Bursting My Bubble

When you don't have much history in the way of relationships, what happens is that your image or idea of what your love life will look like becomes inflated. Like a giant bubble. The more time that passes without experiences to bring you back to reality, the bubble just fills with more and more air.

Lately, as I spend more time with the Boy in the absence of my previous dictators, I'm coming to grips with the reality of the limitations of my relationship with him. In the way movies teach us, I want him to be my all, everything and the only thing I will ever need. But as the book tells us, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. We are so different in the ways we think, and that means that there are so many things that he can't possibly understand or empathize with.

Last night, I thought I was joining in his ongoing conversation about work frustrations, but it was heard as complaining. While silently handling the logistics of so many small and odd details, delegating the honeymoon planning to him was felt as unsupportive. In the grand scheme of things, I can understand that these translate to I don't want you to be so stressed and affected by work, so let me help you and I want to plan the BEST honeymoon for you and I'd like to do wedding stuff together, even the honeymoon planning.

But it seems to me that as women, the capacity of our empathy tanks are ten-fold that of men, and it's times like these where I become painfully aware of this fact. Throw my battles with anxiety in there, and you've got a night of restless sleep, tears, and hour after hour of anxiously wondering and worrying about what's happening next, tonight, and tomorrow.

It seems a little silly to me now, but that's the story of my journey through love. Time after time, every time a bubble is burst, I mourn the slow death of my fairytale. Of course, once you realize you've been living in a snow globe of a reality and that what's real is life, much more worth it than the sterile imagination you've rendered, you know you've traded in your Prince Charming for your soul mate. You turn in your two-dimensional fairy tale for the depth of reality.

Drowning in my Cereal Bowl

I told a friend of mine that I feel like I'm drowning in a cereal bowl. I'm fully aware that my problem is a mere 2 inches of liquid, but I'm still drowning.

I have friends going through much bigger challenges and struggles... childlessness, illness, marital turmoil, financial instability. Yet I still feel like my world is crumbling. It doesn't make me feel any better to grasp a larger perspective. It matters none.

The past few weeks, the boy and I have been fighting often. One insecure thought begets another, and before you know it, I'm in a frenzy of worry and panic. I keep telling myself that the wedding is just the beginning, no matter what the Czar and Queen do to me, that there is hope. But none of this matters. I live in fear of what's to come, knowing it will hurt.

I used to think that this "worst case scenario" thinking was my way of preparing for the worst so that I could be pleasantly surprised, rather than hoping for the best and being disappointed. At the end of the day, though, this kind of thinking only breeds more and more anxiety for me. I know I tend to be fairly vague, so allow me to explain...

There is an issue on the horizon that I know will create a rupture with the Czar and Queen. I know exactly what is to come. I don't have to deal with anything right now. It's been quiet on the homefront, even pleasant. Quiet. But the thoughts of how I know this issue will rear its ugly head will not go away. I imagine the verbal abuse, the names, the lies, the anger. The pain I know I have to endure, quietly, starts affecting me as if it were happening now, because I know it will ruin me. It will crush me and ruin me and set me ablaze.

Then I start thinking about the wedding. I think of how they will be angry, they will cause a stir, they will show anger on their faces. The Queen will weep at the ruin that has become of her life. The Czar will scowl at the bastard of a child he's giving away. And because the Czar and the Queen can deflate and demean me like none other in this world, my wedding will be a heart-wrenching, painful occasion.

What some may not understand is why I stay. Maybe it's a desire to please that I still hold on to, but I honestly believe that leaving now, just months before the wedding, will only cause more of the same, if not worse, for me in the future. It is by no means an ideal alternative to stay, but as painful as it is, it really could be worse. It's not a matter of "how can they treat you like this" or "don't set a precedent" or "they're going to have to learn to accept things." None of those things matter, because in their world, I am the worst of the worst. I'm disobedient.

It's funny how American culture teaches so much about being your own person, making your own choices, forging your own path. I grew up that way. I learned to do all of that, and it stands directly in opposition to what they hoped and dreamed for their children when they came here. They had hoped that I would be just like them, only with more opportunity for success in fortune.

This is why I'm drowning. Sure, there are things that consume me now that seem so trivial to some people, and they don't get why it upsets me so much or why I bother. But it's not really about the milk in my cereal bowl. I'm someone who has been drowning for the past 10 or so years. And now I'm drowning in my cereal bowl at a kitchen table afloat on a raft full of holes in the middle of the ocean. Lifting my head now only means its the ocean that will steal my breath and not the cereal milk.

I Am The Exception...Every Time

It's funny how the Queen and Czar are demanding. They are demanding of absolute and unquestioned forgiveness, grace, and apology from everyone else, yet they never see the need to grant those to anyone else. After the debacle involving the boy, my mom reminded me that it's just an apology now that would suffice... for something he never intended, for something that was completely misunderstood, for something he did.not.do.

You've got to be joking me. I wonder in what world it was where they were served endlessly and to no limit that they expect this now. Bite me. No apologies are coming your way for the thing that you misunderstood that should never have offended you that you are demanding so that I can plan my wedding to make you happy so that you will get the wedding you've always dreamed of. No. Bite me.

Since when did everyone else become so entitled to OUR wedding? Where's my gin & tonic?

Imaginary Kingdoms

There is an irony in the Czar's title... if it walks like a duck... talks like a duck.... it's a duck, right? So yes, he barks orders, makes his own rules, utters the occasional "off with his head"... he is king of the castle...

But no one told him that beyond the walls of our house lies a whole world that operates on a different set of rules...on the value of the individual. As in every individual... not him... the individual. But when the Czar climbs into car, heads to work or the golf course, he believes his rules still apply. He's the Czar at work... he can do no wrong. He's the Czar amongst his friends... they can do no right.

Have you ever tried to grab a speck of something in a cup of water, only to have it go farther and farther each time you get close? A recent explosion of anger from the Queen resulted in an outburst from me. I told her that I had recently gone to the ER with abdominal pains, the result of an ulcer... which I had aptly named after her and the Czar. I had pain meds flowing through an IV and spent the better part of 2 weeks trying to recover. Did she know this?

I don't know what I expected. Some sort of epiphany on her part about how she and the Czar drive me to such head-splitting anxiety? There was no acknowledgment of my recent medical dramatics, and instead she lamented... what did she do to deserve such blame from me for things that are my own fault? Hmm... that IS a mystery.