I used to love like a man

About 10 years ago I was falling asleep to Bryan Adams ‘All for love’ and ‘Everything I do I do it for you’. On the other side of my double bed (fully clothed) was my mate and at the foot of my bed on a futon was my now husband and our other best mate. We had had a night of dressing up, drinking and dancing for my mother in law’s 50th. I think.

The songs playing was so very poignant to me at the time. You remember what it is like being a teenager who has just discovered her family of choice. It’s special. It’s adult. Thank heavens I chose well. All of those men are still in my life. All are as good, genuine and strong as they were then. I was as strong as they were then. Not physically, of course (two of them are over 6 feet) but I was as uncompromising, as full-on, and stuck to my guns just as well as they did. If not better. I was seen, excluding the tits, as one of the guys.

Things change. We change. I changed. Where I fit in changed. I am no longer one of the guys. I haven’t been for 5 years. Not since I became a girlfriend.

In retrospect more changed when I became a girlfriend than just the status of my relationship with some close male friends. It was the beginning of the taming of the shrew. I began keeping house, learned to bake, channeled my inner Stepford wife, began to compromise. The way I made decisions changed. The way I loved changed.

As one of the guys my love was direct, action orientated and on my terms. It was almost as though it could be turned on and off. But when it was on intense was the only way to describe it. As Bryan Adams puts it “I’d fight for you, I’d lie for you, walk the wire for you, yeah I’d die for you.”

These days I love like a woman. Feminine love is different. Yes we may take actions out of love and offer umpteen gifts of service, but it is in the spirit of constant love, acceptance and support. It is a borderline compulsion. Where the hell is the off switch? I am yet to find one. Feminine love packs lunches and changes nappies. A woman’s love can be wild and fierce, but in my experience feminine love sounds less like a power ballad and more like a lullaby. Sung quietly in the dead of the night.

Love is…

I was married this past weekend. Did you see my vows? It tells you something about the sensitivity of my husband or perhaps his skills as an orator to say that his vows barely left a dry eye in the house while mine got our teary guests laughing (not only because I had no voice and sounded like a B-grade sex line).

Now I have never believed that love was blind, but my fortnight of hell – the two weeks leading up to the wedding – and the 3 days since has clearly shown me something all together different. Love is stupid.

Love is stupid AND blind. Love is actually borderline insane. Love cannot read the writing on the wall. Even if it wanted to.

Before the wedding my body began a revolt. I got a cold. The glands in my throat began to swell, swallowing became difficult. In the final days when I should have been organizing final details (like my now non-existent guest book) I was curled up in bed trying to convince a snotty toddler than ‘Mummy sleeping’ was a fun game. I trod on a rusty thumbtack. I pulled a chunk of glass from that same foot a few days later. My chin broke out in pimples two days before the wedding and the day before the nuptials, the day my guests arrived, I began to lose my voice.

In addition to this, the recent flooding in Victoria washed away the only thing I had my heart set on – purple hydrangeas. So the décor was changed from mauve to neutral to cover all possibilities. Fantastic thinking too, because we ended up with green flowers. Yes, Green! They looked fantastic though. Bless our outstanding florist. My parents had their breaks fail on the way to the wedding. No I am not kidding. Oh, and the power went off 30 minutes before I was to walk down the aisle – while I was in the middle of getting my hair done. So my hair was finished off in my parents’ converted bus (it was stationary by now, don’t worry). One of our musicians (a dear friend) dislocated his shoulder. Lucky for us he was staunch enough to drive to the mountains and play guitar all with a shoulder that should have been in a sling!

My point? Yes I do have one – other than to whine about all of the tiny things that drove me insane – is this; if so many things were to go wrong in the lead up to any other event I would have reconsidered. I would have pondered the possibility that the universe/god/whoever was trying to tell me something. I would have read the writing on the wall.

But alas, love is blind and stupid. Instead I had a wonderful wedding. And that night suffered from a gastro bug and since then my cold has only gotten worse, my voice hasn’t returned and I have developed a rash, all over my body. In short – I am allergic to marriage.

If love hadn’t blinded me and robbed me of my intelligence, I would read the writing on the wall.

Happily married

This is effectively my out of office reply. I am currently up the mountains with family and friends and my very very new husband (formerly my old boyfriend and fiance).

I have a habit of running my mouth off drunk. If you have ever had a drunken conversation with me you will know things you wish you didn’t know that you didn’t want to know. (There is a reason I don’t drink often at all.) But there is a time when a propensity to share intimate details with a wordy flair is a good thing – if you happen to be writing your own wedding ceremony.

So without further ado, below are the vows I vowed to my new husband, not 48 hours ago.

In writing my vows, words failed me. How can I express in words a love that continues to grow exponentially? Numbers have even become redundant descriptors – I think we last settled on “I love you infinity*centillion*brazillion factorial”.

How can I express the love I feel at the simple touch of your hand? The acceptance that radiates from your smile? How can I show that each step I take is sured by the foundation of your faith in me. With your support we turn my weaknesses into strengths and with you at my side I set my sights on climbing mountains without doubt or hesitation.

I love you because you are:

• So strong that you hold me together when I am falling apart

• So soft that I fear not when I need a soft place to fall

• So wise that you teach me patience and persistence (and geography, Portuguese and all things geeky)

• So un-judging that I can tell you my deepest secrets and

• So honourable that I know my heart, and my secrets are safe with you

• So unflappable that I am free to be me; wild and gentle as the mood strikes

• So honest that I grow with the guidance of your constructive criticisms &

• So accepting that I am able to explore my depths knowing that you will love all manifestations of me.

Because I love you I promise to see only the highest in you and to honour the best in you by embodying the best of me. I promise to look to your divine heart and to appreciate your humanity, every day for the rest of my life. I will lovingly be your friend, companion, lover, partner, co-parent, yogini, nursemaid, student, teacher, therapist, editor, P.A, Shakti, partner in crime, coach and playmate.

Tying the knot…

When I agreed to finally end our 5 year engagement and tie the knot, I didn’t expect to have any knots in my stomach. And I don’t. Marriage has been inconsequential in my relationship from the very very early days when we both knew we would be together forever. Since we actually got together after a looong and very fucked up (excuse the French, but no-body could think of a more appropriate term) courtship, nobody has questioned our commitment to each other.

I am looking forward to our wedding weekend. 2 sleeps until we leave for our venue in the mountains and 3 until I am a married woman. Or so my bridesmaids and excited guests keep telling me on Facebook, blogs, SMS and phone calls. I am excited, though not for the reasons they expect. I am nervous, too. But I am not nervous about the declaration of my love for a wonderful man – I am worried that my brownies will not live up to their awesome reputation. Honestly. I am considering making another batch.

A dear friend blogged today about her nervousness regarding my nuptials. I get nervous, only because everybody else is. I am afraid I am missing something. What have I forgotten? Will I get to the top of the stairs and the beginning of the aisle and have the gravity of my marriage hit me like a ton of bricks? Should I be freaking out now, so I don’t later on? I am unworried about my vows. I wrote them in one sitting, with very few revisions. I have known what I wanted to say for the past 5 years. I say these words to my future husband regularly. I tell him what he means to me, beyond the ‘I love you’ so often that we need to find new challenges in our relationship because we are so confident in our union.

Weddings are important. I realise this now, I didn’t when I had panic attacks about guest lists shortly after becoming engaged. I didn’t when 6 months ago I picked this coming weekend –  the weekend of the 5 year anniversary of our relationship – as our wedding day. Weddings are important because they are about love. They are about a couple so in love that their love has overflown their hearts and they want to share it with their friends and family.

Sitting here in my state of relative calm, a secret smile graces my lips. I may the picture of tranquility, but I am sick. I was struck last night with a throat infection. And twice in the past week I have extracted objects from my foot. I am not nervous, but perhaps my body has different ideas.

Landslide…

If you are anything like me when the going gets tough you get tea, ice cream and your favourite song. This song has soothed my frayed nerves as I approached and crossed the boundaries of my comfort zone again and again. So it is no shock to me that I crave it now (along with Magnums and sweet tea) as I am super-fast approaching my nuptials.

The power of lyrics has always moved me. Great lyrics move me as much as Shakespeare and Eliot. The readings at our upcoming wedding are lyrics and my favourite poem by Donne and choosing songs for the ceremony took far more deliberation than my outfit. Such is the importance I place on heartfelt lyrics. I have no idea what inspired Stevie to write Landslide, but I have interpreted it to relate to parenthood, partnership, womanhood, teenage fears, friendship over the course of my love affair with it. Like a pair of comfy jeans or an old friend, it comforts me because we have known each other for the longest time. (I am certain my mother listened to this song when I was in the womb.)

This song, to me, speaks to love. Real love. Deep love. The deepest love. The kind that scares you to your very core. The kind of love that makes you not want to move a muscle in-case you break the spell. The kind of love that threatens to paralyse you. It talks about the complications that love can pose and the difficulties you are bound to face together. It talks about how we define ourselves by who loves us, and how well we love them back. Of the landslide of emotion that threatens to overwhelms us, that we pray we can withstand.

I hope you like it half as much as I do. Landslide, Stevie Nicks.

I took my love and I took it down

I climbed a mountain and I turned around

And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills

Well the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky what is love

Can the child within my heart rise above

Can I sail through the changing ocean tides

Can I handle the seasons of my life

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing ’cause I built my life around you

But time makes you bolder, Children get older

I’m getting older too

Well, I’ve been afraid of changing ’cause I built my life around you

But time makes you bolder, Children get older

I’m getting older, too. Well I’m getting older too

So, take this love and take it down

Year and if you climb a mountain and ya turn around

And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills

Well the landslide brought me down

And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills

Well maybe, Well maybe

Maybe the landslide will bring you down

Lets talk about…Housework

Ironic that of all the unspoken ‘women’s business’ to discuss I begin with one of the backbones of the Feminine  Mystique. I can see the eyes roll – she thinks housework is more important to discuss than maternity leave?!? You may think that housework is not a real issue for women these days.  Well, the research says otherwise. Somehow housework as made it onto the list of things that aren’t discussed and our relationship to our domestic chores have gone largely unexamined.

Did you know that in a recent study women responded that 24% of all arguments with their live-in significant other are about housework? Did you know that multiple studies have shown that the level of love, affection and equitable division of household chores is the single best indicator of whether a committed woman will feel satisfied in her relationship?* And after 7 years of marriage those couples with high levels of egalitarianism also had high levels of sexual desire.**

So whilst housework itself might not be important, happy relationships and sexual fulfillment are. As corny as it sounds every new mother knows the easiest way into her pants is by doing the dishes and every smart man knows he has far more chance of a happy woman when he isn’t leaving his shit around and not lifting a finger to help. I am not saying that household chores need to be divided down the middle. I know a lot of households where that simply wouldn’t work. I also know a few women who, by choice or necessity, have help around the house. Ironically, justifying and accepting domestic help was difficult for these women (and not their partner’s).

I know the state of my house, be that immaculate or not, has a direct effect on how I feel about myself as a woman. Crazy I know, but it’s true. I will actually race around and tidy the baby’s toys when I get the call that surprise company will be arriving in 10 minutes, as opposed to putting on makeup. That doesn’t sound right to me, but I just can’t help it. I feel more affection for my partner when he is tidying the kitchen or ironing (and that isn’t just because I ruin everything I iron).

I am not advocating any particular arrangement or judging how anybody keeps their house in order (or not). I just think it is about time that we put housework back on the agenda. So, what is your domestic experience? How have you tackled housework in your life? Do your domestic duties hold you back? Do you feel judged by the state of your house? Are you happily house-proud? Do you judge your girlfriends by how tidy their place is when you drop over? I would love to hear your thoughts.

* ** Sexual Satisfaction in Committed Relationships

The laundry list of unspoken topics

By nature these experiences fly in the face of the accepted bounds of womanhood. They aren’t expected of the innocent maiden, the loving wife or the nurturing mother. And let’s face it, society at large still has some difficulty dealing with femininity outside of those roles. These experiences have often been ascribed to the ‘undesirable’ facets of womanhood; the unmarried, the lecherous, the wild and the mysteries of our reproductive organs. In reality making these experiences taboo or unspoken is destructive, riddling our female psyche with guilt, shame, inadequacy and fear.

So in the interest of catharsis, inspired by a few honest and relieving conversations recently with my girlfriends, here are some experiences I think belong in a guide-book for women;

1. Foreplay isn’t optional.
2. Masturbation isn’t wrong. Getting to know what feels good is incredibly important.
3. Using a vibrator too often can actually desensitise you to orgasm with a real penis.
4. Watching porn isn’t just for guys. Well maybe porn is, erotica isn’t.
5. Despite the foreplay and knowing what feels good, sometimes your juices simply wont flow. And that’s ok.
6. You may hate your period, but trust me you will miss it when it is gone.
7. Breasts can leak. And not only when you are pregnant or breastfeeding.
8. Rape is never, ever your fault.
9. Your body and emotions are intricately linked. Emotions (and the hormones they release) change your skin, hair, breasts, vagina and more.
10. Many women get very amorous during their period.
11. Just because you are in a relationship doesn’t mean you aren’t attracted to people other than your partner.
12. As wild as your youth is, you probably wont regret it as you get older.
13. Women have a ‘hens’ or ‘bachelotette’ party for a reason; it is scary to think of farewelling your singledom and loving only one person forever more.
14. It takes work to keep the fire alive in a long-term relationship.
15. Labour can be a sensual experience, some woman reach orgasm giving birth.
16. Labour involves blood, a number of people looking closely at and physically inspecting your vagina.
17. Motherhood doesn’t automatically bestow infinite patience.
18. Bonding isn’t instant. It is a process. Postnatal depression isn’t a choice or your fault.
19. Breastfeeding isn’t always easy and bottle-feeding isn’t wrong.
20. Breastfeeding in public is simply feeding a child. Nothing more, nothing less.
21. Sometime mothers resent, dislike and tire of their children.
22. Sometimes mothers love one child more than the other/s.
23. It isn’t easy to consistently put the needs of a child before your own. At times it is soul crushing and gut wrenching.
24. Peri-menopause typically lasts 7 to 10 years. So can post-menopause. It can be a 15 year ride ladies!
25. Menopause is supposedly the single day where you haven’t had a period of 12 months.  Sometimes your cycle will resume even after a break of more than a year.
26. Menopause can actually cause ‘shrinkage’ of the vulvar and vagina, which can lead to painful sex.
27. The first thing the Dr will ask you when you go to see them about menopause is “tell me about your mother’s experience…” So… go talk to your Mum!
28. After Menopause your vagina is considered a ‘use it or lose it’ situation. Sex increases blood flow to the area and keeps your vagina healthy, and boots your immune system.

So what have I forgotten? What do you wish was talked about before you discovered it the hard way?? I would love to hear your experience.

Three Reluctant Cinderellas

I grew up very cynical about love, and men in general I guess. Marriage to me was an outdated institution that held no real meaning or value any more (I mean women can own property now and all). Most people exchange their ‘I do’s’ oblivious to the irony that family or familia originally meant ‘the totality of slaves belonging to any one man’. Without dredging up the old revolutionary rhetoric of my youth it suffices to say that a marriage certificate was never on my to do list.

It seems that about 6 months ago the world turned on it’s axis. And pigs flew. And hell froze over. Cupid took control and wreaked his special kind of havoc in our lives. Not just mine, but the lives of my best friends as well. Under cupid’s rule we were thrust into the center of a delicious kind of chaos that we each dreaded and relish at the same time; Love. Romantic love.

None of us are particularly sappy women. I would happily walk through the valley of death with these two women because I am confident that the three of us would be the baddest crew in the valley. None of us are untouched by tragedy or sacrifice. We don’t play the fool, the damsel or the victim and none of us ever believed the hallmark ideal or in happy endings. But it seems as though we will play Cinderella despite ourselves.

Six months ago I set a wedding date. No need for congratulations, I had already been engaged for over 3 years at that point, I just finally bit the bullet and decided to go through with it. Around the same time one of my best friends walked away from an AMAZING career and chose another path, which has led her though a whirlwind romance with a wonderful man. I mean she has been hired twice, sight unseen, on the strength of her resumé alone and yet has flourished despite her career being demoted in her list of priorities. And just last week my other BFF replaced her 10 year title as ‘Girlfriend’ with the shiny new one ‘Fiance’ despite never expecting to marry her wonderful beau.

I don’t know where cupid is going with all this, and I can’t speak for the others, but I hope that I manage to make my wedding something meaningful to me. Something that reflects my relationship with myself and my partner. I won’t be saying ‘I do’ but instead agreeing to kick his sorry ass when he needs a reality check and promising not to walk away when our ugliness comes out, which it inevitably will in a long-term relationship. I hope in those few minutes before we walk down the aisle (my friends are also bridesmaids, of course) that I don’t feel alien in my Ivory dress and my Cinderella moment, but instead feel the dawning of a new age; where fulfilled women choose evolved relationships with worthy men.

Bleeding Heart

I have been called a soft touch more than once. I cannot bear to see harrowed anguish on somebody face, let alone hear it in their voice or cry. Watching someone bleed or writhe in pain draws a physical reaction from me. I cannot help but do something, even if that something is pray.

I have always been this way. I was the toddler who soothed other children at the park, took pity on and played with vagabonds on city benches and who always shared. To this day if I am asked for small change on the street you get no judgement from me but you do get whatever coins I am carrying. I am no fool, but feel that pain, shame and despair should be alleviated if at all possible.

As such motherhood hasn’t been an easy road to walk for me. I am not sure it is for anybody. If compassion isn’t your strong suit, then parenthood will definitely change that. Not a parent? I have heard parenthood described as having your heart outside your body walking around under it’s own steam. From experience its and accurate description. It is as though they are still wired into your nervous system and you actually feel the child’s pain.

Knowing there is nothing you can do, or being intellectually aware that what you are doing is in the child’s best interest, doesn’t make it any easier to hear them crying or calling your name. Yes baby, Mummy is aware it upsets you. And for the record it does make my heart bleed every time you cry. I only hope you feel my love and forgive me one day. Now cuddle teddy and go to sleep.

No right answer

Life isn’t all rosy. I have front row seats at the moment to some awful melodramas playing out in the lives of my loved ones. Sometimes life is hard. The choices we are forced to make are harder;

How far are you willing to go for family?

How many times can you turn the other cheek?

How long can you keep your head buried in the sand before you are ready to face the fire that is coming close to burning your arse?

When is it advisable to run? How long do you stay away?

How much are you willing to change and sacrifice for love?

When is letting the other go a better option?

When do we decide to stop being victims of our parents and take responsibility for our lives?

How to react when someone changes the rules of the game?

How do you plan when you are on borrowed time?

How do you balance the needs of the other with your own?

How far would you go to protect a loved one?

The more I watch the lives around me the clearer it becomes that no-one has the answer. Everybody’s advice sucks, especially mine. We cannot know how it feels to talk in the shoes of another and we don’t want to know the deepest secrets of their heart. We may not always understand why people do what they do, but that isn’t our role. We are not here to judge, to assess, to evaluate, to blame, to make someone right or wrong. Our concern is to do what we must, as they do what they must. No more and no less. It gets muddy and confused and the lines blur. Nothing much we can do about that. No two will ever see eye to eye, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t in this together. Life doesn’t discriminate.

What I know for sure is that there is no right answer. There is just the choice you make at the time.

Powerful honesty

I have this friend. I have known her a long time. Nearly half my life. She has this thing; she is blatantly honest.

I wonder if you think that is a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ thing? From experience I think it’s a good thing, if you can take it. The older I get, and the longer we are friends, the more I rely on her honest opinion.

She is prepared to disagree, politely of course, on anything of importance. Openly and tactfully laying her cards on the table when something is awry. More than once I credit this with saving our friendship from crashing into the rocky shore of our opposing political views, divergent lifestyles and different views on life and the world. More than once her honesty has also rescued me from swirling confusion and dominoes of bad decisions.

Although her honesty is a blessing, it is sometimes a difficult pill to swallow. Not because of what she has to say, but because our pride, inadequacies and fears make honesty confronting some times. Herein lies the second layer of blessing; her honesty makes me a better person. A more aware, more compassionate, stronger person.

If only more people were courageous enough to be powerfully honest.

The damsel’s lesson

I am the first to criticize the ridiculous  Hollywood view of romance and love. It is out of control and totally unrealistic. The idea that a woman needs a man to rescue her from a ‘loveless’ existence is insulting and dare I say it well-meaning.

Stories are powerful. Very powerful. And there is a reason we are re-telling the same stories now that were told hundreds of years ago.

Oral history was once the way we learned of the world. Parables and allegories have been guiding us since our childhood. Since humanities childhood. Some stories are so powerful that almost every culture has a variation of the same theme. Stories and the players in these stories are so ancient, so integral to our lives, that they have become archetypes that we unconsciously breathe life into every day.

The nursery rhymes of today were warnings of yester-year. The  fairy tales of our childhood once taught what it meant to be a man and a woman. The stories of the Princess marrying the Knight that rescued her have some merit. Hold on. Before you take off my head with one bite, let me remind you that I am a (albeit failed) feminist at heart. There are literally hundreds of versions of this story, but they all boil down to this; his ability to remain unfaltering in the face of obstacles freed her, and in return her love sets him free. That sounds rather equal and honouring to me.

The age old drama doesn’t sound quite so ridiculous any more does it? It sounds almost evolved to me…

Lets look closer. The man of the story invariably demonstrates equanimity. THE most attractive quality in a man. You may say you look for a man who can make you laugh, or someone who is honest with you, and maybe you are right. But I say you would pick the man who holds the ground solid beneath your feet so you can dance to the beat of your own drum over a goofball or the guy who tells you your bum really does look big in those pants, any day of the week. I know I did. Not sure? Check out this song and tell me if you would not be drawn in by this level of dedication.

The man in this story is tested and is proved to be worthy. He has demonstrated, beyond the shadow of a doubt that he honours the lady, by setting about the quest. He has proven to be strong and grounded by achieving the quest and he didn’t have time to visit the whorehouse when he was slaying dragons or vanquishing the witches, so it’s a safe bet that he is a one woman kinda guy.

As for the woman she is essentially feminine. No by that I don’t mean weak, or feeble or a victim. I mean that she is magnetic. The rescuer is drawn to her, not for her achievements or actions, but for who she is. She is allowing and gracious and loving. Her heart is the rescuers prize and her love soothes the battle weary warrior.

The story of the damsel in distress is important and powerful. It is a way our fore-mothers reach out to us instructing us to shine our true self forth and to test the men who are drawn to it. And their advice is when we do find a partner who is as strong as we want to be free, that we love him with all we have.

So, Hollywood may bastardise it and hide its worth beneath makeup, special effects and poor story lines, but we continue to be transfixed because the integrity of the tale remains.