The Good, the Bad, and the Heinously Ugly (of relationships)

I have decided to share some cruelly intimate details about being in a relationship. I have had
a lot of dating experience, enough to make a girl cry, really, but now that I've been with the same guy for almost a year, I am finding dating was a cakewalk in comparison. I've split up the writing into the Good, the Bad, and the Heinously Ugly, in hopes that you can excavate any truths that apply to you. Oh, and I want you to smile, and maybe grimace, but mostly smile after reading.

 Let's start with the Good....so as not to frighten anyone.

The GOOD:

The best part of relationships are nights like last night, when I had the worst cramps imaginable, similar to elephants playing hopscotch on my ovaries, and my boyfriend was willing to rest his warm hand on my hip as we lay together, to act as a human heating pad....I mean, I know this wouldn't make it in a RomCom or anything, but dang, that is love in the best way. Another good thing about being in love is knowing that your boyfriend has agreed to fly 1,000 miles to meet your family, go to a wedding with you, all to let you know he cherishes you. In one week Joey will fly to Denver to meet not only my parents, but my sister, her husband and two kids, as well as my grandma and uncle. Did I mention that almost all these people are living in the same house for the summer, that Joey and I will also stay in? I'm not going to lie to you, if the situation was reversed, I'd be downright terrified. I know that my family is wonderful, but they are also loud, in your face, and so sarcastic that my mom has nearly made a couple of my friends cry when she was very obviously (in my daughter opinion) joking. Another lovely thing about relationships is knowing that someone is so connected with your life. Often, while we are watching TV, I'll start rambling about work or friends and "Oh my GOSH!" statements, and he just politely pauses and turns, to listen to whatever ridiculous nonsense I care to sputter, with a smile on his face. I mean, it's enough to make me feel almost borderline interesting. Though, I know, he is more or less bound to listen to me as long as we're together and at this point, he knows everyone so he is ready to give his feedback, sometimes with an ever-growing finger wag that makes him border on sassy (clearly a sign of me hanging out with teens too much and him hanging out with me too much).

The BAD:

 Well I'll just come right out and say it: vacations suck now. I really can't go on a vacation now without thinking, wow, Joey would really like it here.....or, HEY there's a brewery over there he'd ADORE! It's pathetic, and embarrassing, really, because I used to travel all over the world alone. I got on a plane, alone, to Prague, Peru and Ireland. While everyone else I studied abroad with went together on trips for spring break, I was dreaming of Irish countrysides and juicy evenings curled up with a book all by myself. Me, with a backpack and a plane ticket was all I needed in the world to survive (and avocados, I always need those to survive). And you know what? I am also a LOT needier now. I used to hear these girls talk about how they have to see their boyfriends ALL the time and in my head I was really thinking, that's sort of sad for you...to be so needy....little Ms. Independent would NEVER need to see a man so much...and yet here I am, needing to see him so much that I might as well be renting my room out to earn extra cash. The scariness of love is also bad. That fear that someone really knows you, really sees you, and that one day they may decide to stop loving you. Or, that something could happen to them, and you'd have to actually learn something about cars instead of relying on them to do all of the maintenance. Of course, most of the bad here is good....because hey, it really isn't that bad, at the end of the day, to love and be loved. But still, my cool independent lady points, which once were a reasonable amount, are slowly flopping out of my piggy bank onto the floor.

The HEINOUSLY UGLY:

Alright, here's when it gets real. I think most of you can relate to this, and if you can't than I'm going to be forced to think you're either lying or have struck upon a grace that I really hope to find one day. Let me start with this little gem of a story: I am trimming Joey's hair, already terrified of the device and possibility of slicing him Sweeney Todd style, when I trim to high above his ear and give him a straight up bald spot. Suddenly my handsome boyfriend looks more like a mauled hick. He actually screeches when he looks at his own reflection. And then, what do I do? Well, I'll tell you what I didn't do, which is apologize and rub his back, gently telling him he still looks like a character from a Harlequem Romance novel. No, I ran to the bed (his, mind you), jumped under the covers, cried and refused to let him coax me out of my shameful cocoon. Did this last for a few minutes, you ask? Oh no, we're talking about an hour, at least. I haven't actually run and hid from someone since the days my sister would chase me, screaming, up that stairs while my grandma babysit us as kids.

The truth is, when you're in a relationship, all your worst qualities are reflected back at you. How jealous you can be, how vein, how pouty, how stubborn, how unbelievably naggy you can be while all the while, as a single gal, you go around thinking how crazy these girls in relationships are and that you certainly would NEVER be like them. Well, folks, now I'm in the club. I have said things like, "It would be great if you could stop doing that," and also things like, "Could you maybe wear this instead?" I bitch at him about all these things and somehow he still wants to spend time with me and hold me during the whole movie. It amazes me. When we are at the bar and a guy looks at me or talks to me, he is relatively unfazed. Meanwhile, one time a female bartender in booty shorts and cutoff shirt smiled at him and said, "Hey Joey, how's it going?" there was honestly a dark forest that grew inside me, wishing that she would maybe fart while stacking glasses or something so that I wouldn't be continuously blown over and irritated by her overall hotness.

 Luckily, I have a guy who doesn't let me storm out of the room or house when all I want to do is not face the problem and just run and hide. He gently reaches for my arms, guides me to the couch and makes me look at him and talk through it. I think Webster's Dictionary would define this as: maturity. I thought I was mature, I mean, all day I keep kids on task and cluck at them to follow school rules. I pay my bills. I cook from scratch (sometimes) and know how to properly set the dinner table. I have an AMAZON account, for goodness sake, how much more mature can it get? It turns out, I have an emotional age of about thirteen. It's like the opposite of dog years. I don't know how some people are so mature in relationships, but I'm grateful they are, because even though I'm getting better at not shutting down and crawling into holes only Batman would find interesting, I still am a child when it comes being in love.

I suppose that is the fun, though. Learning each others most obnoxious qualities and then figuring out how to maneuver around them, almost like the Matrix and bullets. Joey has learned to tickle my feet, in moments of tension, and I have learned to poke his face when he is looking glum or is being particularly irritating. I guess it is the fighting within yourself, that realizes that it's nice to have something worth fighting for. And, better yet, it's nice to have someone in the ring with you, after many years of you against the world, even if at times you want to jab the other person :)

How it Brings May Flowers

I look around at the wildflowers here, in this normally desolate and thirsty display of nature, and I nearly want to weep at the depth of petals and the vivacity of color around me. The bluebonnets, Indian Paintbrush, and countless other flora around me that I can not name. I sigh and think, this is what the song says about May. But, all of my past experiences with a Texas May have shown me humidity, 90 degrees and rising, and everything turned to a burnt, scorching yellow. As I sit on my porch in a sweater, this early risen Sunday morning, I am so grateful for the perfect stretch of Spring that continues on.

I find myself in a place in my life where I am thinking about things never once thought upon (at least not in a real way) before. Usually, I was either experiencing online-dating travesties worthy of some type of rambling memoir, traveling aimlessly with some illness, or fumbling in a career where you never will feel finished or that you've done enough. It is strange, then, to find myself with the same, wonderful man for 8 months now. To go to work and have at least a few moments where I see improvement in myself, and then to go home knowing I have finally, after five years of inconsistent bursts of labor, closed in upon the end stage of my book.

I guess 26 (nearing 27) is a strange but beautiful place in your life.  Sex and the City tells me I am hopelessly young and need to experience more, while small-towns and archaic literature and films tell me I am old and may die alone. I watch marriages flourish and fail, careers die and others go back to school again, and I know that I am in a part of life that is constantly changing. At this age, you are somewhere between missing getting crazy downtown, to finding dive bars closer by, and realizing that it's Saturday night and you just want to cuddle with your boyfriend and his dog on the couch with a glass (ahem...or two) of wine.

The other night I told my dearest friend, H, that I felt so lame for leaving downtown early with some of my single friends in order to go snuggle with my boyfriend in Pflugerville of all places. How could I want to leave music, the bright white lights and energy of a city to go sixteen miles north to a sort of ghetto suburbia? Well, I guess that's what love is. H just sort of laughed and said, "Welcome to my life," in that way she does that is somewhere between a delightful laugh and sigh of relief that we are almost on the same page. She is used to me being the single gal who loves scouting for guys at pubs and who somehow has texts at 2a.m. from guys I swear I never gave my number to.....these days though, I am cooking salmon burgers and rice in the kitchen of Joey's house, listening to the copious amounts of oil he put in the pan pop and wondering how Monday nights got to be so lovely.

I hear my 8th grade students mumblings sometimes, their precious fears of "What comes next?" They are filled with that same fear that I have felt of late, that things are changing, that the time of selfishness has perhaps been slowly waving goodbye to you for some time now. I watched my lovely co-worker K's belly rise, like a wonderful baked good, and then yesterday, I met that perfect pink baby Q. I can not convey the light that shined in her cheeks, that glow of motherhood that wraps itself around that soul of a person, and I can nearly feel my ovaries bursting within me.

Naturally, I have always wanted babies. I mean, come on, I grew up in a daycare, and then worked at that same daycare through my teens. A baby on the hip has always fit on me better than expensive leather purses. And yet, I am also incredibly selfish. I adore being alone, writing, eating mac n cheese alone in my bed in the most delicious evening of cheesy gluttony imaginable. I also can not save money....well, I suppose I am good at saving for plane tickets, and trips, but when it comes to actually saving just to save I am impossibly stubborn. Though I feel like it is cliche to watch your friends start to have babies and want it yourself, I fear that is where my heart is wandering. Now, I certainly need three plus years to settle down a bit (ahem....get a ring...) and learn to make casseroles, I suppose, as all moms somehow intrinsically are able. It is just amazing that I am even near to this point. Somehow, the 78 middle-school children are not a deterrent in this want for children....can you believe? Even their sassy wagging of tongues does not faze me, as I am sure I will have very nerdy, quiet children that will read Saturday mornings (after we all sleep in) in my magical outdoor garden while sipping tea.....and then I will make homemade jam and pies while still maintaining a fabulously slim figure....all of this is reasonable, right?

As I approach the time of year when the long stretch of summer will lie before me, I find myself trying to improve. To take classes in baking, fitness and hopefully language as well. I am also going to soak up the sleep and leisure because I have, for some reason, decided to go back to school and get my master's degree in Advanced Literacy. Why would a teacher, who gets paid a mere $500 more a year for such credentials, decided to go through two years of extended education and slaving after work? Well, I suppose it is because I love to learn. Teachers love to see learning in others, but I like to think I am learning new things about myself every day...for example, how I managed to not scream profanities at the most apathetic and irritating student on the planet....I will tell you, nothing is harder in this world than keeping your cool with a sassy teen. Every day a middle school teacher does not get fired for cussing and/or swatting a child is a total victory.

I suppose what the general ramble of this entire blog is about is that I am growing up? Now, I assure you I am still endlessly infantile, and will admit that I am a very graceless fighter who pouts and storms off in relationships the way five-year-olds do, but I'm trying. I am starting to think about what is next in this life of mine, and realizing that perhaps there will be a time when I want to decorate a home, weed a garden, and swaddle a little baby more than seeing the temples of SouthEast Asia.

This, for me, is a strange swirl of growing up. I suppose I can thank my parents, for departing the edifice of my youth and forcing me to say goodbye. For now, Austin is my home. I will spend year 3 in my little Ewok Village and perfect miniature room with my balcony.....wondering if it will be the last I will spend there.

I will leave you with these words to ponder.....

"I think I'm finally growing up - and about time."



-Elizabeth Taylor

 

Shall we pack the light-up squirrel?

Oh my, how much time has passed since my last posting! Is that me, in the picture, you ask? Why yes, it is, and you know, I still own that outfit in an adult size and I wear it regularly in Austin with fuzzy socks.

Many things have passed since I last wrote, including my adoring and attempting to educate a new group of teens at work, meeting a wonderful man and trying to be good at relationships (though I fear I still need to consult H quite regularly), but today I want to focus on something else, something I have wept over multiple times and ultimately, thanks to chocolate and wine, have come to accept.

Let me start by saying that I am the product of too much love, snuggling and stability, and therefore fully can blame my parents for my inability to cope with change. So, naturally, when they began to tell me that the house I grew up in, was brought home to at one day old, was going to be sold in their newfound dream to move to the Rocky Mountains near my sister, I was obstinate. Let's be honest, I was a first-world brat (much more destructive than the other third-world brat, who merely sasses mothers over an empty pot of beans). My sister has been calling me, clucking with joy that our parents would be near her soon, in Denver, when all I could think of were the orchards I ran to for all those years. I thought of how my Dad always built these pungent, blazing fires and would let the cold in while he carried in wood from our fallen walnut trees out back, the same ones that I swung from for hundreds of hours dreaming I could indeed fly.  I could only think that, without my house and parents in Chico, I actually had no home at all.

  Maya Angelou once wrote, "The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned." I have felt this ache, in Europe, South America, Asia and over the four collegiate years I spent terrified of snow and leaving people behind. I grew tired of being questioned abroad, was I too much a feminist, or a disgrace to the whole movement? Was I the innocent girl I thought I was or had I grown cynical and broken? Why couldn't I love Anne Sexton as much as everyone else I was around?

While my sister seems, overall, less sentimental from our hometown, I remain so enraptured in it that I find myself dreaming of February almond blossoms even whilst bathing in the warm waters of the Gulf of Thailand. I ache for the safety of a town where I go to a dentist that has my sophomore dance pictures in a manila folder with my name on it and who is named Dr. Moon and still offers toys out of a plastic treasure chest. I love to weave the streets seeing my old, dilapidated junior high a mere block away from the large coniferous trees that blanket my brick high school. And, naturally, even more than the places, are the people. If my parents leave, I will have to say goodbye to Christmas Day-Night beers with my high school friends, and music festivals in the mountains, and crying with my dear ones over tragedy and beauty in equal measure with wine on a couch no one quite knows the origin of. 

How does one let go of their hometown, without at the same time letting go of their childhood?

I often feel more afflicted with this problem than others. Perhaps it is because I grew up in one house only, or perhaps, as I fear, I am just more sentimental and emotional than potentially 93% of the rest of the world. I must say that over Christmas break, my guy friends gave me some of their opinions about something in my personal life that I was not exactly thrilled to hear, and I found myself mentally doing a very vulgar 'suck it' hand gesture in my mind at them, thinking it is time to move on from this place anyhow. I am 26 years old, how much longer must I hold onto the past? I am no longer that little awkward teen that gets green beans in her braces or belts the soundtrack to One Tree Hill before chemistry class. I know now, that when guys buy me vodka, especially if it's a heinous strawberry or other fruit flavor, they probably want to sleep with me, not discuss the essay portion of college applications. I also dress better now, thank goodness I said goodbye to black and hot pink era, and have learned to flatten my fro with product and 410 degree hair wands. I have left, come back, and left again, in a way that marked me so I know longer can gracefully fall into the mold this town had constructed for me. 

I suppose the truth is, I don't know where my life will go. I have family spread out all over the country and I don't know why I chose Texas, or if I'm feeling spiritual, Texas chose me, and it scares the hell out of me to not have a permanent address. I am floating. I am 26 and still floating and while I love to be free I am terrified I will never touch back down for any length of time. I can not decide where I am supposed to be, who I am supposed to be with, or what I am meant to do (though teaching does feel pretty close to what they say 'passion' is). I like being the girl that goes away and comes back, but I can't handle when those same people holding 'Welcome Home' posters in SFO are the same ones telling me they can no longer anchor my existence.


And it took my mother, my father, a sick uncle and a slipping grandmother, to show me that I am too old to hold on to these things. For they are, as I said, just things. A house is a sanctuary, yes, but it is also just carpet and dry wall, while my family is my whole life. I stripped my room, the closet, the drawers, dividing into trash, Goodwill, and boxes to take out east, because at some point, I have to accept that my Chico may not be where I will end up. I may not have a magical wedding in the orchards, with hanging white lights and candles and the Railflowers sweeping us all into a harmonic trance,  it may just be a lovely little town in which I once lived. 

"I've always wanted a house that faced the mountains," my mother said, thirteen days ago, to no one in particular. 
She was staring at something I could not see, and I knew then, that she had dreams, too. So often this family chooses to live my dreams, encourage me, send me off, edit my writing in a circle with pen tips in their studious mouths, but it's time for her now. My mother deserves that house, that faces the mountains, where she can live with my father alone for the first time in over thirty years. I may be selfish and certainly indulgent, but I do love, and my love for her ended up being enough to break me of my most viscous and consuming habit: dreaming of what once was. 

I will return once more, to Chico, in March. The flowers will taunt me with blooms and surely the grass will hold that level of green that made Ireland seem familiar, and I will jog once more in the orchards (breathing harder than I'd like and wondering why people run marathons without their inner thighs bleeding). I will strip the walls of our pictures, the tables of our sacred artifacts, and then I will say goodbye to Autumnwood Ct. the way they say adults are supposed to do, for we may place childish games still but we are no longer children.

I wonder if they will pack the light-up squirrel, purchased out of Publisher's Clearing house by my senile blessed grandmother (the same year my brother-in-law got a lavender scented purple shoe rack). It is an ugly plastic device that glows at night ominously, but it has become part of the loveable symbol of the eccentricity of my family. And yet, I hope it stays in Chico. Perhaps it will stay on the rickety bench built thirty-one years ago, or be thrown away with some other Christmas gifts secretly tossed away in the barefoot dark hours. Sometimes you have to open that black silky garbage bag and start fresh, because the past can grow cumbersome, and I want nothing more than my family to feel that magnificent lightness in a new state, where the only thing that glows is the sun as it droops it's red body down behind the mountains where my mom sits waiting, and watching, from her mountain-view home.