From Her Fridays #5 Two Wholes

Today was a great day. Woke up feeling horrible and worked from home today, but that didn’t stop us from having fun. I cleaned the apartment as a surprise for Isaiah and went grocery shopping so he didn’t have to worry about it. It got me thinking about how we work together.

The summer before my freshman year of college, I started a planned 2-year hiatus from dating. It was just getting ridiculous. I was dating guys I knew I didn’t like, jerks for the most part, and changing everything about myself for them. For a skater guy, I was “like so into Dashboard Confessionals and screamo.” You get the picture without my embarrassing laundry list of personality changes.

I couldn’t even figure out what kind of music I enjoyed…I loathed everything on my iPod and I just couldn’t stand it anymore. Staying away from guys was really tricky for me at that age. I was so driven by attention and my need to be liked and accepted, and I wasn’t getting it from girl-friends at the time.

I met a great group of friends in college, and 4-5 of my high-school friends went to the same University. It was pretty easy in the beginning to be gung-ho for the cause. It was certainly not easy. I met several guys who automatically creeped into that “girl” part of my brain: “This is a great guy…what if I’m passing up the one for some ‘stupid’ cause!?” It’s especially difficult in college when your friends start pairing off with one another and you’re left with your wrinkled-up cause feeling like a potato.

I knew separating from guys was necessary at the time…but the reason wasn’t clear until after. I wasn’t a whole-human-being. I was always a half, less than, sometimes. I couldn’t stand being alone or being in silence; just being. I happened to meet Isaiah one day after the completion of my hiatus. We were friends at first.

I recommend the single-hiatus to any woman anywhere…learn about yourself and what’s really important to you…not the causes you’ve adopted because of the influence of friends or past-loves.

So, anyways. Back to the present. I think for any two people to be successful together, you need to be two whole people, together. If you’re just two-halves, you’ll become far too dependent on each other to grow to your “full potential.” (didn’t you just used to hate that phrase?)

One of the reasons I know Isaiah and I are going to make it is because we complement each other so well. We both love graphic design. He has been a designer since high school and he’s got a kick-ass portfolio, very established style and this uncanny ability to make a vague vision (“I want it to be like those old Woodstock posters, but modern and whimsical with bright colors but still muted”) and make it just exactly the reality you hoped for.

Designing together has been great fun for us. I had never touched a Mac in my life until Fall of 2009 and he has helped me blossom into a little mini-designer. We have a great time bouncing ideas off of each other and learning from our different styles.

He loves to cook and I burn macaroni. I hate doing dishes and he hates vacuuming and dusting. I hate doing laundry, he hates folding laundry. We are learning from one another in areas where the puzzle pieces are overlapping, but more often than not, we are still amazing each other with the talents we possess that the other is just without.

Anyways, we just bought Fantastic Mr. Fox and Seinfeld Season 7 and we’re really itching to get started with those.

Advertisement