life makes me miss you

I spent two hours on Sunday night being completely annoyed by Elizabeth Gilbert’s narcissism for a third time (read the book and another one of her books) while viewing the film version of Eat, Pray, Love. The scenery however, was not hard to look at. Hello James Franco and Javier Bardem. One thing stuck with me though. There’s a part where Julia is shacking up with James as her rebound man and they’re in some studio apartment in Brooklyn spending copious amounts of time together (probably due to being broke and living in such a small place) and he says to her, “You never give me a chance to miss you.”

Lately I don’t want a chance to miss him. I miss him all day when I’m at work and I miss him nights where we don’t sleep together. Sometimes we spend the entire 48 hours of the weekend together and I worry that maybe he’s bored or it’s too much, but it doesn’t seem like that at all. We can sit around doing nothing, but we’re doing nothing together and it feels so much better that way. I’m sure we’re still in what’s called the ‘honeymoon stage’ but it just seems to get better and better. I’m going to enjoy these rose tinted lenses for now. And luckily, life gives me a chance to miss him all the time.

bits

This is the best I've felt on March 18th for the last three years. I never expect to party that hard on St. Paddy's day for a few reasons; I'm not a bit Irish, it's during the week, and I don't like green beer. But somehow I always end up with a large guilt sprial the next day, unable to get out of bed. Calling in sick every March 18th really doesn't fly after a while.

Last night, was fun, random, with lots of memorable bits:

I met some guys in line, one was wearing a denim scarf, we got to talking while we waited together and he asked me for my number before he decided to quit waiting. He said he wanted to take me on a date. This is the first time this has happened since I've been with my guy, and I tried not to make it too awkward.

me: "Ummmmm, I don't think so"
him: "How come?"
me: "I've got a man, but we could go on a friend date?"

That was definitley not a good tactic either, because, understandably, my guy didn't like that at all. Maybe just one of those moments you don't share. Except now line dude is texting me. Dilemma ensues.

Then there was the guy with a dreadlock mowhawk. Yes. Just think on that for a while. It was epic. Who proposed to me on one knee while I was waiting at the bar for a drink. Him and his buddy thought I looked just like Michelle Pfeiffer. That tells me they're old.

Then my guy surprised me and showed up and told me he loved me. Even better, he brought me advil and orange juice this morning and made me pancakes while I was still sleeping. BOOM. Love that. I'm definitley a happy girl today.

blue valentine

Happy Valentines to all the lovers out there. I think I woke up on the wrong side of bed. Perhaps the expectation that you should be feeling happy on a day like today, or that I woke up and realized that my lover was thousands of kilometres away and I was alone in bed, wide awake at a ridiculous hour this morning that really got me going. Or, the colleague who chattered in my ear incessantly about benign items after he spurned an asinine media availability that I had to be his bitch for. Or, it could be the large amount of people asking stupid questions, perhaps due to being love struck-but unfortunately, not mute at the same time.

There are a few things that make me happy inside today (which unfortunately is not translating to my face, sacre bleu, this may cause some wrinkles if I don’t lighten up).

1. The thought of drinking wine and eating copious amounts of chocolate tonight---not because I need to, because I CAN, because that seems to be acceptable behaviour for Valentines Day.

2. Hot pink lace panties I bought as a V day gift for myself. Peeing is cheerful!

3. The red travel mug my parents got me for V day. It keeps my beverages cold or hot for up to 4 hours. Nerdy, I know, but really really awesome.

4. The Reese heart one of my co workers gave me at 9 am. I would have killed someone if not for the sugar fix.

I know it’s not much, but on a day like today, one must console oneself with the small pleasures in life. The big ones don’t always coincide with a day earmarked for lovers.

mush brain

Another reason I haven’t been writing. I doubt most people want to hear the gooey shit that’s oozing out of my pores right now. It’s pretty surprising/gross, even to me. I mean ‘yay! I’m capable of these emotions’, but at the same time, wow, I have nothing hard hitting, witty or caustic to say. It’s not like I’m a different person, I’m just a ridiculously happy person right now, who thinks and writes crap like:

It’s that happy sigh; you can feel with your whole body. When you wake up and you realize you’re so close you could crawl into the other person if it were physically possible. Sleep is so sweet when it’s in perfect tandem.

Gag. Maybe eventually I’ll get my brain back to solid from it’s current mushy state.

why i've been remiss

I realize I haven't been on here for about a month. Some explaination as to why:

Because, on our first date he knew what I was about. I’d never been with a ‘good guy’ and my patience and my heart work against me even when I know it’s wrong; therefore a prelediction towards sustained emotional abuse. It gave me shivers at how well he could see me. They continue....

Because I’m deliriously happy and don’t feel the need to expel the pain through writing about it here and I want to keep it all to myself because it feels really good.

Because at this moment, everything in my life seems to be shining in a soft rosy glow due to the above, and I have nothing to bitch about.

Because I’m scared to talk about it because it almost seems to good to be true.

wisdom

Wisdom seems to be the happy by-product of aging that aids in navigating the foibles of life. When wondering which way to navigate through the rough spots, Wisdom isn’t a map, but it helps you to remember where the pot holes were before, and so, where to look for them while stepping gingerly through the fray. Treading lightly, learning to pick your battles and the virtues of listening over talking also rate on wisdom learned, essential for the evolution from a brash, destructive young woman, to one who looks more closely, thinks more thoroughly and sees more clearly the possibilities for both failure and success.

But gaining wisdom is not without pain and loss. The pain of learning your lesson (as your momma would say) is softened by the possibility you may only have to learn it once. However, the loss of naiveté, is something I mourn daily. Remembering a time when the thought of letting someone really know me didn’t seem to be like touching a stovetop without knowing if it had just been on or not, makes me nostalgic for a pure innocence that wisdom negates.

This year I’ve become wise to the long-held belief that there are fixer uppers out there. There may be, but the only way they can be ‘fixed’ is if they want to, and perhaps, their perception differs from yours in the opinion that they are broken. If you’re faced with habitual behaviour that isn’t something you want to live with, better to move on, before you become tired of asking yourself ‘when he’s gonna change?’

community

I’ve never really been a ‘joiner’. Even when I was in choir in high school, or within my friend group, I always wanted to participate in the bare minimum to continue to be part of that community. I think I was protecting myself, my independence, for fear that I might become one of ‘the group’. It’s something many high school kids covet; that sense of belonging, an implicit invitation to all that goes on within the group and, perhaps, one day, to be the focal point of that community. It’s the attention, the drama, the soap opera, that keeps things interesting. But, I had been burned before, when I was much younger, and naïve; believing that people wouldn’t hurt others over politics, popularity, or to gain self-worth.

So, by high school, I made friends easily, but friends of all stripes, from different groups, and kept them at a distance. It gave me the autonomy to do what I wanted, without the implicit expectation that one group would rule me, or cause me to have to play politics to be the top dog. I never wanted to be a leader, but I never wanted to be a follower either. I wanted to be myself, and if people liked me for that, a friendship was possible.

It also burned me too, because I was so intent on being independent and doing my own thing, that when I ended up being self destructive, I easily eliminated the fragile ties one by one.

Back to square one, and luckily, in a new environment, with older, more mature people. It’s not that there weren’t some moments where the ugliness that people manifest when they want to belong or enlarge their sense of self worth within the group didn’t occur; but the playing field was different. In University, you’re not forced to see the same people everyday and participate in those daily group rituals of having someone to have lunch with, etc…. You choose who you want to have lunch with, if you want to have lunch with anyone, that is. That sense of choosing to belong because you want to, not because you have to, was freeing. You realize that you can choose your friends, and those who want to belong choose with whom, whether there is an implicit hierarchy (and therefore game playing required), or not. I chose friends who liked me for being myself and respected my independence as I did theirs. These friends, this community I found, even when I moved away, still supports me.

Psychologists say that socialization in adults occurs when they move into a significantly different environment and must learn a new set of behaviours. I think this occurs most acutely when you start working in ‘the real world’. Finding a community in an environment with people who have varying values and backgrounds and ages can be challenging, and isolating in the beginning; especially when having a foothold in the community can reflect on your job security and therefore lifestyle, as well as many other aspects of the place you spend up to 8 hours a day. Moving back to the city where I had cut ties with most people I had any sense of community with before I left for university made it the loneliest point of my life. The only community I felt a part of was with my family and they are (pretty much) an implicit community.

I’ve realized, that over time, I have established myself at work, have some trusted contacts and am part of a community (it only took three years). I have friends I can talk to about work issues, and some about both work and life stuff, revelations that show trust and intimacy and reassure me of both great friendships and acquaintances. Outside of the office, I’ve discovered people who have similar demands on their lives and are at a similar place in their lives. This means that after work drinks don’t happen till 7 and we don’t always have time to do everything together and we have other friends, but the sense of community remains. Finding a community where independence is valued and ‘joining’ is not required has made me feel less alone in the jungle, and less like the fringe player I was in high school.