Happily Ever After

Perhaps because I am a hopeless romantic, too sentimental, a dreamer, maybe because I never seem to kill hopes completely, or because I see the good in everything even when I try to focus on the bad, or maybe because I am a control freak... maybe because of none of the above, I have been looking around, thinking, over thinking, who knows. 

On my way to work today I thought about the huge difference between falling in love and being in love. I think it's not the same, although so many times we think they are synonyms. 

I think they are two very, very different things. Falling in love is a matter of attraction, something catches our eyes, physical appearance, intellect, personality (or some part of the vast mixture of drags that compound it). Falling in love is strong, it's fast. It's butterflies in the stomach, is not being able to keep our hands out of each other, is passion, is thinking about the other, wondering, giving a too big space to uncertainty, to the unknown, to the expectations. Falling in love is the heart speeding up, the blood rushing to the cheeks, the involuntary smiles, the puppy eyes. It is that weird thing that makes us smile with a text message and walk into a lightning pole while reading it again and again. It's fun! Falling in love can make us wake up singing that horrendous cheesy song over and over again. Falling in love is magical, it's making believe we are about to finally get our happily ever after. It's seeing a prince, a knight, a queen, a lady.

Being in love, on the other hand, is something very different. Happily ever after is not a sparkle that keeps on and on forever more. We sometimes hope the feelings of falling in love will never fade, but they do eventually. They do fade because the surprises are over, because we don't wonder, because we don't expect, because we know. Far too many times I hear that couples break up because the sparkle is gone and I can't but wonder why is that so bad. That should be a good thing! sparkles don't last! they can't last, they are not meant to last. Sparkles are ephemeral, they are there to catch our eyes, they are there to invite us to see deeper. Sparkles are hormones rushing to our limbic system if you want it put like that. Being in love is not!

Love, the one that lasts, the one that leads to a happily ever after is something we do. Love takes time, sacrifices, compromise, nurturing, it takes a lot of work and patience. I know it is a cliche but love, real love, the kind that lasts, is no wild flower that just grows by itself among the weed. Love needs to be taken care of. I was cutting the dead pansies from my plants, so the new ones can come beautiful and strong and thought that love is a little bit like a pansy plant. We will see flowers die, disappointments come, we make mistakes, the loved one makes mistakes, we misunderstand each other, we argue, we find out differences and we face disease, trouble, economical problems, trials, routine... All that after the sparkle is gone! And I think that it is then when the time comes for us to cut the dead parts in the relationship and the dead flowers in our significant other, and nourish the good ones through forgiveness, patience, hugs, laughs. Love takes time! I think it's sad we sometimes think we have to be living in the "falling in love stage" to stay together because I think loving is so, so different!

I thought later about how I love my girls, I forgive them, I love them the same if they make a mistake, I understand them if they treat me bad sometimes, because they are learning, because I have to teach them how to treat me. I forgive them because I understand that they make mistakes and don't mean wrong, or sometimes they do, but there is always a reason beneath that anger and rage, a reason I am eager to find and understand, because I love them! We grown ups are not much different from kids, we make mistakes, we need to learn how to treat each other, we teach each other, too; we do our best and instead of being patient, loving and understanding we judge and reject. 

Love takes time,  sometimes it blooms into a magnificent, beautiful strong thing, sometimes it doesn't despite our efforts, but it won't grow if we don't try, it just does not build up out of nothing. Being in love is not the possessive feeling we might feel when falling in love. Being in love is, for me, caring even when angry, smiling even when in pain, being there even when we don't want to, making time for each other on the tightest schedule, going the extra mile despite being exhausted,  wanting the other to be happy even when that means letting them go. Being in love is having seen deeper and accepting their imperfection, their mistakes, their screw ups. 

I do believe in happily ever afters (I am that naive), and I do believe they take a lot of work, a lot of walking through the darkness and the storms without letting go of each other's hands, it takes fights, nights of not wanting to see each other, going through the rough path of life with the determination to never, ever stop nourishing each other, cutting away the dead flowers to see the pretty ones, to help them grow, to make each other better. 

Some think that there is a little bit of resignation when being with someone takes hard work. I don't think so. I think that expecting a love based on the sparkle that catches our eye, on hormones set into motion, is  rather foolish. But what do I know? I just think, I believe, I dream. I'm also learning. 

Oh my! I'm vintage!

Some people have this theory that babies come when their time is right. They say that our spirits wait somewhere and that nobody can actually control it, maybe delay it a bit, but when a baby's time has come, it has come. I'm not so sure about that, it's more a matter of biology but if that was the case, then I really sucked at maths and made some very serious miscounts. 

Last night I was out for the first time in many years. We came in, order something to drink and just looked around. Women came one after the other in dresses three sizes smaller and skirts shorter than my tank tops, really! All of them very pretty with their sparkling eyes and happy smiles of course, but why do some obsess with looking like a very unfortunate sausage? 

I looked around at the guys after, what is wrong with the world? Why do people need so much alcohol to dance around and have fun? Don't misunderstand me here, I am not judging any of the people I came across with, I just don't understand them. I felt all the time like something was extremely wrong with me since I could not feel I belonged there. I am so thankful I didn't leave the girls with a nanny to go out because I wouldn't have been this calm and reflective today if I had. 

I must have been born way pass the time I should have. What happened with gentlemen asking some nice questions, starting a small talk and inviting one to the dance floor? Or maybe getting closer while on the dance floor. What happened to music? Why can't I move even a little to the "pum chi, pum chi, pum chi" sound? 

The thing gets worse I'm afraid. I am so, so weird it's starting to scare me and make me question my sanity. I have this retro idea of a man's courtship with smiles, dinner out, a long walk under the sunset, a dance (not a pum chi, pum chi one!), a little note, a day at the carnival or the zoo, the movies, a pic-nick in the park, opening the car door, giving the lady his coat if she is cold... I dream on courtship! I am totally insane! I try so hard to understand and somehow imitate the way things apparently are nowadays, but since I truly don't get it I end up doing things so wrong it's scary! 

I'm happy I finally got myself. I am so happy I finally understood why things go so wrong for me sometimes. I am vintage! Ladies and gentlemen (if any left in the pure sense of "men of good and courteous conduct"): I quit! Society will have to deal with the fact that I am aunty Lorena, no more trying to fit in, I don't anyway! And to be honest, why do I make such an effort to fit in when I don't feel comfortable? In a way, I am trying to put myself in a dress three sizes smaller and end up looking like a very unfortunate sausage. 

Breaking Beliefs

I had a rough week. You know when you start asking yourself, "Ok, what on Earth can I screw up now?" Well... I had all the answers! The thing is that in most of the cases, days, weeks, months, years after and with a lot of stumbling and falling and getting up, I come up to the sad truth, "What the heck was I thinking?"

As it usually is the case when animals get hurt, humans also use to take a defensive behavior. Tears are meant to show helplessness and make us look less dangerous, when we cry we rise up the white flag -at least according to Dr. Vingerhoets, although we can't really put an end to the crying discussion- After tears, or together with them, or sometimes without them even when the heart is broken, or maybe just because of that, the defensive behavior is very commonly adopted. We hurt, we are wounded, we have been reminded of our vulnerability and weakness, we have to protect ourselves from the world. And in that stage I was all week, probably still am.

Watching House MD, my favorite TV series in the history of my life, I came to the thought that I was going to try to be like him. Not a chance I can. However, it is interesting to give this antisocial, narcissistic, brutally honest and extremely intelligent character a little place in how we see, project and interact with others by deflecting, avoiding, sugarcoating our "cruelest" thoughts and all that we do in order to function in society and getting along just fine, and in order to take "logical" decisions.

A part of this sugarcoating, deflecting, avoiding habit is our fear of hurting others, and in that hides a little bit of pride. If our feelings can hurt others, we have somehow taken us to the position in which we believe that, for the other one, we mean a lot, a whole lot! When I was doing my practice in psychiatry I had a lot of trouble getting to talk to and interacting with the patients, who were severely ill and had diagnosis like schizophrenia, borderline disorder, psychosis, and so many more. In my first evaluation I explained to the clinic adjunct what the reason to this inability to connect was, I said "I am so scared I say something wrong, or I say something in the wrong way and then I hurt them and make them get worse! How could I live with it if I put one of them in distress just because I don't watch my mouth?" She looked at me and smiled with a deep understanding of what really was going on inside of me and said "You are not that powerful. If something comes out wrong, or is interpreted the wrong way, you say I'm sorry and move on" This fear, based entirely on a belief affects our decisions, this shapes our behavior in some circumstances. 

I came across this great scientific investigation about human decisions and how most of them are not based on logic, even though we swear they are. That was pretty interesting to me, it's nice to feel one is not really that much of a wacko.  But  why do we end up taking illogical decisions? I think the answer is beliefs! We humans need to believe! We rely on our beliefs, they are a part of who we are. I am not talking about religious beliefs only, they most certainly play a major role in how we conduct ourselves in life, but we have other beliefs which I think are stronger and more powerful than religion. Let me define "belief". A belief is an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof, and the key lies in the last part: without a proof! If we have a proof then we know, if we know, we do not need to believe. So in order to be a belief it has to be based on faith, trust, ideas, thoughts, imagination, call it by the name you prefer, as long as you do not know of its veracity. Just as religion can be the opium of the masses, our deep, intimate beliefs can become the "opium" in our lives. We construct a system of beliefs, we believe we are A or B, we believe that we deserve H or F, we secretly and intimately believe that we will or won't achieve our goals, get where we wanna get, what we wanna get, how we wanna get it. We humans rely on our beliefs and our hopes. We take decisions based on them, we get the consequences based on the decisions we make. We, in a way or another, in one or other aspect of our lives -call it romance, love, parenthood, social life, career, economy, whatever- get what our beliefs state that we will, because we work on it, because we make all those illogical decisions (so analysed, and thought over, and evaluated) based on our most intimate and private opium.

So what now? let the defensive state become one where all my beliefs are put under the microscope.

If people can't do something...

My dad i s a very wise man, sometimes his wisdom can be mistaken for cruelty, specially when you haven't come as far as he has in the way of life. He is a kind man, the nicest man I've met. Never saving nothing, everything for his family, he gave everything to my mom, to us. No phone call is too late in the night or too early in the morning, it's never too much of a mess to pick up someone with the car or drive someone somewhere, it never takes too much of an effort to help someone. He saves nothing, he's a giver. But he's wise and as much as I, the rebel daughter in the middle, wishes to prove him wrong, he hardly is.

He used to say: "If people can't do something, they shouldn't do it" Hearing that as a little girl stopped me from fighting and trying and making my best effort in, for example, sports. It put a tremendous pressure on me for getting things right, specially if I enjoyed them. It got me a little screwed up, to be honest. He never meant wrong, and now I know what he was talking about all this time. 

As I grew up my desires to prove my dad wrong grew stronger, being the stubborn butt I am. I tried to do things I sucked at, over and over again. I didn't get any better. I have spend time collecting a bunch of experiences that could prove his theory wrong. I have been cursed with a sensitive heart, a very developed right hemisphere, feeling way too much empathy, reading people's body language to the minimum detail, feeling the unity and energy around me in a very strong way. At the same time, my left hemisphere, the analytic, logical one, steps in and tries to decode all those impressions with the scientific method. So I analyse, over analyse, think it over, make experiments, connect all those impressions as they were numbered dots in a kid's activity book so I can get the picture clear. You can't make logic out of feelings! One of my hemispheres has to die! When the right one is in charge, people take me for a stupid Barbie girl, when the left one takes command, people take me for an insensitive, arrogant, know it all. Why am I not seen as the complex screwed up human being that I am? 

I have been looking back at my life since last Tuesday afternoon. People shouldn't do what they can't do. I can study, studying is easy! You read, you remember. As simple as that! You don't know something, you look for it in a book and you learn it! Science is easy, you don't need to feel, you don't need to deal with emotions, you only need to connect factual dots. I am good at that!. So I am going to do what I'm good at, and I'm going to hit the books again. No University because I can't afford it, but some day I'll get my PhD in medical science. 

I can cook, I can craft, I can give and serve. I'll do that then, no emotions attached. Giving your life away can be such a distraction! 

 If people can't do something, they shouldn't do it, and not being able to do something is no reason for being unhappy. Get happy with what you are, enjoy what you can do, see the good in that, just stop trying so hard to make up the life you can't get. Get real!

You get what you give... or you don't.

When lighting strikes, darkness vanishes and it is usually a good thing. Light is a good thing. What is not so good is to have the lightning striking right on you. 

I have heard almost all about me, according to people I am weird; funny; nerdy; goofy; intellectual; mature; serious; strong; stubborn; temperamental; a sweet spirit; a good friend; too innocent; a good human being; jealous; needy; a very nice, considerate person; a control freak; a perfectionist; a woman with low self esteem; a confident woman; a happy go lucky, restless soul; the typical "girl next door", and oh so many things! So many flattering things!   

It is also flattering to hear all this empathetic and nice people in my life telling me that I deserve a loving, romantic relationship, someone who appreciates me, takes care of me and stays with me for better or for worse, a friend, a true companion. It is so sweet of them trying to cheer me up, give me hopes and assure me that of course I will get all that some day, because those who wait for something good never wait too long and someone like me sure deserves all that, and even more. 

Didn't get that wonderful love story so far, won't ever have it. Do I think I deserve a nice, loving man who gives me all I've ever wanted and who treats me with dignity and respect? You bet I do! Here's the catch: People get what they get. It has noting to do with what they deserve.

Will I change who I am? NO. People don't change. I will still be nice, loving and caring. I will still be cheerful and taken for a dumb, innocent, easy to fool pink and glitter loving hallmark girl. 

Do I feel angry, sad, lonely, unhappy, miserable, disappointed maybe? The truth is I feel nothing. 

Easter

My dad brought some Easter eggs molds when he was here, and I was so hoping I could finally make chocolate eggs to give away this Easter. I'm afraid there won't be any, not this year either. I have chosen a profession that requires me to work on holidays, weekends, stay later if needed, go to lessons and courses on free days. I sometimes think I have been selfish, choosing my vocation over a normal job where I can be with my own. I surely have, but how could I ever feel this complete without caring for so many? How could I feel satisfied and challenged and this happy if I hadn't the chance to comfort, ease, cure, calm, listen, help, give...? I once heard an old, cold man say that even charity is based on selfish motives, maybe it's true.

And there will be no eggs this Easter.

It was a bad day today, those come a little here and there and they are also over, like everything else. It started with a text message from a stranger at 6:15 am. We finally sent each other texts like for two hours. It was weird! After trying with every trick we both came up to, this poor guy suggests that I call the number I was trying to text and see if the problem was on iMessenger or the number. I got to the right person, but the texts kept coming to this unfortunate soul who woke me up 6:15 to say "good morning! who are you?" All very funny, but maybe not so much when your trust is put under a question mark.

You stupid little thing!

I talked to my girls later, they were happy, they were fine and it made me smile all the way to work. It made me miss them so much it hurt, too ,but I didn't say it, I didn't show it, I couldn't... The last thing want to do is to make them feel that they are responsible for my well being, they can't have such a role, and I have to grow stronger and braver and be fine without them, and probably even hurt until I get used to it.

It was hard at work, one of those days when I can't hold my poker face no more and just show how sensitive I really am. I don't like that, everybody at work tells me how strong I am, how much I fight, how well I cope. Today I didn't care that much though. I wish I was the "iron nurse", the "iron mom", the "Iron Lady" but I'm not. It was really hard working all afternoon after, but I did, one has to do what one has to do. I got disperse every now and then, back to the poker face, deep breath and the day was over.

Easter... isn't Easter about death and resurrection? Maybe I could think about that once again, like I used to, and believe and raise up stronger, braver, smarter. I think I better go study now. Studying is such a break for my thoughts!  

Some people

 I don't think I have so much to tell when it comes to what happens around here. The truth is that life hands out a little bit sugar, a little bit hot chili sauce, a little honey, a spoon of something really bitter (I can't come up to anything but bile right now, but I can't imagine someone having a spoon of it) sometimes even two or three spoons of something really bitter!, and if you really try, you might even find an M&M somewhere along the way. So that is basically what I have been through, eating my spoons and trying to get over the yucky stuff. 

I am feeling good, I have so much energy compared to a few weeks ago. I wanna do things, I actually do them! I don't feel like crying over nothing anymore, I even put on make up, and want to go get me some clothes, and I feel alive! The clothes thing is starting to become a major necessity to this point since I struggle to find something to put on. No, no, no! Do not think I am one of those who has a full closet and says she has nothing to wear just because she can't make up her mind. Please be fair! 80 % of my clothes I bought over two years ago, really! I don't like going shopping for myself, it's a pain in the neck. First I see something I like, then I see the price tag and it's a "heck no!" Or I just don't find anything! I have no clue what to buy! Then I gotta take the girls with me because I am never ever free from work without my girls and I don't have someone to take care of them while I go spend lots of money on myself, or out for a fun night with friends, or the doctor's appointment... So they come with me and Olivia will eventually get all cranky and bored, and impossible while Emily hands me out night dresses to which I have to say no. First because I don't go out at night! When would I wear a night dress? Second because they wouldn't suit me, and third because I don't go out at night, or in the evening, or at noon! So well, I hate buying for myself! Sometimes I think all this phobia for buying clothes has a little bit to do with not being able to pamper myself. I want to, I really want to stop putting myself last, I just don't know how. I wish I could but whenever I try I either spend hours justifying such a wimp or convincing myself that I really needed it and am worth it. I miss the way my mom spoiled me! 

Anyway, I was thinking a little about people and how they affect us even when we don't know it. Some people have this ability to make us feel guilty even when we haven't done anything. Others can make us feel we're never enough. Others, on the other hand, make us want to be better by seeing the good in us, they accept us the way we are and at the same time inspire us to get healthier, wiser, smarter, happier, stronger. I have been thinking about this wonderful kind of people in my life and couldn't pin point what it is they do, maybe they don't really do anything in particular, but it happens that I feel inspired and uplifted by them. 

I hope I am one of those people, one who shows my friends that I accept them for what they are, that I love them for what they are, that I truly, sincerely and honestly wish for their happiness and well being and at the same time give them the desire to be the very best they can because they know I see the good in them. And if I'm not, then I wish with all of my heart that I learn how.