Confidence vs. Arrogance

Any time I write about self-image, weight lifting, exercising, our diets, publications, and anything at all happy, the following thoughts ricochet about in my brain after hitting "publish" on my blog:

• People are going to think I'm arrogant and self-centered with all this, "Look how joyful and healthy I am" stuff.
• Am I arrogant and self-centered?
• I better write a sarcastic and funny post about all of my faults and how much I suck.

So, immediately after I wrote about how good weight lifting was making me feel and the degree of self-confidence that gave me the power and strength to stretch into yoga poses I'd never been able to hold before, I wondered if what I said was arrogant.  Am I a braggart?

And then this verse came to mind, one of my favorite Bible verses,

"Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6).

There is a huge difference between arrogance and confidence, and an equally huge difference between humility and self-deprecation. 

While confidence and humility can walk hand-in-hand, joyfully celebrating the good work that you are while realizing you aren't perfect and that's okay, in fact that's just right because you are still in-progress, and this growing and refining and shaping is beauty and art and the stuff of life,

 

 

arrogance and self-deprecation propel away from each other.  Arrogance and self-deprecation propel you away from others.  Arrogance and self-deprecation speak opposite lies in the same direction: one says I'm so much better than you. The other says I'm so much worse than you. 

 

Confidence and humility tend to operate from a position of neutrality: I am someone who matters.  You are someone who matters.  I will treat you as if you matter.  You will treat me as if I matter.  Because we matter. 

 

Ironically, both arrogance and self-deprecation turn the spotlight on ourselves.  Look at me, I'm awesome, so much more awesome than you! or Look at me, I suck!

 

Confidence is knowing that you are a good work.  Arrogance is thinking you are the hottest piece of work to walk the planet and thus you need no more work at all.

 

People always say, "Ivan the Terrible. Oh, he's so terrible, oh, I'm so scared of Ivan, he's bad news." When in fact, the correct translation is, "Ivan the Awesome." - Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smythsonian

 

Humility is willing to wash the feet of a stranger.  Self-deprecation lies down on the floor and begs to be stepped on, and when you tell it no, you don't deserve to be stepped on, you're great!, it says, no, no, no, really, I am a doormat.  Step on me.  Self-deprecation downgrades its worth so that others will take pity and deliver praise for how awesome you really are.

 

Unlike arrogance and self-deprecation, confidence and humility don't carry around a yard stick to see how they measure up with others.

 

No more measuring.  Who are you?  Who were you created to be?  Are you walking in that direction?  Keep walking. 

 

Don't think of yourself more highly than you ought, and don't think of yourself more lowly than you ought. 

 

Consider yourself and be confident.  Consider others and be humble.

A Little Heavy Lifting Goes a Long Way

I started a new workout regimen a few weeks ago after months of doing hardly anything at all except an occasional yoga class.  I had a hard time figuring out when I could fit in exercise during the spring without running from work to pick up the kids from daycare, to cook dinner, to eat, to pack up and drive to the gym, and then to home for baths and bedtime.  While Brandon was on the road, there just wasn't a way to do that without eating takeout, which kinda defeats the purpose of working out.  Kinda.

But Brandon has been mostly home since the end of May (yayayayayay), and as we've readjusted to living together again, it's occurred to me that, yes, maybe I can go to the gym for an hour a couple of times a week.  I'm also on summer hours, which gives me an additional hour of daylight at home with the kids (we work 7:30-4 during the summer, with a half-hour lunch), plus the kids have been going to bed a little later than they would on a school night.  AND since Brandon is around more, I don't feel like going to the gym when he is around is going to cut into quality time together.

I can come up with lots of excuses not to work out, and they are pretty legitimate excuses.

Over the last few weeks, though, I started weight lifting after hearing my friends talk about weight training.  They recommended The New Rules of Lifting for Women: Lift Like a Man, Look Like a Goddess.  With a title like that, who wouldn't want to give it a try?  Good job, marketing department at Avery Trade.  The book offers a case for lifting, a helpful training program that includes using all of the equipment on the "man's side" of the gym-- barbells and dumbbells and benches weight machines-- along with a helpful diet and nutrition guide.

We've adopted rather healthy eating habits in the Wells household since last spring when we tried the Whole 30 program, and we probably stick to a Paleo diet 70-80% of the time (Friday is always pizza night... I still eat ice cream because it is heaven in a bowl... etc.).  My metabolism must be relatively high, and my genes must be pretty decent.  I'd be okay with my figure for the most part if I stopped drinking all of that whiskey with my husband (but who wants to do that?).

Benefits of good nutrition aside, I like the idea of being toned and in shape. Weight lifting is something I haven't done much of before, besides bench pressing Henry on the floor and the occasional half-hearted dumbbell workout after a half-hour on the elliptical.  So I started this workout.  I walked into the gym the first time, my textbook on lifting in hand, and self-consciously maneuvered from station to station.  I felt like I would probably hurt myself, and the boys with their pecs and their biceps would offer to help and then snicker later.  I felt kind of blubbery and noodle-y.  Unsure.  Insecure.  I felt the way I did on the drill team in high school - lanky and out of place.

But after the first workout, my muscles burned and tensed.  And although I did manage to drop the long metal bar used for lat pull-downs on top of my head in the second workout (twice), I was starting to get a feel for the gym equipment.  I'm on my fifth workout now, and here's why I'm going to keep at it:

Last night at yoga, I held eagle pose, twice.  I held half-moon pose with the help of a block.  The week before, I held crane pose.  After an hour of a challenging yoga class I was ready to keep going, partly because my body is actually stronger physically, but mostly because I felt confident.

I can lift the weights on the big-boy side of the gym.  I can squat a barbell with weights on the ends. I can do twelve regular push-ups.  I feel stronger.  My muscles exist and they hurt a little but mostly they are making themselves known, maybe even celebrating being used for something more than carrying in groceries.  I don't think I look any different.  I am pretty sure I've actually gained weight (the scale can go weigh itself).  But that's fine, because it isn't just muscle I'm building.  It's strength, physically and mentally.

I talked after yoga for a little bit with a friend about this holistic approach to health.  I think we can be strong spiritually and strong mentally, but if our bodies are weak and we lack self-esteem, those other areas of our person aren't going to operate as well as they could.  Our whole person wants to be healthy, and if one area of our lives is out of whack, it's going to affect the rest of our bodies.  

This is true in a negative way and it's true in a positive way - so if everything is operating decently and I'm getting by with my pretty good health, adding in a new routine or a new habit (maybe meditation, prayer, running, weight lifting, yoga, cutting out soda, eating more vegetables, completing more crossword puzzles, reading more books)... whatever it is, is sure to enforce the other areas of strength in my life.  I might actually be able to do more than I thought.  And that might actually build my confidence.  And that might make me feel kind of good at the end of the day.  

I can come up with lots of excuses not to work out, and they are pretty legitimate excuses.  But if a few hours of strength building can buy me more energy for my kids and husband while improving my overall self-image, then maybe that's a good investment of that time.  And I can't wait to post photos of myself looking like this:

JUST KIDDING.

Looking for the Goods

First off, sarahmwells.com is broken, and I'm unhappy about it.  I kept hoping it would reset itself or just reappear, and after multiple attempts to contact customer service people at Google and at GoDaddy.com, I have given up, deleted the domain name entirely, and with any luck it'll become available again in the next couple of days, so I can register it once more for my use.

This is one of the reasons I haven't written lately.  Another reason is because I've had two weeks of vacation over the last three (I wedged in five workdays somewhere in there), and most of this time has been dedicated to my husband and the three little people.  Heavenly, I tell you.  And the last reason is that I actually have been writing, quite a bit, but it's all super-secret-awesome stuff.  Not really.  It's for school, though, which means it is hopefully going toward my thesis, which is HOPEFULLY going to turn into a book.  

But before any of that can happen, I need to go yell at the circus animals hooting in the room above me.

Sigh. Okay. Threats of separation delivered.  I don't know why it is that they respond so well to this threat - I would think it a treat to get the whole room to one's self while the other one snuggles into my bed.  I like having the bed all to myself... once in a while.

I have the bed all to myself this weekend, a foretaste of things to come.  I admit I'm already panicking about Brandon's road trip days beginning again in August.  In fact, my heart rate just jumped a little.  It feels like summer is already over now that my vacation days are nearing an end and the MFA residency is approaching.  Before I know it, we'll be back to soccer games with an angry toddler and the husband out of the house half the week.

The quickened pace of life that will begin in a few short weeks makes me tired already.  I don't think I've had a long enough reprieve.  I don't want to feel like a single parent for half of the week again.  It is not easy.  

There are times, of course, when it isn't so bad.  A few weeks ago as Brandon worked to settle back into the full-time dad routine, every. little. thing. I. did. was. wrong.  Every thing.  Not wrong, but different from what he does, I should say.

"Did you put my water glass into the dishwasher, Gary?" he teased one morning after I had prepared breakfast, loaded the dishwasher, and cleared off the counter.  His dad, Gary, is known for the quick snatching and cleansing of the glassware, almost before your lips have left the rim of the cup.  I sighed.  "... The kitchen looks nice," he said with a smile, reaching to pinch my butt.

"When do you go back to work?!" I squeaked.  "Can't you call ESPN and ask them for work?"  This, after counting down the days until he was done with work for the summer.  This, after a mental breakdown this spring, after childcare challenges and scheduling conflicts and children who miss him and ME ME ME who missed him over and over again.  Go back to work, I said.  Leave me alone.

We laughed and squeezed each other.  "You have to stop critiquing everything I do, husband of mine. It's driving me bonkers."

I had gotten used to running things my way without Brandon around.  And then he was back, full-scale, with not much to distract him from the household and our children except the occasional round of golf and softball.  We had gotten out of step and in turn kept stepping on each other's toes as we did or did not take out the recycling, did or did not load the dishwasher, did or did not take Henry to the potty fifteen minutes or forty-five minutes after the last time he went.  

The trouble is now that we've worked out a few of these kinks, now that we've learned how to live together again, kinda, well, now he's going to go away again.  This is not the norm, this more laid back summer of temperate weather and short-distance road trips, of golf and barbecues and softball and boats and drinks with friends.

No, the norm is more like the last two days alone with the kids after Brandon left for the weekend to spend time with a friend.  The norm is me and my three little people eating pizza on a picnic bench at the park, walking across the lawn for ice cream, home in time for baths and bed.  The norm is me and my three little people on the couch for Saturday morning cartoons, the slow rise for scrambled eggs with cheese, and then a ride around northeast Ohio, to the tall ships in Cleveland with my mom, to the backyard swimming pool at my in-laws.  The norm is the long ride home with Henry sideways slouching in the backseat while the older two watch a movie and I seek through the stations for tunes I can sing to.  The norm is small feet stomping and giggles from the floor above me, empty threats of separation until they are quiet, sound asleep with feet and arms draped broadly across their beds.  The norm is this silent living room, the clicking of my fingernails on the keyboard, the flick of the paper as I turn the page on a memoir, the clock ticking past the time I'd go to bed if Brandon was here.

If Brandon was here, the Indians game would be on, and he'd be yelling at the TV or talking to the commentators about the last play or commenting on the job the stats guys are doing or laughing at the local evening news anchors.  If Brandon was here, the computer would be sitting on the floor charging, my book would be cast aside, and I'd be cradled between his chest and his arm, listening to the sounds of his stomach and heart (because if he had any of that pizza tonight, his stomach would have been talking louder than his heart).  We might be sipping whiskey (oh, who am I kidding, we would definitely be sipping whiskey) and listening to music, or maybe he'd be playing his guitar, or maybe none of that, maybe just us, alone in our living room, being husband and wife, occupying this space we've created together.

It is good when he is here.  It is good when he is gone.  Both are good.  In fact, when both are in their best gear, both are very good.

I don't always see it this way because I want both goods simultaneously and that isn't possible.  He cannot be here and not here all of the time, and if he was here and not here all of the time I would resent him for not being here when he is here.  You totally get that, right?

It is hard to learn how to balance this life.  How to make room for each other when we're together.  How to appreciate the space when we're apart.  How to shore up the foundation when the support beam goes missing.  How to lean into each other when the rain washes everything away.  How to be content - even when I want him near.  Even when I want him gone.  How to love deeply in every season.  It is hard.  But it is very good.

(That's what she said.)

Why Do We Need Men?

So there's news flitting about that women are increasingly the leading or sole breadwinners in the American family.  In most cases, this means more and more families are being raised by a single mom with an absent father, or the reason mom is the breadwinner is because dad can't find work. 

It isn't because a couple sat down together and reviewed their financial and family plan to assess what the best scenario might look like for their family.  That is what we did back in 2007; we looked at my job prospects and our growing family, our move to a new city, and we said, let's see if this can work.  It did, with bumps and bruises, just like every new adjustment.  We know other couples who have made similar decisions and have made it work, and made it work well.

That isn't what we're talking about here, though.  Not many are celebrating this shift as a strong, positive, changing tide in family dynamics.  Kathleen Parker in her Washington Post article "The new f-word: Father," Fox News anchors (all flabbergasted males), and the MSNBC "Morning Joe" edition (almost all successful females stumbling about for a good answer to the "why men?" question) all discuss this trend toward women as sole or primary breadwinner, and none of them think it's a good thing.
 

The study spawns one of the strangest questions I can think of to be taken seriously by the general public, "Why do we need men?"

If a woman can earn a degree, work hard, carry a child, mow the lawn, take out the trash, prepare meals, and change a diaper all on her own, why bother with a man, who simply complicates life with his dirty clothes, smells up the place with his burping and farting, and adds another person to worry over and provide for?  Obviously all men are good for is sperm.  After impregnation, we can take it from there.

Why do we need men?  Why are we asking this question?  Why do we need women, when we can grow babies in test-tubes?  The necessity of an entire gender of a species is obvious.  What we're really asking is, "Where are the good men?"
 

Good men, whether stay-at-home fathers or sole breadwinners, love and support their wives, whether they stay-at-home or go-to-work or some combination of those tasks.  Good men teach boys how to be men.  Good men show girls what a good man looks like.  A good man leads when a good woman doesn't know what to do or where to go; a good man communicates with his spouse when he doesn't know what to do or where to go.  Good men (and women) lift up when the other falls down. 

We need good men for the great pleasure of building a family and a life with another person.  We need good men because men are at their core different from women, and women are at their core different from men, and these differences (whether traditional or non-traditional in their manifestations) provide balance, beauty, and character refinement.

Society is shouting, "We need good men!"

How do you make good men?  You raise good men. And if there isn't a good man in your life to help you do that, you find other good men to stand in that role as best as they can.  Good men must help other men to make men out of their men so that they can raise up good men, too.  We cannot complain about there being no good men out there if good men don't step in to make men good.

Stop asking "Why do we need men?" - that is not the question.  It should never be the question.  Substitute in any demographic and the question sounds preposterous, derogatory, and dangerous.  That question, when extended to its scariest places, devalues an entire population of our society. 

We need each and every kind of person to strive to be the best versions of themselves.  Let's stop asking dumb questions and start making good answers.

Binge Dating

It is my husband's final weekend of work for a couple of months after spending the last ten months on the road.  It feels like he's been gone all of the time, even though I know it was more like 3-4 day stretches with the occasional crazy mixed in there (see "The First Step Is Admitting You Have a Problem" or "Instructions for Crazy").  I have been waiting for this light at the end of the tunnel feeling for months, and it's so bright now that I'm squinting.  Ah!  The light, the light, the glorious light!

After Memorial Day weekend, Brandon and I have three solid days of dating planned.  It happened accidentally. I am going to New York City on Wednesday to accept an award on behalf of the Ashland Poetry Press (woo!), and it just so happens that Wednesday is Brandon's birthday.  What better way to spend your birthday than with me in NYC?!  We're staying one night and bounding back to Ohio on Thursday, but then, THEN, we are going to see Tim McGraw at Blossom on Friday night, a gift from Mr. Awesome-Husband.  

I am so freaking excited about this stretch of three days. 

That is kind of bad news.  I am the queen of getting my hopes up.  I've already imagined the lolling tongue grin I'll have plastered on my face at the concert with my husband's arm around my waist as we belt out with the crowd, "Where the green grass grows."  I can taste the sizzle of dinner in the city, the cool heat of whiskey or martini after our meal, the twinkly glow of city lights dancing in the night, the melt and anticipation for the rest of our evening, cool sheets, down pillows, the silence of no-children, the useless alarm on the nightstand, the muffled roar of the city below our window.

This is kind of bad news because you really can't plan to be romanced.  Oh, I can hope for it and rev up to it and dress up and psych myself but I can't predict or prepare for how our trip will go.  You can't plan which memories will stick as a future touchstone.  The quickening heart only beats harder in reminiscence.  I feel it now because we have been in these scenes before and my heart warms at the memory-- other concerts, other cities, other dinners, boardwalks and sidewalks and forest hikes and hot tubs and rose petals in soap bubbles-- but in the moment, we were just walking.  Just eating.  Just coming down from a wedding or a movie or a play or a good show, and man, weren't those seats great right there by the stage and he sang every song we love it was so good let's play the CD of him again and sing along loud down the highway home.

Is it weird to look forward to a trip and a concert so that you can also look back at it with the warmth of nostalgia and familiarity later?  I think back on the day I graduated from Ashland, how I squeezed Brandon's hand in the car on the way home after dinner that night, how I smiled and said, "This has been a really great day," how he detoured to downtown Cuyahoga Falls and then how we walked the shadowy boardwalk by the falls, the water raging below, the highway racing above, branches low and full of leaves around us, how he stopped and knelt, and I knew, yes, finally, yes, yes, I will!  It was the only day he could have picked to propose that he knew I wouldn't be anticipating a ring.

I couldn't know then as the day played out that I would return to this memory, turn it around in my hand like a smooth stone to feel the cool air on my skin, the cold band on my finger, the rush of my breath and our embrace, that promise, that choice.  How could I know?  But I hold that memory, tuck it in an aura with all of the other small and significant moments I've collected.  So much would follow that proposal, so much more heartache, so much more joy than any one person can fathom from that starting position.  Only from this current peak can one comprehend the distance and majesty of the preceding hike.

All I see this coming week is the trail and some trees, a little slope to the climb but nothing much to strain against.  So as we enter into our binge dating after so many stolen minutes between work and homework and baths and bedtime songs and wrinkled baskets of laundry, we will drive to the airport like it is an ordinary day, stroll the streets of another city like they are just sidewalks, eat food as if that's just what you do to survive after all, and roll towards the middle of the king-size bed because, sure, we're tired, but we're not that tired.  It will be an ordinary day, but all of that ordinariness, well, it is woven in this unique pattern between my husband and me.  And that's extraordinary.

About "Field Guide to Resisting Temptation"

Today, a short essay I wrote appears on Brevity, a journal for brief nonfiction, called "Field Guide to Resisting Temptation."

I wrote this essay after it occurred to me for the first time that I could be the one to screw up my marriage. Even though my husband and I had talked about temptation abstractly, about bar scenes and dinners out when he’s on the road for work, I thought we were talking about him and his temptations. Not me. I felt infidelity-proof. This could never happen to me; I love him too much to ever be tempted, and who would be attracted to me anyway?

So when the circumstances of this essay came to pass, I was surprised by how easy it could be. How fast. How immediately painless. How could this happen to me? I was stunned and pleasantly surprised that someone besides my husband found me—three c-sectioned mom, married, average intelligence, occasionally humorous, recently leaner and healthier but still so not attractive—desirable. I wanted to keep hearing these things.
What scared me the most was that my husband and I had just come back from an amazing weekend away, a weekend of laughter, relaxation, vulnerability, and intimacy. We spent the weekend reminiscing over career changes, our three children, the future, the bright and uncertain and beautiful future we imagined always with us together. Married. Forever. We were in about as solid a place as we had been in the nine years we’d been married. 

Even this contented, even this satisfied in my marriage, I could be the one to drive us into a guardrail.

But this didn’t just “happen” to me. I had let it happen, and I was making a choice by allowing it to continue, the flirting and the compliments and the texts, I was letting them arrive, I was receiving them. I was a threat.

I didn’t realize at first that I had a choice, that I had the power to say yes or say no, to protect my marriage or maim it beyond recognition to the point that reconstructive surgery or, God forbid, amputation might be necessary. I could turn one way, or I could run the other. I could choose to let it keep playing and wrecking my heart, or I could turn it off even though it was crazy ridiculous hard, the kind of hard that shamed me because I felt so weak against it. 

Out of that realization, out of that place of shame and weakness, I wrote myself this essay. I wrote down the things my best friend had said to me and the things I needed to tell myself in those moments of insecurity when I felt ugly and undesirable or just temporarily lonely and wanted a quick fix. I had to write myself a way out. I had to write down what I was choosing into and what I was choosing out of. I don’t have to give in or just let this happen as if I have no control over my emotions or my fate or what pain or joy I inflict or deliver. I have a choice.

Writing this essay was shaky hand, racing heart, peeling skin back kind of work. And when I sent it to my husband, it was shaky hand, racing heart, peeling skin back kind of work. But after he read what I had said out loud to him in far fewer words, he heard me, and that confession shrunk my Goliath down to the puny little monster he is. It handed me a few stones and a slingshot.

“Field Guide to Resisting Temptation” empowered me to look for ways to protect my marriage, to own up to the truth underneath the desires, to realize that “it isn’t the full story, it’s only a moment, this moment when you are small and insecure,” and to face those insecurities head-on. Through bearing witness to my weaknesses, I found strength.

Romantic Comedies and Reality

After chasing Henry around the softball field and putting the kids to bed, after downing glass #1 of wine and eating two chunks of dark chocolate, I am now reclined with feet propped indulging further in one of my favorite romantic comedies, French Kiss, with Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline.

My favorite romantic comedies all have the same plot line.  Oh, they aren’t exactly the same of course. 

The leading actress is dating a guy other than the leading actor when the two meet in Serendipity, and the entire movie follows the push and pull of fate and destiny as they battle the doubts of their other engagements against the passionate, emotional love connection they felt with this other person they met once in a romantic scene with gloves and elevators until it comes right down to the wire and now this is IT, will he marry his fiancée or will he come to his senses and keep pursuing the dream of an unknown woman, who is also pursuing the dream of this mystery man?  Yes! Pursue the dream! There he is in the park in the middle of the ice skating pond and there's the glove! The end.

In While You Were Sleeping, Sandra Bullock has a crush on a stranger that passes through her toll booth every day until he nearly gets hit by a train, and due to rescuing him she meets his family and gradually falls in love with the guy’s brother, who, surprise surprise, is the person she ends up really wanting to be with, the better match, and in spite of the wild circumstances, surprise! He asks her to marry him by dropping an engagement ring into her token slot.   The end.

Both of the leading actresses in The Holiday were with guys that were not right for them before, and Kate Winslet is still crushing on her ex- who is engaged when she finally discovers an interest in Jack Black, who is also seeing a girl that isn’t quite right for him, but by the end of the movie (spoiler alert!) they all end up with people who bring out the best in them, who seem to like them for who they are.  "What are you doing for New Years Eve?" asks Jack Black, who then flies with Kate Winslet across the big blue to spend New Years with her and Cameron and Jude, who are also now awesome.  The end.

Or how about When Harry Met Sally, when Harry is with another girl the whole time and Sally is with another guy the whole time until the end when, whaaaaat they are actually really great together, they should be together, why aren't they together, get together already!  The end.

And in French Kiss, my favorite favorite romantic comedy, Meg Ryan is on the hunt to win back her fiancé from the French Goddess he met and suddenly fell in love with, but along the way she meets Kevin Kline who is not at all the kind of guy she ever expected to be with but then, surprise! "I want you.  That's all."  Oh, sigh.  L'amour.  The end.

Oh wait.  These are all the same plot lines, aren’t they?  Leading actresses who are with the wrong guy, leading actors who are with the wrong girl, leading actors and actresses who discover by the end of the movie that they love each other, actually, that the first relationship was good, sure, good enough in fact that most of the time the couples were ready to commit to a lifetime together, but now, well, it either wasn’t great, or it wasn't great enough or someone messed it up or now, this, this other person has taken them by surprise, they have touched the circuits that weren’t triggered with the first, and their compatibility is so much better than anything ever anticipated or experienced, and this is what they’ve been waiting for.  No more messing around with a ratchet set, trying to adjust the wheel of a wrench until it fits.  This one is it.

There's a reason this plot line works for me, though.  There's a reason we're crazy about these movies, these predictable yet entertaining comedies we can laugh at and cry through, and it isn't just because Meg Ryan is just the darned cutest person who ever starred in an eighties or nineties romantic comedy (Sleepless In Seattle, You've Got Mail, French Kiss, When Harry Met Sally).

I feel that hunt and pursuit for the person I thought was perfect for me, if I bent and twisted a certain way, and I feel even more the resolution, the discovery of a person who is actually quite more perfect for me.  It's been ten years (minus two days) since Brandon proposed to me on my college graduation day.  We did a lot of chasing before we met, kept running to some degree afterward, even, but finally I convinced him to marry me.  :)  Gratefully, that isn't the end.

The difference between reality and romantic comedies though, I think, is that it isn't that we've tried on these different people until we've found the perfect match.  It isn't that we've just collided with the wrong people and have to keep bouncing about until we form some kind of ionic chemical bond that is sure to keep us together with a better chemical composition.

I think it has more to do with being aware of the person you are, discovering the solid heartwood of ourselves that will not bend, that will not be worn away by time but will always serve as our core.  This is who I am.  This is what matters to me.  In real life, once we understand this heartwood and stop trying to whittle it away to take the shape of something else, or bend it like a bow, I think that's when we're best suited to find someone who is a good fit.  I think that's when we are ready to choose a life partner who is hopefully also a whole human being at home in their own skin, who also is ready to find someone that is compatible with him or her.

Maybe it's a surprise at first, this compatibility thing, and we say things like, "I never imagined myself with someone like him," with joy and delight we say, "we're so different but in all the right ways."

The unexpected joy of the real life romantic comedy comes later, when after these years of trial and temptation, these years of grief and sorrow and anger, these years of triumph and rejoicing, during the moments when they are both fully the best versions of themselves, she rests her head on his chest while they watch a show, he drapes his arm over her shoulder.  She knows herself.  He knows himself.  She knows him.  He knows her.  This familiarity and intimacy is security, rest, ease, trust, faith. Love.

When the show is over, he fills her water glass for her while she takes out her contacts and they climb the stairs, plug in their phone chargers for the night, turn off the lamps, and roll towards each other under the covers, bodies warm, and they sigh and embrace and laugh and kiss and love, and it is better than any "You... complete me," better than, "What are you doing for New Years Eve?", better than, "I want you. That's all."  Better.  Better and better and better.