Tag: love

a note to myself when i start tripping about love

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I’ve been reading too many articles telling me that I’m never going to get married.  I’ve been listening to too many men who say monogomy is unrealistic.  I’ve been doubting whether I’ll fall in love and questioning the necessity of marriage.  I’ve been tripping… hard.

Part of this was influenced by my own research on marriage (and reading Cherlin’s work) – it is true that Americans get married faster, get divorced faster and remarry faster than any of our western counterparts.  This is a result of competing ideologies: the very American “do you” mentality (pursuit of happiness, rugged individualism, etc) and this idea that marriage is the ideal (and perhaps only) way to raise children.  These ideologies do not work together at all, in fact, most of them time they work directly against each other.  And I was left thinking, what’s the point of getting married when there’s a 50/50 chance it will end?  I even discussed this with my mentor who told me that his marriage is a contract with God and this if he plays his wife, he’s also playing with his relationship to God.  It was the risk of messing things up with God that kept him in line.  I can admit that I never thought of marriage like that; I’m not sure that I do even now.

And I let it get totally out of hand.  Add that to some poor decision making and turning 30 next month and you have the perfect recipe for crippling self-doubt and an existential crisis.  The worst part was that I was almost willing to settle for something would never lead to happiness.  Stability, perhaps.  Children, sure.  Shiny, pretty things, definitely.   But it would just be existing, not a real life.

And just like that, I snapped out of it.   I mean when I take a step back I have to realize that there is so much more than this and I’m not going to live life like this.  Being jaded is exhausting and more than that it’s lame.  I’m a believer of love, the rainbow connection and all that jazz.  How can I not believe in love?  What in the world came over me?  That’s not me.

My future hubby is out there and he is looking for me.  He is awesome and cute and like my crafts.  He actually laughs when I tell jokes and tells really good ones himself.  He’ll want to renovate a house with me, like the simpsons and south park and will tolerate twilight.  When he goes out with his boys or has to travel for work, I will not worry because I know that he loves (and respects) me enough that he doesn’t feel the need to stick his dick into every chick that passes by.  We will be happy; we will be comfortable with each other.  We will have kids and he will be an awesome father.  He will “talk daddy” all the time and I will swoon.  We will make tons of home videos as a family and be happy and live happily ever after.  This is what I believe in.  That is the life I want to live.

I’m not going to live my life in fear of something that may or may not happen. I am choosing to think positively about the future.

So self, the next time you start tripping about love, read this and chill out.

xoxo,
e.

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broken hearts

My room is full of broken hearts. There’s the heart shaped plate that I dropped once. The bottom corner chipped, which ironically states “love endures.” She got it for me. There is the heart shaped mirror that I got from Ikea. Dropped, again by me, by accident.  The one inside my body. I’m not sure how this one cracked, especially since I’ve been guarding it against men and women for years. But recently, as I notice myself pushing away from people. I notice that I’m scared of it cracking any more. Like it could finally snap and break into a million pieces inside my chest. Like one more disappointment will finally destroy me.

The only heart in this room that is holding steady is the one on my wrist. The tattoo I got for my 22nd birthday. I had drawn it on there for months before I actually got it to make sure that I really liked it there. At the tattoo parlor, the artist told me to place it a little lower because when I fold my hand down, my skin wrinkles and over time it would ruin, break essentially, my heart tattoo. So I took his advice and over this years this is the only heart that has survived.

When I was younger, I told people, confidently, that I would fill this heart in when I got married. As I get older, I just let people comment on it’s quirkiness. It’s not a uniformly shaped heart, it’s obvious that I drew it. I don’t dare talk about why I would fill it. It doesn’t seem as likely anymore, at least to me. To people who know, they all say that I will get married. That these worries are silly. They don’t get how I can’t see myself as they see me. Believe me, I wish I could.

But as I approach 30, everyone else’s worry is weighing me down. I understand it, but I don’t want to hold it along with my own worries. Right now, I want to figure out what to do with all these cracked hearts. I don’t want to throw them away, they mean something to me. The hearts are still pretty, the hearts are still hearts. My heart hasn’t cracked into a million tiny pieces. And it won’t, even though some days it feels dangerously close. And I know I need to stop pushing people away because someday they might stop pushing back to stay where they are.

Days like today feel like failures in my happiness project, but days like this are inevitable. My goal was to be happy every day, not all day every day. And my day is still young, there are actually a lot of things that I can do to bring a little happiness my way – from my guiltiest of pleasures (anything Twilight, I know, I know) to creating things I can share with my love ones (currently, I’m crocheting about 4 different cowls for Christmas presents). I’m cooking brunch, a healthy one at that, so I can smile as I scarf down all this yummy food. I can talk to my brothers, who I adore, or my mother, who I admire. Or I can work on my dissertation proposal or comps reading list, not fun activities but it feels good to get anything done on them. Or I could get back and bed and daydream, or I can keep writing.

e.

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Oprah’s Power

I’ve been reading The Power (follow up The Secret), which is all about love and the laws of attraction.  Basically, what you give out to the world is what you get back.  Give love, get love. Very simple, in theory.  Oprah’s favorite things episode came on Friday, I just got around to watching it this morning.  The way I was hollering, you would have thought that I was actually getting the gifts.  Oprah makes me think of The Power.  Oprah has a hit show that people would watch whether she gave away tons of gifts every year or now.  Hell, if she gave her audience one gift  on the show people would still go crazy.  She gives because she wants to, and I believe when she gives and she gets back.  This makes me happy.

Of the 25 gifts or so, my favs were:

If you know me, you know I LOVE the Container Store.  Almost too much.  So when Oprah gave away this Elfa Closet system I just about lost it.  My roommate was dying.

Netflix for 5 years?! Son. That is freaking awesome.

I love that Oprah gave a way to give back.  Kiva allows you to donate money to fund loans for small businesses around the world.  This is pretty sweet also because Groupon (which I just recently came to love) will add $10 to your donation.

These sneakers look soo comfy. I totally want.  I will get them, and then I will start running again. (back to #operationfuturemilf).

Of course the diamond watch and cruise are dope too.

Part 2 of Oprah’s Favorite things airs today.  I cannot wait.

e.

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good news about love

Apparently it can last a lifetime, according to CNN and the researchers at Stony Brook University in New York. *phew* What a relief.

And I’m totally not being sarcastic.

Previous research has suggested that the first stages of romantic love fade within 15 months and after 10 years it has gone completely, the newspaper said.

“The findings go against the traditional view of romance — that it drops off sharply in the first decade — but we are sure it’s real,” said Arthur Aron, a psychologist at Stony Brook, told the Sunday Times.

Lately, love has felt so unattainable.  You see lovers move on.  Or lovers who can’t move on and seem destined to be alone forever.  I’m glad there is research to confirm my idealized vision of love.

That is all, night folks.

e.

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