Special Guest on the Request Line

I've been constantly pestering Bo during the last week to write a guest post. His response is that he doesn't know what to write or he says he's still thinking about it. So this evening I tried to put a bit more pressure by saying that I've already told my blog friends he was going to blog and therefore quite a few people are already asking for his blog post. Let me relay to you all that he was shocked and then he says doesn't want to let anyone down. He's asked me to open to floor to everyone; he wants to know:

What do you guys want me to blog about?

I asked if he'd rather want me to ask for questions so that he could answer questions and his response was:

Please ask what they think I should blog about and they can also ask questions but [emphasis mine] I won't be obligated to answer them oh.

So there you have it. Bo wants to know what you would like him to blog about as well as if you have any questions feel free to ask but he doesn't want to promise to answer.

This man of mine!

2nd Time Around

Things have been a bit hectic in the BoKem household. Bo switched careers and I've switched jobs, all in the last few weeks. We've been praying about this process for a little while now and it had added a bit to the stress of the last month but I'm so glad to finally see the back of it and things coming back to normal.

Right now I'm on my laptop and Bo is seated across from me on his laptop, we're both on our dining table but both engrossed in our work. It's a bit blissful. I remember when we first started dating and I think Bo out of concern for my motor mouth (ha!) said to me that he's the type of person who could be working in one room and his partner be in another room and they not speak to each other for hours. I think he was concerned that I'd be the type to always seek stimulus or attention. I'm not. I think by now he can safely agree with me. lol. I'm perfectly fine doing my own thing for a few, thank you very much!

I've noticed something recently that I've wanted to blog about. I don't know how it came about or from where it came but recently I've been feeling like I'm falling in love with my husband all over again. It sounds strange but that's truly how I've been feeling. If I were to analyze it I would say the first year of marriage for us was so eventful in terms of norming our behaviors etc., but by the time the second year was beginning things had really stabilized. Instead of disagreeing about lifestyle/living issues we were now disagreeing about LIFE issues. I don't think we were ready to be as tolerant with each other as we had been in the past. So we went through that short period but out of that period I feel like I'm just now truly melding with my husband into one unit. I'm excited at the prospect of how it would be like after 50 years if this is how it feels like in the second year! The old Kemi is growing into 1/2 BoKem. One would think this comes naturally but I'm now learning and experiencing that it doesn't. It's in the little things that I notice. We now think more alike than we ever did before. We now share more of the same principles than we ever did before, we now can communicate almost seamlessly. A truly "us against the world" kind of bond is really starting to develop between us. I can only imagine that after 25 years, all the experiences we've been on together and all the decisions we've made together, and just the sheer amount of life we've LIVED together, is going to make it pretty difficult to know where one thread ends and the other begins. This is amazing to me.

I think so this is how these things grow that by the time our children our adults all they will know is ONE family unit, and they would think "Mom & Dad have always been this way". This is amazing to me. And for me as a Christian woman to think all perfect gift is from God, I'm just in awe at how he's designed us human beings so perfectly from our curiosity as teenagers, our need for companionship as adults, our desire to join with another human being, and the creation of a complete family unit out of thin air. Amazing. As an aside, from my devotional today my lesson is this: God has a plan for everybody and that plan is perfect. Take my word for it.

But back to my falling in love with my husband, second time around, how can you not fall in love again with a man who says when we were discussing a demand his grandfather made on us, "I would really like to satisfy his request but I'm more interested in balancing my future with my past, and hon, you're my future and he's from my past." I MEAN, how wonderful is this dude??? We ended up doing things his gran's way but it is just wonderful to know that my hubby puts me first. I couldn't help but thinking and I told him, I'm so devoted and committed to him. I really am. This man has pulled out all stops for me consistently. Not in the frivolous, easy-to-change things, but in the real stuff. He supports me and has my back consistently and thoroughly. I'm such a lucky girl. I'm just so appreciative of the wonderful man his parents raised really. It is so unexpected to be falling in love with a man you're already married to!

Baby Watch Update: Okay, so I think we're very close. More and more I'm getting closer to wanting a baby to add to our family. I'm so glad we've followed a life plan and have purposely waited (used contraceptives). This time we have with just two of us is so golden. If we had had kids any earlier our lives would have changed to revolve around them (which is not a bad thing by the way, once you're parents it's a full time job!) but I'm just so very glad for the time we've had to grow into the people we are now. I feel for Bo and I we're just that bit more ready to be parents, we are much more confident in ourselves, in our principles, in our belief system, and really in what we want our family to stand for. I'm excited! Bo brought up a point recently though, since this blog is anonymous (*wink) I won't be able to chronicle pregnancy as much as I'd like. Good point. So as an aside, the whole baby dates/pregnancy reports may have to be a few months off, or in. Hmmm....maybe I'm already there (would certainly explain the absence wouldn't it?) :-)

PS - I'm trying to convince Bo to do a guest post. Let's see how that works out shall we?

In Defense Of...

I read a terrible story today that touched my heart. A young lady who was married 2 years ago, has a daughter, was brutally murdered by her husband last week. This horrible monster, stabbed his wife, mutilated her, and by all counts tried to cover his tracks by dismembering her. This is gory, and just plain devilish. May her soul rest in peace, and may the Lord have mercy on her. I think about the fact that this young lady could have easily been a reader of this blog and I'm saddened.

However the reason for this post is not to just share my condolences but to talk about the way in which I came to hear of this story. Someone somewhere wrote about this story and understandably tied the tragedy in with "marriage people". I understand the intention and stemming from reports that this particular marriage had had a history of violence and physical abuse, I get it. Nonetheless, my reaction is to say wait a minute, not all marriage is bad. It saddens me to see something that enriches my life so much is the subject of hurt, pain, and in this case death for someone else. It is not marriage that caused this tragedy, it is uncontrollable anger. It is our societal policy of "need-to-know". Our dogmatic attitudes. Our penchance to revel in secrecy. Don't ask, don't tell. All these things are not planted solely in a marriage, they can be planted in any relationship we find ourselves in. So whether in platonic, business, or romantic relationships I think it's important we always check that we are staying true to who we are and be that person unapologetically.

I wanted to defend marriage today. It is an institution made up of two individuals. Sometimes despite our best efforts the other person just refuses to change, or to grow together. Sometimes despite our best intentions we just don't know what to do or where to go. Or worse still, we realize all too late that we've made an error. We're all human beings and are prone to making judgements in error. However, when God's grace does shine and you're lucky enough to tie yourself to the partner God provides for you, then it can be sweet, and loving, and challenging, and warm. I've heard some ladies say, "80% of married women settled [for less that is]" I'm a married woman and I settled for honesty, kindness, self-control, thoughtfulness, and sense of responsibility. That's what I settled for. If we really all sit down and decide for ourselves what it is that we want to settle for, and let it be positive non-physical attributes, then we're a good way to forming a partnership with someone who's stable, kind-hearted, and has respect for self-control.

This post is not to say "you can avoid a physically abusive relationship", no, but to say that because it IS possible to have a sweet loving and kind marriage, we should really all think about what qualities have to be present in both parties to have this and don't settle for less than those. Be aware that bad things to do happen, and no one is immune. Fortify yourself. But remember that good things can happen as well, and can happen for you. Prepare yourself.

Blissful

This weekend was amazing.

Bo & I have been going through a rough patch lately. It's a bit hard to describe. When you're one your own and you're having a bad day or having a bad week, you can easily just say to someone, I'm having a bad day and need a drink. But what do you call it when a couple as one entity is having a bad day or a bad week? Either way, that's what we've been having lately. I think we're getting to a very interesting point in our relationship. The excitement of an impending wedding, the excitement of a new marriage, and all of that is wearing off. Now we're just left with us. Which can be incredibly terrifying and incredibly freeing in bits. In the last few weeks I've lost two close friends and gone through a challenging incident at work, and Bo has been dealing with what I can best describe also as a challenging episode at work (to say the least, I really want to say drama). It got so bad that Bo just wanted to walk away from it all. Which is actually fine by me in theory but then we had to think about how we were going to cope with the immediate loss of his salary which is really a sizeable chunk of our household income. I wanted him to leave too so that wasn't the problem. It was just in the midst of everything we both became over worry-ers and after you've shared and communicated your anxieties so much you start to internalize them rather than risk the other person going into a depressive mode.

So it's been challenging. I think by last week though, we just both broke out and CHOSE to not be bogged down about everything happening around us. I think we were just tired of constantly carrying the weight on our shoulders. One of my favorite things about our lives together is the talks we have together in bed on saturday mornings (and some weekday mornings). We'll talk a bit, play around in bed a bit, then talk a bit more. These moments are so very precious to me because I truly believe they keep us connected. We just chatted and decided that things were a bit too heavy lately and we wanted to be fun and lighthearted. So we decided to just take things as they come, whatever they may be, and be lighthearted about it. It worked wonders! All of a sudden we were back to our normal selves. Last week was great but this weekend was just fabulous.

Our friends were getting married on Saturday in Abeokuta so we packed our road trip regulars (snacks, music, gum) and headed out. It was so nice to be able to reconnect on this trip. We laughed and joked. My husband is so funny! I had to keep telling him over and over again that I love his sense of humor. He can make me crack up like no other person. Every time I told him I loved his sense of humor, he would smile a wicked grin and I mentally reminded myself that I needed to compliment my husband more often. That's something I did quite a bit in the months after our marriage but has somehow fallen off. So throughout the weekend whenever he did or said something that I liked or loved about him, I would tell him. His reaction every single time was very much worth it. Sometimes in the midst of everything we do we forget to just say, "I love your smile" or "You're a fabulous husband and you add so much meaning to my life". It's the truth. At the wedding we took a picture and I didn't like it but Bo turned to me with this shocked/confused look on his face and said "You look so beautiful". Instantly I felt better because I reminded myself that I had a husband who tells me I'm beautiful regularly. I mean, how lucky am I really?

Just the friday before Bo & I had gone to a houseparty. I stepped away from a conversation we were having with friends to join another friend. By the time I came back, Bo had also left that conversation. Immediately the two ladies started telling me of how much my husband must love me as he couldn't stop gushing about me and about our wedding. I was actually shocked because Bo never gushes about the wedding, I do! Both girls were told me repeatedly "Nah, girl, he was gushing, we could see the love in his eyes as he was talking about you, he loves you so much." I couldn't help but blush. This guy is pretty special.

This Sunday we went to a friend's house and just hung out with him and a few other friends for a while but Bo & I could barely keep our paws from each other. Just him being there and being around makes me so happy and gives me such a sense of wellbeing and security. Anybody that saw us yesterday would not have believed that we are going through such difficult times in terms of what life is throwing at us: death, work drama, repayment of student loans (ha!), etc. I am very proud of us and how we were able to come back to the center of joy for both of us, and that is our relationship and each other's presence.

PS - Bo ended up NOT quitting and things have been resolved which really is a testimony of God's Grace in our lives.

Baby Update: Bo & I had a rather unexpected talk about our timeline for baby and I'm pretty sure we've moved the TTC date plan up by a few months. I think the birth of one of our close friend's baby has added a bit more pressure to us both than we care to admit. I have to say though that immediately the next morning, I thought about it all again and got unready again. I actually REALLY like the way we live now. I'm not sure why we should willingly add another dimension to it. As of now I don't feel like something's missing but whenever I think of having a baby it's more of the line of thinking of "let me just do it now and get it over with, get everyone off my back" and somehow I don't think that's a good reasoning or environment to push TTC. I want my child to be conceived out of complete love and longing not out of pressure and irrational thinking. Keep your ears to the ground!

Overheard in the BoKem Household

Might be a bit of a TMI but all the same:

ME: Bo, please can you feel this area of my boobs? They feel kinda weird.

BO: (easily obliging) No they feel normal babe

ME: I'm serious, don't they feel odd?

BO: Nope. And I would be the one to know wouldn't I?

ME: (giving him a side eye) Smh.

Strange but it does feel kind of nice to have someone who knows you inside out who can have this conversation with you and then carry on with whatever they were doing before. I love it!

Crawling Exes

Long before I met Bo, I met Segun. Segun is the son of a family friend but I didn't really meet him until 2002. For some reason when I met him I just decided at my young ripe age then (ha!) that I was going to marry Segun. It was just meant to be and that was that. He wasn't particularly handsome or charming or whatever. In fact he was a bit of a personality and difficult at best. No matter, I started crushing on him from that very first meeting. I'm not sure it was an emotional thing but for some reason in my head, I thought, he and I would make a good match so I set about making it happen. We exchanged numbers and spoke very sparingly over the next few years. Our conversations were always very awkward, mostly it was almost like a young girl crushing on an older guy, and being thoroughly self-conscious throughout the whole thing kinda thing. Very odd. No matter, I was determined I would crack it, and we would still end up married somehow. I was so serious about this I had written his my name with his last name in my address book at the time, AND written his name and my name in my bible with the year I was thinking we WOULD get married. Yes, I was nutters. Absolutely nothing had happened between us at this point. Just a few awkward conversations on the phone.

Around 2003, I ended up having to travel to the state Segun lived in for work. Unfortunately the client had made an error in booking everything and I was a bit stranded, so I called Segun and ended up at his house. This was his family house, and his mom and siblings were around. After dinner Segun & I went downstairs to the basement but I think the attraction there was quite strong etc, and we finally ended up in a very heated makeout session. However it didn't get any further really than just kissing, of course his family was around and I ended up sleeping in the guest room quite far from any Segun danger :-) So that was it, right? We actually didn't keep up much after that. One or two phone calls maybe. Our conversations were still largely short and awkward.

About a year later, Segun moves to the same city I was living in and I think we both set out to maybe get a bit closer. I visited with him a couple of times (definitely the crush was very much MORE from my side than his), met his best friends and his other siblings briefly and that was that. Just as things were really getting heated up, Segun mentions that he has issues with our families being so close etc., and for some reason at that point I just gave him a look. I mean this is a man I'd been crushing on for AGES and here he is giving me the most simple of excuses. I decided that was that. I certainly wasn't going to put myself out there for him any longer and if indeed anything was going to happen then the ball was now COMPLETELY in his court. I walked away completely from the quasi-relationship (eyeroll) and didn't look back. He also didn't make an effort to call me or whatever. Great. I thought.

Fast forward to a week after my wedding, guess who calls me? I mean he actually picked up the phone and called ME? I was surprised and shocked. But okay, whatever. He calls me several times in that first week. And then I would run into him here and there, and magically Segun was now a more attentive nicer person to me. I mean the awkwardness and nonchalance on his part in our conversations were now GONE. I raised an eyebrow but left it. Then he calls me one night at MIDNIGHT to say he needed my help with a document could I help him proofread it, etc., he really needed my help. I said no and he went on about how he wouldn't let me down if the shoe was on the other foot and it was for work etc. This is when things started to go off in my head and I told Bolaji about my uneasiness with this "friendship" We decided to shrug it off. By now I was receiving blackberry pings very often from Segun, comments on every thing I say etc. Then last week he called me to ask if I could order something for him with my credit card. I agreed and went ahead, only for him to keep postponing pick up and payment time from me. Then he starts calling me frequently or apologizing and asking me to call him back. I mean what is THIS? So last week Bo finally said enough is enough. He's not comfortable with the guy and he thinks Segun's just trying to get my goose, to get me going. We sat down and really had a chat about this. I had to tell Bo that if he was uncomfortable, my "friendship" with Segun wasn't actually that important at all so I'd gladly let it go.

I've since deleted him from my BlackBerry and ignore his calls. I'm just baffled at how some men are. There are some things I see clearer about my single years now than I did then. One of them being that some men are ALL and ONLY about the chase, not the follow through. It is all some sort of game. Some men that are waxing all sorts of sweet nothings in your ear right now are just doing it for the fun of the game, and I don't mean sex, because I don't think it's about that all the time. I think it's just the game for some men. So keep an eye on this and watch out. A healthy, real relationship has no drama, should make you feel more comfortable about who you are, should be a refuge from the craziness of the world, should elevate you mentally, and spiritually, should never make you feel inferior or habor any of your self-esteem issues (we all have them). I truly believe when a man is ready, and shows that he is ready to move heaven and earth for you, just because you are you, then that's the REAL one for you.

I think only when you are in this healthy, real, relationship do you start to truly appreciate how ugly (emotionally) some guys in your past are, and even worse that it's not an anomaly, but many men behave exactly the same way.

More Income, Less Money

Bo and I have been having a bit of a rough time recently. We just can't seem to meet our financial needs and wants lately and a bit perplexed on how that is and how we can better arrange our finances. I think this weekend we're going to sit down and actually pull up an excel worksheet and do proper budgeting.

I tell my friends from my experiences it seems once you get married, your income increases (combined) but then it just seems you never have any money! I make a pretty decent income from my job and Bo makes twice what I make as salary. I've had my job for a few years and I was even making less when I lived alone. However as a single lady, I ALWAYS had more than enough. I travelled all across Europe and Canada and North America and Africa, and ate wherever as often as I wanted and I was quite content. Same with Bo, so how come now that we're married it just seems increasingly difficult trying to save. It's easy to say rent is the culprit but honestly from calculating it this morning when I sat in bed, our rent is not even up to one third of our combined salaries! So where is it all going?!!! I'm so perplexed.

If I were to guess I'd say we travel a lot and we do eat out occasionally as a treat. Perhaps the eating out all adds up? Traveling has been one of those things that's just a bit more complicated now. Before if I wanted to travel just saved X amount and went about my business. At the very least I'd bum off of some friends or family and would only have to worry about my flight. Now, now...first we have to double the plane ticket fees, which is a lot more effort than individually just trying to save up for a trip, then we probably have to find a hotel or B&B to stay at, and then of course, when there's two, you'd of course want to sight see and do more tourist-y things because, well, because now you have a partner. So off you go to wherever and all the while, the bill is racking up! Traveling just seems to cost a LOT more as a couple. We've already taken three leisure trips out of the country this year, a really big one is coming up as one of Bo's best friends from college is getting married in Napa (this trip costs us N800,000 in flights alone!), and we usually take a New Year's trip as well. Whew! And this is not counting some little trips we hope to go on in between: Calabar, Benin Republic. Even as I type I know we're going to have to really budget before adding any other trips. Just a few hours ago, I sent a text to Bo saying, "I'd really love to go to Turkey summer next year" and he responds, "Let's Do It!" See, this is the kind of thinking that gets us into trouble!

Apart from that we're currently experiencing some challenging times in terms of professional work and it's really interesting trying to hold everything together. I've read too many times that financial worry is the number one cause of divorce so I always try and sure that no matter what we're fighting on the same side. Yesterday Bo came back from work a little beaten down mentally and I had to really really encourage him using biblical references etc. Even this morning he was just tossing and turning in bed with worry. Men are amazing creatures, they really do get caught up in being 'the provider'. It's really important to them! Sometimes when other women talk about how much we sacrifice in a marriage I always make sure to point out that men go through very tough times as a result of being married as well. It's like they just naturally carry everything, everyone's worries, and place it firmly on their shoulders. It can't be easy. I think we're doing fine and I assure him of this all the time but he still feels this strong need to give me "the life of my dreams" as he says. There's no matter what a woman will say I think a man would still feel this way. A friend of mine who's been married for over 6 years put it this way to me, "It's not easy to bear that name husband."

Comments: I really appreciate the comments on my last post. One or two people said they thought we were basically planners on crack, lol. This is entirely possible I have to admit. I even discussed it with Bo and asked how he felt about that. I think bottom-line is, and I've mentioned on this blog before, I think we both actually are not terribly baby-crazy people so we approach having and raising children from a more pragmatic rather than an emotional point of view. Rather than just thinking we should have babies now, we're thinking "what kind of life do we want to create for our kids?" "What kind of environment do we want them to grow up in" Which may or may not be good approach but we're both are very much on the same page and I'm confident we will do what we think is best for us, and as always prayerfully consider what we think are the options in front of us.

Secondly, I'm amazed that it seems many people don't plan their families! I'm actually becoming more and more shocked about this. I'm not saying that is a bad thing but it just never occured to me that we wouldn't plan our families as best as we could! Once those babies come, they kind of have a way of controlling everything, at least for the first few years, surely, it's best to lay some plans and agree on the framework before building? Am I alone here? As an analogy and only an analogy, if you were building a house, you don't just say, right, I want a house, I've found the spot, "pour on the cement baby!" First, you draw up a blueprint, have it tweaked and approved by the team who would build the house to make sure it's structurally feasible, build a foundation, and so on, before you start. Because once they start pouring on the cement, it gets harder AND costlier, to say to everyone on the build site, "WAIT A MINUTE!" :-)

Lastly, I'm still looking for the blog I mentioned at the bottom of the last post. Please if anyone can help direct me to it, I'd be mighty grateful.