Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Finding Each Other

You ever notice when you first end up in serious relationship people always ask "how did you meet?" Well we are no different. Whenever I am down at the dive center people always are curious, as of course are friends and loved ones. I mean it's not like we are a logical match, so I think people want to hear some sort of spectacular meeting. Most people assume we met diving and assume that my fiance walks up to women on a beach and asks them "Do you like the scuba?" It wasn't like that at all - we were at a bar and I picked HIM up.

I was on vacation with five fabulous women. Everyone was having lots of fun and three days in we already had enough memories to bring laughs for years to come. One common theme from the trip was that every few hours or so the question "Where's Farrah?" came up. Look we were in paradise living the high life - there were lots of shiny objects to get easily distracted by. So when after 3 or 4 hours of eating and making new friends Farrah wandered back to our hotel just up the beach, I never thought that this particular wander was about to change my life.

Sun was beginning to set and we all decided to head back to the hotel and find Farrah. After a brief swim with some of our new friends we all slowly made our way back to the hotel laughing and giggling at each other the way girls do. When we arrived, there was our friend surrounded by three men and a fluffy dog. While most of the girls had been quite flirty up to this point, I had been restrained - there was sort or a someone and I just wasn't in the flirty mood. Well, that changed the second I arrived back at Tom Beach. I walked right up to my friend and her new friends plopped myself next to this man with curly blonde hair and the most amazing blue eyes I had seen and started a conversation.

I have no idea what exactly we talked about - I did know that he was from France, he owned a dive center, and hadn't been on St Barth that long. I know we spoke in Italian a bit as my French was pathetic. I'm not going to lie the rest of the evening is a bit foggy (see above reference to Rose) but that evening I met the man I am going to spend the rest of my life with and had absolutely no idea at the time. What I do remember is that he and his friend stayed and had dinner with this crazy crew.We spent most of the evening smooching and cuddling like a couple who had been together for a little while. I also remember the way he looked at me. We spent a beautiful evening together - a lady doesn't give the details.

So there you have it - I walked up to this man at a beach bar after having just a bit to drink and I picked him up. I wish there was more to it - obviously all that came later. The moral here is when I was least expecting, while I picked him up that night - love found me when I was least expecting it and the rest, as we say, is the future :)


Monday, July 23, 2012

Luckiest Girl in the World

It's weekends like this past weekend that remind me how lucky I am, not just the last couple years but in general. What I am talking about is my girls. A friend of mine wrote about the cycle of friendship recently and as someone who recently entered her 40s I am very familiar with how friendships go through cycles, some cycle out some go on. This weekend my girls from just about every stage of my life helped me celebrate my upcoming marriage. I was completely blown away with the all the very sweet and thoughtful touches throughout - I hope I get to repay you all in some way at some point.

It was really the perfect event and couldn't have asked for more. With everyone's crazy lives these ladies took time from their lives to spend either a few minutes, hours or the entire day and that alone means the world to me. I already miss my girls - it's probably the hardest part of this transition - not being able to see any of them whenever we want - I will need to trust that they will come visit or that we will be able to make time when I am in town for a few days. 

The little details of extremely thoughtful gestures - purple candy, brunch at the first place I ate the day I moved to the city, a little time in central park, the coasters, the posters, the flowers, the amazing food, the crepe cake, and of course the general silliness that happens when a gaggle of girls get together. I will cherish all these memories forever! I know I haven't included tons of pics to date - well here are few. 





The best part about the day - is we laughed, A LOT. There were lots and lots of stories - all kinds of stories that reminded me just how amazing my life and friendships have been. I know I won't get to see all my friends as often as I want anymore and that's hard. I know now that I am getting married my priorities will switch more. But I will never, ever forget all my amazing friends and I know that even if we don't see each other, we are there.

I think Saturday was the perfect reflection on the cycle of friendship. I tried to spend even a few minutes with each and everyone one of you to chat, catch up and just be with you. I think when I do come back to town now I will try and do that more often. We all have stories, fun times, hard times, silly times. Sometimes our lives change and we don't get to see each other as often - people move, people get married, people have babies - guess what, this is always going to happen. It doesn't mean we love each other less, it just means we need to appreciate what time we can spend with each other. I know I did on Saturday and for that I am very very happy.

I already miss you all and was overwhelmed (still am) by the love I felt on Saturday. I said it then and I will say it again - I am sooooo lucky to have these friends. I hope I continue to earn your friendship. I do hope that there is room for people to come visit means that I may get lucky and get you crazy kids down there. Regardless, I still feel like the luckiest girl in the world!

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Suddenly a Relationship Expert????

So here I am, 1 month away from marrying the man I love, my missing piece, and am absolutely over the moon! I am floored at how fast this all happened and even more floored that I FINALLY made the right decision when it came to men. I feel so lucky to have met him and even luckier that we have somehow been able to make this all work. I mean lets face it, it's not like the cards were stacked in our favor. We lived 1721 miles apart, there is a significant language barrier, and it's not like we exactly have the same background.

A funny thing has happened to me along the way, suddenly I have all sorts of people asking for relationship advice. This is funny to me for a number of reasons but the biggest is that I have NEVER been good at relationships and still don't consider myself a relationship expert. Digital, sales, and general business - definitely but relationships - not so much. So for people to all of a sudden be asking me advice on relationships seems a little funny is reminding me how hard it really was to get here.

So while I'm no expert, here is how WE got here:  we are open and honest, we don't play games, we really communicate, and we always say I'm sorry when we act like idiots. Seems obvious but think about it - how many times have you tried to pretend to be someone you thought they wanted you to be as opposed to yourself? How many times have you pretended to not want certain things because you didn't think they wanted it. Complete honesty is is a lot easier said than done and I think that's why people say relationships are work - because you not only need to be honest with them, you have to be honest with yourself. And you can't have complete honestly without communication.

Very early on in our relationship we had a tough conversation - you know the one about our past. Look, I am not proud of some of my past decisions but for some reason I didn't hold back and it was hard - for both of us. He didn't love hearing some of what he heard, but we talked about it, talked about how it was in fact the past and how my past taught me to be a better person. I learned from my past mistakes and my past helped shape who I am. Now I am not saying share every single detail of past relationships, but I am saying it's ok to admit to some past mistakes and misjudgments - pretty sure none of us are without fault somewhere.

The other conversation we had early on was what we both wanted. In the past, when conversation turned to marriage and children, I often kept what I REALLY wanted from some of the men I dated because I thought it wasn't what THEY wanted and I wanted to be loved and accepted by them. It seems obvious, but that doesn't work. Too often women pretend to be something we aren't - free spirits who don't need to get married or have kids - we are afraid to scare them away. Well here's the thing - what does that actually solve? We don't think of it as lying but it is. How can a relationship grow into something serious and committed if you pretend you don't care about that? So for the first time, when my fiance asked what I wanted I said out loud "I want to get married and have a family, which I don't think is what you want." The biggest surprise was his response that he could get married and would like another child." Say WHAT?????

Doesn't seem like a big deal, but that sentence was terrifying because I was falling hard for this man and my perception was that was not something he would want. Guess I was wrong  - I thought I was taking a huge  risk that day but I don't know that we would have gotten here if I hadn't told him what I really wanted. I told him what I wanted and he didn't say no. We were communicating, talking about what we both wanted. We weren't 100% in alignment but over the last year we have each made compromises and learned from each other.   There were deal breakers for us both - and we talked about them: I don't want to move to Florida he needs to live near the water, I always want to work he wants to make sure that there is always "us time" where the phone and the computer are not being checked perpetually.

The point is we talked about this stuff a lot and we both wanted to make this work. The last part is really important - we BOTH wanted to make it work. So we did. It hasn't been easy - weeks apart make it tough. We make every effort to speak every day, even if it's for 2 minutes. We share the most mundane details of our day as often as we share the more exciting ones. We compromise and we make sacrifices for the betterment of us. But ultimately all comes down to being honest, talking, not playing games and being yourself - and both being on the same page. It won't make every relationship a success because there may be deal breakers that you can't compromise on - if another child was out of the question we would never be getting married one month from today. But if we never had the conversation, we might not be getting married either.


Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Discovering Under Water

I know I already posted about diving once, but as it becomes more and more a part of my life, I feel the need to share. The biggest difference in my two lives is that in my current one I have a lot more time to think and reflect, this blog is one of the outputs of that time. Last night, I went on my first night dive and it was something so amazing and the whole time I was underwater I was thinking about everything I saw and how amazing it all is.

First off, under water life from my vantage point is the most pure and interesting forms of life. I see more colors (even at night) in one hour diving than I will in a week above ground. And all kinds of colors - the colors on these massive reef structures that are far more beautiful and engaging than any man-made structure. They serve as perfect playgrounds, feeding areas,sleeping nooks, and general  everyday life to millions of types of sea creatures from sharks to turtles to shrimp. And they all live together in a harmony that does not exist above ground.

It's all so grossly misunderstood at times. I heard somewhere that Steven Spielberg regrets a bit how Jaws created this incredible fear of sharks. That's a good thing, I swim with sharks regularly here now, not great whites but small sharks that have absolutely no interest in eating me or any of my dive mates - they generally swim away as fast as they can once they know we are there.  They are beautiful creatures just trying to live their life, what's so scary about that?

On last nights dive, after the first turtle swam up to the light we were holding and any fear I had of being underwater at night faded, I spent the next 45 minutes on thinking about the under water world vs. the above ground world and how very different but yet similar they are - beyond the whole air vs water thing. In each reef formation there is more life living together than probably anywhere else in the world but it does't feel crowded. Blue fish swim with grey fish and pink fish around the same areas. When you are different there you seem more special - I get more excited about seeing turtles and eagle rays than I do some of the fish. So there is still that - but I doubt the fish feel the same as I do. There is this perfect symmetry to it all that I personally had been searching for. I am definitely a more appreciative person because of experiencing it, even in the very tiny way I have.

I couldn't be happier that in addition to finding the love of my life, I found a new passion and have a new respect for the ocean. The two are related of course, I covered that in a past post - if I ended up hating scuba I would not be living the life I am today. So glad it turned out the other way. I hope this respect I am gaining will help be kinder to the the ocean- its so much more beautiful when it's unspoiled by us pesky humans. It's really making me appreciate being here versus New York. New York will always be part of me, but getting to be in the ocean as often as I really want, that is something I am so very very grateful for!

Friday, July 6, 2012

What's is Brave?

So my little blog project about this whole transition - which has been both personal but also professional has brought me more comments and emails than I could have hoped and the feedback has actually been quite surprising. I have heard from people from every stage of my life and in almost every single capacity. The feedback that surprises me most is when people use words like "brave." Because in general, I never thought of myself as particularly brave and I still don't.

I must admit, this last year or so, I made some difficult as well as odd (to some) choices. To some the change may have seemed sudden, but in reality they were anything but.  They were not entirely blind leaps of faith or sudden decisions. Each and every decision I have made I have made based on either past life experience or a certain need of fulfillment or in many cases, both. I point this out because a 25 year old me would have NEVER EVER gone in this direction. It's because I lived through similar situations in the past and just when you thought there was no light and you went in the other direction - it was different than what you expected.

I know I may be getting a little philosophical with that but really - my decision to leave my last job was a personal one, it had nothing to do with the people or the particular  company, it was that I personally, was tired and needed a break from that whole world. Then I met this guy, then my next birthday - you know the big four - zero - was just around the corner. So maybe, I wanted a break for me and it happened to coincide with meeting this amazing person who taught me to appreciate certain things just a little bit more (talking a green I wish we practiced back in NY).

What happened next was a series of extreme highs and lows - the job i took, the gigs i work on now, getting engaged, leaving my apartment, moving to a strange place. And they are all inter-related, in many ways. I took a job that gave me the freedom to work remote - very remote - 1 week a month. What happened next was truly incredible and not in a good way but for many reasons chose not to discuss as this time. Then all of a sudden, a few small consulting gigs are presented..and now I really, really like what I am doing. I get to do a little bit of 3 of my favorite parts of past jobs but independently. So for each client i have a very specific a defined focus, it's kind of perfect for me. So again, I chose a path where I still feel challenged but not suffocated, which at this stage of my life was important.

So for everyone that thinks what I did was "brave" I still don't but I appreciate the comments. At each of those moments where I had to make a decision, I made the only logical decision as apparent to me at that moment. In most cases, it turned out better than I could have hoped. I guess my point is - I appreciate those of you that think this is brave, but to me, the decisions have actually been more logical than emotional, and very well thought out. I think over the next few weeks you will all start to learn a little more about the history behind some of my decisions that stretch back years and years in some cases.




Monday, July 2, 2012

It's a good thing we love each other

That's exactly how I feel about the business of getting married - because let's face it, it's a business. This process has been fun, exciting, and aggravating all at the same time. It's almost a full-time job really - and of course our own special wrinkle of me being american and he being french is making it even more fun (please note the sarcasm here).The legality and bureaucratic nature of getting married is the part of the marriage process you never see and probably never hear about until you are going though it - you only hear about vendors, and venues, and dresses, and flowers...which of course are the fun  & exciting parts. So I think it's a good thing we love each other.

So far, just in legal documentation, I have spent close to $2000 in legal fees and government agency fees - most are government fees. It's like some of these documents are required so that someone in our respective countries can review them. I have had to do two contracts - done by a consulate approved attorney, a new version of my birth certificate - indecently the state of NJ spelled my name wrong on the new issue so that has made this even MORE fun, 4 apostiles - for those of you that don't know what this is, it's state-issued document certifying that other legal documents (ones that have already been certified) are in fact real.  So in other words I had to get legal docs to verify my legal docs were in fact legal. It's a good thing we love each other.


But my big question is what does all of this have to do with getting married? Why do I need a piece of paper that ends up costing about $500 by the time it has been created, notarized, stamped, translated, and certified that says I am who I am when the purpose of the original document is identification.  Then, just when you think you have done everything - you find out your lease doesn't count as legal proof you live where you say you do, no you need a utility bill - which of course we don't have because we pay the landlord directly. SO we need to find something else. The time we have spent collectively getting documentation is probably triple to what we have spent on the"fun" stuff. It's a good thing we love each other.


Now we get to the "fun" stuff - I am not going to lie - this wedding has gotten much bigger and fancier than was intended. Initially, we were talking about 40 - 50 closest friends and family in a destination (here). Well since we are older, that also means we have older families - people that are very important to us but traveling to St Barth is not an option...so now we are having THREE weddings. We are getting the original, but also having two others - and that's ok because we will get to celebrate what is really something neither of us expected with most of the people we care about - and that's REALLY what this should be about. It's not about a piece of paper (or 20), it's not about the perfect dress, ring, music, or venue, its about sharing something so very very special with the people we care about. So in the end, the paperwork and hassles will be worth it. We will say "I do" or I think in this case it's "je fait" and then we will party - to celebrate what is really happening - two people that found each other on a beach in St Barth and decided that spending time with each other forever is what we wanted. So I guess it IS a good thing we love each other :)