Letter To A Friend

Dear --------,

This letter might be a bit scattered so bear with me, here is everything (maybe) that I know (to be true) about love:

Everyone in the entire world wants love. Most of us have the problem of not recognizing it, not knowing where to get it, and not knowing how to do or what to do with it.

Everyone.

Everyone suffers from this "absence of love". If we see someone who has it, even if they don't do it well and it turns out to be the messy, gory love that dies quickly, we feel left out. Like Happiness and Satisfaction is a members only club for people with a Love Card.

Everyone is lonely.

I just conducted a survey, and of the nearly 310 million people in the U.S. alone, at least 289,411, 762 reported that at least once in their lifetime they have felt "like I will never find love".* A few you might know include myself, Samantha, Brandon, Julie, Will, Jim from the Office, Cher, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Sting, and the Artist Formerly Known as Prince. * **

Many people feel that God has predestined them for singleness and a life of celibate service for His own reasons. Most of these people who hold this belief are Christians between the ages of 15 and 35. This is, however, not biblical. No offense to the Catholic Church or to Paul, but Jesus did not come back 1,950 years ago and God never told anyone to wall themselves up in a church. God's first observation of man was that his being alone sucked and his first command to the happy couple was to have sex and make babies. God wants us to get it on with one person for the rest of our life.

We get to pick that person.

When people say love is a choice what they mean is that eventually you will get tired of someone but that you have to commit to being nice to them and putting up with all their crap when you'd rather punch them in the face. This is true. However, falling in love is also choosing to let your mind dwell on the particular aspects of someone that delight you, storing them in your subconscious and engraving a picture on your soul of who you perceive that person to be. Then you put yourself in said picture until a point is reached where happiness is being with that person in that picture. If this is taken away we respond badly.

Our thought repeat themselves down a dark path of the

following:

No one chooses to love me romantically right now. Something must be wrong with me. I am unlovable. No one will ever love me. I am alone. I will always be alone. Something must be wrong with me. I will never find love.

The only way to lift oneself from the depths of darkness and gloom is to latch on to the truth of the first statement: no one chooses to love me romantically right now. Then there are 2 options:

1. accept the belief that this is God's gentle nudge that you should immediately join the nearest monastic community

2. keep your heart wide open and embrace whatever or whomever comes your way

The second thing to notice about this pattern is that all of the thoughts are self-centered insecurities. Please note that any and every jealousy, insecurity, and self-doubt lies in wait for the opportunity to subotage everything you know to be true. Lies in wait. Lies. In the waiting.

Alone is the place where we have to fight lies with truths.

Here's another truth: when in a relationship, they (Jealousy, Insecurity, and Self-Doubt, sometimes even Self-Loathing) are still waiting to jump you if you let them.

Sometimes if another girl is talking to Zach I have to tell Insecurity and Jealousy to f@%! off. I know that Zach and I are together because God saw that it was good. Nothing can stand against this truth.

Now there is a battle to fight. A war that will never resolve unless we, all of us, you and I, declare

I am loved

I will be loved

I will give love

I will welcome love

The two greatest commandments are for us to love God and love those around us. If we do this, in any capacity, we are on the right path.

And someday, somewhere choose someone to love, let someone choose you, become someone's One.

Until then, think happy thoughts and live your life open.

* **names have been changed to protect the innocent and also no one should take seriously any statistics or "facts" given in this blog regarding famous persons or the population of the US, other than serving as a metaphor for the general human condition.

Sometimes My Brain Spits This Stuff Out

It's been the kind of week that makes you wish movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind were for real. And it has taken Friday a long time to get here. So this blog isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea.

But if you can appreciate where I'm coming from,

and if you've had a rough week and you need a laugh or a smile,

and if you like Bollywood,

and if you've read or just seen Twilight,

then I'm about to jump start your weekend in an amazing way.

I've been shelving this one for a while but now feels like the right time to show you.

If Bollywood did Twilight:

Anushka Sharma as Bella. Because she can pull off the plain jane look and turn into a gorgeous vampire at the end and she's a better actress than some other people who have played Bella. Maybe I would actually like the character of Bella if Anushka was in the role.

Imran Khan as Edward

He looks better with his shirt off than Robert P. in my opinion.

See? Perfect.

Cheers to Sonam Kapoor for coming in 2nd place for Bella.

Shahrukh Khan as Jasper and Kajol as Alice.

Enough said.

Mr. Abhishek Bachchan as Emmet. Good big brother type. Strong, muscular, fun loving. Arm wrestling? I'd happily lose to him.

Kareena Kapoor as Rosalee. She's gorgeous and I've seen her play rude well. She can be tough and she's the only one I can see playing the part.

Amitabh Bachchan as Carlisle. He's very kind and dignified but he can be in your face too.

Yes, he looks older than the characters are supposed to be but they all look older.

It's my movie.

Amitabh Bachchan is in it.

Period.

Madhuri Dixit as Esme. Because if I'm casting a movie Madhuri's going to be in it. Because she's an amazing actor/dancer/human being. And also just so I can meet her.

I may switch to Team Jacob just for Shahid Kapoor.

Rani Mukherjee playing Jane. I'd like to see her play a bad guy. I think she would kick some tail.

The Volturi:

Salman Khan

Sanjay Dutt...in case you can't read it on the photo.

Jackie Shroff

All 3 are great actors and I think they could be really creepy if they wanted to.

Usually Preity Zinta is the adorable one but after watching Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna and seeing this photo of her I thought she could do a nice vindictive Victoria. This photo was actually what triggered my Bollywood/Twilight musings. Thanks Preity!

And last but not least, my favorite Mr. Aamir Khan. I thought this photo very striking. Oh and he would be James.

I know it's totally random and ridiculous. It's also very "Chris". I hope it made your day better like it did mine :)

For those of you who are confused and/or think I'm a nutcase:

1. You should open your mind and watch some Hindi films.

2. Thank you.

3. I'll be back to the usual postings soon. Today I just needed a fun pick-me-up.

And yes, Zach does know how much of a dork I am.

Control

Things are about to get a little personal but this is something I've been pondering.

As a young bride-to-be I knew there would come a day when I should start birth control. Zach and I have talked about it and we do not want to have kids for a while. A long while. So there was no question that this would be happening. But I have to admit, I have very mixed feelings about the practice.

There are so many factors that go into a decision like this. I have friends, my age, who already have their second child and others who never want to bring a child into this world. I know people who are adamantly against birth control, others who gave it up, and some who have been on it for years.

In no way do I feel ready for the responsibility and personal sacrifice required for a child. There is no way we could be financially prepared for a child in the near future. And part of it is, I'm a teacher (currently at least). I deal with other people's children Monday through Friday. While I love them as much as I can, and they drive me nuts as much as they can, at the end of the day we all go home and let me tell you, 3 o'clock is one of my favorite times. So no children for now. But then I do have some problems with the fact that in order to accomplish this I have to be on birth control.

Like putting something in my body that's going to completely change the way it was designed to work. That freaks me out a little. Or all the side effects that can occur along with it. Drugs are some of the scariest things man has ever created. Drugs and weapons of mass destruction.

Not to mention that if Zach and I make the decision to never have children then I'm on this stuff for at least the next 20-25 years. And if you take the cost of birth control and multiply it over that many years we could buy a new car.

Essentially that means spending the next 25 years of our lives paying to not own a new car. A living-breathing-pooping-screaming-loving new car.

It takes a lot of money to not have something.

Another problem I have with birth control is the way it's marketed. Today I was flipping through channels and there was a commercial for some kind of birth control with this mom and her cute little 3 year old-ish son. He was tearing around the house, just being a kid, and the catchphrase of the bit was something like "Another one? Not right now." Like children are a bad thing.

I realize that my reasons for not wanting kids echo the sentiments of the ad but I do have problems with the view of parenting that commercial was selling. Add to that the horrific (and I do mean really disturbing) list of possible side effects the voice over was pleasantly explaining and you get the feeling something is wrong.

Cheaper by the Dozen was on TV today. A family with 12 kids. Twelve because they wanted them. It was a movie that sold families. And while I don't think anyone should have quite that many children it was much less creepy than the commercial.

I think it ultimately depends on what kind of parent you are. Because while I do believe that having children requires a lot of giving on the parent's part, I also believe that if you really put in that kind of care and commitment the returns of your love will be amazing. I'm just not there yet.

What about you? Where do you stand on conception interception?