words

I confess...I had a terrible food day yesterday. Bad enough that I hope I got it out of my system. I said I'd give myself a break till the move, so I'm trying not to dwell. But I do want to get back to my Su-Th "on-track" and Fri-Sat "free days". And I want to keep those free days SANE. My jeans think this is important too.

Anyway...I'm thinking a bit about words. I like words. I think one reason I enjoy expressing myself in writing more than orally is the ability to pause and find "my" word...the perfect one that says just what I want it to. I think I do this more so than many people when I speak as well. I know I often prefer to spend more time than average formulating a thought before saying it. While these blog posts tend to be pretty quick affairs, I still delete and re-choose a word pretty often (more so than delete to fix grammar!!).

I don't like to use names here. People deserve their privacy. If you know me, then you often know who I'm referring to with typical labels. But if you don't know me, you won't find my post when you are searching on someone else. This does, however, mean that people are identified by their relation to me. Word-finder that I am, I am troubled by the lack of the right word to refer to the man I married four years ago. "Husband" doesn't feel right anymore...and I think there's something helpful mentally and emotionally in moving away from that word. Moving on requires both the linguistic and mental/emotional shift. But we are still legally wed...and will be for a while given the speed such things take and some other complexities. I referred to him once as my "ex-husband-to-be"...that's the best I can do but it's a mouthful. I also remember hating the term "boyfriend" in the latter stages of dating-life...I wanted a word that covered the time before "fiance" but when it was more serious that a high-school fling. Society needs a fuller relationship vocabulary.

Another term that's getting to me right now is "boomerang"...the current label for kids returning to a family home after college, a job loss or other "false start." Am I a boomerang? I had a pretty significant life between college and now...grad school, two cities after that, two careers, a marriage. I am going home, temporarily, because it does make sense. I may be there only weeks (cross your fingers for my upcoming call-back interview) or it may be months. Do I get caught in the boomerang label? There is absolutely an economic element to my return and that seems to be an undercurrent for the boomerang trend. It is hard to put my finger on the exact reason why I'm different...but I feel like I am (umm...and I want to be). Divorced folks returned home for stays well before these 20-somethings developed this new category.

Really, I have a talent for dwelling on random things.