Dorie Morgan’s Rising Up
Navigating Twenty-Something Suburban Life
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Archive of "relationships" Category
Falling in love with fiction
Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children; life is the other way around. ~David Lodge
I haven’t been blogging as frequently as I want to because I fell deeply in love with Twilight last week. Translation: In the last eight days, I’ve read the first three books twice. And flagged my favorite sections with post-it notes and gone back and reread those sections.
It’s like book crack and now I need rehab.
I should have realized I had a problem when I tried to convince my husband to drive me to all of the places I needed to go so I could read. But I didn’t realize it then. No, it wasn’t until I was sitting an exceptionally long red light thinking about getting the books from the back seat that I realized I had a problem.
I’m okay with my obsessive book tendencies. This isn’t so different from when I was a kid – I realized when I was about 7 years old that I could hide in the bathroom to read because no one would bother me there (my mother must have been convinced that I had intestinal problems for years when really, I was sitting behind the bathroom door with my nose in a book). I also kept a night light in my room until I was twelve so I could read at night when everyone thought I was asleep. It was a sad night when it was finally discovered that I was always so tired from reading well into the early morning hours.
So last week, I let my whole life fall by the wayside so I could read Twilight with desperate need. My husband was confused by it. He’s not a reader. The more I consumed of each book, the more annoyed he became (the ride to Sam’s club may have pushed him over the edge). And the more annoyed he became, the more I grew in love with the characters.
It was so easy to fall in love with the characters too. Why? Losing yourself in the fantasy of a fictional man is effortless. Books don’t write about how he leaves dishes in the sink, the toilet seat up or that he thought it was a great idea to start making fun of your mother’s cooking at the last family reunion. Books are about the desire, the urges, the emotions that are not dirtied by day to day living.
In a book, we never get to the part of the story where the woman loses interest in sex and the man can’t get it up in a moment’s notice. Or if we do get to that point in the story, it’s because we started there and we then discover how something sparked passion again. In a book, we feel the initial passion for the first time and we remember the passion that may have waned in our own lives.
All of this got me thinking: If someone were to write about my life with Brian, where would be the part where our “story” would be “over”? The beginning part of our story is easy. We meet. I avoid him. I realize I’m falling for him. We go on one date. His mother dies. We court. We decide to get married. My parents flip out. I cry. Nine months later, I finally become Mrs. Morgan.
But from there, what happens to the story? Does the story go on to talk about my own cancer scare from last year, which ended anticlimactically? (Thank God, there was no tumor.) Or does the story go on to tell about me making sandwiches in the mornings and doing laundry at night? Does the story go on to weave words of how we sit around playing World of Warcraft together while passing a bottle of wine back and forth?
When we fall in love with fiction, whether that is movies, books or any other type of fantasy, do we set expectations for our mates that can never be reached?
There is a very fine line between high expectations and the impossible.
You were a jerk. Let’s fix it.
So maybe after reading last week’s post, you have realized that you are, in fact, the office asshole. Maybe you had no clue before. Maybe you didn’t care before. But now you know and now, you want to do something to fix it.
As I said last time, I’m not sure you can fix it. I wish it was that simple. But every office has at least one person (or more) with the memory of an elephant. Some people will want to forgive and forget and move on with their workday. Other people will remember and be wary. And either way is okay. Much like they could not change the fact that you are/were the office jerk, you can not change how they chose to deal with it.
Step 1: Stop talking about yourself. Adopt a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy with your personal life. If they don’t ask, you don’t tell. It really is that simple. You are not as interesting to your cube mate as you are to yourself.
Step 2: Start talking (or at least asking) about other people. Please don’t interpret that as start gossiping though. You’ve spent enough time talking about yourself, now its time to hear about someone else. Ask about what someone’s plans are for the weekend. And then, here’s the hard part, wait until they ask about your plans. If they don’t ask, then refer to Step 1. Mostly likely, the person who is most interesting to the person you are talking to is them self.
Step 3: Take an interest. Sometimes, you have to look out for yourself first. For some of us, that’s next to impossible to learn. But other times, you have to look out for your time first. And for the rest of us, that’s next to impossible to learn. If you have been the office jerk, chances are, you were only looking out for Number 1. So now, you learn how to listen to what projects are on the horizon for your team. And if your team is stuck or struggling, take an interest and offer to help. Don’t offer to help to be the hero and save the day. You are offering to help by saving your team from the tedious. You are showing your team/department/office that you realize you need them.
Step 4: Remember those interns. Maybe you weren’t so nice to those interns before. Now, you have to be. I’ll be honest, I secretly judge most of my coworkers based on how they treat the interns. So take an intern under your wing. Teach that intern something they may not have learned elsewhere. Maybe even pull an intern onto a choice assignment. It will never hurt you to help the low man on the totem pole.
Step 5: Do something nice. Maybe that looks like bringing cupcakes to the office or picking up breakfast for the team. Maybe being nice looks like remembering that someone loves jazz and then letting them know about a music festival they might enjoy. Maybe it is treating someone to lunch. I’m not suggesting you try to buy love (and if you are a jerk, this will only make things worse) but people love to feel like they have been remembered.
Step 6: Apologize. Maybe this is a step reserved for the truly heinous of office assholes but if you are making no progress in improving your office relationships, you may need to acknowledge your previous behavior. It doesn’t need to be anything over the top but it does need to be sincere and to the point. An example: “I realize that for a long time I did not treat the team properly and I need to correct that. What do you think I can do to make the situation better?”
Step 7: Dust off your resume. You may have done too much damage at your place of current employment to correct it. But don’t just hop to a new job and hope everything will be better. You will need to be making an active effort not to repeat the mistakes you made previously. Figure out why you were such a jerk before and then avoid those situations/triggers/whatever that set you off.
What do your coworkers really think of you?
One of the men in my office is a real asshole. He seems to think he’s an authority on everything, even though he complains constantly that he doesn’t know how things work. I’m fairly certain he’s not doing any of the work he’s being paid to complete himself (I keep catching other people’s interns completing his work), but he will always tell you why you are doing your job incorrectly. He’s demeaning to women and treads very closely to the sexual harassment line. Wait a minute, he’s demeaning to everyone. I just have no respect for him.
At first, I tried to chalk it up to the fact that he’s a baby boomer and I’m a millennial and we just don’t see eye to eye and it must be a communication problem and so on. But then I hit me: He really is just an asshole.
And the rest of the Boomers in the office think he’s an asshole too. And since I really respect and trust those coworkers, I’m okay with writing the guy off all together.
The worst part of it: he doesn’t seem to know that he’s an asshole. Like many other aspects of his work life, he just has no clue. But he can’t be the only one in that boat.
In case you were curious if your co-workers think you’re an asshole, here are a few clues.
You enter conversations that don’t pertain to you. If I’m discussing a situation in a department meeting, and you walk by the room and enter uninvited to tell me your opinion, there’s something wrong. People will ask for your opinion if they think you have some insights or ideas that could help the situation. And if no one asks, you can find a better venue to share your ideas than bursting into a meeting.
You frequently find yourself eating alone. If you are taking lunch at noon and no one else is in the break room with you, there is a problem. Especially if noon used to be the peak lunch hour. Let’s face it: your lunch break is valuable time because it is your time. And when your coworkers start showing that you aren’t wanted during their time, its time to make a change in your behavior.
You tell your coworkers all about you – but you rarely ask your coworkers about them. I work at a small company with a family atmosphere. As a result, I hear a lot about my coworkers personal lives, which is great. It helps me to work more efficiently with my coworkers because I have a greater understanding of where people are coming from. For example, the girl next to me ran a 5k last night and she didn’t do as well as she would have liked. But after telling me about the 5k experience, she asked me about how my night class went last night. Relationships are give and take – no one wants to just hear about how great you are, they want you to ask as well. People will start to avoid you if they think you are only interested in yourself.
You bully the interns. Interns are here to be treated like a second class citizen. Interns are here to learn, to gain work experience and hopefully, make some money. And really, when you treat my intern with a lack of respect, I lose even more respect for you. Why? I don’t want to be around you if you make yourself feel good by treating others poorly and certainly do not want my team to be around you either. And let’s not even get into the fact that I would not want you anywhere near my clients.
Is there anyway to bounce back from this behavior? I’m still not sure. Part of me thinks it just isn’t possible.
Is blood thicker than water?
My mother gives me a lot of unsolicited advice when it comes to married life. I suppose it’s a natural and overwhelming urge for her to pass on these gems of wisdom. Nine times out of ten, I strongly disagree with what she believes to be true, which is making me wonder how I lived in the same house as this woman from birth until adulthood.
Lately, the advice has been relating to interacting with his family. Since I am an only child and an only grandchild (yes, I know I blogged about my cousin last week but she’s actually my step-cousin), I need all the advice I can get when it comes to interacting with siblings. While I spent the first 24 years of my life learning how to be quiet by myself, Brian learned how to survive having 3 older sisters.
When it comes to healthy family relationships, I am in over my head.
So my mom gives me advice to make up for the fact that reproduction is not my family’s strong point. She seems to think that if she passes on enough pieces of truth from her own life, it will make up for some of the confusion in my own life.
But really, her advice is just getting under my skin. “Blood is thicker than water” is her favorite phrase to utter over the phone during my commute home.
The way I catch myself interpreting her advice is that biological family ties will be the bonds that trump all other bonds. I’m not sure that is what she really means but it is what I keep hearing. And in my life, there are so many things wrong with that mentality.
For example: I don’t know who my birth father is. Despite the fact that he was married to my mother when I was both conceived and born, I have not seen him since I was six months old. In my house, we don’t talk about it. I don’t know what he looks like and no one will answer my questions. Which then leaves the question: If blood is truly thicker than water, is the blood flowing through my veins just really crappy? Is it less bonding than other blood?
Take another example: My step dad adopted me when I was thirteen. I’ve called him “Daddy” since the day he married my mother. He gave me away when I married Brian. But despite a slight resemblance, I share no genetic material with the man I identify as my father. There is no “blood” between us. If blood is truly thicker than water, does an adopted child only have a chance at a deep relationship when they grow up and have kids of their own?
But more troubling, my mom’s advice makes me think of baby boomers and the waves of divorce I have watched my friends survive. Even as adults, the experience of watching their parents divorce has shaken the world they live in. And the shared blood through their children still was not enough to make things work.
If blood truly is thicker than water, how does a marriage survive and thrive? Will sibling relationships always take the cake for closeness?
And then I wonder about my life and my marriage. And I wonder about the world of twenty somethings and their budding marriages. Will our ability to learn from our parents’ mistakes enable us to change the face of American marriage? Could we decide as a generation to make the difference between family and friends irrelevant?
Are you liberated by your marriage?
When Brian and I first decided to get married, I hated my job. Actually, I probably hated 90% of my life but it was easier to focus that energy at hating my job. But I felt stuck. I needed the money too much to quit working but I didn’t really have the time to devote to a job search. And my job made it next to impossible to take time off to interview.
I spent a lot of time crying because of it. But crying didn’t help me at all. It didn’t give me more money. It didn’t help me find a new job. All crying did was make me hate my job even more.
I was stuck. And I got to the point of stuck where I didn’t know how to become unstuck.
But this is where marriage steps in. I’ve been extremely blessed by the support and the liberation that my marriage has given me. Brian picked up my bills so I could quit that god awful job and hunt for something I truly loved. That might not seem like a big deal, but when Sallie Mae owns you to the tune of 1k+ each month, having a stretch of freedom is amazing.
A lot of times, we think of marriage as commitment and divorce as liberation from that commitment. But what if we changed the way we look at marriage? What if we start to think of marriage as opportunity? What if marriage liberates you from your fears? By changing our views of the institution of marriage, are we capable of changing its impact in our lives?
The fear of failure is still there for me but at the same time, its hold isn’t any where near as strong. Brian’s support liberates me to make choices that would be just too risky if I was single. And his support goes beyond financial. The emotional support he provides during times of stress and challenges is far more than what my family is capable of providing to me on a regular basis.
At the end of the day, I’m left with this: If your relationship does not uplift you and support you, why are you in that relationship? And if you are not capable for providing that same support to your partner, why not?
Internal Interviews: Was this really a good idea?
I recently applied for an internal posting within my company and then had the chance to sit around and be paranoid for a while as they decided whether or not I was interview worthy. The whole situation is like dating gone horribly wrong – I’ve already been on this “date” for the last year and a half, I’ve asked to take the next step and the other person is standing there and thinking about it while I feel awkward.
Now that I’m trapped in the internal hiring process, it is really starting to click in my head how many problems really are in this system. I’d love to say that being promoted from within is a win-win situation for everyone but now I’m not entirely sure.
For starters, what is going to happen to your career within the company if you are not selected for the position? Will that be remembered in the future if you apply for other positions? For example, could the ABC department turn you down because if the XYZ department didn’t want you, there must be a reason? The last few days, I’ve been thinking about this like a marriage proposal – does the relationship really survive after a rejected proposal or does it just limp along until someone has the guts to call it quits?
Next problem: I would be moving out of an administrative role but it isn’t unreasonable to think that I could be perceived as the new department’s copy ‘n staple bitch. Would I forever be seen as the coffee girl or could a truly become a vital part of the new department? Would I really be able to make the impact I am capable of making?
Finally, if this new position should work out, I’d be leaving my present boss in a bit of a bind. She would have to cover the work I currently do until they find someone to replace me or I could be expected to cover both positions until someone new could be trained. I really don’t want to leave my current boss in a bad position (I have a really great working relationship with her) but at the same time, I don’t want to put myself in a bad starting position.
My big interview is scheduled for tomorrow so I’m hoping I’ll know by the end of the week how this will pan out for me. Keep your fingers crossed it works out well for me and I’ll keep you posted on the process this week.
Should we be breaking up?
There comes a time in every girl’s life where she truly has to ask herself – Am I happy with this vendor relationship? Or am I afraid that there just isn’t anything better out there? Is it time to break up?
Then she has to fire a vendor.
I spent a lot of time thinking about this for the last month or so. My favorite vendor to use sadly has my least favorite account rep. Ever. The woman is almost enough to make me drop the vendor altogether despite the fact that her organization meets my needs (and my company’s needs) best.
How do you know if it is time? Ask yourself these questions:
1. Does my account rep communicate well with me? This is usually the first sign of trouble. When your account rep stops returning your emails or phone calls, it quickly becomes obvious that the relationship isn’t working. But what about when the rep is slow to respond to questions or concerns but quick to place an order on your behalf? If your concerns are not addressed as quickly as your orders, speak up. And if you can’t reach a new agreement, request a new account rep before you become so frustrated you drop the vendor.
2. Does my account rep call me about price changes? If an item you order on a frequent basis goes up in price, your account rep should call you before the price change occurs. If this is something you discover on your own, a red flag should go up. The account rep is there to keep you, the customer, happy and informed. The time it takes to call or email you to alert you of a price change is nominal compared to the level of frustration you will experience when you discover these things on your own.
3. Does my account rep know what I look like? I have been working for my employer for a year and a half – and ordering from this vendor for just as long. I know her office is within a half hour of my office. Do I know what she looks like? No. Does she have a firm understanding of who my company is? Definitely not. Your account rep needs to know who you are in order to help your company best. A ten minute stop in to your office goes a long way. The rep doesn’t need to be my best friend but she should be comfortable leaving her office and stopping by mine with new catalogs and services at least once a year.
I didn’t spend too much time thinking about these questions until the situation had gotten out of hand. Asking for a new account rep is easier than switching vendors and most companies live by the rule that it is easier to keep a customer than find a new one. Sure, the conversation is a little awkward at best but at least you don’t have return each others stuff at the end of it.
Social Activism as an Emotion
At the wedding on Sunday, Brian and I were chatting with one of the pastors from our church, Gary. Gary is just a year or two older than me so it is really easy to forget that he is supposed to be one of our spiritual leaders. To Brian and me, Gary is just a friend. I’m certainly not in awe of his M-Div from Princeton. It may not sound like a big deal now, but I’m hoping it’s a dynamic of the relationship we can maintain as he goes further into ministry because I think it will be important in keeping him grounded.
We spent a good portion of the luncheon chatting about our friend Jeff, who unfortunately had to miss the wedding. The interesting thing about Jeff is that he is very even in temperament. Good or bad, you’ll never really see or experience a big emotional outburst from him. It is really difficult to push his buttons. He could go through a horrible break up and have his heart crushed in the process and the most emotion you’d see from him would be something along the lines of “Meh, it just wasn’t working out”.
But Jeff is extremely passionate about social activism. Social activism isn’t just something Jeff does – it is an emotion and an experience for him. It can be easy to forget that Jeff could experience emotion until you hear him speak about organizations like Invisible Children or another ministry that he is involved in. It is really inspiring and humbling to hear about what he finds his passion in.
I am not a social activist. In fact, I’m really bad at social activism because I don’t feel like I can change the world, I just feel like I can get mad at it. I’m so quick to anger because of a world wide sense of entitlement and stupidity. But Jeff has this gift where he can see the world and move toward making it better.
What would this world look like if social activism was an emotion for more people? What would it look like if more young people felt the desire and overwhelming urge to help change the world when they saw injustice? What if our minds immediately went to “how can I fix this” instead of “That’s messed up”?
Sometimes I get scared about the idea of Brian and me bringing children into the world. I love kids and I desperately want to create a family with my husband. But I’m not sure it is a mature and responsible to decision to bring small lives into the world we live in now. Somehow, friends like Jeff make me think that maybe my someday babies will be safe. Maybe someday, it’ll be my babies who can change the world.
Why my husband’s low point is really a marriage high point
Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of seeing my husband in the bad-drunk category. It started off cute enough – he told me how beautiful and wonderful and smart and sexy I am and how much he loves me. Then he passed out. Then he woke up. Then he leaned over and puked all over me. Then he smashed his head on the wall and knocked himself out for about five minutes. Then he woke up, puked some more and sat in bed for a while.
In hindsight, I probably should have taken him right to the hospital to have his stomach pumped but I was concerned about the cost. At this point in our careers, we don’t have the income for hospital visits in non life or death situations. But in the five minutes where Brian was knocked out, I questioned whether or not I would be able to save his life if he began to choke on his own vomit. Thankfully, I never had to find out.
The point of this is not that my husband is a drunk – he’s not and when he tells me this was the first time he got sick from alcohol, I believe him. The point of this is that in marriage, you end up in a lot of places you never thought you would be.
I never thought I would spend twenty hours cleaning up vomit. But from two in the morning on Sunday until ten o’clock that night, cleaning it up was what I did. Brian probably never thought his wife would be coaching him through a shower and forcing him to drink water. But we did it. He also probably never thought that I would be waking him up at eight on a Sunday morning because I was mad at him for being drunk, but I did. Because if I had to suffer, he did too.
It is only during the unpleasant moments of marriage that we truly realize how much we love our mates and how much we actually are capable of doing. In college, I was notorious for what I called a “death fear of vomit”. I made girls in my sorority house who were sick (whether it be from booze or a stomach bug) go to the basement bathroom to throw up because the mere knowledge that vomit was happening near me was enough to push me over the edge. Yet somehow in the early hours on Sunday, I learned that I could survive. My urge to care for my husband was stronger than my own urge to throw up everywhere, although not by much (once a sympathy puker, always a sympathy puker).
Marriage is not always pleasant, although Disney would have you believe otherwise. Prince Charming does some dumb-ass things from time to time. The true test of the strength of a marriage is not whether or not the poor decisions happen but the way you cope with those decisions the next day.
Besides, it is only a matter of time until I do something dumb too.
PS – Taco Hell, I mean Bell and cheap Canadian whiskey are always a bad idea.
Why I Don’t Celebrate Valentine’s Day (here’s a hint: It involves a dead rat)
Last year, my husband experienced Valentine’s Day for the first time on this side of a relationship as he had always been single before then. He tried to warn me in the months before the holiday that he had never celebrated Valentine’s Day, he didn’t see the point of it and he did not want to celebrate. I thought I could utilize the skills I learned in premarital counseling and compromise by purchasing cards for each other instead of gifts. It seemed like such a good idea.
When Valentine’s Day arrived, we stayed in. It snowed so we played hooky from work. We made breakfast together. We lounged in bed. We had dinner together and shared a bottle of wine. Then it was time for the card exchange.
My dear sweet husband bought me a card with a dead rat on it. Nothing says romance like a rodent. And since I was drunk, I cried. I questioned whether or not we should get married. I got so worked up that Brian ruined an upcoming surprise to try to make me happier. I still cried about the dead rat.
We may have ended the evening by sleeping in separate rooms.
This year, I am not celebrating Valentine’s Day.
Let’s be honest for a moment: I know I am an individual with high expectations. I set these expectations for myself, for others and for inanimate objects. My husband does not have high expectations for anything. He goes with the flow and rolls with the punches. Valentine’s Day is not a declaration of our love but a clash of our differences.
I didn’t buy a card for Brian this year. Instead I found red boxers with white hearts and I left it at that. I know he bought something for me this year but that’s only because he made a mistake with the check book and I had to go back and fix the math.
But that’s okay. By not celebrating Valentine’s Day, I lowered my expectations and I can be happy with whatever he chooses to give to me.
After all, it is just another day and ten years from now, it won’t matter. One day is just a drop in the bucket when you have the rest of your lives together.
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