Giving thanks for… finding true love

Like a lot of people, I have a bucket list. I can’t remember when I first started adding things to it but a lot of the items have been there for several years already. Some are sort of cliché (doesn’t everyone want to travel to Australia and Greece?), some are silly, and some make me embarrassed that they are still on there (how many times do I have to say that I need to re-learn Spanish?). But one thing that they almost all have in common is that they are things that I actually have the power, if not the willpower/money/time, to do. That is, there might be various material or mental blocks stopping me from crossing those items off the list, but if I REALLY decided I wanted to do them, I physically could.

The one exception is the first thing I put on the list, however many years ago: “Experience true love”. This is the one thing on the list that I always felt maybe didn’t belong there because while it is something I definitely wanted to do before dying, it is not something that I really have any control over. It’s not like I can just decide to be in love with someone and make them love me back in the same way.

What do I mean by ‘true love’? If you’re like me, you might be hearing lines from The Princess Bride in your head at this point. And in some ways, yes, I’m talking about fairy tale love – not ‘happily ever after’ love or ‘I can’t live without you’ love or ‘I think you’re perfect’ love, but ‘willing to stick it out and work through problems together’ love, ‘life is honestly better with you than without you’ love, ‘I see exactly who you are and while you’re not perfect, I like the whole package’ love. For me, given my history of “loving” men who didn’t love me back, it particularly means feeling loved, not just knowing it intellectually but believing it, emotionally.

Let me be clear: wanting to experience true love sometime in my life does not mean that I was unhappy with being single or that I was sitting around hoping to meet “Mr. Right”. On the contrary, I feel very strongly that the people with the best chance of experiencing true love are those who are most OK without it. But I also think that if I had died without ever truly being in love, I would regret missing out on that experience. I also think that I would probably always wonder whether being happily single could really be as satisfying as being truly in love (it should go without saying that I believe being happily single is WAY better than being in a just any old relationship).

So I am deeply grateful that I met J and that I can cross this one off my bucket list. Loving him, and being loved by him, has added a dimension of happiness to my life that is hard to put into words and that I really could not have imagined before I met him. Our relationship isn’t always roses and sunshine, and neither of us is perfect, but somehow, we are perfect for each other.

Giving thanks for… a job I love

These days, I suppose I should be thankful just to HAVE a job but I am doubly blessed to have a job that I think is pretty much perfect for me (and perhaps triple-blessed that my job is about as secure as they come). I haven’t always thought so – about seven years ago, just after I got tenure, I did a lot of soul-searching to figure out if I wanted to stay in academia and if I did, if I wanted to stay at my particular university. What I realized was that although it isn’t always perfect and there certainly are a few things I wish I could change (like the personality of some of my colleagues!), there really isn’t any other job that I can imagine being a better fit for me. Being a professor gives me a ton of flexibility to work on the projects that I am most interested in, gives me a feeling of contributing to the world by helping my students become more critical thinkers, and allows me the flexibility to mostly avoid colleagues I find incredibly annoying. Being a professor at my particular institution (a state university) means that teaching is even more rewarding because many of my students are the first in their families to attend college, and the research expectations are not so great that I am constantly stressed out. Of course, being a state school, the pay isn’t great but I get to live in San Diego.

Do you love your job?

Giving thanks for… my mom

Today is my mom’s birthday (I won’t say which one but it’s a round number) so this is an easy post. My mom is one of my heroes, for so many reasons, and over the years, my appreciation for how awesome she is has only grown.

Although there are a lot of things to admire about my mom, I think the one trait that I most wish I could acquire is her ability to stay calm in situations that would have me freaking out. When I’m stressed out, or pissed off, or over-reacting to something someone has said/done to me, it always makes me feel calmer to talk to her. She just has a way of putting things in perspective, pointing out that there is no point getting all upset about things that are outside our control, while still empathizing and letting me vent.

Like most children, I definitely butted heads with my parents when I was younger. I couldn’t wait to get out on my own. But it didn’t take long after college for me to appreciate everything they had done for me so that I was actually able to take care of myself. Both my parents are, and always have been, incredibly supportive of everything I do, sometimes in ways that I didn’t recognize until years later. But even more, they are really non-judgmental – I’m pretty sure my parents make a conscious effort NOT to express their opinions about my life choices, and that’s definitely driven by my mom (let’s just say that my dad tends to have stronger opinions about things than my mom so I have to believe that him not saying anything is because my mom tells him he can’t). Unlike many of my friends, I have never once heard anything along the lines of, “When are you going to get married?” “Don’t you want kids?” or simply “Why did you do that?” I can’t tell you how many times one of my friends has related a story about something their parents said or did, basically butting into their lives, that was driving them crazy, and I’ve had to bite my tongue to stop myself from saying, “Hmmm, I can’t imagine my mom ever saying something like that.”

So happy birthday to the awesomest woman I know, and thank you for everything you do for me – I love you Mom!

Giving thanks for... coffee!

I've actually been kind of 'blah' this week - not sure if it's the time change or the colder weather or what but trying to get work done has been a real slog. So in an effort to get my brain to focus, I've been drinking a little more coffee than usual, though that is still a lot less than a lot of people I know. I've had a pretty up-and-down relationship with coffee. I didn't start drinking coffee until sometime in graduate school and then it was mostly coffee drinks that were more milk and sugar than coffee (ah, those wonderful days when I could drink a regular mocha and not think twice about how many calories were in it!). At some point, I settled into a routine of drinking a cup of half-coffee/half-hot chocolate each morning. When I started working at my university, there was a Starbucks in the student union just downstairs from my office and each afternoon, one of my colleagues would stick their head in my office and ask if I wanted to go down for coffee. It was more of a social thing but I got used to having that big jolt of caffeine to help me get over the after-lunch energy dip.

A few years ago, I decided to switch to green tea in the mornings - still gives me a little bit of caffeine but there are also all kinds of health benefits. I was still drinking coffee after lunch but about a year ago, I decided to try reducing my caffeine intake to see if that might have any impact on my sleep (I often have problems sleeping). But I found that I still craved the taste of coffee so I started drinking decaf. For any coffee snobs out there, I'll note that I've never had a very discriminating palate so I can't really taste any difference - coffee is coffee. Now, on days when I feel like I still need some help focusing, I'll drink half-cafs. What's nice is that as my body has adjusted to lower levels of caffeine, I feel like it takes less to get the same energy. In fact, now, if I have an entire cup of regular Starbucks coffee, I really feel it.

By the way, if you're a fan of coffee art, you have to check out the amazing creations of the Japanese barista Kazuki Yamamoto:

Giving thanks for... learning to tap dance

I did a lot of musical theater when I was a kid and loved it. But I never had formal dance lessons (well, I did take less than one year of ballet when I was maybe five but I don't think that really counts). Everything I needed to do, dance-wise, for shows, I just picked up from following the choreographers. But the one thing you can't really 'just pick up' is tap and I always wanted to take lessons. Then, when I was in college, there was a very popular anthropology professor on campus who was also an avid tap dancer and every few years, he would teach a tap class. He happened to offer one during my senior year and I jumped at the chance. It was a blast! I just love the precision, the sound of the taps.

After many years of my tap shoes collecting dust, I finally decided this fall to sign up for another class and I found one at a local community college. I thought I would feel weird taking a class there (after all, many of the students there end up transferring to the university where I teach) but once I put on my tap shoes, I just don't care. Like other dance styles, tap obviously requires a good amount of coordination and rhythm. But tap specifically requires a ton of control over parts of your body that most of us do not think a lot about: our feet. That requires a lot of mental focus, at least for me, at the level I'm at. You can't fake it in tap - the sound gives you away.

A lot of people who run, or otherwise exercise regularly, will talk about getting in a 'zone' and the high they feel from working out. I have never felt that way when I've tried to exercise in the past but when I'm tapping, I know exactly what they are talking about. Every part of me - mind, body and soul - is engaged and I leave every class completely energized and ready to take on the world. Sometimes I think I don't really have time for it (with the time it takes to drive back and forth and find parking, the class takes a good two hours out of the middle of my day, twice a week) but then I go and feel like it's the best part of my week.

Several weeks ago, my instructor gave us 'homework' to look up Evan Ruggiero on Youtube. What we found was amazing! Enjoy!

Giving thanks for... libraries

I love libraries. I love bookstores too - I guess I should really say I love any place I can be surrounded by books. But I particularly love libraries. Partly, it's all the good memories I associate with libraries. When I was a kid, our local library sponsored summer read-a-thons and I remember going around the library, collecting a huge stack of books that I could barely carry. One of the local libraries had a room with a sunken floor with big pillows and I could spend hours in there. In college, the library was the one place I could study and not have to worry about being distracted.

I also love that I can spend hours in a library looking through random books and I don't have to feel guilty that I'm not buying anything. I used to buy books all the time - I also have a weakness for used bookstores - but I've tried to stop because I realized that with most books, I only read them once and then they just collect dust. Every time I moved (and I used to move about once a year), I would go through my bookshelves and purge, donating to the library of course. Now the only books I actually own are either work-related or real favorites that I do read over and over again. If there's a book that I want to read, but am not sure whether it will be a 'read over and over' kind of book, I try to find it at the library first.

With the rise of electronic books, I've heard people say that libraries will soon become unnecessary or obsolete. But libraries are more than just collections of books, they are about providing people with access to knowledge. They encourage people (especially kids) to read but also provide public services like internet access, programs for English learners and summer or after-school activities for kids. Personally, I can't imagine that print books will be completely replaced by ebooks in my lifetime, but even if they are, libraries still have a vital role to play in the community. 

When was the last time you visited a library?

A few things I think are awesome...

I recently discovered the blog 1000 Awesome Things and it is, well, awesome. I can't necessarily relate to every single thing but there are a couple that really, truly can only be described as awesome (two of my favorites: #714 Changing the channel during a commercial break and then flipping back just as the show's coming back on, and #986 When you pull up to a red light and the guy in front of you nudges up a bit so you can make a right turn). Anyway, there were a couple things that happened this week that made me want to add these to the list:
- Craigslist. I've used Craigslist a bunch of times to get rid of random stuff - it's really amazing what people will take off your hands if you list it under free stuff. But this week takes the cake because someone just came and picked up a couple sets of vertical blinds that I took out of a room I'm remodeling. What's particularly amazing to me is that one of those was 91.5 inches wide. I don't know if the guy actually has a window that size, or he figures it's close enough (or he doesn't realize it can't be shortened) but I just have to say, I'm psyched that I didn't have to figure out how to put that thing in my garbage can.
- Ebay. I've never really been a huge eBay person but I got it in my head that I want a Wii (long story there) and I swear, every single store in San Diego that might possibly carry them is sold out. But I went on eBay and not only was I able to buy one but the total cost for the package I bought (with an extra controller and games) was cheaper than if I'd bought it at Best Buy, Fry's or any of the other places I looked. Yeah, I have to wait a week to get it but that's still sooner that I could have gotten it otherwise.
- Southwest. I know that some people hate Southwest's cattle call boarding but since they started their numeric boarding system, I love it. I set an alarm on my phone to remind me when it's 24 hours before my flight and then I check in online so I've never not been in the A group. But the best thing is that unlike every other airline I've ever flown, Southwest doesn't charge you anything to change or even cancel your flight (other than any difference in fare). If you cancel, they don't refund your money (you get a credit toward a future flight) but they don't charge you $100 extra either.

What awesome things have you encountered lately?

Giving Thanks

November is one of my favorite months. I'm a big wimp about heat so I'm cranky for a lot of the summer and I usually spend most of September just waiting for the weather to cool off enough that I can wear jeans. Of course, I'm also a big wimp about cold - there's really a pathetically small window of temperatures that I consider comfortable - but at least when it's cold, I can layer on clothes and get all cozy under big blankets, while heat is just, well, hot. Anyway, in San Diego, we don't really get consistently cool weather until at least November. Plus, once Halloween is over, the stores start gearing up for the gift-giving holidays, and I just find it a happier time of year. And of course, November means Thanksgiving. What's not to love about a holiday devoted to food, family and thinking about the things we should be grateful for?

To get in the spirit (and to prod myself into posting more regularly), I decided I don't need to wait for Turkey Day specifically to start giving thanks. So I'm going to try to do at least one post a week where I give thanks for something good in my life. Of course there are the biggies, like my family, friends, health, house, job but I think it's important to also give thanks for the little things that make my life better every day. And I thought it would be appropriate to start this series by giving thanks for the internet. When I stop and think about how much better and easier my life is because of the internet, it's hard to exaggerate what a huge impact it has. It makes my job easier, it allows me to easily and cheaply keep in touch with friends all over the country (and world), it makes shopping and traveling easier, I could go on and on. I have only a vague notion that it was developed by government researchers and I don't really understand how it works but part of its wonderfulness is that I don't have to. Every time I send an email or google an address or Skype someone, I'm doing something that wasn't possible twenty years ago. And every once in a while, it occurs to me to think, 'How cool is that?!?'

What are you grateful for?