choosing to love - CoupleDumb

mama love Ill choose love for 200, Alex Last week’s post on Thursday regarding relationships like corporations wasn’t very romantic. But let’s face it, society has built up love and couplings to be this biochemical explosion that can only be understood with a periodic table and a Bunsen burner. People talk about “having chemistry” with someone else as if that is the litmus test for all attraction. If they aren’t using scientific terms for pairing up with someone, then it becomes some magical mumbo jumbo of how a person saw fireworks or heard the perfect sonata when “the one” kissed them.

We’re here to say that is all wrong. We are here to tell you that these are some of the reasons the wrong people hook up and the right people break up. Things are all hunky dory in the land of perpetual sunsets when the endorphins are rushing and your pupils are dilated but when someone needs to take out the trash, the shit hits the fan!

Lee says: If you would have asked me what I thought of Paul the night I met him I would have told you he was a nice guy, too skinny and what the hell was he wearing. Paul was a quiet guy back then (oh, for the good old days). He was also in a relationship so off limits. I had no sparks, no music and I no chubby cherub had us in their cross hairs. I noticed him when we started talking. Not just small talk but the kind of conversation you dream about where the person you are conversing with can keep up with your stream of consciousness. I always tell people that, before he laid a finger on me, he had fucked my brain. He was intelligent and witty. He could keep up with me on any topic and for a smart girl that is a big deal (am I right ladies?).

So here we are 21 years later and I tell you he still has my brain and the rest of me as well. But what about those annoying things or what about when things aren’t the way I like it? This is where I employ the best device I have discovered in all our years together. I usually look at him and say to myself “I’m choosing to love you right now.” I know it’s corny but it works.

People do some stupid shit and sometimes we want them to do things that just don’t hold the importance to them as it does to us. Are they supposed to succumb to all our whims and become someone that they aren’t? In our fucked up magical love universe they should. Paul should have known that leaving dishes in the sink without at least rinsing them was an abomination to me. Paul should have known that I expected him to be as obsessive about personal hygiene as I am. Paul should have figured out by now that clothes don’t magically jump out of the dryer and end up in your drawers.

We didn’t fall in love with them because they would fold clothes or load a dishwasher. It wasn’t the synapses firing or the 1812 Overture. It wasn’t all the chocolate you ate which released all those yummy neurochemicals mixed with someone playing “Feelings” in the background. It was because at some point you looked at that person and said “I want to be with you.” You looked past all of their imperfections and stared into their heart and said “this one is for me.”

When the one you love fails to meet your expectations of how things should be done, take a second and choose to love them. When they don’t read your mind or share how they are feeling, take a minute and choose to love them. When you are washing and folding clothes a few times a week knowing that if you left it up to the apes that you happen to call your family they would all wear the same stinky clothes, you look at them and say “I am choosing to love you!” I wonder how many relationships would have survived if one the partners would have said that?

Paul says: I don’t know what she’s talking about, folks. I’m perfect and she has never needed to make a choice.

Lee responds: I’m choosing to love you right now!

sharebookmarx Ill choose love for 200, Alex

chic n cat Choose you into oblivion.

Finally it’s Friday! Thank God. Hey, maybe we’re on to something. FiFTG! Anyways, we hope you all have plans for the long weekend. We hope your plan includes some relaxation, pampering and fun. We have yet to plan anything. Jeannie has finals starting next week and we have a playroom that needs major organizing or maybe some bricks and mortar to seal it up. The choices for the weekend are as varied as the members of our family. But let’s face it, we have family that we disowned a long time ago.

Lee says: I have a rather large family. Before we left Los Angeles, a family function easily had over 50 people present. I was related to all of them. But for some reason that I could only describe as uncanny insight, I knew that I choose my own family. Granted, my parents and siblings I’m stuck with which is fine since we all get along well. Over the years we have all grown and learned to communicate in a healthy manner. My parents understand the concept of boundaries and express themselves emotionally which is such a blessing.

However, there are those members of the family that, try as I might, I just can’t swallow. Don’t like them. Can’t stand them. More precisely, I don’t feel safe with them. I can’t be me which is a problem since I worked so hard to finally be me, I’m really not willing to give that up for a moment for anyone.

I remember having this conversation at my brothers wedding with one of my cousins. I told her that as children we had no choice; we were stuck with each other. However, as adults, we can choose to be friends or not. Now, I would never deny a family member and if they needed help, I would help but not due to our familial link but because I’m nice like that. I choose to surround myself with people who love me the way I deserve to be loved. I don’t engage in abusive relationships because I don’t find them fun.

I have been very blessed with special friends. I have had people enter my life that I have chosen to be my family. These friends have shown me more unconditional love than people who may need me for a kidney at some point in time. Why is that? Why do we choose to be less courteous and accepting of people we are related to? I find that so baffling.

For me, I have some family members who I consider friends. I have friends who I consider my family. And I have people in my life that I tolerate and wait to see what I will be learning from them or what role they will ultimately play in the Lives and Times of Lee. This sounds a little Machiavellian but for me, it is how I have chosen to live my emotionally healthy life. I am love. I am acceptance. And I can choose you into oblivion if you fuck with me.

Paul says: And of the two of us, Lee is the nice one. Do you remember that old Twilight Zone episode where the little girl falls into the extra-dimensional space and is floating around in oblivion? The parents call Bill the physicist to help. Well, I’m Bill. Not only do I have the ability to cast you into oblivion, I have studied it, understanding the boundaries and implications of my choices. I’ve spent way too much time thinking about my extended family.

Recently, my uncle died. This was one of my family members that I truly loved and about 85% of all of my happy childhood memories have him in them. He had an ‘adopted’ daughter from his wife’s first marriage which, by default, makes her my cousin. When my uncle died, I briefly considered trying to develop a relationship with my cousin. I decided not to. The reason was simple. I asked myself, if she was not my relative, would I want to be friends? Let see – I have a bachelors in physics, an MBA and I write. She couldn’t quite finish her GED but looks much better with her new teeth. You can read this as arrogance or pragmatism. Either way, I do not see my cousin and me sipping Merlot and discussing Einstein’s influence on modern culture.

mama love I’ll Choose Love for a 200 Alex Last week’s post on Thursday regarding relationships like corporations wasn’t very romantic. But let’s face it, society has built up love and couplings to be this biochemical explosion that can only be understood with a periodic table and a Bunsen burner. People talk about “having chemistry” with someone else as if that is the litmus test for all attraction. If they aren’t using scientific terms for pairing up with someone, then it becomes some magical mumbo jumbo of how a person saw fireworks or heard the perfect sonata when “the one” kissed them.