love and cabbage

I love watching couples interact with each other. I love people watching in general and can do it all day. But couples particularly are really interesting to me. I like to try to read nonverbal and verbal cues, the way they touch or don’t touch. The way they tell a story together or how one completely shuts down when the other starts talking. I’ve seen couples who have been together for under a year totally rip into each other, playfully they would add in their defense, but with strands of truth mixed in, as most playful teasing has in it.

But what I love most is to see couples who respect the stuffing out of each other. It’s rare actually – a lot rarer than we single folk would like to believe. There are many very pleasant couples out there, very much “in love” and in mostly healthy relationships. But what I really find more beautiful than anything else, is respect. Deep profound awe and admiration for everything the other person stands for, believes in, who that person is and who s/he will be.

I once had a long and rather painful conversation with someone who was desperately trying to win me back into his life which included, but was not limited to, selling his house, moving across the country, and marrying me. I could have offered five reasons, off the top of my head, why this was an insanely bad idea and I had the sneaking suspicion that he knew all the reasons and just needed to hear someone, at this point me, tell him as much. out loud.

For me, one of the loudest reasons was a lack of mutual respect. Our playful teasing of each other bordered too precariously on hurtful. Our arguments were filled with jealousy and mistrust. And we never bragged about each other to our friends. In fact, our friends barely knew “we” existed at all.

There was a significant chunk of my adult life when I didn’t even believe in marriage as a concept and I would inevitably push away any one who dared tread that road with me in tow. But now that I am less adamant about marriage being evil, I feel less ready than ever.

It’s one of those things that we do as singles – take stock of “what’s wrong with me” and hold that up to a magnifying glass. And some people are really good at marketing and thinking what a great catch they are, most likely a result of an aggressive defense mechanism. I’m not one of those people. I feel like on paper I am a total mess. Like on a mannequin, that dress looks ok, but try one on in the fitting room and not even that wacked out funhouse mirror that makes you look 20 pounds lighter will help. 

Self-deprecation aside, I do believe that people need to be single. I really do. There is something that happens when you are alone, sans significant other, that won’t happen at any other time of your life. You do take stock and hopefully you come out the other end better than before and ready to conquer the world.  Or at least balance your checking account and have really clean hair.

To be totally honest, maybe I feel like I have to solve all my problems before I can commit to someone else. Maybe that’s all wrong for all the right reasons, if you know what I mean. I dont want to fix anyone else – I’ve spent quite a lot of my life trying to do that. Some of my relationships bordered on codependency and crossed unhealthy boundaries. I always tended to go for the guy that I thought “needed” me most. And for all my experience in life, I always feel like I have to be the one to save everyone who crosses my path. Save the cheerleader. Save the world, ya dig?

But I’m not a savior, or “the” savior obviously. There are things about being a single Christian woman that complicate matters. We are told we’re supposed to be wives, like that’s our calling in life as women. You can’t really deny that the Bible really does seem to back that up and that women are very much the role of wife and mother over and over again. So when I say things like I’m not sure I even should get married, Christian friends are quick to jump up on me with “but you should” and that’s what you’re made to be and stuff like that. I have yet to meet a single woman who isn’t on Match or Eharmony or in a singles ministry or somesuch. I cant even count the number of times friends have said something like “I was made to take care of someone else.” I guess I’m just not the nurturing type. Maybe I’m not actually a woman at all.  Maybe I’m a robot with AI. Maybe I will join the robot revolution and kill John Connor.

I was actually told that I’m really selfish. Not exactly straight up like that, but pretty much. It had something to do with having my own agenda and always being “too” busy and eventually came out to be emotionally unavailable. Isn’t that what guys are always accused of? Dude, I’m telling you. She’s a man, man.

Oh I don’t know. I like to think that whatever I do have to offer, I am actually giving out to people in my life. right now. Whatever capacity I have to love, I use up on people I do actually love. Whatever acts of kindness I can pull off, I try to. Whenever I verge on feeling lonely and empty, I try to do something for someone who is lonelier and emptier than me. And in this way, maybe I really am kinda selfish in that I just dont want to have much left over to give.

And at the end of the day, I guess I just want someone else to respect everything I do and am and want to be. But first, I have to respect me too. And that’s the sticking point. I’ve never really respected myself before. I’ll admit that much freely. So ended up with the guy who made fun of me in front of his friends. The guy who only talked and never listened. The guy who only called me around 2 am to “hang out.” The guy who didn’t even know my last name for 3 months.  I’ve walked back and forth across that line between woman as helper – servant – doormat to ally – partner – equal. It was a fuzzy line but it’s getting clearer all the time.

Btw, this post had absolutely nothing to do with cabbage.

til death do us part

I just was told Natasha Richardson died. It was sudden and tragic. She was only 45. I started thinking about her husband, Liam Neeson, and how devastating that must be. Then I started thinking about my friend Saint Facetious because he had just written a blog about dying and what he wanted done at his funeral.

While I won’t even begin to think about my own funeral (God knows I’ve done my time on that one) I will say that one thing always irks me a bit. As a single person, I think about who will really miss me.

Now before you all jump on me and blow my you know what up, I’m totally aware that many people will miss me, as I would miss them. I’m not being overtly self-deprecating or dramatic or anything in saying this. There is just a general sweep back over my life that leaves me a little on the melancholy side. I think about certain times in my life when I have had that person who seemed my sun and stars, and, when they were no longer part of my life, reduced to space junk, there were times when I felt quite alone and empty. Like my world had stopped rotating and that the sun may not actually rise the next day. And though I can think of a couple without whom, at the time, I *might* have said something about being better off dead, I didn’t really mean it. And the sun always did rise.

Of course I’ve had someone very close to me pass on. But never *that* person or someone I spent decades with, building a life and family and dreams and hopes and all the good stuff life is made of.  It makes my heart hurt to think of it. Always makes me think of the Dave Matthews’ line “Life is short but sweet for certain.”

So maybe this is a little self-agrandizing AND bordering on pity party (is that possible?) but I’d just like to request that if/when I do die, all yall reading my blog will come here and leave crazy comments in my honor. That’s all I ask I guess. Oh and definitely have a pint.

just say no to everything!

Let’s get real here, ok. Abstinence doesn’t have to be made to look cool. It’s actually pretty freakin awesome.  Making a conscious choice to not knock boots with anybody is commendable and wise and cautious and full of hope and beauty. The trend has become to bash that choice and make it look like that of a naive fool with $@%! for brains. How did that happen? When did we start throwing crap, like little monkeys, at people who choose not to have sex until they get married? Why is it okay to belittle people who make choices at all? Isn’t that the flip side of the same coin that lets us chose to knock boots in the past and still choose such course of action as we wish? Aren’t we fans of choice?

And, speaking of choices, why do I keep writing “knock boots” as my euphemism of choice? Ask my BFF who came up with it. Thanks Sen

 To me, it is quite alarming that we are so quick to turn the whole USS Judgmental battle cruiser onto virgins when it used to be pointed at those with “loose morals.” I suppose that’s just human nature and the vicious cycle of society – the conservatives of today are the liberals of tomorrow. I also suppose that many people on either side of the coin cannot be true supporters of the live and let live mentality because we are too insecure in our decisions and think that the other side makes us look bad. That goes both ways. ahem.

My last significant conversation (not counting numerous virtual ones) about choices came about because a friend of mine had decided to do the artificial insemination thing and we were discussing the pros and cons of being a single mom by choice. We are at a stage of society when this is not only completely possible and viable, it is heralded. I can’t really say definitively yay or nay. I have done my battle with the USS Judgmental and I have conquered. I really honestly dont make choices for other people nor do I have some preset standards of operation for others’ lives. You do what you gotta do and as long as it is not illegal (that’s up to debate though) nor harmful to you or others (also somewhat debatable depending on who or what is getting harmed).

I totally sound like a wuss I’m sure. I have no opinions. I make no claims. I hold no judgments. It’s like I’m a nonperson, a total product of modernism, humanism, nihilism, existentialism, and whatever other isms you wanna throw in. (Ism’s in my opinion are not good.)

I would like to think I am Justice, blind and impartial, open to hearing, slow to measure and dole out. It’s my only real contribution to my world. The only thing I ask in return is that people take the time to present the facts.

And here’s where that gets tricky. People on any side of an argument (and there are always more than 2) can bring what they think are facts to their support.  Too many times people are misquoted, statistics are skewed, politics are masked, and everyone goes home a little bit dumber than they started out to be. Most of the time people come with their preconceived notion and they are just aiming to prove it and support it, come hell or highwater.

Again, like Justice, it is always about the human experience – the personal, individual experience, dictating and morphing the social laws around us. We have a justice system with a big ole bookcase filled with what we are and are not supposed to do. But it comes down to each individual case and how it directly affects those involved. It’s tedious and costly. But as a society, we cannot afford anything less. We cannot make widely sweeping blanket statements like a one size fits all remedy for how to live your life. There are no generalizations without flaws. (Except that one?) And it’s fine to talk on macro levels for the sake of argument and for a starting point, but eventually, the talk has to come down to you and to me.

All this to say that saying no is as valid an option as saying yes. But, while it isn’t the only valid option, bashing it and ripping it apart doesn’t seem to quite make your point either. It will only serve to end the conversation.

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Author’s Note:  I had been asked some time ago to write something up about Abstinence-Only Education. this is not it. But it’s an introduction of sorts. I am working on the sex ed piece and will post it in chunks over the next week or so. Feedback is, as always, very welcome! (I really hate the word chunk and I’m so not sure why I just wrote it.)

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