Interview from Summer

I don't normally do memes, but I really enjoyed Summer's interview response, so I asked her for some interview questions, and here they are, with answers!

1) IIRC you and Ephiny married at 21/22-ish there abouts. What are the pros/cons of being married at a relatively young age?

Pros - getting to celebrate our copper anniversary today, and being able to get to the really fun splashy anniversaries sooner! Also, pretty much everything - as time passes, I find myself more and more in love and finding our marriage stronger and more rewarding. We had an amazing wedding and an even better marriage, and I would absolutely do it all over again. (And actually did, when full on marriage became legal in our parents' home state, and my parents' handy man did a ceremony in the backyard.) Also, we got married back when gay marriage was controversial and it was fun to be trailblazers and get featured on the local news. But mostly, I think we've gotten to enjoy the community support and family seeing us as an indivisible unit (for things like holidays and also accepting our relationship as a fixture) for longer as a result of getting married earlier, and I think those are great things.

Cons - It's hard to think of any, since I love being married to Ephiny.
I suppose as a result of marrying young, we first got a civil union, and then later legally wed, so we now have a "covenant-plus marriage" where we would need to reside for years in two different states (not where we live!) to legally separate. It's the sort of thing that makes lawyers cringe, and I get that it would be a con for a lot of people, but I see it as a sort of a benefit. We've seen a surprising number of marriages end, some after relatively short periods of marriage or of counseling, and I like that we'd have to commit to at least two years of trying to work things out.

Generally speaking, I suspect that younger marriages are more likely to end in separation... but we'd been together for 4+ years at the time that we got married, so I think we'd worked through our issues and were sure we were ready for marriage. I'm guessing that EVERYONE is sure that they are ready for marriage, though, or at least nearly so, and obviously half of them turn out not to be.

Oh, and I could have been a much skinnier bride if I'd waiter longer. Alas. But I suspect that's not the case for most people, so really, I regard the very youthful wedding photos as a plus of marrying earlier.

2) What drew you to atheism? Are you following in your parents' footsteps? Was there a time in your life when you explored some kind of faith?

I am following in my parents footsteps to an extent, but I've always been a big believer in Occam's Razor in other areas of my life, so I think it makes sense here as well. I recall that in 3rd grade I went through a period of wanting to be Christian to fit in (not just peer groups but also historical books I loved). I read the kids bible and prayed and tried to celebrate Sunday with special rituals like special socks, but I think in the end I couldn't quite bring myself to really believe in it. I really respect the rights and validity of religious belief structures for other people - it's just not for me.

I'm really more agnostic in that I don't think it's really KNOWABLE, but I also feel it's very, very improbable since I have absolutely no evidence whatsoever for any kind of supernatural activity. So, much like how Dan Savage talks about bisexuals who "round themselves up to straight", I'm an agnostic who rounds up to atheist.

But, I don't really spend much time thinking about it. If I were wrong, it still wouldn't change how I live my life. I try to live my life making the most positive impact on the world that I can, and like every moment is precious (which it is, not because it was given by a supreme being but because I don't think I get an afterlife after this). I don't think it would be any different if I were religious. Anywaym if I'm wrong, my goal is to get classified into Dante's level of hell for the virtuous pagans.

3) Was there an emotional impact of losing weight? (I lost 36 KG and there definitely were mixed emotions for me).

That's also exactly what I lost! My BMI went from Obese to Healthy, and that meant even the oblivious noticed... and it got commented on a lot. I quickly found out that it made me really uncomfortable to talk about my weight loss, especially with people who I hadn't seen in a while, but those people were exactly the ones who were most fixated on the topic. Some awkward, awkward moments, including a wedding where a fellow guest tried really hard to guess how much weight I'd lost ("Oh, I bet you've lost at least 20 lbs! Maybe even 30?") I didn't want to say, in part because I'm tall so 80 lbs is a lot less on me than it is on a smaller woman. And, most people who wanted to know or were listening had been struggling a lot with their own weight, and I didn't want to trivialize the 10 lbs losses they've been bragging about. Even Ephiny got grilled later for the detailed stats when I wouldn't divulge.

Why did it bother me so much? I think I had a hard time with suddenly for the first time in my life being reduced to my appearance. My farewell party from work was several months after I'd actually stopped working there, so as a result the entire party was dominated by weight loss discussion, and that also made me sad because my boss didn't ever do a toast talking about career plans and the past/future like she did with all others, but rather, just talked about how I looked so great. I also remember crying jag after another luncheon where that was all that anyone wanted to talk to me about, and it made me so self conscious that I had a hard time eating because everyone was watching and wanting to know what my secret was.

Also, a lot of the time, comments on the weight loss were accompanied by or even just replaced by "Wow, you look GREEAAAAT!" I know that's meant to be flattering, but there's a very double edged compliment with the clear implication that I DIDN'T look great before, or at least not GREEEAAAT. Weight loss was motivated by being healthy and taking better care of myself, and not by unhappiness with my looks, so that was just a whole lot of compliments that made me either angry or sad, depending.

But all in all, once the novelty and commentary wore off, I feel better about myself - not intrinsically due to the weight, but due to feeling like I can do anything I set my mind to. The same thing that quitting grad school and striking out on a new career path did, really. It was a bit nerve wracking at the time, but in the end, I emerged more confident that I can effect major life changes rather than whining about how I'm not happy.

4) Do you think being having German parents (and living in Germany when you were young) has shaped you?

I think it has! My parents are special people and it's hard to tease apart their personalities from their Germanness, so I think some of the things that I think are the result of being German are actually the result of being a member of my family. :) But there are definitely some cultural differences that I've grown up with, and some different traditions, and those have probably shaped my personality. Also, just being an immigrant was probably influential - I definitely was teased a lot about being German in grade school. I got called a Nazi a lot and I always felt really extra bad whenever we studied the Holocaust in history (which was very often in my school system). On the plus side, I love my facility with languages, which is probably heavily influenced by having grown up with a different first language, and I also have managed to work through the Holocaust shame and am really pleased both with my heritage and with contributing to the melting pot of this country as an immigrant.

5) Have you gotten any flak about wanting to be a SAHM?

Not anything worth blogging about, really. Some barely-covert shock that I suspect is probably concealing disapproval, but honestly, I really I've already consulted all the members of our family unit about whether this will work well for us and as such the opinion gathering phase is over. I really don't put a lot of energy into keeping track of all the raised eyebrows, since if I did that with other things in m life, I'd never get anything done. My students are definitely stunned, though.