What is Love? ("baby don't hurt me..." Sorry, I started singing)

A debate was sparked today between my best friend and me regarding love. Maybe it wasn’t so much a “debate” but a disagreement. She has never understood or accepted my idea of love and I don’t expect her to. I decided to try to explain my thoughts and feelings in hopes that perhaps she and others might be able to “get” how I feel about the subject. I think that women of my generation grew up with Disney movies and fairy tales and saw that a happy ever after was with a prince and marriage and a castle. We were conditioned to believe that our Prince Charming would be tall, dark, and handsome and sweep us off our feet on a white horse, carrying us away into the night. As a young child, that was what I saw my life to be when I grew up. As I grew and changed, my future plans changed. I realized I wasn’t going to be a princess, unfortunately. Instead, I wanted to be a Stepford Wife with the white picket fence and perfect hair with two incredibly polite cute children and a handsome rich husband. Obviously that didn’t happen either. As life happened, my views on life changed. I realized over time what was important. Money? It’s necessary, but not important. Looks? Eh, not important…except that I find them attractive (which, believe me, I can find almost ANYONE attractive if their personality makes up for it). Having a horse (or nice car)? Definitely not important. Through each failed relationship, I learned what I needed and wanted from a partner. I learned what I could deal with and what I couldn’t stand. I learned my strengths and found out who I was and what I could give. My girlfriend believes that love should come easy. That when it’s real and it’s true, everything falls into place and you understand each other. That things shouldn’t be hard, you shouldn’t have to work at love. The problem with that, for me, is that if that were true, I wouldn’t ever be in a relationship with ANYONE. I’m a very hard person to love. I know this. Yes, it’s easy for my friends to love me. It’s easy for people who barely know me to love me. But when you are trying to love me as a partner, it’s the most difficult thing in the world and I applaud anyone who tries. I am hard headed, stuck in my ways, emotional, combative, accusatory, etc. when I want to be. On the same token, I am also kind, loving, open minded, logical, understanding, etc. when I want to be. I have been in love before. Different kinds of love. Have I been in true love before? Soulmate love? I thought so. There was a time when I loved someone with my whole being, everything I was. The problem was that I was young. I didn’t know what I wanted or needed. I expected too much from them and expected not enough of myself. I learned a lot from that relationship and I honestly believe that it was a kind of love to teach me about myself. To teach me what I wanted from a relationship and from love. Now, I’m in a different kind of love. A love that my friend doesn’t understand. It’s a hard love. It’s an “I’m trying to get to know you, but what I do know I can’t live without” love. It’s a long distance love. It’s a “we have a lot of logistical shit to figure out” love. It’s a day to day love. I know what’s important now. I know what I need and what I want. I want someone who is an equal. Someone who can make me laugh and who understands my humor. Someone who takes my kids in and loves them because they love me. Someone who can look at me and without any words, calm me down if I’m worked up. Someone who understands who I am and where I come from and won’t hold that against me. Someone who accepts my past and looks forward to our future. I don’t need fancy cars or a big ol house, although they’d be nice. I don’t need a rock on my finger or a big white wedding, although marriage is a nice idea. I don’t need someone who always agrees with me or loves every little thing about me, although I know I’m right, so if they agreed it would make them extremely intelligent. My buttons need to be pushed. I need to be challenged, intellectually and socially. I want to be outside of my comfort zone and dared to do more than I think I can do. I want to be able to debate or fight with the person I love and get so mad that I don’t know what to even think anymore, and then come together and agree to disagree. Or they can learn and just agree with me. I am a passionate person and love passionately, which means I get upset easily but also am pleased easily. The kind of love that I need takes time to develop. It takes time to learn someone’s trigger points and maneuver them. I don’t want an easy love. I WANT a love that I work at every day. I don’t ever want to feel that I’m not showing the person I love that I love them. I believe everyone’s fairy tales are different. My fairy tale involves a tall dark handsome man who challenges me in every way. He’s not perfect, so far from it that I am shocked we click so well since I am as close to perfect as a person can get. He understands me and loves me and wants me. I knew I wouldn’t get a Prince Charming after I turned ten, now that I’m almost thirty, I don’t want him anyway.

The Last Year of My Love Life (which isn't much)

Have you ever had things happen in your life that make you think, “this has GOT to be fate”? Have things ever just fallen into place TOO perfectly? Have you ever felt as though the universe was pushing you in a direction and no matter how hard you fought, it was a losing battle? Exactly one year ago today I split with someone I thought I loved and cared about with everything I was. It was obviously all an act that he put on though because as soon as we broke up, everyone, including me, saw who he truly was inside. He wasn’t a very nice person at all. So I, naturally, at that time was heartbroken. I couldn’t seem to pick myself up, dust myself off, and move on. My best friend told me to do what every red blooded female should do. Go out and find someone new. Her one caveat was that I had to find someone who was the exact opposite of what I would normally be attracted to. I had to step outside of my comfort zone and find a guy who wasn’t “preppy douchebag” (that’s always been my type). About 3 weeks after the breakup, I decided I felt good enough again to put myself out there, and by that I mean, get drunk and actually talk to a guy. I went out, by myself, to an open mike session that a friend was going to be playing in. I figured I’d show up for a bit, drink a few beers, and head home if I wasn’t feeling it. I got there, it was empty except for my two friends so I decided to stay and have a beer, then leave. I didn’t even get that far. As soon as I sat down this guy came in. He was easily the best looking guy in the entire place (a few more people had shown up, so it wasn’t SO empty anymore) and definitely the best smelling. Just being around him was intoxicating. AND he wasn’t my type! He was a 180 degree change from my normal douchebag type. He had piercings and tattoos and colored hair…the kind of guy that my dad would have kicked my ass for bringing home. I talked to him a bit, he seemed sweet but I felt that I definitely wasn’t in the same league so I didn’t try to go any further than talking. And when I say league, I mean it in a way that we weren’t the same kinds of people. Not that one of us was better than the other, but that I am a nerd and he was a musician, completely different. I ended up leaving and heading to another bar to meet up with a girlfriend before I went home. It was pretty boring and I danced…a lot. I got tired and was about to be on my way out the doors when I stopped dead in my tracks. There he was. The same gorgeous man I had seen at the open mike was at this bar. They were on opposite sides of town and he just happened to show up there? It was a little coincidental, so I figured that the powers that be were trying to tell me something (not sure what yet), so I stayed. I downed another beer and got the courage to talk to him. We ended up dancing the night away and I decided I wanted him. I took him home, hung out one more time a few days later and that was it. I don’t know what happened, I don’t know why neither of us pursued anything more at the time. I think I was still jaded though. I didn’t believe that I deserved to be happy because it kept being taken from me. I had a lot I had to work through. A month later, I found out I was pregnant. I didn’t even put two and two together to know that it could be the fantastic smelling guy I’d had the time of my life with. I naturally assumed it was from my ex and hated my life. I decided to keep the baby, even with cries of abortion from my ex. It was a really hard first three months to go through. Every day I got either a text or a call begging me to abort the baby. I knew that if I did go through with it, I’d be doing it alone and I had to be prepared for that. Every night I’d look at Kynedi and Colevin and I knew that I was strong enough to have the baby, no matter how hard it turned out to be. When I was about 4 months pregnant, I got a call from some people who were looking into something and was asked if I knew a list of names. That’s when I was reminded of that night. His name was the only name I recognized and my heart stopped. All of a sudden, the dates and events came back to me in a rush and I realized that the child inside of me was most likely this stranger’s. I panicked, I didn’t know what to do. I called my girlfriends together and sought their advice. That began the long ordeal throughout my pregnancy of, do I tell or not? I felt that it would be best to wait until she came out and if I felt the possibility was real, I would decide what to do at that point. When my beautiful little girl was born, I honestly didn’t think she was so beautiful at first, but that’s beside the point. When she was born, the nurse gave me her blood type. I was shocked because it wasn’t mine, it was different. The nurse explained that daddy must be that blood type. This was new to me, but also I suddenly had some proof instead of DNA. For me, the proof was in looking at her. Every single day, she grew into the man I briefly fell for the summer before. It was such an overwhelmingly obvious resemblance that one day I broke down. I had to tell him, but I didn’t know how. I texted him and asked him what his blood type was, hoping he would ask why I was asking or get a clue. He knew I was pregnant because we had become friends on Facebook when we met and of course, I had pictures up. He didn’t ask why I asked, he didn’t press any further, he told me and I said ok and that was it. I didn’t know what to do. I figured that would have open the flood gates but nope. Either he knew what I was getting at and didn’t want to know or he got those kinds of questions all the time. Either way, I had no idea how else to bring it up gently without scaring him away. A week later, he commented on how beautiful my little girl was and asked about her dad. I couldn’t hold back. I had to tell him. It took about a total of ten hours of talking and discussing and he took it better than I could imagine. Turns out, we both still had a thing for each other. Honestly, I’d never stopped having feelings for him. I swear it was his intoxicating smell and piercing eyes that did it for me. I hadn’t dated since him and didn’t want to, really. I decided if I could financially work things out, I would bring our daughter to see him and take extra maternity leave in order to do it. The weird thing is it actually worked out. I hadn’t planned on taking much leave because I didn’t have the finances and all of a sudden, everything fell into place so easily that it seemed incredibly strange. Again, I felt like the universe was pushing me in a certain direction. I’ve always believed in destiny and fate and all that nonsense. Whether I say I do or not, I always have. I truly believe, deep in my heart, that there is a reason for this man to be in my life. He is someone I would have NEVER seen myself with but I think that’s probably the relationships that last the longest. I feel extremely lucky that he has treated me so incredibly well considering that I waited to tell him about his baby girl and that he loves her more than I could ever ask a man to love his daughter. I can only look to the future and hope that the universe keeps pushing us together because I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time and our daughter deserves a family.

Here, there, and everywhere in between

I'm baaaack!! I haven't been blogging in awhile and I have so much to say that I don't even know where to start! Let me start by saying that the reason I dropped off the face of the earth (or at least the blogosphere) is because I was pregnant and gave birth to a gorgeous little girl named Sophia. It's been extremely busy and hard being a single mom to three kids, one being a newborn. You will never know until you do it. I have friends who are stay at home moms or who have husbands who work out of town and they like to say they understand, but it's not the same. Yes, I feel for these moms because being any kind of mom is the hardest job you'll ever have. Yet, when I was pregnant, I came home to an empty house, no one greeted me or asked how my day was. No one cuddled me and felt baby move. I had no one to clean up the bathroom after I got nauseous and puked everywhere. I even had to teach my older children how to make their own food because I couldn't be near it without getting sick. I didn't have a partner's support and it sucked. I did have my girlfriends though. They were my salvation. When I needed to vent, if they weren't busy, they listened. When I went into labor, they were there with gloves on. Once Sophia was born, she lit up my life and everyone who met her. She has a beautiful spirit and gorgeous smile. She has so many adopted aunties and uncles that I can't even count them all. Like I said, she's very well loved. When she was about a month old, I got up the courage to tell her biological dad that he had a daughter. It scared me to death, but he fell head over heels in love with her too. Having my last baby made me think a lot. I'm not happy. Believe me, I have three beautiful children, amazing friends, and a great job. I'm content, but not HAPPY. I just got done visiting Sophia's daddy and his family. For the first time in a long time, I felt HAPPY. I also visited with my sister and I was HAPPY. Yes, life isn't peaches and cream and my close friends know I had some issues during my vacation where I wasn't so happy, but for the most part, I was. I got to see my sister and my nephew with my baby girl. I got to see the man I love hold his baby girl and never want to let go. I got to see my daughter have a whole family of flesh and blood who couldn't bear to see her leave. I realized what I've been missing...family, a partner, love. As much as friends try to be family, it's hard because most of my friends are married or dating with their own families. My older babies have their father's family. I honestly don't know where this post is going or what I was trying to say. My thoughts just poured out and I know now what I have to do. I need to follow my heart and take a leap of faith. Wish me luck and I will actually have a thought out post next time!