Lately I have been realizing that my mother has given me complexes with her humorously sarcastic laughter at my talents. Growing up my mother and I always teased each other about our efforts in a lighthearted way. For example, I always teased her about her decorating style (for those of you who have been to my parents house you understand) and she would tease me about my messiness or my singing. Even if we both like some talent about the other person we still always had to tease them slightly. Yet, I am tracing some of my modern day insecurities back to our light hearted jousting sessions. I find myself wanting to prove to her that I have talent. I have told her that sometimes its funny, but that sometimes it cuts too deep. The sad thing is that I carry this same teasing over to other relationships and some view it as cruel.

So this may seem strange, but as an excersize for myself I am going to list some of my talents as I see them. They not be on the list because they are extraordinary, but maybe because they are special to me.
Cake Decorating
Entertaining
Cooking
Crafts (don't laugh)
Photography
Rendering
Design
Singing (this one my complex is with the strongest but would love for this to blossom some more)
Making new friends
Salsa dancing (including bachatta and meringue)
Swing dancing
Making people laugh
Being Dependable
Flirting
Teaching
Spontaneousness

I know this is kind of wierd to list out my talents, but usually I feel like the only talent I have is design and that even sometimes gets shaken.

Unrequited infatuation

The other night I was watching The Holiday, which I have seen before and definitely is one of my new favorite movies; however, this time the movie hit me in a whole new way because I could identify with Kate Winslet's character. Kate's character is emotionally caught up in a one way relationship with Jasper. Jasper is engaged to someone else but cannot leave Kate alone because she builds him up and he is infatuated, not with her, but with her infatuation for him. Kate goes crazy and decides to head out of town (sound familiar??) and makes new friends who treat her like she is special. The line that really gets me in the movie is when this old movie writer, Arther Abott, tells her that in all movies there is the lead girl and the best friend and that she has been acting like the best friend. To which she responds the she should at least be the lead girl in her own life.

I am not sure if I act like the lead character of my own life or the best friend. Usually, I think I act like the lead girl, but lately I have been backing down from that role into the best friend role. But no more of that ridiculousness. Right after I watched the movie I arrived home, knowing that I was suppose to be leaving for DC the next morning, yet I felt the urgency to immediately jump in my car and leave town ASAP. So at 3am I left for my 5 hour drive to DC and arrived at about 8am. It was great. I started out by listening to sappy love songs that make me tear up, but as the sun started to come up my music became more cheerful and so did my hopes for a new beginning. Driving through the night with my sun roof open looking at the stars was really magical.

My understudy better move over because I am gearing up and I'm ready to come back to take control of my life.

When is the time to stop waiting for happily ever after and move on??

I see so many people who put their lives on hold based on the dream that they'll meet that perfect someone. For example people put off moving, vacations, jobs, careers, education, kids, etc...because they feel their lives are temporarily put on hold due to the lack of the happily ever after factor. However, I am finding that many people decide not to wait until that special someone comes along (or only to wait for a certain amount of time) before they take the reins on their life. These people are courageous! For example, my friend Allison who is 29 and has never been married decided that she had waited too long to take the vacation to California that she has always wanted and that with or without that special someone in her life she was going to move forward. She took a 2 week vacation by herself. This is something that I personally don't know if I can come to terms with, but I hope one day I can be as strong as her. Also, another great example of this is my Uncle Jim, who didn't get married till he was 50. At a certain point in his life he got tired of waiting for things to happen and decided to adopt children. The funny thing about his story is after he adopted his children he met and started dating Carol, but they broke it off because she didn't want to date someone with kids. About 15 years later they reconnected when his kids had moved out and got married.

How long is too long to wait for that special person before starting your life? When you become independent and make everything happen on your own does it intimidate members of the opposite sex? Do we feel that unless someone is anguishingly waiting for us that they won't really appreciate or make room for us?

Thankfully, I feel like I am moving forward in my life right now with my goals and dreams, but there are other decisions down the road that I am sure I will have to make alone. To move on by myself...to take life and live it to the fullest even though mr. charming never showed up in the midst of it all. Maybe I've already reached that point of independence...However, when I think about taking vacations by myself or adopting children alone I may be shell shocked not so much at the notion, but rather my unreadiness to face such experiences within my maturation process.