Dorie Morgan’s Rising Up
Navigating Twenty-Something Suburban Life
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Archive of "relationships" Category
In grief, it is the small things I think about
I canceled my hair appointment that I scheduled for last Friday. I justified it by saying that my roots really aren’t that bad, my layers are falling in a very cute way around my face and if I waited till closer to Thanksgiving, I’d look nicer for the holiday season.
Money has been tight in the Morgan household lately and I didn’t want to ask Brian for $100 for a cut and color when he’s been eating PB&J at lunch for the last month. If you’ve been reading along, you know that my husband is a carpenter. With the current state of the economy, people are not adding crown modeling, shadow boxes and staircases with the same enthusiasm they did three years ago. He’s still working most days now but that doesn’t mean I can keep spending the way we used to.
Canceling that hair appointment seemed like a really smart idea. It would also give me more time to think of a low key idea for my hair – red hair may make me feel bodacious but it’s a lot more work than I thought it would be. I don’t dye my hair myself because the last time I did, it turned pink. That was okay for college but this is the working world and the pharmaceutical industry is not filled with pink haired employees.
But on Thursday, a close friend of the family (Demi) died suddenly. We didn’t hear about it until today and the viewing is tomorrow.
Suddenly, my roots look like Shakira’s in the “Underneath Your Clothes” video. My cute layers are not feeling so cute. And don’t even get me started on the state of my eyebrows.
It’s a reminder that the way I present myself might be different from the way I see myself.
When things are going well, it is really easy to look in the mirror and think about how great you are/look/feel.
But when life hits you unexpectedly, it is easy to let those doubts (that are usually kept at bay) seep in.
Reality is somewhere in the middle. My hair doesn’t look as great as I thought it did last week when I canceled my appointment but it doesn’t look as bad as I think it looks today. And really, my hair has nothing to do with the world that surrounds me.
There is this fine line between taking pride in your appearance and letting your appearance take over you. You need to go to work each day, dressed with the same passion that you dressed with before your first job interview. You need to also be able to still get your hands dirty in life – whether that be making mud pies with a small child or trying something new for the first time.
Demi was a person who saw my family at their best and at their worst. She set my parents up on their first date even though neither of my parents were interested in dating. She stood by my mom when my mother was raising a small child by herself. And it was at her house where I got stuck in a tree when was five.
It is easier to fixate on my own appearance than it is to really process what happened. Because I can change myself but I can’t change what happened.
Brian, Dorie and Stress
I used to forget that men and women deal with stress differently. But I also think that most of us forget we deal with stress differently until we watch someone be beaten over the head violently with their own stress. Then we remember. And then we go back to the blissful state of ignorance when the poor victim of stress walks away. Life is great.
This stops working once two people decide to walk down the aisle. Then, all bets are off. I’m not trying to scare the single friends out there but it’s true.
Then you get the pleasure of living with your mate’s stress and their way of addressing their stress.
Like many women, when stress hits I give myself a pep talk and pull myself up by my bootstraps. Your house collapsed and you have nowhere to go? Great, I’ll organize a community meal schedule and prep the house for you to stay with me for a month. I’m five minutes away. Oh you need a baby sitter with ten minutes notice? Great, by the time you pick up your family, the kids will be fed, homework will be done and my house will still be immaculate. Money is tight, we got a surprise bill and you don’t know how we’re going to manage it? That’s fine, I moonlight as a miracle worker, and I’ll make it happen.
It sounds ridiculous but this is how I process everything in my head.
Brian’s approach to dealing with stress is much different. He shuts down. He ceases to function. Do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. He’s okay with stress to a point, and then he is not. He just stops.
I go into “Super Bitch” mode when I get to that level of stress. At that point, I’m going to get my shit done and you will not get in my way. Brian is very kind when he calls me “Cranky Face”. A little too kind perhaps. Kind to the point of lying to me.
We both get a little annoyed with the other for our respective coping mechanisms. The coping mechanisms that worked best when we were single are not necessarily the best coping mechanisms in terms of a marriage.
I talked to my friend Carmella about this. Carmella is a marriage counselor and a newlywed herself. She is also my frequent voice of reason. When I cross over into crazy land with my expectations of other people, she is the one who can say I’m being unreasonable and I know that statement from her does not come from a defensive place. It comes from the voice of someone who is pursuing a Ph.D. in Psychology.
Carmella, of course, tells me that this is normal and most couples find themselves with similar responses. Which I find hard to believe at first. Because how did we as humans manage to populate the planet if the men-folk were shutting down every time stress happened? “Uh-oh Honey, some prehistoric beast is attacking our cave! No wait; don’t hide in the corner, save our offspring!”
But while I am still contemplating the evolutionary implications of our stress reactions, Carmella tells me that the dinners I make are excessive. And she’s right. Because dinner is a massive undertaking in our house. It takes me at least an hour to make dinner every night. Maybe I’m going overboard but I want my husband to have one really good meal every day.
The night after I talk to Carmella, Brian looks at me and says “you get home every night and it’s late. And then you make dinner and it’s late. And then you clean up dinner and it’s late. And then we watch TV but you fall asleep.”
I deal with stress by trying to make a perfect meal and Brian deals with stress by wanting to watch television with a wife who is awake.
We continue the dance of figuring out what it means to be in a marriage with each other.
Craving Community
Today, I hate community. A lot.
Community is tough to deal with day in and day out. Community means you willing let the people around you be up in your business. I don’t always want the people around me to be in community with me.Sometimes, I want to be an island.
Sometimes I want to be left alone with my own self destructive devices.
The important thing to remember about community is that we always crave community. Even self declared loners crave community; they just are more vocal about only craving community on their own terms. And we all try to have community based largely on our own terms. We seek to build communities that are filled with people who are like us.
Even if you say that diversity in a community is important to you, you are still entering a community that is filled with people who are like you – people who crave diversity.
So what ends up happening is that bloggers join communities that are filled with other bloggers. Christians join communities that are filled with other Christians. Greek life alumnae join alumnae associations for their own organizations.
It is simple really.
Community is rough because ideally your community is filled with people who are going to call you out on your shit. And more importantly, people who are going to call you out on the important shit. Because it is so easy to call someone out on their shit when it is trivial. It is far easier to call me out on the fact that I never return phone calls than it is to call me out on my ability to write people off who wrong me.
I might say I want a community that calls me out but what I really want is a community where I can call other people out on their shit. Because calling other people out feels safer than it does to be on the receiving end.
But what I need to grow as a person is a community that is going to tell me, quite loudly, when I am messing up hardcore. I need a community who is going to be there for me, whether I want them there or not. I need community that both humbles me and lifts me up.This is why we crave community. We crave community to save us from ourselves.
Wanting community just isn’t enough. We have to crave it in order to venture out to seek community. We are, in fact, social creatures.
But today, I hate community. Because community also means being involved and sometimes being involved is just inconvenient. Sometimes being involved means going to things that you aren’t interested in, just because it is important to someone else. Sometimes being involved means making a meal for someone when you really want to be at home on the couch, watching bad television. Sometimes being involved means listening to someone rant like a lunatic when you really want to tell them they sound like a jackass.
Community does not equal easy.
Being a part of a community, not just lurking on the fringes of community, means that there is work involved. It is the same kind of work that goes into building a marriage. It simply doesn’t work if the parties involved don’t put in the effort.
So today, I hate community. Because I don’t really want to put the work into community. And that’s okay. My cravings for community trump my inner urges of laziness. So I keep putting the work in, even when it is not easy and even when it is not convenient.
I do it because tomorrow I’ll want to be apart again.
Life with Don
I keep finding posts and articles about Gen Y and moving back home stumble flash across my browser and I think it’s time I say something about it. Mostly in the form of a confession.
Brian and I have spent the first 18 months of our marriage living with my father-in-law, Don. I usually try to avoid saying it flat out but I know I’ve alluded to it in the past in both comments and posts.My name is Dorie, I’m 26 and I’m a boomerang kid.
I moved back home follow graduation. Which was horrible. I am convinced that the only way possible for my mother and me to function as rational people is for us to live in different zip codes. Life post graduation in my childhood bedroom was mind numbingly horrible. We fought constantly, I tried to be drunk for as much of it as humanly possible and I was stuck. It’s a miracle anyone survived.
Then I met Brian, we decided to get married and I moved into his father’s house. Most women fear moving from their father’s house and directly into their husband’s house. Brian and I were flat broke and that wasn’t an option.
We spent the first six months on a futon on the floor of his high school bedroom. For the last year, we’ve actually had a bed to sleep on. It was by no means comfortable living but we did it.
Part of the weirdness comes from the fact that I run my late mother-in-law’s household. It’s her organizational systems that I maintain. I cook in her kitchen. I use her washer and dryer for the household’s laundry. It kind of feels like limbo. Because it is limbo.
So why did we do it?
1. Housing in Lower Bucks County is really expensive. A one bedroom apartment in the bad part of town will set you back at least eight hundred dollars a month. For about four hundred dollars more, we could get a mortgage. Since we were committed to the Philadelphia area, why rent when we could buy?
2. We could not afford to buy a house right away. We did not have enough money for a down payment. It took about a year for us to save enough money for a down payment. Had we been renting, we calculate it would have taken 3 to 4 years to save enough money.
3. We wanted a place we could stay rent free while we renovated a home. Brian is a carpenter. It made sense to get a handyman’s special.
4. Nine months before our wedding, Brian’s mom passed away. Moving was just too painful.
Now that our time in Brian’s childhood home is wrapping up, I catch myself reflecting on the time. There are a lot of pros and a lot of cons too.
Pro: It taught us how to fight. Having someone else in the house to hear it when we were disagreeing helped us to stay kind to each other. Because it’s one thing to have in-laws. It’s a whole different thing to have your spouse’s family hear your disagreements. The upside is that we’re pretty good with disagreeing without yelling.
Con: Sometimes you just want a good fight with no one listening. Sometimes I want to rant and rave like an absolute lunatic and not have my father-in-law listening to my insanity.
Pro: It’s broken down the typical “in-law” issues. Brian’s dad isn’t just “my father-in-law” but Don. He’s a real three dimensional person, not just someone to deal with at family functions. These living arrangements have connected me to Brian’s family in ways our marriage couldn’t do by itself.
Con: It makes it harder to be “Dorie” in terms other than “Brian and Dorie”. Limited living space a couple means that there is also limited space for me to still be home but alone. For the first 6 months, we were literally on top of each other because our “bed” was so small. We now live in two rooms but it can still be a challenge.
Pro: We didn’t have to buy what was available. We were able to be fussy about the house we purchased because we didn’t have to worry about when a lease would be up. We also were able to start our renovations without having live in construction or pay rent. It took a lot of pressure off.
Con: Sometimes it took a little too much pressure off us. To the point of becoming lazy. It becomes easier to say “no, I won’t work on the house today because it is raining” instead of saying “I have to move in a month, I have to get to work”.
Pro: We were able to save a ton of money. We were able to have money for a down payment for our home and still have money left over for renovations. I won’t say we are rolling in cash but we are able to get by today without too much panic.
Con: Sometimes it was really tempting to spend that money. Sometimes we were able to practice self control, other times we just couldn’t do it. While I may have loved coming home some days to random jewelry surprises (“Hello Sapphires, I love the way you look on me too”), it did not help our plan to put money aside.
Overall, living with Brian’s dad has been very good for us but I’m not sure I would recommend it to anyone else. If you do find yourself in a situation where you are married and living at home, set some ground rules first and get those rules in writing. Some questions you should ask:
1. Are we expected to pay rent? How much? What day should I give you money?
2. What household responsibilities are we responsible for?
3. What household errands are we responsible for?
4. What are your responsibilities are you response for as the home owner?
5. How will we handle the holiday seasons?
6. What are restrictions for having guests over?Treat everything like it is a business arrangement. It may sound impersonal but it is a key part of maintaining a functioning family in an awkward situation.
And don’t forget to make an exit plan too!
Guest Post: Support your local everything
Last Tuesday, I published a guest post by Gary Alloway, where he wrote about disconnection and suburban poverty. This week, Gary is writing about the changes we all need to make in our communities. Check out last week’s post and I hope you take part in the conversation.
“Support Your Local Everything!” I saw this bumper sticker in a local coffee shop recently. The coffee shop was supplying coffee for over 20 businesses in the area. They provided quick, personal service when their equipment broke down. They bought many of their ingredients from local vendors. And they paid their employees a livable wage along with benefits. I wrote previously that what makes suburban poverty unique is the experience of disconnection. Therefore, the solution to suburban poverty is building healthy communities. This begins with a sense of locality.
Do you live in suburbia? Who lives in your community? What are their values? What makes your community unique? What does your town smell like? Most people in suburbia cannot answer these questions because our geographical identity and culture is not determined by where we are, but by an urban center that is 20 miles away. In college, a friend of mine took a course on city planning where every student was asked to write about a place of interest. Every urbanite and small towner wrote about his or her community. Not a single suburbanite did. Suburbanites are not taught to be aware of where they live (an ignorance facilitated by large tracts of unincorporated sprawl with no centralization). Tackling suburban poverty begins with opening our eyes to our communities. We will not take ownership of our community until we actually know where we are and are proud of it.
If you need help with this, I suggest walking or biking in your community. (This will be awkward in most suburbs, but do it anyway). At a slower speed, we see the ways our communities are put together. We will find historic houses, small creeks, and interesting people. But we will also see the low-income workers waiting for the bus. We see the prostitute who always hangs out at the budget motel. We notice the apartment complex where the paint is peeling off. At 75 mph, these are blurs. At walking speed, we actually see the suburban poor.
Proximity allows us to help the poor in more meaningful ways. It is very difficult to integrate someone into your life when they live 30 miles away. When they are your neighbors, you can invite them to church, have them over for dinner, help them find a job, or give them a ride to a doctor’s appointment. In relationship, the poor stop being a project and start being people. Poverty is a dehumanizing experience. Relationship is just as necessary for healing as any sort of financial assistance. Locality allows us to have real relationships with the poor rather than just writing a check and crossing charity off our to do list. Relationships contribute to healthy communities, rather than quick fixes.
And any healthy community must have strong local business. Local businesses provide jobs and will not move these jobs the second cheaper workers become available somewhere else. They are more likely to support local charities and advocate on local issues, rather than doing their corporate responsibility by sending a large check to a large, disconnected charity. Local businesses also have accountability. When an owner is a neighbor to their employee, he is far less likely to pay exploitative wages. When an owner is a neighbor, she is far less likely to do ecological or economic damage to the larger community. And money put into local business is far more likely to stay within your community and actually trickle down, rather than build up corporate headquarters a thousand miles away. Many local businesses cannot compete with the flashiness or locations of the chains, so you may not even know they are there. Take your time. Open your eyes to your community.
Also hidden in our suburban communities are the saints who have been working with the poor for decades. Poverty is a huge issue and frankly, we lack the funds and the expertise to make a dent in the larger issues. But in partnership, we are able to bring together resources, ideas, and leadership in ways that can change a community. So we need to know who is at work in our community. Our church talked for years of starting a community center in our warehouse space. The only problem was that such a project would probably cost $100,000 to start, meaning it would never actually happen. As we went into our community, we discovered that our township had been planning community events, but lacked a meeting space. We are currently in discussion about hosting community events that they would fund and staff. A local mindset breeds connections and partnerships that are necessary for healthy community.
In a culture obsessed with the bottom line, we often lose sight of beauty. Most suburban communities are not built to be beautiful. There is little value placed upon green space. Architecture is based upon convenience rather than style. Things like murals and landscaping are neglected because nobody is on foot. The arts are left to the city. The poor need good jobs. The poor need real relationships. But the poor also need beauty. And the lack of beauty in our communities makes us all poor. Beauty is a tough sell in communities obsessed with upping the tax base. But if we have pride in our communities then we will desire them to be attractive and unique. And hopefully we will make them beautiful.
Overcoming suburban poverty is not about diverting that donation from Africa to Levittown. It is about building healthy communities – communities where the poor can find decent housing and good jobs, communities that have relational networks of support, and communities where people care for their neighbors. This is a multifaceted and deeply complex. But it begins with a local awareness that is so often lacking in suburbia. Want to help the suburban poor? Support your local everything.
Meet my niece!
I’d like to take a moment to introduce everyone to the newest addition to the family: Natalie Clayre!
Natalie has one day, one hour and fifty minutes of living under her belt.
And she’s amazing. She’s so beautiful, I don’t know what to do with myself. And there’s something about watching her father hold her oh so carefully that overwhelms me.
It makes me want to make such a beautiful soul with Brian.
My Niece
We’re so blessed to have the new person in our family. Our lives may have changed tremendously over the last year but none of that matters when you look at this face that just wants to be loved and supported.
Already, everyone wants to be near her. Everyone wants to love and be loved. Everyone wants a moment to touch a miracle.
She humbles you.
She doesn’t know anything about career development. She couldn’t give a rat’s ass about her daddy being a gamer or her Aunt Dorie being a blogger. She doesn’t know we dream about her changing the world someday. She doesn’t even know that her tongue is permanently attached to her yet!
But she has her priorities in check. She is living the balanced life we all dream about it. Her only concern relates to when her mommy will feed her again.
She’s smarter than I will ever be. Someday, I’m going to look at this kid and wonder how she knows so much.
Natalie Clayre
But today, I’m just going to look at this face and be grateful that my family has been changed by her. And in such wonderful ways.
Congratulations Jason and Kelly! Your family is beautiful!
Guest Post: Disconnection and Suburban Poverty
Today’s guest post was written by Gary Alloway. Gary is a graduate of Penn State and Princeton Theological Seminary. He is also a part time pastor at The Well. Hassling Gary is a hobby for Brian and I (more so for me, Brian might just be along for the ride) - at the moment, my favorite thing to hassle him is whether he is Gen X or Gen Y and his preference for Bright Eyes.
This is the first of two posts by Gary about suburban poverty. I hope it makes you a little uncomfortable and I hope it makes you want to change something.
When most people think of poverty in America, they think urban or rural. Yet more than half of those in poverty in America live in suburbia. Bucks County (where I live) is one of the wealthiest counties in Pennsylvania, yet 5% of the county lives below the poverty line. While the problems of suburban poverty often mirror those of the city, the defining characteristic of suburban poverty is disconnection.
In suburbia, communities do not function as integrated units. We do not know the neighbors. We rarely walk anywhere in the community. We do not know who owns the stores in which we shop. Public places, such as parks, community centers, or local cafes, almost never serve as meeting points. As a result, all of our relational encounters are voluntary. And birds of a feather flock together. To the middle class, the poor become invisible. We do not see them, hear them, or know them. Most people in suburbia are ignorant of the poverty in their own backyard. It is common for churches and other community organizations to seek to help the poor, driving past the budget motel and the low-end apartment complex on their way to the inner-city.
Because we are disconnected from those in poverty, we do not build communities that accommodate the poor. Low-income housing is neglected in favor of faceless high-end housing that will increase the tax base (as though someone who buys a characterless house on a characterless street in a characterless town will have a great investment in the community). The poor are forced to scrape for housing they cannot afford. Budgets become fragile, making homelessness a real threat. Those who can afford housing often do so by working hours that disconnect them from their families.
When low-income housing is built, it is usually tucked away behind the strip mall or next to the railroad tracks or off the highway; places we drive by at 75 mph and hence, never see. The end result is very small ghettos – pockets of poverty that mirror the worst inner-city neighborhoods, but due to their size and location, are invisible. It is hard to overlook the 25 square miles of poverty in North Philadelphia (though we do our best). It is very easy to overlook the apartment complex. We do not know the poor, so we do build communities that accommodate the poor and their isolation is furthered. Disconnection breeds disconnection.
This disconnection is difficult to overcome because suburbia presumes the automobile. Without a car in suburbia, you are screwed. I work with single parents trying to overcome poverty in Bucks County. Imagine trying to coordinate day care, a job, school, and visits to your case manager when you live in a town where the bus comes once an hour to a stop that is half a mile away. Imagine getting to the grocery store and back. The middle class do not ride public transportation so they do not invest in it. And the bus becomes the ghetto, a small convoy of the poor, disconnected from their community.
Even the most motivated person has trouble overcoming suburban poverty. I used to work at a homeless shelter in downtown Denver and within a ten-minute walk, one could reach the free clinic, the day shelter, the food bank, the social security office, and hundreds of jobs. But while I was there, gentrification was dispersing poverty, pushing the poor into the outer rings of the city and into suburbia. Bucks County has many social programs to help the poor, from welfare to job training programs. But they are disconnected. The locations are disconnected. The organizations are disconnected. Those who take advantage of them will find themselves trying to put together a puzzle of pieces that don’t create a clear picture.
Urban ghettos can be places of immense oppression, where the depth of suffering is palpable. But urban ghettos can also be places where tragedy binds residents together in vibrant community. The suburban poor are more likely to find themselves alone - isolated from communities where prosperity is the norm – a silent anhedonic suffering. Physically, socially, and spiritually, suburban poverty is an experience of disconnection.
Live your life as if it were a video game
Guest post today by Jun Loayza! In case you haven’t discovered him on your own yet, Jun is the CMO of Future Delivery, blogs regularly and is part of the Brazen Careerist community. I asked Jun to write about something he is passionate about and I love his perspective on approaching life. I hope this changes the way you approach living.
“My name is Cloud Strife, and I fought against the evil forces of Shinra. I stood against the evil Sephiroth and managed to save the planet by destroying him.”
Yes, I was an uber dork in high school, but living in this fantasy world is just oh so fun. The game that I’m referring to above is Final Fantasy VII – it was the last role playing game that I ever played and truly lost myself in. Playing video games is extremely addicting in our society. We see it all the time with hardcore gamers in World of Warcraft or Starcraft. WoW is so addicting that players have actually died from starvation!
I used to live my life like an NPC (Non Playable Character). We have all seen these characters in video games; they stand around in towns to make the place look more lively and fun. They’re always doing the same exact thing, never progress, and are just bystanders to the actual main story of the game. I was an NPC because I was just on cruise-control with my life. I never really had to try hard to achieve anything because everything just came to me: I wanted to get into UCLA, and I got in; I wanted to become a brother in Delta Sigma Pi, and I received a bid; if I wanted to start dating this cute girl in class, I (usually) started dating her. Because of my easy-going life style and my philosophy of letting things just happen to me, I was a true NPC of my life. I was just watching it go by.
Fall 06 was the turning point in my life. I was interviewing for full-time offers in Consulting and approached the recruiting process with the same NPC mentality. After a few interviews, I started feeling confused because I hadn’t heard back from the companies. I went home one weekend to visit the family and saw the letters on my desk, the letters that you dread as a high school student looking to get into college and as a graduating senior looking to get a full-time job. They were my first rejection letters.
It felt like a ton of bricks had just given me a blow to the chest. I had never felt so useless, unwanted, and rejected. I had been cruising in my life, just letting things happen and never truly taking the initiative to progress my life story.
Do you know how you spot an NPC in real life? Go up to someone and ask them, “What’s new?” If they say, “Same old, same old,” then you just found yourself an NPC.
My life of playing video games, ditching class, and non-stop drinking must be put to a stop now. I turned to my friend and now business partner Yu-kai Chou who had a similar turning point in his life. He advised me, “Why don’t you live your life as if it were a video game?” “What in the world are you talking about?” I asked…
Your primary goal in an RPG (role playing game) is to increase in level, gain new abilities, and become a more powerful player. It’s fun to do it in a fantasy world, so why not do it in real life? You can gain new abilities by learning a new programming language, learning a new language, or reading a new business book. You can gain in your social attributes by constantly networking and joining social networking sites that will increase the variety of your social circles. You can level-up in real life by developing yourself personally and professionally. This is what I decided to do and it has dramatically changed my life for the better.
So what did I do? I gained in my leadership attributes by founding Bruin Consulting and the Undergraduate Case Competition at UCLA. I gained experience points by founding The Veridical Group – a small business consulting firm. I increased my social level by creating a blog and making an effort to meet the blogging community. I turned my life into a video game and made it my goal to constantly keep leveling up in real life.
This life goal has lead Yu-kai and I to found Future Delivery. Our goal with Future Delivery is to help student and young professionals have fun with career and professional development. We recently launched our site FD Career which helps you lead your life as if it were a video game. Every time you gain an internship, get a high GPA, or become the leader of an organization, you gain experience points and level up on the site. As you gain in level, you earn prestige, are rewarded new features and abilities, and gain the ability to recruit with prestigious firms. Yu-kai and I had to go through a huge road block in our lives to reach this epiphany. Our hope is that with FD Career, students and young professionals will realize that leveling up in real life is much more fun and rewarding that leveling up your fantasy character in a video game.
I am Level 34 in real life. What level are you?
A Girl’s Best Friend
Today I’d like to share a guest post from Deb Miller. Deb lives in the Philadelphia suburbs, blogs at The Writer Bee and is part of The Well community. At the bottom of the post, I’ve linked to a few of my favorite posts she has shared on her blog. I hope you enjoy this as much as I have.
Only a week into getting back to “the real world” after having spent 10 days with my best friend at her home in Seattle, I’m still feeling the pain of being separated from her and thought I’d take a few minutes to speak on this.
The importance of friends in our lives is really immeasurable. We need relationships. We’re designed to need them. When we don’t have them, we make them up (think: imaginary friends) or we start talking to volleyballs (think: Tom Hanks). The point? They’re important. As a single chick, I think they’re more than just important…they’re vital. I mean, I love my dog, but let’s face it – she’s not actually human. Maybe a man’s best friend can be a four-legged, furry beast with no language skills, but that doesn’t really work for me.
That may be part of the difference between friendships with men vs. other women. I think it’s great to have friends from both sides of the gender camp, but we are wired very differently and there’s no substitute in life I’ve found for a girlfriend who can commiserate with me over coffee about the things in my life that are strictly “girl-things” (although a pint of Ben & Jerry’s is a close second…)
In my early-20s when my single friends were dropping like flies from the dating scene as wedding rings were slipped on their fingers, I feared our relationships would change…or, worse yet, that I would actually lose their friendships. That their “significant other” would step in and take the place of all their other friends making us null and void. While it was a bit touch-and-go for awhile as they all sorted out the “what it means to be married” mystery, in the end most of my now-married friends seem to value our friendship just as much (if not more) than they did before. Phew!
My friend in Seattle actually just got married last December to a fantastic guy who it took awhile to find, but was absolutely worth the wait. Our friendship (which has been to hell and back a few times over the past 12 years) has remained constant and grown even stronger. As an added bonus, I also enjoy her husband so much that I’m excited to count him as a friend also. This a huge blessing next to friends I have whose husbands I barely know or don’t much care for.
When you’re thirty-something and single with no end in sight, your friends are more than just friends. They’re family. If I didn’t have my friends, I would probably spend a lot more time in tears, drunk, or both. I’d laugh a lot less. I’d feel a lot more lonely.
So listen-up all your married women: Pay attention to your single friends – they need you…and you need them (whether you recognize it or not). While your husband and children (where applicable) come first, keep in mind that it’s important to keep other women friends in your life (and try to find some single ones if you don’t already – we have different perspectives and stories to tell).
The point? My friends are my lifelines. They keep me grounded, make me laugh, cry with me, are in my corner, give me perspective, teach me, and love me. We might be thousands of miles and timezones apart, but I know they’re just a phone call, an email, or a flight away if I need them…and that makes all the difference. Good thing, too, otherwise I might begin chatting to random sporting equipment.
Other Posts by The Writer Bee:
Just call me Crackles
When Brian and I first decided to get married, we had this dream of owning a business someday. Or rather, we dreamed about building our own real estate empire. We wanted to buy old houses, renovate and remodel and then either rent or sell the properties. Brian would be in charge of the actual construction and I would be in charge of everything else. It seemed like a brilliant idea.
In fact, it still does.
We finally bought our first property three weeks ago and we get the pleasure of really learning about what having an entrepreneurial marriage would look like. And by pleasure, what I really mean is something more along the lines of having our eyes opened by surprise and shock.
We really weren’t expecting this.
But we’ve also learned a lot of good things too. About ourselves, about our marriage and about how we want to build a business.
Your Network
Your business is only as good as the people who support it. And the character of the people who support your business are a reflection of the character of the business. If your network is filled with people who suggest actions that are illegal or slightly unethical, take a step back and ask why those people are in your network. We learned this lesson but interacting with the seller’s representatives. We will not work with people who exist in that network again because we know there are problems within that network, we just don’t quite know where.
Your Work
I’m a self starter when it comes to projects. I want to show up, get the job done and move onto the next thing. I’ll take a break when the task is completed or if the task is too big, I’ll break it up into smaller chunks. Brian, on the other hand, is not a self starter. He’s much better at making the day fun. And that’s okay. Between the two of us, stuff gets done and everyone has a good time.
Our Marriage
Sometimes, you just need to be reminded how well you work together. I won’t lie; it’s been a rough few months for my husband and me. With family drama, house drama and work drama, it isn’t always easy to connect. But working together on the house gives both of us a chance to look at each other at our best. And I shouldn’t forget to mention how great it feels when we can share the sense of accomplishment (instead of telling the other about a sense of accomplishment during dinner). Team Morgan becomes stronger because of it.
Our Knowledge
My husband has totally different set of skills than I do. He creates beautiful things in homes and I know he makes other people’s lives better because of it. Working together gives me a great opportunity to learn new things from Brian. Learning new skills changes my perspective and helps with problem solving elsewhere. I might not use carpentry skills everyday in the office but who can’t use a new way to look at the world? Once you have an understanding of a skill set, you can look to apply that set in new directions.
Our SillinessOn our first day of work, my dear sweet husband started giving out construction names. My mother was named “Butchie”. Because of my dad’s resemblance to the guy on the Mr. Clean bottle, he was named “Sparkles”. But what did Brian name his wife? “Crackles.” Why? Because “Cracker” was already taken by someone else he knows.
So I did what any good “Crackles” would do: I told them all to shut up and get back to work
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