The Good Stuff

I don't know if you've noticed, but I've had a bit of a case of writer's block lately. Partly because my schedule has been pretty hectic, but mainly because it can be difficult to write something compelling about love every night.

So tonight I'm just going to write about some good things going on in my life. Because sometimes that's more exciting to write/read about than breakups or dating advice. The cool thing about this is that I've definitely come 180 from a couple of weeks ago. We women are like that—our moods can change in a nanosecond. It must be because of all those emotional receptors floating around in our brains.

So this is what's making me happy lately...

1) My awesome sister Stella is coming home for Christmas! For a whole week! And she's staying at MY HOUSE! We're gonna gossip and paint our toenails and get in fights about how messy she is! Yay!

2) My job has been more fulfilling than usual lately because I've been involved in some big-picture stuff, which sometimes makes the nitty-gritty, daily-grind stressors a little more worth it.

3) I moved to a new town in August and I've already made a ton of new friends. I'm amazed at how quickly some of those friendships have developed. Have you ever met a person or group of people and you just jive so well together that you can't even imagine how you lived your life before they came along? Yeah, that's happening to me with some of my new friends.

4) My old friends still love me too.

5) (Okay, this one kind of relates to love...) I've been on a few dates with this great guy and whenever I see or hear from him, my stomach turns upside down and my face turns into one big cheesy grin, for a good thirty minutes or so.

6) My daughter is so excited about Christmas that she's starting to make ME believe in Santa Claus again.

7) I have a new vacuum cleaner.

8) I'm going to a bunch of parties in the next couple of weeks. And really, a good party is the bread and butter of my social life. I. Love. Parties.

I hope all of you are finding happiness in your lives too, even despite the junk going on in the world right now. Thanks for reading.

My Very Own Doctor Phil

I would like to take a moment to give a shout-out to my sister.

(I will be referring to her as "Stella," not only because it seems like a very Shakespeare-esque name, but also because my sister has wanted to be called Stella all of her life. I'm making your dream come true, sis, via the World Wide Web. You can thank me later.)

Stella is 17 months younger than me, but she is much, much wiser than me. And this comes as no surprise. All throughout our childhood, it was always like she was the older sister. Mainly because she was loud and boisterous and I was quiet as a mouse. Stella always just took the lead, and I willingly followed. It was a good partnership, although now I'm thinking she got the better end of the deal.

Maybe it's because we're so close in age, or because we shared a room until I went to college, or because we just plain like each other, but Stella and I are—and always have been—very best friends. I can truly say she is my other half. Where I am weak, she is strong, and vice versa. I have book smarts, she has people smarts. I'm a girly girl, she's a tomboy. She's really funny, I'm really good at laughing at her jokes... You get the picture.

Stella lives far away, and has for years. But she and I still talk on the phone at least twice a week. I'm not a big fan of talking on the phone, but I could easily talk to Stella for hours. We always find things to chat about, and at one point or another, our conversation typically lands on boy talk. We fill each other in on our latest crush or boyfriend, and we offer each other advice when needed.

Stella gives the best advice ever. I should pay her for the counseling she gives me. Seriously. First of all, she can read people like a book, and me being her sister, she can read me like a... well, like a really easy book. When I tell her about a struggle I'm having, she can usually pinpoint exactly why it's happening. Then she offers a solution that is so simple, so to-the-point, that I always walk away thinking, "Why didn't I think of that?"

Sometimes I feel guilty that the guidance I offer Stella doesn't even come close to what she does for me. It seems like I'm receiving more so than I'm giving. But the honest truth is, I would give Stella my kidney if she ever needed it—heck, I'd give her all of my major organs. So hopefully (and heaven forbid), if that need ever presented itself, the give-and-take scale would be evened out, and Stella would finally learn how much she really means to me.

I hope that all of you have a Stella in your life. Someone who will listen to your crap, who will bring you back to reality when you need it, and who makes you feel like your load has lightened after talking to them. If you do have such a person, go and thank them right now. If you don't have one, I'll let you borrow mine.

You don't mind, right Stella?

Oh, and Stella?

Thank you.

What If?

The economic crisis in the last couple of weeks has been rather eye-opening for me, as for most of you, I'm sure. The details are way over my head, so I've been relying on the explanations of people smarter than me to get as much info as I can. Some of them say that things will improve soon and we'll all be okay. Others' viewpoints are much more doom and gloom. I'm not intelligent enough on the subject to be able to make my own predictions. However, I do think that even if the doom-and-gloomers end up being correct, it may be a good thing.

Let's say, for example, that it gets so bad that we fall into another economic depression. The idea of that kind of excites me, to be honest. Crazy, I know. But I think it might be the wake-up call that our culture needs.

We have become so used to living in excess, so accustomed to ditching what we already have in favor of something bigger and better. This especially applies to material possessions but also to personal relationships as well. Spouses have extramarital affairs, young adults move far from home in search of "freedom," friendships are severed at the slightest argument...

But what happens when all of that bigger-and-better excess goes away? All we're left with is our personal relationships. And I'm willing to bet that at that point, we will handle our only valuable possessions—our loved ones—with the utmost care. We Americans just might learn how to treat each other again.

Imagine if you and everyone you love had to live in the same house, working together and combining your resources, in order to survive. This sounds fun to me. It sounds enriching and inspiring. It's the way things should be anyway, but we've fallen away from it. And while I honestly do hope that a depression never ever occurs, I'm just saying that if it does, we might experience love in a way that we never have before.

And I'll take that over a pimped-out retirement any day.

A Day with the 'Rents

This weekend, my mom and dad came over to my house. The cool thing about my parents is, even though they're divorced, they're still friends with each other. The whole family still gets together often, and every time, Mom and Dad are perfectly respectful of each other and act as if they might even enjoy each other's company. While I'm sad that they are no longer married, I am so grateful that they have made the best of the situation. It would be easy for them to hold grudges, but instead they have practiced maturity and forgiveness. I really admire both of them for that.

On Saturday, Mom and Dad helped me put up all of my wall hangings. I recently moved to a new place and I hadn't yet decorated it, so on this day we practiced teamwork to get the place looking nice and cozy.

And the whole time, I felt guilty. I figured this activity could not possibly be enjoyable for them and surely they had better things to do. But here they were, helping me for the millionth time in my life. Why couldn't I just hang the stupid things myself? Why am I, in my late twenties, still eagerly accepting my parents' help?

But when it appeared our job was finished, and I told Mom that there was nothing else to hang, she said, "Darn! This is fun!" I laughed, first of all because my mother said the word "darn," and also because all that time I was feeling guilty, and they were actually having fun!

Later I was in my room and I heard my parents fussing with one of my windows, which was having difficulty closing. They were intent on fixing it, and they worked together—pushing and pulling on the window—to make it happen. 

And I started to cry.

Here were my divorced parents, putting aside their differences to help make my home as livable as it could be. They were doing physical labor, essentially, even after their original task was done, all to ensure that their little girl was safe and warm and happy. In my mind, they would be much better off doing anything else, but in their minds, hanging my pictures and fixing my windows was exactly what they wanted to do.

I couldn't imagine loving someone so much. It may sound like no big deal but in that moment it meant everything to me. On that day, like so many other days, my parents gave me a glimpse of what sacrificial love is supposed to look like. They put aside their own interests and time schedules, because to them, helping me was far more important than their own interests and time schedules. 

I don't think I've ever been that selfless. 

And it was then that I realized that this is love in its purest form... complete and utter selflessness. I also realized that this is what has been missing from almost every relationship I've ever been in. I've always been a receiver, and not enough of a giver. So that day, standing in my room, I made a silent promise to myself that I would strive to express sacrificial love, not only in my next romantic relationship, but also with my family and my friends and of course my darling little Julietta. And it is my hope that, like my parents, I will enjoy every minute of it.

Unpacking My Baggage, Part 1

I grew up in a family that was as nuclear as it gets. I had a mom, a dad, an older brother and a younger sister. We did everything together, as a family. We ate dinner together every night (each with our own assigned seats). We kids participated in the same activities (Like band. Don't laugh.), and our parents were involved in those activities too. (Mom was president of the Band Boosters Club. Again, don't laugh.) 

We had so much fun together. Our nightly dinners usually involved lots of laughter. My father, brother and sister are real comedians, so there was never a dull moment. On weekends, my mother would find fun, inexpensive things for us to do as a family. Twice a year, we took family road trips to the east coast. 

Good things always just happened to our family. We had some snafus every once in a while, of course, but for the most part, we were well-behaved kids with two parents who loved us and loved each other. People used to call us the Brady Bunch. Like we were too good to be true.

My parents appeared to have a good marriage. They were affectionate with each other, and as we kids grew older and more independent, they started to build their own little life apart from us. They went on dates and took swing-dance lessons. On Friday nights they'd hang out with one of their many couple friends. Life was good.

So that's why, when they divorced this past year, the world as I knew it was swept up from under my feet.

Now that I'm older and know more of the story, I can see where some of the pitfalls were, all those years. I can see how tiny little molehills eventually turned into mighty mountains. I know that my parents never fought in front of us—never gave us any warning—because they wanted to protect us. And I know that, even though they told us over and over again that "divorce is not an option," it became one, simply because it just got to the point where it needed to be.

When I think back to the memories I have of our family during "the good ol' days," there's one that sticks out in my mind the most. We were in the kitchen, teasing Dad because he had this habit of leaving the cabinet doors open. We were all laughing hysterically about it, and then Dad came up behind Mom, wrapped his arms around her and kissed her on the neck. My siblings and I were horrified by this gesture of course, throwing out trash talk like, "Gross!", "Eww!", "Get a room!"

What I would give now, for my parents to be hugging and kissing in a kitchen full of open cabinet doors.

When you grow up in a household that has such a solid foundation, and when that foundation starts to give way and eventually crumbles into a million pieces... well, it can be a mess. So you clean up and build a new foundation. But you may not trust that new foundation very much. After all, you thought the old one was sturdy but it wasn't, so what's going to happen with this new one?

I'll stop speaking in metaphors now, but surely you can understand why I'm so conflicted about this whole love-and-marriage thing. I want it more than anything, but am afraid that it will someday go away like my parents' did.