Getting the Love You Want

My parents had a really rocky few where I wasn't at all sure they were going to stay married. It wasn't really fun for any of us. However, like most hard things we go through, there are usually some silver linings. One silver lining for me was that I didn't have any crazy romantic notions that married life would be happily ever after romantic bliss all of the time. I knew marriage could be difficult. I also knew it was possible to work through difficulties. I often wonder what I would have been like married without their example because by nature I like to run away from problems. Things get too hard, I quit and try something new. That's a consistent pattern in my life. Scary.

Anyway, it seems like about once a year, I start to notice we're getting into too much of a routine or forgetting to take enough time for each other or (mostly me) getting preoccupied with other things and I start looking for something to reignite the spark. I just read a really good book called, "Getting the Love You Want." I highly recommend it. I will warn you if you are sensitive about your parenting skills, or you're a perfectionist, the first third will make you want to throw the book out the window. But stick with it, it's life changing.

What I like most about this book, as opposed to other relationship books, is it doesn't try to fit everyone into predetermined categories. You fit here and your spouse fits here, do these five things and life will be good. Instead, it takes you both on a journey through a series of exercises to help you better understand each other and yourself so that you can figure out how to love each other most effectively. It also refuses to let you focus on yourself and what your spouse should be doing for you which is the fastest way to relationship death, in my opinion.

The other thing I like is the author is Christian. He goes off for a chapter bragging about himself as a preacher which is annoying, but ignore that. Doctrinally it fits with my beliefs and my personal experiences and that gives it even more validity. I have a hard time imagining a good relationship void of God.

Anyway, there you go. Fall in love all over again only better.

Puppy Love: My Story

Did you ever wonder how your early life experiences affect your later life experiences? I've been thinking a lot about how the people I love are affected by the experiences I had earlier in life.

To say I was boy crazy is putting it mildly. I never went through that phase where boys were gross. In fact, even though I come from a family of all girls (except, of course, my dad), my life has more or less been defined by the boys in it.

Preschool and Kindergarten were all about my best friend Matt. Our moms were best friends, we lived two doors away from each other and we have a picture of us kissing when we were three. When I came home from the store with a "Snoopy Snow Cone" machine, the first thing I did was call Matt and he came RUNNING over. Many of favorite childhood memories include Matt. I hope he's happy.

In first grade it was my noble goal to win a fight with every boy in my grade. And I almost did too. I was prevented from reaching my goal by one boy. His name was Brett Colter. I still remember him. I did not have a crush on him. He beat the snot out of me every recess. I did like a boy named Bryson though. I went to his birthday party and gave him a light saber. My mom and I didn't have a clue what to buy a little boy, but now that I have three little boys of my own who collectively possess 12 light sabers, I'd have to say we did pretty well.

I stopped fighting at my new school in second grade and learned to admire from afar. My first real crush was a boy named Aaron who was completely oblivious to the existence of girls.

In third grade I was madly in love with a boy named Chet who was madly in love with my friend Jill who was scared to death of him. Had I known what a theme this was to become in my life, I might have sworn off boys altogether at the ripe old age of 8. I guess it's a good thing we can't tell the future.

In fourth grade, I switched schools and found Tyler. Oh how I loved Tyler. We talked on the phone a few times. I rode my bike to his house with my friends and while we were there I got the only bloody nose I've ever had in my entire life. For no apparent reason, blood spontaneously started spewing from my nose in torrents. I wanted to melt into the pavement. After that, he decided he liked my friend Allison.

Then a boy named Brandon moved in not too far away. He was funny and cocky and while I wasn't in love with him, his bad boy attitude certainly made me look twice. He was the first one to start wearing his fold down converse high tops, rolled up half way up his leg. Soooo cool.

We walked to the Sports Complex together and played tennis. He loved the Vuarnet sunglasses my grandpa got me for Christmas. I think he wanted me to give them to him. I didn't. I wondered if he might ask me to "go with him." He didn't. Instead he asked me what I would say if he asked me to "go with him" and then he told me I had a big nose. That was a devastating moment for me and I never felt quite the same about myself afterward.

I guess the silver lining was I swore off bad boys forever. Aside from a good natured flirt here and there, I was done. And I'm sure that saved me a lot more heart ache in the long run.

Another new school in fifth grade introduced me to Jess. Dark hair, freckled, adorable little Jess. Fun, charming little Jess. He liked my friend Shannon. I settled for Nate who was shorter than I was (which is saying a lot since I was usually in the bottom two) and kissed the back of my neck during a video in class and gave me the creeps.

In sixth grade I went back to my old school and remembered why I loved Tyler. He was blond with blue eyes and freckles. Funny, athletic, and nice. Always so nice to me. All my day dreams had Tyler in the starring role. Unfortunately for me, he still loved Allison. So I settled for a boy named Matt who was cute enough and nice enough. We talked on the phone all summer, but he wasn't starring in any day dreams, so I broke up with him a few days before we started Junior High School.

And that's when the boy drama really started.

Buying My Loved One a One Way Ticket Somewhere Else

I know I'm not the only one who has moments when I fantasize about dropping one of my family members off at a train station with a one way ticket somewhere else.

I'm not am I?

I'll tell you, there is a certain age that TRIES my patience more than almost anything I've ever experienced. Yesterday, I tried something new. I didn't reason, I didn't threaten, I didn't do anything except hug this little person and say, "Do you know I love you, even when you're grouchy?"

He proceeded to contradict me, because that's what this one does best, "No you don't!"

I persisted, "Yes I do."

"No you don't"

"I love you all the time, even when you're crying and yelling at me."

He had to have the last word, because he also does that like a champion, "No you don't," but then you know what? He stopped crying, and yelling and hitting and kicking and he snuggled right up to me and didn't leave my side for the rest of the day.

Sometimes when we're hardest to love is when we really want it the most.

My New Game

So you may have noticed from my last entry that I've bounced from the swings to the slide in my head (this is referencing the fact that John refers to my mind as a playground). I think my interests have switched momentarily from the love to more the life or logic section (depending on how you look at it) part of my brain/blog.

I have this new game called looking for God. I guess it shouldn't be a new game, it should have been something I was doing all along. I keep looking back at all the hints and references and possibilities I've missed over the years just taking things at face value.

There is an age old philosophical debate that as far as I know continues about whether or not we really have free will. My dad started this debate with me when I was about 10. If God really knows everything, then aren't our actions predetermined? I contented myself at the time with God may know, but we don't and therefore our actions are still a choice to us whether or not God already knows them.

Here's another interesting quote I found yesterday in my statistics book of all places.

Chance behavior is unpredictable in the short run, but has a regular and predictable pattern in the long run. --David S. Moore in Statistics

Now I don't know what every theology in the world states, but I've recently discovered that the idea of us being eternal (living before earth life, during earth life, and after earth life) is not a new concept and that idea fits nicely with my own personal theology. So, if earth life is the short term and eternity both backwards and forwards is the long term, wouldn't it make sense that we think of ourselves as unpredictable (having free will), but God finds us very predictable (all knowing).

Just my random thought of the day. Perhaps it's not new, perhaps it's not right, but I think it's so fun to find concepts of God in places as random as statistics.

Search for Happiness

The poor man's son, whom heaven in its anger has visited with ambition, admires the condition of the rich. Through the whole of his life, he pursues the idea of a certain artificial and elegant repose, which he may never arrive at, for which he sacrifices a real tranquility that is at all times in his power, and which, if in the extremity of old age, he should at last attain to it, he will find to be in no respect preferable to that humble security and contentment which he had abandoned for it. Power and riches appear, then, to be what they are, enormous machines contrived to produce a few trifling conveniences to the body. They keep off the summer shower, not the winter storm, but leave him always as much and sometimes more exposed than before to anxiety, to fear and to sorrow, to diseases, to danger and to death.
--Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith

This was quoted on a public radio show I've been listening to in podcast form recently. It's called Speaking of Faith. I love it. It's brilliant, insightful, thought provoking and satisfying.

The show covers everything from economics and ethics to religion and violence all from the standpoint of faith and meaning. It's non-denominational and universal in scope. The creator talks with wise voices the world over. It's refreshing.

Money, Money, Money

When it comes to personal finance, I am not shall we say, a genius. If left to my own devices, I would spend every penny right now and let the future worry about itself :) I can budget and I can keep myself out of debt, but retirement...investments...bleh.

Obviously there would be a lot of benefit to me learning a little more about money and trying to educate myself a bit. I know this. I do. Unfortunately for me, I have zero interest in any kind of financial education. NONE. I look at the books and would rather do or think about just about anything else.

My husband, on the other hand, is what I would call a personal finance whiz kid. I asked him the other day what he would do for free just because he loves it and he said financial planning. He loves it. And he's good at it. He feels no need to spend money and never has. He buys what he needs and does all kinds of smart things with the rest. And yet, he loves reading the financial self help books. Just for fun.

So why is it that these books are written with people like me in mind, but it's people like him who actually read them?

Expectations and Adaptability

I keep telling people that my vision of the way my life as a wife and mom was going to be died a really hard death. The vision I had of having a family who sat down together every night for dinner at 6:00pm died the hardest death of all, in part because I didn't think it was an unrealistic expectation. I thought it was a perfectly reasonable desire and letting go of that was tough. The time leading up to my letting go was very painful for everyone who lived with me. It's not good to have a mom who is suddenly bitter and depressed every day at 6:00pm!

Since then I've been thinking a lot about unrealistic expectations verses worthy goals. It's good to have goals. It's good to strive and make something better of yourself or your life. It's not good to set unrealistic expectations for yourself (or for anyone else) and it's not good to set goals that depend on someone else's choices.

It's interesting to me where we find expectations inside ourselves that sometimes we didn't even know were there. Being healthy is a noble goal, but picking a picture off a magazine that has been doctored in 100+ different ways of someone with a body type or age different from ours as our image of what healthy looks like is an unrealistic expectation. Wanting a healthy love life is a good goal, but picking a pornographic movie as our image of what a healthy love life looks like is an unrealistic expectation. Wanting to provide my family opportunities to develop good relationships with each other is a good goal, but picking 6:00 every night as my picture of when those relationships should develop is an unrealistic expectation for me. While it may be realistic for someone else, with my husband's career it is not for us.

Adaptability is a trait I am learning to value. We all run into situations from time to time where we learn that reality is different from what we expected and it seems to me that being able to recognize and adapt our unrealistic expectations into worthy goals will take us a long way down the path toward happiness.