Fruit Trees

Does fruit fall far from the tree?

I have been thinking about this since watching ‘The Beloved’ with my beloved.

A movie loosely based on unrequited love. The relationship between a mother and daughter and their relationships, each with two men. One of them who they are passionate about, desire fuelled, giving them everything but themselves and then the men who love them with all that they have, who understand them and want to give them the world along with themselves. Two triangles touching bottom corners.

Do I see a semblance of my mother in myself? Will I end up making the same mistakes as she has? Will I push everyone away, to no longer risk my heart and to become lonely?

I would like to know how a parent influences the values and beliefs of their children. Do they begin lecturing them at a young age? To instil them with their own view of the world. What if their view is warped? Does the child grow up having unrealistic thoughts?

I think that a person does eventually grow into themselves but there will always be those underlying beliefs that will either influence their choices or render them guilty from not adhering. It’s a shame if, in the end, there is a vast contrast of opinion between a child and a parent. This makes me wonder whether it is all possible for a child to influence the beliefs of the parent? Wouldn’t it create more harmony and less disappointment, the key to a rewarding relationship?

More often this isn’t the case. It is a scary thought that you may end up following in the footsteps of a parent you don’t quite agree with.

Breaking Up and Making Up

It all seems so juvenile.

It makes you wonder why people choose to get back together when they obviously couldn't handle it in the first place. What changes during the days apart? Why do they risk wasting their time again?
I once went out with a man who said that once a couple have broken up then that should be it, when a person even just thinks of breaking up then that should be it.

This leads me to one question: 'What is it that you see in the other person for you to even consider risking your heart, your pride and self-worth? Why risk putting yourself through the pain and the anguish of breaking up again, just when you mended your heart and pulled yourself together again?'

Is it blind love/stupidity? I am sure we have all seen this situation over and over again. The poor hopeless being that can't think of anyone else. They can't see their lives without that person in it. No matter the hell they have been through, it must have been something that they have done wrong themselves. This person would do anything to make it work, change themselves, forever feel guilty for something, be forever making excuses at the behaviour of the other.

Could it be a time issue where age has suddenly come upon them? We see this is both men and women with one thing in common; they are childless. They worry about running out of time, women especially. I mean, I am only 30 but I do have thoughts where I don't think I will ever have the opportunity to become a mother. I have a male friend who broke up with his girlfriend to be with someone who had a child and then went back to his girlfriend because he wanted a child of his own. He swallowed his pride and she took him back. Ugh.

Or maybe it is more where I am? I look at the situation as a whole. I am confident enough to say that I have always known that this is the man I am going to spend the rest of my life with. And this knowledge is reciprocated. A woman is supposed to know, right? Well, this woman knows.

Relationships

Of the romantic variety. The all-consuming, blissful, heart-wrenching, ecstatic, soul-breaking, tearful, breathtaking, joyful, sanity-defying and every God damn feeling we do and don’t want to have all at once, from one end of the spectrum all the way to the other. We’ve all had one.

We ask ourselves, tell ourselves, why am I doing this? I don’t need this, I need this! We question whether the positives outweigh the negatives, whether it is all really worth it, whether this is what we actually want? Of course we do, don’t we?

Relationships. They are never black and white. They are nearly always a fuzzy black/white/grey. Like the old TV snow. All loud and crackly, making you panic and to quickly find the remote and change the channel or switch the damn thing off. That is exactly what they are like. Relationships force you to see who you are inside, what you do to other people, how you change them and how they change you. You are forced to feel uncomfortable, to feel confused, guilty and angry and then be rendered exhausted and bewildered wondering what the hell just happened.

The reason why we continue to put ourselves through this lies with a deeply ingrained belief that we too will someday find that fairy-tale ending. Cinderella and Prince Charming, Romeo and Juliet, one of the million couples out of those many Hollywood blockbusters or fictional narratives who somehow survive something so epic and come out amazed and in love.

My belief, my base of relationships, date back to when I was fourteen and I was reading ‘The Notebook’. ‘The Notebook?’, you say? Yes I, Tanya Chalmers, am a hopeless romantic. Allie Hamilton has characteristics that I have somehow shaped to myself, and every boyfriend I have had has been a potential Noah Calhoun, which isn’t too shabby a comparison, to say the least. Noah was wild and reckless, focused and passionate, and all of his love was for her only. Allie and Noah, they loved each other like school kids but with a raging passion that was X-rated. Their fights were raw and awful, nasty and hurtful but in the end, their love for one another erased all of the bad and turned it into something wonderful, equally deep and devouring.

With this in mind, we have to know when to say goodbye to a relationship that isn’t worth continuing. My conviction is to respect yourself enough to know how much respect you deserve from another person. You need to be able to tell the difference, to know when someone has treated you with contempt. And to walk away.

Love is never easy, it is intricate and complex. But pure and honest love will always be worth it. And even if it doesn't work out in the end, you should never have to look back with regret.

Now, in this life, I can bravely say I have found my Edward from 'Twilight', my Mr Rochester from 'Jane Eyre' and, finally, my Noah from 'The Notebook'.

The Return

I can't believe it has been over three months since my last post! I feel rusty.

A long absence can usually mean one of three things:
1. I am Dead - I am not. Or maybe I am and I am just someone pretending to be me.
2. Forgotten Blog Password - This did happen. My mind is not as sharp as it once was.
3. A conglomeration of occurances and occasions causing my less-than-lucrative amusements to fall by the wayside - Yes. I now have plenty of material.

Here is a summary of events:
I turned 30. In Paris. Spent 7 weeks travelling through Europe. Graduated uni. Went back to work. Restored harmony from the havoc that my temp created. Colleague resigned. Workload doubled. Created budget, with a lot of help, which I swear to adhere to. Started an 8 week Cuban Salsa course with my boyfriend. Read an insane amount of amazing books!

The reasons for my return are to do with three things. Firstly, http://www.listen-lady.com/ who unknowingly encouraged me by saying, 'Tanya, you should update yours! I will link to you if you will link to mine'. Secondly, I can feel my brain start to numb due to inactivity. For as challenging as Sudoku is for me, numbers are not words and to my dismay I find myself randomly being heckled by a certain grammatically gifted person. And thirdly, reflection is therapeutic and there is not one person I know who shouldn't do without.

Forward

This morning I received a forward from one of my colleagues, 'Stress - Put it Down for a Moment'. Reading through, it had the usual quotes and sayings that we always see in these sorts of emails, feel good, motivational, happy-happy-joy-joy! Ugh. But there was one in particular that touched me:
'It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to be kind to others'.
I sometimes have moments where I wonder what the hell it is I am supposed to do, what is it I am destined to be? I often hear of others striving towards a career, following their passions and living the life they have always dreamed of, and at my age I see that most people have succeeded in doing all of this.
Don't get me wrong, I am not disappointed with myself nor am I envious or unsatisfied. I have never wanted much and whatever I have wanted I always managed to get. I like this saying. It suits me perfectly. I love the people I share my life with and I hope they know how much they mean to me.   

Steak Night

$10 Steak at Botanica with my best friend Tash! How could I pass that up?

We arrived nice and early and found that everyone else had the same idea. My friend found us a table to share with a few individuals out of the throes of men in that place. Meat? Yes please! No wonder Tash loves steak night! After about ten minutes our beautiful steaks came, mine with a comment, 'Who's the vampire?' Rare. I have to have mine rare. mmm...

I felt one of the boys sit next to me and saw my friend's face change from one of delight to one of displeasure. Not good. I turned to my right to see a friend of the boy she had been seeing. Displeasure? I must be missing something. So we continued to chat about important issues pertaining to the survival of the world, us, while devouring our big juicy steaks and sipping glasses of expensive red wine that my friend snuck in. Her excuse being, 'This is an expensive bottle of wine that we can't let go to waste.'  Seems a good enough reason as any.

This change in my friend's mood encouraged me to scope out alternate seating arrangements, and in seeing an empty, oversized couch, we quickly grabbed our things and plonked ourselves into the soft, leathery cosiness. She explained that the boy who was next to me had messaged her the previous night wanting to 'catch up', obviously indicating something of sexual nature. This raises the question: What would possess a man to want someone his friend had already been with? Is it male competitiveness, an animal instinct? Or is it a character flaw, one that signifies dim-wittedness?  Or, as a male counterpart has suggested with a similar thought from my friend, perhaps they are the sharing and caring type of boys who see her as an object of sexual gratification? Needless to say, she wasn't interested.  

  

Still 29

And so it begins...

25 days until my 30th birthday.
23 days until my huge 7 week European adventure.
16 days until my birthday celebration of which I am going crazy with indecision.

What to do? Where to have it? Who to invite? Ugh. Enough to make me want to just forget about it. And why don't I forget about it? Well, no one will let me. 'You only turn 30 once!'
I thought I could escape it by conveniently having my European adventure, and yes I will continue to refer to it as 'my European adventure', coincidentally depositing me in Paris the day before my big birthday therefore rendering it impossible for me to celebrate this grand occasion in person and saving me the trouble of trying to organise the damn thing!

My past birthday celebrations have mainly been big group dinners in inexpensive places due to myself, and my friends, being short on funds. And this year poses the same dilemma. My friends have either bought houses, gotten married, had babies, quit their jobs or, as most 30 year old do, have more pressing things to spend their money on.

My groans of anguish have reach the ears of my wonderful boyfriend who has taken it upon himself to come up with a plethora of ideas to make this birthday a memorable affair, the gorgeous man he is!
So it has now been narrowed down to two places, XO Lounge or The Boulevard.
Decisions, decisions!