#LiveTogether: (Not So) Great Expectations

We're continuing the #LiveTogether series, in which we take a look at the highs and lows and in-betweens of doing life with people.

I'm excited for today's post--it's from my good friend, Sarah Gurley. Enjoy!

***

When I was four years old, my dad found me crying on the floor of my bedroom, buried by my dolls and a palpable sense of anxiety.

“Why are you crying?” his concerned voice asked.

My pre-school self tearfully responded, “Because I don’t know who I’m going to marry.”

At four years old, it was silly. Juvenile. Innocent.

But then 23 rolled around, and I had yet to experience a real romantic relationship. I’m not talking about holding hands at lunch, or circle “yes” or “no” notes; make-out buddies or a date here and there. No. A real relationship. A partner. Someone you can depend on. An automatic plus-one to the prom. A “you hang up first” wave of nausea for anyone unfortunate enough to be within earshot.

I saw it perpetually happening to my roommates and friends. College was the absolute worst place for someone grappling with singleness. While everyone eagerly coupled up around me, I stood firm on my island of solitude. Who needs a man, anyway? I’ve got my ambition and body pillow, dang it.

I moved to South Korea after college graduation to seek adventure. After all, I made it out of college without a significant nibble on my romantic fishing lure--why not move halfway around the world and ride out this single wave while I’m young? I packed away my yearning for romance, locked it in a box and left it under my childhood twin bed. Let it collect dust; see if I care. I was headed to the Land of the Morning Calm where I most assuredly would not find a romantic interest.

But the unthinkable greeted me upon my arrival. I met someone. As soon as my feet found the sweltering Korean ground, a fetching, blonde-haired New Yorker started to show interest. Not just casual interest either. We’re talking Ethan Embry in “Can’t Hardly Wait”, ridiculously in like with me. So I did what any relationship amateur would do. I jumped in feet first.

But there was a problem.

After that day my dad found me in my bucket of self-pity tears, I spent the next 19 years racking up expectations and ideals for whoever would eventually fill the role of significant other in my life. Everything from appearance and talents to personality type and disposition were accounted for.

This poor guy didn’t stand a chance.

I finally found an eligible male who was head-over-heels for me, and three weeks into our relationship, I dumped him over a plate of Korean dumplings (the irony in our food choice was not lost on me). One may ask why on earth would I break up with a guy who was kind, compassionate, caring, handsome and all-around wonderful?

Simple: he didn’t fit the bill.

I started my collection of expectations before I even hit puberty. And without a significant relationship in my past to give me a healthy dose of reality, those expectations ballooned. What started as an innocent “that would be nice”  multiplied into countless dealbreakers. I didn’t have to give a reason for the breakup other than, “He’s just not what I’m looking for.”

This guy in Korea didn’t have the right profession. He was a teacher. I wanted a pastor. He wasn’t super musical. I wanted someone to write songs with. He was blonde. I wanted a guy with dark hair. He was super athletic. I wanted someone less…hunky. (Editor's note from Paul: All of the nerds of the world are thinking, "Where was I when you were single??") Sure, he had everything else I was looking for but to my novice and nitpicking heart, what he lacked drowned out the whispers of his outstanding qualities.

We parted ways.

Then, something curious happened. My mom, whose opinion I esteem more than just about anyone’s, told me I was being a self-centered, unrealistic, hypocritical idiot (not in so many words, but that was her gist).

She didn’t want my unrealistic expectations and ideals inhibiting me from experiencing life to the fullest. We can’t all marry Ryan Gosling, sigh.

We’re always going to find something in our significant other that doesn’t quite fit the bill; nobody is perfect. But life isn’t comprised of rigid puzzle pieces needing to fit together just so. If that were the case, we’d spend 50% of our time looking for that specific person and the other 50% stressing over whether or not we already missed him/her. But have you ever put together a worn-out, old puzzle that has eroded and chipped pieces? What was once a beautiful landscape is faded and filled with gaps. When the pieces no longer fit perfectly, what’s the use? It’s not worth the effort so you just throw the puzzle away.

What I didn’t realize was that by racking up all those expectations, I was setting myself up for a temporary, throw-away puzzle of a relationship. Even if he fit my 23-year-old self, would we still fit together at 33? 57? 81? By going in with a checklist of qualities, I was preventing myself from experiencing the wonderful unpredictability of love.

I took a few months to rid myself of my unyielding plans and expectations. I threw my puzzle pieces away and instead embraced moldable clay. Where one piece pushes, the other can give way to allow for the new formation. A beautiful, flexible push and pull where chips and gaps are simply rubbed away.

One day, the guy came back around and asked if I wouldn’t mind giving it a go again. He hadn’t changed during that time apart. He was still a semi-musical, hunky, athletic, blonde teacher. But after sloughing off my own expectations and preparing myself to jump in sans deal breakers, I found myself falling in love with this unsuspecting gentleman in a far-away land.

A wedding, two adorable children and seven years later, he’s still creatively exceeding my original expectations each and every day.

***

Sarah is a travel-addict who leads worship and teaches bible at a private boarding school in Western New York. When not reading age-inappropriate YA novels or searching couch cushions for lost binkies, she spends time with her hunky husband and two daughters. You can check out her book reviews and mom rants at Paperbacks & Pacifiers. 

Feature photo ©2011 Aric Cortes | Flickr

#LiveTogether: Go On and Tear Me Apart

This is the second post in a series on relationships called #LiveTogether. You can read the first one here. The series will cover the challenges, the humor, the heartbreak, the hope that comes with choosing to do life with people.

***

For me, the song of the year so far is Coldplay's "A Sky Full of Stars."

I know not everyone is as on board with Coldplay as I am, and that's fine. Regardless, I think it's a great song, and I'm pretty sure I've listened to it at least 150 times. (iTunes, in fact, says that I've listened to it 56 times. But that doesn't count Spotify, or my shower, or all of the places I've walked and breathed in the last few months.)

The song begins with Chris Martin's syncopated piano chords sweeping from a loud hammering to a muted plunking, as if he was shooting back and forth in space, and he sings:

'Cause you're a sky, 'cause you're a sky full of stars / I'm gonna give you my heart.

I'm hooked, right away. Then he follows it up with:

Cause you're a sky, 'cause you're a sky full of stars / 'Cause you light up the path.

And as the piano drives harder back into our atmosphere, there's a thump, and his vocals soar as he hits me with a line that I can't move past:

I don't care / Go on and tear me apart / I don't care if you do.

There's a part of me, the hopeless romantic, who wants to join in with Chris Martin, launch myself past the pull of gravity, hurtle myself into the kind of reckless love of which he sings.

There's another part of me, the grizzled traveler who has walked what feels like thousands of miles on the road of life, who has learned and re-learned this hard lesson:

The human heart can only be torn to pieces so many times.

There's a limit to how many times one can dive into a relationship with wing-like arms spread wide and chest exposed and slam into the ground because the water is too shallow. Or rush out into the cold of night singing, "Come what may," and be left alone to accumulate snow like an abandoned car.

There's a limit to how many times your heart can expand and regain its shape after being flattened under an onslaught of stampeding hooves.

I wish I could sing the line and mean it. I wish I could be like Augustus Waters and say, "Oh, I wouldn't mind, Hazel Grace. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you."

A younger version of me would. And could. And did. I got a thrill out of the challenge. I thought I was made for the throw-caution-to-wind, leap-into-burning-building kind of love that movies glorify. I wanted to champion a story that would gallop into danger on chariots of courage, race into the foul and gaping mouth of the dragon, and emerge from the smoke and ash with my lungs full of fury and my eyes steeled with strength.

I certainly got the fight I asked for.

The first time my heart was broken, it dropped me to the ground. Literally. I gathered myself, got back up, and threw myself back into the fray until I was spit back out. Again and again. Over and over. Like a shirt that's run through the cycle week after week, I lost material and threading until the holes started to show and the seams fell apart.

There's a part of me that refuses to put myself in that situation, to give someone that power ever again. I refuse to say to someone, "Go on and tear me apart; I don't care if you do." Because I've experienced the disorientation of being shredded and discarded like junk mail that no one wanted to read. I know what it is to lose yourself and your worth in the darkness of someone's disregard.

Screw that.

Seriously. No way. Not again. Not ever. That Paul is dead.

***

In my coldest moments, in my deepest retreats into the basement of the fortress I've built around me, amid the echoes of dripping water bouncing off the bare walls, I hear a voice.

It's not an audible voice. I don't hear it with my ears.

It's more like the tiniest, thinnest beam of sunlight that snakes through the dark and dust and finds the back of my neck. I feel its warmth, and the hair on my neck rises. As I keep my back to it, it sways in circular motions on my skin and begins to spell out letters that string into words, and even with my eyes closed and my ears shut, I can't ignore it.

It says, "You were not made for dungeons and darkness."

I know it's right. I feel it pulling at me, tugging at me, urging me back outside my walls. I don't want to be destroyed again, but this--this hiding, this barricading--isn't the way. I stay at a distance because of fear, but fear isn't the rudder I want steering my ship. I want to listen to better voices.

The voice I hear in those moments reminds me of this:

I'm at my best when I'm open and vulnerable. I'm not at my best when I've shut myself in.

There are too many people in my life who need me at my best.

As we move toward anyone, any friend, we place more of ourselves in their hands, more of ourselves at their mercy, more of ourselves at risk to be torn up a little. That's the cost of doing life with other people, doing life together. It's quite different than continuing to knowingly place ourselves in dangerous, harmful, or abusive situations--into the hands of people who have proven they can't be trusted to be kept within arm's length.

All relationships requires risk. All relationships that are worth it demand us to bare ourselves at some point.

I'm re-learning the curves and contours of the route of risk. I'm measuring the depth of the water before I jump. I'm wearing extra layers so I don't freeze in the cold. I'm not quite sure that I'd sing, "Go on and tear me apart," but I'm out of the dungeon. I'm squinting in the daylight. I'm feeling the ground beneath me one step at a time.

This is the way. This is what we were made to do.

***

Feature photo ©2009 Robb North | Flickr

#LiveTogether: Hide and Seek

This post is the first in a series on relationships called #LiveTogether (and if you followed up with "Die Alone," then you have watched Lost and are my best friend) which will cover all kinds of relationships--romantic, platonic, familial. I hope it'll be fun, funny, heart-wrenching, hope-giving, and eye-opening.

***

On our first date, we played Hide and Seek in a Super Walmart.

I was nineteen and didn't have a car. She picked me up in her dad's worn down, small-size Chevy S10 pickup. As soon as I shut the rusting door, her perfume danced around my head and slipped smoothly into my nostrils down past my lungs, spun circles around my nerve endings to the soles of my feet and floated all the way back up to the hair follicles on the top of my head.

She looked at me and smiled. Even in the dim orange tint of my apartment's parking lot lights, she lit up in my mind like a hungry fire and burned an image there--long, feather-like earrings and waterfall bangs framed her face. In the dark, brief gleams of light flashed from the middle of her shadowy eyes, her speck of a nose ring, her unbalanced smile, and the metal loop in her lip.

The air was no warmer than 40 degrees, but all she was wearing to guard herself from the cold was a thin, black blazer. Its sleeves stopped just below her elbows, which made sure I could see the large, turquoise beads shaking and rattling around her wrists. I had stepped through the crusty, outer crust of a country pickup truck and found a rich, elegant, caramel center inside.

It was like happily drowning in a pool of rare, century-old wine.

And then we headed to Walmart.

To play hide and seek. Because that's what kids in a college town do. (To my credit, it wasn't the only place we'd go that night--there would be dinner, there would be music, and there would be a drunk guy mooning us. What a night.)

 As we walked through the wide, toothless mouth of Walmart's automatic double doors, I was ready for what my wiry, circus-like body was born to do--hide in really weird places.

I hid first. I felt good about it--I could set the bar high, leave a good impression. My clearly yet-to-be-developed brain was convinced a girl could be wow'ed by my hiding skills. She had trash talked me earlier, bragging about how awesome she was at this game.

Nonsense, I thought.

I left her, with the smug smile of arrogance on my face, to count to sixty somewhere between the racks of extra-large men's camo gear and the wall of Hanes socks. I jogged down the aisles, snapped my head from side to side, my eyes pinging in every direction, zipping like hummingbirds, looking for the spot.

I don't remember exactly where I hid. It doesn't matter--she found me faster than a mom of four could find the Snack Packs on sale. For years, as I investigated the mystery of how she found me so quickly, she would only say, "I'm that good."

Now came her chance to hide, and mine to redeem myself. Each second I counted, my body temperature seemed to rise. By being found so quickly, I identified with my Korean ancestors' shame when they tarnished the honor of their families. I gathered myself and narrowed my eyes with determination as I rattled off the final seconds before my hunt began.

I marched in swift strides, moving quickly underneath the fluorescent lights and spherical cameras hanging from the ceiling. Toys aisle. Not there. Bikes. Not there. Baby stuff. Not there. Electronics section. Not there.

Of course--the garbage bins! So easy.

I looked behind them, inside them, around them. Not there.

The sweat of pressure began to seep over the lip of my forehead. Oh no. This can't be happening. Everything would have been fine had we simply gone to dinner and started our night there. But no--I just had to agree to begin our night in the land of broken dreams: Walmart. Minutes disguised themselves as hours in my head passed as I poked my head in between shelves and ripped open racks of clothing. Exasperated, panicked, and desperate, I started to backtrack my route through the store. Still nothing.

And then:

“Paul!”

I heard her voice ring out. I spun around. And there she was.

The baby stuff. The baby section where I had already looked--she was crammed on the bottom shelf behind some cribs. That I missed her on my first pass, I’ll never forgive myself. She shimmied out, and I thought her head might be cocked to one side permanently from having held it in that position for the eons of my fruitless search.

“You suck at this,” she said. “I told you I’m the best.”

After that, we left. We ate. We listened to music. We began. We kissed. We fought. We strayed. We came together. We journeyed for a long time. We parted ways.

As I look back on it all, I'm not sure that I ever really found her that night in Walmart. I'm not sure that our game of Hide and Seek ever ended.

For years, I traced and retraced the same steps through those scuffed aisles. I called, "Olly olly oxen free." I sat down on the floor to wait.

I was forever found, but never finding.

***

Feature photo ©2010 Sylvia Sala | Flickr