No. I don’t want to.

I always feel a tad annoyed when completing surveys, questionnaires, applications, what-have-you that always want you to just choose one or select the “best” answer (see how I balked simply at setting my tag line??) I resent feeling like I’m being pushed into choosing a side on matters all of the time. I’m one of those people who just doesn’t think everything is always that black and white. And forget the middle-ground “gray area”; I look at the world with all colors of the rainbow. To my point:

Are you a(n):

Introvert or Extrovert?  well I’m not so sure. I’m probably not going to be described as an extrovert if I told you my ideal weekend would consist of me reveling in my isolation while laying in bed, reading book after magazine after blog, writing in my journal, and crying and laughing over old movie favorites. I’m quite serious when I say that this sounds like paradise to me. But if you would take from this that I must be an introvert, then how would you explain my partying and bar-hopping until dawn with my besties and newly-minted friends from the past 45 minutes (well admittedly, not anymore now that I’m old and married, but not so long ago I did such things). I don’t know…I guess I’ll just check both.

Democrat or Republican? Well since there’s no box for “none of your business”, I guess I would select “Democrat” being as that if you scrutinized my ideals, you would probably find them close to or in line with that of the left. But that certainly doesn’t mean I’m going to dislike you if identify as a Republican. You know something, I don’t think George Bush is evil and I also don’t think Barack Obama walks on water. Imagine that. But I still dont want to select ‘Democrat’ because I know its likely that the minute you see that, you’ll have immediately made up your mind about who I am and what it is that I believe. And that’s a very disheartening thought, because I’m fairly certain you wouldn’t be anywhere near correct in your assumptions.

Married or Single? Ok, so this one doesn’t actually annoy me per se.  I’m quite fine with selecting the box for “married”, and chiefly among those reasons is because I am indeed married. But still, why do you expect and assume certain things based off of that status? For awhile there I was thinking that maybe I wouldn’t get married nor have any kids, and I was perfectly fine with that idea. I loved being “Auntie” to my nieces and nephews, and I also loved sending them back home to their parents. I enjoyed dating, and yet I also truthfully enjoyed sleeping alone at night in the middle of the bed with all my pillows and no one hogging all the covers. I wasn’t opposed to either marriage or kids. If it happened, great. I just  felt that if it didn’t happen that I would still be ok and fulfilled and not have felt like I was incomplete or missing out. I’d like to think that 30 years down the road you could have checked in on me and that I would have had the same attitude, but I’ll never know because like all of two minutes after making that philosophy of life declaration, I was married with two toddlers. And now that I have this family, I can’t imagine life without them. Marriage changes everything and it changes nothing. Yes, my best friend is now my husband, but we most certainly do not need to be with one another 24-7. This whole, “and two shall become one”, I’ll take that as we are now one entity, and in that I totally agree. But one person? Um, no. We are two very. different. people. Very. And that’s a good thing, because I wouldn’t want to have a messy closet or leave my boatsize shoes all over the house for people to trip over like he does. And I wouldn’t want him to be like me because I already know I can be a bit much. Maybe a lot much. And two of me being a lot much would just be way too much. Our differences complement one another well and I love everything he is that I am not. But still, come Sundays in the fall, feel free to make plans with him to watch football all day. He doesn’t need my permission and I don’t desire to tag along! I’ll be happy to spend the day with all the same friends and interests that stoked my passions for life and learning before I became a “we”.

SAHM or WOHM? I dont know how to answer this one, either. Don’t all moms work? My back and knees would surely agree I was working when I did 8 laundry loads today, went grocery shopping, filled and emptied the dishwasher, and then filled it again; straightened the tornado epicenter that is my living room, and cleaned the bathroom that my husband and two toddlers share (’nuff said on that one). And did I mention that the babes were home while I was doing all this? Yeah, I got them up, fed them breakfast, read books and sang songs, took them to the park to exercise and play, returned home and conjured up kidapproved snacks, cow-tied them down for naps, and then emptied the dishwasher again. And we’re not even gonna talk about the rest of the day and the chaos and bedlam in my house that for other people is most commonly referred to as dinner and bedtime.  That’s a lot of working I’m doing while home. So then did this question pertain to a paid wage outside of the home? Because yeah, I am also on the payroll of an actual company for which I do a job and receive a paycheck. But sometimes Im doing this job in the evening, on a company computer in my bedroom with my babies sound asleep in the bed. So then wouldnt that make me a stay-at-home mom? This is confusing. Who writes these questionnaires anyway?? Why cant there be a catch-all option that encompasses all of these attributes? Paid, unpaid, at home, out of the home? You could name the category something like, oh, I dunno,just…”Mom”.  Because at the end of the day, that’s what we all are. And I think we can all agree that  parenting is the most important job there is.