What the last year has taught me about marriage and love.

This question comes from Laura Michels. She is a fantastic actress newly returned to Grand Rapids and performed in the piece I wrote for the GRAM as well as ‘twelve scenes about loving’. She asks: “What has the last year taught you about marriage and love?”

I had to think about this for a while. I’m still not sure that things happen for a reason, though I do believe that we can get meaning from even the most horrible experiences. So what is the meaning of this year for me? What have I learned?  I learned to find my voice again. I’ve learned what marriage is not, what it shouldn’t be. I’ve learned that I still believe in love, but I’m still struggling with the fear that it might never happen for me, at least the good kind of love. The kind of love that is balanced and, well, kind.

In my marriage, I thought that to keep P. married to me, to keep the family happy, I had to give up on my self.  I mean that. I mean, I gave up on My Self. I gave up on things that made me happy as an individual. I thought being married was sacrificing everything in order to make your family happy. By doing that, I disappeared. I became mute. I was a living ghost. By leaving, I rediscovered that self and now know that though I am flawed, maybe even tragically, or at least melodramatically, I am, essentially human. I’ve learned that everyone is at some point a fuck up. And it’s these flaws that are endearing. Achilles without the flaw in his heel is just another God. With that flaw, he’s vulnerable. He has a heart. He can be loved.

I’ve learned that I have a big heart. I’ve learned that I now know what love is and how to recognize it. It isn’t giving up your self. It’s finding someone who loves and supports you not in spite of your flaws…but because of them.

I’ve learned that marriage should be a partnership. There should be passion, and fights, and times of quiet. There should be support. I’ve learned that a woman has value. She is more than a collection of roles like mother, wife, cook. She is a full person. A person to be treasured. I should have been in my marriage. I was not. I take partial blame because I allowed it to happen.

What I’m still learning is how to be kind to myself. To look at the wrinkles, the silly mistakes, the wonderful blunders I’ve made and to laugh. And there have been nights, alone, in my apartment, where I have turned up the music and I have danced. I have very little rhythm and my body rarely moves the way I want it to, but I have danced. A year ago, I was too afraid to do this.

So. What have I learned? What has this year taught me? That being alone is okay. Loving who I am is okay. Hoping to find a relationship built on trust and compassion and passion is possible. I just have to be a little more patient. I’m working on it. I really am.

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My Grumpy Gripes about Dating Inequality

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the inequality of dating. Yeah. That’s right. You heard me. INEQUALITY. And it’s not like I’m going to wave a flag or burn my bra (my boobs are too big to go carefree), I just mean there’s some gender differences in regards to dating that really piss me off.

Now, tell me if I’m right here or just being neurotic, BUT it seems like guys my age (late 30’s almost 40) are looking to date hot, beautiful twenty-somethings. Guys in their 50’s are looking to date women my age. So that pisses me off a bit. Not that I wouldn’t want an older guy, but I sort of want to share a life with someone who’s the same age as me, so that when I make pop culture references to The Brady Bunch or The Electric Company of the 70’s that we both get it and feel connected. So that’s my first gripe.

My second gripe is that I feel this intense pressure to be hot. And not like pre-menopausal hot, I mean, I feel like to date anyone at all, it doesn’t matter if I’m smart or interesting or quirky. On the online websites, it’s all about appearance. The question men think when they look lat my picture is: Does she look like hot enough that she could be one of the gaggle of women on The Bachelor? And I wonder: Is my hair long and straight, nose thin, boobs enhanced and firm, skin pulled, teeth whitened. Am I a Mom Someone Would Like to (ahem)? I am not. I’m short. My hair gets frizzy. I have a big jaw and a defined nose. Big boobs, but they’re all natural, and even my son says he can see my wrinkles. But I am also very bright, dare I say witty, and a mean cook. And I’m not kidding when I say I can cook. I really mean it. But these qualities, they don’t matter.

Here’s the cold, mean truth: I’m not hot enough to get the attention of professional, successful guys. I AM hot enough to get the attention of high school educated, salt of the earth guys.

Not that there’s anything wrong with them…it’s just…I’m not the girl for a man who smokes, hunts, and swears and works in a factory. That sounds horrible, I know, and I don’t mean it to, it’s just I need someone who’s educated and likes different food and travel and reading and music and art. I’m generalizing here, but I think you get what I mean.

It seems like guys don’t have the pressure to be hot if they’re successful and have a job: they have the power in the dating realm to choose whomever they want. And whomever they want happens to be girls named Sera or Denver or Amber and are 22. Girls who are tall and thin and well endowed. Girls that when the men think about them, it’s not their brains they’re dreaming of.

Selfishly, I want a guy I’m attracted to too. Not just mentally, but physically. I feel horrible for saying that, but it’s the truth. So maybe my griping about all these men my age looking for plastic women is really envy. Not that I want a plastic man, I just want a man that I feel electricity with, and I want that to be accepted. All the men who seem to be interested in me sort of look like my dad.

Then again, maybe that’s the reality of dating men in their 40’s and 50’s. They all start to look like your dad. A little disturbing to get hot and bothered over that.

Heartbreak & Law of...

Heartbreak and the Law of Attraction

Okay. It's embarrassing, but I think I'm going all New Age and finally watched "The Secret". It was recommended by my mom, my therapist, three girlfriends, some guy friends, and when a stranger approached me in D&W and said "Lady, you have some issues. Watch THE SECRET" I thought maybe the universe was trying to tell me something.                                                                                                                                      And what is it trying to tell me? Nothing I haven't heard before. I have a bit of trouble with relationships. Not just a failed marriage (though I'm still not convinced that's the right word for it) but I seem to only fall for men who aren't really available. Two big ones in my past: one in Grand Rapids (who became the subject of my book), one in New York, and one recently.

All three of these men I've been deeply attracted to or felt some kind of connection with. I'm not sure what they felt for me, though I'm fairly certain the feelings weren't exactly reciprocated. And that's the trouble. I choose men who don't really want to date me. Most recently, the man I've been sort of involved with told me from the start that he wasn't ready for a committed relationship. I was okay with that. I really thought I was at least. And then as time went on, I sort of started to give him my heart, and my focus, and my energy. Thursday night he let me know that he IS ready for a committed relationship...just not with me. The woman he's chosen is a woman he met before me. "If I'd met you earlier," he said "If I met you first..." Blah blah blah.                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I may sound blase, but believe me I am not. I feel crushed. Crumpled. To make it worse, today at the grocery store, I saw the woman he chose instead of me. She isn't necessarily a BETTER version of me: just an alternate one. She's more exotic looking than I am, maybe she's prettier, she has two kids too (both girls whereas I have a boy and a girl) and I heard her say to her daughters, "Let's get a movie we can watch at Mr's house." (I'm not putting his name in here.) Ah. So. There I am at Meijer with my two kids picking out playdough for a weekend alone, and there she is with her kids picking out a movie to watch with the man I thought I could love. Well. A whole lot of heartbreak there.

Why did this happen? The answer is: I Don't Know. I am thinking about the Law of Attraction. Do I attract in my life men who don't fully want me because it replays stuff from my childhood? That's a good possibility. But it's honestly not what I want. What I want is someone to share a passion and a life with, in small moments. And I want someone to want me, and for the timing to be right.

Maybe the trouble is that for years, I've believed I was cursed romantically. Things seem to support that...but I'm going to try and flip my thinking. I'm going to start believing that I'm blessed. If I step back and look at my life, I am blessed. And I may not be able to share the life I have with someone right now in the way I want, I trust that it will happen eventually. Until then, it's me and the kiddos, and playdough, and teaching, and performing, and my books. I've been neglecting my writing and it's calling to me again. Maybe there's a Secret or two in there that I need to discover too.

For anyone reading this, I wish you good cheer and happiness. We all deserve a little kindness, whether or not we're actively attracting it in our lives. Surely the universe is, ultimately, a place of love, and it's infinite enough that we should all have a little piece of love all to ourselves.