First Dates Are Hard

I don’t know about the rest of you out there, but I have discovered that first dates are hard. The way I see it you meet with someone that is a complete stranger to you for (dinner, drinks, lunch…etc.) and you try hard to learn as much about the other person to decide it if is worth either of your time to go on a second date. So both people are trying to be witty and interesting and fascinating just for the opportunity to go on a second date. Or rather for the opportunity to decide if there is a second date.

Last night I went on a first date with a really awesome guy. The conversation flowed with little effort, we both seemed to click, we had a dinner where the conversation alone lasted for 4 ½ hours (very cool). By the end of the date we had spent a total of 7 ½ hours together (practically a work day ;)). This was an experience I wouldn’t trade but at the same time, I have to wonder if I have somehow crossed a line in first date etiquette by prolonging the good feelings for too long? I mean with a first date like this one, what happens now and in what time frame? I feel confused by the rules of dating with regard to calling the person, emailing them or am I supposed to wait until he makes the first move? Since we agreed to a second date but didn’t set the specifics, does that mean we should only talk when we are arranging the second date or do we continue to communicate to get to know each other via email/phone?

I am used to my “couple” reactions and don’t know how to respond in this very “single” situations. If anyone has any input please let me know cause I really need help with this conundrum.

Back to Life, Back to Reality

I feel reborn, reenergized and mostly relieved. I have survived another year and am looking forward to 2006 with renewed energy.

My 2005 year in review:
-Moved twice
-Left my boyfriend of 6 ½ years
-Went back to Church and religious beliefs
-Got Promoted
-Went back to performing – Children performances but still a return
-Went back to School
-Went to Portugal
-Met, dated and was dumped by an Irishman
-Got a horrible bacterial infection
-Survived Disneyland during their 50th celebration and Christmas celebrations. (shudder) and more importantly enjoyed myself.
-Survived a 13 hour car trip through the fog and rain and wind with a 3 year old

Looking back on 2005 I will forever think of this year as a transition from the person I was and the person I am forever meant to be. I have taken more risks, grown as an individual and become a more confident self assured person. This is the first time I don’t have a concrete 5 year plan, but also the first time in my entire life that I don’t feel like I have to have one.
I am poised to handle anything that comes at me and look forward to welcoming the New Year with new friends, new loves, new experiences and a new plan.

So I toast 2005 with the finest bottle of Champagne and say a resounding Thank you for all that you have done for me. May 2006 reap the benefits of your hard work.

Everything Looks Perfect From Far Away!

So I am leaving today to head to Arizona for Christmas. I haven’t actually been home since July and so many things have changed in my life that I am unsure how it will feel to be back in my own stomping grounds. I am both eagerly anticipating and dreading this next week as I come face to face with the knowledge that for the first time in my life I don’t consider Arizona home any longer.

I have held onto my identity as a Tucsonan for the last two years and realized this week that the title just doesn’t fit any longer. I think it first struck me when I noticed that I was not looking forward to this trip the way I had in the past. This may be for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is I am entering into this Christmas single for the first time in 12 years (having a boyfriend from Tucson, helped keep me grounded in the idea that was my home). It could also be because I have no close friends left there any longer or the fact that I love living here. Or it could be because the idea of spending a stressful time with family members that I have limited to no contact with during the year is not my idea of fun or the fact that I’m dreaming of a White Christmas for the first time in my life (and the desert just doesn’t give me what I crave any longer).

For whichever reason, I’m fighting this year’s trip tooth and nail. I dragged my heels shopping, I grumbled every time I heard Christmas music, I delayed packing (and in fact still haven’t finished), I haven’t wrapped any present. This has been an ordeal made worse by my inability to just get it done.

I realize that once I get there I’ll slip back into the dutiful daughter, granddaughter, cousin, niece role that I play so well…but just for this moment I wish I could just let it all go and do what I want to do for the holidays.

Merry Christmas to All and to all a Good Weekend!

Tis the Season to Dwell...

So getting dumped is hard. Getting dumped by someone you believed was your soul mate is worse. I am so angry and really wish I wasn’t, because frankly I don’t like the person I become when I’m this hurt. It feels wrong somehow; like I’m a character in a play and I don’t know any of my lines. I have decided to embrace this grieving period as a chance to wallow in the sorrow of losing someone who was important to me. This is the first time in my entire life that I have had to cut someone out of my life completely and irrevocably (as a self-preservation tactic). I wrote my last post out of the pure anger at a situation that (simply put) sucks. Today I’m taking the time to close out the chapter in my life where I knew this person. I am methodologically removing his presence as a way to cope with the fact that I need to not think about him for a very very long time. It may be the ostrich approach and not a very mature one. But in the 27 years I’ve had on this planet I have always tried to be understanding & compassionate to what others are feeling and how they are doing. This weekend is just for me. I am going to be ruthlessly greedy and do and say things that I feel without mincing words. I am going to take this opportunity to exorcise his spirit from my life. By Monday, I will have finished writing down every thought and memory and moment that I had with him. I will take these pages that I am working on and I will seal them in an envelope to not be opened until I can think of him without this extreme level of sadness, betrayal and grief. Hopefully then I can look back on the few moments I had with him that were good.
The songs getting me through this period are:
I will survive – Cake’s version
Black – Pearl Jam
Crazy – Patsy Cline
The Dance – Garth Brooks
Ex-Girlfriend – No Doubt
I Can't Make You Love Me - Bonnie Raitt
Song for the Dumped - Ben Folds Five
Stronger – Brittney Spears
Tainted Love – Soft Cell
The Unforgettable Fire – U2
Don't Come Around Here No More – Tom Petty
You Oughta Know – Alanis Morissette

I know not a very rational list, but it’s helping :)

Top 7 things I want to do before I die:

7. Master 5 foreign languages fluently

6. Get my pilots license

5. Learn to Belly Dance

4. Learn to play Guitar

3. Write a novel

2. Live in Europe for at least 1 year

1. Get married and have children

Ever have one of these days:

I need your arms around me, I need to feel your touch
I need your understanding, I need your love so much
you tell me that you love me so, you tell me that you care
but when I need you baby, you're never there

on the phone long, long distance
always through such strong resistance
first you say you're too busyI wonder if you even miss me
never there
you're never there
you're never, ever, ever, ever there

a golden bird that flies away, a candle's fickle flame
to think I held you yesterday, your love was just a game
a golden bird that flies away, a candle's fickle flame
to think I held you yesterday, your love was just a game

you tell me that you love me so, you tell me that you care
but when I need you baby

take the time to get to know me if you want me why can't you just show me
we're always on this roller coaster
if you want me why can't you get closer?
never there
you're never there
you're never ever ever ever there

- Cake

Can Long Distance Relationships Work?

Relationships are defined as the connection between two or more people or groups and their involvement with each other, especially as regards how they behave and feel toward each other and communicate or cooperate.

If you live in another state or country from someone you are seeking a ROMANTIC relationship with, are you basically doomed to failure?

I have ended a long term, long distance relationship with a good man that I had grown to love as a friend and not a boyfriend. Of course one could argue that I was really ending the relationship when I opted to move to California and I left him in Arizona. But alas we lasted for almost 2 years after I moved, in this stasis of pretending that phone conversations were all that was needed in order to keep the romantic flame burning. The problem with that is you cannot snuggle up to words, you do not go to dinner with words and you cannot share a bottle of wine with words. Words do not hold your hand as you cross the street or tickle you until you scream. Words cannot kiss you or hold you or stroke your hair… they are just words.

In my situation, although I lived a short 12 hour car drive away (2.5 hour plane trip), we only saw each other 4 times a year. We subsisted off conversation alone and that is what made my once strong feelings of love turn to something much more innocent and platonic. If you had asked me (up until last night) why we failed I would have stated with absolute certainty that distance killed the relationship! This morning I believe it was something else.

To explain my change of heart I must disclose a bit of personal information: I have been seeing a new man for the last month that happens to live in Ireland. I feel very strongly for this man and have been a bit obsessive about trying not to plan for a future that seems uncertain but at the same time have desired this person in a way unparalleled to anything I have ever experienced before. I have since the very moment I met him been walking a fine line of absolute certainty that I could spend the rest of my life with him with the knowledge that if I am so certain of him now, I can afford to wait and give the relationship time to mature.

Last night while talking to him on the phone (entering into hour 4 of our conversation) I have a sudden epiphany: Distance is not what kills a relationship. Unwillingness to get over the distance is what kills a relationship! I know, I know this may seem simple to some but it was a bolt of lightening for me. I mean I was sitting there on the phone desperately wishing that I could be near him and I realized that just by the fervent desire I have to keep him physically close to me, I was in a way, overcoming the geographical separation. I mean the words he was sharing with me would in no way compare to being with him but at the same time because I was taking his words into my heart, they soothed my sadness of our separation.

His words gave me his history, his beliefs, his humor and his future. They also gave me the strength to understand that while we are in a long distance relationship now, this is a temporary situation. As he so wisely advised when I asked him a while ago how our story would end, “Well Jennifer, there are only two ways this relationship can end…either happily ever after, or we end up in gut wrenching agony and misery.” For some reason that very pragmatic analysis of a situation that has been out of my control comforted me and made me realize that this is the way all situations end.

So I guess if you had to ask me today if all long distance romantic relationships are doomed to failure, I would have to say not any more so than a relationship with someone who lives right next door. In the end it all comes down to intent and desire. You can make any situation work if you truly want to and the chance of success or failure lies in being honest with yourself and with your desire to make the situation manageable.

Top ten things to do in bed while sick

10. Count the number of fixtures on your ceiling (if your house is anything like mine that means counting the heater vent and the fire alarm over and over and over.)

9. Watching the family channels 25 days of Christmas and crying your way through 25 days of sappy overly sentimental nosh.

8. Catch up on all that important “Cosmo” reading.

7. Sitting in the bathtub pretending to be Jacque Cousteau on an exciting mission to see your loofah in its “natural” environment.

6. Watching Mad Money with Jim Cramer….something so uplifting about seeing a crazy man screaming.

5. Not working and not feeling guilty about not working.

4. Surf the internet, looking up lyrics to songs and checking your horoscope for a year in advance. Cause there is nothing more important than knowing that next July, I might have a low day, but will spring back by the weekend.

3. Wait for loved ones to call so you can guilt them with stories of all your little aches and pains.

2. Sleep in sweet drug induced sleep.

1. Thinking up asinine top ten lists to cover the fact that I don’t blog nearly enough!