Let go of the worry, there’s so much nobody understands

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

“We are all shipwrecked. All castaways… One day we all wake on the beach, our heads caked with sand, sea-foam stinging our eyes, fiddler crabs picking at our roses and the taste of salt caked on our lips. … And, like it or not, it is there that we realize we are all in need of Friday to come rescue us off this island, because we don’t speak the language and we can’t read the messages in the bottle.” –Charles Martin, When Crickets Cry

Something I read this afternoon reminded me of this quote. Although my mom loved this book, I was really dissatisfied with it… all of it, but this one passage. Something about this paragraph resonates…

Now, I’m going to listen to some Ryan Adams.

Young boy, you done me bad, I went and did you wrong

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

It feels like everyone around me is a bit pre-occupied with their singleness right now. I’ll admit I am. It’s not that the end goal of my every day is to find a man, but I have found myself thinking more and more lately that it would be nice to have a boyfriend.

Dating, job hunting and apartment/roommate hunting are (to me) their own sort of trinity. Each is incredibly difficult to figure out, takes a certain amount of networking and has a profound impact on your life. I’ve got the job and worked out now–and believe me, both of those were a long time coming!

But for eight months I’ve been working in a job I love with people I adore. I genuinely look forward to work every day, and the rare days when I’d rather stay home are because I’d rather be reading. They don’t reflect on the job at all. Two weeks ago I moved into a precious one bedroom apartment that you may have to some day throw me out of. It’s the perfect size for me and my cat, and I am thoroughly enjoying wandering around talking to myself. There aren’t pictures on the walls and my books are still out of order, but I’m on the way to putting it all together.

Dating is, as always, another story. Perhaps because we’re in our midtwenties and single, my girl friends and I spend a lot of time talking about guys. It’s a phase that I hope doesn’t last forever, but that I’m thoroughly embracing right now. (Uncertainty can be fun if you allow it to be!) There are guys asking us out, talking to us, some that we’re interested in, some that we’re not… it’s a good place to be.

But why let the fun stop there, right? Several of my friends are giving Internet dating a shot, and one friend and I have decided to blog about our experiences. It’s a three month commitment, and I can’t say I’m the most optimistic gal in the world when it comes to the Internet. However, I’m willing to give it an honest chance… and put it on display for the world to read.

Soon this will change just like the seasons

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

I know become especially obnoxious as July approaches each year. But birthdays are a big deal to me. My first memory is of my fourth birthday (when my parents gave me the Care Bear movie stoundtrack). I remember planning my birthday parties in elementary school so the maximum number of friends would be able to attend. (Anyone whose birthday falls near or on a holiday can relate to that, I’m sure.) As I drove across town this week, I got to thinking about my favorite birthdays. I’ll just share two, both from recent years.

I celebrated my 23rd birthday with 45 people I’d known for only four weeks, plus my best friend who was briefly visitng the town I worked in that summer. Because no one knew me all that well at that point, I organized my own small birthday shindig. Probably 15 or 20 people came to a cook out by my apartment, and my sweet roommates gave me a jewelry box I still use and cards I’ve still saved.

A canoe trip I’d planned for after the cook out fell through. Instead I played volleyball, went swimming and got ice cream with a smaller group (which is generally my preference anyway). We were laid-back, without the noise of a large crowd or the stress of detailed plans. We simply enjoyed each other, and that’s one of the best gifts I could receive.

Last year was, unexpectedly, one of my favorite birthdays. I had been “dumped” (for lack of a more specific descriptor) a week before, and my original plan had been to spend the weekend in Florida with him.

Instead, I spent the night of my birthday at a concert where the singer dedicated the best song to me. (“I’m the icing on the cake/I’m the secret ingredient you’re missing”) My sister and several of my girl friends rallied around me.

Since my weekend plans had been destroyed, one of my best guy friends insisted on arranging a small gathering instead. Without me even needing to ask if she would come, a new girl friend insisted on driving an hour to join in (even though she had already celebrated my birthday once). We went with a handful of friends to dinner and out for a drink afterward. It was a low-key birthday, and one of few times I felt that someone cared enough and got me enough to make me feel cared for on my birthday.

Here’s to another year (and to one that doesn’t utilize a song about a break up for as its theme!).

Maybe someday, someday I’m gonna settle down

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

I could watch “You’ve Got Mail” nearly every day. Ask Alisa – I have no idea how many times she came home to find me watchign her DVD back when we were roommates.

I’ve watched this movie enough that I find myself reciting lines along with Meg and Tom, and thinking of it whenever I hear Joni Mitchell sing the line “I wish I had a river I could skate away on.”

“I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly.”

The problem with “You’ve Got Mail” is that after watching it, I always want to go online and find me a man. (“Don’t you just love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.” Makes me melt every time. The only problem is that a woman wrote those words. And well, I guess that’s not the only problem. There’s that whole “it’s a movie” thing, too.)

What I didn’t really think of until this viewing, after roughly eight years of watching, is that it’s not just random Internet guy that this movie makes me want to fall in love with. It’s random Internet guy who I happen to fall for “in real life” also. Which of course circles back to the ultimate movie-romance problem: “When Harry Met Sally.”

It’s all about ending up with your best friend. Every time I watch that movie, I want 11 years. I want dates with other people and break ups and getting to know you all over again and platonic phone calls and time spent together until one day it all clicks. “When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” I’m not quite to 11 years with anyone but neither am I holding my breath.

It’s all Nora Ephron’s fault.

Say goodbye to the lines that we’ve colored in

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

I think sometimes that my heart is something I carry around on pieces of paper instead of in my body and soul.

Scraps I’ve found today:

“I feel like a vase that’s been shattered on the floor – not one of those made out of thick, cut glass, but something finer and more delicate that splinters into shards so thin that you pick them up with your bare feet for days afterward.”

“I just want to skip the part where it’s work – where it’s high heels and strapless bras. (OK, but I’m a little … high maintenance. That part is my life.) I want sweat pants and doing nothing and Sunday afternoons.
But I bet when I get there, I’ll find myself nostalgic for flirtation and first dates.
Or … for someone with whom I can have both.”

–written … sometime in November

Protected: Flowers grow through my window

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

These are my (basic) rules for dating.

If a guy asks you out, and you have no real reason to say no, then you go.

If you have a nice time when you hang out, and he wants to get together again, then you say yes.

If, after two dates, you’re really not into him, then you tell him so. I don’t care if you enjoy him as a friend or if you just don’t want to spend more time with him – this is important. I am all for going out with a guy a couple of times and seeing if the spark is there. But if it’s not, more than two dates seems like leading him on.

(“Don’t ask me to come around, then wait and see if there’s a spark.”)

Supplemental rules:

You don’t tell him that you’re not going out again via the Internet.

You don’t tell him that you’re not going out again on his birthday.

You call a friend for a pep talk before you DO make that call. (Or at least, I do. I am bad at delivering rejection.)

You call or text a couple friends after as a pat on the back for a job well done.

And then … it’s back to the dating game. Who’s next?

I start to think about the consequences because I don’t get no sleep in a quiet room

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

I’ve been on more first dates this summer than the rest of my life, combined. I’ve learned a lot about what I don’t want, and some about what I do. And I’ve learned a bit about myself in the process — about allowing myself to get excited about someone, and allowing myself to want to date. I’ve learned about some insecurities and I think realized the causes behind them. I’ve had some hard conversations and I’ve done my share of flirting.

That’s a lot to come from a handful of dates. And it’s probably worth more than each cup of coffee and every price of admission.

Derek Webb’s words in “Love is Different” are starting to ring a little less true. (“I don’t know what I want, but at least I know that much.”) I’m not positive that what I want and what I need are the same thing, but I’m starting to get a better idea of who it is I’m waiting for.

“You know what I want in a woman, Paul?”
“What’s that?”
“A friend. A true friend, someone who knows me and loves me anyway. You know, like when I’m through putting my best foot forward, she’s still there, still the same. I meet these people and it’s all conditional, like you were saying. They are in it for themselves. They are friends with you because you fit the image they want to portray. It’s a selfish thing. Do you know what I mean? I’d like to get a girl who doesn’t think like that. Don’t get me wrong. She’s got to be proud of her husband, I know that. I don’t mind trying to make it easy on her in that way. But all in all, there’s got to be some sort of soul mate thing going on. That’s gonna take work, I think. There are some people in this world who love their spouse becasue they provide them with the life they want, and there are others who love their spouse just because they’ve chosen to, or because love has chosen them, or whatever. Something way back endeared one to the other and they made a decision to lock into it.”
Don Miller, “Through Painted Deserts”

Now I don’t want to beg you, baby, for something maybe you could never give

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

Wow, so, I don’t know why this post has been saved as a draft for so long. I definitely wrote it in December, just after I started at my last job … which I quit earlier this month, just so you know. Anyway …

Sometimes a girl just hits a threshold where she can’t handle any more talk of weddings, boyfriends or blind dates without wanting a piece of the action for herself.

Usually I am not that girl. In fact, within days of starting this job, one of the sports guys had asked me if I wasn’t the marrying type and then decided that I probably didn’t want children. (He was wrong on both counts, and I can’t help but wonder why he thought he had me so quickly figured out.)

No, usually I’m the girl who complains about wedding and engagement announcements and loudly proclaims how much she is not ready for marriage.

OK, so I’m still that girl. But for tonight, at the very least, I’m also the girl who wouldn’t mind attempting a relationship.

The other night I made one of my typical comments about not being ready to be married and a couple of friends gave me those “really?” sort of expressions. And well, I figure it’s pretty obvious that I’m not ready, given that I have no one who I would want to marry at this point (nor anyone who would want to marry me, but y’know, one without the other isn’t much good anyway).

I read somewhere today that everyone is afraid of commitment these days. I wonder if that’s true. Are we more afraid of commitment than in the past? I am, at least a little bit – I mean, seriously, I’ve never been in a relationship that lasted more than three months.

But I crave companionship as much as the next person, and though it can come in many less romantic forms, the truth is I would like a man to spend some time with. That obviously wouldn’t supplant time with girlfriends (once I make them) or, well, with my cat, because she is the only one who travels with me from city to city on this voyage we call my twenties.

I figure I probably won’t date much while I live in this city, if at all. There simply aren’t that many men to choose from. The attractive ones are usually married or too young for me (I could handle grad students, maybe even a fifth year senior, but junior college guys are just a little green yet.) And did I mention that the first (well, only) place I’ve been hit on in this city was at Wal-Mart?

Dating isn’t everything – if you look at my past history, you’ll realize that I know that. But that doesn’t mean I don’t think about it, especially when a co-worker proffers her newly diamond-laden hand.

I’m not looking for the rest of your life
I just want another chance to live
–Patty Griffin

Wake me up when September ends

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

I’m kind of a nostalgic girl anyway, but three random memories hit me today …

1. I’ve had a serious hankering to work in downtown Birmingham lately. I miss the thrill I got from walking down those busy streets on my lunch break. I always felt so metropolitan (OK, or like a little girl playing dress up) when I crossed to the AmSouth-Harbert Plaza for lunch and coffee. I loved browsing the library’s new books, arriving at the check-out counter with arms so heavy laden that I had to carry my loot back to work in a grocery bag.

And well, I miss the work too. I loved that magazine, loved my editor, loved the designers, loved the location, loved what I wrote about, loved getting to write …

Mmmm yeah. Getting to write.

2. The temperature has dropped slightly tonight. It’s not much, given that it’s still September and I live in Alabama, but it’s enough to build anticipation for the coming autumn. I left work for dinner tonight and walked through the parking lot with my eyes closed, inhaling the nearly-crisp air and imagining the trees changing colors.

(My executive editor walked by as I was doing this. I think he thought me a bit strange.)

As I circled through an off-ramp on my way back to work, I had a sudden flashback to an end-of-the-semester hayride and bonfire during my Florida State days. I can’t recall whether it was the end of my senior year or my last semester at FSU, when I was a grad student. All I can tell you is that it was deliciously cold and I was in a loner sort of mood.

I brought my roommate’s dog with me to the bonfire, providing a handy defense mechanism for those introverted moments. (When you’re busy chasing a dog, it’s easy to slip out of conversations unnoticed, or to avoid getting terribly deep with anyone.)

Come to think of it, I believe it was my last semester at FSU. I’m not sure why I was feeling so anti-social — I probably should have been soaking in all the people-time I could get. But maybe my departure was the cause of my melancholy.

3. As I neared the office, “Please” by The Kinleys came on the mixed tape I was playing. Every time I hear that song (which is, well, not terribly often) I recall the night I broke up with my first boyfriend.

We were sitting in my 1990 Honda Accord parked outside his house. I don’t remember why we got in the car, exactly, I only remember thinking that his mother probably thought we were making out instead of breaking up.

I don’t remember what was said or really much of how he reacted (though I know I was bawling and he tried to comfort me, even though he was the one being dumped). What stands out in my mind is “Please” trickling through the speakers … and although it’s a song about trying not to break up, it still reminds me of that night.

I think it’s kind of amazing that I still have a mixed tape from that long ago.

…though it’s clear to me that you obviously do not adore me

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

Side B: Songs for the Cautiously Hopeful

On Ice—Chris Thile
This song makes my little heart flutter. I think this is what it must sound like when I have a crush. “…didn’t remember she could be my first cue to run…” “…I had been taught love is a vice, took all these thoughts, I put them on ice.” It’s just… yeah. So dead on.

Mr. Sunshine—Lori McKenna
Sometimes the chorus says it all:
“You scare me more than the hard times
I know they’re coming around again
You scare me more than the gray skies
Good morning, Mr. Sunshine.”

Counting to 100—Matt Wertz
It’s no secret that I am a princess who wants to be pursued. That is, after all, why I’m such a sucker for The Bachelorette—I want to be pursued (and I want a hair stylist and make up artist to pretty me up as we go!). It’s therefore natural that I love the hide and seek analogy in this song.

Crush—Dave Matthews Band
A guy I once liked told me that this song was boring because the tempo never changes. I think I lost the tiniest bit of confidence in his musical taste that day (after all, I still remember the comment more than a year later!). He was wrong, you see. That one part near the song’s midpoint where everything goes wild is what makes the song. There are string instruments that dominate that section. You’re not focusing on woodwinds. Brass isn’t center stage. It’s strings. And string instruments mean love, apparently. Haven’t you ever been to a wedding with a string quartet?

Mistake of My Life—Caedmon’s Call
I knew that I am little miss “I will not ask a guy out”—that’s not news. (Heck, it still can take me half an hour to convince myself to call a male friend!) But as I review the songs I’ve selected, I realize I must be pretty hardcore! There are a lot of “I’m going to throw myself into chasing you, girl, and whatever the risk, it’s worth it” songs.

As an aside, this song reminds me of a theory a guy friend shared recently. He thinks girls like crazy romantic gestures when they happen to someone else.

I don’t know if that’s true… no one’s ever done anything like that for me. But y’know, if someone did, I would have to be more or less head over heels for the guy already. I think. I’m pretty skittish—something like this could really scare me off. So I guess there’s a degree to which said friend is right. Fortunately, in DWebb’s case, we know the theory doesn’t always apply.

Frontin’—Jamie Cullum
Oh my word. I love the flirtatiousness of this song. Heck, I love flirting… and I think I’m generally pretty good at saving it for guys I am truly interested in, which is the whole point anyway, right? “I don’t mean to be full of myself or rude, but you ain’t lookin’ at no other dude. That’s ‘cause you love me.”

Oh, and if you’d been standing in my backyard an hour ago, you would have laughed so hard as I danced across my living room while this played. I don’t know what my problem is, but jazz makes me wanna move! I should go back to that jazz club downtown…

All My Songs—Tara Leigh Cobble
Is this not the epitome of cautiously hopeful? Tara Leigh, honey, there’s a reason “nobody doesn’t like” you!

Love Soon—John Mayer
I’ll admit, it took me forever to get this song. (Why would you call it “love soon”? Oh! You’re soon going to call your relationship love? I get it!) Unlike the chick in the song, I’m not so good with secrets…. at least, not my own. 🙂 Oh… and this song basically has little to do with anything… it just sounds so optimistic!

Follow—Tara Leigh Cobble
Oh my, have I mentioned how I love Tara Leigh’s love songs? (You better be reading this entry! I am raving about your writing far too much for you to not accept the compliment.) Y’all need to read the lyrics (if you can find them)… it sounds like a prayer to me, a yearning. It reminds me of Ephesians 5, which is most of the reason I hope to someday have a chance at love and marriage. I want to experience that (imperfect) reflection of Christ’s love for His bride. I want to be sanctified in that unique way. I long to “love him when he’s wrong.”

It’s About Time—Jamie Cullum
I think this song is the perfect complement to “Love Song for No One.” Yeah, I think it’d be nice if “Mr. Right” came along sometime soonish (the next… four years or so?). But I recognize that I am the pickiest person in the world (except maybe my dear friend Aaron, you should check out his list!)… and I have to find a man that not only meets whatever it is I’m looking for, but can also tolerate my insane pickiness. 🙂 Man. And I tell people I’m a catch? I may just be full of it. 😉 And though I’m little miss “I don’t need anyone and I’m not in any hurry” (both of which are true statements, thank you), sometimes I do feel like it’s about time.

“Got the feeling this could take a pretty long while to find that smile…”