A little introspection and reflection

Every time I start to give up, something happens to encourage me to get up again, keep stumbling along, trying to find my way to a full wonderful life.  A little unexpected encouragement, a chance meeting with an old friend, making a new friend, appreciation at work, a calm and beautiful day, a day after where the pain isn't quite as bad as I thought it would be.

My life seems so completely different than it once was.  The times where I feel incapable and unable are fewer, the times where I feel strong and powerful are more.  I'm learning to deal with limits, and perhaps some day I'll even be ok with them or even treasure them.

A dear, dear friend told me last night that he did not feel like he knew me well enough any more, that he had not spent much quality time with me recently.  He and his wife are two of my favorite people in the world and are so close to my heart that hearing him say this surprised me.  Part of me thought, "Well, I'm just the same as when you knew me, when we served together, when we had some of the most sincere conversations while preparing and eating dinner in their home."  But then I paused and realized that may not be true.  That these years since college have taught me so much about myself, how I want to exist in this world, how I want to live this life.

I have a job that I love, I have a home that is mine and is peaceful and rejuvenating and large enough to invite people into it and large enough to have children play in it.  I find rewarding things to do with my time, I'm building a circle of people that can fortify me and remind me of my strength when I've forgotten and that I can support and love and offer a shoulder or a meal or a baked good ;).

And yet, to my core, I am the same person I've always been.  I just know myself much more.  I surprised myself last night by being able to be myself around a new person and not feel embarrassed or unimportant or unworthy.  Those feelings of isolation and being misunderstood have hindered me so much in my life, are the lenses through which I saw my life and my interactions.  But they were just veils, visible only to me, veils that kept me separate from the people I loved so dearly.  I'm working every day to move those veils, make them a little thinner, pull them to the side for a while.

I can be myself out loud now.  It still takes thought and concentration and words of support in my head and from my friends.  But I'm getting there.  And when those thoughts of unworthiness come, then God gives me a new light to see things in.  In one sense, I can't do much at all right now. I've gotten my priorities all out of whack, I'm not living the way I think I am or want to be.  But then, I can turn it around and see that although the steps may be small, I'm taking them.  Although I spend so much more time taking care of myself, it means that there are times I can focus on and be of service to others.  The amounts of time may not be equal, but maybe that's partly because I'm not as practiced at taking care of myself as I am at trying to take care of others.

This weekend will hopefully be one of balance.  I'm letting go of the guilt of not working on weekends, of not ever having done enough (but it still creeps up at work occasionally).  I do not miss that part of grad school (though I miss the people and the places a lot).  I will do some homework this weekend, but I will be able to make distinct progress.  I will read the pages and do the problems and then BE DONE.  I will spend some time with friends, spend some time reading, some time outside, some time working these muscles so that they will not rebel against me too much.

I will spend more time in prayer.  God and I have had an interesting relationship these past few months, and I want to make purposeful steps toward strengthening that tie once more.  I want to have people to pray at my house and yet I don't know if I have the physical energy to commit to it.  I've been seeing answers to my humble and unfocused prayers, which encourages me to keep trying, to keep battling through the fatigue and the pain and focus on the sincerity of the prayer, not the length of it.  Not to feel limited because I can't read the three page tablet but only a few sentences, because Baha'u'llah tells us:

"Every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God is endowed with such potency as can instill new life into every human frame."  


If a single word has that potency, then how much a few sentences can do, especially more than not saying any out of a worry of not saying them all.

Remembering

There are days I drop words of comfort on myself like falling rain & remember it is enough to be taken care of by myself.


Today (and every day), I need to remember this.  Remember that it's not all or nothing.  Remember that I have a power and a courage inside of me that I too often forget.  Remember that I can take care of myself.  Remember that the voice inside my head is not always truthful or in touch with reality and is NOT WHO I AM.
I am noble.  I am a beautiful, perfect creation of God.  I have a light inside me that can only shine if I get my self (ego, self-critical, defeatist voice, etc.) out of the way.  God will give me the power I need to grow and act with love if I only ask and let Him guide me.

If I could write poetry that should ever be read, I'd write one here.

I tried out my oil pastels the other day - the only things that came out the way I wanted were B and the tree near us.  I'm too impatient for art, or at least I was at the time.  I couldn't take the time to make things the way I wanted.

I warmed my house last night with friends and prayers and fun and coffee and brownies.  It was very nice.

I asked for help yesterday, and I was rewarded a hundredfold.  It will take time to create a group of people here, but I'm off to a fantastic start.

Today, I get a quiet day.  Maybe my books will make it out of boxes today, around my friend time and me time.

I'm mostly decaf these days - the caffeine really was messing with my system, much more than that little bit of time with the caffeine doing what it was supposed to was great.  I just need to learn to wake up my brain in a different way.

I found my puzzle that I bought at the Friends of the Library book sale for a quarter last fall - I'm excited to start putting that together.

I was told yesterday that I must've been an English major in another life because I wrote well.  That was a first.  I just write the way I speak and throw punctuation in when I pause.  Though, I guess when I take time to compose my thoughts just the way I want, I can speak pretty well.

Teaching helped me overcome my fear of expressing myself out loud even more.  I started the process in Haifa.  It's a journey that will keep on going.

I have even more pictures on my walls, and I love it.  Pictures of the beautiful places in the world that I've been.

Food, glorious food

Foods I'm loving this week -

SC farm fresh peaches (last of the season) and tomatoes from the Livingston Farms stand at the Columbia local farmer's market - they're great, and they even pull out the ripest and best things to sell me :)

Empire apples waiting to be eaten - apparently they grow well in SC

Pumpkin spice cream cheese!

Terra Thai Basil veggie chips - yum

Starbucks iced white mocha with caramel drizzle - yep it's still 90 degrees here, so iced coffee still fantastic

My homemade coffee is getting pretty good, especially with my Tourani caramel syrup I finally bought at World Market

Carrots and peanut butter - a classic favorite

Rain rain go away

I'm sick of this rain.  I'm living in South Carolina, I just put up with horribly hot summer, I'm not supposed to have to deal with rain too.  That was Ithaca.  Although this is certainly SC rain - it's fine outside, and then all of a sudden it's pouring.  Pouring so hard, we can't see the house across the street at my parents' house.  It did give us a chance to meet us new neighbors, and turns out we have mutual friends and the woman knows my mom.  How funny.  The world outside the Faith is small too.  That's Columbia for you.

Work is going well - I rocked when the wealth psychologist came to visit.  Consultation skills and being the chair of a meeting skills are apparently unusual when you're in your 20s.  I had the guy saying "Where did they find you?"  to which I responded "Actually, I found them."

My new place is taking shape.  I'm still hunting for a couch.  I still have a million boxes, due to the fact that I'm studying every mentally awake hour that I possibly can.

I have a fabulous and beautiful new jewelry box, thanks to B and Jer.  I love it - it makes me feel like a grown-up.  I should have more beautiful things.

I'm getting color in my apartment like nobody's business.  Pink, yellow, brown, navy blue, cornflower blue, red, rust red, white, black, purple, a very little green,  more blue, and a turquoise shower curtain.  I love it.  I'm trying to offset the brown carpet and the yellow-y beige walls.

Now to continue my mid-week day off!

New apartment - excitement, fear, fatigue, joy, relief, overwhelmed - so many emotions for one ultimately good thing

New job - balancing act.  reading Made to Stick for Strategy Day, recently met with a wealth psychologist for a two day training on assertiveness, meeting management, active listening, etc.

Same old body - it's kind of working, I'm still going strong on my 5 days a week exercise plan.  Almost 2 months now, go me!

CFA reading - it's kind of stupid that I'm trying to take this exam in December, as I just don't have enough time to study.  I feel like it's my A exam all over again, but I'm trying to learn everything in 6 months.  Oops.  We'll see how this goes.

Loved reading A Cup of Friendship.  Fantastic book.  Made me think.

Now must go to my 8-5 day at the office.  Send good thoughts and prayers my way - Fridays are always tough, endurance and health-wise.

Thoughts

This morning I was thinking about a conversation I'd had recently about God's grace and salvation and the like, when I was reading from the Baha'i Holy Writings.  And I was realizing just how much it's an either/or discussion in so many people's minds, between God's grace and good works.  I love how Baha'u'llah's writings put things in a completely different light, take away dichotomies, etc.  It's grace and the act of believing in God and accepting His guidance and constantly turning to him and trying to abide by the Teachings He's sent to us through these Holy Persons and His love for us, and I'm sure so much more that I don't understand yet.  I find that comforting, and yet it doesn't make life any easier.  In fact, it makes life more difficult because you're constantly trying to live a better life and become a better person.

In more mundane matters, I have a fabulous color of toe nail polish on right now, thanks to the pedicures B and I got after a long day of cleaning the Baha'i center.  I got to clean the front window area to the foyer, and I don't believe the windows have been cleaned since I cleaned them 5 years ago before we opened the building.  IT'S AMAZING what a difference clean glass makes.  My fabulous toe nail polish color unfortunately clashes terribly with my fabulous new red high heels, so I haven't been able to wear them to work.  Oh yes, I'm wearing heels now.  I found two pairs that I can wear and not have horrible pain at the end of the day!  It's exciting.

I can't wait to move into my new apartment.  I'm looking forward to:
 - having room to make iced coffee and keep it in the fridge
 - washing my dishes whenever I want to
 - having my books and kitchen stuff out of their boxes
 - decorating my new space with new and old things
 - having all my spaces closer together... there's something good to be said for having a smaller space.

I'm getting into a routine with my CFA studying, and I only have two more CFP classes to take - Income Tax Planning and the Case Study Review course.  December seems not that far away with how much CFA stuff I still have left to learn.

I had one of those moments today when the entire world was too hard to handle, and there was something I really wanted to do, but the idea of just getting myself to the place much less interacting with people was far too much to handle.  I really need to stay away from loud, echoing rooms/restaurants, and I need to really limit my caffeine intake, even though Starbucks is delicious and my own version of Cheers.

Yesterday, I...

Drove to work for the 4th to last time (who's counting, right?).

Did stupid data entry work, and almost "played the stock market" - good thing they have safeties in place...

Treated myself to lunch, as I was worried I was going to faint on the drive home. Not good when driving a vehicle 70 miles an hour on an interstate. So I stopped for delicious food from Moes.

Did homework at my favorite out-of-home office (along with half the neighborhood) and saw several friends there too.

Treated the cat-stained couch (have I mentioned how much I dislike these cats?).

Made time to go exercise even though I didn't want to.

Got ready and went to First Thursday on Main St, though I way over-dressed... I was shooting for "art gallery and museum going" and should've dressed for "bring out all your craziest artists and put them in 'stereotypically arty' clothes". I was, however, dressed for the ridiculously hot weather. Did see a guy with a firy whip doing a demo in the street. Then he blew fire too. His "lighter" guy held the sparkler in his mouth... we decided it was because he thought he'd look to lame holding it in his hand compared to the guy with the whip that was on fire. Saw a friend's jewelry - it was more stuff I would want to put in a collage or hang on a wall than wear on my ears, but as you all know, I'm pretty conservative when it comes to earrings.

Wandered around the galleries on Main St and saw cool art - one painting I loved and a few photographs that were pretty neat. I'd never been in any of these buildings in my many years of living in this city - I thought that was cool.

Then, afterward, I went grocery shopping for ingredients for treats for my favorite baristas - they always make me smile and make me delicious coffee - I want to reward them for that!

Today - lunch at Blue Cactus, a drive to the upstate, chiropractor, Trader Joe's, and PF Changs. Tomorrow - high school reunion and delivering the truffles to S-bux.

My what a day. Today I found out that pretty much any individual health insurance plan is going to deny me. Yep, the most expensive, most limited-network plan that was designed with the Obamacare policies in mind, the one that's supposed to accept people with chronic health conditions denied me today. They didn't even ask for my medical records. They just looked at the combination of words on my application and said, "Nope, you have too many health conditions for us to insure you." That's right - they don't care that I'M NOT GETTING MEDICAL TREATMENT FOR 3 OF THE 4 THINGS! Oh no, they don't care. They just care that I have those words labeling me. Just one of those things, they might consider me. But all of them together is an immediate rejection. It's essentially a tattoo on my medical chart, because they're never going to go away. Which means that I either get short term insurance (i.e. catastrophic only), pay the prohibitively high state pool insurance premium, get married (yep, the insurance guy suggested that), or find a group health plan and fast. Oh, but wait, they require a 90 day waiting period, at which point I'll be uninsured for that 90 day waiting period. So, too bad, so sad that you already are dealing with chronic health conditions. Now, you also get to deal with the fact that you have to work only in places that have group health plans that you qualify for. Forget only working part time so you can get education. Forget that your body doesn't allow you to work full time right now! you either get to be super ill and insured, or not so ill and uninsured. THIS IS A BACKWARDS SYSTEM PEOPLE!

On a happier note, my stuff is finally all in one city. And soon, it will hopefully be in one house. Where that house is, I have yet to figure out. That's on the to-do list for tomorrow.

I'm loving pistachio gelato these days. Right now, in my freezer I have 5 different kinds of ice cream. Because when it's 115 outside, you want ice cream at all times of the day. Plus, Haagen Daaz was on sale. I miss Wegman's ice cream - it was cheap but also delicious. I'm also eating lots of watermelon. I did love the SC peach season - those are some tasty fruits when they're good and ripe and fresh.

One of my friends got baby chicks in the mail the other day, and I got to meet 72 hour old chicks. They're pretty cute and fluffy when they're that little. And they don't stink yet either. The dogs of the household were a little unsure about them. Maybe they'll get used to each other.

Wonderful weekend

The weekend included...

Homework, which I really enjoyed and it helped me make sense of something that seemed totally useless before. Turns out it's not so useless.

Band Hero with friends, Rock Band with family.

Keeping an oh-so-pregnant friend company while she deals with the frustrations of being 9 months pregnant...

Homemade "Nuttie Buddie" ice cream - spanish peanuts are way better than regular

Playing with my several cats

Lots of time with friends and family

Making the ATK flourless chocolate cake with friends

Being understood and heard about sickness and grad school and thinking

Time with my soul sister, just being together, doing the trivial things of life and loving it

Finally seeing The King's Speech and thoroughly enjoying the movie and quoting the movie the rest of the weekend.

Exceptionally delicious brunch at my temporary home with fantastic people that I hadn't seen in too long. The menu included:

Fresh local peaches and blueberries with whipped cream

Omelets with fresh basil, sauteed green peppers, and cheddar or feta cheese

Local fresh bacon

Delicious coffee

Wonderful conversation

My birthday's in a week! There will be a pool party with an ice cream sundae potluck. Only gluten-free toppings allowed. Sound familiar, Ithacans? We didn't have a pool, but we did have delicious ice cream :).

Stories

I'm now in my housesitting house. It's a beautiful home. Floating in the pool in the backyard, the house really looks like it came out of a magazine. Inside it's also pretty - the kitchen is by far my favorite room, with the master bedroom suite a close second. The cats have been a bit of a pain - they terrify Ella, they only eat canned cat food (which smells really bad), and apparently they have rather sensitive stomachs and tend to throw up... their owners failed to mention that bit. Otherwise, it's nice to have my own space, it's nice to have a dishwasher, I love having the pool, and it's fun to be in a pretty house.

I have realized that one of the reasons I often didn't blog much when I was living at home was that I already had someone to tell my stories to, and so often I was too tired to tell them once and type them once. I'm going to try to get better.

Yesterday I really lived up all the perks here. I came home, got in the pool, swam some laps, tried to do my own water aerobics (I look ridiculous but no one can see me!), and then just floated. Afterward, I went to the veggie garden and picked a tomato and some basil. Then, for dinner, I had sauteed summer squash (from their fridge) with a tomato, basil, and cheddar omelet. The only thing I actually purchased for dinner was the juice I drank (raspberry pomegranate goji, yum). Everything else came as a part of the house. Then, I loaded the dishwasher and headed off to LSA.

I had a dream with Abdu'l-Baha in it the other night. That was interesting. I'd never actually dreamed about Abdu'l-Baha before. Overall, it was a cool dream. Reassuring, although the end was annoying. In the dream, I was completely exhausted and finally going to bed at 3 am, and then my (real) alarm went off and it was time to get ready for work. I still felt exhausted.

Last night I dreamt that someone kidnapped me repeatedly and forced me to use some special powers for evil, and I and the other kidnapees were trying to thwart them...

I think my new medication is giving me strange dreams in general, making me subconsciously not want to go to bed. I keep getting to bed far too late.

Today, my fellow new co-worker and I got a new "toy" - a new software program to do the things I've been wanting to do but not had the tools to do at work. I'm excited to go back on Monday and continue playing with it and getting it set up to do amazing things for us. :)

Now, off to Thursday Night Dinner with my family! Afterwards, I'll be showing friends how to make the flourless chocolate cake from America's Test Kitchen, which we'll take to Feast tomorrow night. Yum!

Back in Carolina, on the beach!

Day before yesterday I came down to join my family at one of the beaches outside of Charleston. We have a little house right on the beach - nothing fancy, but it's air conditioning, a porch, and guaranteed parking! Yesterday, we saw quite the wildlife - there are more rocks here on this beach than the one we usually go to, so at low tide, there are lots of crabs! It's so much fun to find them in and among the rocks. Yesterday we probably saw a dozen, the largest one about the size of two fists together. Being people, we poked at it with a huge clam shell that we found. The crab, of course, needed to defend itself and pinched at the shell with its claw. Even though I was expecting it, it delighted me and scared me, the feeling and sound of claw on shell :). I keep poking at it and giggling and shrieking when it clawed the shell. We also saw a bunch of sea urchins, and some tubular creatures attached to a rock. I think they're related to polyps and sea anemones, but they're not quite those. They're soft and shrink back when you poke them ;). The other creatures we saw were: a gecko, a bunch of pelicans, a tiny tiny hermit crab, another very small white "ghost" crab (my description) that buried in the sand. When you nudge the sand near it, it scrambles underneath the sand to another spot! We also saw a dead jellyfish that looked a lot like the ghosts from Super Mario World.

Today we went farther down on the island, where the houses end, and looked for dolphins and crabs, and saw both! Even J, with her broken foot, got to see a bunch of crabs, and I still delighted in poking at them with a shell :). Some scurried away, some pinched at me. Dad and I went a little farther and found some tidal pools among the rocks, and we saw crabs, larger minnows and two live starfish, as well as sea urchins. I felt like a 5 year old, perched on a rock in the middle of the tidal pool, poking and shrieking and giggling at the crabs. Dad very sweetly said that he hoped I always had that 5 year old inside me.

While we were walking back, I saw a dolphin way out, tried to use cloud shapes to describe where they were, but it didn't work. When we were closer to the beach access, we saw at least 2 if not 3 or more dolphins much closer in, and everyone got to see them!

I've been re-reading a fun book that J brought, and I thoroughly enjoyed these two quotes.

"How many times have you told me that everybody gets lucky breaks in business but not everybody is ready for them? Well, it's true about love, too. I've been planning my marriage my whole life beach I'm smart enough to know that's the most important decision I'll ever make, and now Roger's here, and I'm ready to go. And you two are going to miss it when it comes for you because you don't want to believe because if it isn't true, you'll be disappointed."

(talking about love and relationships again)

"You have to be sensible. It's not silly love songs and sloppy kisses, it's dangerous. People die for it. People die from it. Wars are fought. Empires fall. It can ruin your life." (the italics were in the book)

The first one I thought was interesting, the second I found very funny.

Pilgrimage was amazing and difficult and wonderful and indescribable. I did find some phrases in one of my favorite Baha'i books that I felt described the experience well. Those will come when I get home. Now time for more beach!

Life has been rather crazy over the past few weeks. After I went to Ithaca, I got a horrible stomach flu the next weekend. Then went to Atlanta for J's graduation, and then last weekend spent crazily preparing for my trip to Haifa! I'm going on pilgrimage in 4 days!

I'm a little worried about how my body's going to handle it, and how I'll feed myself without getting entirely tired of crackers and nuts. It'll work though. I'm a big girl, I've lived there before, and I've been to almost all of the Holy Places, so if I need to take a day off and just hang out in the Shrines, I can do that. The weather's supposed to be awesomely pretty.

Other news, I've been trying out a new gym. I went to pilates - it killed me ever so slowly (I was sore for 4 days afterward...). The next day I tried Aquafit - I LOVED it. It was like doing jazzercise and ballet in the water, which my bones and joints appreciated. On Sunday, I tried "BodyFlow", which is a combo of yoga, tai chi, and pilates, which my body definitely preferred to straight pilates. Yesterday, I just did a normal workout, as none of the classes fit my schedule.

This weekend was supposed to be different...

This weekend, I was going to get caught up on things after having a weekend away and before another weekend away. I had a plan! And then, Saturday morning, apparently it was time for me to have the stomach flu. The 24 hour bug that's taking me 4 days to get over. Grr... And I get way too emotionally involved in TV/movies/books when I'm sick. I'm in tears over a (well several) stupid story line(s). I feel betrayed when the characters in a TV show don't tell their friend she's making a decision based on stupid delusions.

I did leave the house for the first time last night for a little while to tutor a kid before the AP exam tomorrow. I hope that I helped him realize he can do it, it's not as big or scary as he thinks it is, and I really hope he passes. Plus, when you get to do a problem about a squirrel running away from a building, life is just a little better. Way to go AP board. Whoever wrote that problem, kudos to you. I tried to remember that terror that you can face when you get a math problem that you know you should be able to do but you panic every time you see it, and though the explanation seems entirely clear when the teacher does it, it makes very little sense to you and you just start randomly doing things that you think look sort of like what your teacher maybe did in a problem that might have had one of the same words. I get it. But the only thing I know to do is explain it in a different way and have them do a bunch of problems until they figure out their own way of explaining it.

Hopefully, starting tomorrow evening, I will be able to get to the notes to be written, the closet to clean out, the packing to begin, the planning for pilgrimage, the financial stuff to deal with, etc. All the things I was going to do this weekend that I instead spent feeling pretty miserable and crying at stupid tv shows.

At least I got to have fun dancing on Friday night! Yay for ballroom showcases with good teachers and people willing to be patient with me and teach me things in a non-condescending manner! I love swirling around the floor, even more when I'm not feeling like a complete idiot!

Home

While I enjoy traveling, I hate the logistical interruptions. 12 1/2 hours after preparing to leave, I finally got home, visiting 4 airports, changing ticketing, going through security twice, getting a complete investigation of all my belongings once, 1 flight cancelled, 3 delayed, etc.

The weekend was a good one. I got to have good conversations with most of my math girls, got to eat yummy Thai food, saw a waterfall, took a walk, relaxed on couches, played with a puppy, ate a delicious (and unexpected) Sunday dinner with K, talked to the advisor, and started to say goodbye to the me that was a grad student. It was hard to let go, but at the same time I know I don't belong there any more, nor do I want to be there. I was anxious during much of the day that I was at the math building, having to calm myself down several times because my throat was swelling due to anxiety. Probably not a good thing to happen in your workplace.

Tonight, arriving home, I experienced a slightly out of place alone-ness. I had delved completely into my novel on the plane, so when I was walking to my car at night I missed my book characters. At the same time, I walked to my car knowing that no one was waiting up to hear that I made it into my house safe (I did), walking places I'd walked before WITH people or TOWARDS people and having those memories rush around me unasked, having left behind a place I once called home, going to a place that at one point was a place I fled to in order to recover... I was struck by that feeling. But this weekend I was seen, I was heard, I was appreciated, and I got to hear and see and appreciate right back. And I feel good. And though there are things I'd like to be different and while I still have struggles ahead of me, I feel like I'm walking in the right direction.

Committed, Part 4

Last couple thoughts about reading Committed...

- She talks about the role of childless women in the raising of children and families, calling them the "Auntie Brigade." I love this title! I had my own Aunties in my life, and I'm super grateful for them. Among other anecdotes, she shared:

"And have you ever wondered what Peter Pan really looked like? His creator, J.M. Barrie, answered that question for us back in 1911. For Barrie, Peter Pan's image and his essence and his marvelous spirit of felicity can be found all over the world, hazily reflected 'in the faces of many women who have no children.' That is the Auntie Brigade."

I must say I like being a part of the Auntie Brigade, at least for now.

Gilbert also talks about trading stories with her fiance. She talks about it coming from Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, where the author talks about merchants gathering at every solstice and equinox to exchange goods, including stories. She says:

"This is what intimacy does to us over time. That's what marriage can do: It causes us to inherit and trade each other's stories. This, in part, is how we become annexes of each other, trellises on which each other's biography can grow."

Later, she talks about one night when both she and Felipe were awake and she "once more" selected a word at random and requested, "Please tell me a story about fish." I thought this was an interesting way to go about learning someone's stories. Choosing a word and having the other person tell a story about that word.

The last thing that particularly struck me (at least that I need the book to remember). The following few sentences:

"'MARRIAGE IS NOT PRAYER!' he [Gilbert's friend] insisted (italics and capitals his). 'That's why you have to do it in front of others, even in front of your aunt who smells like cat litter. It's a paradox, but marriage actually reconciles a lot of paradoxes: freedom with commitment, strength with subordination, wisdom with utter nincompoopery, etc. And you're missing the main point - it's not just to "satisfy" other people. Rather, you have to hold your wedding guests to their end of the deal. They have to help you with your marriage; they have to support you or Felipe, if one of you falters.'"

Obviously, she was talking about her not wanting or understanding the need for a public wedding ceremony. She and Felipe had a private ceremony just the two of them, and didn't want a public wedding. I liked the way her friend talked about marriage reconciling paradoxes, and not being a prayer but a public thing. In fact, I would argue that marriage is both a public and a private thing. We interact with the world as a married couple, but at the same time our marriage is one of the most private things in our lives. I also liked the idea of the wedding guests not only witnessing a marriage beginning but also helping in the process later on, and that being a reason to invite people to your wedding. Choosing the people you want to support you in your marriage, including your biological family as you are combining two families, not just uniting two people.

That's all the thoughts that I'll share with you for now folks. Of course, for those of you who know me will realize, there were many, many other memories and thoughts that came to mind. But I want the chance for other people, and probably my future self, to have new reactions and to keep some thoughts close to only my heart.

Committed, Part 3

More from Committed (the library wants the book back, giving me a deadline...):

"I never saw any woman actively marrying her own life. The women who have been most influential to me (mother, grandmothers, aunties) have all been married women in the most traditional sense, and all of them, I would have to submit, gave up a good deal of themselves in that exchange. I don't need to be told by any sociologist about something called the Marriage Benefit Imbalance; I have witnessed it firsthand since childhood.

Moreover, I don't have to look very far to explain why that imbalance exists. In my family, at least, the great lack of parity between husbands and wives has always been spawned by the disproportionate degree of self-sacrifice that women are willing to make on behalf of those they love. As the psychologist Carol Gilligan has written, 'Women's sense of integrity seems to be entwined with an ethic of care, so that to see themselves as women is to see themselves in a relationship of connection." This fierce instinct for entwinement has often caused the women in my family to make choices that are bad for them - to repeatedly give up their own health or their own time or their own best interests on behalf of what they perceive as the greater good - perhaps in order to consistently reinforce an imperative sense of specialness, of chosenness, of connection."

There were several things about this passage that struck a chord with me. First, the idea of actively marrying one's life. Before this, Gilbert was talking about what weddings/marriage gives to a woman - the feeling of being special to someone, chosen by someone, or connected to someone (echoed in the last sentence I quoted). Then, for women who don't marry or marry later, where do they find that feeling? I liked the idea of marrying ones own life, using that image. Of course, in my family, the same idea of self-sacrifice for one's family or loved ones is very common. I remember, in my childhood, the angriest/most upset I ever saw my mom with me was when she turned to me and said, "You are not the only member of this family," after I was whining/complaining after she had spent considerable energy, time, and money on me being the local production of the Nutcracker. That idea was something that had always been a part of my childhood, and continued to be - the fact that not only was I a person in the family, but that the family as a whole needed to be served and sacrificed occasionally for. It's something that my sister and I experienced differently, given the circumstances of our childhoods.

The Marriage Benefit Imbalance that Gilbert mentions essentially sums up to the fact that men benefit from getting married (married men are healthier/happier/live longer than single ones), whereas women are worse off to get married. Hence the discussion of why do women get married?

Certainly the idea of "self-sacrifice that women are willing to make on behalf of those they love," that has certainly been a huge part of my life. I am a nurturer by nature, and often the best way I find to care for other people is to sacrifice some amount of my energy, wants, etc. for them. Certainly not always does it involve a sacrifice. I think I'm learning to balance the need to take care of myself with the desire to support and nurture those I love.

Entwinement is also a cool image. I remember, when I first started my first relationship, my brother said to me that I needed to make sure I knew who I was separate from my boyfriend, who of course as a high school girl, I was crazy about in the way that especially high school girls can be crazy about something. I still remember him wanting to make sure that when I looked in the mirror I saw more than so-and-so's girlfriend. At the time, it seemed like such a strange thing to tell me - of course I would still be a person separate from my relationship. A year later, things blew up... but that is not something worth delving into at all.

I certainly have been spending time thinking about how I balance my desire to be a stay-at-home mom and be a member of a family unit - it's something I desperately want in my life, a loving group to belong in, plan life with, etc. How do I see myself as a woman without that? What do I put my priorities on, where do I get that feeling of specialness that we crave as people? Who's going to notice us? And how do I balance my desire to stay at home with my children if I have them, when so many people are telling me to do the opposite or that it's denying myself and others the benefit of me working? Or telling me that I just want that because it's been what's modeled for me? I know that it's a part of who I am, and maybe it's who I am because of the environment I grew up in, but to not do it just to make a statement is going to be going against who I am, not who I think I should be. But what do I do until then? Or if I never have kids?

Finally the "imperative sense of specialness" reminded me of times in college and grad school when I would be upset or challenged by something, feeling isolated or unique, when someone would tell me that I was not special to be dealing with xyz. It hurt even more than I could understand at the time - I wanted to be special. In fact, I would argue that most people in my generation at least are raised with the idea that they are special. But if we're all special, then what does that mean? I realize now that, by someone telling me I'm not special, instead of reassuring me that I wasn't alone, it made me feel like I shouldn't be upset or be having such difficulty with whatever. That it was no big deal and everyone has to do it.

I know that my physical pains and illnesses can make me feel isolated, and that's something I'm working on, but really who wants to be told that they're no different from anybody else? I guess it was just the phrasing I take issue with. I understand and appreciate that challenges and illnesses are just a part of living in this world, and we all deal with things. The fact that bad things happen to bad people is just not right. EVERY HUMAN DEALS WITH BAD THINGS. But that just means that we don't have to be alone in our suffering. It's part of the human condition, so we can be there to help each other out because we've had our own sufferings. They may look different on the outside, but I bet every one of us has dealt with the same feelings, reactions, thoughts, just that they arose in different circumstances. So please, don't tread on someone's specialness. Let's try to value every person's contributions to the world.

"To look always at the good and not at the bad. If a man has ten good qualities and one bad one, look at the ten and forget the one. And if a man has ten bad qualities and one good one, to look at the one and forget the ten." - Abdu'l-Baha

Infatuation - Committed

More from Committed:

"... infatuation is the most perilous aspect of human desire. Infatuation leads to what psychologists call 'intrusive thinking' - that famously distracted state in which you cannot concentrate on anything other than the object of your obsession. Once infatuation strikes, all else - jobs, relationships, responsibilities, food, sleep, work - falls by the wayside as you nurse fantasies about your dearest one that quickly become repetitive, invasive, and all-consuming. Infatuation alters your brain chemistry, as though you were dousing yourself with opiates and stimulants. The brain scans and mood swings of an infatuated lover, scientists have recently discovered, look remarkably similar to the brain scans and mood swings of a cocaine addict - and not surprisingly, as it turns out, because infatuation is an addiction, with measurable chemical effects on the brain. As the anthropologist and infatuation expert Dr. Helen Fisher has explained, infatuated lovers, just like any junkie, 'will go to unhealthy, humiliating, and even physically dangerous lengths to procure their narcotic.'

Nowhere is that drug stronger than at the very beginning of a passionate relationship.... Fisher's research has also shown that people are far more susceptible to infatuation when they are going through delicate or vulnerable times in their lives. The more unsettled and unbalanced we feel, the more quickly and recklessly we are likely to fall in love. This makes infatuation start to sound like a dormant virus, lying in wait, ever ready to attack our weakened emotional immune systems. College students,... travelers in foreign lands, .... Anybody going through a difficult time emotionally - due to the death of a family member, perhaps, or the loss of a job - is also susceptible to unstable love. The sick and the wounded and the frightened are famously vulnerable to sudden love too... Spouses with relationships in crisis are also prime candidates for infatuation with a new lover... The problem with infatuation, of course, is that it's a mirage, a trick of the eye - indeed, a trick of the endocrine system. Infatuation is not quite the same thing as love; it's more like love's shady second cousin who's always borrowing money and can't hold down a job."

I found this reassuring, fascinating, hilarious, and thought provoking.

Recap

Thursday night included playing with a 16 month old, who is affectionately called Noodle (she's incredibly long and skinny and squishy) or Lu-Lu (as her name is Louisa). We practiced in and out and on and off - she had a flower pot full of awesomely colored plastic necklaces (think Mardi Gras beads and dollar stores buys) - putting them on, taking them off, repeating that, or perhaps putting them in the pot and taking them out again with an expression of sheer joy and delight.

Friday - tutoring math, Book 1 (i.e. awesome spiritual conversation and exploration), and a massage (so needed).

Saturday, aka Strawberry Day. Mom and I went out and picked strawberries (even though it was drizzling), eating strawberries as we went. Then we got strawberry dressing and spinach. We had strawberry and spinach salad for lunch, crushed strawberries on ice cream, and a side of strawberries with dinner. We finished off the gallon of strawberries today with brunch.

Today - more math tutoring and then a women's tea! Good food, good company, and great conversation.

I keep having dreams about being somewhere I'm not supposed to be, but no clues as to where I am supposed to be.

I'm starting to have things to do at work - yesterday I completed my first solo "project" - that felt good. Though I'd never thought that I would wish I was working in C++. Making Excel do something that C++ can do so easily is frustrating. But at least I got our IT guy on my side!

It's strawberry season! I'm going strawberry picking this weekend, and I plan on eating a ridiculous number of strawberries. We got a gallon last weekend, and I'd finished them off by Wednesday. That was just the warm up. Mmmm, fresh strawberries.

I go to Ithaca in a week!