Category: Love

Love Flashes

posted 11th February 2010    Written by: Katie    CATEGORY: All Posts, Katie, Love, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 2, What I've Learned

I get a lot of sex.

In the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, underneath the moon. Sometimes I’m actually physically exhausted from having so much sex that I need to relax for the rest of the day just to recover.

This WOULD be true if I had the power to rewrite Webster’s Dictionary and make the definition of “Sex” a synonym to the word “Sleep”.  Until then, I’m not exactly what you would call “sexually active.”

This is partly by choice, but mostly not.

I’m one of the lucky ones who is going through the Quarterlife Crisis without a significant other in their life. Some argue that this is the way that it should be – after all, the QLC is about YOU and not anyone else. However, I know many people who went through this thing, and they were in a relationship in the beginning, and in the same one in the end. It just so happened that they found one aspect of their lives that they knew they wanted, and that feeling didn’t change after many “a-ha! That’s what I want!” moments.

You can’t really control how parts of your life hit you. You just have to take them in stride and realize that this is part of the plan, even if you don’t know exactly what that is… yet.

For as long as I can remember, when someone was interested in me,  it wouldn’t phase me much. I wouldn’t get the butterflies or the excitement for each anticipated phone call or communication from them. Dates were just “another day”, and intimacy was just “eh, riding the boney pony. whatever.” I think that part of me knew that entire time, that whoever my potential suitor was interested in wasn’t really me – I was simply a product of what I thought I had to be, what I was expected to be, and only minimally of what I wanted to be.

Bottom line: not me. Not at all.

Now that I’ve been working on finding out who I really am, and working on displaying these traits and habits that I’ve found to be most rewarding, I’ve run into a bit of a snag. When someone is interested in me, I fall in love.

No, I’m serious.

I fall in love with each and every potential lover that enters my life. From a significantly older client who flatters me to bits, to a handsome (and drunk) guy that I have a connection with in a bar, to the gay bartender at a nightclub that I knew was gay the moment I laid eyes on his Britney Spears suspenders. In each case, we meet, they like, I fall in love and inevitably suffer from a broken heart when things don’t work out, even when I know they’re not going to.

What it all boils down to is that going through the Quarterlife Crisis is a major life change and if you’re someone like me who finds out that every single aspect of your life is in dire need of a makeover, it’s almost like starting from scratch. These “falling in love” feelings that I get are like high-school crushes. I’m reliving the years that I missed out on.

The walls are not closing in on me, I’m just having “Love Flashes”.  I think I’d rather get Hot Flashes.

I’m confident that one day, I’ll meet someone who appreciates where I’ve been, where I’m going, and most importantly who I am. It’ll be a mutual appreciation and the sky will be the limit. Until then, I gotta go, there’s an adorable guy in Starbucks– I think I’m in love.

*photo via: nataliedee.com

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My Biggest Fan

posted 10th February 2010    Written by: Heather Rae    CATEGORY: All Posts, Heather Rae, Love, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 2

My fiancé is my best friend.  We’ve been together for seven years.  I tell him everything.  Seriously, it’s true.

I tell him when I come up with a really bad plot for a novel, when I dream up my next crazy adventure, when I’m frustrated with life – you name it, I tell him about it.  Even when it’s inappropriate – like, “Hey honey, you would not believe, I totally have a crush on some guy!”

As a couple, there are two rules we follow:

1. Be honest.  About everything.  Never leave anything out.  Don’t even tell a white lie.

2. Never, ever yell.  I mean never.  Never ever.

That’s it.  Those are our rules.  Everything else is minor.

I learned a long time ago to let go of unrealistic expectations. There’s no way to really know where our relationship will take us or how our future will look.  We both recognize the delicate balance that exists which allows us to continue growing in the same direction.  We nurture that balance.

There are days when putting in the effort to maintain a happy, healthy relationship actually seems effortless.  Then, there are days when it seems useless.  Honestly, we have both – the good days and the bad.

What’s really superb is that my fiancé is my biggest fan.  When it comes to figuring out this whole Quarterlife Crisis thing, he’s behind me all the way (often cheering and doing the wave).  I come up with the crazy ideas, and he says, “Yes – do it!”

  1. Me:  I think I’m going to quit my job.
  2. Him:  Sounds like a great idea.
  1. Me:  Maybe I should write a novel.
  2. Him:  Of course you should.
  1. Me:  I want to spend the summer volunteering in the Amazon.
  2. Him:  They’d be lucky to have you.

It goes on like that.  He’s never once said an idea was unrealistic.  If anything, he tells me I need to think bigger, reach higher. And he never even blinks when, the next week, I tell him I’ve changed my mind.

I’m lucky like that.

But as I said, it’s not always easy.  In reality, I don’t exactly know the next best thing for our relationship as I move toward a life that’s more authentic – more like me.  I sometimes fear I have dreams that don’t fit with his.  He has his own goals and ambitions.  They’re big.  He amazes me every day.  And they’re also here – in the U.S. (And for good reason.  I assure you, his need to stay stateside for the next several years is not a selfish one.)

I’m going to be really honest.  If I were single, the first thing I would do to kick off this quest for fulfillment would be to get out a map, pick a place and go. I would sell my things, let go of any attachment to material wealth and move to another country.  I would become a long term volunteer, or teach English or join the Peace Corps.  There’s something inside me that wants to break free of this place and just go.  This isn’t a random whim that’s likely to go away on its own.  I’ve been dreaming about it for years.  Only now, I actually have the means to make that dream a reality.  Sort of.

But then there’s the part of me that’s in love. The part that says, you can’t leave for that long – what would happen to your relationship?

I know he will support me, regardless of the path I take.  But I’ve been on the other side.  I’ve been the one waiting for him to come home (long story, but let’s just blame that all on the military).  To be honest, it sucks.  And it wouldn’t be fair to him.  I can’t leave for six months, a year, two years – and expect him to wait patiently.

Well, I could, but it just doesn’t feel right.

And so I struggle.  I struggle to strike a delicate balance between the two things that pull at me – real love and the need to get out in the world and see it all.

I want to find a way to have my cake.  And then eat it.  I mean, really.  Has anyone ever said to you, “Hey, do you want to have some cake?” and then expected you not to eat it?  Of course not.  If you’re going to have cake, you’re obviously going to eat it.  So that’s what I’m working on – how to have both.  Right now, that looks like multiple trips that are shorter in length.  It looks like coming home to the man I love and then leaving to do the things that I love.

People often think that relationships should follow a certain set of rules or look a certain way.  I disagree.  I think a relationship should look exactly how the couple involved wants it to look. Make up your own rules.  Do what works for you.  As for me, I’m still trying to figure it all out.

And maybe that’s how it should be – always searching, always learning, always trying.

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To The Edge of Almost-Love, and Back

posted 9th February 2010    Written by: Nicole Antoinette    CATEGORY: All Posts, Love, Nicole Antoinette, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 2

There are two versions of the “I’m so spontaneous that I just up and moved to San Francisco” story.

There’s the version I usually tell, the one about how I was tired of being a professional nomad, how I wanted a fresh start, and how I was intoxicated with a city I barely knew.

Then there’s the deeper, more complete version. The one where I also moved to San Francisco for a guy I easily could have fallen in love with, had we made a left somewhere instead of a right.

I’m skipping over a few parts, of course, or rather I’m skipping over all the parts because now that I’m thinking about the perfect 21st century storm of it (girl writes blog, boy reads blog, girl and boy go from online to offline and back), it’s easy to see that he and I were all kinds of wrong for each other.

Isn’t that always how it is though? Retrospect sure is a feisty little bitch.

So that was then and this is now, and my roundtrip journey to the edge of almost-falling-into-someone has lead me to question what role love is really playing in my current life.

I look at my friends, the ones who are so much farther down this particular path than I am, women in their 20s who are engaged, or married, or starting a family, and I wonder about the process of loving the same person for the rest of my life.

I mean, if change is the only constant, and if I’m confident in the knowledge that I’m not exactly the same person I was a month ago and won’t be this same person a month from now, then how is it possible to be in love with one person for 50 years?

Maybe it’s not possible. Maybe the key is finding someone that you’ll be able to keep falling in love with, over and over, as you both change. For me, that means someone who’s so smart it makes my brain hurt. Someone who loves tea, and The West Wing, and Tuesday night dinners at outdoor restaurants. Someone who will play with my hair and read to me in bed, who isn’t uncomfortable with full frontal honesty, who knows what he wants, says what he means, and shows up when it matters.

And, since I’m pretty sure I can’t just Google “home address of my future husband,” I’m choosing instead to just enjoy the hell out of being deliciously single in a new city where there are a seemingly unlimited amount of people to meet and a dizzying number of possible dates to go on.

Oh, and that guy I moved here for? We’re friends. Or, more honestly, I’m working on us being the kind of friends who can talk and laugh and drink vodka and watch The Rachel Maddow Show without accidentally making bad decisions.

We’ll see how that goes.

Photo credit: suchitra

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All You Need is Trust

posted 8th February 2010    Written by: Kelly    CATEGORY: All Posts, Kelly, Love, Season 2

The Beatles almost had it right. ;)

I would probably have asked Mr. Lennon to add another keyword … that word being “Trust” – All You Need Is Love and Trust.

Let me start at the beginning …

I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life – I’ll be the first to admit it.

In one past serious relationship I was put through emotional, sexual and physical abuse.  I allowed someone to hold a sort of power over me … and it made me someone I wasn’t proud of.

I felt no self-confidence or self worth.  Everything in my world revolved around this person.  Not only was he aware of it; he took advantage of it.

Over the years, I worked hard to overcome that phase in my life.  I had to commit to learning about who I was, who I want to be, how to get there and what makes me happy.  To get through the past, I’ve had to focus on my current decisions.

The decisions that I now have control over.

The majority of the time, I am able to forget that piece of my past; I don’t like seeing that broken little girl.

Now, here I am in a new relationship.  After knowing each other for less than a month, I moved to San Antonio!  We both agreed that given the fast moving pace of our relationship, it was absolutely essential we dedicate to complete transparency.

This promise to each other didn’t just include the present; it included the past … for me, a past very difficult to come to terms with.

This is where the trust comes in.

What I realized very quickly into the process of disclosure was that I was prone to avoiding the details of my past by gently brushing reality with small lies that made it easier to deal with and communicate. While I know the truth of my past, I had never felt the need to disclose everything to another individual.  I found myself suddenly in a situation where the need for full disclosure was real.

As I went through the process, I realized that in order for someone to know me … really know me … they needed to understand the whole story – the context of my past and how that impacts my present outlook.

Owning up to my past has been an eye opening experience for me.  It’s led me down a number of enlightening paths and to realizations that I had never before discovered.  With a loving partner by my side, and with his same level of commitment, we were able to deconstruct, rebuild and truly open our eyes to how the past has led us to today.

This process required a level of commitment I had never previously experienced.

Had these hard conversations never taken place; who’s to know when and how the past would have manifested itself in my current relationship.  How could he have understood if I had never committed to helping him understand – and vice-versa? Instead, armed with the truth and understanding, we have the opportunity to deal with reality and aim for all the happiness that our path has to offer.

The truth hurts.  Knowing I have someone by my side that loves me, the true and complete me … past mistakes and all … makes it much easier to bear.

This new chapter in my life moves forward with a new found commitment to honesty and transparency with my partner.  It didn’t happen overnight and I know that it will require work going forward.

The love part was easy… that came in a heartbeat!  Trust is what I’ve had to work on and what I plan to keep central to my relationship – it won’t always be easy, but it will always be all I need!

What have you done to strengthen your relationship?  Any best practices?

Photo Credit: delgaudm

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The Challenge Child

posted 1st February 2010    Written by: Kelly    CATEGORY: All Posts, Kelly, Love, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 2

INTRODUCING KELLY

I’ve never done things the easy way.

I’ve always been the type to learn lessons the hard way and experience mistakes by myself.  Personality traits also come into play; I’m spontaneous, impatient, impulsive and driven.

When I was young, my parents affectionately referred to me as “The Challenge Child”; and you bet that I earned every letter of it.

In 1st grade, I cut my desk mates’ bangs. I told her that to get rid of them, you don’t grow them out, you cut them. I left a trail of hair from the bathroom to my desk. It wasn’t hard for the teacher to find the culprit.

My kindergarten report card read, “Kelly needs to understand that the world does not revolve around her.”

At 6, I convinced my sister that our blanket was a magic carpet. I opened the 2nd story window, knocked out the screen and was ready to push her out. Dad caught on just in time.

I changed my name to Ming in 2nd grade.

My first detention was in 3rd grade. I took ticky-tack and put it in my teacher’s hair. It got stuck, and he had to have the school nurse get it out with peanut butter. They sent a note home, but I stuffed it under the bus seat.

Between the ages of 8-13 the majority of family dinners ended with me eating at the bottom of the basement stairs alone. My parents have pages and pages of “I will not talk back” written on them.

High school years hit me hard; I was far from the perfect student.  Always into some kind of trouble, hanging out with the “wrong” crowd and doing my best to defy authority.  It took a few years to come into myself.  ;)

I am made of tough stuff. This comes from my Mother. I may have to learn everything from my own mistakes, but it has made me the person I am today and fueled me to become the best that I possibly can. My experiences have forced me to look at the world for what it really is, figure out what I need to do and get it done.

About 4 months ago, I met a boy, fell head over heels in love and decided to move to Texas from my little home town, after knowing him 2 weeks. Imagine the hell I raised with this stunt! I’ve been here for 3 months now and I’ve never been happier. I packed up; left everything and everyone I ever knew and moved … 1200 miles away, for love. :)

Which brings me to present day. To my “Quarterlife Crisis”…   I’m living in a brand new city with no solid ground. A supportive and amazing man by my side, but no self-identity in this new world. No job, coworkers or girlfriends and reliant everyday on my trusty GPS, Greta. I find myself examining my life, my patterns and my past … realizing that there are skeletons in my closet … and to lead the life I want to, I must face them.

So, it’s time to shine!

Join me as I spread my wings, find life outside of Buffalo, NY and discover a entire new chapter of my life journey.


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