Going Somewhere

I once was given the book “Are You the One for Me? Knowing Who's Right and Avoiding Who's Wrong” by Barbara DeAngelis, PhD.  It was a gift from a friend who meant well.  I took it with me on a trip for my in-flight reading, but when I got to the part where the book read “I hope this book will support you in getting clear about whether your relationship is right for you, so you don’t waste time and energy on a relationship that won’t work, “ my brain just starting running.  I never gave the book the benefit of a doubt.  I never thought that by “won’t work” she didn’t truly mean the F word (forever) and I ended up tossing the book in the trash.

I checked it out a little on Amazon just now and I wish I had given it more of an open mind.  I really think what the author was saying was valid and that she wasn’t pushing an agenda towards marriage.   Back in 1993, though, when I received that book I was getting a lot of pressure from friends who knew the relationship I was in and knew that it didn’t seem likely to end in marriage.  I was pretty sensitive about their comments and pretty incensed about the thought pattern behind them.  In fact, in a journal entry I wrote:

“Society really needs to lay off this kick that you have to find someone and settle down and live your life with them or [otherwise] it’s not a valid period in your life.  No one should give advice to a couple who is enjoying each other and loving each other, but who know (so far) that they won’t marry each other, to break it off.  It’s not a waste, nor is it stupid, nor is it a mistake – it’s simply loving a person...  That’s not wrong if it’s reciprocated.  What better way can we live …?”

Back in 1993, I was probably venting because I was constantly fielding questions about where I was going in my relationship.  I’m sure everyone can relate to what I’m talking about here.  The barrage of questions:  “How long have you been dating?” followed by “When are you getting married” followed by any number of criticisms if that isn’t answered definitively.  (And for the married folks, we all know that doesn’t solve the issue as the ol’ “When are you having kids” comes in shortly after the ceremony.)

The reason I still stand by my 1993 opinion is that anything else is honestly faulty logic.  The perpetuation of this stupid societal rule – that a relationship is failed if it does not move forward formally – makes turmoil in and of itself.  Follow me on this:  

We stay in relationships long past their expiration date because otherwise we are considered failures.  If a relationship doesn’t last forever it is deemed a ‘failed’ one.

What kind of pressure is that?  Could you imagine a world where everything you did had to last forever or it was a failed attempt?  

In 2007 I left UNX.  It was the only place I’d worked since moving to California.  It was the longest I’d ever worked anywhere.  Over the years, the company had changed, the faces had changed and the environment had changed.  I missed the early days when we were sillier and livelier and closer personally.  I missed the start-up culture and its no-rules world and was always sad to see it replaced with a very corporate policy.  Yet, I still loved it.  I still loved what I did and UNX was still happy with my work.  So I stayed until I had Dia and needed a work-from-home situation.  I was provided one and, not without sorrow, left the old job.  I was sad.  They were sad too.  Yet I can still get great recommendations from them and everyone understood that life had just changed.  There were no hard feelings - we’d both grown in different ways over 7 years and we didn’t fit anymore.  It’s a transition.  It’s melancholy, bittersweet and difficult, but no one wrecked themselves to try to make something last forever that shouldn’t have been.

If UNX were my man, though… the story would be different.  For this example, let’s call UNX “Sam.”  

Sam and I starting dating while I lived in Indy, but he lived in Burbank.  When we got serious, the long distance proved too much, so a decision had to be made.  I moved my whole family to California to accommodate him.  It was great at first.  I was needed and loved and cared for, as was he.  But then he began to change as his career took off.  He became more serious and more regimented.  That didn’t fit so well with me but I adapted.  But eventually I found something I was passionate about that his rules and schedule made too confining.  Now THIS is where the story would be different with Sam instead of UNX.  If I left Sam at this point, then it would be a failed relationship.  Even if I left while we were still friendly, it would be a failed relationship (maybe even more so if we were still friendly because someone didn’t try hard enough).  Even if we were both sad and perhaps had had a few passionate discussions, but maturely conceded that we were growing in different directions – it would STILL be a failed relationship.

So instead, the story would have ended with me desperately trying to convince Sam to love me, to compromise on his rules, to bring back the silly, irreverent times.  Sam, would in turn, either snub my pleas or explain to me that life changes and I must grow up and roll with it or maybe even make promises that he would change.  But life had changed around us and there wasn’t a way to make time go in reverse.  It wasn’t that we’d forgotten what was great about each other and just needed a reminder; it was that we were truly living different lives.  So, if UNX were Sam, we would have stayed and stayed and stayed just to avoid failure.  And in the end, we would have fought and cried and ruined parts of each other’s lives.  We would have only given up when it was finally so bad that we couldn’t take another day.

And THAT is what this stupid mindset does to us.  It makes us feel like failures and it makes us put too much stock in something that we either don't have yet or in something that doesn't fit anymore.  So if your friends have been dating awhile and they haven’t announced that it’s ‘going somewhere,’ don’t ask. Let them be happy where they are right now.  If you are in a relationship that has reached its expiration, don’t stay for fear of what the neighbors would say.  You are going to end up in the same place anyway and there's going to be way too many tears shed to get there.  And if you are in a relationship and you are loving each other well whether you are married, living together, dating casually or even friends with benefits – let it be.  If it’s meant to move on, it will.  Even if society won’t ease up on the pressure of when your next big step is, give yourself permission to ignore them.  Love each other well. in this moment. as is.    After all, that’s all we can really guarantee anyway.

 

Amazing Grace

I have a bucket list.  You know the kind:  the list of all the things you want to do before you leave this world?  For me, the items on there are definitely stretch objectives.  I'm proud to count myself as a person that does not put off obtainable joys, yet some joys I wish to experience are simply out of my current capacity either due to financial or logistical reasons.

So, Andrea Bocelli and his ridiculous ticket prices were sitting on said bucket list waiting.

I knew the moment he announced his 2011 concerto.  His U.S. "tour" was coming to Anaheim.  Close enough!  Immediately I looked up the tickets, and just as immediately I knew I was going to have to watch Craig's list and pray that someone would have to give up their tickets at a loss.  I visited every day just about, but no one was selling those tickets for less than face value.  So I kept waiting.

Then came the Great Flood of 2011.  The one in my kitchen.  The one that took out my dishwasher and my floor.  And though insurance covered the majority of the cost, I still took a hit that made my precious dream of Andrea in person an impossibility this time around.

Yet on Thanksgiving night, during dinner.. and I believe we were chatting about something on my bucket list... Cheyanne suddenly got up from the table and came back with an envelope. I opened the card.
"Merry (Early) Christmas!" It read.  "Because of all the people wandering this universe, you deserve for all your dreams to come true.  Chewy, Mom! and Tim"

I had no idea what to expect when I pulled the folded paper out of the envelope.  Unfolding it and seeing the words "Andrea Bocelli" threw me for such a loop I'm quite sure the neighbors heard me shrieking in delight.  Screaming actually.  I could not believe it.  A dream, quite literally, come true.

There was another letter inside with the tickets. This one just from Chey and I'm not going to share it here, but suffice it to say that that letter alone was every bit as wonderful as those tickets.  To be loved like that is a greater gift than anything in the world and I am so very, very grateful.

So it was that I sat next to my dear friend, Sabra, on December 11th listening to that amazing voice.  It was surreal.  I wiped away a few tears in both disbelief of my great fortune and because Sr. Bocelli just does that to me.  and then he sang "Amazing Grace."

This is a song I don't love.  In fact, it's rather boring though the words are nice.  But when Andrea sings it, it just rips your heart out.  It's like you've never heard it before.  And the irony that a blind man is singing "I was blind, but now I see" is not lost.  Yet it wasn't the beauty, nor the way he connects with what seems like God himself that hit me.  I sat realizing that I was once a wretch.  Yes, I was wretched.  I was sometimes cruel, I took advantage, I lied and I was reprehensible.  I could have kept going down that path but for my children.  Somehow I always managed to put them first, to keep the focus on their welfare and eventually I became the person I wanted them to think I was.  It was nothing short of amazing grace that saved a wretch like me.

With very little make-up still on my face I left that show changed - again.  I realized I have never been alone even when I felt completely and utterly abandoned.  There has been a hand guiding me the entire time.  He often says "Be Still."  I hear it all the time - at least when I finally shut up long enough to hear.  On December 11th, he finished that sentence:  "Be Still and Know That I Am."  Indeed.  He is in the face of my children.

Just Love

Instead of wondering what I can get out of this world, how about waking each day with the question:  What can I give today? Who can I love?  How can I brighten this small piece of the world I live in?  

I think about how I’ve been dreaming of finding that special guy.   

Because I’ve been hurt, because I don’t want to make the same mistake thrice I have a terrific list of must haves and can’t haves.  I doubt seriously there’s anyone out there that would qualify just in those specifications alone.  He must be perfect and generous with his love for me and – here’s the real rub - he must magically make up for all the wrongs ever done to me.  It’s no wonder I can’t find him.  

Then I think about how I was given Dia at a stage in my reproductive life that, without help from science, might be considered a miracle.  It’s remarkable nonetheless.  And I wonder why me?  Maybe it’s because my only thought when it comes to children is to love THEM.  I expect zero back in return.  I merely relish in the love I feel for them.  Nothing in my life has ever brought me so much.  Just loving.  Without asking for a damn thing back.  Just loving them.

And it occurred to me today during my meditation that that is exactly what I am doing wrong everywhere else.  I want.  I want to have as much as the folks on the top of the hill.  Give me that.  I want.  I want a perfect family with a man, a father, at my side because it looks shiny and it is what is normal and expected.  Give me that.  I want.  I want a better car, a bigger house, nicer stuff.  Give me that.  I want.  I want a bigger bank account.  Give me that.  I want. I want to travel the world; to be taken care of; to sit back with my feet up and have someone else do it all.  I want.  Give me that.

And in all my life the only thing I was ever so brilliant at that I actually give myself credit is my parenting.  That’s not because I’m so wise and so magnificently insightful.  It’s because I don’t talk all the time.  I listen.  I am not looking for my agenda to get filled.  I’m not waiting for the day that they do whatever it is that is going to make me feel loved, cherished, validated, worthy, fulfilled.  I just love.  And it works.  It’s successful.  Inadvertently.  It’s a side effect of just giving of me to them with no expectations of a return.  In fact, not even wishing for one.  And when the return comes – and it does – it lights me up so much more than any grand gesture dressed up in a bouquet of roses ever could.

So logically… wouldn’t it go to follow that if I put that kind of love into every other part of the world, it would earn a return as successful as my parenting?  What if tomorrow I wake up and ask:  What can I give today?  Who can I love?  Where can I show compassion?  How can I help?  And just trust that that, in and of itself, is enough.  What do I get back?  Nothing.  But my little corner of the world is rosier, and the sun shines a little brighter in it.  Because of me.  And that is enough.

In fact, I won't wait until tomorrow.  I'm going to start now.

It's Time for a Revolution

All this "Occupy (insert location name here)" nonsense has my inner activist fired up.  I'm not one to shy away from a cause, but I also tend to lead a life of moderation.  Therefore nothing has gotten me revved up enough to date to lead a movement or join a protest.  Nothing, that is, until now.

Folks, it is time to do something about this.  We have spent decades - nay! centuries! - accepting this atrocity as not only fine, but important.  We teach it to our children in preschool.  It's blasted all over children's programming and blatantly displayed on the walls of their classrooms.  Yes, people, I am referring to:

The Alphabet.

Well, not the whole thing.  Just one letter.  That letter, may I be so bold as to say - is the letter "C."

Despite the fact that this letter begins my last name and my daughter's first name, I think we can all agree that it is time to do away with this archaic and unnecessary letter (or, rather, this arkaik and unnessessary letter - see where I'm going?)  It makes the same sound as two other letters we already have.  Why is it there?  What is it for?

I, for one, believe we should start a campaign (or, rather, kampaign) to do away with this treachery (or, rather, trea...ch???  OH!)  Oh, right, the 'ch' sound.  How do you make that with the other letters?  Darn it.

Never mind.

I will then, change my campaign to the eradication of the letter "Q."  After all I cannot think of single time that the "kw" combination would not suffice (or ck in the unique "que" instances (or, rather, the uneek "que" instances)).  Therefore, I shall be hosting a rally on the steps of the U.S. Department of Education to promote a bill to reduce our Alphabet to 25 letters and to prohibit the further use of this offensive letter.

Who is with me?  We will call it "Occupy Sesame Street!"

My Little Monster

I had to work for a little bit this morning.  It's Saturday and we'll soon be off to a play and then we'll spend the rest of the day together, so I had Dia playing on her own while I got some business stuff done.

My background noise while I toiled away was her playing, singing and chatting to herself or the cat or any inanimate object about.

She's dressed for the day in a swingy dress and crazy tights with polka dots, stripes and stitches down the legs.  The stitches particularly inspired her apparently:

To Albert (the kitten):
(Singing)
"It's still me
Why are you afraid?
Could it be the stitches down my leg?"
(this was done in a rhyming fashion which I, as a totally biased bystander, found genius)

And then, she turned her attention to cutting the heads off of all the models in a catalog:

Dia, to the model: "I will cut your head off, Princess!"

(Speaking for the 'princess') "No!"
"Yes! You will never marry now!  Buhahaha!  Princesses without heads cannot marry!  It is the RUUUUUUUULE!"

Then, to add more color, she explained to the now decapitated models:
"You will all be monsters like me now!  Buhahaha!

and, still snipping away at the catalog:  "Heads, heads, heads!  You are all dead, like me!  La-la-la-loo!"

.... Should I be afraid?

Dia said "YES!"