Sometimes, misunderstandings are a really great thing (so long as we communicate with one another to discuss the situation), because, in resolving them, we suddenly have grown closer to one another than we were before the misunderstanding.
And I think that is for the better for all parties involved. 🙂
Post-a-day 2018
I had dinner with a friend last night, and we were talking about how we both still had to send in our rsvp for a friend’s upcoming wedding. We discussed briefly what we each would do for our own wedding invitations, and I made a comment about how crazy it would be in the first place, if she were to receive an invitation to my own wedding. ‘You, too, eh?’ was something like her response. A conversation ensued about my views for myself on marriage.
It has been a recent discovery for me – meaning just in the past year or so – that I cannot quite see myself ever being able to marry. To me, anyway, there is a sanctity to marriage that includes the line ‘no matter what’. I do my best to say what I mean and to mean what I say in life. And I do my best to correct what I have said, when I discover afterward that I have erred. I believe that I could not honestly say and mean that I would be willing to commit to remaining in and working for a relationship no matter what.
To put an extreme example to this, I have read Jane Eyre. (Have you?) For those who haven’t read it, but intend to read it, and don’t want anything given away, ignore these next two sentences, and pick up at the bold font. Essentially, Jane Eyre falls in love with the ward of the girl she is tutoring, and she wants to marry him, but then finds out that he can’t actually marry, because his mentally insane wife lives in his attic (or something very close to that). So, she leaves him and is in shame for having loved a married man, the crazy wife eventually burns down the mansion and dies (I think in the fire she sets on the house), and Jane and her love are reunited years and years later, when he is old and blind (or, again, something to that effect) and legally single again. Not that you needed so much detail, but it’s a ridiculous story, and there is no part I would be willing to play in it. ‘No matter what’ includes ‘your spouse has gone mentally insane and tries to kill you’. And I know that this is an extreme example, but it is merely an example. There are a multitude of situations in which I would not want to find myself, if I couldn’t let a relationship go. I know, too, that they are all incredibly unlikely. But they are possible, and I would be lying if I agreed to staying together and loving one another no matter what.
This isn’t to say, of course, that I would be unwilling to share my life with someone. I am definitely willing, should that someone come along. I just cannot honestly say that I could ever marry that person.
Now, that is my recent discovery – one that really surprised me, when I discovered it – about marriage and myself. As dinner was ready just as I finished explaining it to my friend last night, our conversation topic turned in the direction of food. And so, recalling today that we hadn’t ever gotten to the ‘you, too?’ comment that began my non-marriage-details reveal, I sent the friend a message about it. The following was exchanged between me and the friend, revealing her thoughts on her own possibility of marriage.
……………………..
H: Also, we never finished a certain conversation. I seem to recall that you had visions of yourself not ever getting married, but we never went into details on it
Friend: Definitely a conversation to be continued!
I think I’d like to find someone that I’d think about marrying. But my life is pretty great when I pull my head out of work and enjoy it! I don’t agree that there should be pressure to find someone to share your life with to make you complete. Also, I’m realistic about what it would take for me to get to that point with someone (a lot). I don’t trust new people that deeply very easily. And I don’t date a lot. But there ARE things I’d like to be better at fitting work around: horses, fitness, my dog, friend time, trips I want to take. So I’m focussing on that. If the guy thing happens, it happens. Sometimes I get a little down about it, but usually I just try to focus on all the good things and don’t worry to much about it 😁
H: Oh, my goodness.
Yes.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That’s perfection in words.
(Minus the missing o near the end)
……………………………..
And so, there you have two modern-day female views on marriage for themselves. I hadn’t considered the topic in quite the words she used, but similar ideas have definitely arisen for me. Yes, I want to share my life with another/others who are close to me. No, it ultimately does not have to be a spouse. I just don’t like living alone in the first place – I want loving people around me, supporting me and being supported by me in everyday life. I want to share the joys and successes and failures of my own life with someone, and vice versa. But it doesn’t have to be someone with whom I have romantic ties. That’s part of why I loved so much how my friend listed the things she loves and on which she wants to put more focus in her life. I believe that, when we do the things we want to do, and we go the places we want to go, we find the people we want in our lives. (I even said something almost exactly to that effect in a video I did for a class in college, talking about one of my study abroad semesters.) And so that is my goal in my daily life. Sure, I would love to find that someone perfect. But doing the things I love to do, and going where I love to go, and spending my life with people I love and who love me… that’s the most important goal for me in my daily life right now.
Post-a-day 2018
I’m not so fond of computer company policies right now, because the ‘easy update’ on my rather new (but not brand new) Apple computer hasn’t been going so well these past 12 hours of installation…
(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Sigh…
Post-a-day 2018
Have you ever truly put yourself out there, honestly and in the open, and then been rejected? I have, and in many situations and circumstances. However, as much as it hurts to receive that rejection – and, believe me, it really hurts, because that is the best of and the truest of me that is being rejected – it is always somewhat of a good thing. A really good thing, actually, because, you see, if that situation, or those people, or whatever, rejects who I truly am, rejects the inner and outer me, then I find it best that I not be around them – that is clearly not the place for me. And so, despite the pain, it is always relieving and good for me, because, as important as it is to find where I belong in this world, where I am nourished and where I nourish my surroundings in return, it is equally important not to be where I don’t have that. So, the pain is a good thing, after all.
I guess I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, though I hadn’t really noticed it until just now. I’m preparing for something, something I plan to have happen soon, and I can see that I am afraid of it, because of how people might respond to it, how they might reject me (or, as is incredibly likely, and already common for me, anyway, so I’m not sure why I’m even worried about this part in the first place, misunderstand me). But, just as I’ve shared here, I suppose it is actually a good thing. I need not put it off for fear – if I will be rejected for that piece of my self-expression, even if it is someone misunderstanding that piece of my self-expression, then perhaps it is best for me to have that happen sooner, rather than later, so that I can create the space to be surrounded by the people and the world that are good for me and for whom I am good. My waiting around for this serves no one, it seems, and my going ahead with it actually has potential benefits for many. Huh… wow.
Post-a-day 2018
Do you ever find yourself filled with this unexplainable feeling of joy and excitement regarding the general idea of what’s happening in your life, and then suddenly realize that the feeling isn’t actually about your own life, but about the character’s life from a movie or book that you were just watching or reading?
And then, at that realization, do you find yourself suddenly totally miserable, and already considering what movie or book would be a good remedy for your current state, while simultaneously wondering if that wouldn’t just put you back in the same position as you are right now?
Life is nuts, I tell you… or, at least, I am, anyway.
Post-a-day 2018
I’m spending tonight on a little pallet of pillows on the floor, and it is reminding me of that night I had in Japan, where we had all only just moved to Japan, and so, when I spent the night at a friend’s apartment, she had to make me a pallet out of her clothes, since there was nothing else to use for sleeping on the hard, wood-like floor.
We got creative and resourceful, and it was great.
😛
Post-a-day 2018
I’ve noticed that I have been having trouble getting myself to go to bed recently. I realized only just now that it is in large part due to my fear of roaches. I’ve been housesitting, and there have been at least ten roaches with which I’ve had to deal over the past week-ish (not to mention the surprise flea infestation). Talk about panic and paranoia taking over, I’ve been a sort of total mess this past week. When I opened the door to bring something out to my mom this evening, a roach came rushing inside, and I screamed and broke almost instantly into tears. I could barely speak, as I finished handing my mom the stuff, and headed back inside to deal with the bug. It’s just not my cup of tea, so to speak, managing such a thing. Quite frankly, I almost wish that I lived in a hermetically sealed box – at least then I would have clean air flow and no bugs, since it would be magical and all.
Sigh… now, that would be nice…
Anyway, my mom thinks that there is something that the world has been aiming to impart to me through this dreadful bag of events thrown at me this past week+. I am inclined to see it so, too, though I’m not too sure yet as to what is being imparted to me. Perhaps it has been something to the effect of being able to appreciate what I already have in life, or to show that even I can survive what I personally consider to be some of the most dreadful circumstances in life, and, therefore, I really can survive life as a whole (something which has genuinely concerned me at times). Perhaps it is to be a sort of starting block for me to want something more for myself, as I see more and more clearly what sorts of things are important to me in my everyday life. One thing is for sure: Living in town doesn’t matter much, if I don’t have friends and I don’t have activities in which I am involved. I’m still on my own all day long, and it sucks just about as much in town as it does in the suburbs.
Yeah…
Post-a-day 2018
A sure-fire way to know that you aren’t one of the gang/group?
Find out suddenly that one of them got married months ago, others attended and even were attendants in the wedding, and not only were you not invited, but, obviously, you didn’t even know about it.
Adulting isn’t always my favorite…
Post-a-day 2018
I started doing all of this activity in order to help my body be happy, healthy, holy…, but now my body really just hurts all over, almost all of the time.
Post-a-day 2018
Menstruation.
Apparently, it is a beautiful thing, because of its cycle’s potential to create new life. However, something’s potential is not the foundation of its quality or beauty. It is only the potential – nothing more, nothing less. So, while the process that involves menstruation could produce something beautiful, I argue that menstruation is not, in and of itself, a beautiful thing.
Quite frankly, I’m not a fan of it, almost at all, but I do think it is kind of miraculous that a person could lose so much blood, and so often, – and, for me, it is apparently even more blood loss than usual – without passing out on the pavement, ill beyond belief. It is somewhat miraculous that women do not end up in the hospital every month, due to blood loss from menstruation. Perhaps it is one of our magical powers as females. Yes, we can bleed blood, and be totally fine afterward. (I feel like I’m in Zoolander right now, with that mocking line.) 😛
Anyway, for some women it is totally a no biggie. For some, it is one of the most difficult times of life, when it shows up each month-ish. And, for others, it is somewhere in the vast expanse between the two. (For me personally, I am guaranteed to have very little sleep for two nights in a row, and to have an incredibly strict bathroom schedule for those two days, with the occasional extreme discomfort in the mid-region.) Whatever the case, it takes something extra, something special, something powerful for females to manage it all effectively, to get up and go, no matter what the body brings. So, show some acknowledgement of the nonsense with which females have to deal so often, and go do something nice for the females in your life. They deserve it.
Post-a-day 2018
hannah ananas 