My 2015

I'll keep this short and sweet (and a tad sour):

A few days before my 31st birthday I asked if turning a year older, if actually being in my 30s would feel any differently that just being 30. And I was told that it would feel different. Naturally I was skeptic; not just because I didn't believe that one year would make that much of a difference. But because I felt like I’d been the same person for a majority of my 20s, up to my 30s.

And while I didn't feel a magical difference the minute the clock struck midnight on my 31st, I have started to notice gradual changes I've made in my life since then- some important, some silly and superficial, but necessary all the same. I've cut ties, made adjustments, reevaluated my priorities, and stopped giving a shit how boring my life is compared to my contemporaries. If I spend my Friday night catching up on some historical fiction instead of clubbing or bar-hopping or running the streets, so be it. It’s exhausting trying to keep up with everyone else’s life instead of just focusing on my own. That’s not to say that I’m not interested in what people do- I still want to hear your stories and see your pictures because human connections are still important to me. But while I’m happy that you took an amazing vacation, I’m equally as happy that I made a decent attempt at teriyaki baked cod last night. Such is the nature of my life. I've slowed down a bit. And I’m ok with that.

This is the year of laying down roots: having babies, building houses, starting new careers. It’s time to get my fucking adulthood started. And I feel that now- I’m ready.

R.W.B.

I know I should ignore the people ranting about how we wouldn't be "targeted" if we weren't breaking the law.

But consider this:

Halbastram and I were traveling on I-55, leaving my mother's house & heading back to Kansas following some holiday.  Naturally, as with most holiday travel, there were plenty of officers on the highway.  We caught the attention of one trooper, who tailed us for at least a mile trying to run our plates before finally just pulling us over.  He approached the window and did his whole "license, registration" spiel and noticed that the insurance and his license were two different addresses (we had just moved from Manhattan to Lawrence and hadn't changed over our IDs yet).  For some reason, this prompted him to ask Halbastram to exit the vehicle and go sit in the squad car while he ran his ID.

After placing Halbastram in the car (with the police dog, no less), he then approaches my window and asks for my ID.  I hand it over; unfortunately for me, it was still an Illinois license.  As we moved to Kansas just to attend school, and my license wasn't expired, I just didn't bother because I didn't think we were staying here permanently.  He proceeds to play 20 questions with me, asking why we had two different licenses, where I went to school, how old I was, if we were married, where we were coming from, etc., i.e., questions he already had the answers to because he had just finished asking Halbastram those very questions before moving him to the squad car.

I don't exactly know what his game was, or what he was hoping to gather from that, but he kept Halbastram in the car for about five minutes before letting him go with a warning.

Why he had to remove him from our car to do so just baffles me, but I'm fairly certain race played a huge part here; and I feel confident saying that because I was harassed about my ID as a passenger once before, while riding with My Lady through Naperville.  And in the Naperville case, since my ID said "Chicago" while my lady's said "Joliet", this guy wanted to know what we were doing in Naperville.  As if it were utterly impossible for two people of different races from different towns to be friends on a little road trip.  Once we mentioned "college", he seemed a tad bummed that it wasn't something more worth his while.

And no, having a completely valid ID from one state while being a student in another is no reason to harass passengers.  What would have happened if I told him that I didn't have an ID?  Legally, I'm not required to have one on me as a passenger.

The point is, you don't have to necessarily be doing anything to arouse the suspicion of some; sometimes it's as simple as "riding in the car with your husband" or "being a black passenger in Naperville."

And yes, I know #notallcops; but #notallblackpeople also.  

Missed-conception

Halbastram & I met over 11 years ago, and almost immediately, we knew this was going to be a long term thing for us. So we would nonchalantly start planning our future: where we would live, what I would do for a living, the places we would travel, the kids we would have. That last one was especially one of our favorite topics, as downtime would be filled with what pop culture name we would bestow upon our children. A superfan of the hit 80s TV show “The Fall Guy,” I decided that my first born son would be named Colt. We even got our family on board with little Colt, and in the time leading up to and after our marriage, we would talk about the soon-to-arrive Colt and all of the love he’d receive from his family.

Over time, that enthusiasm all but faded out. After seven years of marriage, we didn't have to explicitly say it for most people to figure it out on their own. Simply put, conception wasn't written in the stars for us. We figured this out on our own within the first few months of marriage. Of course, we knew that sometimes it takes time and that baby-making isn't always as simple as just laying down together, as multiple episodes of Maury would have you believe. Six months later, however, we knew that we needed to perhaps speak with someone.

For the better part of 2008 (like ALL of 2008), I was in and out of specialists’ offices, having all manners of tests run on me to make sure that my parts were in working order. After pushing our health insurance to its limits and being put in as many uncomfortable positions as the lady doctor’s could think of, I was cleared as having a healthy, perfectly working reproductive system. That meant Halbastram needed to make sure his man parts were in perfect working order as well.

But before that could happen, 2009 happened: the year that we lost everything. Jobs, cars, condo, livelihood. And health insurance. Suddenly, with new problems on the table- such as, how are we going to feed ourselves today?- the thought of bringing new life into the world seemed like a distant concern.

That didn't make us give up, though. And that didn't make me any less sad- knowing that month after month brought another failure, another disappointment. I couldn't look at someone’s new baby pictures, or read a birth announcement, or pass a baby section at a store, without feeling like I had clearly done something wrong in a past life to suffer this way. The worst feelings would come while watching trashy talk shows or the news, seeing parents take their gifts for granted by abusing them or just having them because they can’t stop partying and then using them as pawns to get what they want- I couldn't help but think of how unfair life truly is and as a result I've just stopped watching daytime TV (with the exception of Judge Judy).

Now that we’re back in a better place, we’re starting the medical procedures again and hoping for better results this time, although I’m not as optimistic. Many people will say that 31 is still pretty young and that it could happen for me the minute I stop thinking about it. The problem with that is that I've been thinking about it for seven years now. It doesn't just go away. Somewhere deep inside me I have faith that something good will happen for us, but I don’t get my hopes up too high these days.

I've found other ways to share the love that I have to give: I’m hopelessly devoted to my friends, family, Halbastram & silly little asshole cat, Humphrey T. Roosevelt. I will never stop living my life because of a little infertility but I will never stop trying either. So here’s to hoping that Little Colt Seavers graces us with his presence in 2015 (or 2016 or 2017...I can wait a lifetime).