This is how I do it….
December 10th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
One of my friends happens to be charming and witty and beautiful. She also happens to get all giggly and nervous around the opposite sex. So, I figured I would give her some advice on how to approach a new guy that she is interested in.
Below is how I suggested their next conversation should play out.
As a side note, both names have been changed to ensure their privacy and protect their identities.*
Ilya: Hey Clark…I wanted to set you up with someone
Clark: Really?
Ilya: Yes, so I needs to know if you have a lady friend or are otherwise engaged?
Clark: No, I’m not.
Ilya: Fantastic, I will let me know.
*That’s a lie actually.
Broken Homes
June 24th, 2009 § 2 Comments
The first time I told my mom I was engaged she responded, “To who?”
I was 18, he was 30 – we dated for 3 months. One trip to Hawaii later, I returned home with a shell ring on my finger and big ideas for the wedding.
We lived in a house on a cul-de-sac where I would scrapbook with the neighbors every Sunday night. He bought me a golden retriever for Christmas which I named Grommit. He had his own business, was financially stable and eventually bought me a pretty wedding ring that I would sometimes turn upside down to hide. We set the date for our wedding 6 months later only to postpone it 4 months later. Our engagement lasted for 2 years.
One morning, after he had left for work, I sat at the top of the stairs in our house cradling my Christmas dog crying. I kissed his wet nose slid my engagement ring off and placed it on the bathroom counter. And then I left the house for the last time.
Being engaged to him, especially to someone 12 years my senior, had put me in a frenzied state of trying to finish school so that I could have children right after we got married. Even though I wasn’t ready to be a mom, he was running out of time to be the ”young cool dad” that he always envisioned being. I quit my full time job to become a full time student, which meant I had given up my independence and stability. 2 weeks shy of my 21st birthday, I had never been so terrified walking out of that house and into the unknown future.
Walking away was difficult – but essential. I was in love with the idea of love. I loved knowing I would have someone by my side for the rest of time. It wasn’t until the wedding grew closer that I finally realized, I wasn’t in love with him, I was in love with the idea of marriage. While he was a wonderful safe and loving guy, I was far too young to be someones wife.
My parents divorced when I was 1 1/2 years old. Growing up in a divorced environment, I knew that no matter what mistakes I made, I would do everything in my power to ensure a failed marriage wasn’t one of them. I realize things happen, and statistically I have a 50% chance of it not working. I can however do my due diligence before getting married to make sure that the person I am marrying is someone I have no doubts about and have every intention of being with until my last days. This includes not marrying someone at 18 and after just 3 months of dating.
Sadly, far too many people get married too young, too soon or too quickly. I watched Jon and Kate last night and found no joy spying on their crumbling marriage. The episode was drenched in sadness and each of them had the same cold hard stare that people who are going through a separation adorn.
Watching the episode last night I realized for the first time that divorce is much harder on the parents than it is the children. As a child I had no idea what I was missing. I thought every normal child shuttled from each parents house every other weekend. I thought all daughters dreaded alone time with their fathers. To me it was normal and like most all other children I adjusted my world view accordingly. For the parents though it means missed first steps, shared or missed holidays, not being there for the first lost tooth. It means not being there to watch your children grow from day to day. It means missing the little moments in between the “every other weekends.”
It drives me crazy when people stay married “for the children”. I respect my mom much more for being strong enough to walk away from a situation she was unhappy in, even though it meant struggling to find her way. And although she didn’t do it gracefully she did it with strength and courage. That to me is far more admirable than someone who stays in a loveless marriage “for the children.” To me that seems more an excuse than it does a reason.
I tell my friends who are going through a divorce that the best thing they can do is to never speak negatively about their ex-spouse to their children. I have vivid memories of my father talking harshly about how much he hated my mom (I am generously paraphrasing here) only to have him say to me how much I remind her of him. To a child, hating their mother or father, is the same as hating them.
In 13 years, I am a long way from the girl that returned from Hawaii with a puka shell ring. Sometimes that part of my life seems so distant I almost wonder if it happened at all. And although I am thankful that it ended in a breakup and not a divorce–I do sometimes wonder just how my golden retriever is doing.
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.
