9 15 pst [ official answer readers' questions week
]
I wonder if your "mum" is moving to be closer to you and Matthew or
is just moving because she needs a change.
My mum is moving for two reasons. One is that all (and
I do mean all) or her friends have left the neighborhood. Two is that the
neighborhood has gone down hill. They have constucted many new houses in
what used to be a sparsely populated region and specifically, one of our
enighbors has put in a skateboard ramp which means my mother has to listen
to the annoying noise of skateboards on wood at all hours of the day.
She will still be in Southern California, only one hour
closer to us. She points this out as a positive but I know it is just a
coincidence. She would be moving to the same neighborhood even if we
lived south of LA in San Diego.
Because my mom is unhappy with where she lives she is
seizing this opportunity to "have an adventure" and get very excited about
the ensuing change.
I wonder what your relationship is like with your brother... I have
not read any mention of him lately. I wonder if the two of you are
choosing separate paths for your lives and not connecting as much.
My relationship with my brother is great, and I suspect it always
will be. We have the shared history of having grown up together and we
know each other very well. I certainly don't interact with him very much
since he's moved to the east coast. He goes to Yale and between his
classes, girlfriend, and the time change, we don't manage to connect very
often, but when we do it is always wonderful. He left on January 1st to
fly to England for a semester abroad at Oxford and then a summer working
for the American Embassy in London, which will mean that I will speak to
him even less, but he's 20 and I have no problem with being a low
priority. It's my relationship with my sister that I worry about.
(After I wrote all that, another person wrote to me
I assume from reading through your posts your parents are divorced? I
also saw you have siblings, do you see them much? I think I've
answered all that, except that my sister lives in Florida, is in high
school, and has a boyfriend, so trips to California are not especially
appealing to her right now.)
[One person wrote:] I wonder how you and Matthew feel about
marriage.... I wonder if you ever see yourself engaged and married to
Matthew. [Another person wrote:] It seems like you guys are getting
somewhat serious, any engagement plans in the near future?
To answer the latter questions first, yes Matthew and I intend to get
married and have children, we just seem to be taking longer to get there
than most people. As a side note, my parents married on their five year
anniversary.
Matthew and I feel that marriage is great, and sort of
inevitable for us. Both of us feel that being married is really about
having kids, and neither of us feel that having kids is something we're
quite ready to do (mostly from a financial standpoint).
As for being engaged, I would have been perfectly happy
if we got engaged to years ago and just had the world's longest
engagement. Fiance just sounds so much better than boyfriend. But
Matthew is a major worrier and will put of any sort of scary important
decision for as long as possible.
Currently, we are trying to figure out how and when to
buy a house, and we're probably not going to own a house together until
we're married. Marriage is sort of the last thing we think of when we
discuss the future, because it just seems so obvious.
And now if I can whisper a secret in your ear, Matthew
has told me that he wants to take me on a vacation to Paris in April, and
it's got me wondering if he's thinking about popping the question. And
though he didn't think of it, the week he's planning the trip is the week
of our 4.5 year anniversary.
How did you and your current boyfiend meet?
The short story is, we met at my ex-boyfriend's
birthday party. The ex is questions was never really my boyfriend; we
dated for about two weeks when I was a Freshman. Matthew and I met the
summer before my Junior year.
I've noticed some pictures with you wearing glasses. When did you
first get them? How often do you wear them? What do you need them
for?
I bought my glasses the summer I graduated from college (1999). I am nearsided.
My perscription is -.5 in one eye and -.75 in the other. This is a very
small perscription, which means I really don't need to wear them unless I
want to see from the back of a theatre or read peoples' license plates
when I drive. The easy answer to how often I wear them is: sporadically.
I will wear them every day for many months, and then I'll forget once and
not wear them for a year. Seriously.
January 1998
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