"That seems backward, dont'cha think?"

My childhood teddy bear has recently made a come-back in my life. For the first time in years I am attached to having him available and on my bed at night. I never had him around when I was single, and Jared pointed out that it seems counterintuitive that after I got married I would reinstate the teddy bear (I do, after all, have a man always in my bed available for the hugging now). I wondered about this for a few minutes and decided...

When you're single, lying lonely in bed, you can muster a vague hope of the un-found lover, the distant and mythical soul-mate, he who would would put his arms around you in this moment, if only he knew who and where you were. "Ah, someday..." and you can hold out hope and make the universe seem smaller, more intimate, more loving, like the universe is smirking at its secret for you and thinking to itself, "oh, just you wait little one, just you wait to see what I have got in store for you! you're gonna love it! oooh, I can't wait! But shhhh... just sleep now."

On the other hand, there is no loneliness like that when your lover is asleep next to you, and you're heart aches for his loving arms. There are no tears like those rolling silently down your cheeks into the still darkness, hitting the pillow unheard, unwiped away, their sobbs swallowed and silenced. There is no ache like the ache of someone only inches away. When you know the universe holds no secret answer to your heart's cry, there is no loneliness like that.

Enter Teddy.

Searching for a Christmas Tree is like dating

As Jared & I tramped through the mud & rain to find a tree a couple weeks ago, it occurred to me how much this was just like my dating life. The process went something like this:

At the beginning we were wandering around just browsing, not really lingering on anything until we'd taken general stock of what was out there. After a while we started stopping to really take a look. "How 'bout this one?" we'd shout to the other. We'd check it out, talk about the pro's and con's, and move on, figuring "there must be something better out there." And we kept doing this for a while.

The more trees we considered and rejected, the more I started taking note of 'where that last one was' so that I could come back to it if I couldn't find better. In fact, I was starting to wonder if a better tree really did exist or not. At least maybe not in this lot, but heavens I can't look at every single tree in every single lot! Should I go somewhere else? No, no, no, Skye, don't be silly. These are good trees. Great trees. I'm just being unrealistic about my expectations. Maybe I should settle for this one right here before it starts getting dark? Or how 'bout this one?

Time passes, we're getting tired and wet and cold and getting cranky, and all the Christmas trees are starting to look like lopsided rejects. Apparently all the other people looking that season cut down most of the good ones. In fact, every time we did find one we liked it was 'marked' as pre-paid. Figures. We tramped across acres of trees it seems. I was starting to feel discouraged. I hadn't seen anything as good as some of the first ones I saw, and I kinda wanted to go back to them. But they were a long way away by now, and someone might have already taken them. And furthermore, I just felt like we needed a fresh tree... one that didn't have so much baggage (could I really take a tree Jared already said he didn't like, knowing he's just trying to appease me? Would I really be satisfied with one I had previously rejected?)

Starting to feel discouraged, we were entering a new area when Jared said to me, "We're gonna find our tree here. I can tell. I can feel it." And I started to believe him. I too felt that we would diligently search and suddenly a light would shine forth and there would be Our Tree, perfect in every way. I had a renewed hope, and vigor, and purpose in my quest. On some level, I knew that it wasn't so much that there was a perfect tree here now, but that I was tired of looking, and by now I realized the perfect tree doesn't exist. I needed to find a tree that is perfect for me, beautiful in its irregularities and flaws and organic nature. It just needs to fit in my living room and hold my ornaments and smell Christmassy and I need to like it a lot. It's ok if it has a bare spot or a little lopsidedness. Totally symmetrical trees don't exist (unless they're fake).

Sure enough, several minutes later, we courted a little Noble Fir and everything seemed to fall into place. It turned out to be Our Tree. And it was perfect: the right size, the right fullness, the right type. We cut it down in the rain and hail and carted it off home, decorated it, and proceeded to love it with all our might... which did make it, indeed, the most perfect and beautiful Christmas Tree we could have hoped for.

The Fine Line Between True Feelings and True Love

Sometimes our conversations have long pauses between speaking. At first, I took his silence for pouting or being quietly mad; for that's how I felt when I was silent, which wasn't very often really (me? silent?). But now we both pause similarly when having certain kinds of conversations. Long, quiet moments where we carefully and thoughtfully consider what we are about to say, before we say it. It is understood that the pauses are a matter of care for each other, gentleness with each other's feelings, sensitivity to our friendship, and a genuine desire for honesty and truth rather than reactionary feelings.

Guaging the pause is always delicate. Too short and I might say something rash. Too long and it can be misinterpreted, or else I lose my chance to respond because he will take another moment to clarify or expound.

The scriptures talk, at one point, about "reproving betimes with sharpness" -- a weird, almost non-sensical statement, which really means: "say it now, don't wait, deal with things in the moment or else they'll spin out of control." And I've found it so true, yet so hard to adhere to. I am so wary of saying something I'll regret in the future. I so much want to be careful. And yet, if I say nothing, but harbor ill feelings, they only make it worse later.

I have to be honest with myself: am I afraid of speaking my mind now because I might be hurtful, or do I mostly just not want to be wrong? Many times, I mostly just don't want to be wrong. My genuine desire to say something true gets twisted into feeling the need to be right. It's fine to want truth, except that sometimes you have to express the possibly-wrong thing you're feeling in order to find the truth. Sometimes only by inviting another person's point of view can you even begin to see it. Sometimes you need to humility to go out on a limb and say how you feel, only to discover your own selfishness, pride, egotism, and lack of love for another.

I hate being wrong. But I hate being unloving more. But some days I can't be everything that I want to be. Some days I wake up sad or selfish or depressed or indifferent or preoccupied and on those days sometimes I can't find the fine line between true feelings and true love.

...pant pant pant. It's over. And boy do I feel happy now!

Click Here to see about my CD Release. I was terrified! I was more nervous than I've ever been in my life, including my wedding day. And it went great... such satisfaction :)

If you can't win an argument on the merits of your position, win it on grammar.

"I am an innocent bystander" Jared said. "I'm just cooking the chicken. You bought it."

"You're supporting the inhumane treatment of chickens just as much as I am," I argued. I had bought the cheapest chicken available at Winco the day before, and I almost felt guilty, since in order to produce them for so cheap, the chickens surely must be mistreated and abused at some mass chicken-plant somewhere. I had admitted as much to Jared, saying we were supporting the industry, which started the discussion.

I continued... "I merely bought chickens that were already killed. It's not like I'm the one who abused them. Someone else would have bought these chickens if I hadn't."

"Well, I'm just preventing waste," he responded. "If I didn't cook these poor dead chickens, no one would, since you already bought them. It is true that if you hadn't bought them, someone else still might have bought these very chicken breasts. BUT, since you did buy them, more chickens have to be abused and killed to fill the demand, since you supported the cheap, abusive, chicken trade. If you hadn't bought these chickens, less chickens would have...."

"fewer chickens" I humphed. pause....

Jared rolled his eyes, "well, you can say 'less' chickens or 'fewer' chickens, but either way..."

"No you can't say 'less chickens,' that's grammaticlly incorrect! You can only say 'fewer chickens' since the chickens are quantifiable. Now, if you wanted to say 'less chickEN' then that's fine, but inasmuch as you're talking about multiple chickens, and you can count them, it's 'fewer'"

ha. take that, Jared.

I win now, right?

Walk in the Woods... I mean Swamp

Yesterday I didn't feel so good, so I went for a liesurely walk instead of my usual (up & down up & down the biggest hill I could find within 5 minutes of my house). I also wanted to stay in the sunshine, so I walked past the library and along the railroad tracks.

Behind my house is a swamp, and through the swamp runs fanno creek. It's all fenced off, and no one really goes in there. What I found was that behind the swamp is a lot more. A Big field and trees and lots of other cool open beautiful space. I walked around and around, took pictures of all the pretty things.

Swamps are somehow scary to me. Are they to all people? It started getting dark, but even in the daylight there's something eerie about the stillness, the silence, the deadness, andyet lurking life in a swamp. The fact that you can't easily get from point A to point B, the fact that you're never sure if your foot will hit ground or water under the thick reeds, the fact that you occassionally hear another creature, but never see it. The strange sense and smell of living decay.

When I was little we lived near a swamp. It was THE place for adventure and bravery, among Pixton kids. I had lots of scary experiences there, that threatened my life(in my childhood view). Snakes, frogs, half-eaten birds and animals, "nearly" drowning, and other stuff like that. Maybe I'm only uneasy in the swamp because that was how I felt as a child. But somehow I think almost any sensitive person would feel that way... if caught exploring there alone, no one knowing where you are, the sun fixin' to set.

I tried to get back. I didn't know if I could cross the swamp/creek, but I wanted to try. There must be a fallen log somewhere. It was getting dark. I knew Coyotes lived back there and surely other stuff. I was getting caught on brambles, tripping in holes and marshy mushy ground. I found all things mysterious and beautiful and scary. Finally I found (miraculously) a fallen bridge. I was sure it was unsafe, but going back the way I came, alone, in the dark, was not safe either. Deep, muddy water swirled below. I said a silent prayer and stepped slowly and carefully along the teetering brace.

On the other side a man told me about the blue heron who lives nearby and introduced me to his dog. I felt I had just cheated death, or childhood, or both. And life was normal again already.

Emily's Book

I'm reading it... to edit it of course. I just have the first 100 pages. It's amazing.

And I appear in it too, as a character, so that's fun. Or it was supposed to be. She gave me all the necessary disclaimers: "it's a character based on you, I can't represent you exactly, blah blah blah" ...I'm a songwriter. I know.

I was prepared for her embellishing her assessment of things maybe. But this may be one of the hardest things I've ever done. I got to the part where people in the ward asked her... "so, what's it like living with her?" and all the mean things people said about me behind my back. ...............i'm so crushed. i had no idea. i lay awake in bed last night for hours, tears welling up in my eyes. people i thought were my friends said those things about me?! people didn't like me? i must be so naive! i always imagine that everyone likes me. after all, i like everyone. there's hardly anyone i don't like, and i certainly don't say mean things about other people behind their backs! i just can hardly believe it. But i also know it's true. it makes sense. sometimes i sensed gossip or something-less-than-good-will from people. i never thought it was about me.

i don't really know how to take it. It reminds me of the 4th grade. I had long been the class geek. One time there was an obvious secret among my classmates, and it was obviously about me and Matt. I tried to listen to the whispers, the looks, the taunts, to figure out what it was about. They even invented a secret code-language. One day, my two best friends -- the other geeks in the school -- learned the language and began talking behind my back. I wasn't worried about it. Just flattered. I told them I knew what it was about kindof. They said, "oh, what?" I said that Matt liked me (I knew that he was planning to ask me to "go" with him). They laughed and laughed. Turns out Matt lost a bet with his best friend, and his punishment was to ask me to go with him. In that moment my little teachers-pet-smart-innocent-kid-who-played-with-ladybugs world was shattered. Instead of being the desirable person I thought I was, I was the lowest of the low. I was a PUNISHMENT for this kid. And everyone else thought it was hilarious. Even my best friends.

I had no friends that day.

Nor any day for a long time after.

Since adulthood I have considered myself lucky: popular and well-liked with lots of friends and amazing people in my life. Have I just spent my life thinking that was an isolated incident of childhood cruelty, when in fact, I have always been quietly despised and murmured against?

Do I have any friends now?

I dreamt last night that Jared left me. That I found a new boyfriend, but I wasn't happy, and I wanted to call Jared and beg him to come back. I woke up and tried to put my arm around him, to remind myself that he was there and he pushed it away. I tried again, he pushed again, harder. Then he rolled and pushed my whole body away. ... I know he's asleep when he does this. I know he doesn't know he's doing it. But I also know I'm asleep when I have bad dreams. They don't hurt any less, they are no less scary. And his pushing me away is no less painful, in those moment, than if he looked me straight in the eye and did it on purpose.

I think the 4th-grader in me never really grew up, and I still fear nothing more than rejection.

hold me closer
than you've ever been
to the moon
on those harvest nights
hold me closer
than you've ever been
to the womb
at the beginning of our lives

and help me to find my soul this time
before I lose you, lose my mind
help me to find....

Stupid Wife Things

Last night it rained all night like crazy. I drove Jared's car home from a party, for reasons not important here, and like the quintissential wife, I did a stupid-wife-thing and left the headlights on. I also didn't park it in the garage because I could see a bike encroaching on the car space (Jared's car is wider and harder to fit in the garage than mine, I didn't want to risk scratching it, and I was too lazy to get out and move the bike).

Why do wives always do stupid things? When I was single, I was brilliantly smart, and did everything in a self-actuating, independent and intelligent manner.

Now that I'm a wife, I do stupid wife-things.

So this morning Jared's car 1) wouldn't start, and 2) was flooded and soaking inside from the rain.

My fault. Well... the battery being dead is my fault. The flooding is an unrelated problem that coincided by coincidence (hey, those words are, like, the same word!), but it took us all morning to figure that out.

I'm secretly happy about the car problems because Jared was home for an extra couple hours morning. I love mornings with Jared. But I don't have the discipline to get up 2 hours earlier than I need to just to talk to him while he gets dressed and reads cnn.com.

Response to a family string about the lack of hearty discussions at church

So... I've thought much about the lack of real searching and honest answers to tough questions in Sunday School. It used to frustrate me to death. I've mellowed out some, partly because of what Bryce was talking about. There are so many for whom those discussions aren't uplifting or productive.

To me, I've made a distinction between what is good Sunday School fodder, and what is not (maybe I'll change my mind later, but for now, I think of it this way). Sunday School has a particular purpose: to uplift, inspire, and motivate. Church is more or less a support group for people trying to live The Way. Thus, church meetings are really designed to be forums for encouraging each other and reminding us of the principles that will help us. Sunday School is for the kinds of things you can talk about over and over and over and they will continue to help people come to Christ.

Most of the tough questions don't really fall into this category. Of course, I personally feel a great need to address them, I think most people feel that way at some point in their lives, and I think they should not be candy-coated or pushed under the rug the way they often are in church meetings. But I also recognize that these are things that don't need to be brought up for me over and over and over, the way we do with Sunday School topics. Most of them are things that I can spend some time with, and more or less resolve for myself, and I don't need to keep harping on them. That considered, they really aren't good Sunday School topics. We don't need to spend our rotating, repeating schedule on difficult, controversial issues. Some questions need to be addressed once in a lifetime. Others recur, but on an individual's own time. These are questions that I need to investigate on my own and come to an understanding about, not subject all the other people at church to, who are there expressly for the purpose of being uplifted and
motivated.

Now, that said, I will say that I think Sunday School panders too much to the weak of faith at the expense of the faithful and searching members. If some people at church need gospel "milk," and so that's what we get -- all day, every day -- it leaves those of us who wish to grow starving and emaciated. We grow up mutants with no backbone because we've never been fed "meat," only to stumble later. There is so much more to this gospel than we are routinely taught. Many of the deeper questions are not controversial at all, just a little more esoteric. And as far as topics that ARE controversial, in my personal observation, we lose more people to the LACK of real, honest answers than we do to the inability to cope with reality and honesty. I personally think that "the truth will set you free": if someone cannot handle open dialogue about our faith, I think they are living in a kind of fear.

That's NOT to say though that everyone needs or wants to go there. Some people are just of a different constitution and those questions hold no interest or intrigue for them. Some people's faith is such that they can easily accept whatever is in our church's history and they don't really need to know the details. Kudos to them.

The biggest problem in my view is in lack of tolerance for each others' different styles of faithful searching. "Intellectuals" feel outcast by a heritage of conservatism in church, which treats questioners as if their desire to search means they lack faith. We are defensive and adamant in our insistence that honesty is desperately needed and those who refuse to look with open eyes are fearful. We are afraid for our children because we know that someday they'll grow up to realize they've been fed a line their whole lives, and how will they find the true answers to their questions if they cannot ask them in church? "Non-intellectuals" feel looked down upon by intellectual "snobs" who treat them as if they are lesser, not as intelligent, not as faithful, and inferior. Both of these are stereotypes, but there is truth to them. If we "intellectuals" can be more loving, tolerant, and understanding of those who do not wish to spend their church time investigating problems, I hope they will be more tolerant of those who need to ask those questions, and acknowledge that there are many ways to view the answers.

This is part of the reason I'm so pro-Sunstone these last couple weeks. If you don't know, I just went to a symposium in Seattle, and it was the most inspiring, enlivening, uplifting and motivating thing I've been to that I can remember. Much more so than a typical church-meeting for me. I want to shout from the rooftops "The Church is True!" and tell everyone I know! It's a forum for those who have faith but want to discuss deeper gospel ideas. There is a real need for this kind of thing, and I think everyone should know about it. There are people there to help you, if you have questions. Of course, because there are lots of ideas expressed, I doubt if anyone would agree with all of them. But that's part of the beauty of it: everyone understands that everyone else has different ideas... and that's OK! (an attitude we don't get at church). Thus we can talk honestly and openly about our feelings, our ideas, our concerns, and be uplifted by each other without judgment or "The Right" answer being shoved down our throats "because Joe-of-the-Brethren said so."

Anyway, those are my many thoughts. Be tolerant and careful of those who don't think the way you do. We all have different needs. And hope they will be tolerant of you. There are loving ways of suggesting alternate ways of viewing things in Sunday School, which let others know that there is more than one viewpoint, without suggesting other viewpoints are wrong or inferior. :)

Love, Skye

Guess Who! A bit I wrote for the ward newsletter.

My visiting teachee is in charge of "Spotlight on the Family," a feature where they write about a family without disclosing who they are. People can guess who they think it is and next week the great secret is revealed! Anyway, her people fell through this week, so here I go to save the day:

Guess Who?:

He grew up in Eugene, Oregon, and escaped with just a few hippie-tendencies lasting into adulthood. She attended University of Oregon during her desperately-seeking-hippies phase. They may have been at a common singles dance in Eugene (we’ll see in the eternal replay), but certainly she wouldn’t have been interested in an 17-year old D.J. at the time (she was a ripe old 19) so their paths crossed unnoticed.

He later studied electrical engineering at BYU. She was concurrently at BYU, studying humanities. Engineers and artists don’t mix much, so again, their paths crossed unnoticed. They also both had college bands at BYU; his funk, hers folk. Again, no crossover.

After college, he pursued a law degree at Willamette University while she pursued a music career in Portland, Oregon. After exhausting the female resources in Salem, he began attending activities in Portland where she was living (getting warmer!). Her roommate had known him at BYU, and began inviting him around, and thus they finally met on the record. They became friends, albeit distant ones, both dating other people. They shared common interests like the outdoors and... well the outdoors... with a little music and art on the side.

One spring, when her ex-boyfriend and his ex-girlfriend announced they were dating, they became even better friends (ha! Take that, exes!). He invited her on a backpacking trip to Utah in order to hook her up with his college buddy who needed a girl. Success! She hooked up with the college buddy. So they became friends in order to talk about this college buddy. Soon it became very clear that she’d picked the wrong guy and after a month or so of secret longing and grueling silence, they confessed their undying love and affection for each other and fell kissing and weeping into each others arms (or... something like that). Then they called the friend with the (un)happy news.

He is currently a harried overworked associate at a Portland patent-law firm. She's an underpaid starving musician playing downtown clubs and haunts (she daylights as a paralegal so she can pretend to have a real job). They are happy to be in the Fanno Creek Ward, and they hope to wreak lots of havoc while they're here. The End.

Sunstone Weekend - "What? A whole bunch of free-thinking Mormons all in one place?"

Last weekend I attended a Sunstone Symposium in Seattle. I've meant to go to one of these for years, but never managed it. It just didn't sound that sexy, even though I knew it was likely to be "intellectually stimulating."

Now I'm married, and "sexy" has taken on a whole new meaning :)

It was the sexiest thing ever. I think I've never been so inspired and enlightened and motivated as I was last weekend. Speakers tackled subjects like:

• "Mormon Mantras: In eastern spiritual traditions, mantras are practiced to assist persons to overcome mindless, conditioned behavior and to align themselves with the divine. Do some Mormon cultural "mantras" - repetetive phrases and ideas that organize the internal lives of many latter day saints - serve the same liberating function? Or do they, at times, inhibit individual spiritual growth. Are there gospel mantras that could serve us better?"
  
• "Mary Magdalene: Bride and Beloved: Reclaiming the Sacred Union in Christianity"

Oh, and so much more. The mission statement of the Sunstone Education Foundation is "Sponsor of Open Forums of Mormon Thought and Experience." How many times have I expressed frustration at how hard it is to find people willing to talk in an open and honest way about the church and its role in our lives! Here was a whole group of people coming together to do just that. I can't even begin to express how cool it was or try to say what was said. Everyone should go to their website and download the free podcasts of the symposium. (www.sunstoneonline.com).

I want to be the new generation. I have wanted to sponsor open thought. Now I've found an organization doing it, and I want to join.

I feel like I just found the church.

And I want to tell all my friends.

THE CHURCH IS TRUE! Come join us. ... and if you have questions that aren't answered in Sunday School, well, come to me, baby. I know who will answer them for ya!

Jared is Out of Town

I've been married now for exactly one year, thirty days, six hours, and thirty six minutes. This is almost exactly thirteen months.

My husband is out of town on business for about four days. So far, he has been gone for two days, seven hours, twenty two minutes. I’ve slept alone in our house for two nights. I’ve eaten two breakfasts and three dinners alone. I’ve gone to church alone once, accepted one solo dinner invitation, come home after work to an empty house twice, felt midnight empty-house fear a couple of time, reached for him uselessly half-dreamy in bed three times, anxiously answered his calls six times, explained his absence to others eight times.

All this makes it sound so lonely. Do I miss him? Of course. Am I lonely?... well...hmmm...
Before he left I was positively distraught. I couldn’t stand the idea of spending four days without him. I was scared of the idea of so many hours alone. I just like his company. We don’t even have to be talking to each other or anything – in fact, I"m usually quite busy – but I just like knowing he’s there when I want him. And so the night before he left I was emotional, clingy and weepy. I wanted more and more kisses. I wanted to hold on tighter and tighter. I wanted to buy a last minute plane ticket to go with him. I never wanted to separate again.

And now that he’s gone... I really can’t say that it’s been miserable. I expected to be so forlorn and romantically sullen, longing, yearning for him. And I’m not. I’ve been married over a year now, does that mean something? We joked before he left about the honeymoon being over. We laughed, I said it would never be over. I’m only more in love with him now than I have ever been. Which is true. But here I am, not even lonely, even kindof enjoying the time to myself. I can get more done. I have time to contemplate. I have time to clean and run errands and don’t have someone second guessing anything I do or don’t do. I don’t have to make dinner for anybody. I can do things on my own schedule. I don’t have to go to bed at a particular time. The TV is off! I love it.

What does it mean, exactly, "the honeymoon being over" thing. I always assumed it was a bad thing, that it means that the problems and grief of marriage set in, that you get sick of each other, that you’re no longer "in love" the way you used to be. At least, I always assumed that’s what people generally mean when they use the term. I think generally they do.

But I’ve decided that what it really means for the honeymoon to be over is something different (and maybe people even mean this sometimes, and I just never understood before). It means not that you fall out of love, but that you move into the next phase of your love and your life together. At the beginning of marriage there is an important "honeymoon" phase that you spend really becoming part of each other and part of each other’s lives. You bond and grow closer and accommodate each other and become a team instead of two separate individuals. It’s romantic and cute. It’s the part of a relationship that we all look forward to... as adolescents at least. But this "honeymoon over" part... just might be even better. This, I think, is the part where you reaffirm and remember that you are an individual still. An individual who has covenanted to a partnership with another, and that by that partnership you accomplish things that you never could alone, but that the partnership is also completely dependent on your sovereignty and individuality. This is the part where you let go of fear, let go of uncertainty, let go of co-dependence and embrace inter-dependence. This is the part where you stand up and own your power. "This relationship works because it adds to my life, not because it takes away."

The fact that I’m not despondent without Jared made me a little nervous at first. I wondered if there was something wrong or that it was All Downhill From Here. And don’t get me wrong. Of course there will be moments, especially as his absence drags on, that I’ll really miss him, that I’ll want to tell him something, or ask him something, or feel his arms around me, or have his help.

But heavens, I’m not non-functional without him! My life was pretty damn good before Jared came along. I think that’s why he wanted me. And that hasn’t changed. I’m a happy and productive person. I have a happy life. Jared or no Jared. He makes it better, but he doesn’t make it. What a tragic mistake so many people make when looking for a spouse. They wait on their own lives because they want their spouse to be every part of it. But if you do this, you’ll be dependent on your spouse for happiness. Which, as the relationship matures, you’ll find a spouse cannot always provide. That’s a sure way to doom not only your own happiness, but your spouses (if I’ve learned anything, it’s that spouses feel guilty for needs they don’t fulfill. And guilt is depressing and discouraging. The fewer needs you saddle your spouse with, the happier you’ll both be.)

I’m looking forward to The End of The Honeymoon. I think the next phase will be the most beautiful and joyous: real depth of commitment, real love, real partnership, real romance. As a whole, self-actualized woman, I will embrace this man that I love, who loves me, and together we’ll blaze our future. Not one of fantasy, but one of real, actual, here-and-now life. One that we will not only dream of, but actually live, for the rest of our lives.