I recently took a trip to Venice Beach, CA which turned out to be an unexpectedly introspective trip. So let me get the emotional crap out of the way first, in this two part bog post!
At times, I pride myself in my drive to make my dreams come true. As I mentioned in "First Pour... Last Love?" I have made plenty of excuses in life as to why I could never make it as an artist, but once I mustered up the motivation again, I never looked back. Life though, has a funny way of catching you off guard. If you don't take the time to stop and smell the roses at least once, as you fabulously zoom by on your moped wearing a green Gucci scarf, life will eventually make sure you crash into a field of dead thorny rose bushes. Only then, will you miss their beauty and presence in your life.
When it comes to relationships, I held high expectations, so they have been few and far between in my life. When in a relationship, I would run 20,000 scenarios in my head, in which I would ultimately get hurt in all of them (Shout out to my traumatic past! You Suck! lol). I would either self-sabotage the relationship or break it off, cut my ties, and carry on with that military thousand yard stare. I preferred to zoom through men faster than Fat Amy at a hot dog sale at Costco.
I guess relationships take work to make them look pretty on the outside, right? It's like when you are traveling somewhere new and you’re trying to decide on which hostel (budget traveler here) you're going to stay at. You spend a few hours reading reviews and finally pick the one you think is best. Then you walk into your room only to find a homophobic and manarexic French guy. Who clearly had an obsession for protein powders and cheap over the counter beauty products. God forbid you invite him to a gay bar! (Yah brah...not gay? ooooookay! lol)
As well as a chunky Italian guy with an extra large diet coke next to his pillow, sleeping under a blanket of dirty laundry. "Not so pretty anymore" I thought to myself as I realized I was going to have to just make the best of the situation and work through it. It doesn't matter how new, pretty, or shiny a hostel can advertise itself to be. If the patrons aren't going to put their share of work into keeping the rooms looking clean then you just found yourself in a 2-star crash pad praying you wont get any foot fungus.
I was texting my boyfriend that first evening, whom I had recently reconnected with, having fled DC's record shattering coldest week in 30 years. When the Italian bunkmate rolled over, and in a husky Russian librarian accent says "Turn phone noise off!" Which, I went ahead and did, he looked like he was still hung over from last year. Oh, and yes, you read that correctly, I am back in the relationship I left in "First pour....Last Love". I came to the realization that I wasn't some character on the silver screen that would fall in love and live happily ever after. I kept trying to imagine meeting someone else and falling in love, but every time I did, I only found myself missing Jason more and more. Who ever said love is easy and carefree must have married an anatomically correct sex doll. Love requires self worth, patience, humility, empathy, and compassion. Love requires you to dig deep into your past and reflect on how your up-bringing is being manifested in your present love life. Love will ask you to do the same for that special someone, because, ultimately, both of you are two separate points in time, converging into potentially one long and happy life.
There are two types of happy couples:
The First is the couple that you swear they just need to marry each other, like yesterday! So happy and loving, but from their perspective, it's just a front. And they can’t wait to get home and argue about who looked at who. We all know them and we all have learned to water down that fifth drink because no one wants to deal with Bert and Ernie titty slapping each other at the end of the night.
The Second is that happy couple, that is, in fact, happy. They understand that arguments will happen and boundaries will be crossed and that communication is key to eternal happiness. They know that being in love with someone means to nurture them as best you can and allow them to grow. Mistakes will happen and feelings will be hurt, but no one can grow from a seed sowed from perfection.
I had to humble myself and swallow my pride .... You know what they say, spitters are quitters!
