When I was a little girl there was nothing more in the world that I wanted than to be in love. More than I wanted a pony, or to be a princess, or to not go to school, I wanted to be in love. Being in love is something that is force fed to us from birth pretty much. It is almost like it is programmed into us.
Nearly every fairy tale you read is about being in love. The fair princess and her handsome prince defying some great odds to be together. True loves kiss will solve all the worlds ills. There is always a happily ever after.
Here in the real world things work a little differently. Love is one of the greatest powers in the universe, I will not deny that. True loves kiss, or at least the first kiss, can stop traffic and be accompanied by fireworks and singing angels. All of this I have lived and felt and loved.
The part they never tell you about in the fairy tales is it is not really 'happily ever after'. Hell sometimes it isn't even 'ever after'. It is not some magical smooth happy effortless thing that happens when you fall in love. Love, and marriage, is this really messy complicated difficult thing that you have to work at constantly. Constantly!
The thing is, we aren't wired to love anyone 100% of the time. It is hard to just like someone most of the time. Love is a wonderful powerful thing, but humans are annoying and there will always be some point when you just can't stand to be around one another. All those annoying yet endearing habits your significant other has will eventually make you want to throttle them.
Is this a bad thing? No not really. This is a normal thing. This means you aren't stagnant. This means that you are alive and feeling. This just means you sometimes have to work a little harder at the whole loving and being together portion of the deal. Sometimes you just have to stop yourself from smothering the other person with a pillow.
Also, no one ever tells you that people change. People, by nature, are constantly changing. You are not the same person from day to day let alone year to year. All the things that happen to you in your daily life change you. Sometimes it is subtle and sometimes it is huge, but it is there. No one tells you that eventually you will wake up next to this person and realize they are not the person you fell in love with, and you aren't the same person either.
Again this isn't a bad thing. This is just the way things are. You have to grow and adapt together. That is part of being in love. You have to stop and look at them as who they are right then and decide to still love them. You can't look at them and see who they were and long for that instead, because seriously that isn't going to happen. If you only want that static image of them when love first began, you are in for a rocky ride with a bad ending. That sort of thinking will just eat away at your soul.
Most of the time, if you are willing to see it and accept it, these changes in yourself and your partner are not deal breakers. You can learn to accept and love them as they are. It might not be easy. In fact I can say that it actually might be really hard and probably a little painful. Still it can be done. People stay married for 50, 60, 80 years so I know it can be done. You just have to decide to keep fighting and trying.
At the same time not every partnership is salvageable. It is a sad truth that fairy tales do not prepare you for. Sometime people change too much on both sides. Sometimes, especially when you fall in love young, you grow up into different people. Sometimes the people you grow into are not the right people for one another. Sometimes it isn't forever.
I don't think this is a failure on anyones part. I don't think that the people didn't love enough, or try hard enough, or care enough. I don't think that is the truth at all. I think sometimes people just grow apart and grow into people that are better off apart. As my friend Niki says, the distance demon is a hard thing to fight. Sometimes that demon wins.
Now of course sometimes people don't try or fight for love and just give up when things get tough. The thing is it will never get any easier. You can call it quits without giving it a good try, but the next relationship you find will eventually get tough too.
If you give up every time it gets tough you will never find your true love because here is the truth of the matter; love is hard work. Love is work. Love is constant 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year work. Love is never going to be completely easy. Love is going to be a struggle. Love is going to be painful and messy and ugly. Love is a bitch.
Love will not conquer all and love is not all you need. You need patience and strength. You need compassion and empathy. You need courage; boatloads of it. You need stamina and determination. You need to be willing to give everything and then some and be prepared to lose it all. You need to be ready for a fight.
In the end though love is worth it all. It is worth the pain and frustration. It is worth all the bullshit you will go through. There are those tough times that no one prepares you for. There are all the things that the fairy tales don't say. There are also all the good things that they do tell you.
So even though I said love isn't all you need, when you come right down to it, the truth actually is, all you need is love.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Late for class
I dream about being back in school all the time. It is one of those dream staples for me along the lines of how every bathroom in any dream of mine has at least a dozen fancy bathtubs in them. I really have no idea if there is any significance to either of these things, but one would think there has to be considering how often they are features of my dreams.
It is almost never college that I have returned to. Sometimes very rarely I am in elementary school, but that is very rare. Mostly I have gone back to high school. There is always a very plausible reason for it in the dream of course. Sometimes I am still actually in high school and sometimes I am 31 and going back to school to take a few classes I had somehow overlooked 13 years ago. How I would have missed classes or why it would matter now, I don't know. Dream me however is always alright with it.
I can never find my locker in the dream. I think this might be because for the most part I never used my locker in high school. When we had to do the quarterly locker checks I would have to be reminded where my locker was and then struggle to recall the combination. Apparently some things never change.
I also can never remember my schedule in the dreams. I am constantly questioning if I should be going to gym or algebra first thing in the morning. I also almost always realize that I have completely forgotten to go to a class for weeks. Usually this class is a science or math class. It always leaves me in a panic.
Also almost all of my dreams feature one of my actual teachers. It is normally Sharp to be honest. On occasion my French teacher has shown up and my 5th grade science teacher has made more than a couple of appearances. Last night it was my speech teacher from high school.
When he showed up in the dream I was certain it wasn't a dream. I was actually at a conference and he was there as well. It was such a shock to see him. He was older, which is expected, but since he was only about 25 when I had him as a teacher it was a little jarring. None the less he hugged me and we chatted about where life had taken me and him in the last decade. It was really pleasant and seemed so real.
Then of course a bell rang and I was late for geometry and couldn't open my locker and then realized there was a tornado bearing down on the school. You know all the typical things that happen to derail a perfectly lovely conversation with an old acquaintance. Well typical for my dreams anyways.
Am I the only one who has dreams like this? Do you have weird constants in your dreams? Are you constantly stuck in school, or in a bathroom with 12 tubs, or on a train, or having tea with Mussolini? I would love to know I am not the only one. I would also love to hear any theories you have about what they could mean. Theories are fun.
It is almost never college that I have returned to. Sometimes very rarely I am in elementary school, but that is very rare. Mostly I have gone back to high school. There is always a very plausible reason for it in the dream of course. Sometimes I am still actually in high school and sometimes I am 31 and going back to school to take a few classes I had somehow overlooked 13 years ago. How I would have missed classes or why it would matter now, I don't know. Dream me however is always alright with it.
I can never find my locker in the dream. I think this might be because for the most part I never used my locker in high school. When we had to do the quarterly locker checks I would have to be reminded where my locker was and then struggle to recall the combination. Apparently some things never change.
I also can never remember my schedule in the dreams. I am constantly questioning if I should be going to gym or algebra first thing in the morning. I also almost always realize that I have completely forgotten to go to a class for weeks. Usually this class is a science or math class. It always leaves me in a panic.
Also almost all of my dreams feature one of my actual teachers. It is normally Sharp to be honest. On occasion my French teacher has shown up and my 5th grade science teacher has made more than a couple of appearances. Last night it was my speech teacher from high school.
When he showed up in the dream I was certain it wasn't a dream. I was actually at a conference and he was there as well. It was such a shock to see him. He was older, which is expected, but since he was only about 25 when I had him as a teacher it was a little jarring. None the less he hugged me and we chatted about where life had taken me and him in the last decade. It was really pleasant and seemed so real.
Then of course a bell rang and I was late for geometry and couldn't open my locker and then realized there was a tornado bearing down on the school. You know all the typical things that happen to derail a perfectly lovely conversation with an old acquaintance. Well typical for my dreams anyways.
Am I the only one who has dreams like this? Do you have weird constants in your dreams? Are you constantly stuck in school, or in a bathroom with 12 tubs, or on a train, or having tea with Mussolini? I would love to know I am not the only one. I would also love to hear any theories you have about what they could mean. Theories are fun.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
The post that got away from me
I just wrote an entire post about music and erased it. I realized in the end that I was being really cranky and I shouldn't inflict that upon all of you. No one needs to see that, trust me. Of course it does leave me with the quandary of what to post now.
If I write one post that comes out cranky it is pretty much a guarantee that anything I write is going to come across like that. It is a state of mind that is hard to shake. Once I get like this I can't help but to let it bleed into other things, like my writing.
I am hoping to shake this funk off by the end of work since I have plans tonight. The kid and I are going to go bra and dress shopping for a friends wedding next week. Well the bra shopping is incidental to the wedding. I just need new bras. Really it has nothing to do with the wedding. In fact I already have my dress, I just need to find a wrap. She needs a dress. And bras.
I suppose you have to be a woman to really get the significance of bra shopping. It is an especially big deal if you are not a standard size. As my friend B says my bras are not sewn but engineered by the Naval core of engineers. Sometimes I think she may be right. Seriously when you start getting into the mid range of the alphabet to size your bra it is a whole new ball game.
I am more than a little jealous of women who can walk into a Victoria Secret or hell even a Target and buy a bra right off the shelf. I was in high school the last time that happened. High school people. I passed my ten year reunion almost 4 years ago. That is a long time.
Still I am thankful that there are specialty shops that exist so I can buy bras that fit and are attractive. I hate that apparently it is assumed if you have really big boobs you don't want cute or sexy bras. What the hell is that all about?
It is sort of like how apparently if you are fat you also have a huge ass. So very not true. I am here to tell you I only got the T portion of the T&A scenario. Also might I say that being heavy is not why I have big boobs. I was a very full DD (probably closer to a DDD or E honestly if I had ever bothered to be fitted) when I was a size 10. I am never going to lack in the boob department, even if I was starving to death.
And somehow this post go away from me and I have had a rant about bras and boobs. I really didn't mean for that to happen, but there you have it. It is at least not cranky right? It is just, well not really what I was expecting to write about. What can I say, boobs happen.
If I write one post that comes out cranky it is pretty much a guarantee that anything I write is going to come across like that. It is a state of mind that is hard to shake. Once I get like this I can't help but to let it bleed into other things, like my writing.
I am hoping to shake this funk off by the end of work since I have plans tonight. The kid and I are going to go bra and dress shopping for a friends wedding next week. Well the bra shopping is incidental to the wedding. I just need new bras. Really it has nothing to do with the wedding. In fact I already have my dress, I just need to find a wrap. She needs a dress. And bras.
I suppose you have to be a woman to really get the significance of bra shopping. It is an especially big deal if you are not a standard size. As my friend B says my bras are not sewn but engineered by the Naval core of engineers. Sometimes I think she may be right. Seriously when you start getting into the mid range of the alphabet to size your bra it is a whole new ball game.
I am more than a little jealous of women who can walk into a Victoria Secret or hell even a Target and buy a bra right off the shelf. I was in high school the last time that happened. High school people. I passed my ten year reunion almost 4 years ago. That is a long time.
Still I am thankful that there are specialty shops that exist so I can buy bras that fit and are attractive. I hate that apparently it is assumed if you have really big boobs you don't want cute or sexy bras. What the hell is that all about?
It is sort of like how apparently if you are fat you also have a huge ass. So very not true. I am here to tell you I only got the T portion of the T&A scenario. Also might I say that being heavy is not why I have big boobs. I was a very full DD (probably closer to a DDD or E honestly if I had ever bothered to be fitted) when I was a size 10. I am never going to lack in the boob department, even if I was starving to death.
And somehow this post go away from me and I have had a rant about bras and boobs. I really didn't mean for that to happen, but there you have it. It is at least not cranky right? It is just, well not really what I was expecting to write about. What can I say, boobs happen.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Putting off today
I seem to have fallen into a deep pit of procrastination. I have so many things that I need to be doing and yet not a single thing is being done. The most productive thing I seem to be able to do is clear out space on my DVR, and honestly I am failing at that.
What am I doing? Well honestly not much of anything. I am playing a lot of games on my phone and on facebook but that is about the extent of it. I know they are time sucks, but this is a little silly. Also I am not really sure I can blame the games on this bout of non productivity.
Mostly I play the games at work because they are an alternative to working. I have other alternatives at hand though. I could read a book. I could work on a story. I could work on costuming paperwork that I am already behind on. I could even make grocery lists. Alas I do none of it.
I think what it comes down to is that I am just really tired and don't want to think unless I absolutely have to. I want to just let my brain decompress as much as I want the rest of me to decompress. It is one of those hazards of working faire. Full system shut down.
The thing is though that I am starting to get really annoyed by my own procrastination. I don't want all of these things that need to be done lurking out in the ether waiting for me to finish them. I want to look out and see a clean slate so I can relax without anything hanging over my head.
I have pretty much given myself until Friday to get this all out of my system. After Friday I am going to be productive again. I will clean the house, I will get the chores done, I will do my paper work, I will do my work work, I will stop procrastinating all the things.
For now though I think I will play some more sudoku.
What am I doing? Well honestly not much of anything. I am playing a lot of games on my phone and on facebook but that is about the extent of it. I know they are time sucks, but this is a little silly. Also I am not really sure I can blame the games on this bout of non productivity.
Mostly I play the games at work because they are an alternative to working. I have other alternatives at hand though. I could read a book. I could work on a story. I could work on costuming paperwork that I am already behind on. I could even make grocery lists. Alas I do none of it.
I think what it comes down to is that I am just really tired and don't want to think unless I absolutely have to. I want to just let my brain decompress as much as I want the rest of me to decompress. It is one of those hazards of working faire. Full system shut down.
The thing is though that I am starting to get really annoyed by my own procrastination. I don't want all of these things that need to be done lurking out in the ether waiting for me to finish them. I want to look out and see a clean slate so I can relax without anything hanging over my head.
I have pretty much given myself until Friday to get this all out of my system. After Friday I am going to be productive again. I will clean the house, I will get the chores done, I will do my paper work, I will do my work work, I will stop procrastinating all the things.
For now though I think I will play some more sudoku.
Monday, November 26, 2012
Pretend this is a real post
I have so many things I want to write about but today is not the day for writing. After posting on my phone for three days in a row I am extremely happy to be back to my keyboard where I can at least tell what I am writing. Still it is not only the Monday after a faire weekend, but the Monday after a three day faire weekend. To say I am a little brain dead and lacking focus is an understatement.
I can't really think of anything random to post here. So let us just pretend I posted something incredibly poignant or witty here shall we? I was brilliant. You were riveted. It was amazing.
I am so happy you enjoyed.
I can't really think of anything random to post here. So let us just pretend I posted something incredibly poignant or witty here shall we? I was brilliant. You were riveted. It was amazing.
I am so happy you enjoyed.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Done
Once more faire has drawn to a close. I am looking so forward to once again finding some sense of normalcy, even if it is for only a few short weeks.
In all honesty I get no rest. That is a post for another day. For now the long drive home.
Saturday, November 24, 2012
One day more
It is freezing cold outside and tomorrow is the last day of faire. I am exhausted and sore. I want nothing more than to sleep for a week. Instead I have to get up in the cold and work tomorrow.
For now I am snuggled under my blankets in my bunk listening to the others chat out in the cold. It will be a long day tomorrow and I need my rest.
Still as tired as I am I wouldn't trade this for anything. One last good night of faire sleep. One more faire day to go.
Goodnight. Sweet dreams.
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