Advice
July 21st, 2009 § Leave a Comment
Last night I pulled down a box of old cards and letters that I have received over the years. Many are brightly colored with felt bunny rabbits or chickens wishing me a Happy Birthday or a Hoppy Easter. Some were poems and love promises made and broken by boyfriends past. I often feel pangs of nostalgia and when I do, I bring that box down from the shelf in my closet and read through the piles of old letters and cards.
They remind me of who I was to people in my past, of how much I am loved by my family and friends and how much I was once loved by people who have long since fell in love with other people and married.
I came across a yellowed note card with my grandmothers swooshy writing on it. It wasn’t a special note card. Nothing like the hundreds of other cards that she picked with care and scrutiny. This was a plain note card and on it, in her unmistakable handwriting, was a piece of advice that she wrote for me years prior, but somehow she must have known in that very moment, I needed to hear it again.
“Be thankful for what you have and you will always have more. If you focus on what you don’t have you will never have enough.”
But then again, maybe it is something we all have to remind ourselves of, every now and then.
If you love someone…
May 23rd, 2009 § 2 Comments
I never knew how stupid love made you until I found someone worth being stupid over.
I’ve had relationships before. I’ve broken hearts and I’ve had my heart broken, but each time I was able to walk away and not look back. I found comfort in knowing they weren’t right for me and that another chance was just ahead. I’ve been told I’m too picky, and admittedly I am. But why is picky a bad thing? Marriage is no longer a necessity for survival. People can live alone, have babies alone, thrive alone. And, when the divorce rate is so tremendously high, shouldn’t that tell us that there are far too many people falling into marriage under clouded judgement? So I reason, there is no need to settle…living a full life doesn’t depend on whether you find someone to spend forever with.
I have let go of some pretty great guys because I wasn’t totally in love with them. I reason, that if I were to settle I would have sacraficed those relationships for nothing. I’ve invested too many tears and work to settle for something less than what I wanted. Giving up all that work, only because I got scared that time was running out for me, seemed counterproductive. Even though I stayed in some relationships much longer than I should have, I always knew in my heart which ones I had no business wasting time with. I stayed in those relationships for many of the same reasons that everyone stays in relationships even when they know they’re not happy. I believed they were my last chance, that noone else would want me or that I already invested so much time in that relationship, I couldn’t bear to have all that hard work go to waste. All of these reasons, are very sad reasons to stay with someone. Luckily, I always came to my senses and rolled the dice again hoping for my lucky number 7.
But then a broken heart, and for the first time in my life, losing someone that I didn’t want to lose, prompted me to look deeper within myself. This forced situation set me on a path of forensic study to determine what went wrong, in hopes that were we to get a second chance, I would be successful the second time around.
I will be the first to admit that the breakup made me go a little crazy. My need for control and worst case scenario thinking sent me into a spiral of emotion that I was only able to tolerate because I threw myself on top of family and friends. I was able to walk away from all previous relationships, but this one I couldn’t. This one was different.
And so, this heartbreak set me on a journey which led me to some very interesting places. After I was able to peel myself off of my couch, I went to a palm reader, a counselor and my friends. I needed to talk to them about how I was feeling and I needed the conversation to fill the silence and quiet obsessing going on in my head. While this openness takes either a huge amount of humility or a fair amount of insanity, this openness taught me some very interesting things. The most important thing I came to realize last week, was that I have little to no working knowledge of the fundamentals on how to make a relationship work. Whenever something got tough or required compromise or acceptance, I left. It has always been easy to leave and to move on but I am lucky to have finally found someone that I didn’t want to move on from. And, now I am even luckier because that someone doesn’t want to move on from me. I still have a great deal to learn about relationships, the most important step is admitting that. I am at a new beginning and am blessed to have someone who wants to go on it with me. And more importantly, someone I want by my side for the journey.
Divorce
May 18th, 2009 § 2 Comments
I haven’t talked to my dad for three months. He’s called a few times but I’ve ignored his call. I rationalized that if it were urgent he would leave a message, he hasn’t, so I further rationalize that the silence is okay.
My parents divorced when I was 1 1/2. This put my father at a huge disadvantadge for bonding time, as I’m sure my mom was dead set against leaving me as an infant in his care for the weekends. I’ve spent 31 years silently thanking her for this foresight. As I grew from a toddler to a teenager, the wedge between my father and I grew stronger. Each day I became less of a little girl and more like a woman; a precursor to my mom. In return, my dad grew even more uncomfortable in my presence and chose to spend his time with my brother. Together they shared an interest in sports and lack of interest in me.
Being a teenager marks a difficult period of transition. It’s a period of struggle to find independance marked by eye rolling, sassing and grunting to display displeasure and irritation. I was a pro at the eye roll. I think my face froze in a state of displeasure and, to this day, my relaxed face is not a pleasant one.
While I was a teen entrenched in a constant bicker battle with my mom, my feelings towards my dad were displayed with indifference. We avoided confrontation at all costs. There was a silent understanding between us that we would give each other space. Any talk of boys, life, feelings, dreams, and all topics related was off limits. We could however discuss, what was for dinner, how much money I needed for my trip to the mall, and what friends I could have over to help me survive the otherwise intolerable weekend.
Weekends at my dad’s house passed with excruciating pain. Time there moved slower and was steeped in solitude. While my dad and brother would spend hours away from the house at card shows and sports stores, I would spend the weekend on the couch watching television and eating myself into a sugar coma. I marveled at TV daughters and their TV dad’s. I would watch with meticulous attention as Bill Cosby cradled Rudy in his arms as she would rest her little head on his chest or as Mike Brady gave Marsha sage advice on boys and life. And, to make it even more impressive, Marsha wasn’t even his real daughter. TV dad’s didn’t match mine. My dad didn’t give advice, he didn’t talk to me past asking what I wanted to eat for dinner. My dad stayed distant from everything that made me his daughter. His duties didn’t extend beyond making sure I was fed, clothed and still alive by the time my mom picked me up on Sunday.
I always wondered how my life would be different if I had a healthy relationship with my dad, instead of being left to absorb the TV dad/daughter relationship, pretending that Mr. Huckstable was talking directly to me when he was offering advice to his children.
Father’s day is especially difficult because no cards match the sentiment I have towards my father. Most thank dad’s for their insight, their wisdom, their guidance. I need one that says I love you for buying me things when I was younger and for making sure I was sent back to mom’s unscathed.
We all struggle with parent issues and for the most part I have come to accept the fact that my dad and I will always remain at a distance. I love my dad because he is my dad but I feel like he knows little about me or who I am. I know he is proud of me because he is always excited to get my business card so he can show it to his acquaintances. “Look, my daughter is a Senior Vice President.” In my head, this scene plays out with the person asking pointed questions about me; what I like, my middle name, when my birthday is- my dad struggles to answer the questions, gives them my card and says to call to ask me the questions directly.
No matter how strained our relationship, I do know that if my dad ever needs me I will pick up the phone, check my voicemail and then call him back.
