Something set me off the other night. I was literally chopping stuff for dinner and enjoying a glass of wine, feeling really mellow. When, without warning, I suddenly stopped chopping; put both hands on the chopping block and started feeling a flood of frustration and curious thoughts about the past. Feeling so relaxed, I had unknowingly dropped all emotional guard and became a flood of emotional states--past and present. Without a second to flex whatever physiological muscles I had to hold it in, my eyes let out. Something inside me that I had resisted for so long, suddenly and so mercilessly flooded my surface. I wish I could blame my pathetic tears on the half-chopped onion.
I’m not the best orator by any means, but put me in front of a typewriter and I can conjure up and convey feelings in ways as comfortable as one is with breathing. I’m sorry if you’re a man and you’re reading this, but the thing I was most frustrated about at that moment was, well, the men I’ve had in my life—to be more precise, the way I had allowed myself to imagine the WAY MEN SHOULD BE. Here is what the uber romantic Romeos in my life have dished thus far:
“I think we should see each other for a few hours this weekend.”
“I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s embarrassing to think about Sarah while out in public. In short, you make me horny.”
“I’m not really a good dancer, but a guy says that because it impresses the girl.”
“Have you rid yourself of that tan line?”
Here’s what I was frustrated about. Not just the let down, but the build up about men. At 27 years old, I’ve decided guys, like the stupid nice and giving ones you see in movies, in fairy tales, or the ones you make up in your journal during high school, simply don’t exist. They're a castle in the sky. (I’m talking to you ridiculous Twilight and You’ve Got Mail gals). Bottom line: we’re going about it all the wrong way.
Think of it this way. Does the idealized woman portrayed in the form of Angelina Jolie to Salma Hayek—mother or lover—exist? Aren't these obviously exaggerated itemized qualities (perfect smile, sex life, to mother of your children) as unreal as the prince who kisses his bride to blissful consciousness? Women, perhaps, for a variety reasons, I feel dote more on this standard than do men (we are more emotionally, than visually stimulated than men). From the day they’re old enough to read Sleeping Beauty, they begin to nurture this incredibly impossibly romantic and passionate notion about men. Having recently witnessed a handful of long-term relationships—including my own—come to an end, I feel I can speak from effing experience. Let me explicate: They do exist, just not in the fabricated (stupid) sense women expect. They might exist for a weekend, a month in Europe or maybe even a few years or decades. A time structure shouldn’t take away from your experiencing that “now happiness” that even decades later, you will still recollect and secretly smile about in your car when a certain song comes on.
Why can’t we depend on that thing that has truly proven itself over the existence of our species—change.
I won't recoil if you call me a jaded Jennie, as my NYC friend recently did. But I’ve felt some dramatic changes in me in the last year and I’m starting to fall into the belief of having multiple “true loves.” And who says that’s a bad thing? Life is a gift and variety is definitely a part of that. They say reach for the moon, even if you miss you’ll be among the stars (blah blah blah). I’m learning part of “reaching,” is actually half the fun. Forget the moon, ladies, let's grab as many stars as we can--and maybe avoid chopping onions for a while.
This month offered some unexpected and charming surprises, from getting my own bungalow in the land of heaven (no, literally my neighborhood is called "bungalow heaven"), acquiring my first flat screen monitor (thank champagne with Amelia for that one), getting to redesign an entire home on my own, to having something I'd written, published in a national magazine, Elle Decor. For as long as I can fricken imagine, I'd always wanted to break into national consumers and technically I have, so I'm letting myself feel a little proud of somehow convincing Editor in Chief Margaret Russell that my scribbled commentary on the changing media landscape was worth her beans to be selected and placed among the lucky few in her kingdom of glossy. 
