Every Girl & Her 3 Big Loves

There's this theory that every woman has three big loves of her life. This theory was largely perpetuated by one of my all time favorite shows, Sex and the City, wherein Charlotte inadvertently insults Carrie by saying every woman gets three. Carrie then takes it the wrong way when she realizes that that would mean she was done and at the time single.

I was reminded of that episode today. For some reason, perhaps it's the change of the seasons or all the change that's happening in my life right now, but today, two people closest to me where bringing up the big loves of my life. Note: This means I've had my big three (maybe three and a half).

And at almost 30, about to move in with my longterm boyfriend into the house we just bought, I am okay with that. However, it did get me thinking and it reminded me how each woman in my life had picked a different love for me to wind up with.

Christmas 2014.

There was my high school into college sweetheart who was my first everything. We drifted apart our senior year of college for a variety of reasons, but I think the big one was that he is very happy living a life in the town that he grew up in and I have always had my sights set on bigger things. That year, I had lived abroad for the first time and my wanderlust thirst was only beginning. We're still friends and talk on occasion. Most importantly, we're both happy too. My dad always thought that this love would be the one I married.

Then came the big one, my first relationship after my high school sweetheart. I was just out of college and trying to figure myself out. I hadn't found a job yet. He was four years older and the exact opposite of my ex-boyfriend. He knew how to woo a girl-- flowers, phone calls until all hours of the night, cute little things...it didn't take long for me to fall hard. And then, for it to all fall apart rather quickly. We were young. He still had a lot of jerky boy crap to go through and he had to live out his college days. It was devastating though and it hurt me for a long time. This love plunged me into moving around, taking big risks, dating really stupid guys and just not caring. Years later, we would try to be friends but somewhere in him saying something stupid to me on Facebook and then asking me for advice about a girl he was dating....it just didn't last long. Before it got to that point though, my mom thought that this was the love that I would marry.

Now here's the half. And no, no one thought I would marry this one. This was the broken guy, the emotionally unavailable guy that liked having me around, but God forbid he ever commit and seriously, how dare I even think about dating other men. Being with him was like a drug and it became a really bad addiction. The drama and the constant up and down with him was at times exhilarating especially when there were times where I felt like I "won." Won what, I am not sure, but at the time if something went my way or filled a want, then I had won and it made me want to keep going. When he did finally half-ass commit, it was short lived. I had a date set that I was going to dump him, he beat me to it though and for some reason that hurt more than anything else he had done. Later on, we tried the friendship thing. Also, short lived. I call this my half because looking back now, I think I was more addicted to the chase of it than I was in love with this person. He was pretty crappy to me...a lot...but it was really like a drug. One that I was happy to finally have kicked and after him? Well, I called every guy out on their bs the moment I found it in dating. No one thought this was the love I would marry, but this was the love that changed me and made me harder to get.

Which leads me to Phil, my last love. The kind of love that wrote me a poem on our third date, and came with me on my grand European backpacking tour, who brings me diet soda and rubs my feet (with lotion) and tucks me int bed at night. The kind of love that washes my hair and brings me flowers because it's Thursday and he wanted to. The kind of love that makes up the worst songs and sings them to me when we cuddle. The kind of love that I can see being the father of my children and growing old with him. The kind of love that lets me be myself, even if that means I make ASMR videos on school vacations just for fun. The kind of love that I know I'll marry. 

The Search for Mr. Fabulous: The Fairy Tale to Hold All Fairy Tales

My grandfather died twelve years ago today. His was the first death that really hit me probably because my grandfather was just the best. He would always hug me, play with me and make me feel loved - no matter what. He'd carry me around, call me sweet pea his raspy voice and laugh whenever the kids did something funny.

It was such a deep, happy laugh too. When I think about it now, I just think of comfort and consistency.

And that's just who he was. He was just such a man. He worked hard, he loved his family and was happiest when he was with us.

He also loved my grandmother to absolute pieces. He was about 9 years older than her. He was my age when they met and she was just a teenager, but to this day, she will tell you he is the only man she had ever loved.

My favorite story about my grandparents is that my grandfather had been engaged before he had met my grandmother and gone off to war, when he came home the woman was having a baby with some other guy! Can you believe that? So, my grandfather of course leaves her and sometime later meets and marries my grandmother.

Fast forward to a trip to Coney Island a couple years, after they're married. My grandma at this point is very pregnant with my aunt and she sees my grandfather talking to some girl. She walks over to them, probably as pissed off as my hormonal grandmother could have been and waits. Within seconds, my grandfather bursts into a smile, puts his arm around my grandmother and goes, "And THIS, this is my wife, Helen," oozing with all sorts of adoration and pride at showing her off to the very woman that had probably hurt him very deeply years before that.

That's the kind of man my grandfather was. When he loved, he loved for real and he protected and adored.

My grandmother tells me one other story about my grandfather that moved me to tears. At the time I thought it was because she was telling me this as a means to make me hold out for that kind of love following another relationship ending, but even now, I'm tearing up as I type this.

Twelve years ago when my grandfather was dying and his mind was rattled with dementia, he didn't really know us anymore and it was fleeting glimpses really. But there was one last conversation she had with him where he turned to her one day in the hospital, knowing that his end was in fact coming and said to her, "I'm scared."

Nodding, my grandmother seeks to comfort him. "I know."

"I'm scared for you," he tells her.

She stares at him.

"When I'm gone who will take care of you?"

Mustering up what I feel would need to be a huge amount of strength, my grandmother says to him, "It's okay, John. God will take care of me."

"Then I leave you in God's hands," he replies.

He died a few days later. Even in the end which I am sure is the scariest freaking thing that can ever happen to you, his thoughts were for my grandmother. Now, isn't that the fairy tale? To know that you were loved that much, for so long and even in your partner's final moments, his thoughts were solely of you for a bit.

Every year since then, I visit my grandmother because I can not imagine how horrible this day still must be for her. I couldn't get there this year and we had all but a five minute phone call, but I know she still appreciated that because sometimes you just need someone to care.

She listens to me cry over my breakups, well the big ones that actually bother me, and sometimes I wonder if she wants to slap me because the love she lost seems so much greater than the love that I've had in my life.

I still can't believe it's been 12 years already. It seems like yesterday but in the same time, another life time ago as well. 

The Search for Mr. Fabulous: A Generation of Women That "Wait"

Following my breakup which was really a year in the making, probably from the point that I had first met him, my girlfriends and family had all rallied around me. And I needed that. When I had been in that "relationship," I pretty much got alienated from my life and usually your boyfriend fills in those spots for the friends that don't want to stick around, don't like who you're with or who are just off doing their thing while you do yours, but mine never did. He stayed distant and separate all the time.

And my friends picked up on that and I tried to hide it because I didn't want my friends to not like him, but it's sort of a hard thing to hide when people ask you to do things at times that they expect you to you know, be with your boyfriend and you're only all too happy to accept. Or, you call them when you had plans with your boyfriend to then make plans with them because you got cancelled on again and well, sitting home stewing is just not time you want to waste.

I had become one of those women that waits - waits for it to get better, wait for them to get better, wait for them to realize...

During the first few months oh did I vent. I let it all out because I had been holding everything in for so long. I dwelled heavily on how he always treated me like an option not a priority and then when I got to the breakup part of my never ending band boy novel, I just unloaded about how nasty he became when I didn't want to do his "let's take a break, but still be BFF and it's all good."

No, thanks.

Then my friends I guess in a way to make me feel better over the saga that I had lived in, in the land of the gray band boy area for a year, would then tell me about someone they knew. Another friend or a friend of a friend or whatever.

"He sounds very immature, and seriously needs to grow up, but maybe that just means you're not meant to be together now, but one day when he's ready, you will be!"

Face. Palm. "Oh...you mean when he realizes?"

"No really, I have this friend and she dated this guy and he jerked her around for weeks, months, years, etc., but then one day he realized!"

"Oh so he made a commitment to her? They're planning to get married?"

"Well...no, but they're moving in together! And she's leaving her life, job, friends, etc. and she's just so happy."

Really? How is that any different? You're going to sell yourself out after however long he jerked you around to then have the pleasure of having his name on a lease with you? A lease. You are giving up everything...for a lease.

Since when did the lease become some big commitment? A lease is nothing. It's a piece of paper carrying bigger consequences for when he once again gets scared/decides it's not what he really wants/decides to play the jerk around game again. I don't get it. If you want a wife, make a commitment. This whole thing of my generation where it's you date for a period of time and then move in together before getting married is just stupid to me. You know if you want a life with someone and you figure that out pretty quickly, why do you need to play house as some "big step" towards an actual commitment? If you want to live with it, ya gotta put a ring on it.

And for what? Just to have your time waste when you could be out there single, enjoying your life your way and setting yourself up to meet the person that is not going to jerk you around or treat you any less than you deserve!

So ladies, you ready? STOP WAITING! Ditch that loser who does not realize the fabulousness that is you. And move on because the guy that will marry you, who will make a real, honest commitment to you is not the guy that strung you along for months, a year, years, etc. but will from the moment that meets you treat you with the respect and dignity that your feelings deserve.

My Hiatus

Five years ago I took a hiatus from dating and well from life as a whole. It was hard. I was hurt, lonely and I couldn't find a job for the life of me because the economy tanked. 

And for three years, I didn't date. I had very little to do with guys. I cared, but I didn't.

And then for the past two years with the job and graduate school all figured out, I dated all different kinds of guys and found myself single again. And today as I left work, my third French teaching job in a year, I felt very happy with it just being me again.

I get up, I go to work, I speak French and then I come home and watch Mad Men on netflix while I craft. I even stained my desk chair to match my new furniture. I've been reading all of the books I've had piling up and I am even nearly finished making the softest baby blanket in the history of the world.

The yarn was just so soft, I had to buy it even though there is no baby for this blanket, but seriously, this blanket just had to exist. And it will and will probably be given to one of my college friends that are all getting married and you know, having babies. Or, it will sit in my closest until that day where I need it.

It's weird, I blinked and suddenly everyone I went to school with has moved on with their lives. I have too, but I am officially the last one that's still waiting on that special guy to show up. That idea used to scare the crap out of me, being the last one. But it has happened and I'm happy.

I'm just doing me. This year was a big one, my first  "real" job, having a boyfriend for a hot second, buying a car, getting completely out of debt, paying back student loans - it was like hello, adulthood. And I did it. I did it all.

I have a banging art program all planned for the summer and a whole bunch of new adventures starting. It's a good feeling and I am enjoying my dating hiatus. Which has a totally undefined ending point. I think the next time I start dating someone will be far into the future and it will also have to be someone that wows me from the beginning. The next one, is going to be the right one and until then, I'm just going to teach, paint, knit, watch copious amounts of netflix and craft.

He's out there, he's just with all the wrong women right now and he's going to have to find me, I'm done looking for him.

Meeting Mr. Fabulous

Have you ever watched the movie Practical Magic with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman? It's one of my favorites. I absolutely love it. I love when Sandra Bullock's character creates her true love spell for the guy that she thinks doesn't exist. Only he does and he eventually finds her and well, a whole bunch of stuff happens and he eventually comes to love her. Total chick movie. And I can watch it over and over again without shame.

It got me thinking. Though, I am not longer a relationship blogger or web columnist and lack any real desire to blog about my experiences, I still do think about what it is going to be like when I go fall in love again and hopefully the next time will be with the right person. Which then today got me to thinking what I want the right person to be like.

In college, my room mate and I wrote out these long lists of what we thought we wanted in our true loves. I held onto it for years, but I think I have since thrown it away in the great ex boyfriend stuff purge of 2012.

On Easter, my uncle I think got me so mad for the first time ever in life. It's kind of hard to get mad at my uncle, but the last thing I wanted to talk about on Easter was my love life. And he went right for it and made a joke about how I should stop dating tall guys and find myself a nice short guy because maybe what I am attracted to and want isn't what is going to make me happy. I quite literally wanted to deck him over the Easter ham as he went on about women he knew that found guys different to what they thought and couldn't be happier. I promptly told him, then that's great for them, I'm glad settling suits them.

Conversation, over.

But that's the thing, my guy is tall. And he's darker featured and he has facial hair. Think Alcide from True Blood.

He's creative in his own way. He knows how to think outside the box and find different approaches to things. He's good at building and fixing things, he enjoys doing that.

He plays music, but in the way that he does not in anyway shape or form have some dead end dream about being a famous rocker boy. Instead, it's something that he does for the fun of it and the enjoyment rather than the unrealistic ideal that he'll one day be the next Van Halen.

He went to college. And maybe even graduate school. He's ambitious and driven to make a good life for himself where he can support himself and be comfortable.

He believes in God, but not in some nut-so fanatic way, but in the way that he truly knows that there is a higher power and that we do come from that.

He shares my sense of humor and can play it back with equally snappy sarcasm.

He's tender and kind. He can anticipate my needs. He's calmer than I am so when I get all wound up like I do, he knows how to handle it and not get all wound up with me.

He can talk to me about anything and I with him. And even with the hard stuff, it's really not hard because we can make jokes about it with ease.

We have fun just being together, even if we're doing nothing at all.

And he plays with my hair until I fall asleep and holds me while he does it, letting me drift off on his chest.

Most importantly, he believes in family and wants one of his own someday, one that includes me and the potential for children eventually.

And from the moment he meets me, he thinks enough of me to treat me with respect and make me a priority in his life. Spending time with me and getting to know everything that makes me well, me!

When he does spend time with me, he makes me feel protected and cared for. He does things like walking me to my door, opening car doors for me and walking me into a place. As independent as I am, I just love when a guy does that. It makes me feel good.

And he's out there, he just hasn't found his way to me just yet.