"What's the Matter?"

What a horrible question. I don't know why I loath it so much. It's simple, sweet, inquisitive. It's reaching out because they recognize unhappiness.
And yet, every time it's asked, "What's the matter?" my defenses shoot up.
"Nothing." Because with the "what", I suddenly feel like YOU don't deserve to know. Or that you should already know. Read my mind. Remember things I've said. Read my body language. Anything to make me seem less mysterious to you. Anything you can do, do it, so that I don't have to spell out all of those insecure details about myself.
Is it the what, though?
Maybe it's the "Matter". Instead of "what" it turns into "why?". "Why does it matter?" Because mattering is a big thing. Things that matter are heavy, large, hard to carry. When something matters, it becomes a burden. And once you share it, now you both must carry it together. And who wants that? Why would you ask for part of the matter?
I wish it wasn't so hard to be open and honest and helpful. But especially when you're down... matters too heavy to bear by yourself, split and double and jumble up and collide and take on more and more mass when you try to share it with some one else. Or at least it feels that way.
Or maybe it's the opposite. Maybe it feels so big and important when it's weighing down on your brain, but as soon as you let it escape, it floats away... as light and as flighty as a ladybug.
Because the only thing worse than your problems being too heavy to carry... is that they are vapid and silly things that you've blown way out of proportion.
Because mattering... matters. And you don't want to disappoint. You don't want to answer and have the other person be disappointed by the sheer amount of overuse the word MATTER gets...
"What is the matter?"
I don't know. Because I don't know if it matters enough to share. Because I don't know if it's too much matter for you to carry. I don't know if it will continue to matter as soon as I say it. Because what if I honestly just... don't know. What if the matter is just that I am alive.
Living means being disappointed and hurting and stirring the dramatic pot of relationship and sometimes it gets me down, and all the swirling goo of good and bad and ups and down compress into one big giant ball of matter and it all seems so so so important...
Until it doesn't anymore.
But the most wonderful part about life?
There are will always be someone to ask the question. And for all the hard feelings... for all the over thinking and over analyzing and the burdens of the world... when someone asks you, you know, deep in your heart, past all the petty stuff... that that means they care. About you. And that is pretty neat.
The human capacity to take on all the ordinary stuff you as an individual have to carry and extend to another person to recognize that they are traveling a similar path as you... is incredible. To give up selfishness and pride for just a moment and think to ask the simple question... "What's the matter? What matters to you? What can I do to help... What is going on in your life?"
And I think it's so so so important that we learn to accept the help, and just tell them...
"I'm having a hard time."

Peace Vs. Truth

I was reading this article that says, "Men lie to keep the peace."
I have found this to be 100% true! My husband has told me a number of little white lies (And some big ol' WHOPPERS, if I'm honest...) and every time, his reasons have been pure: "I didn't want to make you mad."
Where did this come from? This desire to not talk about things, or not deal with an honest reaction, so they cover it up with a lie? I blame myself.
And I also blame his mother.
But as a wife, I feel like it's my job to distance myself from his mother as much as I can. (At least... in all the ways I think she has let him down in...) I want talking to me to be a thing that heals all the times she made him shut up. I feel like it's easy enough on paper.
But in the heat of the moment, when you are disappointed or feeling like you SHOULD be on the same page and since he's not, he's just WRONG.
So I'm going to try to break it down into a list for myself. Some things to remember when you are dealing with a potentially dangerous situation. Because if you over react just once, that encourages lies next time. It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.
1. Don't overreact. That means any reaction that is direct response to the fire that seers the side of my brain or turns my stomach. React in a way that isn't bat-poop cray cray.
2. Hear him out before I dump my feelings on him. So he would rather go watch the game at his friend's house that taking me shopping. Ok. Consider this from his perspective. He's allowing me to be crazy and he still tries to find the reasoning in it, so I have to let him have his reasons too.
3. I am allowed to compromise. Example: Ask him to watch half the game and then come home to pick me up. Or, Tell him ok this time, but ask that next time, we do something I want to do.
4. Pick your battles. Do you really care, Sarah? I mean really honestly, deep down, do you actually CARE? Or are you just trying to hold things over his head, stir up drama, or are you having a power-trip? Because sometimes... him playing video games frees you up to do whatever you want! You don't have to entertain him or talk... you can just hang out doing your own thing. And that can be pretty wonderful.
5. He'll appreciate it. And he has totally shown that. Ask him to do the dishes after he's played, gone, shopped, whatever it is he wants to do... and he will! Because he loves you and he knows you make sacrifices for you!! That is so cool.
As long as you treat what he wants to do with respect, he will ALWAYS be honest. And that is such an amazing thing for him to do. So step it up! And meet him halfway!!!

Overrated, Underrated: Movies

I think I'm going to do an Overrated and then follow it with an Underrated... These are just movies I have been impressed or disappointed with. I would also like to say that it's not that I didn't LIKE these movies, or wouldn't watch them again... It's just that they end up on lists whereas the others don't (or at least, not as often). So please! Argue with me if I am way off base!

Overrated:
   Gone With The Wind.
Why I believe it's Overrated:
  It's supposedly one of the greatest love stories of all time. But Rhett is this cocky, preening, shallow man who uses the war to become very very rich. And Scarlett is a spoiled little brat who only loves what she can't have. I don't understand the concept of a movie wrapped around two people we hate being hateful to one another. When Rhett finally decides to join the war, it's almost over so there isn't even a point. It's like he's riding the prideful wave and wants some of the credit for something he didn't actually have a part of. And it comes at the price of abandoning three women, (two of them completely useless...) and a newborn baby! His pride is always more important than the health and happiness of "the weaker sex". The only person who you actually appreciate is Melanie, and you KNOW she's destined to die simply because she's the only pleasant character. All movie Scarlett is obsessed with Tara (her home plantation), and yet she only there for a 6th of the movie. She's constantly going off and even when she decides to go back, she buys a DIFFERENT HOUSE. I don't get it. She doesn't care two figs about her actual family. I mean, in the beginning, her dad is like, "This is all that lasts" and I thought he meant family. But nope. He literally meant the dirt that makes up Tara. So basically what she takes away from that is, "Screw over your sisters as long as it means you can hang onto this hunk of dirt." The main massage in the movie is INVEST IN REAL ESTATE! Because family will either die or hate you, men are to be used or pined after, and the only real friend you will ever have will ignore all your faults and then die.

Underrated:
  Some Like It Hot
Why:

 It's funny. It's crude. It's sweet. It's one of those movies that leaves you laughing and feeling like life is a little bit better now that you've seen this movie. Plus, Marilyn Monroe! But it never ends up on any of those "100 Greatest Romantic Movies of All Time" lists. Cross-dressing men, gangsters, murder... It's all there, mixed with humor, romance, and rich millionaires who aren't too picky about genders. Sure, the romance is based on lies and manipulation and the girl who has been used by the same type of man over and over again ends up falling for THE SAME type of guy AGAIN. But at least this time, it's based on friendship while he was dressed as a woman.

Overrated:
  West Side Story
Why:
 It's just BAD. I love musicals. I do. I freely admit it! But the music in this "classic" is so terrible! The rhyming is elementary, the songs are painfully simple and repetitive, and the idea that men pirouetting make up a manly, intimidating gang is RIDICULOUS. There is a certain amount of suspension of reality that goes into watching a music. It's just not natural or organic for a whole street to burst into song and dance. But you can forgive it for the most part. But gangsters randomly shooting up from the middle of the crowd in a perfect allegro? Yeah. That's not so easy to forgive. Not only that, it's based of Romeo and Juliette, so you know that the underlying themes are, so you keep an eye out for them, but they aren't really there! There isn't the foreshadowing or the love there... it's mostly about the music and the music is so painfully hard to listen to... "I feeeeel Preetty! Oh so preeettty!!" Really? AND! AND! They couldn't get any REAL ethnicities in there? They must have paid thousands for fake tanner!!! She doesn't even die at the end. I don't know. That's what I was looking forward to the most. That's what makes Romeo and Juliette such a provocative story. Both families are confronted with loss so they BOTH have to reassess this feud. And through this devastation, they are finally able to relate to each other. Through sacrifice they become changed. How can anything actually change when only one side suffers loss? Now it's even more about revenge then before!

Underrated:
  Meet Me In Saint Louis
Why:

 Judy Garland singing the way she sings, set in a beautiful, idyllic St. Louis... With this lovely romance with the boy next door. (He's also age-apporpriate which wasn't common in movies back then!) It starts in summer and plays throughout the other three seasons as well. Set in Victorian America. And the Christmas-yness is just enough to set you in the mood. There is the epic scene where she is accompanied to the ball by her sweet old grandfather, and as they dance, she's crying because of her man not being there, tucking her head into her grandfather's shoulder, and as they spin behind the tree... Out from the other side she comes with HIM! The sweet boy from next door and her tears are dried and the magic is sparkly!!! >.< Plus, Tootie, the sweetest little morbid 5 year old, with a precocious vocabulary and a knack for thinking up deadly diseases for her dolls. "Ding ding ding went the beeeellll.... Stop stop stop went my heart strings... When I saw him I fell!!!"

Overrated:
  Sleepless in Seattle
Why:
  Stalker Meg Ryan is obsessed with the idea of "The One" perfect someone... with all the "signs" telling her to be with them. She falls for a voice on the radio of a mourning Tom Hanks. (And this is while she is engaged to the adorable and safe and sweet Bill Pullman. Sure, they give him loads of allergies because they want the watcher to have a reason not to love him. But he's so enduringly nice and understanding!) She gets even creepier, going over there to see him without permission, just to watch him like a creepy creeper. After throwing in some underage antics, they end up on the top of The Empire State Building, magically making it the "Most Romantic Building In The World"where every woman will obsess about meeting their Tom for the rest of eternity. And without much to appease the patient viewer, the two strangers go home together, suddenly a family. So you waited all movie for these two to make contact, and now that they are finally together... It ends. Keep in mind, Tom still has a girlfriend.

Underrated:
 While You Were Sleeping

Why:
  The shy and terribly lonely Sandra Bullock falls for a man named Peter, played by a man named Peter. He's got a nice coat. She is very very lonely. So she turns him into her ideal man without ever actually speaking to him. But SHE DOES NOT STALK HIM. She sees him every day because of her legitimate JOB. So she saves his life and in the hospital there is some mix up and she is introduced to the family as his fiancé, a mistake she tries to remedy, but there are old lady heart problems and the fact that she is very very lonely and this is a whole family that suddenly cares. I love this story, not only because unlike the idiot Meg Ryan, Sandra sees the beautiful Bill Pullman as the adorable dork that he is and drops her ideas of what the "perfect man" should be and falls for someone REAL, AWAKE, and IN HER ZIP CODE. But also because it's not just about the love between a man and a woman, but the love of a family. Going from 1 person with 1 cat and only a handful of friends... she's pulled into this warm world of home cooked meals and hugs! It's awesome.

Overrated:
  The Matrix
Why:
  I admit, I really enjoyed this movie. I thought it was interesting. I thought it was well done. But when I tried to rewatch it recently... it's just so P-A-T. Just so... cliched. And yes, maybe it's because it created some of the cliches that other movies are now based on. But the dialog?? It's terrible. And the franchise just went all to crap. I haven't watched it in a while, and the last time I tried I couldn't actually get all the way through it. But it still ends up on lists like it's amazing.











Underrated:
  Minority Report
Why:

 A new take on a crime solving show, the danger of premeditation, and free will over impulses. Because just because someone is gifted, doesn't mean they should be manipulated, used, or obligated to use their gifts for the good of mankind. Power is about choosing what to believe, who to save and trust, and what is really important. Because psychics and surgery and robots. That's why. Plus I'd take Tom Cruise over Keanu Reeves any day.





Overrated:
  Star Wars
Why:
  I have watched all of them multiple times. And everyone goes on about "the story telling"... WHAT STORY TELLING??? I don't know. Maybe I'm missing something. They cast Hayden Christensen and then break your heart! I remember the first time I watched him going through the change from Anakin to you know who... It was awful! Gut-wrenching, actually. I feel like they make all these arbitrary rules and then don't try to break them for the good of the movie. Which MAKES a movie.

Underrated:
  The Fifth Element
Why:
  It's got everything. Humor. Aliens. Futuristic-ness. Bruce. And the drama of a ticking time bomb. Several, actually. And considering it was made BEFORE The Phantom Menace, it has some pretty killer effects. And a kick ass lady lead. Of course there is the stupidity and anti-femist idea that a woman can't fulfill her life's purpose without a man's love and support... but I can overlook that since I love a man and don't mind being supported by him. But I could understand why it would upset women. Still! It's got Love! It's got Chris Tucker screaming! It's got the most epic opera ever to be sung/autotuned! It's got darkness and light! It's got The trashcan dinosaur from the live action Flintstones! Probably my favorite movie of all time. Oh who am I kidding... IT IS my favorite movie of all time!!! (This one. Not the Flintstones.)

Overrated:
  Pretty In Pink
Why:

  I love this movie. I do. Ducky. Miss Molly. But it's kind of confusing. Like... why do the rich kids hate the poor kids? Why is Molly so angry and defensive? I don't know. I feel like John Hughs only told part of the story and I want to know more! Also... the original ending, where she ends up with Ducky... would have made so much more sense to the woman in me!! I don't love Andrew McCarthy in that movie. I want to. He's awesome. But in this movie he's a spineless jerk who did NOT "always believe in" her!!! He gave up when things got hard, but changed his mind when she shows up looking hot. OH! Also a big beef with the movie? THE DRESS IS HIDEOUS! It's called "Pretty In Pink" and then the dress is disgusting? That's just bad planning.







Underrated:
  Some Kind Of Wonderful
Why:
  This is the same kind of set up as Pretty in Pink, though the roles are reversed and the rich girl isn't ACTUALLY rich. But still the same sort of idea. THIS, is about friendship across years and ideas of what a woman should be, or look like, or whatever. He falls for his besty before she transformed, and she doesn't change to get him. And the beautiful girl gets revenge for herself, she fights her own battle finally and makes the right choice to learn how to be strong on her own. I feel like it's a romance that doesn't confine itself to traditional roles. Again, this is a movie where the boy (Eric Stoltz) falls for who he thinks Amanda Jones is. And she surprises him by being so much more, but through it all he finally realizes who Mary Stuart-Masterson is, and wants her. And I think through Eric, Amanda sees who she is. But of course (Watts) always knew who she was, she just finally gets him to notice... by continuing to be herself! Plus... THAT KISS!!! It's probably the best kiss of ALL TIMES! But it NEVER GETS THE CREDIT it deserves. I swear. Sometimes I just want to shake people!












There are more. And I may add to this list at another time! But for now, I have purged myself! ^_^

Missing Home

It's weird to think I won't see my family for a year. In fact, it's a concept so foreign that I find myself making plans, or putting off telling them this or that, because I figure it will be more interesting, or fun to tell them in person. And then, later, I have to check myself and remember that there are no plans to see them in a month or a week. There will be no casual dinner visits for a while.
It certainly is different from anything I've had to adjust to before.
But then again, I feel like God really has prepared me for this my whole life... With Boarding Academy, I was prepared to take on the world alone(ish). And then a series of long distance relationships. I have never actually lived close to a boyfriend. I mean... yes. There were boys at school. And you had to see them ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. But that was just school. During breaks, we wouldn't see each other at all. And with all the rules at school, it's not like we were able to be alone EVER. So always together, never alone, and then never seeing them while we were gone from school.
Anyway. The point is... I feel like I have been training for this, so it's not as hard as you'd imagine.
But it is still very very hard. I miss everyone.
It's lonely here.
I have made a few "friends". I like a family that is pretty similar to ours... Recently married, just moved here, nice. She and I have the same name too. So that's pretty cool. But there are a few differences that make it hard to feel a complete kinship... a few jokes that aren't gotten, a few stances not quite met, a few politics not agreed upon. And so, no. I don't believe we are kindred spirits.
I haven't found one of those here, yet.
Except in my husband, actually.
Haha! It doesn't matter how much time I spend with him, it never quite feels like enough. We don't always have to be doing interesting stuff, either. Just being together is amazing. And him just being close to me is enough to make me forget that a friend might be nice.
Not completely forget, obviously. But it makes it a lot easier to deal with.
I imagined going home for the holidays... Just catching a hop and visiting my mom and family for a week or so. But the idea of leaving my husband behind is so heartbreaking, I could never do it. I'd miss him so so so much.
So while I do miss home exorbitantly, the idea of leaving my husband makes me miss him even more!
I guess that's when you know you made the right choice to get married, eh?

Anyway... Christmas is Here...

Christmas has come upon us once again. I don't know how I feel about it.
It's very very different to be in charge of my family's Christmas. I have not, nor will I probably EVER be the matriarch of the family. That role was once my nanny's, then it became my mother's, and one day, (Possibly soon since she's a determined little thing and my mom isn't so organized) my eldest sister will hold that title. And I am more than fine with that! Thrilled, even! She's the baker, the care-taker, the  worrier, the warrior. She's the one who kisses burns and bruises, her who brushes our hair. She takes on our ghosts and our bullies and battles them with poise, elegance and eloquence. She has seen my mother's role and known that one day, she will embody all the things that make my mother so wonderful.
I love my sisters. My best friends. My amazing companions. I have never been so lonely when I have sisters that fill my heart up like they do.
It's true that my youngest and I have to work to renew some of the cracks in our relationship. Just as all we have hurt must forgive us, we must do all we can to deserve it. I hurt my little sister. I cannot say it was on purpose. For so long I was a self-indulgent person. I couldn't see past the shell of my own body. And when I finally learned empathy (take a lesson mothers! Empathy is one of the last things a child learns, and some don't learn it until they are far too old to be making the same mistakes!) and tried to change, it was hard for my sister to accept it.
But we are working on it.
Why is it so much harder to believe the nice things people say? Why is it so hard to accept love and forgiveness? To trust and be happy and open to the world? They say it takes 40 positives to get back to a neutral. Just a neutral! Can you imagine? You say, "Are you sure you want to wear THAT?" And it will take 40 nice, uplifting, sweet things... just for someone to feel normal. Not happy. Just normal.
It doesn't seem fair.
How do you make up for 16 years of mean, childish hurts? I want to say, "I love you. I miss you. I care. You're beautiful. Worthwhile. Engaging. Nothing would make me hate you or want to hurt you. Nothing would make me give up on you. Nothing can, will, or wants to. You are precious. To me. Without expectation, demands, or baggage. I want to spend time with you. To see you. To hear you. To see you for who you really are and not who you think I think you are, or who I think you are, or who you think you are. I want soul to soul connection because our souls match. And we deserve to get to know each other over and over again until change isn't scary and who we are as ever-evolving beings is embraced, trusted, and given complete respect. I do not want to be judgmental. I will not condemn you. You are my sister. My sister! How lucky we are to be so blessed!"
But it's not enough. It's so much love and it falls on deaf ears sometimes. Just as her words are mute to me at times. Communication, is not a battle easily won. I want to speak nice words, until there are only memories of nice things left.
I want to give and give and give until there will never be love lost between us.
Anyway... Christmas is here. And it's strange not sharing it with my mother's family. They are still my family. But for now, I'm supposed to be making a new family with my husband. Me and my husband. It's strange that two people can be a whole family, but he gives me more than most of my family put together.
Marriage is this strange, wonderful new adventure, and I admit that I'm happier 85% of the time. But there are lows that are lower than normal. Because he is so much of my world, and I depend on him for more than I've ever had to depend on one person before.
Life is a happy thing. I know that in my heart. But sometimes you have to look a little harder for the happy than you do for the sad.
I am not sad though!!! I just think it's easier to rant about things that make you unhappy than wax poetical about things that make you just... normal happy.
Hahaha! I don't know if that makes any sense!! Maybe none of this does.
But I'm happy to ramble about nothing and everything and sort ideas into weird, badly organized blogs. :)