In Loving Memory...

We found out a few days ago that my uncle has died...

My sister – who I’ve been staying with for the past month – had come into my room early that morning, waking me up to say that my father had called with some bad news. He had gotten a voicemail message the night before from a woman in charge of the building where my uncle lived, on his own, in another city. The message said in a nutshell “it’s about your brother... please phone us back”

My father got the message too late to return their call the night he received it, as their offices were already closed, and it was too early to get any news yet that morning, as the office was not yet open. I called my father, who was understandably worried. He had been up most of the night. The best case scenario, he said, was that they were calling to say that his brother was in the hospital. The worst case scenario.... was obvious.

My uncle was never married and had no kids, so my father would be the official next of kin. The person who would be notified if the worst case was indeed the scenario.

An hour later, my father phoned us back, with bad news. I hung up the phone and got ready to race over to his apartment, to offer him the best kind of consolation I know how to give: a hug.

News like this tends to bring out uncharacteristic behaviours. Some odd, some funny. Things that in one moment are second nature to us, suddenly become seemingly impossible tasks. After I hung up the phone with my father, I went to get dressed, and standing there looking at a pile of clean clothes, I said to my sister, quite perplexed, “I don’t know where my clothes are!”. This was followed by a nervous laugh from both of us, given that I was staring right at them. When I said to my sister a few minutes later that I was ready to go, she said “you’re wearing pyjama bottoms”. I knew that. I simply meant that I was nearly ready to go, and just letting her know that I was seconds away from being fully ready. I think.

In the car on the way over to my dad’s, my sister and I had a little squabble. I didn’t want to get into a whole discussion about the impact that this death may have on my father. Whereas she was keen to. We all deal with adversity differently. I just wanted to digest it, quietly, in the short car ride over to my father’s. She, on the other hand, wanted to talk. It was her way of handling it, of processing it. Which was different from my own. We’re each entitled to react however we naturally tend to in these situations, but it seemed ridiculous to be arguing with my only sibling, after having just gotten news that my father had just lost his. I put my hand on hers, and explained that I just didn’t want to have a deep discussion right then, and she understood. And she cried.

At my father’s, warm hugs were exchanged. We discussed what had happened. And then things got more practical than emotional. We made lists of what needed to be done, and who needed to be notified. It was a bit of reminiscing, mixed with a lot of planning and organizing. Underneath it all, lay a strong sense of unity, of family, of supportiveness. Aside from a few phone calls that needed to be made, there wasn’t much we could do from here. My father and I made a plan to drive down the next day, to where my uncle had lived. A father-daughter road trip, to wrap up and pack up a brother/uncle’s life.

The rest of that day, was a mix of being on the verge of tears, and in tears. I sobbed myself to sleep that night.

I tried to figure out what I was so sad about, and who I was sad for.

My uncle wasn’t a man who I was ever close to. I never really got to know him very well. Or much at all. I’m not sure that anybody ever has. He had lived very much in his own universe, one which was very different from the one which most of us know. He didn’t shut us out exactly, but he barely let us in. He physically and emotionally isolated himself from others. There wasn’t much contact between us over the years, and when there was, it was always ‘safe’, he had always put up an emotional barrier.

So why, I kept asking myself, was I so sad to get news of his death?

I wasn’t sad for myself. I had had such little interaction with him over the years that I couldn’t honestly say that I would miss him. I was certainly sad for my father, for having lost the brother he knew, and the brother he was never given a chance to know. But the person I was really sad for, was my uncle. I lay in bed crying that night, wondering if he had ever felt love. If he had ever had the capacity for it. Maybe it’s presumptuous to think that he hadn’t, but regardless, I lay there, feeling sad for him. And feeling sorry for him.

The greatest gift life offers us, is the ability to love and to be loved.

Something we tend to take for granted.

And something he may have missed out on, in his 75 years on earth.

On the morning we found out that he had died, my father said to my sister and I that my uncle had led such a sad life, that he had always been so tormented. By his thoughts, by his demons, by his illness. He hadn’t chosen the mind he was born with, or to inhabit the mental world he lived in. None of us do, but most of us are born lucky, to have the minds and the lives that we have. We're truly blessed. I'm not sure that my uncle ever felt that he was. I just hope that now, his torment is over, and that his mind is finally at rest.

And may he rest in peace....

Women Love Love...

I have a very close male friend who I've mentioned this blog to. Only, I wouldn't give him the link to it, which - surprisingly - hurt his feelings. "It's not something you'd like" I told him. "I'm blogging about love".

"Love?!?!" he responded, which is exactly what I expected from him, "why are you writing about that?".

I don't know the answer to that question. It's not as though I set out to write a blog and thought to myself "hmmm.... what should I write about? What do I know enough about to spend time thinking about and bother sharing my thoughts about?". It was the other way around. I tend to think about love often these days, and it's a very big topic of conversation between my girl friends and I lately, so I thought "why not express it in writing, why not blog about it".

I didn't expect this good guy friend to be offended that I wouldn't let him see my blog entries. But he was. Which I actually found quite touching, in a way. He's always cared pretty deeply about what's going on in my life, and in my head, and this proved that it hasn't all been an act. He really does care.

So yesterday, I sent him the link.

He IM-ed a few minutes later saying that he loves my writing style (yay!!!) but that the subject matter isn't exactly his 'thing'. I already knew that. I knew that he wouldn't hugely enjoy reading about loooove. I had actually warned him that he may vomit, reading what I've written. Especially the one about fairytales. And yet, even though I expected his reaction, I still felt the need to justify my subject matter. To prove to him that I'm not the only one who is this interested in love. Not the only one who thinks about it, talks about it. That love on it's own is enough of a subject matter to interest people. Some people.

"You've heard of Eat Pray Love right?" I responded via IM. "That's all about love. It's one woman's lament about it, her search for it, her quest for it, her crisis over it. That book was a huge hit, an instant best-seller, it sold millions!!!".

"Ya, it rings a bell"

"Bridget Jones' Diary? You've obviously heard of that one. That started as a writer's newspaper column, which turned into a book, which turned into a film. Huge success!!!".

Ya, he knew Bridget Jones' diary. Though he's (not surprisingly) never seen it.

And that made me realize... women love love. We love it. We love feeling it, we love discussing it, we love weeping over movies that are about finding it, and weeping even more over movies that are about losing it. We love Hollywood gossip about who's fallen in it, and who's fallen out of it. We love it when our friends find it for real. We just plain love it.

Men on the other hand, generally don't like to discuss love. They don't like the same films we love. Or the same sappy love songs we love. They don't cry at weddings. They do sometimes cry at their own wedding (happy tears, hopefully) but hardly ever do they cry at other peoples' weddings.

We're just different, men and women. Fundamentally different. Sure, I already knew that, but it's fun to be reminded.

Men love women. And women love men. But women also love love. We really love love.

Fairytales...

I went to see Disney On Ice on Saturday. Not really by choice. My mother had bought tickets and asked if I wanted to join her. "Not really" I thought. I love figure skating, I always have, but Snow White on skates isn't quite my thing. But... she had the tickets, she wanted my company, it was Disney's 100th anniversary, and any show will provide at least some kind of entertainment, so I went. And I'm glad that I did.

It was interesting. It definitely entertained. The music was obviously very good. It was a great reminder of all the different characters Disney has created over the years. And it was a good little eye-opener, too...

In the first half of the show, there was a part where all of the princesses were on ice at the same time, dancing/skating with their respective Prince Charmings. There was Belle, with her newly-handsome beast. There was Cinderella, there was Snow White, and there were a few others.

Like most little girls, my 4 and a half year old niece adores Princesses! She loves watching the Disney DVD's, and she loves dressing up as the characters. I sat there, at Disney on Ice, thinking about all of this from a 4 year olds' persepctive. And I sighed... how lovely to be a beautiful Princess. And how wonderful to think that we'll someday meet a dashing Prince Charming, when we grow up.

I wondered if this idea ever really truly leaves us. Of course, as we get older, and as reality inevitably kicks in, we become aware that a horse isn't going to be pulling up into our driveway, with our dashing future husband on board. But I think that there is always a little part of us that goes on hoping that we will someday find a man who will make us feel the way the Princesses in the fairytales seem to feel about their beaus.

I have a few girl friends who definitely feel as though they have found their Prince Charming. These women feel like the luckiest ladies in love, and they gush and glow in the presence of their partners, even after years of companionship. That feeling doesn't seem to fade for them. If anything, it seems to grow stronger and stronger.

So part of my reality, is that I have witnessed these incredibly happy women, living out real-life fairytale-like romances.

But there is another, bigger, part of my reality. And that's this: I have the most incredible girl friends a girl could ever wish for. And a good number of these wonderful women are succesful, attractive, intelligent, kind, and strangely, still single. They're happilly single, though they'd be happier not to be.

It's a phenomenon that seems to be pretty unique to our generation. In the past, women of a certain age who were childless and unmarried, were called spinsters. Today, we're called Independant women, career women, or simply one of the myriad of women who "hasn't found the right guy yet".

Whatever the reason is, we often don't know the reason, and it's often a huge mystery to us how on earth some of the women who are single, could possibly be single.

My reason, or at least my story, is this: I've been happily single for the past 4 years. After a series of nearly back-to-back, fairly serious relationships, I put myself on a "love hiatus" for 2 years, thinking that it's important and healthy for every women, every person, every adult to have a few solo-years to figure out what we're about as a onesome, before embarking on life as a twosome. This concept was very new to me, this being single thing, and it turned out to be a very welcome and wonderful experience! And so I extended that 2-year contract I had made with myself, for another year, and then another year... and it suddenly - and amazingly quickly - turned into 4 years. It's only quite recently that I've started to think "hmm.... wait a second... surely I'm not wanting to be single forever. I'm ready to rejoin the party!".

And so here I am now, 4 years older, and hopefully 4 years wiser, and yet still baffled and stumped when it comes to love. Is it a chance meeting? Is it destiny, pre-written in the cards for us, or is it a question of being at the right place at the right time? Who knows.... Can anybody really know?

I realized on Saturday that there should really be 2 kinds of fairytales. There are the kind we all know, and grew up with, where the "Princess" meets her "Prince", and they go on to live happily ever after. And that does sometimes happen. But there should also be another kind. The modern-day version, where the "Princess" is an independant hard-working career-woman, with a wonderful group of friends, who laugh and chat the hours away, while on the inside, she can't help but wonder if her Prince Charming is out there, and if their paths will ever cross...

I know what the ending is to the classic fairytale. I don't know what the ending is to the modern version. I guess time will tell. This phenomenon is quite new to our generation.

What I do know is that whatever happens, however our romantic stories end in the end, right now I am single, but I am far from lonely. I am so lucky to be surrounded by the most wonderful people, the most incredible and loving friends - men and women, single and coupled. And maybe for now this is my fairytale. My dream life. Even though it may not have been what Disney had in mind. For now, it's what makes me happy :)

Intro

Hi.

And welcome.

I’m Lisa. I’m 38 years old. I’m single. And I don’t have a clue what love is.

I’m stumped by it, intrigued by it, drawn toward it, baffled by it, and incredibly fascinated by it. And I’m on a mission to find out what exactly love is.

I've been in relationships. A long term one, some medium length ones, and a few shorter ones. I’ve loved. I’ve definitely loved. It would have been a sad 38 years if I hadn’t. And I’ve definitely been loved. It’s wonderfully reassuring to know that. And to have felt that.

But I still don’t feel as though I know what love-love is. True love. Real love. The love. I’m assuming that I haven’t experienced it yet, because I would hope that I would have recognized it, if it had made an appearance at some point.

That kind of love remains a mystery to me. An elusive abstract concept which is constantly tapping me on the shoulder and arousing my curiosity. And as a result, I long to grasp it, to learn about it, as much as I possibly can.

I wouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel of a car without first learning how to drive. And certainly a heart is far more valuable, and far more vulnerable. And can take us on far more interesting journeys. So I’m here to learn. Theoretically. And hopefully practically too, since it wouldn’t be as much fun, knowing the fundamentals, without being able to test drive the theories.

So that’s my mission here. To learn about love.

Today is October 10th 2009. A date which has no significance. However, in exactly a year from now, it will be 10/10/10, which I think is very funky! And an ideal date to set as a love-goal. A date when I plan be love-wiser than I am now, and able to say “ooooooh, so that’s what it’s all about....”

It would be nice to say “in a year from now, I would like to have found true love”. But I know that love never happens on a schedule or within any kind of time frame. It just simply and suddenly happens, usually catching the people it happens to by surprise. That much, I know, from having seen others fall deeply and passionately and happily in love.

My goal is this: “In a year from now, I’d like to know what love is”. I’d love to understand it.

That’s what this blog will be about. My learning about love.

My love lessons.

I’m looking forward to it! :)

Lisa