For those of you who keep up with me in my personal life, you might have been able to put two and two together over the last few weeks when it comes to the lack of entries in my blog. I haven’t had as much free time these days, because as most of you know…

 I’ve started dating someone

             Now this past week, one of my buddies who is blogrolled on my page, Jeremy Zach, linked me on his page – indicating that he admired me for my astounding relational insights. And truth be told – I literally laughed out loud when I read it – I thought it had to be a joke. After realizing that it was indeed NOT a joke, I have decided that I write about relationships simply because I don’t get them; I don’t understand them. They intrigue me and frustrate me. Even this past week, I was at a 50^th Wedding Anniversary party, with the couple and their eight children, and countless grand and great-grandchildren…and it blew my mind. The mere idea that two people fell in love and decided to stay together forever, and because of their decisions, they have made a place in the world for all of this? As I stood in the middle of the living room in a beautiful beach house down by the beach with party festivities glowing all around…it literally left me staggering.

So, for the person who is awe of relationships to begin with, and then you throw a new man in the mix….whoa. Can I tell you how much amazing blog material I most likely have pushed through in the past few weeks? I probably could have published a novel at this point with all of the new, scary, and interesting things come all balled up inside of the “New Relationship” Package.

And in all of these new ideas and things, I have struggled with how to express it. Normally I have a thought, I let it come to be, and then blog about it. But knowing that my new man reads my blogs – makes it either seem all a bit trite…or emo kid…or inappropriate…or that I am simply committed to writing in a way that is real and raw, despite my auidence. I suppose this is just a side conversation that I dont have completely worked out yet.  Either way – whether this blog makes me a classic “Internet Emotional vomiter” or a great writer…the one single thought that I can’t seem to get away from over the past few weeks is this:

Relationships are Messy

            Astounding I know. My revelations are nothing short of groundbreaking.  But really, I am shocked at how soon it seems like an ocean’s flood of questions come pouring into my mind…all asking me “How do we navigate this?” There are mere moments when I simply resign to the fact that I will most likely drown in it all…my lungs filling up with water as my skin migrates to a soft blue color…all the while,  my vision growing dim and my body growing heavy to slowly sink to the bottom.

            And here is the thing that everyone, including my new man, keeps telling me “Jenni, no one expects you to have it all together. No one expects you to be perfect. We know that everyone has skeletons in the closet, and that things get messy. Relationships are just that…they are messy.”

            Ok. Great. In one ear and out the other. If it is so true that everyone has crap, and that relationships are so messy…why is it that I cannot fight the compulsion to grab and emotional broom and start sweeping? Why is it that I simply would love to go to Barnes&Nobel Online, and find a copy of How to Have the World’s Perfectly Healthy Relationship Without Ever Making a Single Mistake (Author Unknown…haha get it?).

            I can’t handle the messy. I look at it all and see a raging sea of boundaries, time, availability, vulnerability, sex, not sex, balance, finances, family, strategy, knowledge, God, careers, emotional walls, mental walls, disappointments, expectations, idealizations, dysfunctions, procrastinations….retardations…masturbations.. ok – kidding about those last few, but you see why I can easily go from being fine to doused and thrashing an ocean of thoughts.

            It’s when I get to this place, when I feel like I’ve given the hamster 20 oz. of caffeine and then put him on the wheel, that realize…

There’s no way. Maybe what I really want out of life is simply to be a cat lady. 65 years old, smelly, crazy, talking to myself and covered in cat hair.

         I went out to dinner last night with Ang, one of my best friends. It is then, sitting across the table from one other, that she reaches across the table and grabs my hands and says “No Jenni, no you don’t. I know you don’t. And I won’t let you become that. You can do this, and we are right here beside you the whole way.” … ok Ang – talk about the world’s fastest way to make me tear up right at the table.

            But there is something in that that does make me stand back in awe just a little bit. The fact that I have good friends to ask the hard questions, that I have friends that can tell when I am skirting the hard answers. Maybe that’s beauty of good community, of people that really know you’re heart – they can be our guides, our compasses. My grandma had a quote that I think means a lot more in Spanish, but it essentially means the same as “Keeping on foot on the ground.” In Spanish she’d told me “Jenni, necessita una pie en la tierra.” And what I love about that is that in Spanish it directly translates to: one foot in the earth.

And maybe what I am learning is that this is what good people are to me – they are my anchors, they are my roots. They hold me down and keep me from floating away or sinking to the bottom. And just like I’d said in some of my previous blogs, they remind me who I am – what is already true of me and what doesn’t change. They are the voice of God, whispering in my ears what is true of me – who He says that I am – and how I am not to forget that.

New Man, or no man, cracked out hamster on the wheel, cats or no cats – I think as people, we need that. I need that. I need to hold onto my identity in the face of things that challenge me. I need to be reminded of my significance in the ocean of disarray.