Please Allow We To Introduce Ourselves...*

*A special thanks to the Rolling Stones for giving us a great reason to use improper grammar

Camp Ali

Ten years after divorcing, I panned a second time and struck gold when I married my husband this past summer. After years of one bad (insert name of online dating site) date after another, I had finally found my love (no thanks to the Internet) and overnight, I was part of a match made in (New Jersey).

Suddenly, I had everything I had ever wanted: a partnership, a loving family, friends, enough money to travel abroad and still enjoy a $16 martini now and again, tenure in my teaching position, not one but TWO retirement plans, a mortgaged condo in Hoboken and health insurance!

Everything was finally perfect, yet in all ways but one (my marriage), I was miserable.

Why? Well, because marriage signifies a future and I wasn't used to planning ahead. I do make thoughtful decisions... I just wait to make them until they smack me in the face.

Marriage meant possibly living in New Jersey until death do us part. It meant dividing holidays between his and hers. It meant my money was no longer mine. It meant thinking seriously about... babies (shudder).

Upon returning from my wedding, I fell head first onto the New Jersey Turnpike and smack dab into reality. My life was spinning out of control; it wasn't just out of reach, but impossibly so. Can I ever be happy in this place that seems to suck the marrow from my bones? Wasn't I the one who was supposed to be doing the sucking?

If I'm going to stay in New Jersey, I'm going to find a way to live my life, my way.

Team Celine

I met my husband in 6th grade, didn't you?

I dreamed ideas at 11, posted who made "Team Celine" at 17, and chose the path from there. I always thought I was doing the right thing, heck, even Ali's husband would join Team Celine if given the chance. Despite careful enactment of the 11 yr old ideas, I have found myself in some twisted existence.

As if birthing and parenting a baby was just not hard enough and since 27 years can make anything seem boring, my husband and I upended ourselves and moved to Istanbul. (I hear you singing the song).

We did all the calculations and concluded two years equalled "not that long." And it isn't. Well, if you stay in the same state you always lived in.

After returning last summer, our new calculation is that two years in Turkey plus a second child really equals 12 years. My dad always told me to use my brain instead of a calculator.

So after planning and saving and knowing what we wanted to do next and next and next...I now find myself wandering around the earth like Neil Armstrong after planting a foot on the moon.

Where did I end up? What has this place become? What have I become? And where will my family go from here?

Man.

Life can be stressful.

But I love a challenge.

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