Enough WIth The White Horse Already!

I never believed in The One. Whomever you choose to marry....well, you make each other The One.

Wise words and a huge relief for this City Girl that had been inundated with messages of Finding The One and Searching For Your Soulmate since she was a little girl.

I recently sat down to lunch with a friend and poured my heart out about love and relationships, marriage and other scary grown-up topics, and verbally processed through major life decisions that had been swirling around my thoughts. And the wisdom bomb she dropped was a huge relief.

Choose wisely whom you intend to be Your One and Only, but know that whomever you choose may not look exactly like The Knight in Shining Armor.

Some men are just men, not constant heroes who respond to my every whimper and sigh. And that's more than OK.

It was good to hear that the one we all look for – as well as all the other things in life one hopes will happen – may not look exactly like Prince Charming on His White Horse, but could instead look like real life.

And real life may actually turn out to be better than the fairy tale.

Ross and Rachel

Will they? Won't they? Will they? Won't they?

And they danced and danced AND DANCED around their feelings for each other for years...

I have unknowingly become a part of a Ross and Rachel relationship and it sneaked up on me like a ninja. Two years of wishing everything could go back to the way it was, a few well-timed conversations, one too many moments alone, a couple nights that ended in kisses and BAM!

Just call me Rachel.

Since discovering that both parties have had lingering feelings for each other, I have found myself sleepless and frustrated wondering if the mystery of What's Really Going On will ever be solved between this City Girl and Bachelor Number Two.

This is pretty much the gist of it.

Some days there just isn't enough wine in the bottle.

Community. The show and the real thing.

Life on The Ranch. Not glamorous. Not exciting. Not fast-paced, by any means. Secluded. Dusty....Different. So, different, in fact, that it feels as if I've been living in another time. I must have slipped through some portal in the universe and ended up in some other version of my life. Or maybe it's that I have taken over Dr. Sam Beckett's job and nobody remembered to tell me.

In any case, this not so glamorous life could have some serious holes in it if it weren't for Community. And I mean that in every sense of the word: the TV show and the real thing. While I've just about exhausted myself with watching the repeated jokes of the TV show to fill up the few lonesome nights, I've also been in awe of just how awesome Community can be from just about every person I've ever come in contact with. The dinner invites, the house guests, the planned excursions...it brings this City Girl to tears just about every time. The encouragement and love has been overwhelming and has made this shift in my universe possible to withstand.

I don't know what I would do without Community.

Lessons in Learning How to Rest, Part Seven.

Lesson Seven: Don't get stuck in the moment. This too shall pass. 

Remember how I said earlier this year that I'm cutting all the chatter? Well, sometimes the chatter will all but scream at you. I have learned, however, that you don't have to listen to it or let it effect you. Seems like everyone I run into these days (acquaintance, friend, stranger, you name it!) has an opinion on my love life. My everyday life seems to be in order, according to everyone with a mouth, but my love life is clearly in arrears.

Strangers have told me not to give up on love. The other day my chiropractor announced out of nowhere that he's getting me ready for matrimony by correcting my posture. (Nobody loves a hunchback!) Friends from all corners of the world have told me that I need to start dating men, not boys. (As if I'd known those other guys would turn out to be emotionally stunted jerkfaces.) My mother thinks the last guy could still pull it together and morph into my happily ever after. And others think my Prince Charming is just 'round the bend. (If this is true, I'm worried he's a little stupid and can't figure how to make right turns. He should be here by now!)

The only chatter I've heard lately that makes sense to me, the only words that have resonated in my very being, have been these: This too shall pass. 

I was plagued for days this week with a feeling that made me want to crawl under the covers of my bed and not come out until someone checked my closet for The Boogeyman. The feeling was awful. I felt like I was being chased by it. And I couldn't figure out what it was or why it was haunting me until I met up with a friend for one of our Skype dates. As we were talking, the truth, that unidentified feeling, came to the surface. I was sad. I was sad about getting repeatedly kicked in the teeth by love. And I had been hiding it under layers of optimism and big ideas for the business and other parts of my life in hopes that it would eventually dissipate. I was also tired. Tired of dating idiots, boys, whatever you wanna call them. I was tired of feeling bad about myself. I was tired of still caring about these guys who don't really care about me as much as they care about themselves. I was tired of apologizing for feeling the way I do and not having it all together as per my usual. And, lastly, I was tired of waiting for Mr. Right.

The thing about feelings is they don't go away until you confront them, head on, grab them by the horns and stare them straight in the eyes. And so she let me cry big crocodile tears with her via Skype. (Not too unlike a few nights before when I sobbed to my best friend for reasons I wasn't entirely sure of yet.) And while she said a lot of things that night, the advice that stuck with me was to not get stuck in the moment, because as awful as it was it would pass. And while I'm still living out the last bits of this moment, I know in my heart my friend is right. I can't get stuck here. It will pass...

Go Team! Rah Rah Rah! And All That Jazz...

The worst part about breaking up with someone you really cared about isn't the break-up itself, but all the moments that come post break-up. Don't get me wrong, the moment itself is usually somewhat horrifying and uncomfortable. In most cases there are tears, wringing of hands, shifting your weight while trying to come up with words that have more syllables than uh and um followed by some sort of awkward good-bye. The thing that always sucks worse, though, than that whole parting-of-ways scenario are the days that follow.

Just a quick recap on how one gets to those post break-up days:
Once you round the bend of the starting line you will stupidly start to introduce your current love to anyone who is willing to shake hands. In fact, you'll even go so far as to tell everyone you ever met that your mornings are filled with sunshine and everything your dear lover does just makes your sentimental heart beat wildly. Life is good. Ah yes, the beginning of almost every relationship is always so bliss-filled and lovely that you forget how sad all those previous days were that lingered on and on. What days are those, you ask? Those are the post break-up days. The days spent filling in every person who ever met your ex-douche bag on how you are no longer together and responding to their sympathies with an, "Oh yes, I would love to meet Mr. X and go on a double date with you and Mr. Happy Pants."

Cut to this City Girl's reality:
This has been the past month of my life. Although, I can't really call the last guy a douche bag-a butthead on occasion, but not a douche bag-but our break-up was the awful kind. It could have been amiable if neither of us was "feeling it" or if things really weren't working out and it was just time for us to face facts, but that wasn't our gig. And every time I have to fill in just one more person on the heart breaking details of our he said/she said situation I keep getting the same response, "Huh. I'm still pulling for you guys." You guys. As if both of have been seen together about town lately. I've got news for these people! Hell, I've got news for the random readers of this blog, there is no "you guys"!

I will say this, though....I miss that guy. And I've tried to explain him away. I've had days where I pretend like I don't care what he does or where he goes. I've lied and told people that I'm totally ready to date again. I even agreed with a friend the other day that I was over him. But the truth is there's a cheerleader somewhere deep in the recesses of my brain that is waving her pom-poms wildly, rooting for him. She just can't help herself. She's too busy rah, rah-ing it up...

Don't Be A Hater

Ok, kids, this is just getting weird. I love a good random moment. I mean, c'mon, who doesn't?! But the number of random moments that have crowded my days lately is just astounding. And let me just say this: It usually takes me a solid day or two before those random moments actually register. So, it seems like every two days I am reliving all those random moments over and over again aside from all the new random moments that keep crashing into my daily life.

Let's review what just happened this morning. Mmkay?

I went to one of my favorite coffee shops this morning where I ran into some friends having coffee. The plan was to sit my tucas down and pound out some much needed design work for my new website, but instead ended up getting roped into a ridiculously long catch up/chatty cathy session. Meanwhile, a 78 year old woman (never mind how I found out that little nugget of info...) sat at the table next to us, every once in awhile chiming into our conversation, while she was waiting for her friend to show up. I was starting to think that her "friend" was never coming and that maybe she was just a lonely old soul with nowhere to go and nothing to do. But minutes later her imaginary friend appeared and soon after the three of us started packing up our things to head to lunch. Just as we started to step away from the table the old woman stopped me and told me not to give up on love. Mind you, we hadn't talked about relationships while she was there. In fact, the only time we talked about relationships was to rehash our friends past and now current relationship with a fabulous woman I haven't met, but already adore. A conversation for which she was not present.

Even typing out those very words now makes my breath catch in my chest and my eyes well up with tears. Who was that strange woman? And how did she know what had been circling round my brain and reverberating through my very being? I haven't exactly thrown in the towel on love, but I have definitely made it clear to friends who are eager to play matchmaker that my heart needs a break. Not to mention, I flippantly made a comment the other night that has clearly been owning my subconscious that basically implied I believe all my future relationships will end in ruin.

I haven't gone all out and become some sort of asexual being or tried to join a nunnery, but I may as well have tattooed the words "Love Hater" on my chest since my latest break up session. And I still can't say just how that 78 year old woman knew my story, but she said exactly what this City Girl needed to hear.

Instant Make-Me-Over

On a completely different note, I have discovered something that people base their entire career off of and travel the world speaking about. I have met these people in the past and never truly grasped what they were saying and it's possible I just didn't believe it was for me. Now, however, that's all different. I met someone (a new friend through a mutual friend) who strongly believes in this statement. She encouraged me to find out more about myself and that meeting with her has made all the difference for this City Girl, business owner, friend, daughter, sister.

"There are no limits to what you can accomplish when you know who you are." -Stedman Graham

Absolutely L-O-V-E that idea.

In fact, I bought a book last year that changed my life. Cliché thing to say, I know, but it really, truly opened my eyes to a new way of living and excelling in my own life. Highly recommend.

No Sh*t, Sherlock. Seriously. Weed That Ish Out!

Love is, in fact, a mystery to me. I know how easy it is to meet someone new. I know how easy it can be to fall for someone. I don't know why, however, it is so damn difficult to find someone who will stick around after the butterflies settle.

I was at a dinner of about 15 girls last night. We're talking amazing women full of all the spectacular qualities from which leading female movie characters are based. And my friend this morning pointed out that only about 3 of them had a significant other in their lives. Here are a few possible conclusions that can be had based on the aforementioned details:

1. The Beach is full of stupid boys and it's slim pickin's round these parts.
2. These women are all crazy with a capital C and we all just happen to have befriended one another.
3. There are a bunch of idiot males the world over that wouldn't know a good women if she slapped him in the face. 
4. All of us just haven't found the right person yet. 
5. All of us have found the right person, but the timing sucked.

Too many variables for this City Girl. I need a detective. A love detective. Someone who can get to the bottom of this one for me.

The Truth About Love

I was talking with a new friend yesterday about her current lover and their relationship and I found myself spilling all my secret shortcomings and all that I've learned through love. At one point she looked up at me during our conversation and said, "You're so wise. You know so much about relationships." To which I looked at her with shock and said, "Ha! Listen, anything I know now has been discovered through years of heartache, tears and bad decisions."

I  was thinking about our chat today and decided that I should make a list of all the truths I've learned in the past year from all my sticky and sometimes uncomfortable relationships, just in case I forget. The first truth on my list may seem conceited or odd, but it's a proven fact, kids!

1. Pretty girls don't have to pay. For anything. And they aren't lonely for very long.
2. There really are plenty of fish in the sea and they come along about as often as the wind changes.
3. Every relationship is hard, complicated and messy. All the other possible lovers out there that appear to be more perfect than the functional relationship you're already in are a fantasy. Relationship is just another way to say self-sacrificing hard work.
4. Love is a choice. The beginning of any relationship is fabulous, it's what comes after the beginning that proves whether or not you're made for each. You either choose to work through the reality of everyday or you cut and run.
5. Love is a choice everyday. Once you decide to stick it out with someone you have to consciously make that same decision every morning you wake up.
6. It is imperative that you be able to separate irritation from things that are hurtful. Nit picking someone does not foster a loving relationship. And excusing or purposely overlooking meanness will not bring out the best in either person. 
7. The statement "Long distance relationships are hard" is an understatement. At some point you have to be willing to severely sacrifice parts of your life to have time together. And even then it's sometimes tough to call that time together "quality".
8. You can't try to fit someone else's mold. It's impossible to recreate who you are or who you're meant to be. At some point the real you will come shining through, like it or not.
9. If you want to discover the worst, most pathetic parts of yourself that you never knew existed then get yourself tangled up in a serious relationships as soon as possible. 
10. Life is not like the movies. It's not supposed to be. The movies were made for our entertainment. They should not, by any means, be used as a guide to living life or finding love that lasts. As soon as you feel you are being spoon-fed that kind of crap, spit it out as fast as you can!

Truth and the X factor.

Being a truth teller is a tricky thing. You want to find the right words, the perfect words. You want your voice to be even and steady. You want your point to be made without making the recipient of your words confused or trying to grasp blindly at your concept. 

I am a truth teller. I don't know how good my skill level is, but yesterday there was no mistaking me for anything but a teller of what is true and honest.

Yesterday, I told the truth to a friend. A good friend. A love. And while I was hoping for a different answer from this person, I was so happy to have spoken words that my heart felt. I was relieved to breath out words that made me feel as if I had been hiding a big secret from one of my best friends.

The thing about being a truth teller is that you don't know what will happen when you say the very things you mean. And then once you've said those things you still don't know what will happen. You may get a reaction. You may even lose things or titles. You may get words volleyed back to you. But when both sides have said all the words they have in their arsenal, sometimes there is still an X factor that hovers over you. There is still the unknown of what will come next...

Poke me. Text me. Email me. Call me.

I have a good friend of mine that has this theory about men and texting/facebook poking/phone calls/emailing. Now, let it be known that the phone calls are few and far between these days, because things like texting and facebook make it waaaay too easy to be passive aggressive in the dating world. However, in the case of this particular theory let's include any form of communication that does not involve face time.

Her theory: Texting and facebook poking are just another way for a man to touch you. It's his way of laying claim to you.

When I heard her say this I just figured she was on one of her rants about men, but then I realized that she may be on to something. She made a very valid point, in fact, that aligns perfectly with a theory I have.

My theory: When guys are interested they constantly let you know in some form. In other words, if I were a tree and he were a dog, he would pee on me at least once a day.

There's never been a time when I couldn't tell if someone was interested in me or not. When guys like you they track you down and "lay claim" to you all the freaking time. When guys aren't interested, you will never hear from them. Ever.

Simple facts. Simple truth. 

A We that says I do.

My time in Beantown couldn't have been more fun and hectic! Being a bridesmaid (for the seventh time) I've become a pro at forging through an emotional, tense, hyperactive weekend. And this time was no different. This wedding was for one of my best friends that I've known since kindergarten. We go way back with a long and sordid history full of funny stories, embarrassing photos, and a plethora of memories that I can't even begin to remember.

Looking back, I can't really remember everything over the past three days, but I know that it was fun and went by fast! Although, I will say that one thing stuck out in my mind about this particular wedding: my lack of emotion. I'll be the first to admit that I am an animated girl. And that's probably putting it mildly. It's in my genes to be prone to histrionics. And for some reason, I just seemed to move through this wedding weekend unphased and sort of numb. I can't really say why. Even now, I'm still stunned. I teared up a couple times during the ceremony, but wasn't overwhelmed with emotion on the day of the nuptials.

When the bride's sister got married everyone was a hot mess. And I do mean everyone. The preacher, the bridal party (which included a puffy-faced, crying me), my parents and everyone else in the audience. But this wedding was fairly dry-eyed. Sure, people dabbed at their eyes now and then, but no major balling going on at this affair.

Which is just as well, now that the viral phenomenon of facebook has since swept the nation!

So, this morning it occurred to me why I was practically stoic yesterday. Partly, it was because a 10:30am wedding on the east coast is brutal and you're barely awake to make it through the ceremony as it is. And partly because I wasn't scared. I didn't have any feelings of panic like I have in times past; picturing myself taking the dreaded walk down the aisle. In fact, the walk wasn't even dreaded this time around. It was fine. I was fine. No sweaty palms. No racing heartbeat accompanied by shallow breathing. No hysterical feelings at all.

I don't know that I will want a big, ritzy wedding someday or an elopement somewhere in Europe. But I do know that I have finally comes to terms with being with someone for the rest of my life. The thought of checking in with someone everyday is no longer daunting. The idea of traveling with a partner by my side isn't depressing. I'm okay with being a part of a We. A We that says I do.

Today's the day!

Yesterday I officially moved up to The Lake. It seemed totally surreal, fake, weird, and down right indescribable. I wondered how could it be that I was moving away from paradise to some other place?

The day started out with breakfast (at the ungodly hour of 7:30am) with my old housie, Ashley, at Cajun Kitchen where we laughed till it hurt and talked till we teared up. And then I was off to pack up the last few things at the Freedom House and head out. I drove down Grand Ave and started to have a million flashbacks of the summer I had spent with, my now long-time friends, Tim and Meg. And as I looked over the city from the riviera I remembered everything at once...school, friends, church, surfing, bike rides, the apartment. It just didn't seem real. I kept saying to myself, "You're just going on a long vacation. You'll be back here before you know it!"

Then I drove up to SLO where I had lunch with a couple of my oldest and dearest friends. And even though we haven't seen each other since Thanksgiving, we just picked up where we left off and talked about everything in about an hour and hugged and giggled until it was time for all of us to get back to our lives.

 

Aren't these girls just presh?!














No, she's not going into labor! I just made her laugh really hard. :)

And then I headed north. For real this time. But it didn't seam real. I caught up with a few friends on the phone, checked my facebook page a million times, detoured for the a couple of starbies, and sang as loud as I could in the car until my throat hurt. I only felt a lump form in my throat a couple times and I managed to push it and the tears away. I was pretty proud of myself for not getting all emotional over something as dumb as a move to a new town.

It's crazy, but they have actual trees and nature-y stuff right next to the road!

I stopped off for a bit at my grandmother's house and watched a game show, that was the equivalent of watching old footage of my summer camp days, with her for about an hour and then drove the last hour....home. Just as my car started to crest the hills covered in vineyards, it hit me. I wasn't driving to my hometown or my parents house. I was driving home. A home that even though it's very familiar, it seems very new. I couldn't help it. The lump in my throat became a knot and then it became something sizable to a boulder. It was too big to push away. And so were the tears.

And once again, I'm excited to be here (or at least move on), but sad for what I left behind.

Ch-Ch-Changes

"People are always saying that change is a good thing. But all they're really saying is that something you didn't want to happen at all...has happened." - You've Got Mail

Ok. So, in a perfect world I move to the next place on my life map and all my friends move with me. In real life I move to the next place I'm supposed to be and nobody follows. Not a single person. And my life changes drastically. Quite possibly for the better. And things that I didn't expect to have happen will happen. Things I probably could never have thought up, dreamed about or anticipated while living in Santa Barbara.

So, here's a little encouragement for all my friends who are moving to far away places, just like me, and are wondering if the next step will be as great as they are hoping:

"Change in all things is sweet." - Aristotle