Through the weekend, we stayed with T’s boss…which is another interesting story. For, how often does your boss live 300-some-odd miles away? But we stayed with him and his girlfriend and I really enjoyed that. Not only are they both really nice and interesting people who introduced us to more kind and interesting people, I really enjoyed seeing his office and their amazing home space, for I felt like I got to know them a little bit, in a really nice way. Plus the bonus of seeing him embark on a new enterprise – it’s exciting! I’m happy for him and gives me the vicarious little thrill of feeling like I’ve brushed up close to greatness. (I’ll just say, it’s the film industry sort of greatness.)

I had planned to take a lot of photos for this week’s You Capture (the theme is fun) – and really with such a fun weekend, how could I miss that opportunity? But…miss it I did. Because we were having so much fun I was totally absorbed in really special moments, I couldn’t even think about hiding behind a camera. So I’m hobbling together something a little silly with what few photos I do have.

The weekend was filled with special moments like hugging friends who have been a year and a world away.

Like meeting an old friend’s new baby.

Like exploring new sites and living new experiences.

And rediscovering old ones.

Like stumbling across vintage suitcases in a thrift store:

Complete with old tags!

And silk scalloped lining

And falling in love with all their nooks, crannies, and corners

And sweet old vintage stickers

Oh, and by the way…can I just say? $3.99 each.

It’s the bees’ knees, baby!

But now we are home, with lots to do, for it is my 30th birthday in less than a week! And…did you see my sidebar, just to the top on the right there?

We’re up to 76% of the way to my goal! I’m nearly brought to tears with the amazing people in my life, with their generosity, their love, and their support. It’s the thirtieth year of my life, and I feel I have so much.

I have so much.

1. He makes me laugh, even when I’m busy trying to get a serious mope on.
2. He is generous with people he loves and with those in need.
3. He is both adventurous and cautious. He loves a thrill, but he calculates his risks before taking them.
4. He loves food and he gets bonus points for thinking my panang curry is better than my mom’s.
5. He’s really good at indulging my whims – which is good, because I have many.
6. He makes resolving problems remarkably easy because he listens and he’s open, and pretty dang smart too.
7. I love the way he carries himself: it’s kind of a masculine, unselfconscious grace that almost reminds me of a lion. I think it’s sexy.
8. He’s bringing back old school manliness – a trait sadly undervalued and underrepresented these days. (If you’re not sure what I mean by this, check out these sites: The Art of Manliness and Rules For My Unborn Son)
9. He thinks learning is cool. He gets curious about things and then goes off to learn about it in depth, files it away into memory, then moves on to the next topic.
10. I thought of many recent moments that made me feel all warm and squishy inside, but none are safe for public consumption. When I mentioned this to him, he choked on his coffee and then looked both proud and flattered.

So, my love, this is for you: “ih”.

What are your 10 reasons to love who you love?

Next week’s challenge: If I were a fashion designer, I’d totally bring back…

(You all are gonna’ hit me now, aren’t ya?)

But my husband and I discovered a new place:
tucked up behind the city, towards the foothills of the mountains…

where we could picnic by a lake.

We sat on this bench:

and ate this sandwich with a lakeside view:

And this cutie with a lakeside view:

Then we took a little trek:

Through the fields

To a little private shady spot under a tree, where we could lie down together and read our books.

I {heart} spring.

Find springtime at Beth’s place, I Should Be Folding Laundry. And join in the You Capture challenge!

Sometimes it’s far, far easier to love others than it is to love ourselves.*

As someone once said, “we are the sum of our experiences”, (I can’t find the source – everyone seems to quote this person without attribute.) so the only thing I can tell you is my journey. And I can say it took me about 14 years of solid effort before I got to a phase where I could truly say I had arrived.

And it first started with a moment in which I stood up for myself. In high school, I had a group of friends who weren’t really that great at being friends. I finally had one betrayal too many, and so I left. I wasn’t confrontational or anything – I was far too meek for that – but I just decided I had had enough. And I stopped spending time with them and moved on to a different group. (Pretty radical for junior/senior year though, I guess.)

Into college, though, I still needed my friends’ approval a little too much. Of course, we all like approval, but I couldn’t tell there was anything to like about me unless I had a mirror: someone reflecting approval back at me. Whether it be parent or friend or authority figure, I needed someone to tell me I was worth liking, because I couldn’t see it. Objectively, I knew I got good grades and I wasn’t totally uncreative, but I always used to say I didn’t trust others to see it. The truth was, I didn’t see it unless someone was telling me I was good. I needed a social mirror, but that mirror is finicky and inconsistent. It’s not like people stream compliments at you 24-7…it’d be weird if they did! But in the moments when I didn’t see active approval, I also could not see my own worth.

Then…it took another act of betrayal, this time, a far more devastating one – one in love that made me see how I had not stood up for myself. How I had not acted with self-respect. How I had given and given, only to be betrayed. That made me angry enough to say “No more.” I had gotten to a point where I knew what I wanted: marriage. I wanted someone who loved me. And I didn’t want it to be so.damn.hard. anymore. It took so much effort before, trying to be the perfect girlfriend, the one worth loving. I couldn’t do it anymore. I vowed the next time it had to be for real. The next time, I could not be the only one carrying the entire weight of the relationship. ‘Cuz I just did not have the energy anymore.

I took a lot of time for self-reflection. It took me a long time to process what I wanted from life. And to be honest, part of it came from having a stable, loving relationship, that – after a lot of hard work at the beginning – reaped enormous dividends of  stability. It was like, having figured that part of my life out, I was suddenly free to figure everything else out. I had a foundation that was solid, and then I could work on everything else. It doesn’t sound that empowered to say I needed someone else to provide stability before I could figure myself out. Maybe that’s just how I operate. Maybe that’s just how things just happened to fall in place in my life. Maybe I just needed my heart to heal first. I don’t know.

But I did put a lot of effort into just plain old self-analysis. A lot of it was about figuring out what events in my life stood out in my memory, and seeing how my parents and other life experiences shaped me into who I am now. How they formed my desire for family, my values, my difficulty with trust – all of it, the good, the bad, the ugly. And a lot of it was about figuring out what I really wanted in life – what would make me happy: a family, a varied, challenging and flexible career, words, good food, travel. And I went out and chased it. The rest was about figuring out what kind of person I wanted to be (partly by noticing what it was I admired in others). And I worked on that too.

After a while, the pieces started to fall into place. Step by step the career falls in line. Step by step I make little achievements in being a more well-rounded person. And finally, I just discovered I didn’t need the mirror anymore. I could see myself – both the good and the bad – and I knew my worth and I didn’t need others to tell me (as much). (Usually.) Compliments and hubby support are always welcome.

Looking back on it, I think falling in love with yourself is much like falling in love with someone else. And I’m not talking crush, I’m talking the real thing.

1. It starts with respect. Extending a little respect for yourself and learning to treat yourself with respect is essential.

2. Just like bridging the gap between warring factions, it also requires understanding. Take the time to understand who you are, where you came from, and who you want to be. With a little understanding, you’ll find something worth respecting…and maybe even something worth liking.

3. Give yourself time. Time to learn to trust yourself. It sounds kooky maybe, but sometimes, I think the problem is we don’t always trust ourselves to behave the way we wish we would. But once you set your intentions and commit the energy to being who you wish you were, eventually you’ll catch up.

And one day, you might just wake up smiling, realizing you’re just thoroughly happy and content. And it’s because you’re in love.

*I can hear the jokes already, and it might seem odd I would post on such a topic when so much of our culture is so self-absorbed, self-involved and entitled. But that’s not the kind of love I’m talking about. It’s not about narcissism or vanity, selfishness or a “me-first” mentality. It’s the kind of love that frees you to love others more deeply. It’s the kind of love that allows you the space to give back to the people around you.

What I’m about to say might seem counter-intuitive. And it might seem like I’m making something big out of something that should come naturally. But I’m pretty sure it doesn’t come naturally to a lot of people.

Learning to love yourself is one of the hardest and most important things you can do in this life. Loving yourself doesn’t mean being selfish. It doesn’t mean putting your needs before someone else’s. And it doesn’t mean doing whatever you think is fun just for the sake of it.

Loving yourself means figuring out who you really are – a process that takes time, if for no other reason than the fact that you change over time. It means self-reflection. Repeatedly. Sometimes you like what you see, sometimes you don’t. And so you have to acknowledge that and figure out what parts you’re okay with and what parts you want to strive to change and make better. All of that takes time.

Loving yourself means respecting yourself. So you won’t put up with the BS of a hookup culture when what you really want is love. You won’t believe the lies of selfish men because you know what the actions of a worthwhile man look like. You’ll stand up for yourself when others put you down, but in ways that treat them with respect regardless.

Loving yourself means figuring out what would make you deep in your bones happy and reaching for it, even when others say you can’t have it. It means ignoring yourself when you say you can’t have it. Especially because you realize that happiness is not in the attainment of things or of money. It is in the stuff you cannot see.

It is a lie that you cannot love others when you don’t love yourself. You can indeed love others even without self-love. But you can love others better and more freely when you love yourself. When you don’t, there is too much need tangled up in the love and it is difficult to see which is which. There are more rules and obligations and less trust. Not so when you love yourself first.

There is more freedom in the space of love when you first love yourself.

All of this I say to you. With love,
Jade

What would you tell our nation’s daughters?

The Rules
You can respond in any way you choose. You can give a fictional response or a true one. You can use words, sentences, and/or photographs. If you have a blog, you can link it with Mr. Linky below. Please be sure to include “Tell It To Me Tuesdays” in the post, and link back to this post. Feel free to use the “Tell It To Me Tuesday” button available to the right. If you don’t have a blog, but want to join in, you can just leave a comment. Please follow the rules. I don’t want to have to delete links. I like links! Don’t make me delete them.

Next week’s challenge: Souls

Kissing remembered

Kissing ass

Check out this week’s You Capture challenge for more kisses!

Here they are storming the beaches of Normandy.
Or something. They’re vicious little beasties too! One would try to scramble up, only to be knocked down with a little plop! back into the water.

Then this guy:

would follow this guy around trying to nip him in the ass.

Animals are entertaining.

Then we wandered some more around downtown. Had crushcake cupcakes. Watched Up In The Air. Played a little wii. And now we’re off to dinner. Let no one say we can’t find love in unexpected places.
(This tree reminded me of a heart. Can you see it too?…or is it just me?)

A bright spot on a cold and stormy day:

A sanctuary from pouring rain:

Little splashes of happiness

Springing up, kind of like hope

When everywhere else, all you see are shades of grey.

But I also have to include this:
Because there’s no hope without coffee.

For more color, check out this week’s You Capture challenge at I Should Be Folding Laundry.

But I did feel a heavy, heavy emotional burden. In ways I didn’t even articulate to myself, I felt I was a burden. My husband didn’t do anything to cause this per se. This was guilt I put on myself. Since leaving my parents’ home, I’ve always brought in my own salary. Through college, I weaned myself off their financial support and slowly built up my own financial independence. Money isn’t important to me, but somehow the fact that I make money for myself meant a great deal to me. It meant I was independent, strong, capable, responsible. It made me feel good about myself (or at least contributed to my sense of self-worth).

But this year of not only not making money, but also incurring student loan debt on top of that as I finish my degree, made me feel like an incredible financial burden. And in ways I didn’t totally articulate in my head, I tried to “make up for it” by doing more around the house: more than my share of cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, washing dishes…to “earn my keep”. Trouble was, it’s not like I wasn’t working at all. I was still working on my research, writing, and keeping a fairly full schedule…and then doing all the household work on top of it.

My mom and my husband’s stepmom both saw something was afoot and warned me several times that in marriage you can’t think of money as “his money” or “her money”, but as “our money”. But none of this really made an impression on me. I agreed, but that did nothing to assuage my feelings of guilt that I wasn’t putting in my fair share. And because I didn’t feel I was putting in my share, I cut back on as much of my extra expenses as I could: I stopped getting haircuts, I stopped wearing more than a minimum of makeup, I stopped going to yoga, and so on. Meanwhile, my husband freely bought the things he wanted (within reason, of course). If there was something he knew I wanted, he had no problem buying it for me (so generous, I thought in my head). And so he believed his wife wanted for nothing. Except that if I had a desire for something, I had to ask him to help me buy it: in essence, I had to ask his permission. So on top of the guilt feelings, I also had a deep sense of male patriarchy and inequality in our relationship.

Even after I started teaching again, I kept up the patterns that had started to develop. And that’s when the burden really began to add up. I became grumpy, disenchanted, and positively sour. A serious expression was my default face. My husband’s stepmom even tried to offer to help out financially so I wouldn’t have to teach…because she could see I was changing. I wasn’t the same person anymore. My parents started getting concerned. Finally, over Christmas, my mom had me watch a film called “The Human Face” with John Cleese (if you have Netflix, you should really look it up – it’s fascinating, funny, and less than an hour long). This film was all about how our facial expressions have subconscious effects on our relationships. She said I always used to smile, and she wanted me to watch this because I’d lost my smile.

I didn’t think very directly about all this after watching the film, but I know something was happening underneath. I’d finally had enough of my self-imposed burden. Shortly after the new year, I talked to my husband about it. We talked it through and he simply said I cannot and should not feel guilty, that this is what marriage is about, it’s sharing, and it’s helping each other when we need help and not feeling like we owe each other like tallies on a tally sheet. I don’t know if it was what he said, or if I was just finally ready to hear it, but ever since then, I haven’t felt guilty and I haven’t felt unequal. And we’ve reasserted fair shares of the household chores back to the way we used to do it.

And I’m making greater efforts to smile, and discovering my smile comes back easily again.

I think this speaks partly to the new generation of feminism: figuring out the proper roles, since they are no longer defined for us. Before society told us what was fair and what duties belonged to whom. Now we have to negotiate that for ourselves. It gives us greater freedom, on both sides in a way, but with freedom comes the need for communication and negotiation. Part of the negotiation is with our partners in life, and part of it is with ourselves, so that we can let go the burdens we try to carry, even when they’re too much, even when they’re of our own making.

What have I learned from this?

Marriage Lesson #1: Learn to share, and that sharing means knowing how to give and to receive.

Life Lesson #3,486: Sometimes we smile because we feel happy. Sometimes we smile in order to feel happy.

However, assuming the house is not actually burning at the moment and I have at least some time to pack, there are some things I have that bring the sunrise of a smile to my face when I take a minute to look at them.

Things like the vintage accents I’ve added in the Great Remodel of ’09:

Or they’re things people I love have given me. Like this little guy:
Sitting in front of my favorite books (bonus points to the first person to recognize them!), he brings a smile to my face and reminds me of my mother. She gave him to me, and the funny thing is, he isn’t even a childhood gift. She gave him to me when I was in college, clearly long after I had given up stuffed animals. Some people might be put off by such a gift. But I treasure him because, I think, in a way, he reminds me of the two of us, in the fact that we both find joy in the simple things and that neither of us are overly bound by convention.

Or my engagement and wedding rings:

Or clothing and accessories I got as gifts but fell in love with as if I’d gotten them myself. Like these red jacket:

Or this purple jacket:

With it’s gorgeous pattern and this fabulous pirate-style detail on the back:
(I’m a whore for jackets, can you tell?)

Or this necklace:

And sometime it’s not things that make me smile, so much as sights.

Like the sight of our bathroom tile. (This makes me smile – backslash laugh, backslash cry.)
I really want to know what whoever thought this was a good idea for a color combination was smoking, because that there must be some GOOD s—. Of course, the story behind this is even better.

But then there is also this:
The sight of a glorious sky after a downpour.

These everyday things are special not because they were expensive, newfangled status symbols (though they can be). They are special because they make connections to things intangible: to thoughts, to ideas, to memories, and most importantly, people we love. Part of their beauty may be aesthetic beauty, but more often it’s the beauty they bring to our hearts and minds.

That kind of beauty is all at once everyday and rare.

For more love around the home, check out this week’s You Capture challenge at I Should Be Folding Laundry.