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Hey there! I'm Holly. A 40+ year old insurance-nerd wife, mom, beauty lover, and about a million other things in between.
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Category Archives: Love
Fat Girl
When my mother was 16, eagerly anticipating the independence that came in the form of a Volkswagen Beetle, she passed her drivers test. As she filled out the paperwork for what would be her first Drivers License she encountered the Universal DMV Dilemma of what to write for her weight. Ultimately she decided to lie as many of us do, and so she got ballsy and put down 112 lbs. God forbid anyone find out she only weighed in at 104.
If I hadn’t seen the pictures from the hospital, I would question whether or not we were actually related. I have never had the occasion to make myself appear less…skinny – not in real life, and certainly never on paper. I have always taken after my dad’s side of the family who embody their German heritage not only in their ability to empty a stein, but in their sturdy frames.
We looked a lot alike, my father and I – same hair, same eyes, same NFL lineman shoulders. If I had a brother, he would have spent his life envious. Our legs could have been carved out of the same marble slab. We were a formidable pair.
“Holy Shit, Holly, he looks like Conan the Barbarian,” Garrett said the first time he saw my parents wedding photo. The fact that he never got to meet my father was surely a relief to him in some ways.
*Obviously Garrett meant Conan the Barbarian if he ditched the loin cloth and headdress for a baby blue tux and a paisley bowtie. God I love the 70s*
I understood what he meant but the comment made me cringe a bit because I recognized my own body in that picture and I thought of the words that I hoped my one day boyfriend would use to describe me, an Arnold Schwartzenegger character never came to mind. But I was also proud of my father’s strength, and of the physique that he earned after decades of football. I saw the aftermath of the NFL that they don’t discuss on SportCenter — the bruises, the surgeries.
But my career goals never involved the NFL, so I’ve definitely struggled a bit to love this body I was gifted. I’ve told you before about my childhood foray into dance, and as a dancer my body was never a perfect fit. Despite dedication and passion, I learned at a very early age that my body would prevent any chance I would ever have at that profession no matter how many times I casually hugged the toilet, but just in case I should try to lose about 20 lbs. I think I was 9 when this sunk in.
Though no Swan Queen, my imperfect body has done unbelievable things for me and as someone who hopes to have children one day I look to the future now and think of all the things my body is still going to do for me – what it is capable of doing for me, and I have begun to appreciate it. When I think of the plans I have it’s hard not to feel a little proud. Sure my body isn’t perfect, and I have definitely gotten the memo that it isn’t The Ideal (Loud and Clear! Thank you, American Media!) But this body is mine, and the narcissist inside of me finds that hard not to love. And this is mostly why I was pretty disgusted with Fat Girl, Judith Moore’s autobiographical account of her life growing up fat.
Though chock full of writing that will just absolutely knock your socks off, she spends page after page discussing herself with such disdain. She wrote an interesting commentary about why she wrote the book, and although the book is refreshing in its frankness, I am also finding it very hard to read. Writing about something that generally doesn’t have a voice deserves praise, but having that voice be so incredibly disparaging is hard for someone with my history to reconcile, and ultimately it doesn’t accomplish much. The only place the story goes is down 30 floors to the basement of your worst shame spiral, and yet there is nothing earned for the trip.
I don’t need every book to have a silver lining lesson, but every few pages I find it difficult to not immediately set the book down, and whisper to that little dreamer inside of her that it doesn’t matter if the world doesn’t thinks you are perfect. Everything will work out just as it should – even if it doesn’t end up looking quite as much like Flashdance as you once hoped it would.
The Trip of A Lifetime
I consider myself a bit of a traveler. I mean I don’t really go to super exotic locales or cliched destinations or anything (hell, I have embarrassingly only used my passport once and it was in 1986 when my hair was in full on bowl cut mode, god I should find and scan that picture) but if I have a few extra bucks in my pocket my first choice is always to spend them by getting out of town. Usually I like exploring a new place, and usually it is someplace quaint rather than extravagant, somewhere off the beaten path or somewhere seemingly ordinary. But this year I took the trip of lifetime and of all places, it was to Maui! I’m know. You are all thinking: Holly, could there be a more cliched travel destination than Maui? And the answer is, probably not. But for a few really personal reasons, it was by far the best trip I have ever taken.
Hawaii was always this mythical place in my mind growing up. My parents had lived there while my dad was in college, and even after he graduated and started playing football professionally in Detroit they spent the off seasons on the Big Island. Growing up all of their friends and members of my family had these great stories about the times they visited my parents on the islands. There were funny stories and amazing adventures, and they all painted a gorgeous picture of a what a crazy life my parents had before I was born. First of all they were in their early 20s. Imagine what you were doing when you were 22? I know I was goofing off in college and then “Finding Myself” in Los Angeles (ha!) definitely not living it up in some exotic locale. It was fascinating to me that my parents had this offbeat life before I came around — I know that’s a little self centered, but as a kid it just seemed so weird to think of your parents life before you, but it was hard to ignore when it was a life of stories re-told in such vivid technicolor. When I was young and my parents would tuck me in to bed at night I always asked for a story, and often times my father would describe tales of his time at Globo Surf, surfing and swimming and hiking in the lush Hawaiian landscape with its strange sounding names — and I would drift off to sleep awaiting the day I would finally get to make sense of it all in person.
As I got older, it became less of a myth and more of a promise. You see my Grandma Marian (who passed away in 2004 and was the absolute light of our whole family) knew how much I wanted to go and was always assuring me that I would get there. Each summer all of us grandkids had the opportunity to take our own “solo trips” up to her house in Sonoma. When it was my turn to visit, she always let my fingers go walking through her perfumes and lotions — my childhood favorites always being the L’Air du Temps bottle because it was pretty (hello 80s flashback) and a metallic tube of Crabtree & Evelyn Rosewater Hand Therapy. We spent our days visiting, doing water aerobics at her class, watching Jeopardy, having sandwiches at the Sonoma Cheese Factory, and of course always making time to catch up with her neighborhood buddies as they knew all us grandkids.
Inevitably during these trips we would stop by and say hi to her best friends (and my dad’s Godparents) Mert and Don, who lived down the street. Many times they would tell stories of their recent trips to Maui altogether and how the 3 of them spent their days lounging and having cocktails and enjoying the weather at at the beach. They would always laugh when I would get upset about not having been to Hawaii yet, and say that someday I would have great friends to go with when I understood the power of The 5 o’ Clock Cocktail. I would roll my eyes, of course, but they just made Maui seem so accessible. But I couldn’t, in my 9 year old mind, figure out how to make it happen. So instead I’d come home from my week at Grandma Marian’s and just nag my parents about it. They finally promised that they would take me when I turned 10, but frankly I’m not sure they ever really meant this. I think it was more of a finite answer to the infinite questions I would always ask “When will visit Hawaii? How long until I can see Hawaii? Can I learn how to surf? Where we will snorkel?”
WHEN YOU ARE TEN, HOLLY. WE WILL TAKE YOU WHEN YOU ARE TEN.
And so that was that. Except of course age ten came and went and we never made it to Hawaii. It’s not like my parents never took me anywhere, my childhood was full of fabulous family camping adventures, the aforementioned trips to Sonoma, and one incredibly exotic trip to Bermuda (which I totally didn’t appreciate a the time — God, the regret!) but we just never really made it to Hawaii like we were supposed to when I turned 10. And so as you can imagine I pretty much brought that up annually over candles and cake. It became a bit of a family joke, actually.
I think as I got older I finally came to terms with the fact that nobody was going to Take Me To Hawaii, so I went about researching the cost of getting there myself and Holy Hell are those plane tickets pricey when you are making $12 an hour slinging mochas, so I kind of gave up the dream for awhile. I was fine doing my frolicking around the mainland and exploring California’s bounty until about two years into my relationship with Garrett when he nonchalantly mentioned that his family owned a portion of a condo in Maui and would I be interested in heading out there for a couple of weeks at some point? To which my answer was, HELL-TO-THE-YES! And also immediately afterward, WHY THE HELL HAVE YOU WAITED TWO YEARS TO BRING THAT UP, BUDDY? His reply was that he had pretty much gone every summer of his entire life up until he was about 16 and so he wasn’t sure that Hawaii was anything I was that excited about.
(BLINK BLINK.)
(No really, BLINK BLINK.)
So once we had a very brief repeat conversation about my likes and dislikes (LIKES: Free Condos in Maui. DISLIKES: My boyfriend thinking I would not be interested in Free Condos in Maui. See? Easy) he explained that his parents and grandparents and some teacher friends from the bay area each owned 1/12th of a condo. We could have the condo for a month if we wanted, so pretty much immediately I began to plan. Of course as travel planning goes it took us a couple years to get our time/budget/act together, but surprisingly at the end of May this year I (FINALLY) found myself on a 5 hour flight that was Maui-bound. Only twenty years after my 10th Birthday.
It was kind of a moving experience, that flight, which I realize sounds totally cheesy, but really the whole time I just kept looking out the window and thinking I can’t believe I am finally going to Hawaii. I had not only packed my entire closet (which actually turned out to be a totally unnecessary rookie mistake) but also a lifetime of anticipation! And let me tell you when that plane finally landed I just let all those emotion loose! I actually cried when the plane landed because I WAS FINALLY HERE! I was finally able to see the places I had dreamed about as a child, to feel the ultimate relaxation with my best friend that I had heard about as a teen, and to see the beauty that I had envied as an adult. I had a moment of sadness because neither my father nor my grandmother were alive to finally hear about all of the experiences I was about to have, but in that moment it was like they were right there. The rite of passage was right there under my feet and it was so much for my little heart to take and so I just cried and cried the happy tears of joy that were 30 years in the making. Of course Garrett finally looked over at me and said “Dude, all these people are going to think I’m being mean to you if you are crying” and so we had a huge tear filled laugh, I wiped my cheeks and the adventure began.
We stayed in that condo for 12 days, and it was probably the most blissful time in my life. Garrett recounted memories of his trips as a child and I finally got to reconcile the pictures in my imagination with reality and it was truly so much better in person. I felt incredibly close to my father and my grandmother during that time, and as Garrett and I spent our days walking hand in hand on the beaches or cruising the island highways off to our next undertaking, I would think of my parents, and the similar moments they must have shared in their early 20s with the gorgeous Hawaiian sunset as their backdrop. What were they hoping their future held? I felt connected to the past, connected to nature, connected to a family history that surrounds me with wonderful memories even though we are no longer able to all sit together around the table and tell stories. Around every corner there was a reminder of the connections that I have always had with this beautiful place, and it truly felt like coming home.
The weirdest coincidence of the whole trip happened a few days before we left when I went rummaging around in the condo bathroom for some Advil. Underneath the sink amidst years worth of sunscreens, community shampoo bottles, and expired medicine, I found a halfway used tube of Crabtree & Evelyn’s Rosewater Hand Therapy. Immediately forgetting about my headache, I doused myself in it and took myself back to those Sonoma summers with my grandma and hearing about her trips with Mert and Don and enjoying the Maui Life. It was a special moment, and the coincidence was sort of overwhelming, so when I got back home I of course shared the story with some of my relatives. Through a series of conversations I ended up having with my aunt describing where we stayed and through photographs of our trip, we ended up connecting the dots to figure out that the condo Garrett and I stayed was the same condo that my Grandma and Mert and Don had stayed in every summer all those years ago. Completely unable to believe that possibility Garrett called his parents who had the original Condo-share agreement, and sure enough, Mert and Don’s names were on the contract for all those years with Garrett’s parents and grandparents.
And seriously? A moment like that not only makes a trip, it kind of makes your life.
Do You Know What Today Is? I’ll give you a hint, and it involves Tony Toni Tone….
From our humble beginings slinging mochas side by side at Peet’s Coffee & Tea…
…my life has definitely been more fun with you around, Garrett!
You are my absolute favorite person to be silly with, and sometimes it blows my mind that you see me at my craziest and still love me.
You always remind me not take life too seriously, and keep me grounded when I get a little too high strung.
Whenever I think of my happiest times, your face is the face I see beside mine.
I know it’s only been 4 years, Garrett, but in some ways it feels like a lifetime. I hardly remember what my life was like without you in it.
I can’t wait to spend the rest of it exploring this crazy world with you because there is no one I’d rather have by my side.
Happy Fourth Anniversary, Baby!
Football is Life
For those of you who don’t know, my father passed away in 1998 very suddenly of a heart attack. He was very well known in the town I grew up in, partly because he was a chatterbox (in the best way!) and partly because he ended up playing football in the NFL. He was a real hometown hero in that sense, and even though he has been gone a decade, I still have strangers (when they realize who my father was) share the craziest memories they have about what a great man he was.
This weekend my dad’s high school football coach is being recognized and a fundraiser is being held to raise money to build a bust of him in the local stadium. He is a bit of a legend in Fremont, and was a very influential person in my father’s life and I wrote this letter in tribute for the ceremony this weekend.
*****************************************************
Growing up, everyone in Fremont seemed to know my father, John Woodcock. When I was young, I didn’t think anything of it, it was just the norm. As a teenager it annoyed me because, well, let’s be honest, what doesn’t annoy a teenager? But as an adult, now that he is no longer here, I am grateful for the memories that others choose to share with me. Professional football made my father well-known, but it was his heart, his drive, and his dedication that made him a success. And these weren’t just qualities he was born with.
When I think of my dad I feel incredibly fortunate. Even though he was only in my life a short time, he had a tremendous impact on the way I see the world. Growing up he was not as lucky to have such an influential father in his life. Raised by his mother in a house with three sisters, he certainly knew more than most about what it was like to be a woman. This of course worked out well for my mother in the end, but ask anyone who knew him and they would certainly tell you that he was also an incredible man. Much of that has to do with his involvement with the Washington High football program, and more importantly Coach Ingram.
My mom said, Coach Ingram was not only a mentor to my dad, but he was a father figure in a way that is so uncommon today. She said Coach was like E.F. Hutton, and when E.F. Hutton spoke, everyone listened. During her years at Washington High School when she dated my dad she said Coach must have had eyes in the back of his head as he seemed to know all and see all. He always had the scoop on every guy that ever played for him and knew their strengths and weaknesses. He taught them to strive, to be something more then they were. Whether it was to be quicker, stronger, faster, or smarter he pushed them to be focused on their game.
Back in the day, my dad would tell me, football ruled at Washington High School and it was a great time to be a Husky. He loved playing in the “old stadium” to a capacity crowd, and hearing the marching band at halftime. It was a legendary time and they had a legendary coach. His players were as disciplined as they were tough. There was no “jaking” – a term used to call out someone who wasn’t giving it their all – and there was no room for quitting. You can bet there was no sugar coating on Coach I’s team. If you weren’t performing, you weren’t playing, and he held everyone to the same standard. It was all about the team and there was no individual showboating allowed. Terrell Owens wouldn’t have made it a day playing for Coach Ingram.
Even after my father graduated and was no longer playing for Coach Ingram, he still came back to train with him in the off seasons of his professional career. It wasn’t easy for my dad to come back to Fremont after a long season and start the rigorous training all over again, but it was this that my dad always appreciated and credited Coach Ingram for — he kept him in shape, grounded and focused year after year. His expertise and advice went way beyond the high school years and extended into his adult life where they formed a friendship. Coach I became someone my dad wanted to succeed for.
Today I know that feeling well. In my own life, I often think of my father and hope that he would think of me as a success. He taught me well and I know that some of my father’s most valuable lessons came straight from the Coach’s mouth:
• Always give 100%. The minute you don’t someone else will come along who is better, faster, or stronger than you. Always be humble and always be learning.
• Be Coachable, not defensive. There is nothing worse than someone who can’t accept constructive criticism. Take feedback with gratitude because it only makes you better if you listen to it.
• But most notably – Always do what you said you were going to do. Personal integrity isn’t just important, it’s all you have.
They are rules to live by, and I am proof that they don’t just apply in football but also in life. I am the product of my father, but so much of who he was and how he was shaped is all Coach Ingram, and for that influence, my whole family is grateful.
I was a cheerleader at Mission San Jose in the 90s and although we loved to show our school spirit, our football team was never what you would call dominant –but my dad never missed a game. He couldn’t have been more supportive. In his heart he was a Husky through and through, but he also knew that he had to do what was best for his team — and at that time “his team” was my mom and I — and that meant showing his MSJ pride. I think sometimes it must have pained him to have to sit on the sidelines and root for the Warriors, but true to form he always did what he said he was going to do – and I don’t even think Coach Ingram could fault him for that.
Sincerely,
Holly Woodcock
Dreamgirl
I wasn’t sick very much growing up, but on a few occasions when I was so sick that I was bed-ridden, I’d have the same recurring dream of balancing a checkbook. It wasn’t always my own checkbook, sometimes it was a company’s ledger, a friend’s budget, but it was always the same formula — some type of elementary math pertaining to money and the frustrating feeling of numbers never adding up correctly. It was exhausting and the sleep never felt restful. I’m sure it had something to do with my fever rather than a deep seeded hatred of math, but I like to think those dreams are at least partially responsible for steering me clear of any career involving numbers. Being an accountant, for me, literally would be a nightmare!
I’ve always had incredibly vivid dreams. I like to bombard Garrett with the detailed stories about things I’ve seen or done in my sleep right when I wake up because it’s such a unique feeling to put dreams into words immediately after having them. Most often what was just so clear in sleep comes out like a drunken Lewis Carrol imitation. Everything that made perfect sense moments ago vaporizes into absolute gibberish in a literal blink of an eye, and as someone who loves finding the perfect words in order to communicate an idea — it’s sort of an amusing exercise in futility.
Granted, Garrett is not always amused by my effusiveness, since I often do this in the middle of the night if my dream was particularly noteworthy. Most of the time he at least he plays along and acts impressed with my spectacular feats of subliminal imagination, although he usually patiently commands that I go back to sleep. For the record, however, I also sleep-walk, sleep-shower, and sleep-get dressed for work in the middle of the night, so I guess in comparison my midnight monologues sort of pale next to waking up and finding that I have turned into a zombie-like version of myself, but you know, you take the good with the bad, right?
I know, I know. Sorry boys, I’m taken.
Shortly after my father passed away, a number of people who surely intended to be a source of comfort told me I should “watch for him” in my dreams. I kind of chuckled at the hippy-dippy thought of all that, but 11 years after the fact, my father and I have had a remarkable number of very spirited sub-conscious interactions while dreaming. One of the most memorable dream encounters with my father found me sitting at the kitchen table in my grandparents old house (why, I have no idea?) looking for relationship advice about this new found crush of mine named Garrett. It was shortly before we started dating and Garrett was being Mr. Mixed Signals, so obviously I must have been having a frustrated moment. As an aside, when my dad was alive we were totally prone to these “Girl Talk” chats, so it was no surprise to be table-side with him listening to my romantic woes. Though I can’t even remember what dramatic thing I was complaining about, what I do remember is my dad just laughing hysterically and in a clear throwback to his University of Hawaii days, giving me the Shaka sign and saying, “Calm Down, Holly,” in his oft-used Hawaiian Pidgin. “Everything’s gonna be alright.” And every once in a while when I realize Garrett has yet to kick me and my crazy night time behavior out of bed, I think to myself — it totally is.
Fighting the Good Fight
(This story is the continuation of this post).
When I last left this story, it was 2005 and I was a high strung gal with a crush on a boy. Funny, now that I write that, I guess things haven’t changed much in these last few years. I was ready for a relationship and I finally put my foot down — no more pussyfooting around here, buddy! I wanted commitment or I wanted nothing to do with this situation — and I was willing to fight for it.
But for Garrett, it was not so black and white.
Remember how I told you I wasn’t the friendliest girl ever to him right when he started working for Peet’s? Yeeeeeeah. Well let me interject a little unsolicited advice here people: Don’t be an asshole to other people. This will complicate your life when you actually decide you want to be in a a relationship with those people you were an asshole to.
Garrett wasn’t ready to dive right in to this relationship head first (even though I was like “Trust me…it’ll be great!” Even though we had built a new level of intimacy and foundation, he was still a little bit leery of putting his heart on the line. But you know anything about me at all, you know I’m not a girl who does really well at taking ‘no’ for an answer.
So I decided that I was just going to take a break.
Piece of advice number two — “taking a break” from a relationship that doesn’t exist yet is also not the best plan ever. Let me tell you I was MISERABLE. Sure I was “in control” — not letting someone else jerk my heart strings around, but my heart was also breaking on the inside. Talk about a dark period in my life. GAH! I remember doing very little except wondering what Garrett was doing, hoping he would come into Peet’s so that I could just see his face (and of course promptly ignore him because I am very mature), and drinking heavily.
No Bueno.
Finally one day my good friend Jeremy took me out for a beer and just said “What the hell is going on with you?” Oh that’s right, I forgot to mention that this whole horrible period of time in my life was basically a great big secret from any of my and Garrett’s shared friends and co-workers (Jeremy included) so I think everyone probably just thought I had turned into a bitch overnight and couldn’t quite figure out why. So over another shared pitcher of Newcastle (Dear Newcastle, don’t my romantic woes at least earn me a free 12-pack? Great, thanks!) I pretty much confessed the whole story.
To which he responded:
“So that’s why Garrett looks like shit is drinking heavily. Ah, it all makes sense.”
Now, ladies, I know that does not qualify as a profession of love with fireworks and romance as I had envisioned. Trust me, if I was a screenwriter that would not be the climax of my chick flick — but at that moment in time it was exactly what I needed to hear.
He was miserable!
I was miserable!
And that had to count for something, right?
I decided that I needed to make an effort to fight for this relationship that I felt so damn strongly about. Coincidentally the next night Garrett called and wanted to meet me for a drink to discuss our situation. And seriously, the only things about that night I remember are that it began with a strong glass of gin with a side of tearful confession and it ended with the words “Let’s just evolve.”
Also, not a line that I would put in my chick flick, but man did it feel like a tall drink of water int he dessert. That dark, miserable cloud that I had been living under had suddenly dissipated and a whole new era was being ushered in. And in that moment, that was just perfect.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that bullshit, I know. But I can honestly tell you going living my life without Garrett was terrible, and I just never want to feel that kind of misery again. We did, in fact, evolve and it was kind of a process. And even though the beginning of our romance does NOT count as a fairy tales I’m almost certain that it will end like one.
The thing about this evolution that I am most proud of is that three years ago today, we both looked at one another and consciously made that commitment to never go through life without each other again. It was the best decision I have made to date. I can’t imagine my life without this man, and from past experience I can tell you that I don’t even want to try it.
He is the one I want to be with forever, the one this still gives me butterflies, the one who makes me feel safe at night, and the one who keeps me in stitches when we are lying in bed in the morning still groggy and not quite ready to get out of bed. He is the perfect one for me. And that, fairy tale or not, is the kind of love that is worth fighting for.
Happy Anniversary, Garrett! I hope we have a lifetime of silly kisses together!
Construction Delays (Part One)
During the summer of 2002 I was scouting out the Sacramento area Peet’s Coffee locations in preparation for my move up from Los Angeles in August to finish school. After a four year hiatus from college I wanted an easy transition back to student life so I had decided to step down from my management position with Peet’s and transfer to a NorCal location as a regular barista to work fewer hours.
At the time I only knew my family who lived in Lincoln, so I began to look around Roseville for apartments. Roseville was a 25 minute commute to school, but a brand new Peet’s was supposed to be opening there that summer across from the GREAT! BIG! MALL! I’m sure you can imagine my excitement. But as moving time grew closer, I kept getting the same update about the Roseville Peet’s.
Construction delays.
I realized that my only option was going to be to work at the one Sacramento Peet’s location, which meant it would make more sense to move to Sacramento proper. I was bummed because this meant I would be farther from the only souls I knew (and of course that GREAT! BIG! MALL!) but I figured living closer to school and work would afford me the opportunity to meet more people — and let me tell you, it was one of the best things I ever did. Those construction delays brought me to a major turning point in my life.
In November of 2003, a little over a year after settling into my new Peet’s and my new Sacramento life, a few new holiday hires joined our store. One of them happened to be a guy named Garrett and if we’re being honest, I thought he was pretty smokin’ from the start. But this is far from a love-at-first-sight story.
If you must know the truth, I used to be a little judgmental. Snap judgments seem to be my biggest flaw, but trust me when I tell you this particular situation has certainly taught me a lesson in that. The thing about Garrett’s arrival is that I wasn’t the only girl who had noticed. There was plenty of buzz surrounding him, and I thought to myself smugly, “Let the rest of these chicks swoon over him just because he’s pretty. I’m so beyond that!” You see, I had just spent 4 years doing some soul searching in Los Angeles (remarkably enough you can find your soul down there if you know where to look) and I felt like I was discriminating, damnit! I had come to Sacramento with a fiercely independent attitude, and I certainly was not going to fall prey to another pretty boy with too much gel in his hair who used to work at The Gap. Been there, done that.
I decided just about instantly that Garrett and I had nothing in common and thus acted accordingly. In my book he was just another prepped out, spoiled douchebag and my independent, all knowing self just didn’t have the time for that.
To this day, that is something I regret.
I spent a good 6-8 months not being the friendliest to him, though I definitely kept my eye on him. I remember once we had a conversation standing behind the pastry case at Peet’s and the entire time I don’t think I heard a word he was saying. I was just staring at him sort of dumbstruck and I managed in that conversation to unknowingly twist a button off the back pocket of the green pants I was wearing. When we both realized what I did, there was sort of an awkward pause in the conversation. A snap back to reality that I can still see feel vividly (it was weird) but it was in that awkward moment that I allowed myself to admit I kinda liked the guy.
It was this giant tidal wave of emotion, and I was immediately self conscious about it. In hindsight I am surprised that I even kept myself speaking in coherent sentences. Those pants are covered in coffee stains and not to mention kind of out of style, but every time I clean out my closet I can’t bring myself to throw them out because they absolutely remind me of that moment when I knew. That moment of realization that all of my immature behavior had really just boiled down to that elementary school style of showing affection – be mean to the ones you truly love.
I wrestled with that epiphany for a while and put it in the back of my mind. As I realized what a jerk I had been and amended that behavior, we slowly became better friends (shocker.) Piece by piece we told each other our stories over shared pitchers of Newcastle, and long phone calls that didn’t end until one of us fell asleep. We exchanged CDs with each other (CDs! Oh the relics of youth!) and began a tradition of doing pub trivia at Streets of London every Sunday night with a few of our other co-workers. Presently I’m a Monday thru Friday 9 to 5-er, and I can tell you with one hundred percent certainty that I have never looked forward to a Sunday night with such anticipation as I did during that time in my life.
The best part of our new found friendship was that on top of Garrett being a wonderful guy that I was loving to get to know, he was also my coworker (which, hello! meant I got to see him ALL THAT MUCH MORE). A few mornings per week he would be the first face I saw at 5am when we would roll into our store with our sleepy faces on, claim our regular parking spots and dive into acomfortable, wordless routine. Those were the best mornings and they are some my clearest and fondest memories of that time – the days when I got up a little bit earlier to plan my outfit and used just a little extra Cool Mint Listerine. When I would look at the schedule with anticipation every week to see what it would hold.
We spent so many days drinking espresso, cracking inside jokes, and accidentally brushing arms while making drinks. The intimacy was palpable and we built a relationship over coffee beans that plays over and over in my head to a soundtrack of Radiohead, Stars, Muse, and The Arcade Fire. To this day when I hear Muse’s “Endlessly” it makes my heart beat just a little bit quicker in remembrance of that time.
But this phase in our relationship did ultimately cause a problem of its own. Not really dating, but having a relationship that was so intense meant we were constantly in limbo. And this went on for a LONG time. For OVER A YEAR! And let me tell you, for a high strung control freak like me who is constantly setting goals and trying to take action in her life– that limbo phase ate me up inside.
In my mind it all made sense– Boy: check, Great Chemistry: check, Butterflies: check, Shared Values: check – the potential was amazing and every day that it wasn’t being realized it began to irritate me more and more. All this philosophizing about life and agreeing about relationship standards– all the laughing and having fun and the late night phone calls just weren’t working for me without a label (I know, I’m a total spaz – spare your comments, I’m totally aware). BUT I WANTED A TITLE DAMNIT! I was an English major, I liked definitions and words that identified things. Words brought clarity, and I wanted it settled in my mind already. I wanted to know what we were doing, where we were going, and I definitely wanted the fairytale exclamation that Garrett had loved me this whole time. Preferably confessed in a romantic, grandiose fashion
Ha!
Unfortunately that wasn’t exactly how we came to be. The beginning of my relationship with Garrett was wrought with its own construction delays…
Story Continued here
Good Romance
One of my favorite stories I remember hearing while growing up is how my parents began dating. They were both Freshmen in high school and my mom was a letter girl and my dad played football. I know this story starts out so All American you want to be sick now but fret not, the mob tactics and bribery come later.
At the high school they both attended in Fremont, it was only the seniors who got lockers on the patio. This was the place to be apparently, and both my parents had older sisters who were seniors. My dad was lucky enough to have a sister who was willing to share her locker with him, and it was conveniently located right next to my mom’s older sister Yvonne. At this point, according to my father side of the story, he was already a smitten kitten. He had spied my mom painting some football poster in the hallways one day and basically instantly fell in love with her and her “long, luxurious hair”. Yes those were his words, and no he was not raised by parents who wrote romance novels or scripts for shampoo commercials, as many people look for love and company in their lives, and that’s why the use of services for companionship like Skip The Games Albany are really great for this.
When I ask my mom about it, she’s not even sure Martha ever did put in a good word with Yvonne, or if she did, whether Yvonne ever passed on that good word. What she distinctly remembers is all his junior high friends (aw…junior high…they were such babies!) used to come up to her with newspaper clippings about him and his football prowess. Apparently everyone was trying to mack on my mom on my dad’s behalf. He was working all angles. Now, whether my dad had orchestrated this or not is still debatable, but for my mom who views humility (and vaccuum lines on carpet) right up there next to Godliness, this was not doing the trick. But something about the whole sitaution did strike my mom. I mean, it must have, right? They dated for the next 8 years — through high school, when my dad went to college in New Mexico, when he transferred to college in Hawaii. Through everything. When he was drafted to the Detroit Lions in 1976 and another big move was on the horizon, they finally decided to get hitched. To this day, even though my dad passed away in 1999, he is still the love of my mom’s life.
“So what the heck was it?” I asked her this afternoon, “What made you finally go out with dad?” And do you know what her answer was? What it was that made my mom love him to begin with, and love him to this day:
“He was relentless.”
Relentless.
That’s it. I’m sure in the end it helped that it wasn’t like creepy-stalker- weirdo relentless, and that he actually called her and was actually nice to her — but on a day like today, when candied “I Love You’s”, predictable floral arrangements, and dinner reservations abound – I am reminded of how much better real love is. Love that cannot be expressed by Hallmark. As far as I’m concerned very few relationships hold a candle to the kind of love my parents had. It’s funny, because looking back, none of those material love-markers were really around when I was growing up. My dad was never the big romancer guy. I mean he was big, and a guy, but that’s really where the similarities end. He rarely brought home flowers, my mother was never dripping in jewels representing birthdays past, and if there was chocolate around it was more likely that my mom had baked something delicious than my dad stopping to pick up some sweets for his sweet. But as a child even, I never had any doubt that my parents loved each other. Because none of those things are what love is about.
I think that when it came to my mom, there was nothing that my dad wouldn’t do for her, and I know for a fact that the feeling was mutual on my mom’s end. That’s just the kind of people they were. To me, to everyone, but especially to each other. When it comes to really loving someone, I think both parties in any relationship would agree there is really only one thing you ever want your significant other to do for you. And its not bring you flowers, or buy you diamonds. It’s not buy a stuffed animal, or pay for an expensive dinner. Those things are nice, but they sure don’t make you feel comforted. It’s about being relentless. It’s about knowing that the list of things you would do for that person begins and ends with ‘anything’.
