Sad News

It was 6:15 in the morning when my phone rang.  "Hey dad," I said.  "Beck, I have some sad news," he replied.  But I already knew.  Your father doesn't call you at 6:15 in the morning on a Wednesday to tell you that he's got a clipping for you from the Wall Street Journal or to ask if you're interested in going to lunch.  And just the night before, my mother had called to give an update.  They would be calling hospice; there was nothing left for the doctors to do.  It's fitting, really, that she would make her exit before that piece was finalized.  It would be like Gran to say, "Oh, there's no need for you to go to all that trouble.  I'm fine."

And she is now.  Fine, that is.  After nearly two years apart from my grandfather, her husband of sixty-six years, she's probably as happy as she'll ever be: by his side, watching the people she loves from above.

I cried less this morning than I thought I would.  Perhaps because I wasn't surrounded by family, who would only remind me of how much I already missed her.  Perhaps because I'd already begun grieving the night before, clutching the unsuspecting cat to my chest as I sat on the floor and wept.  My hero, the woman I aspire to be, would soon be gone, and the world would never be the same without her.

Because she was an incredible woman.  Truly the kindest, most genuine, sincerest, and most loving person you had ever met.  She was service-minded.  She was strong and independent and determined.  She never said a bad thing about a single person.  She never raised her voice.  She loved deeply, and she spoke rarely.

Up until recently, I didn't know a lot about her beyond what I saw each time we visited, and knowing that she was getting older, I made an effort to talk to her more and more.  Last Easter, I sat beside her one-on-one as we ate lunch in the side room, and after a basic exchange about my life and hers, I went for it and asked, "So, Gran...do you have any good stories from your childhood?"  To which she smiled and responded politely, "No, not really."

She never liked to call attention to herself, no matter what was happening.  She went through chemo multiple times, but you'd never know it.  When she broke her hip and we visited her in the hospital, I had just sprained my ankle, and she kept saying that I should be the one getting checked out, not her.  Her memory wasn't great at that point, but I truly believe that even on her best mental day, she would've found some way to make someone else's small thing bigger than her big one.  She had a way of making everyone feel important, of making everyone feel welcome.  She wasn't a big hugger, and she didn't say "I love you" often, but there was never a question.  She loved you.  She loved you immensely.  She thought of you always.

I spent most of my day today distracted, and I was grateful for it.  The ten year olds and their mountainous molehills kept me busy at work, but it was harder at home.  I went running after school, and I cried intermittently along the way, thinking about how much much I would miss her laughter, her sweetness, her occasional and unexpected quips.  About the times she showed her mischievous side, like at Christmas when she fed a dog crab bisque on the sly and kept quiet when he was scolded for begging.  About the times she made me feel special, like one Thanksgiving when she pulled me into her bedroom and gave me a ring that her mother, a Margery like the both of us, had given to her.  About the way she would always ask how you were and offer you food and something to drink.  About the fact that I had received a birthday card in the mail from her today, just an hour before, and how much I wanted to call and thank her.  About the fact that I couldn't visit her anymore, and that I probably wouldn't see her house many more times even though it was my favorite place in the world.  About the fact that my phone would remind me again next week to write her a letter, as it did every week, and she wouldn't be home to receive it.


Tonight, my parents, sister, brother, and I met at Panera for an impromptu dinner out as a family.  Someone had asked me at work today how my father was faring, and I thought about it as I watched him order a single cup of soup and sit quietly along the edge of the table as we conversed.  We avoided the subject mostly, opting instead to talk about the way my sister used to resent my brother's existence as usurper of her role as baby, about the time my brother ran open-mouthed into an azalea bush and the other time he fell through a seat-less chair, about the different ways each of us tattled as kids, about the good and/or humorous-in-retrospect things we'd experienced.  By the end of dinner, a long one by our standards, even dad had joined in, dropping terrible puns and laughing at all the ridiculous things said.  It wasn't anything special--just a dinner at a more-expensive fast food place--but it seemed like an appropriate way to honor Gran.  She would've loved to have been there, sitting back and laughing along with us.  And maybe she was, in spirit.  Maybe she'll always be.  Laughing like she always did.  Loving like she always did.


Below is a copy of her obituary, which will likely teach you just as much about her as I learned upon reading it.  Of course, I've always known the only thing that every really mattered: she loved and was loved, and we would not forget it.

Rest in peace, Gran. We miss you already.

Margery Ogden Johnson "Tyke" Olinde

Tyke, a longtime resident of Baton Rouge, LA, passed away peacefully at her home on Wednesday, January 4, 2017, at age 88. Born in New Orleans on July 11, 1928, she was a graduate of University High, class president and active in numerous civic and scholastic clubs. In 1948, she graduated from LSU where she was President of her Sorority, President of Alpha Lambda Delta Honorary Sorority, a member of the Student Council and Mortar Board. She worked briefly as a social worker before turning her attention to raising her family and volunteer work. She was a founder and Board Member of the Greater Baton Rouge Area Food Bank, where she received the Legion of Merit Award, member of LSU Foundation, Elder and Deacon in University Presbyterian Church, President of Church Women United, member of Junior League, PEO, The Literary Club, volunteer of "Reading Friends" in schools, driver for FISH, recipient of "Giving Back Something" Award, Excalibur Award of Outstanding Activing, Volunteer Activist Award, and the University High Hall of Fame. She exemplified grace and was always a kind, caring and loving soul, evidenced by her many volunteer activities. She was preceded in death by her beloved husband of 66 years, Joseph Beauregard "JB" Olinde and her parents Andrew Robinson "AR" Johnson, Jr., and Margery Ogden Johnson and her brother Andrew Robinson Johnson, III. She is survived by her seven children – Elsie Marie Olinde Bleich and husband Joseph, of Ruston, LA, Joseph Beauregard Olinde, Jr. and wife Cheryl of Baton Rouge, LA, Dr. Andrew Johnson Olinde and wife Tereasa, of Baton Rouge, LA, Thomas Humphrey Olinde and wife Cheryl, of Baton Rouge, LA, John Francis Olinde and wife Nancy, of New Orleans, LA, Elizabeth Olinde Coleman and husband Robert of Fairhope, AL, and Margery Katherine Olinde Belcher of Baton Rouge, LA. She has 21 grandchildren and 24 great grandchildren. She is survived by her sisters, Sally Sunshine Johnson Terry and husband William, and Francis Johnson Gillison and husband William. Pallbearers will be Benjamin Bleich, Emily Olinde Boudreaux, Andrew Olinde, Olivia Olinde, Elizabeth Olinde, Christopher Olinde and Ashley Belcher. The family would like to thank caregivers, Dr. Burke "Jay" Brooks, and Tonya Ghoram and team. Visitation at University Presbyterian Church, 3240 Dalrymple Dr., Baton Rouge, Saturday, January 7, 2017, from 9:00 am until religious services at 11 am followed by a graveside service at Roselawn Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to University Presbyterian Church, The Greater Baton Rouge Food Area Bank, The Lauren Savoy Olinde Foundation (LSO), or a charity of your choice .

#Blessed

When I walked out of the church on Christmas Eve, I already knew he wouldn't be there.  I guess I knew that morning when I sent a text message asking if we were still on for that afternoon.  I guess I knew two weeks before when I broke up with him the second time, and weeks before that, too.  I don't know why I even thought he'd come around.


We'd barely spoken since the most recent break up - only a couple of text messages about things like birthdays.  But then he'd won a free car detailing that I'd entered him in weeks before, and he thanked me, and I said you're welcome, and somehow a quick text exchange turned into a long, deep digital conversation.
He thought about me frequently and missed me. I meant so much to him.
He meant so much to me.
He felt like he was taking steps to get where he needed to be.
I was willing to endure us being apart now, if it meant we could be a stable couple later.
I wondered if he wanted to come to Christmas Eve mass at my church and then catch up over coffee afterwards.
He did want to come.  He thought he needed it.  He was hoping and planning to be there.  He wouldn't need to set a reminder in his phone; he would remember.  He was excited to see me.
I was excited to see him.


Fast forward to sitting in my car after mass, vacillating between tears and anger, as a fully-wrapped present for him sat in the trunk and a short text exchange from that day sat in my phone.
Were we still on for that afternoon?
No reply.
I would take his non-response as a no, and Merry Christmas.
His non-response didn't mean no.  But if he didn't end up coming, a merry Christmas to me, too.
That wasn't fair. I needed a decision. I needed to know what I would be doing in four hours.
He couldn't guarantee anything. If he made it, he would only say hello and merry Christmas.  Assume he couldn't make it.

I had let myself hope, as I had so many times before, but this time, I was done.  Fool me once, shame on me.  Fool me twice, shame on you.  Fool me three times, what the f* is wrong with you?  And what the f* is wrong with me?  How do I keep falling for this?

I left the church on Christmas Eve and drove straight to my parents' house.  I had told them that I would drive up to Baton Rouge later with my sister, and while I called to say not to leave without me, I half-hoped they already had.  I just wanted a couple of hours to lay on the couch, under the weighted blanket I'd bought for him, and let my anger melt into calm.  But then I walked into the living room, and there was my mom, checking her phone.

"Oh hello, beautiful," she said. "I thought you weren't coming until later."

"Yeah, my friend wasn't able to make it, after all."

"That's too bad.  I'm sorry it didn't work out."

"Did you get my message?"

"I was just about to listen to it."

"I was trying to see if I could ride up with you now, since I don't have to wait until later anymore."

An hour later, we all drove up together.  We had dinner with cousins and aunts and uncles.  We spent the night together at my grandmother's.  We ate pancakes and opened presents in the morning.  We had lunch in two different places.  We drove back in the late afternoon, sharing stories and singing along to the radio, before sitting in front of a Christmas Carol at my parents' house, tasting wines and playing a board game.  At 9pm, I said goodnight and merry Christmas and drove home.

There, I threw away the wrapping on his present, plugged in my long-dead phone, and laid under the weighted blanket.  Which it turns out wasn't all that comforting, since I don't have insomnia or crippling anxiety or undue amounts of stress in my life.  In truth, I actually felt pretty good despite the events of the day before.  Lonely, and a little sad, but good.  Because I am innumerably blessed.  I have a strong and supportive family that goes out of their way to make me feel loved and to show me that they're thinking of me.  I have friends who drop off candy on my doorstep because they know it'll make me happy, and friends who come on trips with me last-minute because boyfriends bail, and friends who venture out into the cold and rain because they want to buy me a drink on my birthday.  Friends and family, they all treat me even better than I deserve to be treated.  And this Christmas, as we celebrate once more the birth of Love incarnate, I can't think of a better gift than the reminder of what I suppose I knew all along: I am loved.


As for him, well, I wish him the best in life.  I hope things change for him and that he finally finds a way to be happy.  I hope he takes the steps he needs to in order to get himself straightened out.  I also hope the car that was stolen from his driveway a few hours after he stood me up resurfaces in good condition, but honestly, I don't really care.  I only wish I'd signed up someone else for that free car detailing.



[If you know someone that weighs at least 150 lbs and would benefit from a weighted blanket, shoot me a message.  I would love to give it to someone who would use it and appreciate it.]

Holiday Favorites

Everyone has their vices.  Some smoke.  Some drink.  Some read fan fiction or romance novels, while others overeat or oversleep.  I watch made-for-TV holiday movies with highly predictable plot lines, terrible acting, and even worse writing.

To each their own.

So, as I waste my vacation away in front of the television, accidentally staining my couch with chocolate and talking to my cat, I thought I would share with you just a few reviews of the movies that make this time of year so great.


A Dogwalker's Christmas Tale

Storyline: An unemployed and shallow college student who never goes to classes or does any kind of work whatsoever gets dumped by a guy she barely knows but for whom she maxed out her (parents') credit card to buy a Christmas present that she oddly cannot return.  Broke and at best put-out, she returns to her parents' very large home for the holidays to find that they have abandoned her for volunteer work in Africa.  Driven by her materialistic urges, she agrees to take care of a neighbor's dog for a week or two for something like a thousand dollars in sum.  She meets a handsome but dyslexic vet-to-be in a dog park, and pretty soon, she's falling in love and fighting to save the park from becoming the day spa she's always wanted.

Moral(s):
When you give your child too much money, you're basically ruining their lives.
Dog walking is still looked down upon, even when you make bank.
(Also, in an incredibly forced turn of events:) Women can be high-level executives, too.

Netflix rating: 2.5/5 stars
IMDB rating: 5.6/10 stars
Rotten Tomatoes rating: Does not merit critic viewing, 33% viewers liked it
Rebekah rating: Great eyebrows on male lead 🔥

Holiday Bingo rating:

Christmas in the Smokies

Storyline: A hard-working, beautiful woman in rural Tennessee faces massive, crisis-level debt that she somehow didn't realize was a problem until now.  With a grinchy old man threatening to buy her family's rural farm out from under them to build a viable but tourist-related business, it'll take everything she's got to keep her farm and preserve the town the way it's always been.  Sixty-thousand dollars in debt and less than three weeks to foreclosure, she begrudgingly turns to the high school sweetheart turned famous country singer that abandoned her long ago but is now back in town.  Amazingly, they're able to save the farm and their love.

Moral(s):
Rural America does not like change.
Americans have serious debt problems.
You can't leave people out in the cold no matter how much money they have or what they've done to you.

Netflix rating: 3.6/5 stars
IMDB rating: 6.8/10 stars
Rotten Tomatoes rating: Does not merit critic viewing, 22% viewers liked it
Rebekah rating: Great smile on male lead 🔥🔥

Holiday Bingo rating:

The Spirit of Christmas

Storyline: A career-driven woman who doesn't believe in ghosts stays at a purportedly haunted inn over the holidays in order to sell it and get a promotion.  There, an incredibly handsome hipster ghost who was murdered a hundred years ago tries to get her to leave until they join forces to find out why he died and help him pass on.  They figure it out, fall in love, and sell the house all in a matter of two weeks.

Moral(s):
Don't trust people who do illegal things, unless they're really handsome.  Then they're probably okay.
Moody, hundred year old ghosts can cure you of your inability to love.


Netflix rating: 4/5 stars
IMDB rating: 6.6/10 stars
Rotten Tomatoes rating: Does not merit critic viewing, 60% viewers liked it
Rebekah rating: Nice everything on male lead. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Holiday Bingo rating:

My Santa

Storyline: Santa's son Chris only has a short period of time to find a wife before he loses the opportunity to take over the family business.  Jen, a single mom who was abandoned seven years ago by her (surprisingly unattractive) husband, has a hard time reconciling her baggage with her young son's love of Christmas.  Feeling lonely, she dates two men at once: the cute but casual new guy at work and the doting but kind of stalkerish boy-next-door Chris.  As she decides between two, Chris finds that his Santa powers grow as his love for Jen does - she's surely the one!  He tells her who he really is, and she freaks out (normal) before running to the other guy who she wasn't really seeing anymore and asks if he's ready for a serious relationship with her and her son (not normal).  He's not into it, so then she's all alone, but because her son cries, she has a change of heart, and Chris, Jen, and kid all live happily ever after at the North Pole.

Moral(s):
Somewhere in America, you too can be a journalist at a dying newspaper with a kid and no second income and have a ridiculously nice house with decorative plates, two ovens, and a brick backsplash.
Jerry Gergich is too good for this movie.

Netflix rating: 2.8/5 stars
IMDB rating: 6.0/10 stars
Rotten Tomatoes rating: Does not merit critic viewing, 60% viewers liked it (who are these people?)
Rebekah rating: Kind of painful to watch, but Matthew Lawrence has still got it. 🔥

Holiday Bingo rating: So close

(All these movies can be found on Netflix!  Shout out to the Ruf family for sharing this amazing Holiday Bingo card, which I displayed here without express permission...I hope they're not mad.)

Ten Days

On September 11th, 2001, our writing teachers hid the television from us and placed paper in front of us.  Poetry, they said, has a special place in tragedy.  I never quite gathered why, but it seems to me that sadness is easier to swallow in smaller pieces, easier to process when lines break the way our voices do, the way our hearts do, the way dawns do every day after.

These last ten days or so haven't been the best--physically, romantically, or politically--and while they in no way compare to the events of that day fifteen years ago, the feelings aren't all that different: fear, sadness, uncertainty, and a hope that there's hope.


Misgiving

He'd said he wasn't sure,
And I'd shivered on the porch, grasped at his words, told myself:
Tomorrow, I'll feel stronger.

Last Thursday, he came, we talked, he went,
And Friday, I asked why he wasn't content.
He'd said he wasn't sure.

Last Saturday, I cried as my ankle rolled,
And Sunday, he'd laughed, and I saw gold.
But tomorrow, I'll feel stronger.

Monday, I considered and shared all my thoughts,
And Tuesday, rain fell, and pundits took their shots.
He'd said he wasn't sure.

Wednesday, I awoke to a fever of fear,
And Thursday, I nearly forgot because he'd called me dear,
But tomorrow, I'll feel stronger.

Friday, I weighed my heart, choosing--
On Saturday--a path that felt less like losing.
He'd said he wasn't sure.
But one day, I hope, he'll feel stronger.

I Can Do Anything You Can Do Better

Ah, the competitive spirit.  It's what brought dogs to space and men to the moon and simultaneously threatened Americans with potential nuclear fallout for decades on end.

Much like sword-fighting of old, competition seems to come with a double edge.  On the one hand, it can give one's rear a good, swift kick in the right direction.  On the other hand, it tends toward dysfunction on too many occasions.  It doesn't take much to have too much.

Take, for instance, our friends, the Russian government.  Okay, so they're not really our friends, and they probably never were.  We only joined up with them during the second world war because, well, it was a world war, and we needed them to win.  And it worked well for us until they took over Eastern Europe and pointed nukes at us from Cuba and, you know, not great things like that.  Eventually, the wall fell and the Soviet Union dissolved, and there was a period of time under Boris Yeltsin where Russia and America didn't hate each other, and young Americans such as myself didn't associate Russia with bomb shelters and spies and bad people.  But then Putin showed up, and much in the way of fashion, "retro" is back in, and Russia and America hate each other once more.

What will be the unintended benefit this time around?  Unexpected strides in cybersecurity?  Explosive growth in alternative energy?  Russia pays for a wall all the way around the United States, and Mexico is off the hook?


Thursday night, as I sat at my parents' dining room table (unbeknownst to me, breathing in germs that would later lay me up for 36 hours), my cough-weary mother recounted a conversation she'd just had with my aunt last week about learning styles.  They'd been discussing my cousin's schoolwork and homework habits, and in so doing, she'd shared my siblings' learning quirks: one of us would read incessantly and was able to teach himself things well, another learned through song and dance and stories, another would only read if she could do so in a tree she'd climbed, and so on.

"I told your Aunt Liz, you became good at so many things because you were so competitive.  The minute someone else learned how to do something, you wanted to be good at it, too."

She's totally right.  I stuck with piano for as long as I did because I wanted to be the best musician in the family.  I started singing because my sister did.  As much as I used to dislike reading, I read one thousand pages in one month in fifth grade because we had to set a reading goal and MINE WAS GOING TO BE THE BEST.

Of my immediate family, I probably had the highest GPA in high school and the best SAT score (though not by much).  If it weren't for NOCCA (my creative writing program) and its subjective grading system's disqualifying impact, I might have been part of the Top 10 in my regular high school class (then again, freshman geometry might've kept me out first).

Of course, of my family, I probably hated high school the most and had the least amount of fun.  I used to wake up, spend nine hours at school, spend five hours doing homework, watch an hour of "Whose Line is it, Anyway?" (so I didn't spontaneously combust from the stress), sleep for seven hours, and then start all over again.  Give or take some time sobbing into my mother's shoulder.

Sometimes, being the best sucks the worst.

In the years since high school, my competitiveness has tempered.  In college, I let myself go a little, and I learned what a social life was, and by the time graduation rolled around, I was a bonefied 3.89 GPA slacker.  (So, I'm slow to change--sue me.)  Once I got past my first year of teaching, though, I'd unwound considerably.  My goal was no longer to be the best at just school or work, it was to be good at living well, too.

Then again, competition dies hard.  It's led me to learn and know a lot of stuff, and in so doing, to become somewhat neurotic about "truth."  And that makes things sticky in a world where clear cut truth is hard to find.  Honestly, being a massive goofball is probably my saving grace as a human being.  Were I not like those adorable puppies that trip over their own ears, people might realize how obnoxious and unflattering it is that I pee all over the floor and chew your shoes.  Do I know the year that the Berlin Wall fell?  Yes (it's 1989).  If someone else gives an incorrect date, do I have to correct them?  Probably not (but it will eat me up inside until I tell someone else about it later).

In trying to offset my own inflexible and sometimes judgmental behavior, I can swing too far in the opposite direction, opting for indifference or aimlessness over the hard line.  But there must be another way.  It must be possible to believe something to be the truth, and be open to the idea that there's another side to the matter.  It must be possible to be only okay (or really quite bad) at something and want to be better without needing to be the best.  It must be possible to care just the right amount: enough to cherish old knowledge, enough to seek new perspectives.  And if it is, I want to be the best damn knowledge-cherisher, perspective-seeker there is.  Challenge accepted.

FUUUUUDS

My first FUDS was two and a half years ago.  I'd heard for months on end about this incredible weekend in Florida--volleyball, beaches, parties, and friends--and when the time came, it was exactly how I'd imagined it.  Better, even.  I danced my heart out.  I drank on the beach.  I made out with somebody on the dance floor.  And I didn't stress about any of it.  Not the total amount of alcohol I consumed.  Not how I looked in my bathing suit.  Not what that kiss meant or where it was going or how I should act the next day.  I didn't care.  She didn't care, this Vacation Rebekah.

Vacation Rebekah is amazing.  She's super chill and fun and low-stress.  She doesn't overthink everything.  She revels in taking risks and being a little out of the box.  She's like Everyday Rebekah after a good spit shine.

This past FUDS, Vacation Rebekah had a blast.  She got in Thursday night around 10 and proceeded to drink two glasses of red wine and eat a rich chocolate ice cream bar all before bed.  She spent the next day lounging around.  She spent the night hanging out with friends and dancing and laughing.  She spent the next day playing volleyball and hanging out with her team, an incredible trio of people who were both supportive and challenged her to play better.  She spent the next night dancing and talking with friends, calling it a night early and being happy to do so.  She finished out the weekend with a great day of volleyball, a tough loss in the semis, a hilarious night of friends acting/dancing out songs over dinner, and an easy morning and and easy drive home.

But coming down from FUDS is as hard as the weekend was fun.  It's like coming off a wicked bender and walking straight into a death metal concert.  It's painful, and it's emotional, and the smallest things throw Everyday Rebekah out of whack as she comes back into view.  One year, I almost ruined a stellar relationship with my landlord because she gave me short notice on my way back from Florida about moving everything out of my room that night for a repair job, and I just couldn't handle it.  This year, I took it out on the guy I'm seeing.  Molehills became real hills became mountains.  Cynicism and anxiety took the wheel.  Everyday Rebekah didn't know how to manage the disappointment of coming home with the excitement of seeing him again with the challenges of work and life.

But it's been a week since I returned, and I'm itching for center again.  I looked up yoga classes.  I pondered meditation.  I took a few walks on my own.  But the truth is, I just need to take my own advice.  I just need to stop harping on it.  I need to let it be.  Mountains don't stay mountains forever, and molehills, well, I imagine they're only ever as big as you make them.

Baby Steps

So, those who know me--or who have read my blog--know that I've been on a lot of first dates.  In fact, I took the time tonight to tally up the total number of first dates I've ever been on (to the best of my ability).  For our purposes, I will consider a first date anything that both the man involved and I considered to be a date. This is important because I was kind of a late bloomer, and so for a while, I might have considered any one-on-one meeting with a single male of my age a first date in my head...just to be less lame.  Which, in retrospect, is actually lamer than not going on any dates.

I guess I was a late bloomer in self-respect, too.

So, 16 years after I got my period (my mom's welcome-to-womanhood marker), I've caught up on the blooming and have found myself to be a woman with plenty of quantity.  I've been on at least 33 first dates, agreed to probably 15 second dates, and made out with a few strangers, all of which led to a whopping total of...

3 boyfriends.  A significantly less impressive number.

Even more unimpressive, the duration of those relationships.  The first boyfriend lasted 18 months and ended in a full month of tears and some serious need for therapy down the line.  The second boyfriend came eight years later (my early twenties were pretty dry), and he lasted five months.  The third boyfriend came two weeks after that (my 29th year was pretty busy), but he only lasted for three months.

I'm not exactly the poster child for substantive relationships.

It's not that I don't want one.  I deeply crave the intimacy and love and friendship that comes with a long-term life partner.  The problem is that I did eventually bloom into someone with strong self-respect, and once you've got the self-respect bug, you can't really shake it.  No matter how many attractive men I came across, I couldn't stand to ignore the flaky behavior, the rude comments, or the trust issues that came with them.  I preferred to be alone over pursuing something I knew would never make me happy.

When I finally gave into online dating, the number of dates I went on increased exponentially.  Still, no amount of quantity could disguise the fact that the men I was meeting online were of approximately the same quality as the men I had been meeting in real life.  They were short-term connections at best, non-starters at worst, and they really challenged the doe-eyed version of Louisiana men I'd carried with me through my college years.  A nice, handsome, tall, and muscled man from southern Louisiana who went to church every week and played sports and cheered on the Saints and LSU every weekend.  It turned out that the ideal I'd created in my head was just as misguided as the men I was meeting.  Even if this "perfect" guy existed, would I really like him?  Did he have the intellectual capacity to challenge me?  The values that mattered to me?  The humor to keep us laughing?

Over time, I gave up on the ideal, and along with the ideal, began to give up on voicing the things that really mattered to me.  Church-goer?  Well, I'd settle for agnostic.  Athletic?  Muscular worked, too.  Handsome?  Not ugly was enough.  Nice?  I'd go with decently respectful.

In so doing, I did drop some of the unimportant qualities I'd been setting up as deal breakers for myself: wildly handsome, at least two inches taller, things like that.  But I also let go of some of the things I cared about: someone who wasn't afraid to be affectionate, someone who valued kindness and compassion in all areas of life, someone who attracted me in a substantial way, someone who was looking for a life companion and a family like I was.

I threw out the baby with the bathwater, to the point that my therapist literally asked if I'd considered getting pregnant or adopting on my own down the line.

To cope with the disappointment, I turned to the craft I'd begun learning in high school and the comedy I'd dabbled in when I was in my mid-twenties, and I wrote about all my bad dates.  Everyone likes a good love story, but what people really crave are stories about all the hilariously horrible dates that come before and between love stories.  Maybe it makes them laugh, maybe it makes them grateful, maybe it makes them feel a little less alone in their loneliness.  Whatever it does for others, it's helped me through each time.

But as I spun these tales of dating distress, I fell into the habit of writing about the really good dates, too.  Anyone who's ever seen a romantic comedy knows that examining the details of a budding relationship can timelessly capture the complete infatuation that comes when the feeling is mutual, and it offers to the people who participate an emotional high of their own.

It also creates an unreal image of the relationship that slowly eats away at the real one.

No matter how infatuated you are with someone a week after meeting them, and no matter how much you're sure they're infatuated with you, too, saying it out loud changes things.  Voicing those feelings can be overwhelming.  And a little off-putting for the other person.  And it sets up massive expectations for something that's only just begun.

Writing about it isn't really much different.

It happened with "Jack," even though he never read the blog.

It happened with B, when his ex-girlfriend shared the posts with him.

It happened with California guy, who it later turned out wasn't even close to the idyllic match that I thought he was.

And I think I've finally learned.  16 years ago when I started at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and began reading all the miserable and/or suicidal writers that have made history, I pledged to myself, If I have the choice between being a great writer and being happy, I'm taking happy.  Somehow, I forgot that pledge in the midst of life and all its twists and turns, and I'm only just now remembering why I made it in the first place.

New guy and I have been seeing each other for a little over a month now, and to my surprise, it's not that hard not to write about it.  Not because it's not great.  It's the opposite, and I value it, and I want it to grow naturally and without all the limelight that the blog brings.  Sure, it doesn't make for much of a read for you.  And I'm sorry about that.  But I think you'll understand.  I know you will.