How I found my dream

I had my date on Friday night. It was fine. We went to dinner at a Japanese restaurant and then saw a show that a local theatre is putting on. My date is a nice person, he opened doors for me and stood up when I left the table to go to the bathroom, but there’s no connection between us. I could see us being acquaintances at most, but not really friends.

            Although, he did get me to talk to him about something I rarely bring up. He asked me about where I like to go dancing and drinking, and when I told him I don’t really like to drink and was at that club where we met at because of Hannah and Lucy, he asked why. Most people don’t ask why, but he did.

            I told him that I don’t drink more than a glass of wine at dinner because my grandfather, my mom’s dad, was an alcoholic. A rich and successful alcoholic, but an alcoholic nonetheless. Since alcoholism is hereditary, I don’t want to test and see if I’ve gotten that part of my grandfather.

            I left it there, and he sort of seemed to get it. Only, I left out a pretty big part of the story. You see, the complete truth is that my grandfather abused my mom. Because he was an affluent businessman, no one suspected that the bruises on my mom were from him, caused by his gin and tonics. And while I can’t imagine hurting anyone like that, even with alcohol in me, drinking heavily became a repulsive concept to me, especially since my mom couldn’t tolerate such behavior, either.

            Though, my parents would have never met if Mom hadn’t been so desperate to get away from her father. Mom moved across the country for college, and that’s where she met Dad, who was getting his MBA while she worked on her undergraduate in art history. She was beautiful and from a respectable family, and he…well, sometimes I suspect that she married him to get out from under her father’s thumb. And it did work, since Mom never saw my grandfather after her wedding. He died of liver disease when I was six. 

            And, if you haven’t connected the dots already, this is also why I wanted to become an attorney advocating for abused children. I didn’t find out about Mom’s past until she died and I found her journal. She hadn’t written much, but it gave me enough to understand her childhood and fleeing from her father. Dad said he didn’t know about any abuse, and refused to believe me, even when I offered him the journal to read. It might have been too soon after her death to bring it up.

            Anyway, after I realized that my mom had kept all this a secret, I thought of how many other children never had the chance to speak up, how much they suffered, how limited their choices seemed to them. I knew I didn’t have the mind to fight the cancer that killed my mom, but I was already pre-law track, and that I could still honor her if I fought for children in a similar situation that she was in.

            Now instead of honoring my mom, I’m trying to save my dad. Funny how life works sometimes. There are so many sacrifices to make, so many twists you never expected. But they have to be made.

            Well, I’ve certainly told you a lot today, and not much about fun stuff like a date. Sorry that I tend to do that. It just sort of all came out.

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Families and Confidantes

Families. As if they weren’t complicated enough when you’re born into them, there’s this whole marriage and in-law business. Overall, I’m very happy with the family Marie married into, but these past few days have been interesting.

            Hannah and Lucy’s mom will pop by our apartment to visit with her daughters, but that’s not all she does. A few days ago she talked to me for a half an hour about how she wants Marie to go on some new diet that will supposedly make the baby a super genius and healthy. It turns out she hasn’t talked to Marie about this, and when I asked why, she claimed that women never want this sort of advice from their mother-in-law. I’m still not sure why she shared this information with me. I am definitely not pregnant.

            Then Hannah talked to me about how Marie hasn’t been going to the dinners her mom puts together for family and close friends. The past few times, Marie’s missed it for functions some of successful her high school friends have put together. They’re all very prestigious social events, more so than a small dinner party her in-laws set up. But Hannah voiced how it offends her mom that Marie chooses those parties time after time over family gatherings.

            But it doesn’t stop there.

            The next time I went over to Marie’s, she ranted for an hour about the state her son comes home in when her mother-in-law babysits: dirty, cranky, not hungry for his dinner, and wound up so that he won’t go to bed peacefully (or as peacefully as a two-year-old ever does). 

            As I’ve listened to these people unload their irritations and concerns to me, I’ve tried to imagine doing the same to them. Telling Marie’s mother-in-law that Marie has been kicking me out at dinner time, or Hannah about Fred, or talking to Marie about our mom. And I can’t imagine it. To actually raise up my voice, bring up the subject, and talk about things going on with me. But I don’t think it’s because I don’t want to talk about these things. I mean, with Fred, before, when we were together, I did. I could talk to him about the big stuff, or the little stuff. Any size. And before my mom got sick, she was my biggest confidante. There was nothing I didn’t talk to her about. I don’t know what it is. If I’ve stopped being able to build that trust with other people, or if I’ve stopped being able to even talk about it, even with people I’m close to. 

            I mean, yes, I have this blog, but you’re all different. You’re in your own towns, and while you send me incredible messages of encouragement (really, thank you for that), you won’t be in a position to text me when Fred comes into town and warn me to stay away from the bank because you saw him there, and I don’t think any of you are close enough to bring over consolation ice cream if I ever do run into him.

            I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore. Sorry. I’ll just hit post now.

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Dates

            Although Hannah and Lucy’s socializing style doesn’t exactly match up with my own, I’ll give it one thing: it did land me a date. And considering how rare those are for me, that’s pretty amazing.

            I met the man who asked me out at a club, though, so I don’t know how well our two personalities will match. He seems nice, but you know those kinds of people who are perfectly fine, you have no reason to dislike them, and yet you can’t seem to break past small talk? That’s what it was like talking with this guy before he asked me out. Not exactly awkward or annoying, but it’s not really making me look forward to the date. 

            Granted, dating has never really been a forte of mine. These days I can’t really get excited about it. A part of me holds me back, and that makes it hard to get past the initial part of dating. 

            Maybe I should ask Lucy and Hannah for advice, since they seem to have about ten times the dates I usually do, even though they just came back into town two weeks ago. Lucy complains that she’s only gotten dates with sleazeballs and scumbags, while Hannah’s gone on a few dates with a violinist that she asked out herself (I admire her for it; I’d certainly never be able to do that). Hannah’s completely taken by him, and from the little I’ve seen, he seems to be just as taken with her. It’s really sweet, watching Hannah get flustered around him, with those bright eyes of an early relationship. They’re not “official” yet, but I figure it’s only a matter of time. 

            Though, if I were to talk to Hannah and Lucy about dating advice, I do think I’d have to tell them my dating history which would mean…yeah. I don’t think I’m ready to talk to them about that yet.

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Ordinary Life

Well, last post was very dramatic, wasn’t it? I feel like so much has been going on, especially with him, with Fred, that my life seems like a soap opera. But other than the inner turmoil I’ve been experiencing since discovering Adam and Carrie were his family and then that he’s coming into town, my life has been pretty ordinary. I’m getting used to Hannah and Lucy as my roommates, but that’s not too hard to do. They’re both dedicated to their careers during the week, and on the weekend they let loose. This past Saturday I was dragged out to another club as the designated driver, and with the last post I had to write, part of me is still recovering from the weekend.

            But still, Hannah and Lucy have been great.

            Though Marie has been more demanding of me lately. She insisted that I work from home so I can help her out whenever she needs it, since she’s still getting morning sickness. At first I refused, but then I went to check in on her after work and found that my nephew had only eaten M&Ms that day. Marie would lay on the couch with a bag and give him some as he got hungry. Which, for a two-year-old getting fed M&Ms, meant he ate a lot of them.

            So yes, now I’m working from home three days of the week and popping in during lunch and dinner to make sure my nephew is eating properly, as well as Marie and Charlie. It’s made me work later into the night than I would like, but there’s no reasoning with Marie, and Charlie’s working all day.

            And there’s another thing about this arrangement. I took an hour out of my day to make dinner for Marie’s family, she insisted that I go home after I was done making it. Sure, Marie had paid for the food, but I put it together. A plate of spaghetti isn’t too much to ask for, is it? Well, Marie agreed to that, so she gave me a plate and told me to go back to my apartment. She wouldn’t let me stay. It's been the same thing all week.

            I hope this is just the baby making her crazy, because I don’t want this to be a permanent change.

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The one I let go

Last week I promised you the story of me and this ex-boyfriend. So here it is.

            I decided to go to a nearby university for school because my mom was getting sicker and I wanted to be with her as much as I could. She died during my sophomore year, and it was really hard on me, as I’ve mentioned before. I had Ruth, but she has her own kids as well as the rest of my family to think about. And other than her, I felt alone. Dad pulled away even more after Mom’s death, Eliza wasn’t motivated to bond with anyone, Marie escaped all the memories by going to a school far away, and I found it difficult to relate to or connect with anyone new.

            By the end of my junior year, a year after Mom’s death, I had worked through things enough that I was making connections again and socializing. I didn’t have BFFs, but it was more than I’d been able to do since Mom took a turn for the worse. 

There was a guy at the dorms, a senior getting ready to graduate, and one day when I was passing by his room, there was the mountain of boxes. I asked if I could help, since the guy moving had always been nice to me. And that’s when I saw him for the first time. Fred, the guy’s brother. He smiled and said he’d never turn down help from a pretty girl. It was the first time a guy had ever called me pretty.

I helped them move boxes into their van, and after we finished, Fred asked for my number. He called me the next day, and we went on our first date that Friday. We had an immediate connection, something I’d never experienced before and haven’t since. We didn’t talk about the small stuff, we talked about the important things. Our pasts, our hopes, our dreams. Fred was the first person I talked to about my mom, and he shared his past with me as well. Although his older brother and sister had gone the academic route, he’d joined the Navy right after 9/11 and had been in the military for three years. He’d been to Iraq twice before, and the last time he’d lost his closest friend in his unit. In that way, we both understood loss and how no one would really understand.

But besides our tragedies, we both had huge dreams. I wanted to go to law school at the same university my mom got her bachelor’s, and become a lawyer to advocate for abused children. Fred was fascinated with the internet, which although it was common at that time, it hadn’t reached its full peak of potential, like it's at now. Although he’d only had a few community college classes, he thought he could create a successful service through the internet. He didn’t know what he would do then, only that with something that could connect the whole world together, there had to be something he could create. I was amazed at him, taking this fairly new route, and I saw how brilliant he was. I knew he’d get there someday. 

After all that time of being alone, I wasn’t anymore. And more than that, I loved someone who loved me just as deeply in return. 

After we’d been seeing each other for about a year, Fred was scheduled to be deployed to Iraq in a month and I was accepted to my dream law school. A very, very expensive school, might I add. 

Then Fred proposed to me. I accepted without hesitation. But he didn’t want to wait six months until he got back from the Middle East to get married. You have to understand, his parents married at 19 after knowing each other for six months. They’ve been through a lot, but still love each other madly. To Fred, distance and money and those things didn’t matter as long as you loved each other. And he carried me away with this vision. He told me that he wanted to marry me and he didn’t want to wait. If we knew we loved each other, then why did it matter that we got married sooner rather than later?  He never said it exactly, but I think his buddy’s death really got to him, in that he thought he might die while he was over there, and he just wanted to be married to me. Even if it was only for two weeks.

Ruth had met Fred before and thought him a fling to get out of my system, but the rest of my family hadn’t bothered to meet him because they, too, thought this relationship wasn’t important. So when I brought Fred to meet Dad, Eliza, and Ruth, Dad hated Fred from the moment he saw him. You see, Fred is Latino, and Dad has some very racist opinions. When I announced our engagement Dad said that the only place a person like Fred had in his daughter’s life was picking the food she ate. He also claimed that if we got married, he wouldn’t pay for my law school and he would take away the trust fund he’d set up for me to get access to when I was 25.

That was the first and only time I stood up to my father. I professed my love for Fred and my determination to marry him in two weeks, no matter what my family did. I said I’d rather have Fred than any of them.

I meant it, too. Every word I said about Fred being the most important person in my life and marrying him, I planned on keeping. But the next day Ruth came to see me, which was strange because she never came to my apartment. She told me that my father’s racist comments were wrong and uncalled for, but she thought it was unwise of me to settle down so soon.

She pointed out I was only 22, with my whole life ahead of me. Did I know I wanted to be married now? I said yes, but she continued. She said that without my father’s money, I’d have to take out loans, which would be at least a hundred thousand dollars of debt by the time I graduated, plus the interest, and in my field, I wouldn’t be making a lot of money compared to other attorneys. I didn’t mind working off the loan, but I’d told Ruth before about Fred’s ambitions of creating an internet business. She reminded me that starting a business took money. And we would need a loan, which would be difficult to get when I had mounds of student loans to pay and our financials were tied together. If we got married then, one of us would have to sacrifice our dream.

I thought it through, and I knew I couldn’t give up my dream. But I also couldn’t ask Fred to sacrifice his for mine. I tried to think of another way we could make it work, of how we could be married and achieve our dreams, but looking at everything, I knew there was a very slim chance we could have everything in one bite and not choke.

But I loved him so much, I couldn’t imagine breaking off the engagement. The worst part about this whole thing is that I tried so hard to find another solution, it wasn’t until we were in the courthouse, about to go in to the judge, that I finally told Fred we couldn’t get married, not now. I’ll never forget the look on his face when I told him I wasn’t going to marry him. Shock and disbelief and pain. So, so much pain, like I was actually torturing him to death.

He asked why, if it was anything he had done, and I told him about what Ruth had brought up. But he didn’t understand. As someone who grew up always scrounging for money, working since he was fourteen to help support his family, and watching his brother and sister take out loans, he wasn’t scared of all the challenges we had to face, especially since his parents had faced incredible difficulties. He said as long as we were together, nothing else would matter. But me, the rich, spoiled girl I was, couldn’t imagine a life like that. I couldn’t imagine the debt and the difficulties.

Then Fred offered his hand to me, asking me if I would go with him or if I’d be persuaded by my godmother. I stayed frozen in front of the reception desk, unable to think of the words to say, how to say how sorry I was, how much I loved him, how I wished it could be different. But it all came out as, “I can’t.”

His outstretched hand became a fist, and he walked out. That was the last time I saw him.

Fred went to Iraq and I went to law school. I was sucked into a legal issue at my father’s company and ended up working for him rather than following my dream of working with abused children. Fred left the service after completing his tour, started up his business, and became incredibly successful. And now he’s coming, and he’s going to realize how lucky he was to get away when he did, since I have no spine of my own, working for a corporation, and not just any corporation, but for my father, the racist.

            So now you know it all, and just how bad this will probably turn out.

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