Gordita In The City

This summer of 2010 marks my quarter-century on this good planet earth. Given that I am physically healthy and have most things in life to recommend me - I can proudly say... not a bad job Mo.  I think there was once a time when people thought I would probably be on my second kid, have an acquired drug habit, and no direction at twenty-five years old given some of the things I've experienced over the years. So the question becomes, what progress have I made? What have I learned?  Am I more adult now than I used to be? 

Lets rewind to Five Years ago:

July 6th, 2005 - Location: East Los Angeles College, Little Theater

I was taking part in ELAC Theater's Summer Shakespeare workshop.  In my opinion, I was having the most adventurous fun of my young adult life - I was staying up all hours of the night because I could, I was doing theater, I had a new boyfriend to be stupid in like/love with, School was working out, my mom was back home ... but under all that I was terrified. I was convinced that fun couldn't last that long.  I was waiting for some other shoe to drop and for the happiness to extinguish. That night in the theater workshop - we were rehearsing for our showcase. For the first time in my life, I got cast as a "Juliet"  and I was loving it.  I was 19 years old and it was the day before my 20th birthday.

I spent the whole day thinking of all the selfish/kiddish things that I could do on my last night as a technical "teenager."  In my mind, I was thinking that those hours before I would turn twenty would end a chapter of my life.  As far as I was concerned, the idea of becoming twenty meant that I was making my official exit from the Neverland of adolescence to the world of adult seriousness (the strange deadlines I set for myself). I don't remember if I ever accomplished achieved the level of teenage mischief I desired that night - but I do remember spending the time after rehearsal scared. As my worldview was growing to include freedom, I felt adulthood closing in on me like a garrote.

Back to the present, it has been 5 years since then and I am so different.  At 20, I was planning on attending Cal State Long Beach for English and then transferring to  Law school in order to be an attorney by 26/27.  Now, I find myself in Boston working my way towards graduating in the same degree at a small East Coast liberal-arts college full of hipsters. I'm surrounded by thousands of differing carbon-copies of my confused 19/20 year old self.  I admit at times, I move amongst them with a bit of a lofty air of "been there, done that" because I'm older and by lot in life...less sheltered than many of them. At times, I'm appalled at my arrogance.  Putting on airs as if I have lived a thousand years.  I suppose I do it because I need to.  I feel so different and isolated at that school, that differentiating myself through my life experience (since I never took pride at my academic achievement) seems to be the only way that I can find a modicum of security.  At the end of the day, the fishbowl that we are groomed in High School and college to outgrow is still a fishbowl. 

As a fish that has flopped between different schools, coasts, family dynamics, I am learning that the reality is that we are all floaters. This is not even a new or innovative thought, as much as I would like to believe it is. Yes, the proverbial ocean of a larger world does exist.  It is a large and cavernous blue void that cares nothing for our small individual existence. To survive we flock together to create "schools,"  pie slices of categorization and culture to  make ourselves feel better.  I might be the unique flashy fish in my particular fish bowl - but there are a potential million other flashy fish just like me that exist in other fish bowls. That is a hard pill to swallow in a culture that prides itself on individualism and innovation.  It's a depressing enough thought for most adults that they would probably rather chew a cyanide pill before admitting that they are a speck in the big scope of humanity.

I think this is what holy men and religious scholars talk about when it comes to true enlightenment or communion with "god".  Maybe it really is about arriving to the point where you accept that attachment to the created and material world of the million human fishbowls is a complete myth. Being aware of that big blue ocean and humbling yourself is maybe the first step. There is a wonderful book that was given to me by my grandmother called "Hope For the Flowers".   You could argue that very few people actually "grow-up" - that thought has all sort's of implications that I'd rather tackle on a different post.

So the point? Well, I keep hitting the glass of the fishbowl, stretching to jump out of my "school"  - Maybe I need to start looking through the glass towards the ocean and learn to make waves to guide me out.

Soccer Mom: (looking at the ring on my left hand) How long have you been engaged for?
Me: I'm single
Soccer Mom: (looking at her kid, then me) That's why you're still single...maybe trim down a bit sweetie, Time's a wastin' -
Me: Well I figure having both a child and husband is kind of redundant.
Soccer Mom: Excuse me?
Me: I'm assuming those wrinkles don't come from your amazing sex life... (walking away)

I'm a lapsed Catholic. Somewhere along the line of 25 years I was baptized, taught some prayers, and forced to make the sign of the cross every time I passed a church. My mom had this interesting way of giving everything I did a "Catholic Feel" ... you know - candles, incense, saints, rosaries - maybe its a carryover from her days in a Catholic Boarding School. Technically, I should probably be excommunicated for taking the host without having an actual "1st Communion"... but that's between me and the big person/entity in charge up there.


So that brings me to this curious holiday period called "Lent". That magical time of year where everyone and their mother seems to be "giving up" something for the sake having their prayers answered. They sacrifice vice (that rhymed!) to somehow encounter grace from god. Well...I'm not sure if giving up my Facebook vice last year for Lent brought me any closer to god - but it did bring me closer to the hypocrisy which is social approbation. Ethically, I wonder if it was really necessary to use Lent as an excuse to give up Facebook for 40 days and nights. I'm going to guess that that - not it wasn't very necessary as much as it was "opportune". Really, how many out of my 500+ Facebook friends really would notice my absence on a regular day? The same question I ask is...how many of us really care that you are nobly choosing not to eat cupcakes for Lent? Does god or the collective human consciousness really care or register your sacrifice?

I could argue theology all day...but the bottom line is like all of religion...we do what makes us feel better. Deprivation makes humans feel like they have a purpose for some odd reason. As sentient and sapient homo sapiens, we crave that which is rare...so everyone loves cupcakes...shun Cupcakes and Facebook to be the shining paragon of virtue that glitters amongst a beach of mud and muck...

"Love does not mean surrendering, "losing yourself". It is a call to ripen.  Don't look for straight lines. Life is never like that." - Kama Sutra

Love is a bitch. It's hardly ever there when we need it, we chase after it like a bunch of junkies, and even when we get it, we spend half of our time not to lose it or keep it from changing. I've said it before, but people hate ambiguity. It's my honest opinion, that most people that claim to be in love really don't know what the hell they are talking about, or even have any conception of the hot mess they are about to get themselves stuck into. 

I'm a recovering hopeless romantic.  Yes...recovering..or at least re-branded. I prefer to say, "Hopelessly Hopeful," or maybe just live without the title on my preferences and stick to pragmatic idealist. I'm going to be harsh... because I had to be harsh on myself because it simply drove me nuts. Hopeless romanticism is a pandemic that is ruining marriages and relationships left and right!

Isn't it ironic.. .that hopeless romanticism leads to more breakups and broken hearts than anything else.  Think about it. The media feeds us this image of  "Happily Ever After NO MATTER WHAT"... couples defy the odds. If your true love is married to someone else... NO PROBLEM! You can break up the marriage and be together and it was all for a noble cause. 

Romeo and Juliet (killed themselves), Tristan and Isolde (did it before Romeo and Juliet), Madame Bovary (used, abused, suicide by arsenic), Antony and Cleopatra (suicide), The Little Mermaid, Anything Nicolas Sparks(They actually find their great love... and then die!)... my mind is going blank. 

What makes me laugh is how many guys that I have dated, liked, or hung out with that are hung up on some chick they used to date or some ideal.  It's usually the one that got away.  Usually, this girl is someone that evaded them due to their own assholey decisions or neglect. Better yet, it's the girl who doesn't want them.  She rejects his calls, won't give him the time of day, etc .. etc.. etc.  Not to just put the finger on guys, girls are equally pathetic in the way they will pine and care after a guy who doesn't really care if they live or die. 

Our generation has turned love and sex into this commodity that is meant to provide comfort, constant stimulation, and satisfaction to the point where I'm like... "It's a F**g Relationship... NOT DISNEYLAND!!"

At best, love in it's truest form is a transitional and temporary state.  It's living and it changes the way it is supposed to. For this reason, I highly recommend that people watch "The Science of Attraction" on the Discovery Channel... it basically debunks hopeless romanticism into a drug addicted-like state and sets the biological record straight that long-term love isn't about magic... its about goal setting.  This means that our ancestors had it right, it's old-fashioned determination and commitment. You commit yourself to making the old ball and chain the best ball and chain that ever existed and rule out all other possibility. How else did anyone get shit done? Modernism has turned love into a candy store of customizable options.  I can now go online, check a few boxes and find some guys that match my checklist and only worrying about the details if I dig the picture.  Before the advent of technology, I actually had to "Debut", parade around socially and run into someone I hoped I had chemistry with... and OMG!! Send a letter!

This all sounds very cynical - but I find it freeing. The reality is that the more you spend obsessing about old or unattainable love, the more you screw up your future possibilities.  You should stop frowning, because someone might actually fall for your smile. I think all great loves have their time. You will never get that time back again, and if the boat sailed... it's chances of returning to the same port are very narrow, it has to find space where it can and sometimes it's not always the right space. 

 But, I suppose that is what hopeless romanticism is all about, standing on that shore waiting for the boat to come in. Waiting on what ever glimmer/shred/instance of hope you have until some magic happens. 

When you are a hopeless romantic... you are simply an addict. Addicted to love.  So strung out, when you don't get your fix... you create new ways get it.  This might include things like the following:

1. Listening to really sad love songs ...especially if you aren't even sad about anything... you just listen to it because you're bored and you really want to feel something.

2. When you start dating someone, you compare them to your other "great loves"and get disappointed when it is not exact.. (you know.. because everyone is the same and it has to be perfect everytime).

3. You spend more time creating perfect scenarios of how you are going to execute romantic plans or elaborate ruses to gain your object's attention... rather than actually getting off your lazy ass and completing it once and for all. (this is what most people would call procrastination... which is a fear response).

4. You fantasize constantly about the future without really dealing with the present or paying attention to the signs that it takes two... not one just dreaming like a dope. 

5. Make any excuse you can to talk about it. ..

actually.. this list is making me sick writing it. I'm going to assume you all are not idiots .. and know what I'm talking about. 

The bottom line... Grow a backbone and do something about your life and your fantasies.  Dream... really I encourage it.. it's the beauty of life.  Just know the difference between healthy and hopeless.  Note that it is hope-LESS... you gain nothing... infact.. just less of whatever it was you had before - including dignity for the really extreme cases.