Posted in February 2011 …

Feb 13 2011
2 Comments
Refining Fayza

Oh, stupid Cupid, you got me good.

I used to be the kind of girl that ran her life according to a predetermined set of instructions. And by “predetermined,” I mean, something I thought sounded good on Career Day in 1990, so I went with it.

This life plan that I concocted in 6th grade prompted me to go away to college, stick with my (useless, in hindsight) major of international relations (when journalism or interior design would’ve been a much better fit — again, in hindsight), move to California, go to law school, and become a woman that lived life sitting atop the bull, jabbing it with her heel when it didn’t move fast enough.

Never in that equation did I ever plan to become a wife or a mother. In fact, it never crossed my mind to fall in love at all. Why? For what? With what time? I had SO MUCH TO ACCOMPLISH. And women like me — inconsistent, impulsive, highly opinionated, unyielding, fickle women like me — don’t have serious relationships. “It’ll just hold me back,” I convinced myself. “I’m selfish, I’ve got my own agenda, I’m an independent woman.”

Oh sure, I had relationships. If that’s what you’d call a few months of childish games. I’ll make it brief: They all failed. Miserably. Fiery vehicles squarely hitting a concrete wall and then bursting into flames have nothing on my past paramours. Sure, I cried, because of course, it sucked to get my hopes up. But if I’d ever truly believed I was meant to be someone’s girlfriend, it would’ve hurt a lot worse.

But we know what happens to the best laid plans, don’t we?

So when I met Him, I was already with someone else (albeit an ill-suited situation that was about to get worse after I caught him cheating). I’ve never been one to look around while I’m in a relationship, as pathetic as the circumstances might be.

But I couldn’t deny it. As soon as we were introduced, I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.

My whole life, I had convinced myself that I wasn’t meant to be in love. But that day, I realized how wrong I had been. I was meant to be in love. With Him.

I spent a month or so trying to patch my deceit-ravaged relationship, although I didn’t quite know why. It wasn’t going to work, for many reasons, and we both knew that. But I told myself that I didn’t need it, or deserve it, that love thing. And you know, it’s pretty hard to reverse years and years of self-inflicted brainwashing.

When Fate is talking, you’d better be listening, because she’s telling you what’s up.

Rest assured that over a year later, Fate has done her job well.

Love has gotten me good. I am smitten. I am unabashed. I’ve been knocked so hard upside the head that I don’t even remember life before Him. I love Him something fierce and something deep and something so profound, I never knew I was capable of feeling this way. Never in a million years would I have imagined feeling so passionately about someone other than, well, myself.

And now it’s coming up on Valentine’s Day #2 with Him, and I couldn’t be happier. Or more in love with Him. My whole life has changed — my way of thinking, my outlook on the future, my hopes and dreams for what I want — in the very best way.

I’m so lucky. I know this. I recognize it every day. Because the love I have is the love I need and the love I never knew existed in this world for me.

Happy Love Day to you and the one you cherish and adore. And if you don’t have one of those, keep that heart of yours buoyed. There’s no telling what’s around the corner that’ll suck the air out of your atmosphere and replace it with a cheesiness that knows no bounds.

I wish it on all of you.

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Feb 08 2011
4 Comments
Navel-Gazing, Refining Fayza

I think I was supposed to be asking these questions when I was, like, 17.

I know it seems like I talk about my age a lot, but as I get older, I become acutely aware of it. I remember turning 25, for instance, and thinking I’d be in my twenties forever. Of course I thought I would be. There was plenty of time for my thirties and beyond at a later date, with which I was unconcerned and probably wasn’t going to come, for that matter.

But now that I’m 31, panic has set in. Not that I’m in a rush to do anything. I’m unmarried, childless, have very little assets to my name (unless you can slap shiny price tags with plenty of digits on two naughty cats and an eight-year-old vehicle), and that’s just fine with me. I realize we’re not getting any younger, but settling down, buying a house, having a family — those things just aren’t priorities to me right now. (I know you don’t believe me about the kids thing, but trust me, my biological clock ain’t tickin’.) Maybe they will be, maybe they won’t be, but I’m not in a hurry to check off any of those boxes.

But like I said, there’s still that nagging whirr of panic. I’m 31. And I don’t have anything to show for it. I’m not talking about progeny or material things. Nah. It’s more existential than that. It’s meaning. Being useful. Having purpose. It’s just not there.

Perhaps I’m in the minority. Perhaps everyone else with 2.5 kids, a picket fence, and a mid-life crisis looming just ahead of the erectile dysfunction diagnosis on the horizon could care less about their places in this world.

Despite it not being presumptively popular, I’m certainly not the only one in her early thirties feeling this inability to fulfill a higher calling. I actually had this text message exchange just this evening:

“You know how older people look back at their lives and regret what they did/didn’t do with it? I feel like that now.”

“We’re not old enough for that yet! What do you still want to do?”

“That’s the thing. I don’t know but I don’t want to look back and regret anything.”

“You can still do those things.”

“I feel like there has to be something more to it than the everyday grind of the 9-5.”

But is there something more?

As Americans, we work. We work all the time. We work hard, we work hard, and we work hard some more. We squeeze in play wherever we can fit it, and make excuses when we don’t, justified by clucking tongues and pitying nods. Sometimes even play becomes work. We don’t mean it that way, but it does. And then sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between work and life.

Is that how it’s meant to be?

I’m not sure. I do know that I lead a generally privileged life. Not as a result of my upbringing, but because of sacrifices and hard work and smart moves and tears, lots of those. Does everyone have the same opportunity to make the same pivotal decisions that I could? Of course they don’t. Am I lucky? Absolutely am. Should I hoard that luck? I should think not.

Therein lies the problem. The purpose that’s so required to make charmed, spoiled grown-ups like me feel whole and maybe even a little bit special. It’s a First World dilemma to the highest degree, but there it is — the intense need to make your fortunate days on earth count for something. Or else, your horribly wonderful life seems so, well, gloriously vapid, doesn’t it?

Cue the violin. This one’s a real weeper.

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