On discovering that love is not all fun and games

Six months in: the love of my life is still the love of my life.
I have never been more confident about that.

Every little thing that matters, every red flag that ever waved before is white.
It’s miraculous, in that I never before believed that I would not have to sacrifice parts to myself to love and be loved.

And he loves me. Perfectly. Because he knows me better than any person on earth. Perhaps, at times, better than I know myself, and he STILL loves me.

That is not to say that our road has been smooth. There have been challenges that we deserve honorary years for.

My heart is learning to be whole (a condition to which it is wholly unaccustomed). I am also learning that I am my own formidable foe, perfectly willing to get in the way of my own happiness.

But there is also this: Our challenges are just that. Challenges.

My love challenges me to become a better, stronger, more open, more authentic person through our relationship (as opposed to learning those things by having survived the relationship).

And he challenges me by doing it himself – by loving authentically, by being open in the face of insecurity, and by choosing always to grow rather than escape.

Loving him is at the same time the easiest and most difficult thing I have ever done.

Easy, because we fit each other so perfectly. Difficult, because he challenges me to face parts of myself that I have never loved thoroughly enough to encounter, parts of myself that, in the past, were more trying to confront than being alone. Again.

Loving him is difficult.
Loving him is wonderful.
Loving him is what I’ve been looking for.

Riding shotgun with cupid and other reflections on turning thirty

Getting older ain’t no thing.

The last year has been a roller coaster of sorrow and hope and grit. At every turn, I am amazed at the order life makes out of disorder when seen from a far enough distance, amazed at its ability to fall together in ways I would have never foreseen, amazed at its tenacious beauty in light of the shadows.
I’ll spare you the details of the roller coaster, but suffice it to say that my year was filled with love and loss, sorrow, disappointment, reconstruction and moves. You know, the normal stuff. But more.

In reflection, I am humbled. I am blessed, and I have so many reasons to be thankful for thirty years.

I am blessed with a group of family and friends who rally for me when I need them, who are willing to help me move me twice in a summer, who let me cry without shame in public, if necessary, and who don’t give up on me despite my workaholic tendencies.

I get to spend every day with some of the best people I have had the honor of meeting on this planet. My school is an amazing place. Both students and staff are talented and passionate individuals who enrich my life by sharing a great love for learning and for a place where students can learn to become their best selves. Both the staff and students make me a better, more loving, content, and passionate person. There’s no place like home with the LGAwesome family.

After years of internet dating, it turns out that I had been working for 2½ years with the love of my life.
Just as I let my internet dating memberships expire, got myself a kitten to ward off loneliness and decided to quit, what I expected to be a friendly brunch happened. It was all over. .
Every day I find myself more in awe at how perfectly my love and I fit each other, at how lucky I am to be loved by him, and at how very unfair the path that led me to this place once seemed. Through the lens of my love for him, even the best of my previous relationships seem like settling. AND the feeling is reciprocal, the most magical and elusive of all loves.

And then there’s this:

Points awarded if this interaction is as cool to you as it is to me. And if it’s not, get educated.
Bitches, I be riding shotgun with cupid.

As I turn thirty, I will be approaching my two year anniversary of starting boot camp at Sgt. Peterson’s. As a result of this new routine, I have become more committed to creating an active lifestyle for myself. Physical exercise has become both a leisure activity AND a necessity for sanity. I have found myself willing to challenge myself to a degree that wouldn’t have occurred at any other time in my life. Consequently, I am in better shape than ever before. I have lost more than 5% body fat. I have run two 5Ks and have signed myself up for the toughest event I could find: the Tough Mudder. My knees no longer bother me. I feel healthy and unstoppable – both physically and mentally.

In these thirty years, I have learned a few things, many of which took me too long to learn.

1. There is nothing wrong with a drink or two to get you through housework.
   When moving, a higher drink to work ratio is acceptable.
2. We are all stronger than we give ourselves credit for. Find people who believe in your strength and allow them to push you until you believe in it yourself.
3. I am small. Therefore, my problems are small. The worst that will happen to me is miniscule in the scope of human suffering.
4. I am both powerful and powerless. As any human, I have the capacity to touch lives around me, but I am only one factor in each of these lives.
5. Work hard. Love hard. Be authentic. It’s more powerful than unions.
6. Don’t let romantic relationships take the place of friends and family. You’ll need them when things fall apart.
7. Love god. Love people. By loving people, we love god. And it doesn’t really matter if that god is the unutterable name of the Judeo-Christian tradition, or Brahman, or whether there is nothing. Service is its own reward.
8. I can’t love others unless I love myself. It is also difficult to love myself without loving others.
9. There will never be enough time for all of the things I want to do. Life is about constantly shifting priorities.
10. “When you know, you know” sounds like bullshit until it doesn’t.

Thirty also brings this reality: Life is short, and I have so much left to do.
But don’t let that read as disappointment. It’s not. I have already done and daily do the things which satisfy me most. I love and I am loved in return. I laugh and learn daily. I live a life of service, and that is what allows me to go to bed every night and wake up every morning satisfied.
My life is full – whether it ends tomorrow or in sixty years.

Here’s to another thirty years of living, loving, and serving.
L’chaim!

Dredging the Lake

Match is at it again, dredging the depths of their vast testosterone inventory to find only the most suitable suitors for me.

Here are a couple of gems.

Meet chu1010

Of all the unfortunate (and rather appropriate) places to prematurely end a sentence, this man has it nailed. Don’t worry, Meet chu1010, I am less likely to want to shoot you and more likely to want to shoot myself in wherever it is that stores my short-term memories and processes visual images.

Thanks, Match.

Winona341

Of all the shitty matches Match has deemed fit for me, this one may take the cake. This one says, “There is no actual process. This is all just as random as real world you get to live in for free – complete with advertising in all corners.”

Good news: This scam and I are a good match because “he” is “athletic and toned”.

Vote of Confidence

I’m pretty sure that Match’s most recent matching algorithm consists of: *Shrug* Fuck if I know…

These gems were all contained within one day’s set of “matches.”

“Eligible” Bachelor #1: YOUNGCOWBOY28

Aside from his inexplicable caps lock and splitting of one word into two smaller one-syllable words, I guess we could be a match.
FUCK THAT, MATCH.
FUCK THAT.

Enjoying camping, drinking, and dogs is not enough to bring two people together. Trust me, I’ve tried that shit.

Next.

“Eligible” Bachelor #2:  Ladieslovesandme

Can you say, “codependent”? “My favorite place is your favorite place.” “I like to do, what u like to do hopefully shopping, cooking, and putting on makeup.”

Wow.
Also, fuck you and your pixelated, lego-faced second picture.

“Eligible” Bachelor #3: b_t_hellam1

I think Match may have momentarily gotten me confused with my crazy sister who would love to date and marry a nondenominational protestant minister (for marriage #4) with whom she could relax, read the Bible, and watch Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

“Eligible” Bachelor #4: D8M4

You know, this fucker’s not so bad (comparatively) except that he listens to shitty music.
Still, fuck him.

Also, fuck this.

Hot Mess: Volume 13

This week’s edition of “holy fuck, why?” is brought to you by MarcB1234.

The problem is partly his face, but it’s also that he writes his message like it’s an old school, personal ad. Probably because he’s been looking “to meet somebody and see what happens” for just about that long.

Obviously, I’m not paying for a service because my primary criteria are age, height, weight, and availability.
Perhaps, that’s not as obvious as I think it should be.

MarcB1234 is yet another fine specimen (struggling to meet the 200 character minimum) who introduces himself like an early elementary school child.

I’ve told you how old I am. What else do you need to know?

But wait! In order to prove my ability to be a non-needy, responsible adult. I want you to be sure that I don’t want to rush anything, “We’ll see how it goes.” Just “hope the person is understanding” that I have the personality of a goldfish and internal exploration and self-awareness of a lobotomized T-rex.

Deadmaus: Sacrificing the Spirit Animal

If my recent few months were in chart form, it might look something like this.

The only constant theme in my life since last August has been constant change, not limited to but including:

• August – Move in with boyfriend. Return to school.
• September – Start my school year with what could realistically be two full time jobs. Get super stressed out.
• October – Stay stressed out. Cry a lot.
• November – Ditto.
• December – Changes in staffing who work closely with me. Boyfriend “loves me but is not in love with me.” Continue to live awkwardly with ex-boyfriend. More changes in staffing who work closely with me. Apply for job in United Arab Emirates.
• January – More changes in staffing who work closely with me. Ex-boyfriend leaves. It’s fun to go home again. Start dating new man.
• February – Fall for new man. Hard. After a month he “doesn’t feel anything.” More changes in staffing who work closely with me. Try not to cry in public. Much. Drink. Seek therapy. Realize that therapy is real expensive. Write.
• March – Continue to try not to cry in public. Much. Learn I did not get UAE job I’d been planning for since December. Be humbled. Start to formulate plan B. Drink. Write.
• April – Continue to formulate Plan B. Summon strength. Dub this my “year of tests.” Cross fingers and hope that said tests do indeed have some sort of expiration date and that this date is soon.

This is not a funny story.
This is a true story.

The first night that Mr. February Heart-Break spent the night with me was the first night that I realized that I might have mice.

An intense month-long mouse hunt began in which a mouse ate all of the food I had left out to lure it into snap traps – without touching the traps. Then it eventually ate the food, including licking the trap clean of peanut butter – without setting off either snap trap.

Then I bought poison. The poison went untouched.
Nothing.

Until the day that Mr. February Heart-Break dumped me. As soon as he walked out the door, I find this.

Dying on the floor.
Slowly.
Crawling a few inches every once and a while before giving up again.

I called him immediately to say something stupid like, “There is a mouse dying on my fucking floor.”

“Do you realize that this mouse hunt last the EXACT lifespan of this relationship?”
“If I had known it was our fucking spirit animal, I wouldn’t have tried so hard to kill it.”

I nicknamed our spirit animal Deadmaus.

My life continues to be a bizarre as shit series of uprootings and quakes, every dysfunction an all-too-apt exemplar for the way things always seem to fall apart when touched, every artery and ventricle in my heart rubbed raw, leaning towards, “Touch me and I’ll elbow you in the gut” rather than, “Love me – some reassembly required.”

It has become necessary to make myself mantras:

• You are stronger than you give yourself credit for.
• What doesn’t kill you makes you funnier.
• Be present.

The last one sucks the most.
The last one makes me grow the most.

Every painful thing I will experience in my life is born of privilege. Without privilege, I would have to worry about things that threaten more than my comfort or pride.

This is humbling. On a good day, I can be grateful.
Shit show or not, raw heart or not, I have a pretty good life.

 

Hot Mess: Volume 12

On this week’s “Good god, look who favorited me!” – HJV17
This man is the vanilla ice cream at the ice cream shop. Or to use a fish-in-the-sea metaphor, this man is breaded fish stick. No one’s really sure what’s in it, but it might be fish.

Reasons HJV17 and I will never go on a date: 

1. His headline, “Looking to meet new people” was recently updated. Before that he just had, “I’m here to send countless emails and winks to women who will never have sex with me.”
2. His user name is one character away from the scariest STD in the world.
3. He’s 37 and seeking women 18+. Six years older would be much too old, but 19 years younger is kosher AND legal.
4. His entire “About Me” is 32 words, if you include “etc.” and he probably just threw that in to meet the 200 character minimum.
5. He’s another gray silhouette, and I’m usually into the three-dimensional types.

 

Is this in appropriate occasion to say, “Fuck my life”?