The Case for Twilight: Part 1

Men hate Twilight. This is, gender profiling aside, truer than the commonly accepted fact that men like football.

They hate Twilight for any number of reasons. Topping the list is the fact that the vampires "sparkle", which seems like an awfully trivial reason to hate an entire franchise. I think its a front, by the entire male population, to avoid the real reason they hate it so much.

They're jealous.

Somehow, these two fictitious characters have captured the heart of women everywhere, and here you are, men of the world, still scratching your collective heads regarding everyone with two X chromosomes. It's frustrating, men. I understand. I do. But lets be proactive here. Really, if you stop glaring at Robert Pattinson and muttering the words "Vampires don't sparkle" under your breath, you might, might, be able to take a few tips. Maybe.

The thing about Twilight is that it speaks to 95% of women in ways that society has made a bit taboo. I'm not talking about the oh-so-controversial over-protectiveness that borders on the obsessive, although that is part of it. No, what I'm referring to are four very basic longings that secretly reside in the heart of most (I would say all, but a few are still vehemently in denial) women. It's important to note that I don't think that Twilight is the model for a perfect relationship. I myself would never date a vampire. It is also important to note that this is not an advertisement for Twilight. I am not trying to convince anyone to read anything. Twilight is rather horrifically written, to be honest. I simply understand why those who read and love it, myself included, do so.

This is simply a friendly note the men of the world, explaining the insanity. I'm only exploring the first today, but I'll go through the other three later this week. Or every Thursday for a month. Or something.

To Be Beautiful

Bella is the personification of how every woman has felt, does feel or will feel about herself. Not particularly pretty or smart or worthwhile. EVERY woman has felt this way at one point or another. Even women who grew up in supportive, loving homes sometimes look in the mirror and say "Icgh". It's not low self-esteem or self-degradation. It just is.

Bella is, in her own self-estimation, shockingly average. She does not see herself as anything special, and whether or not she IS special or beautiful or smart isn't even the point.

The point is that the man she loves sees her and calls her beautiful. Not just beautiful, but more beautiful than any woman he has ever known. Topping this is that he says it with complete honesty and conviction. We know that Edward sees her and truly sees the most beautiful woman in existence.

Women long for this; to be called beautiful, to be considered beautiful, is important. It isn't just a physical thing, either. We want to know that you see us, really see us, inside and out, and see us as beautiful. This isn't to say that women are or should be insecure and requiring of a man's approval to think that she is beautiful. I am not speaking of the woman who sees herself as worthless or ugly. That is a whole different ballgame, with a whole different set of rules. I am speaking here of your every-woman. The one who is confident in herself, but only most of the time. I am a relatively confident woman. I am secure in the fact that, while I will never model for Victoria's Secret, I am far from unfortunate looking. I can look in the mirror and know that I look nice, but I want my husband to notice. I want him to say it. I want to know that he sees me and sees a beautiful woman.

So, the next time you are ready to scoff at the absurdities of Twilight (and I would have the utmost sympathy for you. It is rather absurd), look at the woman you love instead, and see that she is beautiful, and let her know.

Measuring a Year

Four years ago, I saw this guy across the room in my new Chorale class. Isn't he phenomenal looking?

He was wearing a Jesus T-shirt and cussing up a storm. "Cute" I thought "Very cute. But nope". I don't often get prophetic on you, but right as I wrote him off, a tiny voice inside said "Look again. That's him". So I did. And I looked a little too long. I think he though I was a creeper. He started to draw close to God over that summer, and by the next October, we were dating. On May 1 of 2008, we were engaged, and on May 16th of 2009:

I love him more and more, deeper and different, every day.

Happy Anniversary, Paul!

Apology

It's very upsetting when you are angry at someone for very good reasons, and you have thought all day about what you will say to them when you next see them about how terrible they are and how long-suffering you have been, and then they show up at your work with the words "I'm sorry, I was being dumb. I love you so much"



Because then you're the jerk.



But really, how can you stay mad when you have something this darn attractive apologising:
Love you, my love. Forever and ever.

My Literary Loves

I have a habit that my husband just hates. Don't get me wrong. I understand why he does it, and if he did it, I would hate it too.

I fall in love with other men. Often.

Happily, there is no way for Paul to feel threatened by this, because none of the men are real. They are all characters in literature. Paul hates it, mostly because he feels compared to them, and feels like I get angry if he isn't perfect, but it isn't that. I like to think that I see my sweet husband in some of these men, and that is why I love them so.

It could also be that Jamie Fraser's accent is oh-so-yummy.

I love many men, all for different reasons.

I love Jamie Fraser for his passion, his ability to vocalize what he is feeling, his intense protectiveness, his love of God and his accent

I love Odd Thomas for his unfailing sense of humor, his humility, his conviction of what is right, and his unending singlemindedness in love

I love Edward Cullen for his intensity and his old-fashioned ideas about what love should be.

I love the Weasley Twins for their unfailing sense of humor in the face of death, their enterprising spirit, their bravery and, in the end, their sacrifice

I love Marcus Valerian for his hard-headedness, his willingness, in the end, to buck tradition and marry a slave, his love that carried him to Judea in search of a faceless God, and his zeal for Christ at the end.

and finally

I love Mr. Darcy, because really, who doesn't?




As a end note, I love my Paul because he is Paul, and he is mine.

Guilt

I may be the worst wife ever.

Tomorrow is my Paul's birthday. He'll be 24. YAY him.

I do not have a present, a card, or anything resembling a cake. I'm a procrastinator, and now I am less than 24 hours from my sweet husbands birthday with no birthday accoutrements. Apparently I will be hitting up the mall after work.

The End

Loveable, Furry, Old Grover

This was one of my favorite books as a child, and one that I credit (no lie) with making me love reading as much as I do. One of my best childhood memories i my mother reading this to me, and barely being able to get through the book because I was laughing so hard.

It is a very sweet and hysterical little story about facing your fears, and I love love love love it.

I am, however, a little embarrassed to admit that I checked it out from the library yesterday and read it aloud to my husband on the way home.

Oh, and while I was checking it out, I asked my husband "And do you know who the monster at the end of the book is?!" His response was "You?"

Thanks honey. For the record, it's Grover. Duh. My librarian, the one who knows my name, thought it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard and then told me I need to work at the library because she loves me. If only, if only, I say.

It's not a total loss, though, because he DID laugh when I read it to him. More at me than the book, I think.

Followers!

Five people follow my blog. I'm actually quite thrilled about that. It satisfies the needs of the attention whore in me.

Observations for today -

- The Diva Cup = Woman's greatest invention. It's not gross, I promise.

- Eight months is the awesomest age on a baby. B (my charge) is basically the coolest kid ever.

- I've read over 6000 pages this month...well...not this month. Last month...the one that ended two days ago. That's a heckava lot of pages. That's a dissertation...times 3...or 6. How long is a dissertation?

- I have the best librarians. I went to the library yesterday, accompanied by my husband, who NEVER goes to the library, but took the opportunity of sneaking kisses in empty aisles, which made me feel like we were in high school. It was not a bad feeling. Anyway, we were getting ready to leave, and one of the librarians walks by and says to me "They sang your song on the Grammys last night, and I thought of you!" I don't need to ask which one. My name is Rhyannon, only one letter different that the title of the Stevie Nix song "Rhiannon". What astounded me is that this woman, who sees hundreds of people a day, remembered not only my face, but my name, and rememebred it enough to want to let me know that Taylor Swift and Stevie Nix did a duet of my song on the Grammy's. Hows that for making a girl feel special?

Love Isn't

I write about love a lot. Clearly, it’s because I have love all figured out. Just ask my husband. Actually, don’t ask my husband. He would only laugh at you, and possibly give an eye roll and a sarcastic “I’m sure she does. It’s probably a part of her plan for your life.” Thank you, dear. Don’t you have errands to run?
Love is a lot of things. Patient and kind, for starters. One of the strongest bonds between individuals, for seconders. There is actually a very good description of love that can be found here. Love is a lot of very good things, and if you take the time to really think about all the implications, it isn’t easy, but it is so worth it, if it’s the real thing.
With all the things love is, there are a lot of things that love most certainly isn’t, but that we have somehow been conditioned to believe it is. I’m not sure where we got our many ridiculous delusions about love, but I have a feeling the liberal media and Ann Coulter have something to with it. Possibly Al Qaeda was involved. I’m not really sure.
I digress. Love is a lot of very good things, but love is most certainly not the following:

A Feeling or about Listening to Your Heart – Or a noun, for that matter. The common usage of the word “love” means, basically, a feeling. Infatuation. Attachment. Warm Fuzzies. Now, all of that IS necessary to form the base of a love relationship, but if it is what a relationship is based on, that relationship is set up to fail, simply because feelings are fleeting and fickle. Love, the real kind, the kind that lasts until death, is a verb. It’s something you think about and consciously do. Take a look at the biblical description of love again (if you’re an ath-nostic, Buddhist, Pastafarian or someone else who thinks the Bible is utter nonsense, read it and pretend it wasn’t written by a Christian. Pretend Marx wrote it. He was smart, right?) None of the things mentioned are passive. Kindness, Patience, Selflessness, Honesty, Perseverance. Regardless of your belief system, 90%* of people would agree that these things make up a successful love relationship and they are all active, living choices. There will be days when you wake up and don’t feel all that snuggly toward your significant other. On those days, you still choose to love, and to commit to the person you are with.
Also, I’ve discussed the listening to your heart thing. Don’t do it. Listening exclusively to your emotions in love is a surefire way of ending up with someone you’re crazy about but that isn’t good for you. You have to use your head! That’s why you have a head! Don’t just use your head, though. Marrying someone who is good for you but that you have no emotional attachment to isn’t fair on anyone.

A Battlefield – I’m sure Ms. Benatar would beg to differ, as would anyone who has ever uttered the phrase “You have to fight for love!” Let’s review the idea of a battlefield, shall we? Bloodshed, Massive Casualties, Screaming and Gnashing of teeth. That doesn’t sound like love to me. It sounds like life. And it certainly sounds like the traditional approach to dating. Love is the partnership that gets you through the hard times and battles of life. Not to say you and the person you love won’t have your share of fights and disagreements. Paul and I have our weekly fight every Saturday when my sweet husband sleeps until noon and I wake up at 8AM. All I want is some quality time and all he wants is some quality snoozing. What was I talking about? Oh yes. If your relationship, your love, is a battlefield, why on earth would you want to be involved? Battles are not good. They are not fun. They are damaging, and if you are constantly involved in one, you will find yourself damaged. Now, love is certainly not easy, and yes, you have to fight for it. But you don’t fight against the person you are in love with. The fight is the two of you, together, against layoffs, temptation, your own selfishness and broken water heaters. Life is going to throw you enough curveballs to struggle through together without turning your relationship into a constant battle.

A Pit – You don’t fall in love. “Fall in” implies something you can’t help. Now, it’s true you can’t help who you are attracted to. That’s mostly hormones and endorphins and what not anyway. So, technically, you fall in “like”. What you decide to do with said “like” is up to you. You can walk away immediately and never act on your feelings or you can start a relationship and choose to love them. Now, admittedly, love is complex, and while you can help the “love” aspect, you can’t help the emotional attachments that grow over time when you are with someone. Love is a lot easier to give than to take away. That’s why heartbreak hurts so darn much.

A Math Test – This analogy is iffy at best, but stay with me. If someone is wrong for you, you can’t try harder and make them the right person for you. Actually, maybe love is a math test. You can give the wrong answer over and over, but no matter how big and bold you write it, it will still be the wrong answer. Take this analogy how you will.

A Test of Moral Fortitude – Last one. Five is quite enough. This one baffles me. If your significant other has done you very wrong, I.e. cheated on you, lied to you, belittles you, ect ect ect, sticking around doesn’t prove what a better person you are, it proves you are stupid and possibly have some sick attachment to pain. Staying with someone who hurts you doesn’t make your love stronger or prove that you are the better person. It’s mostly just dumb.

The point is, once you realize that love is none of these things, it may lead you to think about what love really is. (Don’t worry, I have this kind of life-changing effect on people). Love is never easy (Oh, look! Another thing love is not that we think it should be!), but the good kind is worth it, and I dare you to believe that you are worth the good kind of love.

*This statistic is completly made up

Sometimes Breaking up IS the Answer

I heard someone say today that “Breaking up is never the answer” Really? It’s not? EVER? Come on, there are many people I think we could all agree should just throw in the towel. Spencer and Heidi, Tom and Kate. You know who they are. I think, though, that each of us knows people in our own lives who we just wish would throw in the towel. Maybe they are being hurt emotionally. Maybe they are a different person when they are with their significant other, and it’s not a nice person. Maybe they are just wrong for each other, and everyone sees it but them. Whatever the reason, it’s often painful to watch, and gets to a point of eye-rolling obviousness.
This particular blog isn’t going to tell you how to deal with those people. There’s really no way to “deal” with them, as they are deluded, and you can’t fix what refuses to admit it’s broken. (You can, but they struggle, and the parts don’t screw in quite right.). It’s an open letter to every person who is in a relationship they shouldn’t be in. Maybe you can print it out and mail it to them. Maybe you shouldn’t though. My advice, while always close to divinely inspired, is not often well received. Apparently, it tends to come off as “judgey”. Anyways, Oswego.

You say you’re in a relationship. That’s nice. You’re happy, you say? You love him/her so very much, you say? I sincerely doubt the first, as you are locked out of the house with no shoes and it is raining. The second I’ll buy. (You have to be careful with deluded people. They’re skittish. Like deer. You could lose their trust at any moment) Lets come in out of the rain, shall we? My self-righteousness is getting wet.

Now that we’re in, let’s talk. I’ll skip the inane chit chat and cut right to the crux of the matter. I think perhaps you are not so happy as you believe. Now, now, stop arguing and listen. I want what’s best for you, darn it. In all seriousness, here’s the deal. There’s a time to fight for a relationship, and there’s a time to cut and run. Now would be the latter. I figure though, that you won’t hear it from me, so I’ll let you tell you. Your subconscious knows, even if you don’t. Find a quiet place, away from all outside influence (the woods are nice, or a bathroom with a lock), and answer the following questions and consider the following points. Before you start though, get the whole “Listen to your heart” nonsense out of your head. Just because your heart is saying “yes” doesn’t necessarily mean the correct answer is “yes”. Ask any battered woman. Or perhaps that woman who married the Eiffel Tower. Actually, don’t ask her. Just look at her and learn. Love is as much about being smart as it is about being sentimental, possibly more so. You can love someone who is a motivational speaker and who lives in a van down by the river, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that’s not the right person for you. So use your head. So now, we are not listening to our hearts, we are using our heads. Ready, set, go.

1. Relationships should not be a fight. Yes, relationships are sometimes a struggle, and there will always be things the two of you need to struggle through together, and yes, you will always have the occasional argument. But if every day is a constant battle and struggle to keep from falling to pieces, there is an issue. A relationship that is already crumbling from within is like a tooth that is rotting from the inside with decay. That tooth is coming out regardless. You only have to choose to recognize it and pull it early on or to ignore the problem and wait until it finally rots away on its own. The first will hurt, certainly, but it will hurt only for a while, and then heal. The second (ask anyone who has waited through this situation) hurts not only as the tooth continues to decay, pain increasing more and more every day, but also the subsequent root canal is, I’ve heard, one of the most painful things ever. You see? Relationships are like teeth. Brush and floss.

2. What kind of person are you when you are with your significant other? No one is perfect, and you will always have faults, but when you are with the wrong person, those faults become magnified. Do you find yourself becoming jealous? Controlling? Angry? Picking fights where there are none, just to fight about something (been there, done that, by the way)? Most importantly, do you like the person you are when you are with this person? Remember, you have only you to answer to at the end of the day, and if you don’t like that person, you’re pretty much sunk for life.

3. Do you want to be like this forever? The minor things? Those will come and go, and even if they don’t, they can be dealt with, because they are minor. But what about the big things, especially the big problems? Does one of you have trust issues? Is the other overly-controlling? An overactive temper? A tendency to belittle you to make themselves feel better? These big issues are things that may (and probably will) be with you for the rest of your life. Not to say that people cannot change, but deep-seated issues haunt people, even people who have overcome them. If there are huge glaring problems now that you have been unable to work through with this person, or if one of you is unwilling to change, it may be time to be done. You have to decide if its worth it. Keep this is mind. A bad relationship eventually reaches a point where it turns toxic, and at that point, there is nothing worth salvaging other than your sanity and emotional well-being.

4. Why are you here? This is possibly the most important question, and the one that requires the most honesty with yourself. Are you sticking around because, even with all the problems, you are comfortable? Is it the security of knowing that you are with someone? Are you terrified of being single? If your answer sounds flimsy, even to you, it may not be good enough. So many people, once a relationship has lost what made it good, stick around because they are afraid of what waits in the dreaded boat labeled “SINGLE”. I promise, though, that boat isn’t so bad. You find out a lot about yourself, and meet a lot of really cool people on that boat. God uses that boat to work on you and make you into who he would have you be (I know, Mrs. Overbearing talking about God working. I am not perfect either, and I talk a good game, but really, all I want is for you to be happy, because I love you, darn it). Don’t be so afraid of being single that you miss opportunities you could have if you would just jump off. I was so afraid of being single that I held onto a relationship six months after I knew it was over. Turns out, God had better planned for both of us, we just had to let go. God always has better, if you let him give it to you.

Epilogue
Here's the deal, my friend. In the end, you can know you are with the wrong person, but it takes courage to admit it, desire better, and walk away. That part is scary, it's hard, and it's heartbreaking. You will probably cry, you will think life will never get better, and you will be tempted to call "just to talk". Don't. This causes only pain and anger. Allow yourself to heal. Allow THEM to heal. Give your heart time to stop hurting and learn to live life single. Erase them from Myspace and Facebook, delete the number from your phone, get rid of all the pictures, gifts and memorabilia. Healing starts when you stop opening the wound.

The End. Hopefully, they will live happily ever after, though, we hope, not with one another.