So today I was doing some thinking about settling and settling down.  I’ve hit the almost 6 month mark of being married, and frankly… I don’t feel married.  What is married supposed to feel like?

My mom asked me how it felt to be a married woman about 2 months after the big day.  I had to stop and think about it.  I don’t feel… married.  Sure, I have a set of rings on my hand.  I’ve changed my name legally.  I KEEP FINDING things online where I need to change my name.  I’m Jennifer Marquardt now.  But am I any different?  I still snore (and fart in my sleep according to my husband), I’m incredibly anal about laundry and dishwasher loading.  I don’t like onions.  I love the color red and video games.  I love my pop music mixed in with my heavy rock.  So what’s so different?

Today I had an epiphany: if you’ve married the right person, it’s supposed to feel just like this.  As comfortable as your favorite pair of jeans.  The pair you don’t mind playing in the dirt in.  The pair you wear to your favorite events.  The pair that has seen you cry and has held you while you threw up the overabundance of margaritas.  Marriage isn’t all about fireworks and roses, it’s about waking up every morning next to your best friend.  And after you wake up, you realize you don’t want to be anywhere else.

With Valentine’s day approaching, I suppose this is an appropriate topic, but not in the flowers, hearts, candy sort of way, but more a soul enlightening sort of way.

There are very few people who truly know how to love, at least in my personal experience.  My mom knows how to love, and I’m slowly reaching the point she has achieved in her life.  My dear friend Kit knows how to love.  My uncle Bert who loves even his nieces as if they were his children.  I’ve chosen these examples because they are truly the only people who I have seen who actually grasp the entirety of what it means to love.

My mom embraces her enemies for the good of a single soul, even if it is to the detriment of herself.  She gives freely and self-lessly to those she can, to enrich the lives of those around her.  As a nurse, she is the embodiment of love.  She cares for people that she has no connection to, she gives them a little piece of her heart in the hopes of brightening the little corner of their life that she has the opportunity to inhabit.  She expects absolutely zero in return.  She loves my sister and me boundlessly, completely, without reservations, regardless of what our own actions.

Kit.  In the short amount of time I’ve been lucky enough to know her, she amazes me.  But most of all, the fact that each and every day she not only still loves her husband, she is IN love with her husband.  She’s not just comfortable with the everyday ‘Welcome home dear’ behavior.  No, she still giggles with joy when he comes home.  And her love for her son is apparent simply because of how he is:  children learn by example, and her son is one of the most well-behaved, delightful teenage males I have ever encountered.  You cannot tell me that teenagers today are a product of society and the media, and parenting has nothing to do with it… not with him as an example.  I enjoy being in his company despite the huge age difference, because he is not a rude, condescending little boy.  He’s an intelligent thoughtful young man.  That’s what love gives you: a family.  Not a husband, a wife, and a son co-habitating in a house.  A family.

My uncle has always been a secondary Dad to me.  Not in the intimidate the teenage boyfriend, help with math homework way, but in the “I’m always here for you, regardless” kind of way.  Thanks to him, I survived a very ugly period of my life.  He gave me the courage (along with my mom and my cousin) to leave my situation and start over.  It doesn’t matter that I don’t talk to him everyday, I know I can pick up the phone tomorrow and call him, and he’s there.  He’s always been my sanctuary.  Love should be life-changing, but it should also be sheltering; love should be exciting, but also a security blanket.

All that being said:  you cannot truly know HOW to love, unless you first learn how to be LOVED.  That was the hardest lesson for me to learn.  To have complete understanding that I’m not perfect, I will get mad, I will fight, but that I’ll still be loved afterwards.  Daniel has taught me that.  Despite my faults, my temper, my stressed out OCD insanity, my bossiness, and my walls, he loves me anyway.  He pushes past the bad and sees the good in me.  That makes him a good man.  But understanding that he HONESTLY loves me not despite my faults, but including them was absolutely eye opening.  He embraces me for all that I am, and I now understand it.  I know how to be loved.  My mom tried to teach me, but your mom is SUPPOSED to love you in spite of your shortcomings.  But for some stranger to come tripping into my life and be that person?  It was a pretty amazing thing to me.

Love isn’t about anything material or physical, it’s about opening your soul.  Let the good in, swish it around, absorb.  Then let it out, let it flow around you so that those you encounter can experience it as well, it’s meant to be shared.

So Krissy tagged me into doing this, so here goes nothing:

1.  I have an addictive personality.  Whether it’s cigarettes, games, social media, music, or a book… If I get hooked, it’s hard to let it go.  That song that I heard on the radio 2 months ago?  Yes, it’s still playing on a mix CD in my car.. Repeatedly.  I had to sell my account in order to get away from my online gaming.  That book I randomly picked up at Target or Half-Price last week.. I have probably worked my way through that author’s entire collection.  You get the idea.

2.  I make up conversations for my cats in my head.  And I talk to them like they’re people.  For now they’re my kids, so I’m going to treat them as such.  Now, give me some credit, they don’t get grounded or sent to their rooms, but when I get home, I ask them how their day was, and if they’re happy, and would they like a treat or a tummy rub.  If they’re looking at me funny or meowing, I talk back.  If they’re being mean to one another, they get yelled at and told to be nice to one another.  So what if I’m the crazy cat lady, I’m happy, they’re happy, it’s all good.

3.  I’m a very nice, kind, forgiving person.  The spiky-walled exterior?  It’s all a front.  If you’re brave enough to scale that wall, you’re good in my book.  If you aren’t, then go fly a kite.  But once you’re inside, take care of the fluffy bunnies that are within, they’re fragile and very easily hurt.  I’m sassy and sweet, in alternating quantities.  You have to be able to stomach both, or don’t waste our time.

4.  If I didn’t have to worry about what the world thought of me (mainly employers), I would be covered in tattoos that remind me of the love in my life and why I’m here.  Tattoos are an expression of what is inside of you, and it’s sad that more people don’t recognize that.  It should be seen as an enhancement and not an abomination.

5.  My hero as a little girl was Jem.  I awoke super early every Saturday morning so that I could watch it without being harrassed by my parents.  Now that I’m a grown up, it’s occurred to me that I have finally achieved my goal:  After we’re married, my initials will be J.E.M.  As retarded of an accomplishment that may be for some, I was pretty tickled when I figured it out.  I got to grow up and be my hero.  How many people get to say that?

6.  I loathe and despise onions.  Like, if I catch one in my bean burrito, it’s been ruined for me and my dinner is discarded.  They make me gag in a violent and unattractive way.  When I was a little girl and my mom would make pasta sauce, she would blender-ize the onions and I would still sit there and pick out every single speck that might possibly be onion.  However, I like onion rings with lots of ketchup or ranch.  Go figure that one out…

7.  I have a rubber duckie problem.  Last count I took, I was at almost 50.  Cheerleader, Doctor, Devil, Pirate, every color in the rainbow, you name it, I probably have it.  And if I don’t have it, I definitely need it.  Baby sections at stores are evil.  I fear for the nursery of my future children, for I’m sure they will be ducky-ized into a need for serious therapy.  My life will be complete when I have a pair of ducky slippers that quack when I walk.

And the rules dictate that I’m now supposed to tag 7 other people.  I really don’t have anyone that blogs that hasn’t done this.. Maybe these offerings will be inspired to start one..

Mamie

Daniel

Kit

Casey

Something I’ve learned this past week with Daniel being gone is that love isn’t about feeling like you can’t live without them.  Life goes on, but you feel like you’re missing something… that you can’t quite put your finger on it feeling.  (even though you obviously know what you’re missing…)
I always thought that being in love with someone required that you felt as if your soul was missing if the other person was gone.  Nope, not really.  It’s true that life was different this week, but it wasn’t unbearable.  Going to bed at night was very lonely, and subsequently I didn’t get much sleep.  (There is nothing but crap on TV late late at night in case you didn’t know…)
I almost always felt like I was at a loss for something to do.  Normally I feel like my evenings are so full and I can’t get anything done.  I was bored all week.  Sure, I could’ve studied, but it was too quiet here.  TV is semi-entertaining, but only for so long.  I have movie A.D.D. so that was out… so I was left to aimlessly surf the web until I felt sleepy enough to go lay down.
Long rambling note short, I’m glad that he’s going to be home tonight despite cancelled flights and 5 hour layovers in Newark.  And while this week just plain sucked in most ways, I got to learn something, and that’s simply what love truly feels like.

So, it’s a Friday at the bank, it’s the bi-weekly payday Friday at the bank, and it seems as though the stupid people were out in force.  The one that struck me the most was the two older ladies who called and made me miserable, then later came by the bank filled with bad attitude.  First they didn’t like the rules regarding transactions through the drive thru.  Then they did not like the fact that they requested me to do something that is not a) part of my job function, b) not something I’m authorized or even able to do, and c) they did not liked how I counted their money.  The line that fired up my temper was “Well apparently customer service is no longer part of their job description.  When *I* worked here 20 years ago, the customer was always right.”  Well I tell you what: the customer may always be right, but that doesn’t mean they can demand the impossible from someone and get it.

I think what astounds me the most in my daily dealings with the public is the general discontent I observe in these people.  You would think that coming to the bank to either deposit or withdraw money would present such a hardship, but apparently it does.  I also see alot of behaviors that just remind me that most people think they are either above everyone else around them, or that they’re exempt from the general rules of courtesy and good behavior.  Don’t sit there and tap your fingers or clear your throat 20 times if the elderly lady in front of you is recounting her money before she leaves the teller window.  Maybe that’s the last of her social security check that has to stretch to fill 4 weeks and she wants to make sure it is all there.  Maybe it’s birthday money for her beloved grandchildren and she wants to make sure the bills look nice and gift worthy.  Maybe the reason she’s taking longer than you feel is necessary is none of your damned business and you should wait your turn politely, just like everyone else.  Everyone has lots of things to do and is generally in a hurry.  Your errands and/or time aren’t any more important than theirs.  I believe in kindergarten we were taught how to stand in line and wait quietly and patiently for your turn…  and I do believe if you couldn’t manage to do so properly, there was some sort of time out.  Maybe we should make grown ups sit in time out for bad behavior too?

This is a piece I wrote some time ago, initially as an introduction to a short story I was writing, but even now, as I re-visit the words, I’m moved.  I thought I would share it and I felt it would be an excellent way to initiate my blog.  Enjoy!

When you’re looking in from the outside, life seems such a chaotic masterpiece.  The beauty of life is lost in the darkness that covers your thoughts, and it seems that the perfection you seek is lost on the inept.  The world continues to self-destruct around you, dragging you into the depths of hell until one day you realize that nothing can take you there but yourself.  Past heartaches and mistakes always take the forefront in everyone’s mind; instead of looking to a future that you can create according to your own dreams, you’re stuck wishing for what could have been.  It’s never an easy thing to move beyond the baggage simply because there’s comfort in what you know, even if it’s painful.  It takes a stronger person to walk through that pain, past the security, into the unknown.  When you reach that place in your life, you then wait for the day when innocence lost is no longer such a commonplace pain in your heart, and you can sit back and see the joy and wonder in a child’s eyes without cynicism.