Laissez Love-A-Faire

I've been thinking about love. MCSquared and I have a very interesting love affair. I am an emoter. He is not. I show people that I love them when I do. He does not.

It got me to thinking about how I was supposed to teach my daughter about love and what to do with love.

Love is a bit like a moving target in my opinion. There are two types of love. The love that you feel - and you alone can feel it, and then the love that you share - active love. We'll call it selfish love vs. active love. I compartmentalize because I think it's easier to understand love when you split love into these two categories.

The idea of selfish love - I must admit - did not come from me. It came from.... dare I say it... a chick flick. Yes - I said it. I do get all my wonderful inspiration from chick flick movie writers (thank you people!! You are invaluable to my creative juices!!)

A scene from the movie "The Last Kiss"

(couldn't get an actual clip of the specific scene...)

I love this scene. If you want to watch this movie - SPOILER ALERT!! SPOILER ALERT! Read the next paragraph!! Otherwise, read on... In this specific scene, Zach Braff is trying to win his girlfriend back after he cheated on her. He's trying to appeal to the girl's father - played so well by Tom Wilkinson. After he makes his plea - Tom Wilkinson's character says the following:

"Stop talking about love. Every asshole in the world says he loves somebody. It means nothing. It still doesn't mean anything. What you feel only matters to you. It's what you do to the people you say you love, that's what matters. It's the only thing that counts."

I started wondering about that... thinking to myself - is it the only thing that counts? Should that be what I teach my child?

People love in different ways - that's absolutely true. MCSquared is a selfish lover. I'm an active lover. But does that necessarily mean that my love is unrequited? I know that MCSquared loves me. He doesn't show it the way I'd like him to all the time, but I'm not "unloved."

In the end, however, it feels that way. In the end, when someone doesn't actively love you the way you need them to - then it feels like rejection - and unrequited love. I think it's because we are taught that if someone loves you enough - then they will.... You see it in a lot of movies. A person loves someone - so they sacrifice and do something they otherwise would NEVER do. I think there's folly in assuming that someone doesn't love you because they don't do that. But more importantly, I think it doesn't matter what the other person will or will not do for you.

What matters is what you are or aren't willing to take.

Whether or not what you're doing is enough for them is for them to convey - and you cannot have ownership over that (like - "doing things" for your loved one so that they love you... I find that a lot of active lovers try to do this - but that's an entirely different blog...) you have to detach from that.... If they don't think they're getting enough - then they have to be able to ask you for more.

But in the end, I want to teach my little one that what matters is whether or not you believe there is enough of both kinds of love. Do you think there's enough selfish love to sustain the the kind of active love you need from them.... The trick is the balance. No one wants to be with someone that showers them with active love, PDA, flowers, attention - but feels nothing for them. Eventually - a relationship like that will deteriorate from the inside. There is only so much active love that can be sustained without selfish love to fuel it. But - even if you KNOW there's A LOT of selfish love there (selfish to your partner, because they feel it all - and you feel nothing)- it's the active love that is the one that matters. Whether a lot or a little... you need to figure out for yourself - if it is enough.

It's not something easy. In fact, MCSquared and I are still working through that one. Sometimes our perception is off, sometimes the active loving is off.. But one thing is for certain, there's enough selfish love on both our parts that we keep trying...

Maybe- even THAT is enough.

A woman's worth

"Cause a real man knows a real woman when he sees her

And a real woman knows a real man ain't fraid to please her..."

I was wondering. Isn't it fascinating that women are fascinated with their value? A woman's worth. I've heard that in a context of a song, in a book, Cosmopolitan magazine articles, endless discussions from girlfriends, from mothers to daughters... But I've never heard men write songs about a man's worth, or hear men talking to other men about their value and what they deserve.

I wonder why that is.

Do we women inherently not know how much we are worth - and have to constantly remind ourselves about how much that is? I'm really curious to know.

We hear it all the time. A stay at home mom would make six figures if she was in the workplace. Women are harder working than men, and more diligent, and do not reap the same benefits. A woman who has children retains 50-80% of the household duties and chores, and about the same percentage of childrearing. There seems to be a barrage of "how we women are so strong, dare I say even stronger than men" comparisons in the media. But I don't hear how there are endless stories about how men measure up.

Then - there is the area of "being treated right." Or "you're worth more than that." That argument can be made often for both sexes, depending on the type of person and the type of relationship - but more often than not it isn't. Yet, why is this mantra used over and over with women, and not men?

What is it about us that inherently needs to be reminded how much we are worth? What make us settle? Love? Money? Security?

I suppose you can argue that society has done it to women. Women have been inherently devalued and had to "prove" themselves capable of producing an heir (even though - we all know who really holds the reigns on that one now...)... As a chinese woman, I know that there is a stigma of having girls over boys - so much that there was a period of time of mass gendercide of the female sex, and to a limited extent, today as well. That has inherently told us that we weren't worth as much. In addition, women in china were often sold off to the highest bidder. Not in sex trade, but into families so that they may produce heirs for that family. All in all - treated as commodities. I'd argue that there are similar stories throughout different races. Not that I'm doing any sort of research, but a search of mine own limited brain produces a scene from "Sense and Sensibility" to which all scholars turn to for historical reference, and there is a particular telling scene where Elinor argues with Edward that she cannot improve her rank through her own, but must marry to gain it. Once again, inferiority in it's ugliest form.

But then to make it inherent in all women, even those who didn't go through it?

The argument can also be made that not all women feel that way. That can be said about all generalizations - I suppose. But it must be common enough that articles and books, and songs touch some deep chord in women that these could produce some sort of profit for the creator... I don't hear a man saying, "wow! I really related to that song by Alicia Keys!!" - even though there WAS a line in there that referenced how real women knew real men came first.

One line is true however in this song, at the end of the day...

"She will if she can find a man who knows her worth...."

Blogging fascination

I'm truly not this frequent a blogger. I usually blog once a week or every two weeks at best. I'm just preparing you for the hiatus that might come up after this week. I'm blogging more because I find it cathartic (sp?) and I took this week off for one last vacation before the little one arrives.


Which made me think. Why exactly AM I blogging so much right now? What is it about my sudden need to blog..


When I first got involved in blogging, I thought I was the first. Seriously. Naiive? Stupid? But - absolutely. I thought I was one of a kind, and that no one else was like me. Then, I started noticing that other people were blogging (many of whom were recent first time Moms who were out of work with their small children trying to make sense of them). Other, more interesting, much more articulate people were blogging. You'd have thought that would have been the end of my blogging career.



So did I.



But then - I couldn't stop. I started to work through my blogs. Sometimes I'd write about an actual issue - other times, it was just an unimportant anecdote I used to de-stress, cracking myself up at the same time.



I find myself in a similar position now. Some people blog to solicit conversation. A great blog acts that way - I think. It creates conversation. But - my blog has evolved into something I realized was purely for myself. IS purely for myself. I find myself blogging - and not really caring who else reads it (But when someone reads it - it does make me happy).. but really enjoying the process.



No life lesson here.. except.. if you're stressed about anything - consider blogging.

Facebook Frenzy.

I've finally accepted that I'm addicted to facebook.

I went through a period where I thought that I was done. I put the kaibash on Facebook - I said - I'm only going to check you once, and that's it...

For a while - it worked.. Totally worked. Afterall, I'm a busy mom of a young child, baby in the belly, high maintenance friends (you know who you are) at work, at home, at the local bar (which I attend only to remind myself that one day - one day I might give up my facebook addiction for a REAL addiction...) the gym, etc...

Then the nagging thoughts came. What if a friend of mine found something on Farmville I missed?! Or someone kicked my butt in MafiaWars, and I didn't retaliate?! What if someone posted something that I liked, and I didn't "like" it - and then I missed the 38 other likes and/or benign comments about how awesome the post was?

At the end of the day, however, I have to admit. It has nothing to do with the applications or games, endless posts about the weather or how tired people are. It's more about the stalking factor. I now know you more and better than I've ever known you before - like it or not. Because - I cannot turn the gossip button off in my head, and therefore, I cannot turn off the secret stalking need in me to read your wall in the most stealth way never really commenting, but reading and studying everything like your wall was the material I needed to pass the LSATs. It's gotten that bad ladies and gentlemen...

I now know all about one of my co-worker's sisters, brothers, bffs, little idiosyncracies... and I don't even really talk to them at work!!

I even dared to be offended, because a friend of mine posted, "Is facebook just a vehicle to avoid conversation?" I'm like - dude.. if you know anything about me - I DO NOT avoid conversation...

And then - I really thought about it..

I don't have a lot of friends.. Not compared to 15 year old hormonally driven kids in high school. I'm pretty picky still with my selection of friends...but - of the some-odd number of friends that I do have, I can count the number of people I actually talk to candidly on both hands. Beyond that - I'm simply involved in a lot of cyberstalking...

I think there's an upcoming show that discusses how a kid goes out and tries to meet the three hundred and something friends that she's facebooked, and it highlights how little we really know about the people we friend, and how much we reveal to them.

Not that I'm going to stop any bad habits as it relates to Facebook - I figure this mea culpa is a beginning to getting to recognizing that I may (or may not) have a Facebook addiction problem...

I suppose I just might message a "friend" and get to know them.. and actually let them know - that I'm getting to know them...

Next step, phone call.

Next next step.. actually meeting for coffee....

Hack away! I'm back!!

Okay - so you might have been a bit concerned that I've been away - and that I have a completely different blog page, and that I'm no longer able to blog on my other page..

I'll tell you why.

Hackers.



Freakin hackers...

It happened about the end of may.. My two existing email accounts, that I've basically had for a million years, were hacked into. As a result, I lost my facebook account, my blog account, ON TOP of the ONLY two email accounts that I had. Needless to say - I was ingenious in making each one the recovery email for the other.. So - I was SOL...

There you have my tale of woe. Now - I'm settled, I have 15 different email accounts, none of which I remember the password to - and am constantly updating and changing them.

The interesting thing is - when I was trying to log onto one of my email accounts to figure out why it was acting so crazy (I'm so technologically tuned in! I had the accounts connected to my BB (baby for me - Black berry for others) and so I knew when something changed on my account) - the bugger kept trying to change the account WHEN I WAS ON WITH THE YAHOO REP!! It was amazing that I was able to even FIND a rep to talk to for Yahoo - gmail had no one.. no offense, but gmail customer service stinks like a big pile of poo...

But - this blog - is a long short way of saying, I may look different, but I'm back with a vengeance...

(well - that was just to schnazz it up.. I'm back..)

BTW - if you've never read me before - I WAS previously known as "A Case of Dyang."