Close Relationships Across the Lifespan

So many women in my life are having "boy issues". Even I'm having "boy issues" without any dude in the equation. It's more like a constant avoidance of dudes because I can't even control how I react around them.


Why do we do this to ourselves? It's like we relish the pain that accompanies unrequited love. My best friend, Leah, only goes after guys who aren't interested in her. But once they smile and ask her for a coffee, she runs in the opposite direction.
I noticed I do this, too. "Birds of a feather flock together," right? I think this applies to friendships as well.
It makes me wonder what on Earth our parents did to us that made us so avoidant. Boundary Dissolution. It's a thing, yo.
According to social psychology, Eastern Asian cultures view love in a way that is beautifully tragic and only seen in movies like the ending of "Moulin Rouge." Generally, their view of love is first and foremost seen as "painful." "Memoirs of a Geisha" makes so much more sense now.

This is incredibly different than the more "excited" notion that American society likes to render in our Hollywood films. Love in America is fast-paced, it's passionate, and it's always novel.



Nothing can be further from the truth, and yet we keep posing it this way. Perhaps we are a bunch of optimists that would prefer to hope for this "destiny" view, but it's definitely a major let-down when  you enter junior high and spend hours pining after a boy who doesn't love you.
It's actually hilarious and so, so tragic.
Love is exciting, and it's also pain, but it's also monotonous and somehow there are people who lead exciting love-lives after being married for 40 years.

But I also have this American upbringing that I can't seem to escape from and so I like to envision love as a plethora of other things. Things my parents didn't exactly model for me, but what I have seen in relationships I idolized around me.

Love is when there are three screaming children in a family van that's leaving an already exhausting week-long camp, and one significant other starts to get an attitude and the other responds, "Hey honey, are you getting a little snarky with me?" And the other goes, "Yes, I am." Because teamwork is a thing and so is communication and trying to sweep feelings and behaviors under the rug as if they don't exist is constipating and uncomfortable.

Love is when you notice that your partner has had a long day and you sit down next to them and massage their smelly feet.
OR
Love can also be letting that partner have time alone without feeling jealousy or FOMO.
Love is waking up next to your cancer-ridden partner whose morning breath smells like death and still loving them.
Love requires both parties to be motivated and mature.
Love is difficult because everyone has baggage and insecurities and these can weigh down a relationship over time. Love is working through them by acknowledging the others' insecurities as they are and not making the partner feel bad about them.

Love is changing the stupid diaper or offering to do the dishes because Love is a service for the other. It's not a take-take situation.
Love is letting go, lifting the talons of jealous from their back and learning to trust.
Love is learning to love yourself before loving another human.
Love is overrated.

It's synonymous with hearts and "lurrrrve" and giddy feelings that last no longer than 6 months (usually). We should be calling it what Carl Rogers penned as the way therapists treat their patients: Unconditional Positive Regard. Even when you hate this person in the moment, you somehow manage to overcome that annoyance and steadfastly trust that this person is your confidant.

It's serious teamwork and I can't say that enough.
Love is lost on me, right now. All I can muster up are snippets from aunts and uncles and textbook relationship advice.
I have no idea how to end this blog post on a positive note, so I won't.
Except for one time I saw a documentary about our brains on "love", and the chemicals that make up this feeling. Some people argue that this ruins the nebulous philosophy of "love" as if it is another entity altogether, but I think viewing "love" as a cognition cements its importance to humanity and especially to me. If "love" is a concoction created by glands and supported through networks of cells that make up one organ, I mean, THAT is the essence of God, in my opinion.

Anyways, researchers in this documentary tested different "love" levels by putting participants through an MRI machine while they thought of their significant other.
You know who had the strongest "love" chemicals?
One was a couple that had been together for 40 years, had separated and reunited, somehow, amidst the incredible amount of divorces that make up our American culture. (Not saying divorce is bad, but out divorce rate is a staggering 1 in 2 relationships)!
The other highest "love" chemical came from a twelve year old boy, thinking about his newborn niece.
And that's what I want to highlight.
Twelve years old, man.

Something Shiny This Way Comes....

Today:

Lose Everything 

Some days, I'm surprised I even remember my own name. I see it as a blessing that my head is attached to my neck.

I swear, if I ever have children, they just might have to wear helmets.

This is what it feels like to be an adult with ADHD.

It takes energy to concentrate on the lips of someone's face while they speak to me. If I don't look at their lips, the very depth of their eyes distracts me from what they are saying.

Most people think I'm a good listener. In reality, I'm counting their freckles or silently dancing to some psychedelic, Hipster tune by Washed Out.

That being said, I still love to listen. You just may have to prompt from me some responses or grunts, lest you lose me to the conversation happening behind me or the grinding of an espresso hopper. 

If I don't have coffee, you just might think I'm missing a few brain cells. Fogginess is a common enemy I am forever trying to escape.

Some days, I congratulate myself when I can carry a conversation in a halfway-witty manner. These times consist of my brain brimming with responses of all types, rather than lagging behind a wall of silence. I like these days because I feel pretty smart.

Don't even try to talk to me about dates and calendars. I will not track even the remotest of schedules.

Teaching me without a visual aid will leave you and I frustrated because of the number of times I will forget something completely mundane and ask you to repeat it again. And again. And again.

This band? Oh, yeah. I love this band. What are they called again?

Um......

um.....

ummmmmmm.

Forget it.

I feel like a blob of emotions. I'm stuck inside a GLASS CASE OF EMOTION!!!

So if I ever approach you like this:

Please be kind. And perhaps give me a kitten to hold.

No hand-holding Here, my friends.

Want to know the difference between a small liberal arts college tucked into a cornfield in Iowa and Real Life? The amount of hand-holding and the total lack of it in the global sphere. Once you leave that round, snug bubble of college life, it fluffing sucks.

Maybe I am being a bit pessimistic. No, there aren't any more social spheres for you to fit into. No more "Liberal Arts" definition weighing on our self worth. But did they mention that it's just plain HARDER?

As I left Luther College and made my way southward toward Mississippi State University, I thought things would get easier. I would be living with my father and stepmom, two little brothers, and the animals that roam the house here. I thought "Hey, free boarding, free food, the easy life!" Yes, free food is a wonderful thing. But I am currently witnessing my own regression of self at this very moment of life.

At Mississippi State, nobody holds your hand like they did at Luther. I failed a freshman English Composition class, because my professor happened to remind me that the small paper I never turned in would result in a total class F.....at TEN o'clock on Friday night, before my birthday and Mother's Day, where the last thing I was doing was checking my emails from this MLA-nazi of a professor. Though I could blame her for not warning me in advance, she did happen to point out that this fact was on the syllabus.

Guess who doesn't check the syllabus?

KT: 0
Real Life: 5 million and ONE

In Real Life, the realm of CareBears is to the minimum. "Oh, your mom died last year? Too bad, suck it up Buttercup, because Life doesn't wait."

My words are biting and whiny. I know I am a born optimist turned "bad" with enough cynicism to kill an adult T-Rex. But guess what? I'm tired. And I AM an entitled twenty-something-year-old American with first world problems that nobody wants to hear.

So moving on...
A word of wisdom to my fellow Liberal Arts Collegiate's and every other Twenty-Something:
Don't take advantage of these opportunities presented before you. Though it's rosy to have a hand to hold right now, in reality there's a system of learning how not to get kicked down. Most of you are like me and will get hit with at least 3 semi-truck-failures before you realize you're swimming against  a concrete current. Guess what? DON'T give up. No matter how easy it is to splay open your hands and go "haha, alright Life, you win"...

Don't.

Hailing Dr. Who for his Time Lord skills sounds Oh So Keen right now, as you find yourself hitting your head against the wall over and over. But where will you be then? A forty-something with the mental and emotional state of a "teaspoon". Because yeah, we are these adult-bodied things, with experiences equating to that of a teaspoon.

The best thing to do is know what to expect. Expect the harsh, wild world to be what it is.
For without darkness, you get no light.

saturday brain pickings

It's porchtime with the doggies this morning. Earl grey tea and orange slices. Silly boxers and their indefinite enthusiasm; it never ceases to amuse, opening the door towormy wiggles and happy barks. Barney and Zeek are my two friends from the animal kingdom. The other species includes Clementine; my child, and Cheetah and Oscar Wild. I spend my waking moments loving these furry friends.

So it's tea and orange slices for me, in a zoological garden with animals today. The backyard is tangled with green vegetation. It never stops growing. Kudzu, or perhaps it's ivy, drapes the trees and we are treated to a wall of green, keeping us hidden from our neighbors below. I love the new backyard we have. It is a fairytale from the mind of the great Dr. Suess. If you've ever seen Kudzu, you will know there is a completely accurate comparison between the Lorax Trees and this mysteriously foreign plant. Tides of green place my mind at peace here and I could imagine happily trekking through a jungle of this stuff.

Along with the furry critters, I coesxist with Insects. I keep my window open nightly, and I have no screen. Therefore, I am treated to the sound of tiny flapping wings at midnight; moths who visit for a brief period and give my room the appearance of either a Thumbellina tale or that of one who is insane. I have mosquito bites covering the soles of my feet. They itch but they remind me of my place in this world. I love the bugs and I love the open window. It is one last veil between me and what is real.

 

Humans try to pretend that they are better than the Earth, better than the planet on which they cohabit. We are so removed from it that we forget that there was once life before us, there is other life around us, and there will be life after us as it constantly tries to take back its rightful place. Plants growing through cement is significant, if not amazing. I see Earth as we manicure her, trim her to our liking. She allows us to believe that we are in charge; the great Don Quixotes. We discover what already exists, and she smiles at our sweet ignorance. This is why the kudzu and the mosquito bites: I welcome them as a symbol of my insignificence to this amazing, jungle-world. I am reminded that I am a visitor, only here briefly to experience something rare. She will, after all, take back what is hers. Stars will continue to explode and die and new ones will be created; new worlds with new kudzu and new types of mosquitos that leave bites on the beings there, who may also find a way to express the artform of their own non-human expression. So is life, and I am at peace with it.