really think that’s because we choose to wait and save for long time, pay off bills and credit cards and making sure our credit scores and debt to income ratio were where they needed to be. We went to an open house this past Sunday and are totally stoked to be in this position. We have longed for more room, and a yard and as we call it, a nice retirement home for the boys. We start officially looking with our realtor this Friday.

The baby thing is probably the most annoying issue we have going on. It’s been over a year of us trying to get pregnant with no result (bummer). So now we’ve begun talking to an infertility doctor and have scheduled our first round of preliminary tests. Unfortunately these tests are already expensive and we don’t know how far down this path we can afford to go. But the first test I’m getting done, (which is $1,868) is called an HSG and its to map my cervix and fallopian tubes to make sure there are no blockages or polyps. A bonus of this test is it has an increased fertility affect, so the doctor says he will let us go try for 3 months after the test and just hope that’s enough for us to get pregnant.

So this first month of 2020 has been a little bit of a doozy. But I think that’s a good thing. A hard thing maybe, and a new thing. But still good.

Aura Mirror

I’ve been joking with Jordan for a while that I feel like Rapunzel trapped away in a tower. Because I just recently learned to drive, I am not very independent. I am also lazy. Lazy in my body and lazy with my mind. I don’t read nearly as often as I used to (although I buy books all the time). Long are the days I ran 4 to 6 miles, and long are the weeks that I run more often than I don’t.

My job is like the movie Groundhog Day, with no end in sight, just a single repeating merry-go-round of “trying to open a restaurant for somebody else.”

Jordan feels it too. We both feel numb, lost and crummy. We are 6 weeks away from our house search and 8 months into trying to get pregnant. Everything is holding its breath.

My aura proves this. The lady said I’m holding the world at arms length, waiting for something to happen. I’m very closed off, which is why it’s so close to my head. And Jordan is waiting for new beginnings so hard his is all red. So here we are. Still waiting. Like being on the tarmac before take-off, just waiting to that engine to kick in and for the journey to finally start…

2019 Is Way Scarier Than I Could Have Ever Imagined

I say that 2019 is way scarier than I could have ever imagined because white privilege has kept me ignorant from how bad and terrible things have always been. Like, yes it’s bad. But it’s been bad. Forever. And on purpose. Its just that it’s not bad for white people, at least not physically. Its morally gut-wrenching and absolutely disgusting, but the system was built in white people’s favor so a lot of the issues don’t actually touch my day to day life. Things like discrimination, unconscious bias, and police brutality have literally never been an actual to issue to me or anyone I know, because I only other privileged white people and I live inside a bubble I didn’t even know about until recently.

So yeah, realizing how other people are being murdered every day by police, are being keep in cages and starved of any humanity, how corporations have more rights and money than people, and women are quickly losing any autonomy they have over their own bodies is beyond fucking terrifying.

And i do not have any answers on what to do. But I started donating to organizations that do know, and supporting other people’s voices as much as I can through as many avenues I can. But it’s not enough. I feel it’s not enough in my bones.

Waves Of Mutilation

Who is SHE? She’s a nightmare and a dream. What I think I’m supposed to be and what I actually can be. The dance of self-esteem and personal growth. Of shaming and hating myself. Of quieting down and apologizing.

I need to talk to her more than I do. She needs to face a lot of painful truths. She needs to grow up. To be kinder, softer. To stop the name calling and eye rolls. The knee jerk reactions. And I’m here to help her.

I get to read, and listen and ponder. I get to put two and two together. I see and learn so much more than she possible can, locked away with all my preconceived notions.

But she lives closer to the center. Closer to the inner raw, truthful, primal, hot part of myself. She doesn’t want to listen and it’s so exhausting day after day trying to calm her down.