Dating: Gen X & Gen Y Sitting in a Tree…
September 30, 2010 at 7:35 am | Posted in Relationship Woes | 10 CommentsTags: apartment, dating, dogs, gen x, gen y, relationships, roommates
I’m pleased to present my first guest blog post from my friend Dez from Dezolutions. Check out her blog for a fun, motivational account of the trials and successes of reaching your goals.
“You’re acting like a CHILD! Stop it! What do you know about life!?”
“Stop telling me what to do! God, you’re not my boss. I know MORE than enough about life!!”
Sounds like the typical fight between parent and child right?
Wrong.
These were the types of fights I had with my boyfriend. Like any normal healthy couple, we argued. The difference? We are 10yrs apart. These arguments just came with the territory of dating someone older.
I was 20 and he was 30 when we met at work. We didn’t start dating till I was 21, and we haven’t stopped. Almost 6yrs later and many milestones crossed together, we have certainly grown to respect our different generations.
Boyfriend had traveled the country, and other countries, worked hard on his career as a successful artist, seen his share of all sorts of lifestyles and cultures and had a beautiful daughter.
While he was building his foundation, my biggest concern in 1999 was finishing my chemistry homework and making sure I washed my softball uniform. Our brains were clearly not on the same page.
When we met, we both had concerns about the age difference. Is 10yrs really that bad? We have a completely different letter for our Generations! But, we decided to give it a try, and we learned a LOT about each other over the years.
When he would try to explain something to me, it was hard for me to empathize. I’d only ever lived with college roommates before, never a boyfriend, so not only was he my first live-in boyfriend, but he was also my first real roommate (in terms of splitting the bills, paying rent, buying food, respecting space). He had roommates for years before me. It wasn’t that I was inconsiderate and messy, it was because I was naive and clueless. “You mean, I can’t just eat peanut butter out of the jar and move his stuff around without asking? ” Totally foreign to me. It took many YEARS of practice till I finally realized how to properly live with another adult. It’s all about respect, from both ends. He realized I was a newbie, and I realized I had to smarten up quick if I didn’t want to annoy him anymore.
We also had a dog together. A WHOLE other set of confusions. I’d never had a dog, ever. My family were cat people. But I LOVE dogs. I had zero clue how to take care of one. “You mean I have to get up and take her out 4x a day!!? AND feed her!!??” Oh man, cats were so simple. Just give’m a box to pee in and box to eat from, done. So, first time roommate, first time live-in boyfriend AND first time caring for something that relied on you 100% to live. Talk about a boat-load of responsibility thrown onto your lap. I tried to master these 3 new areas of my life AND work 40+ hours a week AND go to school full-time.
I must say, I think I did a very good job. With a patient Boyfriend, who sometimes…wasn’t always patient… made it worth trying hard for. He wasn’t the only teacher in the relationship. I brought a lot to the table as well. I was book smart, I knew a lot about finance and business management. I knew how to communicate, network and make friends quickly. I know how to plan for the future and put strategy into motion to reach our goals. He didn’t need any help on keeping himself young, but I’m sure I helped a little bit 
And he has since traded in his cargo shorts and band T’s for some well-fitting jeans and button downs. I’d like to think I had a little influence, but he is one snazzy gentleman.
There were lots of disagreements, but also, lots of communication. We may not always agree, but we respect each others opinions. It was important to know, that we wanted to make things work. With any long term relationship, that’s what it takes… work. Not all the time, but its a key factor. Most of my family members have large age differences in their relationships, I guess I was just used to that. Even previous relationships, I always dated 6 or 7 yrs older.
So where are we now? I’m 27, he’s 37 and the 10yr difference now, is almost non-exsistent. I’ve done a lot in these past 6yrs. I’ve traveled a bit around the country (went to Italy right before i met him), worked hard on my career, finished school, challenged myself, learned SO many new things, and became a better roommate. His daughter is now 15, and as beautiful as ever. I love her so much, and we have such a great time together. I love his entire family and vice versa, they tell me all the time Sadly, our first dog passed, and grieving over a huge loss, definitely brought us closer. We have a new doggy-addition, her name is Gabby, she’s 4 now and sharing the responsibility of a living creature is one of the best ways to form a strong bond.
Even though he has a 10yr head-start, we may not be on the same page all the time, but we’re definitely in the same chapter. We had a variable that not too many couples had. But we work well together, we’re happy, and without all that bickering and head-butting we’d never be as close as we are now.
So as I approach 30…he approaches 40, I’m proud to say, his birthday cake candles, will always burn down the house before mine
Mourning the Young
September 28, 2010 at 7:52 am | Posted in Friends Then and Now, Life and Living | 2 CommentsTags: death, friends, life
I’ve been to a lot of wakes and funerals in my young life. Always different circumstances. Grandparents dying of old age, parents dying of illnesses, but the ones that always hurt the most are those in my age group — those that die way before their time.
I was going to wait until the anniversary of the first young death I encountered, but unfortunately another just happened, bringing the grand total of tragic young deaths I’ve mourned in my life to 7.
I was 13 when the first passed. A girl in my grade, a girl I played soccer with, and a number of other activities, left school early one day. She was diagnosed with brain cancer and died within months. It wasn’t the first death I had experienced, but since she was so young, it was really hard to understand. Young people can’t die, I thought. My grade, my school, my town all mourned for her pretty hard. Every year on the anniversary of her death, I think of her. I think of all she missed out on. I wonder why she was taken from us.
The remaining young deaths I experienced were accident-related. But the way they were taken from this world isn’t really what matters. What matters is that they are gone, that they will never get to experience what we the living experience every day. They’ll never be able to make anymore mistakes, or do great things, see the world, and contribute something to it. Their untimely deaths, and what they lived for and did in their short lives is the last impression they’ll ever make on those they left behind.
Their deaths make me appreciate life. Their deaths remind me that though I may complain about car trouble or stress at work, that the ability to feel and experience the good and the bad is what makes life worth living. I will always hold these kids close to my heart, and hope to honor their young spirits by keeping the memory of them alive.
May those young angels rest peacefully.
Where My Boys At?
September 23, 2010 at 7:37 am | Posted in Friends Then and Now | 3 CommentsTags: boys, friends, guys
It’s pretty much true what they say about girls. They really can’t get along with each other for the most part. There’s something so much different about guys and their friendships – a lot less competition, falseness, and cattiness. A lot less bull shit. No jealousy and backstabbing. While the common thought about guys and girls being “just friends” is that it is impossible, that there is always the desire to be something more, I have witnessed this impossibility work many times in my life.
Since about 7th grade, I’ve had healthy platonic relationships with males. It is, of course, around this age that not only is your body beginning to develop, but your personality is, too, so your friends start to diversify.
Some of my male friends have been better friends to me over the years than my female friends in many ways. They’ve listened to me and given me the male perspective when I had guy dilemmas and I gave them advice on their girl problems. We’ve been there for each other, talked on the phone for hours, and just hung out doing nothing.
Just like female friends, the closeness disappears over the years. I remember my freshman year of college. Living away from home for the first time, my close guy friends came to visit my best friend and me a bunch that first semester. But after that, we only saw them when we came home. We had such a close-knit group of friends and it was only these guy friends that ever made the effort to visit. We had all been close for several years so watching the relationship deteriorate was really hard.
Today, I have a lot less close guy friends than when I was young. But I’ve managed to hold on to the delicate few and reunited with some just recently. I’ve made some guy friends through my boyfriend, but those are in a category of their own for this reason alone.
I hold all my good friendships close to my heart, male or female. I think it’s important to have a balance of both. It’s that balance that helps keep me sane.
Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.
