Cooking Together (One)

One:

(This is the first part of a series that I will be doing. There will be about 34 or more posts, and they all have one thing in common. Each one will be labeled by its number. So here is number one!)

During my time at the Ann Arbor YMCA, I spent many hours alone with my co-worker Dana. Many times we would discuss private things, or she would give me advice on what to do over the summer, on family situations and often times put in her own two sense about dumb boys.

I love working with Dana, and many times I would hear stories about her and her husband how great their relationship actually is, or something stupid that they ended up doing together. One of the weeks we were talking about some of the dysfunction in my family I’m not going to go into many details but an example was how arguments are started because one parent thought the other parent was going to make dinner.

“Many times Tim and I make dinner together,” Dana said to me as she was grabbing a mat and pulling it into the closet.

“Really?” I asked. I was kind of shocked, making dinner together with whoever my husband will be one day, was always something I thought I wanted, but the reality was that I might not be able to have. “I mean, aren’t your schedules messed up so that it’s barely possible?”

“No, not really. I mean, there are nights when he would come home late and I would have already made dinner for him, or vise versa. It’s what I would expect if I came home later than planned. However, if we are home together, we typically make dinner, together at least once a week.”

I couldn’t help but think back to my parents. Their relationship is fine, don’t get me wrong, but when I think about their marriage, I want one that is a thousand times better than theirs. I see their flaws, I see the gossiping behind each other’s backs and I don’t want that. I want to love my husband and if there is something wrong, I want to confront him about it in a calm manor, and discuss why I would feel the way I do. I want to be able to talk to him while we are cooking dinner, and sit down at a table to eat. Marriage takes work and work is something my parents never seem to have time for.

When it comes to my parents relationship, my Dad always says that my Mom plans and doesn’t tell anyone of the plans, which is true. My Mom says that my Dad doesn’t ask what the plan is, and often appears to have no initiative or drive to find out what the plan for the day actually is, which is also true. However, Dad argues that he shouldn’t have to ask; she should just tell him before she leaves for work. In reality, the two never really talk about the day that is ahead of them when they wake up. That would mean that dinner would never be discussed, the car arrangements for kids and doctor appointments were never discussed, nobody’s chores, nobody’s plans. So what was discussed?

I nodded my head at Dana would couldn’t really see me, “I think that is something I want in my marriage. He doesn’t have to like to cook, he doesn’t have to be great at it, but as long as he would stand beside me and help me, or cut up some vegetables, I think I would be happy. I just want to spend that time with him you know?“

Dana agreed, “Yeah, it’s better time spent than watching T.V. together. I think cooking with your spouse when you can is very important.”

I nodded once again, “it opens up communication, forces you to talk or if you’re not talking, you are at least enjoying each other’s company while doing something together.”

Dana once again agreed, and we continued to talk as we cleaned up the gym and rolled the floors. As we were talking, I kept in mind that I still had to re-write my standards for dating  - that was one of my summer goals – and I kept cooking (at least together) in mind.

Dana’s relationship with her husband seemed so carefree and quirky, but laid back and fun all at the same time. They obviously loved each other, and if I were to get married at the age of 22-24, I think I would want something like what they have. Including the cooking together.

Forgiveness

I was in the car with my best friend yesterday. We had not seen each other in a couple of weeks, so we were informing each other on our lives. As my throat was getting more and more sore, she was telling me about her reading that she has been doing. It was a book that was helping her heal, and she suggested it to me. She mentioned that she was in a  part of it that was talking about forgiveness, and in the back of my mind I thought I had forgiven Tyler… but I still wondered, had I?

This idea of forgiveness can be over looked. We think that just because we moved on from the situation, that we have forgiven those who have hurt us. Just because the situation is over, we have forgiven those who have knowingly or unknowingly wronged us, but that doesn't mean that we have.

Now I would like to fool myself and think that I am completely healed of everything Tyler did to me and forgiven him and the girl that he is now with, but the truth is that the guilt is still there, and the hurt is still there. And to be completely honest even if I liked a guy and I was good friends with this guy, a million (false) red flags would go up in my mind at the mere mention of a relationship.

The fact that I am scared of trusting any man is now my issue. The same guy that I loved so much, had once cheated on me physically, begged for me back, broke my heart in the process of physically cheating (and telling me at my senior homecoming, while I had brought someone else as a date - long story). He broke my heart again in a break up, then tried for a third time when he mentioned that he was thinking about breaking up while I was in college, just before Thanksgiving. Finally after emotionally cheating on me and days of fighting and begging he broke my heart for the fourth and final time.

A similar thing happened to the friend I was with. She had been dating a guy, and she thought she loved him, but there were times he had violated her. There were times when he got so mad that he scared her a little bit, and that worried her, and to finally top it off there was a girl that he was spending a lot of time with and talking to most of the time spent, was with girl A, that's what we will call her. Little did my friend (and girl A) know, that there was a girl B, that he was still talking to.  In the end my friend and him, broke up. Not too long after, that's when he started going out with girl A.

Fast forward almost three years later, and my friend and I were just talking in the car. She was telling me about her summer activities when she said, "Did I tell you girl A texted me?" I'll admit, I sort of freaked out and said no. She had me read the text.

As I was reading the text from girl A, she was apologizing up and down and asking for forgiveness from my friend. Once she asked for forgiveness for being so naive and putting my friend through that kind of hurt, she started to tell her own story. Girl B had come into the picture and was talking with him  on a consistent basis. Girl A ended up breaking it off because of Girl B, and so the cycle continued. This boy had emotionally cheated on two girls, and they both ended the same way, with broken hearts. Right before she ended the text she said that my friend didn't have to respond, but she hopes that she will forgive Girl A because she now understands how my friend must have felt.

My friend had responded to the text, saying that she had been reading a section on forgiveness and that she would love to meet up with Girl A at some point. At reading this, it shocked me how quickly the forgiveness took place. That's when I realized, I had to forgive Tyler and Makinzie.

Over the months of our break-up I had realized that it was never supposed to work out. It was the Romeo and Juliet of our time, two people with two different religions who desperately wanted to make it work, but knew it never would. He made the decision to hurt both of us so that one day we could be happy. I thought that I had forgiven him for it… I thought I had forgiven her for being so willing to take him after what he had done to me, so many times, but the thing was that I hadn't.

I still cringed at the sight of a photo of them together, I still thought negative thoughts about her, her religion and her relationship with him. I came up with ideas of what they must do when they are alone to make myself feel better. However, the simple fact was that they probably were happy together. They are probably a better couple than Tyler and I ever were and probably ever would have been, just because they share the same beliefs. The last thing that hit me was I was probably in the way too. At the end of our relationship, they were talking and honestly she could be the one for him, but I was in the way. Just like Tyler was in the way for me, but he made that important decision to get out of the way so that I could find someone more suited for me, and he could find someone (like Makinzie) more suited for him.

The difference between my relationship with Tyler and my friend's relationship, is that her ex-boyfriend, continued the cycle with Girl A and then Girl B. Through this though, there was forgiveness and healing. I desperately hope that Tyler does not do the same things to Makinzie that he did to me, and I honestly hope that she is the one for him, because she seems like a really sweet girl. Now through the process of hoping for their relationship to prosper, I am finding forgiveness and healing as well.

Soon I'm going to be starting a series of blogs posts, and they are going to be numbered. There is going to be about 34 or more of them. So keep your eyes out! God is doing great things in my life and the lives of people around me.

Until Next Time!
-Becca

Our Warning Signs

A couple of days ago I met up with an old friend. Now this friend is someone that I have known since birth. She grew up my best friend, is my cousin and someone I never fought with. We grew up telling each other family secrets, pinky swearing the darkest of stories and promises to secrecy. This was the girl that would beat out all the other girls and become my maid of honor when I would eventually start to plan my wedding.

However, after eighteen and a half years of no fighting and telling each other everything there was an instance of miscommunication and it all went downhill from there.

Thus started six months of silence.

After the words that she had said to me, and the words she thought had come out of my mouth, our friendship seemed over. It seemed hopeless, and not something that could ever be fixed. Could 18 years of friendship really be damaged within one instance of miscommunication?

Yes.

Could it be destroyed forever?

I don’t believe so…

Will it ever be the same as it was before?

I don’t think so either…

But as we sat down at Panera - she was fifteen minutes late and I thought she was going to stand me up – I really didn’t know what to say to her. What do you say to someone who ignored you for now ten months, never told you why she was silent? When you do finally talk to her, she says some things that seriously hurt you, and two months later, out of no where she texts you saying, “My brother said that we should be friends again…”

I really didn’t know what she wanted me to say, but she broke the ice quickly because the first thing she said to me was, “funny story…” and to no surprise a funny story followed.

We laughed, and we talked. We shared countless stories our year away at school and the experiences that followed. After about two hours into it, we were both telling the stories about our failed relationships. Apparently, she had the same warning signs I did too.

We both had people who were close to us telling us that we deserved better than the guys that we were dating. As we were sharing this with each other, we both agreed that while we were in the relationship, we thought that we were happy. My defense was, “he may bug me sometimes when I’m trying to talk to him and he ignores my calls or texts for hours on end, but when I’m happy I am with him!” 

I even had a therapist let me talk to her one time over a dinner table. I told her our story and I said, “well in his defense…” she looked at me and asked, “Do you feel like you are defending him a lot?” I nodded and she just told me, “That’s a warning sign. Just something to watch out for…” At that point I did pay attention to how many times I had to defend him after that, but shortly after the conversation occurred, our relationship had started to fall apart anyway.

Stephanie nodded and shook her head as I told her what had happened between Tyler and I and all those conversations that Sophia started off with the familiar phrase, “Becca, I see how miserable you are. You deserve better, a man that will lead you and not constantly disappoint you. Someone who will take you to church, and study the word with you.”

I knew as Sophia was saying it that she was right I knew that Tyler was not at all what I wanted in a husband (at least as my spiritual leader and guide). I knew that if he put in the effort, he could be, but he was never willing to put in the effort. My reasoning for staying was because I just knew what would happen if I broke off the relationship, I would be just as hurt as he would, and I didn’t want to go back to that place. Again Stephanie was in agreement as I was telling her all these things that everyone else was telling me about our relationship.

“But you don’t see it because you are so in love! You’re right in the middle of it! Even when you are out of the honey moon stage, you still don’t see it because you love that person so much!” She practically screamed in agreement, and for the first time in months I just looked across the table. We were laughing and talking as if nothing had changed, we were nodding at the fact that we should have listened to other people when they told us our relationship was not good for us.

I told my story of how he broke up with me; this time over FaceTime, but I won the breakup fight. She told hers and how he broke up with her using a note, but she won the breakup fight as well. I looked at my strawberry smoothie on the table, remembering back to eighth grade when she told me to set my standards and set them high. “After the break up though and a couple months after, when I started to heal, I took the time to re-set all my standards for dating…”

She took a bite of her bagel and went into a story about how a guy she was talking to, treated her so well and now every guy has to live up to that expectation of him. So to set it all straight I started to categorize the things we had in common, we both dated non-Christians, we had people tell us that something in the relationship was off, we had warning signs from the guys themselves as well. Neither of us listened to anyone else, even though they were right (and they are always right), we both got broken up with but won that fight and neither of us handled the break up very well, but when it was all said and done we were okay. We healed, moved on and in the end set our standards high for the next guy we date.

It seemed that even though we were not talking for those many months, we were living similar lives during our time apart.

After three hours, we said goodbye to each other and went our separate ways. We knew that everything felt the same, but we didn't know if it would ever be the same thing it was before, and maybe that was okay.  We also silently agreed that whatever happened between us ten months ago, was never to be brought up again.

Saturday then rolled around the corner, as her mothers fiftieth surprise birthday party came around. I was used to the silent treatment at that point, so I didn’t expect much, it felt like things had gone back to what they were before lunch on Wednesday. As Aunt Pam walked in and saw the crowd of people, I hear an “oh my…” she then went around and started hugging a ton of people I had never met. I got up and walked up to my mother, passing Stephanie, and I smile knowing that she had to leave soon so I wasn’t going to bother her much. I stayed silent until she looked at me and said, “hey…”

I smiled as though the last ten months never happened, “hey…” 

*Special Thanks*
-Sophia: For being right the whole time. Concerned the whole time, but never pushing the issue too far.
-Gretchen: For telling me that defending him a lot was something to watch out for.
-Chloe: For being there after the break up
-Luke: For texting Stephanie and fixing our friendship
-Stephanie: For being one of my best friends all these years and inspiring the story. :)
-The Jerks We Dated: For helping us realize we deserved better, and that we needed to set our standards way beyond anything the two of you could ever reach. 

Thoughts On Modesty

Every Sunday, especially around the junior high and young high school years, Mom would look at me and either gives an approving smile, or a grimace that always made my heart sink. Even though (at the time) I didn’t respect her very much, I still wanted to know that if I bent down a guy truly could not see up my skirt or dress. Mom would tell me that anything above my ankles was too revealing, but other than Maxi dresses (which are just now coming back into style) there were not very many fashion forward dresses.

           

As senior year came around I had started realizing that dresses even though they are long in the front, does not mean that they were made to be the same length all the way around. Although they were supposed to be made that way, they were not. So I started finding dresses that were long enough for both my mothers taste and mine.

As senior year progressed, the newest fashion statement was not wearing dresses; it was wearing yoga pants, and leggings as pants. Neither of which I would ever want to be seen wearing in public. Under normal circumstances, I would typically not wear any type of yoga pant I would wear it to bed or to the gym, but nowhere else. Which brings me to my latest life story:

           

The summer has already been… exhausting. Not only have I started a new job at Plato’s Closet, but also I am still working through the Ann Arbor YMCA up at Adams Elementary School, teaching children gymnastics. It was not so bad for the first couple of weeks, until my boss at Plato’s started scheduling me on the same days that I work up in Ypsilanti. This has required late nights, very early mornings, and learning how to drive with one hand and eat with another, although while doing that, you learn some tricks.

Today was one of those days, I wore something decent to work and as soon as 2:50 hit, I was clocking out and ready to scram for my car. I got to my car by 2:55 and was at the nearest fast food restaurant within the following five minutes. I hurried up and got some gas and was on the road.

Once I got there and set up the gym with Dana, I changed into my yoga pants and my newest YMCA t-shirt, which I didn’t realize, but it was extremely big. I actually ended up having a lot of fun with the classes, and the kids were catching on really fast. The second class was my favorite, because they always help clean up afterwards. Soon enough I was back on the road.

After a couple of random things, like taking my car to the dealership to get it checked out, and stopping by Lola’s to get some frozen yogurt, my mom called telling me it was time for me to go pick her up at the church. I didn’t even think twice about my attire. I had come from work, I was exhausted, not feeling well, and was now being forced to drive a car that I hate. I figured that Mom would be sitting outside of the church reading or doing something; she did say “I’ve been ready for twenty minutes!” So I figured that I would just end up pulling up, switch seats with Mom and it would be okay.

Instead we get there, Mom is nowhere in site. I get out of the car; still not thinking about what I am wearing until I step through the doors of church, and look down at my shirt that is probably two sizes too big on me, and yoga pants that have been stretched out, and I think might have a hole in it. I see all the people there, I was sure that the church would have been barren by now, but I was wrong.

As soon as we were alone, I told my Mom that I was slightly concerned with showing up to church in yoga pants and a t-shirt. It is not the most modest outfit in the world, and I don’t want to give people the wrong impression. So she just looked at me and said, “you have had a long day, you just came from work, and before that, you came from work. If someone looks at you and judges you for wearing yoga pants and a t-shirt at church when you were there not even for five minutes, and you just came from working at a gymnastics center, then that is their problem not yours.”

That comment made me feel better, because she was right. However, that still made me think that as young women we should still present ourselves in the way that we want to be seen. My attire, to me, said exhausted and overworked. Whereas to a guy, it may say, “not modest” or “too revealing/too tight.” I’m not saying that those things are what they are thinking when they see a girl in yoga pants, but they may not get the picture that I work for the YMCA and coach gymnastics by just looking at a t-shirt and yoga pants.

With that being said, the way I dress does say a lot to others about who I may be, and how I may feel about myself. I was overworked and tired, you could see it in my clothing, my hair and make-up. If I were to dress very provocative, it does not mean that I am offering everything up to any guy that comes along, it may just mean that I was never really taught modesty. However, it may paint that picture to other people.

That was the thing that I never understood with my mom, I just wanted to wear the dress because it was cute, not because of how short it was. Now I understand this tiny little detail, that it does say something to others about who I am and my character. So I am just going to try to make it reflect myself more often, by sticking with my “no yoga pants to class” rule and by keeping to dressing modestly.

Yes, there will be days like today when someone will see me in my YMCA work attire wearing something that may not be “appropriate” for the setting, and that will happen. However, as long as I present myself the way I see myself and want others to see me as well. Most of the time, the small things (such as picking your mother up from church for five minutes) are not going to get in the way of that, and always remember, modest is hottest! (Literally… it gets kind of hot wearing cardigans to cover bra straps in the summer…)