Relationships – Page 5

For My Mom

Today is my mom’s 48th birthday. I don’t think she would mind too much for the whole Internet knowing her age, because she looks pretty damn good for her age, mother of two kids in their mid-twenties, grandmother of a precocious four-year-old.

Anyone who knows me knows I have a strong connection with my mom. We’ve always been close and she’s always been the first person I want to tell any good news to. We are comfortable in silence and comfortable chit-chatting about anything and everything. We like (mostly) the same TV shows and are learning that we don’t always have to have the same opinions.

She’s the reason for my faith, as she took my brother and me to church every Sunday, prayed with us, and talked to us about morals and what’s right and wrong. Even when my father thought it was a waste.

She is an incredible woman. She had to be brave and courageous and gutsy by making the decision to leave my father and move back in with her parents – in her 30s, with two teenagers in tow. That couldn’t have been an easy decision to make and must have felt like such a step backward. She did it because she knew she deserved better because she knew we deserved better, and because she never wanted us to believe that marriage was supposed to be filled with strife and hatred and fighting.

Since then, her life has taken a complete turn. She was unhappy as a daycare teacher, so she quit her job and took on a completely different career path. She was unhappy with being overweight so she joined Weight Watchers and lost 80 pounds through diet and exercise (and has kept the majority of the weight off for almost five years). She opened herself up to love again and found a fabulous guy – a man she will most likely marry.

This year has been one of painful growth for the two of us. As much as I wanted my mom to find love and be able to experience what a real relationship – one with a good man who loves you and wants good things for you – is like, it was hard on me. It’s been the two of us for so long that adding a third person was awkward. I guess I just expected to absolutely love anyone my mom loves. I expected him to slide in smoothly to our family dynamic and everything to be easy. It didn’t happen that way. He didn’t fit in seamlessly and I didn’t like him from the get-go. I mean, I didn’t hate him and I felt like a big huge brat because he treated my mom well, but we just didn’t have any sort of connection.

Gradually, though, we’re both learning how to act around one another. I’m an adult so it’s not as if I need a father figure in my life and he doesn’t need to be super close to me. We can coexist and I can be happy for my mom and it will all work out. We have one super big thing in common in that we both love my mom and want what’s best for her. I know he is what’s best for her and she deserves this chance at love more than anyone in the world.

My mom is the best woman I know. She is kind and giving and loving. She supports me, no matter what I want to do. She is my cheerleader and always knows the right advice to give me. She listens to me complain, deals with my freak-outs, and loves me even at my most unlovable. She has had to be a mother and father to my brother and me and raised us right, even though we had all the odds stacked against us. She’s not perfect, she has her faults, but I couldn’t imagine having anyone else as my mother. This year, I have learned that she is so much more than just my mother – she is a woman and she deserves love. And her boyfriend is the luckiest to have her. The luckiest.

We’ve been celebrating her birthday all weekend – with a trip to the movies on Saturday, the beach on Sunday, and with a birthday dinner tonight.

Today, it’s all about my mom. I feel blessed to be her daughter and can’t wait to see what this year holds for her. A ring, perhaps?

Categories: Relationships

Fatherless Father’s Day

“Are you going to be sad tomorrow?” my mom asked me, as we sat in a booth at Panera Bread on Saturday afternoon.

My mind raced as I took a bite of salad, trying to place what she meant. Tomorrow? What was tomorrow? What did I have to be sad about?

“Oh!” I finally said, realizing what she meant. “About Father’s Day.” I nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be sad.”

I thought about it for a moment.

“Not as sad as I’d be about Mother’s Day, though. A lot of people have crappy fathers, but Mother’s Day would be really hard.”

Yesterday was my sixth fatherless Father’s Day. Is it getting easier to not be with my father on the days I should be with him?

Yes… and no. I still get sad. It still hurts not to be with him when I could celebrate this day with him. It’s not as if he’s died and I’ll never get to see him again, except it’s almost as if it is.

A few months ago, I saw my father. I knew instinctively it was him. He was riding his bike down the very same (busy) street I live on. His signature bandanna wrapped around his head, his legs pumping. He turned his head in my direction right as I passed him and I looked straight at him. He didn’t see me, he was looking above the traffic but I know it was him. My face heated, my heart rate rose, and my breath came in spurts.

“Was that Dad?” my mom asked. She was driving us to lunch.

I nodded. “Yep. That was Dad.”

It’s weird, you know? Here he is, living this life without his kids. He’s working and biking and shopping and laughing and sleeping and hugging and making memories without us. As if we don’t even exist. This man who used to be my entire world, who used to make me laugh so much and played with me and walked me to the bus stop and gave me silly nicknames and sat with me as my brother and mother rode roller coasters at theme parks and… he’s just a memory now. I just have memories of how much fun I used to have with him. Memories of the way he made me feel loved and safe and happy.

I’m no longer mad. It’s been so long that the anger has dissipated, leaving in its wake pure sadness. I want a relationship with him again. I want to see him, hear him say my name, hug him. I want to have a father again.

But I also know that I need more from him. I have so many good memories of him. But I also have so many awful memories of him. Memories of him cursing at me when I spill a drink. Memories of him taking my brother and me to play tennis and him only playing with my brother because my skill level just wasn’t as good as theirs. Memories of him holding a knife up to my mom’s throat or yelling at her or abusing her. Memories of an answering machine message where he threatened to kill my mom. Memories of him berating me, making me feel less than worthy, making me feel that I needed to do more and be more for him to love me.

I couldn’t have that man in my life anymore. I deserved better. I deserved a father who loved me unconditionally, foibles and all. I had to sever the relationship. I did it because it was the only way I knew I would be able to learn to love who I was. The only way I would learn to accept myself. It was hard and scary and I worried every day if I was being selfish and a brat.

Five and a half years later, I know I made the right choice. For the first time in my life, I stood up for myself. I let him know, in no uncertain terms, that I would no longer be treated that way and I was worth so much more. I no longer judge who I am by my dad’s standards. I learned to love my shy, quiet, introverted nature. I learned to stand up for myself, put myself out there, and above all, love Stephany just as she is. Stephany is a wonderful, wonderful person and he is missing out on me. He is missing out on so much.

Father’s Day will always be a hard day, knowing I made the decision to shut the door on my relationship with my father. While I know I made the best choice for me, there’s always that niggling feeling of guilt. I wonder constantly what he thinks of me. Is he sad? Mad? Apathetic? I just don’t know. Living a fatherless life is hard. I can’t relate to those with wonderful fathers and I can’t relate to those with fathers who have died. Thankfully, there is an army of us – those with deadbeat dads who can’t help but feel like we lost out on something special with the fathers that were handed to us. We’re the ones who wake up on Father’s Day always a little melancholy, a little sad.

Father’s Day will always be hard, but every year, I get less and less sad about it. I choose to focus on the men in my life (such as my grandfather and my brother and my uncles) who have stepped up and shown me the true worth of a father. They are the ones to be celebrated and loved. They are the ones this holiday is all about.

To my father, I love you tremendously and not a day goes by where I’m not thinking of you. I hope, with all my heart, you understand why I had to find my way without you and I pray that one day we will both be able to have a relationship again and mend the hurt in our hearts.

Categories: Relationships

On a Special Bible

I was fifteen when my great-grandma passed away. I remember feeling sad, but not a crushing sense of despair. She was 82, living in a nursing home, and dealing with dementia. I felt more sad watching my grandma deal with losing her mother than the actual sense of losing my great-grandma.

I remember a few things about Nanny. I remember how her house used to smell – like spices. I remember the times when my mom and I would bring her a simple chocolate shake and hamburger from Steak N Shake and spend time with her when she was living alone after my Pop-Pop died. I remember the time Nanny called my brother and me “nuttier than fruitcakes” during one of our bickering moments. I remember visiting her at the nursing home, a football game always on the TV and her spitfire nature.

Bits and pieces – that’s all I remember.

A few months ago, my great-aunt gave me something that will keep my great-grandma alive in my memory forever. While we were never close, she was still my great-grandma, mother to the greatest woman I know, my own grandma, and she holds a special place in my heart.

This is Nanny’s Bible.

There are scribbles in every margin of this Bible with her words.

There are circled verses and underlined passages and exclamations to draw my attention.

There are notes, tucked between the tissue-thin paper. Notes that further delve into the Bible and give me insight into her world.

It’s an amazing gift. I hold an incredibly important part of my Nanny in my hands. I couldn’t have asked for a gift that means more to me than this.

It makes me miss her. This woman that I barely knew and didn’t try to get to know. I miss her.

It makes me realize how important relationships are – it’s so easy to get caught up in daily life, to let past offenses and hurt feelings drive a wedge between the people you care about – but relationships are important. Family is important. My grandma and my grandpa (affectionately called Pops) are not going to be around forever (though I swear my Pops will live until he’s 105!) and it’s important to spend as much time as I can with them now. Drink in their wisdom and their knowledge and their stories and their love now. Not when it’s too late. Not when I’ll only have my memories.

This Bible is a precious, precious gift and I am so glad I was the one who stepped up and asked to have it. I want to treat it right, use it well, and learn more about my Nanny through her notes and scribbles.

Have you ever been given a personal gift from a loved one that has passed away?

Categories: Relationships

Girl’s Best Friend

This weekend, Dutch turned 11 years old. In dog years, this means he’s now 60 years old. (Well, according the WebMD, which says small dogs age more slowly than larger dogs. So I’m going off their chart.)

For those that don’t know the story of how Dutch came to be mine, it’s a good one. In June of 2008, we had to put my first dog, Minnie, to sleep. She had lymphoma and watching her die wrecked me. It was a rainy Sunday, the day we decided her quality of life was so diminished that the humane thing to do was to put her down. To know how much she suffered during those last few weeks. To pick her sick, heavy body up and cuddle it close as I walked to the car. To listen to her ragged breathing against my chest on the short ride to the vet. To know this was the last car ride with my baby. To walk up to the front desk and let them know why we were there. To say those last few words. To know you’re not bringing her back home, she will never greet you at the door ever again. The death of a pet is painful and heartbreaking and filled with torment. Could I have done something differently to have prevented this? But as awful as those last weeks with Minnie were, the joy and happiness she brought to me for 11 years were worth it. It’s worth the heartbreak.

It took me a few months of grief before I was able to think about getting another dog. My mom and I trekked up to our local SPCA a few times. I wanted a small dog, preferably a dachshund or a Yorkie. The SPCA had plenty of large, mixed-breed dogs but with apartment restrictions as they can be, we had to keep to a dog under 20 lbs.

And then one day in late December of that same year, my mom texted me to ask how I felt about getting a 7-year-old dachshund. While I would have preferred a younger dog, I was ecstatic! A dachshund? Is this some kind of joke? Apparently, my grandma’s sister was looking for a good home for her beloved dog, Dutch. Dutch was getting in trouble for biting her grandchildren and she had decided to give him away. (As a side note, dachshunds aren’t the best dogs if you have kids and he has bitten my nephew once. But once we taught my nephew how to play with Dutch appropriately, we haven’t had any issues.)

In early January, my mom and I made the drive to Lakeland to pick up Dutch. I was nervous. For one, and this is me being completely honest here, I was worried he was going to be ugly. I mean, I’m a dog lover to my core but let’s face it: some dogs just aren’t cute! But my main worry was how we would connect. I had a strong connection with Minnie. She was mine. I was hers. Would I ever feel that same connection again?

It was love at first sight with Dutch. First of all, he was adorable with a sparkling personality. How could you not fall in love with this face?

We had an instant connection. I was wrapped around his finger in no time flat. I spent the whole drive home with him on my lap, rubbing his neck to keep him calm during the long drive. He was mine from the second I saw him. And I was totally his.

It’s been over 4 years since we brought him home and on Saturday, he turned eleven. It’s quite funny to tell people how old he is and see their reactions. He doesn’t act or look like a senior dog one bit! (Although he does have a few gray hairs sprouting on his head. We try not to talk about this.)

There is so much I love about this little guy. The way he snuggles with me at night. How excited he gets about his food. The way he perches on the top of the sofa, like he is the king of the apartment. His squeezable ears and the way he loves to put his paws on my face and go to town licking my face as if he’s staking his claim. How stubborn he is. Giving his sleepy, warm body a long hug in the morning and picking him up for cuddles and kisses when I get home every day. How competitive he is – if my mom and I take him on a walk and one of us goes in front of him, he runs to get ahead of us. The way he adores me. There is no love in the world quite like the love of a dog. It’s pure. Uninhibited. Devoted. Being fiercely loved the way Dutch loves me takes away any bad that’s in my life.

He makes everything about my life better.

And while I get into bouts of sadness thinking of the day I will have to say goodbye to him forever, I choose not to focus on that. That’s going to wreck me. It will be the worst day of my life but what’s the point in focusing on that? To prepare me? Nothing will prepare me for that. Instead, I choose to focus on what I have now. I choose to focus on him as he is today. He is my excited, adorable, funny little guy and I am a better person for having him in my life.

Happy birthday, Dutchy-boy. You are the best friend any girl could ever ask you. Smooches!

Categories: Relationships

On Singleness and Contentment

I disabled my OK Cupid account this weekend.

Not because I met someone, or had a terrible experience that caused me to want to stop online dating forever.

But rather because I am at this place of contentment in my life. In February 2011, I wrote a post about being single and how lonely I was. For most of my life, I’ve been single and for most of my life, I haven’t been okay with that status. I’ve been looking at couples, swooning over love stories, and generally wondering what was so wrong with me that I was still single. What wasn’t I doing that everyone else was? Was it my looks? My body? My personality?

And I’ve been told, time and time again that I have to make an effort. I have to try. I have to put myself out there more. I can’t just depend on God to send a guy my way with no effort on my part. Which I totally understand. I get that I can’t just expect to wake up one day and my future husband is going to knock on my door. God doesn’t work that way. He wants to lead us in our lives, but there also has to be forward motion on our parts.

It’s interesting the pressure we place on ourselves when it comes to finding our future partners. It becomes this all-encompassing need to have someone. If we’re not seeking out relationships, going on dates, getting our hearts broken… then what are we doing with our life? Isn’t this what this time in our lives is about? I’ve been feeling this pressure to gain more experience with dating and relationships. I have two relationships to my name, neither lasting more than a month, and so I’ve felt like I need to go out, date around, and find out what it’s like to be in a relationship. So I began to fully embrace online dating, spending more time on OK Cupid, fixing my profile, answering questions, messaging guys. And it was fun! The flirting and the messaging and the dates… I felt like I was finally doing what I needed to be doing. People wouldn’t think I was weird anymore! Hey, look, I’m going on a date! And another date! WOOOOOO!

But here’s what I figured out through all of this… I’m not sure I want to be in a relationship right now. And that’s weird, right? Who doesn’t want to be in a relationship, especially if they’ve been single for years? But there’s something about the single life that is calling to me right now. I’m in a place in my life where I’m finally calling the shots. I’m beginning to unravel the mystery of who I am and what I need to live a more fulfilled life. And right now? Right now, I am perfectly content and happy as a single girl. I like being on my own. I like not having to answer to anyone. I like not having to worry about impressing anyone. I’ve never actually been this content about being single as I am right now, knowing there isn’t anything wrong with me and I need this time to just be with me. Then the journey towards personal satisfaction often involves exploring various facets of our lives. This mindset has opened up a world of possibilities, allowing me to discover joys I never knew existed.

There’s also a part of me that knows, emotionally, I’m not ready to be in a relationship. I still have my own demons I need to figure out and this was apparent with the last guy I was seeing, where I wasn’t actually sure what I wanted from that relationship and I was zinging him with mixed signals left and right. There are issues I still need to work out with myself, mental battles being waged on a daily basis that I need to figure out, and it’s just not the right time for me.

Last month, I read “If You Have to Cry, Go Outside” by Kelly Cutrone and it’s a fascinating book. It’s really more “rah, rah, girl power” than I was expecting but not in a “sunshine and cupcakes” way… more in a you can have everything you want, but you have to work your ass off for it and not expect it to be handed to you way. She makes a quick point at the beginning of the book about how our parents want us to succeed and be happy in life, but mainly that happiness lies in a successful marriage.

“So many mothers say they want their daughters to be independent, but what they really hope is that they’ll find a well-compensated banker or lawyer and settle down between the ages of 25 and 28 in Greenwich, Darien, or That Town, U.S.A. to raise babies, do the grocery shopping, and work out in relative comfort for the rest of their lives. I know that because I employ their daughters. They raise us to think they want us to have careers, and they send us off to college, but even they don’t really believe women can be autonomous and take care of themselves.”

It’s an interesting concept, and I’m not saying all mothers are this way, but there is always this natural pressure mothers can place on their daughters to get married and settle down. And maybe they don’t even mean to or know what they’re doing, and I think it comes from a good place in their hearts – for their daughters to find love. But what if I never found love? What if I never “settled down”, got married, had babies, etc.? Would my life be any less successful? Admittedly, I do want all of the above. I want to find love. I want to find a man I want to spend the rest of my life with. I want to be a mother.

Someday.

Not today, not in the next year, maybe not even in the next five years. Love is not something that happens on a deadline. It’s not something that you prepare for. It just happens. And it will happen for me. I know it will. But I also know I will be okay if I never get married. There is such a negative connotation to being single and geez, how many movies, sitcoms, television shows, books, songs revolve around love and finding someone? It’s something that is always thrown in our faces, making us feel that that is what we need to be searching for, that needs to be our goal in life, that is what determines our happiness.

I threw myself into online dating because it was the only way I knew how to meet guys and start dating. And I did it more because of societal expectations than a real, true want. And that’s not to say online dating was a bad experience for me, because it wasn’t. It also wasn’t a good experience, as I never found someone I truly connected with for more than a date or two. I thought online dating would be a good avenue for me and it was. It showed me a lot about my dating style, helped me feel more comfortable around guys, and let me see what a catch I actually am. (And I am one. We all are.) It also helped me to see that I’m just not ready to take that next step yet. And that I am perfectly okay with being single and on my own. I am enjoying this time in my life a lot and I’m going through a time of intense learning and growth and right now, my focus has to remain on me. On building a life around my passions and hobbies, learning how much I am capable of, and leaning on Christ in the midst of the crazy.

I’m learning to be content, even happy, in being single. I’ve spent so much of my life in this behavior of looking ahead to the next best thing. The “when…then” syndrome. When I find love, then I will be happy. When I graduate from college, then I will have more control over my finances. When I lose weight, then I will have confidence in myself. There’s always that nudging fear that I’m failing at life. My job is just okay. I live paycheck to paycheck. And I’m not in love. But then there’s that theory of living in the moment. Appreciating each day I’m given and learning to love this season I am in. Taking this time to focus on me, honing my abilities and strengths, and growing as a woman.

That isn’t to say I’m turned off from love or that I’ve closed myself off from opportunities to date. I haven’t and I’m learning to understand what love is in completely different ways. I’ve just decided to take a break from searching for it and just let it happen organically if it does. To just be in this state of singleness. Stop worrying that something is wrong with me and getting upset with myself as single friend after single friend gets paired off. Nothing is wrong with me, it’s just not my time. I’m not going to date just to date. If I date, it’s going to be for the real thing: for love and romance and the whole shebang.

So this is me, at this moment. Single. Content. Growing.

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