Midnight, Here I Come

Sometimes, late at night, I indulge in sadness.

If I can manage to so much as break a tear, I can prime the pump and bring forth a wellspring of deep sorrow, covered by time and inhibitions and daylight and more important things. I can reach deep into my soul and spirit and find remnants of lost pain, grief, fear, longing, fury, disappointment, anger, loss, defeat. It bubbles up and flows for me in the darkest hours of the night, and I can almost savor its sweetness. It's hard to turn off once it starts, except for falling asleep.

This cleansing, this ritual, this purging of negative feelings... it is the hope that tomorrow I will feel clean and fresh and new and happy.

And then tomorrow comes. And sometimes, to be totally honest, I just feel dumb. What the heck was I crying about, anyway? Am I really cleaning out the corners of my battered soul, preparing for a brighter tomorrow? Or is it possible, just maybe, that late at night I just feel emotional and worn down and... I'm just making some of it up? Am I really so sad about all these things? If I cry them out will they be done, or is it possible that I could cry about them any old night because the sadness just exists there in me?

Maybe I need to embrace the sadness and live with it, rather than always trying to "cry it out." And maybe, if that's the case, crying about it over and over late at night is nothing but simply indulgence. It's not cleansing or purging, but just... entertaining. And if so, is that bad? Well... I want to say no. But poor Jared! How many nights does he have to hold me while I'm crying, asking me what I'm crying about to my "I don't know." If I don't know, is it doing me any good?

Can you tell Jared's out of town? I've posted, like, four times in twenty four hours.

Okay, okay, okay!

I give up! I'm joining the crowd. I'm going with the flow. I'm on the bandwagon. I'm on myspace.

I've been made fun of, cajoled, harassed, and questioned enough. Okay I believe you all! I should be on myspace. And now I am. :)


Are any of you on myspace? I feel kinda lonely there so far.

• If you are on myspace, add me as a friend (lest I look like a hermit to people who visit).
• If you are on myspace, use my tunes on your profile! Yeah!
  
• If you are on myspace, listen to music, comment on it, tell friends.
• If you are not on myspace, maybe you'd enjoy checking it out and listening to the audio-stream.
  

myspace.com/skyepixton

Really, thanks, all you who love me, (ahem. Tamara) for making me do it.

Ouch. My Heart

Kaaren, Clayton and triplets
Originally uploaded by tompixton.

I just made the mistake of looking at pictures of my nieces and nephew that moved to Kansas a couple of months ago. I miss them so much. I am so afraid they will grow up not knowing who I am. I know they will. There's no way around it. I love their little souls. I miss them like you wouldn't believe.

Never look at pictures of babies in the middle of the night.

sniff.

I met my husband last night.

It was weird. There we were at the Belle & Sebastien concert. I have never listened to Belle & Sebastien until three days ago. Jared's childhood buddy was coming to town for the concert, and so Jared scrambled to find tickets to the sold out show. Then he went and bought the album, since he didn't have the new one.

I've long known that Jared is into indie rock. I'm a folk-singer. And, strangely, I really like pop-punk radio-ready music. That and alternative. And jazz. And techno. And anyway, indie rock is good too, but I've never really had a "thing" for it. In fact, I don't like a lot of indie rock. It's too... indie... for me. I like the convention of the ABABCB song structure. I like 1/4/5 major chords paired with melodic harmonies and driving choruses. I like to be able to tell which instrument is which and have a clear identification of what I'm listening to.

Things I don't like: voices that are bad, people who can't sing and think it's cute, lots of distortion so you can't distinguish a melody, too much dissonance at one time, bangy crashy abrasive sounds, weird formless songs, long rants on a theme in the middle of a tune that don't match. Anyway. Indie is hit and miss for me.
Love: Death Cab for Cutie.
Hate: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

So anyway, I didn't expect much of the concert for myself. But here's my dilemma: "Jared wants to do something fun together and I don't? That can't happen!! So, yeah, I'm going to the concert. I'm gonna like it too. I'm gonna dance. I'm gonna listen to B&S on my ipod until I've force-fed myself into liking it."

But little did I know what I would really get at the Roseland that night.

There we were, surrounded by a sold-out theater of other Belle & Sebastien enthusiasts. Here's this kinda geeky band onstage, the lead singer all twiggy limbs and unassuming charisma. I looked around at the audience and saw a sea of thrifted button-up shirts, plastic-rimmed glasses, short messy hair. Guys like Jared. Hundreds of them! They all looked up at the stage with spacey and contented looks on their faces. They bobbed to the music. They swayed. Not a foot left its spot on the floor all night. It was like watching a gentle breeze come over a wheat-field. Only the wheat is geeks in glasses and cool shoes. All night! It was so funny! (in a good way, of course. Cool geeks, of course. You know what I mean. The kind of endearing sexy geeks you see on, like, "Friends").

Jared stood next to me and beamed like I'd never seen, his little head bobbing up and down to the music, his ears carefully protected by Leight Sleepers (TM) earrplugs. Suddenly, it clicked. This is Jared's tribe! These are his people! All this time, I've been trying to figure out what makes Jared tick. Who is Jared? I mean, it's not like he's a misfit or anything, and obviously I know him really well. But he does remain somewhat of an enigma to me. Especially among my friends. But those are my friends, from my tribe. So there I was visiting his world, and it suddenly all made sense. Uuuuoh! Jared is one of these people!

And now, of course, I can't really tell you what I actually learned about Jared (wouldn't that be convenient). But by the nature of the thing, it's something you'd have to be there to understand. It's like when I traveled to England with my mother. Having experienced British culture for just three weeks, I felt like I understood so much about her. So much of her personality traits came from her upbringing there, and I always just thought they were unique to her. All Brits love to to garden, value aesthetics and high culture, enjoy a good tea-time, and believe in ettiquette (to name a few things). My mom is partially a product of this, and so my trip helped me to understand her in a different way. Last night I saw where Jared came from. Not his family or his home town, but his "tribe" that he himself chose to be a part of. I saw his heart. I watched him experience something native to him, not trying to fit into me.

And the concert really good too. Now I genuinely like the band. Thanks, Belle & Sebastien.

Mantras for Marriage

"CONFLICT ALERT! CONFLICT ALERT!"

This is what we're supposed to say when we sense an argument coming on from now on. The other night it was about whether the original words to the song are "popcorn popping right before my eyes!" or "blossoms popping right before my eyes!"

This little spiff, believe it or not, got rather heated. So, we decided that desperate times call for desperate measures (or stupid people call for stupid solutions). Since neither of us seems to inherently have the maturity in the moment to recognize that we're not mad about the issue at hand, but rather about things like being respected, feeling heard, etc., we developed this mantra, which we're supposed to recite together after either of us has sounded the "conflict alarm."

"Honey I love you.
Your opinion is valuable to me and I respect your experience and feelings.
It is OK if you don't agree with me.
If one of us is swayed in our opinion, I will be gracious, and not boastful."

Pretty good, huh? The funny thing is, neither of us ever actually calls the other one "Honey," so I'm sensing the possibility for sarcasm right away. Also, I guess we'll just have to see if it works at all. I mean, I'm never thinking "uh oh, I sense a conflict coming on. I'd better lovingly point it out." No. I'm always just thinking things like, "I"m SO right here! Oh! Oh! That was the stupidest point ever! Doesn't he see the flaw in his reasoning? Wait. Let ME tell you how it is, buddy!" (or something like that).

I have faith in Jared though. He'll sound the alarm. He's good at being mature. Even when I'm not.

No. Seriously. I jest. We can quip about who is more mature. But the truth of the matter is... the words "popcorn popping right before my eyes" are just better, even if they're not the ones in the children's hymnal! I mean the whole point of the song is the metaphor, right? If you have to spell it out for the idiot children who don't understand the whole blossoms-look-kinda-like-popcorn concept, then it ruins the poetry of the song! What kind of morons would change the words?! Morons who don't understand and appreciate artistry, that's who! Morons who are out to destroy all that is good and beautiful in the world! Morons who might be right historically, but that doesn't make them right artistically! That's who! So there. hmph.

"Sunday Night" at Skye's

Talking to Emily Potter on the phone (she's the litle blue glow behind our feet.

Feet (in order of appearance, I think): Skye, Emily, Keith, Kaarina, Bryce, Audrey (Jared & James were also in the room somewhere)

Two Kinds of People in the World:

I had an email snafoo yesterday. I am the administrator for an email list of over 500 people. I am very conscientious about keeping email addresses private and not spamming people.

BUT nevertheless, my server changed some settings as part of an "update" which overrode the protection that allows only me to post. Thus a family message about prayer accidentally got sent to all my music fans and list-ers.

I was embarassed, but also sortof chuckled that of course it would be an email about prayer. I don't mind my fans knowing that I'm spiritual, but I am very wary of being pigeon-holed as some religious or christian artist. Anyway, I didn't expect much response, but I have got a few emails, and they are either:

"TAKE ME OFF YOUR LIST! I DON'T WANT PERSONAL EMAIL AND YOU'RE CLEARLY A BAD PERSON FOR FORCING THIS FAMILY DISCUSSION ON UNSUSPECTING LIST SUBSCRIBERS LIKE ME!"

(or something to that effect)

or else:

"Ha ha. No problem. We could all be thinking about prayer a little more anyway. :)"

Am I crazy to think that the polarized responses have to do with the religious nature of the email? It was pretty innocuous. Just a comment about the value of family prayer: it being nice to see each other once a day, whether we had prayed or not.

It's a good thing that a few people responded with the "How funny. I feel blessed to know you" style email, because I was getting really depressed and feeling personally wounded by those who were so vitriolic about wanting off the list over ONE little mistake (that wasn't my fault, I might add).

Anyway. Religious or not, I guess some people just get their panties in a wad over little things, and others are more relaxed and roll with it. And it seems like the difference between those types of people, in this instance at least, also corresponds to their spiritual openness. I'm sure that is not a P.C. thing to say. But I'm just sayin'.

My Favorite Person Today:

is this beautiful girl right here! She's my baby sister, Kyrstyn. This picture was taken last Saturday, while she was dressed and made-up for a show with one of her groups "The March Fourth Marching Band." (It's a really cool group. You can see pictures of their anniversary show that my Dad took by clicking HERE.)

Anyway, she also played with me on Monday night at The Edgefield. She's an amazing musician and an amazing person with such a beautiful soul!

In my large family, I'm the oldest daughter and she is the youngest. I was paid $5 to potty-train her years ago. I babysat at times. I taught her to burb and remember her first steps. As as older sibling, often you never have a chance to get to know your younger siblings like adults. But I've been blessed to have Kyrstyn near me and in my life the last couple of years and it's such a JOY! I mean, she's the coolest! I would never have known, had I not spent some time with her recently, how very extremely awesomely amazingly deeply rad she is! I am so honored to be not only her friend, but also her blood relative. If you dont' know Kyrstyn, you should. I am so lucky.

Ah, Modern Chivalry!

What do we do, in the modern world of today, about holding doors open for people and walking through them? I don't mean any old time. I always appreciate a man holding a door open for me. I'll always walk through it and thank him.

But.... these rules were invented before the modern phonomenon of the "double-doors."

Almost every LDS church building has them. Most office buildings have them now too, including the one I work in. So I encounter this dilemma often.

The first set of doors is no problem: walk through it, say thank you. But two steps later I find myself staring at a second set of doors, and I'm thinking, "um... okay, he's behind me now because he just opened the first doors. What do I do now? Do I wait for him to come through and get these doors for me too?" Pros & Cons:

• Pro: it acknowledges his chivalry and my gratitude for it.
  
• Con: I risk looking like a snobby woman who expects every man to open every door for her.
• Con: It's akward, standing there waiting while he shuffles by. I even have to step aside to make room like we're sharing a phone booth.
  
• Pro: it's a nod to old tradition and chivalrous ways, which I like.
• Con: I risk looking like a weak sniveling woman who thinks she might faint any moment or who wants to be dependent on a man. blech.
  

"Or do I walk through like the capable, self-actualized woman that I am?" Pros & Cons:

• Pro: less akward.
• Pro: I get to keep moving.
• Pro: demonstrates (as I said) that I am a capable woman and doesn't make me look weak.
• Con: Totally flies in the face of what he just did: "thanks, but no thanks, buddy. I can handle this myself, as you can see."
• Con: Doesn't this seem like the haughty woman just trampling on the polite men, whooshing by, flipping her hair behind her, and now I'm ahead of him in line, for the elevator, the DMV, the food, whatever else.
  
• Con: How rude! Shouldn't I, like, open the door for him now or something?

"Which brings up a whole new option. Do I return the favor?"

• Pro: Seems polite, on its face. He scratched my back, now I scratch his.
• Con: Weird! Girls don't open doors for guys. It might make him uncomfortable or make him feel, again, like I'm spurning his gesture.
• Con: That's really beyond the line, don't you think? Now I'm acting like he needs the door opened for him (he surely does not). But wait, isn't that what men think about women? I mean, I don't need the door opened for me either, but I appreciate it. But it's just weird the other way around!
  

I CAN'T WIN!

And then there are the variables: sometimes it's my dad or my brother, sometimes it's my husband, sometimes a stranger, sometimes another woman. AAAAAaaaurgh!

Does anyone else have this problem? Does anyone have The Answer?

The End of an Era

Tonight I finally said goodbye to my driving-love of the last ten years. My Rossinante, a.k.a. African Queenie, a.k.a. 1987 Subaru Wagon.

Two very nice men with mustaches checked her out, drove her around, asked me about all her problems (she has many), and gave me few dollars cash to take her off my hands.

I'll never forget all the beautiful trips we took, the sunsets, the beaches, the forbidden logging roads, the snowy mountain passes, the nights asleep (or not) in the back, the times stuck on the side of the road, the campsites no one else could get to or else no one else dared, the boyfriends that came and went, the endless visits to Les Schwabb, the cases and cases of oil, the new sports we undertook together, rescuing friends and family across icy roads when they were stuck with their two-wheel-drive woosie cars, the adventure and spirit and determined life we led...

...until the introduction of the newer, younger, less scratched-up, shinier, upgraded model.

I feel I've betrayed Rossinante in a way. Will Jared one day go for a newer model when I don't work as well anymore and am kindof an eyesore?

I teared up sitting behind the wheel for the last time to say goodbye. She has seen me through almost my entire single life. She could tell you more about me than probably any human being. (Is it weird that I have such affection for an inanimate object? Well, she' not inanimate. She took me all kinds of wonderful places. But still...)

Oh well. She'll always be remembered with love and fondess in my heart. Goodbye Rossie. Love, Skye

Where's my dinner, woman!

Is it true that the expectation of something does not negate the joy in its fulfillment?

Jared & I have been reading the infamous love languages book. His primary language is "acts of service," and no matter how many times I press him, he still says he feels loved when I do things like... oh, say... do the dishes, clean up the house, take out the garbage, make him dinner, vaccuum the living room..."

Are you serious? This is so unromantic. I mean, those are things I have to do all the time ANYway. So how does he get "I do this cuz I love him" from what may very well just be "this kitchen is gross. I've gotta do something about it."

Anyway, my biggest fear with "learning his dialect" is that if I make him dinner every night, that he'll come to expect dinner every night, and then it will be a requirement of our relationship, rather than an expression of heartfelt love. If he comes home and I haven't made him dinner, maybe he'll start calling me "woman" and take off his shirt to reveal a wife-beater underneath. Then he'll grab a beer and watch some tv.

No, seriously. I could lovingly make dinner every night, but I can't fathom that the warm fuzzies wouldn't eventually wear off for him. What happens when expectations become entrenched in our every day lives? Wouldn't we have to run faster and faster to keep up? Like developing a tolerance for our favorite drug?

Jared begs to differ.

Okay, and I have to admit... even though I expect flowers and chocolate on Valentine's Day, I don't like them any less from year to year (although I'm only on year #2. Ask me in 2057 and see what I say then.) (j/k). And even though I expect a kiss goodbye each morning, I only look forward to it more and more and revel in the moment more and more as time goes by. It's like expecting presents on Christmas. Who gets tired of presents? Not me! Hmmmm. Could he be right about wifely, domestic service too?

Trying to grasp someone else's love language is a challenge (if it doesn't involve presents, candlelight, or snowboarding anyway). But I guess no matter what floats your boat, there's something to being able to expect it to happen. I mean, not just that expecting isn't bad, but that it's actually good.

Expectation is part of the foundation of trust - a crucial element in a loving relationship. Why would we hook up with people if we didn't come to expect that they would provide the things we need to feel loved?

...From All My Labours

“People shouldn’t work on days like this,” I told my Dad/Boss.

I had walked out the door that morning to beautiful streaming sunshine. Not a cloud in the sky!

In Portland? In February?!

We had just ended a record-long streak of straight rain and gray. I don’t think I’d seen the sun since November. My heart instantly grew three sizes.

I took in the sunshine for a moment. My very first flowers were blooming (there was actually a bumble bee in one of them), I could hear a mess of birds chirping in the tree nearby, the breeze blew slightly. Aaaaah! I rejoiced for a moment. Then I sighed, walked to my car, and drove to work.

“The city should totally shut down, really," I continued. "We have Snow-days... we should have SUN-days!”

oh. wait.

“...and on the seventh day thou shalt rest...” (Exodus 23:12, King James Translation)

There is actually a commandment that we stop working and enjoy life once in a while. Crazy.

Crazier still, is that pretty much everything God has told us is designed to help us enjoy life and have joy. Immature, adolescent, defiant godlings that we are, we’ve twisted most of our Creator’s direction into guilt-provoking prohibitions. Pity.

Well, I for one am going to have joy. I’m taking the whole day off in two days!! Oh, wait. That’s Sunday. Well, I take every Sunday off! Ha!

Praise God!

7-Grain Soul

When I was little, my mommy didn't love me. How did I know? My Adam's all-natural, no-sugar-added peanut butter told me so. While other kids were eating gloriously white Wonderbread, Skippy, and Smuckers sandwiches for lunch, followed by fruit snacks, Capri Sun, and Oreo Cookies, I was muscling down my homemade-whole-wheat bread sandwiches with that Adam’s no-sugar peanut butter and homemade jam, followed by an apple, water from the fountain, and – if I was lucky – an orange-rind-pumpkin-whole-wheat dessert thing that my Mom thought she could pass off as a cookie.

My fellow geek-friends soon discovered that they could bribe me to do humiliating things in exchange for a morsel of their marvelously saccharine fruit rollup. Half the time they didn’t want it anyway (I never understood this), and would just have a little fun watching me bark like a dog, or whatever cruel prank they dreamed up this time. Luckily, they were not very creative, and I don’t think the other kids ever noticed my desperate antics. Not that it helped my popularity any.

Nevertheless... childhood scarred me. And as an adult, I defiantly and enthusiastically buy Skippy peanut butter now. It’s one of the beautiful things about adulthood. We responsible people working the daily grind often lament the loss of the old days, when we had no responsibilities and knew nothing of the pain and suffering in the world. In this moment, though, I choose to rejoice in my adulthood! Finally! I can eat what I want! I can go where I want! I can do what I want! Remember how we used to think we couldn’t wait to grow up and not have parents telling us what to do all the time? Remember that cruelty really did exist in the world, among our own name-calling peers? Remember that summers were actually boring as often as they were fun? I do. Childhood was great. But adulthood is also Great. I mean, hey! I get to eat Skippy now.
I just at a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich, and oh, the bliss!

Truthfully, most of my tastes were eventually brow-beaten to match my mother’s in the end. Or else I’ve returned to them after briefly experimenting with the dark side of refined foods and transfats (so unfair, to call foods “refined” which are actually evil, menacing fragments of real food which coat your intestines, stay beyond their welcome, and make you fat). Nowadays I buy the wholest-wheatest bread I can find. I prefer all-natural ingredients. I am actually grossed out by fatty, ready-made, boxed or frozen entrees. I love fresh fruit and vegetables. I’m a huge fan of broccoli. And I make almost everything from scratch if I possibly can. Very like my mother. It’s only on a few points that I’ve diverted, like the peanut butter.

It is our privilege as adults to decide which of our parents’ values to adopt, whether it be religion, child-rearing, marriage, moral values, habits, etc. I would say my food preferences somewhat follow my more important life choices so far. In the areas of morals and values, mostly I’ve come to agree with what my parents taught me. I diverge here and there (but then, as an adult I also know now that they don’t even agree on everything. Go figure). But I generally subscribe to the same whole-grain-whole-life religion they do. In the end I married a man my mother actually approved of. My political and social opinions are, well, sort of the same as my folks’. Overall, I can’t complain. I’m really grateful to my parents for teaching me good values and helping me develop an early taste for goodness, honesty, joy, God, love, gratitude, the outdoors, personal accomplishment, and natural foods.

Here we go again...

Every year, in January, I have an emotional - what would you call it - upheaval, breakdown, rebirth, journey, catharsis, transcendent experience, purging, cleansing, any of the above. For some reason, each year I experience the reinvention of self. It's a painful process, but one from which I always emerge.

This always happens in December and January. Is it the weather? Is it the New Year? The aftermath of the holidays in general? Is it my birthday (tomorrow)? Is it the alignment of the stars and planets? Is it my tarot and numerology (which does, by the way, indicate I should have a rebirth every year around early January. crazy stuff.).

Does anyone else have a regular, predictable schedule upon which they do these things? It seems so transendent, so spiritual, so left-brained and personal to be tied to something like a "schedule," which is the opposite of all things "feeling" to my mind.

In any case...

like the phoenix, this year too I will rise from the ash, having cried my tears of redemption and having sung my heart to pieces.

Fun-oholism.

My mother-in-law and I were talking about our husbands over the New Year. They share a penchant for "accomplishing things" and both seem to lead purpose-driven lives.

"Scott just likes the satisfaction of having done something productive" she said.

"Oh, I know! Jared is the same way!" I empathized. I quipped about how Jared prefers to spend Saturdays doing stuff around the house over snowboarding or something mindlessly fun and adventurous. He likes to feel like he accomplished something that day, or else he can't even really have fun. He has to earn his fun, I guess (in contrast, I always feel I already deserve it).

Jared and his father both have a very strong sense of responsibility. They have integrity in their actions, whether to their employers, to church callings, to neighbors, to conscience, to family. It's a good thing for us, to have married honorable men; my mother-in-law and I agreed.

"It's not like he actually likes working, he just has a really strong sense of responsibility, and he gets satisfaction from fulfilling his duties. He's not a workaholic or anything."

I nodded my head. But I was thinking... "is there any difference?" I've always thought of a workaholic as someone who actually enjoys work more than liesure (what a freak). I've thought of workaholism as a distant disease of some weird people who are strange, antisocial, backward, money-driven, home-wrecking, and aloof.

But wait... like I said, is there any difference between him and the "purpose-driven" guy? Lots of people find their work satisfying or meaningful. If someone enjoys the satisfaction of completing work projects enough that they choose that over liesure or family time, then isn't that the same thing as liking work more than fun? Is workaholism anything other than a simple matter of where and how some people choose to spend their time, whatever their reasons for their choice?

Jared & I had a conversation on our drive up to Seattle about whether you can truly learn to like anything, if it's something that you have to do. He says that you can. He concedes that most people feel that some parts of life are unenjoyable, but we tolerate them because we know we will gain satisfaction from the end result. Simply put: any sacrifice we make is for something we believe to be better. (This is how I feel about life. I don't like every piece of living, but I choose my activities according to my view of what will bring me the most happiness in the future. duh.).

Jared, on the other hand, thinks that he is different from most people because he actually likes to do everything he has to do. Or at least he tries. The knowledge that he will gain satisfaction in the end gives him a certain amount of enjoyment in the actual act of whatever it is, even previous to the desireable end-result.

"What about wiping your butt?" I retorted (pardon me, for this). "Surely we all derive satisfaction from having a clean butt, but it doesn't mean you actually enjoy the act of wiping the poo off of it." (... I won't keep going down this road, for your sake, it was funny and inappropriate and we made many analogous points that you don't want to hear about. )

In any case, the conversation ultimately supports my secret theory... that Jared is a workoholic waiting to happen. Kinda like a genetic alcoholic who hasn't yet really had a lot of alcohol. But already Jared has worked some days I wouldn't have and expressed that he actually likes working. Uh oh. I like my job too, but, I would sure go snowboarding before I would draft an estate plan.

Don't tell him I'm thinking about this. For one thing, it's pure speculation. He's actually a really fun guy at the moment. And it's not like I don't want him to like his job. We all have days we'd rather be at the office than puttering around the house. But for another, I don't want to perpetuate this phenomenon that keeps happening: if he takes time to spend with family (me), it's because he wants to make me happy, not because he wants the time (or so it sometimes feels).

Maybe I'm just a funoholic paranoid of the opposition. That's entirely possible. I've actually been quoted in the Salsa dance community: one dancer was asking about my work and I said, "I don't have time for a full-time job." I was serious (I had a lot going on, with music and other stuff). But he laughed and laughed, and then said his goal was to someday be like me.

Why can't we all aspire to someday be like me?

My Sacrament

I cannot really pray in the belly of a church, walls made by the hands of men, surrounded by white-costumed, noose-necked 12-year-old boys marching to the beat of The Drum.

Give me the sky, and the wind, mountains, bees and birdsong. With wild grasses in my fingers, there I find my maker, and weep in sweet loving arms.

"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.