Skip to main content

Civic Engagement

Shortly after Caroline was born I started to hate Andy. I despised him and his lack of understanding me and how tired and overworked I was. The poor guy said little during this time and quietly rode the emotion rollercoaster in the same bucket as me, holding my hand as I'd cry and rant about one dramatic issue or another, always culminating in me deciding we needed to get a divorce.
A friend (ok, a therapist) recommended Andy andI take a quiz about aspects of our relationship. The quiz was fun and silly and reminded both of us that we really are in love and have a great deal in common. The last question asked us to list our top five priorities. One through four were all the same-family, health, financial stability and career. The fifth was different and telling about who we are. My fifth priority is time to myself. His is civic engagement.
Ah- civic engagement. How I love those whose life's work is to help others. While I tuck Caroline in at night and then eat a slice of pie while watching America's Next Top Model, Andy is off organizing those who make the world a better place.
He's on the planning committee, the executive committee and the committee on committees. He is a secretary, president, vice president, or treasurer of historical societies, park groups, alumni organizations, the local business groups, you name it. He does it all- with passion and a drive like I've never seen.
My favorite has to be the local fire company. They bailed 4 feet of water from our basement last year, several times, and saved us from a big mess. "This is how we repay them." He says upon joining the department. I ask why we can't just write them a check but it's not that simple. Now our house has hints of fireman all over from the Fireman's Quarterly Magazine and the annoying pager that informs us of all 80-year-old, fallen on stairs, conscious and breathing people in a 50-mile radius and my favorite, the turn-out-gear. The only time Andy has worn this ensemble, the boots, hat, pants with suspenders and jacket, is in the group photo. In this photo, Andy can be found in the back, smiling proudly. He must have gone to the photo shoot directly from work as it appears he has on a white button-up shirt with the suspenders, pants, hat and boots. He looks a little bit more like some wanna-be Chippendale dancer than a heroic fireman.
This gives me an idea! I'll add the gear to his closet of costumes. It will hang with pride beside his Eagle Scout uniform and Masconic belt as a potential "civic engagement" Halloween costume for next year.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Charlotte's Story

What can you do in seventeen minutes? Watch an episode of your favorite sitcom without commercials? Run two miles at a good clip? Eat a meal, or in Andy's case, microwave a meal and then eat it? Have a baby? Because that's what I did. You heard me right. I birthed a baby in seventeen minutes because I am a machine. I am a machine ! I am a baby birthing woman of steel. I am not much of a bragger and you may recall that I was never good and never bad at anything. I have no particular achievements to tout, academically, physically, professionally or otherwise except baby birthing. I'm really good at this and I'm pretty darn proud of it and I'd like to brag about it to you now. This is Charlotte's birth story. For the first four or five months of my pregnancy with Charlotte, most people forgot that I was even pregnant. This does happen to you with multiple pregnancies. I never forgot that I was pregnant. Morning sickness heart burn and frequent bathroom t

Spoiler Alert!

It's no big shock that I opened my mouth and got myself in trouble earlier this week. This time it was my virtual mouth, and we all know that can be the worst. Saying something stupid, online, is like spreading a highly contagious virus. Speaking of which, with all of my recent coughing and sneezing, I've been really good at spreading a germy virus around. I teach students to be social media savvy, and gosh darn it, I did so as recent as yesterday. I provide them with some rules to protect them from looking like a virtual ass, but low and behold, I fall victim to assiness every once in a while. How am I supposed to know every single rule in life, and particularly online? I'm just a simple human being, with a big mouth, who wants to over share! So, here's what went down, if you didn't get pissy pants over my FB faux pas. I watched the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead on Sunday night. Andy was in the can and I just needed to talk about the episode. I needed t

The guilt epidemic

Women are wonderful at time management and I've been told I'm tenacious about time-on-task and follow-through. Parenthood has really put a damper on my ability to follow a rigid schedule that enables me to do everything. When morning sickness showed up at week 5, I hung up my a.m. workout sneakers. Those shoes continue to collect dust although I'm proud to say they are dusted off once a week for 30 minutes. Just getting to the gym for that short amount of time has been a major accomplishment in a world full of parent-guilt. Guilt. A feeling traditionally reserved for Catholics has been spreading into the female parent population for the past fifty years and has become increasingly prevalent over the last decade. Lucky me to be raised Catholic, born a woman and now gifted with parenthood. I had a .01% chance of escaping the guilt-disease. I have "attacks" or "flare ups" when I decide to do something for myself. In addition to going to the gym once week, f