Word's Out

I told my mother about the general wedding plans and the world didn't implode.

Ok, so I'm kind of lying. I wasn't the one who broke the news to my mom. It was my dad. I expected her to call in high spirits within half an hour of me talking to my dad, but instead all I got was a Facebook message saying "So, when's the wedding? LOL."

I don't know what scares me more, the fact that my mother seems eerily up to date with technology, or that she's acting very cool about the entire nuptial situation. I mean, she hasn't even told her sisters about it. And I would know. My cousins would have called/texted/IMed/Facebooked me by now (and if not them, their wives would've).

Needless to say, I was freaking out about having to tell my parents. It's not like they would oppose the union, since they like my boyfriend so damn much (I'm pretty sure they want to adopt him). However, this is not my first time around an engagement, or even a sort-of engagement. Last time I dropped this kind of information on them, they wasted thousands of non-refundable dollars.

Thus, I just didn't feel all that comfortable announcing, "You know that time I was getting married and then I didn't get married, so I told you guys I would never, ever get married? Well, about that... My boyfriend and I are planning on getting married sooner rather than later." Awesome, right? Well, I'm sure that's the subtext of what my parents must feel at this point.

Then again, they seem surprisingly calm about  this. Only time will tell. God, please don't let this turn into a circus.

Just in Time for Mother's Day

We're getting married. Maybe. I mean, the plans are definitely there (and by there I don't mean just in my head). We're not officially engaged, which I guess makes us engaged to be engaged (or pre-engaged, as one of my friends so lovingly calls this state).

I'm developing a headache just trying to figure out the correct term for this stage in our relationship.

My boyfriend is telling his parents this weekend. I haven't even decided if telling my parents would be a wise idea at this point, particularly, my mother. I could theoretically tell my dad and make him swear he will keep the secret. Theoretically, because my mother has the power to attain information that the CIA and the FBI don't have combined (also, the power to break down a man). I am strangely proud and terrified of being her daughter.

My mother has been constantly pushing the marriage issue the past few years. Every guy I date is suddenly on her watch list for future husband. I just ignore her comments, and promise her that I will never get married. She really loves when I do that.

Reasons why I am hesitant to tell my mother about the nuptials:

1. As of today and the foreseeable next few months, I have no ring. And this is not a good thing for my traditional mother. She will probably hound my poor boyfriend and insist he take one of the rings she's offering to give him (from her jewelry collection).
2. I want a small, 30 people maximum wedding. She will try to make it into a Hollywood-worthy production, disregard any if all of my input of taste, insist it be in the church, and spend thousands of dollars that I don't have. I don't care for some of my extended family (for valid reasons). She will invite all of the extended family (more than 50 people, by my last count).
3. I'm shy. She will broadcast the news even before I have a ring on my finger and decide to tell people about it.

More and more, I panic about losing sight of what a wedding is truly about. It's not about a party, it's about choosing a day to promise another person that I'll be a part of their team, and that he'll be a part of mine. I don't want the real reason for marriage to get lost in the shuffle of planning, as it does for many of my peers.

In a perfect world, my mother would not try to micromanage weddings. Yet, here I am typing these things into a blog as I struggle to make my choice in telling my parents about this exciting development in our lives. I worry that the stress caused by planning the previous wedding will somehow manifest itself in this new one, and that the results will yield being broken up with. Again. This makes me a bit anxious, and it has nothing to do with telling my mother. I think telling my mother makes things real, and I'm very afraid of things being real because that means I can get hurt again.

But getting back to the matter at hand, telling my mother about our plans is still a complicated issue for me. My boyfriend keeps telling me there's an ocean between me and her micromanaging glory. Though technically true, technology has shortened that gap significantly. Also, she can book a flight to "help" me plan a wedding because she has the summer off.

The masochist in me wonders how she'll react to the news. Will she go into MomZilla mode? Will she be stunned into silence and process the information for weeks on end? Will she faint? Do I have to tell her to sit down first? Will she ask me if I'm pregnant? Will she start harassing me? Will she suggest an elopement?

I guess it's just as well that this weekend is Mother's Day. We shall see.

Disappointing my Mother: One Dream at a Time

I wish I could say that the following types of conversations between me and my mother don't happen often. But they occur more often than I would care to admit.

"So you broke up with [insert name of awesome current boyfriend here] because [insert name of pitiful ex-fiance here] bought you a gigantic diamond ring," my mother accusingly yelled from the other side of the phone.

"Wait, what?" I asked.

This was all new to me. Last I checked, I was still in a stable relationship with my current boyfriend.

"In my dream. Last night," she explained, as if that cleared everything up. "You know, the dream I had last night about you."

"Oh. So?" I asked, looking at my computer screen.

"[insert name of pitiful ex-fiance here] bought you a big rose gold diamond ring and you broke up with [insert name of awesome current boyfriend here] because of it. I was livid. LIVID! How dare you break up with  [insert name of awesome current boyfriend here] because of some diamond?! I thought, 'this slut, how dare she shame me that way, after all the bad things that [insert name of pitiful ex-fiance here]?'"

"Um, mom?" I asked, while my query went unrecognized.

"And then, you had the gall to parade that filthy ring around, like it was some prize. Like that asshole is anything anyone would want to take back after the way he treated you. I cannot believe that you took him back after everything he did, and after finding someone so nice, [insert name of awesome current boyfriend here]. I woke up angry at you."

"Mom, you do know I have no control over what you dream, right?" I asked, as she kept rattling off animatedly at me.

"So then I turned to my coworker and loudly said '[insert name of pitiful ex-fiance here] flew to [insert state I'm living in at the moment] and gave my daughter an enormous diamond ring' so that [insert name of pitiful ex-fiance here]'s current girlfriend could hear it."

"What's happening? I'm confused," I asked, not being able to follow her train of thought.

"In my dream. I'm still talking about my dream."

"I see. Mom, first off, the chances of your dream happening are slim to none. Secondly, there's no diamond big enough that would make me leave [insert name of awesome current boyfriend here] for [insert name of pitiful ex-fiance here]."

"Thank God. Don't leave [insert name of awesome current boyfriend here]."

"Ok, mom, I promise," I replied, knowing there was no use arguing about the fact that her mind conjured this dream, not mine.

"I'm still mad because of the dream. I even told your dad about it. I could not believe you would do that to me."

Ladies and gentlemen, this just goes to show that I have mastered disappointing my mother even in her dreams. 

Reflections on Starting Over

Starting over in the dating world after a soul-crushing failure is both exhilarating and terrifying. Once you decide to start dating again, there's a sense of newness that excites the most skeptical of hearts. After this new relationship smell fades a a bit, doubts and frustrations surface.

When I first started dating after the wedding that never was, I was excited at the prospect of meeting new guys who represented potential life partners. At this point in my life, I was looking for someone who could be my best friend and partner in life, someone who wouldn't bail out when things got rough. Most of all, I was looking for someone who wouldn't call me a stupid slut in the middle of an argument.

After settling down into the confusing dating world, a world that was foreign to me after six years of monogamy, I was frustrated with the way things were unfolding. I've never been good at being patient, and add a dose of Failed Relationship PTSD to that character flaw... Then you have a recipe for disaster.

Looking back, I realize that most of my frustrations stemmed from the fact that the guys I was dating were not really relationship material and because I expected the next guy I dated pick up right where my big relationship left off. That kind of pressure is both unrealistic and crippling to dating.

The truth is that once you're in a relationship for multiple years for one person, you start forgetting how things were at the beginning, wonderful, but not necessarily deep. If that relationship ends, like it did for me, you miss the depth and the things that made you feel cared for as half of a couple. Expecting someone new to pick up where the other relationship left off is unfair. Depth in a relationship can only be cultivated with spending time together, and actually caring for one another.

For someone who likes to go into life from zero to sixty in three seconds, this process was one of the hardest things to realize. I can now say that after a year in my current relationship, I am in a better place depth-wise than I ever was in my previous relationship. I guess that's the thing I've realized, that you can achieve different levels of depth with each person you date, but it still takes time and willingness to start over with someone new.

I Want Instantaneous Results (Have I Been Watching Too Many Infomercials?)

If my entrance into life is any indication of my personality, it'd be that I'm impatient and I'm in a hurry to get wherever I want to be, regardless readiness or maturity. And you know what? That's absolutely and completely right. I was born two whole months before my mother's due date, possibly because I couldn't wait to face the world outside my mother's uterus.

I don't remember much about that time, but I could imagine I felt bitter disappointment at the mess I was once so eager to embrace. A medium-rare of a baby, I spent a month tubed up in an incubator. If baby pictures are any indication, I looked like a wrinkly rat with patches of hair (a sight only my parents could love; then again, I question this).

There I was, out in the world, tubed up to a machine because I couldn't breathe on my own. Metaphorically, things did not get better. Thankfully, I did not need tubing to breathe for the rest of my life.

I admit that one of my biggest shortcomings is impatience. I want things to happen, and I want them to happen yesterday. When I decide to go after something, I dive into the metaphorical waters with a quick prayer, and once I'm in I start wondering if I can even swim at all.

I don't just want to do any kind of swimming, mind you, I want to be the Michael Phelps/Ryan Lochte type swimmer and just excel at everything I do. Instantly.

Sometimes I get tired of swimming because I can't see the finish line, the shore, or any milestone that lets me know how far I've gotten or how close I am to getting what I want. That's exactly where I am at my current job at the moment. I've been with the company for about a year, am vastly overqualified with my master's degree, and I am struggling to pay the bills on a constant basis (so much so, that I have a second job teaching at the local university).

Though I try to be optimistic every day and go in with a fresh attitude, I am faced with people above me who scoff at me because of my youth and gender. Misogyny is alive and well in this small city of the Southwest.

What's even more impressive than the regressive male attitude at my job is the particular male ability of whining and complaining their way into having people feel sorry for them. I hear, "Oh, poor [insert name of male idiot here], he's so swamped. His job is so tough." I never seem to hear that about a female colleague, no matter how much larger her workload is.

When you combine up this misogynistic attitude, a blatant disregard for innovation (in a technological company, no less), and a distrust for the abilities I went to graduate school to acquire, you get a recipe for impatience. I feel ready to burst out of the metaphorical womb.

However, if there's something that life has taught me, it's crippling self-doubt. What if what I am so desperate to attain is not that great? What if I need help? What if I'm not ready, and it's a repeat of my birth?

Sometimes, the worst enemy is the one in your head.

I'll continue to exercise a semblance of patience for now, but the first chance I get to leap, I'll jump and ask questions later.

Here We Go Again

I was almost married once.

I started planning a wedding once, which means I was thrust into the world of wedding blogs and all their wonderful and sparkly splendor.

And then I wasn't getting married anymore.

It was like free-falling through a rabbit hole of sorts. Everyone around me turned on their concerned faces and all I wanted to do was run away from my problems.

Then I started dating again. And that was a shitstorm of nothingness. Nothing made sense.

I was Alice in a wonderland of douches. Douches, douches everywhere.

Just when I decided that I didn't want to date again, I started dating my current boyfriend. One year later, when I'm settling into the idea of being in a relationship I still have failed relationship PTSD moments.

Now, I don't know if it's because I'm still arguably going through my quarter-life crisis, or if it's just because I'm so good at wanting to run, but I'm terrified. I'm also, to my surprise, genuinely happy and excited about a future with this man.

We've come to the point of talking about marriage and the big picture kind of future. We're not engaged or planning a wedding at the moment, but we're having deeper and more significant conversations about building a life together. Needless to say, these conversations weren't a part of my past relationship, pre or post engagement.

Are these talks terrifying? Yes, absolutely. However, they're also comforting on a level I'd never expected. So even when these doubts crop up, I feel confident that I am in a partnership that works, instead of two companies trying to merge unsuccessfully.

As a bonus, because these marriage talks are happening, I feel slightly justified in cruising wedding websites again, even if I don't want a wedding (because being educated in this day and age means an insane amount of student loan payments).

I Like Pretty (Wedding) Stuff

I recently received an e-mail from Glamour promising tips on how to look better in pictures. I clicked on it. I mean, who doesn't want to learn tricks to look better in pictures? Right?

Wrong. The article was geared toward the newly engaged. Cue eye-roll.

Here I was, reading an article that just highlighted the facts that:

1. You only have to worry about pictures being taken of you when you have a ring on your finger.
2. I am not currently wearing a ring on my finger (ergo I don't deserve to learn tricks to look better in pictures).

So I read the article even though I have an empty finger, and proceeded to click on a link to other articles and slideshows featuring wedding dresses (and pink... PINK wedding dresses are gorgeous). Cue double eye-roll. I think I may be catching wedding fever (again). 

See, the thing is that I spent so much time repressing my wedding fever in my previous relationship, that when me and my ex got engaged, I no longer had to pretend to not be fascinated by weddings. I could browse through every wedding blog known to man and not be seen as a desperate, clingy chick. 

I never became a bridezilla because my mother and ex soon took control of the wedding planning, but I was still allowed to look at wedding stuff without my internal judge kicking in and saying, "Oh, sweetie, you're not even engaged."

When that sad excuse of a relationship crashed and burned magnificently, I had no desire whatsoever to look at wedding stuff. I didn't even want to deal with my already purchased wedding dress, shoes, and the rest of my attire. I just didn't want the words engagement or wedding to ever come in contact with my vocabulary ever again. Then reality slaps you and brings about emotions you can't quite explain.

You'd think a  failed attempt at walking down the aisle to the wrong man would damper my wedding thoughts. You'd think that, but because my thoughts so often defy logic and rational explanations, you'd be wrong. Oh so wrong.

I find it hard to not judge myself on this one. On the one hand, I understand that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with admiring pretty things. On the other hand, I think it's not classy to be looking at wedding stuff when plans of a wedding are not even a speck in my horizon, if it ever comes to that again.

One of my dearest friends says that it's ok that I look at this stuff because it means I'm happy in the relationship, and at least I'm not secretly pinning it to a Pinterest board (this is why I don't have Pinterest, people). 

So, yes, I'll continue to look, but I also hope to keep myself in check and not devolve into some sad girl who tries to prod her boyfriend to propose. Because that wouldn't be fun for either one of us.