Living life! Single after 30!

Eat, Drink, and Be Married…

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 20:18:00 +0000

I am in awe of the world’s obsession with food. It seems that everything we do, whether it surrounds happiness, sadness, holidays, dating, etc…is all directly connected to food. What is this about? It seems that there is no way to get away from the over consuming celebration of- well…life?...Will our bodies explode from it one day? Will our families sit around a table of food while we sit nearby in a box waiting to be lowered into the ground by 10 weight lifters…who, by the way have their own food issues…

So why do I ramble on about food when it’s so obviously a tradition that goes back in time- even before Jenny Craig existed (is she even alive still?...I would think that her heart has to have stopped by now from over consumption of ephedra and cardboard frozen meals)? Oh well…I guess I’m feeling out of control and as though there needs to be a way to say “no thank you” without people taken offense. Is there an exact amount that society likes people to eat? Too little deems you an anorexic. Too much deems you a pig! I love food as much as the next person but WHY…oh WHY?...is it the center of the universe? Can’t people just eat in bed all alone once in awhile and enjoy the fact that no one’s talking at them while they unknowingly shove 4000 calories frantically in their mouths out of “celebration”?

My fiance’s family eats every single meal out in an Italian restaurant. This is a big problem for me. Don’t get me wrong…I LOVE Italian food. The problem is that I’ve taught aerobics and eaten rations of protein, fruits, and vegetables out of Tupperware containers five times a day for over 15 years. I am not the kind of girl who can have a slice (actually…a loaf) of bread unleashed on her! I know it’s a social thing but to me they may as well be shooting me up with heroin. I have been swiping empty plates from the people at the tables next to me while they aren’t looking and pretending that I have just eaten so much I couldn’t eat another bite. YET…Somehow they know??? “Calia hasn’t eaten! Get Calia some butter and a slice of chocolate cake?”…I say “no thank you. I’m full.” They say “but the chocolate cake is made with only half the sugar, and the icing is only made of butter, flour and eggs, not shortening like it’s supposed to be made”… “oh…great then…get me 2 pieces in that case. I thought it might’ve been fattening. I’ll just roll myself into my car later.”

Anyway…I do rant on and on…My “wedding” that I refuse to call “MY” anything is going to have food after the mass. I’m calling it the “after service- food consumption gathering.” It will be nice to see my family on that day- even if I can’t fit into any of my 5 wedding gowns that I carefully picked out to look as beautiful as I could on “my wedding day”. That is, when I was going to have a private mass with just my “husband to be”- before I even met him. (I like dresses!) I guess I’ll find some sort of burlap sack to throw on over my sauce, cheese, and bread clogged arteries…or maybe I could sew a couple of them together this week sometime. Where’s that stapler?...

The Fly on the Wall…

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 10:32:00 +0000

It’s interesting to me that so many people have complete communication breakdowns within their relationships. I say this because I received correspondence from a guy who talked on and on and on about how his girlfriend of many years “wanted a ring but he needed a prenup and didn’t know how to tell her without her getting really upset.” It seemed like after many years together, asking for a prenup, even though people don’t want to enter a marriage thinking that it might not succeed, was really no big deal. It seemed to be his biggest worry though. I tried to help him through a good solution but he seemed to be defending his relationship at every turn. I didn’t think much about it since it didn’t seem as though he really wanted my help other than to tell me “how great his relationship was and how jealous he isn’t”. Okay…nothing more I could do. I didn’t have enough information to go on and it wasn’t really my business anyway (like I ever care what’s my business and what isn’t…hee…hee…) Or was it?...Days later, I was strangely put right in the middle of the relationship as a “fly on the wall” when his girlfriend told me her side of the story. Apparently she doesn’t even like him at all and would “never marry him and the relationship has lasted much longer than it should have.”…uh oh…It appeared that I was the only person with all of the information now. Someone was using this “prenup” issue as an excuse. I wasn’t sure if he knew that the relationship was over and his desperation to keep someone he “wasn’t jealous of” every time he turned around made him come up with excuses for why it wasn’t working, or if he really thought it was working but she had somehow made him feel like the only problem was that he wasn’t proposing in hopes that he wouldn’t propose and she could keep it all in its place. Wwwhhheeeww….! What a mess! I was pretty sure that it was a little of both but clearly the two of them weren’t communicating with each other on the topic. It seemed like the relationship, as it stood currently, was a huge energy sucking waste of time for both of them. Of course it wasn’t the first I had seen this. I have seen many people stand frozen in time while their relationships stole years from them. The problem with this was the blame of each other when they would finally take action and pull it apart. This one wasn’t going to end pretty. I was quite sure that one of them was going to cheat on the other and use an excuse that it was the other’s fault for reasons that likely weren’t anywhere near the actual reason- they didn’t like each other. The jealousy, the marriage, the prenup, the kids,…they were all just “stuff” that protected each of them from the real truth that apparently seemed more hurtful than slinging excuses at each other.

The point is that if people had a fly on the wall of their relationships that they could play back in order to get the whole story, it would be much easier to know where they really stand. Now, I’m not suggesting that we bug each other’s conversations with friends…though it’s actually not a bad idea if we are planning on not having a real conversation with each other…BUT as a rule, people in unhealthy relationships get caught up in the drama of not knowing what’s going to happen. Again, it’s none of my business but I know what’s going to happen. That guy is going to end up in years of therapy talking about how the love of his life got away because he was afraid to ask her for a prenup “when all she wanted was to marry him.” His therapist will ask him why he thinks that he pushes women away from him and leave him single and dwelling on the fact that he has a fear of commitment while he weeps around town for 10 years (because that will be the only information he will have for the therapist). As for the girl- she will be dating someone else in 2 months and not even remember his name.

So how can we protect ourselves from staying involved in something that will pass our lives away? It’s actually not easy but we can do our best to recognize the warning signs of the reality that our relationship is the wrong relationship for us.

If your partner is out all the time flirting with other people and you are pretending that it doesn’t make you jealous, it’s probably not the right relationship for you…
If every time you talk in public, your partner is questioning why you talked about what you talked about, it’s probably not the right relationship for you….
If your partner is throwing out ridiculous requests that you can only fail at:

“I want a ring but I won’t sign a prenup…”

“Rotate the silverware so it’s used evenly…”

“I want to go out of town but only when you’re working, not on your days off…”

“I want a child but you have had a hysterectomy…”

“My parents won’t accept you because you’re not the right religion…”

“My children don’t like you and they come first…”

“I don’t like the color of your hair, how you talk, your body type, and I don’t want to be seen in public with you…”

Bottom line- it’s not happening! It’s probably NOT the right relationship for you… You don’t need a fly on the wall to tell you that it’s time to move on. You will only have yourself to blame when years pass you by if you don’t heed the warning signs and move on yourself. Waiting for the other person to take action will leave you screwed up thinking it’s over for all the wrong reasons because most people don’t have the courage to tell you the simple truth- It’s not me, it’s you…AND we all know it’s THEM!...

You sing better than Fergie

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 11:20:00 +0000

No two minds think alike! That is why one person’s compliment is another person’s diss. I sing a Black Eyed Peas song and people always come up afterwards and say, “You sing better than Fergie.”…um…well geez…Thanks? The thing is that as a “singer” who has spent many years learning the technical elements of how vocal chords work, I sure as heck better sing better than Fergie! The real question is “Am I Fergilicious?” The way I see it, Fergie’s thing is not singing. I thought her identity was wrapped around being extremely attractive.

We all have something that we’re good at. The trouble we face is when we get mislabeled into a category in which we do not belong. I would be considered a complete failure if I considered myself an auto mechanic. It’s not that I can’t fix cars…wait…It is exactly like I can’t fix cars. I do know how to put gas in them but I this doesn’t make me a very good mechanic. In fact, if people brought me their cars to fix, I would most certainly let them down 100% of the time!...This is why they don’t. My constant failure would ruin my self image.

There was a guy who used to come into to work to fix the copy machine. One day as he was leaving, I smiled at him and asked, “all fixed?” He said, “No. I couldn’t fix it. I need to come back next week with parts.”…um… “Okay (I thought), but since his only job was to fix the copy machine, leaving without it being fixed seemed a little sad to me.” I wanted to help him by giving him a different title. Perhaps “guy who dressed really nicely and had a nice smile?” Somehow it seemed like if that was what he was going for, he had achieved his goal for the day. Clearly “copy machine fixit guy” was not the best category to place him in this time.

I contend that too many people are spending time doing things that don’t make them feel good. I know that as children, we are told that we can be or do anything we want to in life. I suppose that’s true and I definitely believe in doing the most we can to stretch our own abilities, BUT there is something to be said for recognizing our own individual strengths and capitalizing on them. The most important thing when it comes to living a happy a full life is finding what it is that we excel at and working to make ourselves the best we can be at it. Of course it isn’t wrong to try new things, but setting unrealistic goals for ourselves is counterproductive to seeing the value in what we, as individuals, have to offer the world. Not everyone can be a singer, an engineer, an auto mechanic, a copy machine repairman, Fergie…BUT, every ONE can be amazing at whatever has been gifted to them. The key is to figure out what that is! Once we do, if we love it and take the time to foster its growth, it will provide happiness to us forever.

AH! What a MESS!

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 04:01:00 +0000

I spilled an entire gallon of water into my refrigerator today. My initial response was to grab it and save it as it poured, in slow motion, from the top shelf down the back to soak each shelf beneath it and then rest in the bottom of the drawers on the bottom. I didn’t stop it though. I thought, “Oh good! Now my refrigerator is going to be clean!” My fridge is sort of old and worn out and though I’m a little obsessive with keeping things in order, I tend to laugh at the things lying around this place that I would refer to as “old crap”. This fridge certainly falls under the “old crap” category. The power went out the other day and apparently it was not a complete outage but a reduction in voltage. I peered into the fridge to look for something to remind me not to think about…well…anything…and I noticed that it looked much better in a low light setting. I’m actually thinking of putting some sort of a 3 way bulb in there so I don’t have to burn my eyes out during those late night hunts for food anymore. So it got me to thinking…(of course it did!) I realized that on many occasions, making a big mess helps us to take action. I could’ve gone another year or so without cleaning that fridge but now it is crystal clean and sparklingly beautiful!

Have you ever met anyone who hung on to an old relationship because breaking it off would be too painful? I have! In fact, I’ve even watched people hang on and on and on all the while knowing it wasn’t working but not wanting to take any action for fear of the pain. Next thing they know they wake up one day and have been cheated on and left anyway. This actually happens more often than I can even comment on. All I can think when this happens is “wait a minute! You can’t cheat on me! I didn’t like you first!”…BUT NO. You wake up one day and all of your food is rotten and your milk is spoiled because that refrigerator that you didn’t want to hurt by replacing it for a more efficient version of itself that could make you happy with its stainless steel exterior and cooler interior, has somehow decided to stop even trying to cool your food as it had originally promised because it just didn’t feel like working anymore.

The point is that a lot of time and pain can be spared when we stop putting Band-Aids and excuses on a household appliance in order to drag out its stay in our lives beyond its usefulness. Do we really need a gallon of water spilled on our heads to help us realize that even though it may be hard to lift in order to make room for a new one, 10 years down the road it’s going to feel even heavier and when we pull out our backs lifting it, we aren’t exactly going to feel quite as resilient as we do today. I think that if we were smart and we knew a mess was impending, we would do ourselves a huge favor to just blow that fridge up and start again.

Brake Failure: Stop Safely ASAP

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 03:10:00 +0000

My car has been mocking me a lot lately. Personally I think it over warns me. It’s sort of like a car that cries “wolf.” It’s a Volvo and really like it but I can’t just assume it’s always right. I mean…it is right when a headlight burns out. Of course I have mixed feelings about that warning too. Usually people don’t know they have a headlight out until they get pulled over for it. NOT ME- I have to know the second it blows. This would be considered a gentle reminder to a normal person that she should make sure she stops and picks up a bulb. Again…I don’t have the ability to let things go. I have to stop everything I’m doing and take care of it right that minute and for the entire ride down the street to the auto parts store, that warning screams at me from my dash “DIPPED BEAM”…I find that very upsetting.

As for this “brake failure” thing…what the heck is up with that message? I come from a family that used duct tape to cover up the check engine light when it was on. I don’t think that’s supposed to be the “normal” response, but nothing ever caught on fire…well…once…but it didn’t happen that often. The point is that my brakes work fine. My ABS is another story…but the brakes themselves are fine…

So what did this warning message trigger in my mind you may ask? Well…it reminded me of all the times I have complained that I’ve given friends advice and they have completely disregarded it. I need to “brake” this down a little bit. What are the reasons that I am not heeding my car’s warning?

Obviously brake failure isn’t going to be cheap if I take it to the dealer
I would have to borrow a car or get a ride from a friend- I’d be completely reliant on someone else.
I don’t believe it’s really broken.
I actually know it’s broken and I really don’t need anyone telling me that it is because I have no intention of fixing it.

Interesting…so it appears that I have an awful lot in common with some of my friends who have ignored my advice on occasion. When it comes to relationships, the excuses for ignoring a giant red flashing message compare to my dashboard quite nicely:

If I was giving my 2 cents about a guy that I don’t think is ever going to pan out, my friend would weigh out the cost- If she chose to believe me, she would have to give up the one thing that, though a huge negative factor and life stunting relationship, is the one thing that gives her enough “nothing” to feel excited about for the few minutes a day she gets said “nothing.” So what if the “stop safely asap” message is correct this time?...eh…it hasn’t happened before…She’ll take care of it when she absolutely has to…maybe from the bottom of a lake or something…
She would have to eventually allow someone new to drive her around…ie: dinner, movies, etc…the early stages of dating always suck…
She knows it’s keeping her frozen and broken but it’s too hard to let it go for fear of the outside possibility that the person just might come through for her just after she lets go. It would just be easier to ignore the problem for now and hope that in a few years, another person will present himself once this current one has gotten married to someone completely different.

So it makes complete sense…people do what they want to and pretty much only heed warnings if they are convenient for them. Brake failure: Stop safely asap. Exactly how many warnings will I get until that one time that my brakes actually do fail?...don’t know yet…There might be a lesson to be learned in this though. People will eventually find out their own answers to the open ended questions of their lives. Maybe warning lights and well meaning friends are set in front of us to help save us from catastrophe or perhaps they are holding us stuck in full view of what just might happen one day. Would it be better to just drive until the brakes go out completely knowing that we’ve lived right now to the fullest? Does everything have to have a happily ever after attached to it? Maybe some people just don’t worry that much about what is ahead of them. I wish I was that cool. I think I’m going to go tomorrow and have my brakes checked.

If Every Day Was Christmas…

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 15:22:00 +0000

If every day was Christmas…would you be too excited to sleep the night before? Would you stand peering through the door hoping to catch a peek of a shadow leaving presents under the tree? Would you make a list of everything you wanted and hope upon hope that Santa would get it for you?...or would you save the list for one day when it wasn’t Christmas so there would be something to get excited about?

The truth is that the world is full of so many special occasions that we forget what we’re celebrating. People celebrate birthdays, secretaries, bosses, bringing children to work, Halloween, winning a game…etc… Come to think of it, when I was a kid, I was on a softball team that never won a game- ever. The other teams used to load into the back of their coach’s pickup truck and celebrate their win by going to the ice cream store. Our team only went once and that was at the end of the season because we really had tried to do our best but still lost every game. We just weren’t all that good at sports. Don’t get me wrong- my sisters and I singing in the outfield was likely a much better show than the game itself- but I guess that would depend on if you came to watch a softball game- or hear little girls singing. Personally…I would choose the singing kids any day. The point is that I have to wonder if that one day that we went to the ice cream store to celebrate our hard work was more memorable and exciting than the other team’s daily outing for ice cream cones. I wonder if they have a specific day that they would consider to have been special or if they just remember those 4 years that they went to the baseball field, hit the singing girls in the faces with balls and got ice cream for it? I remember that one day. We were so excited. We got into the back of the truck with our hats on and drove around the block to the ice cream store. The girls at the counter took each of our orders. Mine was for a small soft vanilla cone with rainbow sprinkles. I love soft serve vanilla with rainbow sprinkles still! It reminds me of one of the best days of my life.

The point is that sometimes I feel like what we do on a regular basis takes the excitement out of memories we may have the ability to capture. I get dressed up every Friday & Saturday (and some Sundays and even weeknights) and dance and sing. It is a huge party. I have so much fun. I laugh all night and I would consider myself to “party” for a living. No- I don’t drink or “party” like many people would consider that word. I just have a huge amount of fun dancing and singing. It’s like New Year’s Eve every single weekend. Dress up, dance, sing…I wonder if there’s a danger in doing the things you love to do too much? Don’t get me wrong…I still love to do it but it is definitely my job. I’ve gone to people’s weddings every weekend for years and years and years now. People come up to me to tell me that I sang at their wedding 10 years ago and introduce me to their beautiful children (and new boyfriends). They remember me being there and are excited to see me because they had so much fun on their wedding day that they will never forget it. That’s nice. Unfortunately I can’t make any distinction between the weddings unless a cake fell or if I went into anaphylactic shock from accidentally eating a walnut in a cookie I shouldn’t have eaten anyway… To me, everyday is Christmas.

This seems like a strange thing to be complaining about and I really am not complaining…exactly…I am more noticing that too much of a good thing takes the wind out of the sail of something that should feel amazing. I LOVE my jobs. I have fun all the time. I just wish I knew how to capture one moment as different from the rest. Everyone always thinks their party is different or better than others. As someone who has been at every single party every thrown, I need to say that there is very little difference between them. I contend that the reason the person throwing the party thinks theirs is special or different is due to the anticipation of preparing for it. They make their list of what they want… they can’t sleep all night the night before… they wake up early on the day of it and run down the stairs so excited that they could burst. Perhaps celebrating Christmas only once a year is a much better way to make it memorable? I don’t know though…I do everything too much…I’m too excited…I jump around and sing all the time…everyday is Christmas…What would be memorable to me right now? Maybe a walk by myself around a lake where I don’t know anyone…AH! I would remember that for a good long time!

It's not MY fault...

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 13:46:00 +0000

I have often watched and wondered as people use anything and everything to get out of an uncomfortable situation. It’s an ageless problem. When we’re kids, when our mothers catch us doing something wrong, our instant response is to tell her something that one of our sisters has done in hopes that it will be bad enough to make our offense seem much smaller. When we are teenagers, the words “she got me in trouble for…” come up again and again. I remember getting pulled over one time for speeding and being very angry at the cop who pulled me over. A wiser lady asked me if I was mad at the cop, mad at myself for speeding, or mad that I had gotten caught. Um…interesting…BUT…that cop didn’t need to be sitting there that day while I drove quickly by…Of course it was his job. “He got me in trouble!”

It never ends. People need to have someone to blame their actions on. Have you ever talked to a guy who talks about “his crazy ex wife?” I’ve actually caught myself walking away thinking, “Poor guy. His wife was crazy!”…I have a feeling that she wasn’t all that crazy. Don’t get me wrong…I have met “crazy” in my day. In fact, I believe it’s very possible that that same guy drove his wife to “act crazy.” He may have just left some of the story out- he may have left her alone with his children while he stepped out night after night into a bar and hooked up with young girls. Perhaps he told her that she wasn’t good enough for him because he had a “high pressure” job and “guys like him usually have hotter wives.”…Maybe he walked out one day for good and she called a few too many times to ask him how he could do that to her and their children?? He can blame the end of his relationship on the fact that she was crazy all he wants to but the fact remains that if everyone you meet is “crazy”, you might want to take a look in the mirror to find out what’s making them that way.

So why are humans so afraid to take responsibility for their actions? If we speed, it might be our fault that we got a speeding ticket. If we cheat, it might be our fault when the person we have cheated on throws a rock through our window. What is so scary about admitting that we did something that we aren’t proud of? Do we need to fluff up our feathers and walk around telling our life stories with twisted details in order to feel good about ourselves? I knew a guy who used to tell so many stories about his life that when someone would ask him a question regarding his personal life, he would pick up his drink and sip it slowly while he scanned his “lie rolodex” in his mind. It was obvious to me that he was getting his story straight in order for it to match previous stories that he had told the specific person. He was a VERY smart man so he did this quite well. I had to wonder how a less educated man would pull it off though. Of course a less educated man probably wasn’t trying it on overly educated women so there are probably different degrees of the “formulate your lie, slow water sip.” All in all- it’s very hard to maintain an alter ego that is so different from the real you. So much work goes into creating and maintaining each story that I can’t imagine that it doesn’t become overwhelming once in awhile. I wonder whose fault it would be when he screws up his story and gets caught in a lie?...I’m sure it will be the “crazy” girl who questions the validity of the story who will eventually “get him in trouble!”

Vein, Vane, Vain…

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 17:13:00 +0000

Age is a very strange thing…I find that people struggle with aging gracefully. I recently saw Suzanne Summers on tv. I have always loved her. In fact, in 1983, her thigh master was part of my daily elementary school regimen. I think I overused it because it eventually broke in two…Of course two thigh masters were quite useless…but perhaps equally as useless as one. As for “Chrissy Snow?”…well…at 70 years old, is it really possible that her hair is still platinum blonde like that?...

I think there comes a time when being comfortable with your age is more useful when it comes to looking your best than working so hard to look like you’re 17 years old. I see 60 year old women all the time who have had their eyes done to look as though they are 30 years younger. Unfortunately, there is a point when it goes too far. What happened to personal acceptance and sophistication?

Of course the “beautiful people” are paraded in front of cameras as the norm! Not only that, men in their 50’s and 60’s seem to think they want girls in their 20’s with no regard to their own beer guts or darkened grays. This all started when they invented the telephone and then started developing housing in neighborhoods! It just didn’t happen in centuries before us. 16 year old men married the 13 year old girl from the farm 20 miles down the road and they grew old together. There was no fox news to distract the men by showing them perfectly toned, glitzy, blonde bombshells that they could fantasize about. You can’t really blame them actually. Those women certainly are beautiful. I always give credit where credit is due!

Now I don’t mean to say that this is only a male problem. I run into women all the time who are looking for really young guys. No 40 year old woman that I know really wants a 40 year old man. Far be it for anyone to make it easy on themselves! There is a sense of entitlement once a person has gotten to a point in her life when she knows what she likes and what she wants. Sometimes she’s fresh out of a bad marriage. Sometimes she is fresh out of school and waking up after many years of putting her personal life on hold. She is 40 years old and wants someone she finds attractive. Unfortunately we don’t always find our own age to be attractive. We didn’t think 40 was hot when we were 20 and we still don’t. My 93 year old grandmother commented the other day when she saw a woman who was 92, “Wow. Did you see how many wrinkles she had?”…um…yes I did. There’s a certain point when there is just NOTHING you can do. The body wasn’t meant to hold up for an entire century! Eventually the miniskirts and half shirts have to go!

So then what can we do to make ourselves happy with our single lives? I contend that people tend to fill their heads with limitations and requirements in order to stay in the safety zone. Once we are older than 21, our lives become layered with experiences and clutter that build a protective shell around us. I’m quite certain that we don’t even realize we are doing it but if we get a little “real” with ourselves, a 50 year old woman doesn’t really have all that much in common with a 30 year old man, and a 60 year old man has even less in common with a 20 year old girl. My fiancé is 2 months older than I am. I have to say that I don’t usually like older men BUT he is really great and has lived a healthy lifestyle! He is perfect for me and people don’t stare at us in the street wondering if he is my father or if I am his mother…or do I need to sound out the words for him when he reads books!...(BUT on a side note: the other day I signaled to him to do a sound check for my band and he completely misinterpreted my hand motions as I pointed to the audience and then to my ear. He walked out and found a cookie and never returned…baby steps though. I guess the cookies were good and we eventually figured out that we hadn’t turned on the main speakers ourselves!- I digress…) The point is that I DO believe that there is someone for everyone! The catch is to strip off the underlying protective tactics and strong beliefs of what “we have to have” that keep us frozen in the “there is no one out there for me” stage…

In My Opinion...

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 15:03:00 +0000

Boy! People sure are strange. I have to wonder if maybe it’s me. AND- I guess we know the answer to that question. I think the biggest issue that people face is in trying to see things from other people’s perspective. Come to think of it, possibly we don’t have any way of doing that completely. Perhaps the biggest problem is that we aren’t walking away and agreeing to disagree and then moving on from there. I have wasted many, MANY hours trying to explain myself in hopes that someone might say, “Oh. I get it now.” This in fact is not what happens. I laugh things off and poke jokes at myself to make light of “my own personality defects” in order for others to not feel as though their opinions are wrong but to help them to understand why I like things a certain way. BUT-The truth is that my opinions aren’t wrong- or are they due to personality defects. My opinions are my opinions. That’s why we use the word “opinion.”

I was out last night and watched as a lady begged everyone in sight for a cigarette. I joked about it with her friend. I said, “She’s a grown up lady and yet she wants me to walk around and ask people for a cigarette?” (For some reason, she thought that people would be more likely to hand me a cigarette…We can discuss why I’m not sure that’s a compliment at a later date ;) The girl with her said, “Well! In 20 years, when you’re her age, you’ll understand how she feels. She’s just trying to have some fun!” My friend and I looked at the girl and said, “How old is she?”…well…it turned out that her friend that she apparently thought was 20 years older than I am, was a year younger than me. Thus the reason for her to go back in time and not smoke cigarettes…AND on a side note: her friend is obviously not all that great at doing math equations in her head because clearly I am not in my teens. Don’t get me wrong- I’m childish…but I’m no teenager...(tangent ;) Anyway... The point is that I have actually spent time trying to help people quit smoking in my day by using reasoning and photos of damaged lungs. They don’t understand. It’s their opinion that life is too short and I’m not the boss of them- and neither are their lungs. Walk away Calia…no one cares.

I guess the question is why do I care? Why do I think it’s my walk in life to help people “understand”? I contend that I would be much happier if I just allowed people to screw up their own lives, damage their own lungs, cheat on their own wives, drive their own cars into ditches while they are on their cell phones…In the end, they are going to do what they want anyway. I’m not saying that I know best. People are a product of where they come from! No two people have the same set of experiences so it’s no doubt that every single person will see things through different eyes. I guess that’s what makes the world interesting. Besides…if everyone used a bluetooth while they were driving, what would the traffic policemen do to keep themselves awake on midnights?...On the occasion that my own view might’ve been the safer choice, I can stand next to the car in the ditch and simply act shocked and say “If ONLY someone would’ve seen that coming!”…

FIRE!!

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 21:53:00 +0000

A very wise…bastard… taught me a lesson over the years. I could never understand why his correspondence would just drop off from time to time. It took a long time for it to make sense to me. He told me once that he didn’t respond to something I sent because I was upset with him and he said “what do you do when someone sends you something negative? You delete it.”…hmm…This actually explained a lot.

For instance:

You get a text from a friend that says: “You have a really fat butt.” This irritates you and you instantly write back, “Yeah? Well I’ve always thought your face looked like it had been beaten in by a truck. I can’t believe you even got a guy looking the way you do.”…You get a response back saying, “What? My 10 year old just sent that to everyone in my contacts as a joke.”…oh. Let’s see you fix that one!!

This is why we need to not respond with our immediate reaction. It is irrational and will egg on the situation beyond repair. I once got 8 texts from a guy. I had been in a concert with my phone off. They went something like this:

“Hey. What are you up to?”

“Do you want to get together?”

“What are you doing?”

“Why aren’t you responding to me?”

“I can’t believe you are doing this to me?”

“Forget it! I’m sick of this crap!”

“When I first met you, I didn’t even think you were pretty anyway!”

“Have a nice life!”

Okay…When I got out of the concert and turned on the phone, I was perplexed…then I was annoyed…then I sent back a wiseass “Which one of these texts would you like me to respond to? I was in a concert with my phone off. Have a nice life.”

He and I are not together.

The truth is that if you don’t respond to an initial text or email when someone is ranting and upset, the bastard is right- People will put out their own fire! You just can’t provide them any fuel in the meantime. I always tell people that when they break up with someone, don’t bother trying so hard to communicate. If you disappear for awhile, they will return. If you keep nagging at them, they won’t remember why they broke up with you in the first place, but they will have a whole new story to tell their friends. You probably won’t get back together if that is in fact what you want. Of course there’s a good chance that you are better off without the person. But wouldn’t you rather be the one who was right in the end?...I know I would…

The 30-Something Single Girl is Getting Married?

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 04:50:00 +0000

I know that some people have been wondering where I have disappeared to. Where is that random babble of thoughts that the crazy blonde girl strung together into sentences on a daily basis for years? Well…I’m very happy to say that I’m engaged. Does that sound crazy? The 30-something single girl actually met someone? Well!... It’s true. He is the nicest guy that anyone could ever ask to meet. I published my book almost 2 years ago listing what I was looking for: “never married, no kids, wants kids, catholic, Italian, between 30 and 40.” Would you believe that only 4 days after I finished the book, I met exactly him? Ridiculous isn’t it? Maybe not so much…

You know that I always believed in the law of attraction. You know?...if you believe in it and think it, it will eventually become your life. In fact, it was this same rule that likely spun the thread of my life for the many years that I was single. My mantra of not finding the right guy over and over again that was laced with cynical humor did a nice job of keeping me very comfortable as a “single girl.” I definitely needed to find a way to transition myself from that girl who attracted all the wrong guys, to the girl with very little left to complain about. In fact, looking back, my act was so well polished that I brought all the wrong guys to me. Don’t get me wrong…there was something very appealing about them. Perhaps I was trying to date people like my previous boyfriend over and over again in hopes that it wouldn’t end in such disaster? Possibly my subconscious believed that if I could make it work, it would mean that I wasn’t such a loser for not being able to make that relationship work. …uh…nope…that tested and tried “type” didn’t like me before… wasn’t good for me… and I had no business abusing myself by trying with “him” ever again. So I switched gears once I became clear enough to allow someone wonderful in.

Smooth sailing from that moment on right?...well…not completely. I had worked myself up into loving that feeling of “someday” so much, that all of a sudden (and I mean after nearly 8 years of being single) having a happy relationship felt like I had become a fish out of water. It’s not always easy to be part of a relationship once you’ve become so good at being alone. We certainly work through it though. He has responsibilities and I have a recording studio! The perfect balance of being single and 2 people being single together like I had always wanted.

So here I am…with the best guy ever. We want to get married. (You can feel this going bad can’t you??? I have toxic energy when it comes to this topic…You think it will stop me from going on?...Likely not! ) Well…here goes…

Ever since I was a little girl, I have dreamed of a private ceremony in a catholic church where it was just him and me. No people staring at me to see if I was going to belt out a high ‘E’, no people expecting me to break into a standup comedy routine, no quick costume change or having to remember the lines…NO big WEDDING! - Just something real for the two of us. This was the one day that I had always hoped for on which I didn’t have to be the star of the show. I didn’t need to audition and beat someone out to sing a solo… I didn’t need people to stand up and clap for me after my curtain call…One true moment is all I am asking for. Well…people don’t understand why I wouldn’t want to play the role of the bride and have all heads staring at me for one day?? The trouble is that I feel like that summarizes nearly every single day of my life. (MY…WE think highly of ourselves don’t we ;) They say that no one can understand where I’m coming from but in the same breath, “they” talk about how everyone who has ever been a bride has come to the realization that “her” wedding day is never what she wants. Um…okay…I can be charming and understand. I can even make jokes about how “I’m a little crazy for being different than most “bridezillas”…BUT…I have to say that now I’m the one who doesn’t understand. I’ve been to over 800 weddings. Trust me when I say that the script and the stage is pretty much the same at each one- the actors are just shifted around to fit the dresses. Clearly this subject doesn’t bring out the best in me. I guess the question is, “do I give up the only day I’ve ever asked for?”

Calia explains how she feels with a scene involving fast food…

She walks into McDonalds:

Calia: Yes. Could I have an order of fries and a coke?

McDonalds worker: No ma’am. I have a salad here for you.

Calia:…uh…o-…kay…???

Of course it’s even different than my McDonalds scenario because I’m asking for nothing and I still can’t have it. Really?...I mean…Really?...What the?...WT? huh?...I am truly at a loss for words on this….wait a minute…No I’m not. I’m going to write my wedding speech:

“I’d like to thank you all for coming here and…ruining the only day I’ve ever dreamed of…”

Wait…no…that wasn’t good. I’ll try again!

“You know how when you’re a little girl you dream of your wedding day?...Well this certainly isn’t it.”

Oops…

“Today is such a special day…for all of you. Please speak amongst yourselves and collect your thank you notes from the table outside the door if you brought a gift.”

Why do I feel like I’m not exactly working through this little issue? I’ll try one more time.

“If ever there was a day I wanted to spend with people, you would certainly be the people I would want to spend it with.”

Note to self: either call off the engagement, or make sure you don’t speak to anyone on the day you get married.

I truly don’t have an ending to this story because the thought of it makes me completely sick. All I know is that I want a marriage that is based on love and devotion to a lifetime with each other- I don’t believe that the party at the specific moment the sacrament takes place should be the most important part. Of course I always got C’s on my papers in my college philosophy classes for some reason too. It is clear that my philosophy on life is a little off the beaten path. The funny thing is that some people find it fresh and run down my path after me…I wonder if the others who can only see a few feet in front of them through the crowds on “Mainstream Street”, will one day have a need to detour through high grass, pricker bushes and trees to cut across to my path in order to catch a breath of their own?

So is there a compromise? I guess I could let the family come if someone else will dress up and play the role of bride. Come to think of it…I’d actually pay to watch that myself! Perhaps I should sell tickets to this performance??

Moral of this story (if there is one…): Be happy in the moment and try to figure out what might be holding you back from having all that you want because you may just get it “all” and then have to give it away anyway…

Life Finds You!

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Tue, 24 May 2011 12:54:00 +0000

Sometimes we are searching so hard to find out what we should be doing, that we lose sight of the fact that what we are already doing may be what we were meant to be doing all along?…It’s really a big mess if you ask me. How are we supposed to know if we’re doing it right? I mean…life is a set of obstacles set in front of us and we are supposed to figure out ways to climb over them. Of course that sounds sort of glass half empty I guess, but it is an accurate assessment to some extent. I love my life. I really enjoy doing everything I do. The only struggle I have is that I enjoy the journey but sometimes focus so intently on the “goal” that I forget to take it slowly. I’m always racing towards the top of the mountain and then when I get there, I think, “hmm…What now?” …I have no idea. What I wanted to do was what I was already doing- thinking about what I wanted to do one day.

I was reading a book the other day that said, “do what you're doing now, but do it better!” It made perfect sense and as I started to notice the things around me, I recognized how much time is wasted striving for what we don’t have yet. One time I sat with a teenager who could only talk about how great it would be once he grew up and how little he cared about what happened now. The interesting thing was that he was never going to get to the point he wanted to be at until he finished what he needed to do in this moment. If he hadn’t turned his life around and gotten his act together, he would’ve simply gotten older with the same level of unpreparedness in future moments! I am happy to say that he learned that lesson. Now when I see him around, he is the best he can be at this moment! I know now that he’ll be ready to be his best in the future too.

The point is that once you do what you are doing at the highest level of your ability, the door will open to you. I’m going to try to take careful notice of how I live in each moment. I know that I will likely find myself racing through from time to time, but hopefully I will remember to slow it down and recognize the beauty of what is now.

Hiding behind the truth?

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 09:44:00 +0000

I find it very interesting when I run into women who make excuses for the guys they are seeing. I’ve heard things like, “He’s just scared”, “He was hurt before and isn’t ready to get involved”, “He’s has really changed!”…uh oh ladies! Has he really changed or has the way you look at his actions changed? Don’t you think it’s interesting that we can always see a train wreck coming when we’re standing on the outside…but if we’re standing on the tracks, we keep expecting the train to get out of our way and are surprised when it runs us over? It’s nobody’s fault really. It’s human nature to want to trust and believe in the people around us. The trouble with that is that so often, the people around us are telling us exactly what their intentions are, but we choose to interpret what we want their words to mean. I had a guy in my life once that I had clearly told that I didn’t want to date him. One day, his mother showed up and asked me what was going on between us? I replied, “Nothing. I’ve told him we aren’t dating.”…She seemed surprised and asked, “Then why the prolonged game?”…huh?…I was actually very upset by this. I mean…we were hanging out in the evenings and having dinner with his family but I thought that the underlying relationship issue had been dealt with by having the conversation about how we weren’t dating….right?…wrong!…My actions were apparently negating my words. I decided that we were spending time together as friends and that it was apparently all right with him. Judging from his mother’s words, he saw things (or at least she did) differently. So what could I have done differently? I suppose I could’ve told him to go home due to the fact that we weren’t “seeing each other.”…BUT- it’s the old, “Why buy the cow if you can get the milk for free?” adage…only more like, “why send the guy home if he wants to have dinner with you and you’ll only sit here alone if he does … it’s his choice…he knows where I stand… I’m proud of myself for being so honest… I’m glad we’re not dating anymore… if you can watch a movie with the cow for free while free to roam the pasture for a cow you’d rather watch a movie with” adage… I call it the common acronym “WSTGHIHWTHDWYAYOSHAIHC”…It’s likely that the acronym isn’t catching on though (too many ‘W’s). It’s better known as self-preserving behavior that rationalizes away the affects it is having on the other person who cares too much about you to make their own judgment call about what it is!

We have all done it at one time or another I guess. I have a friend who has been with a girl since she was 21 years old and now, 8 years later, he is still adamant about telling her in no uncertain terms that he will never marry her. I hope, for her sake, that “he’s changing” because in another 5 years or so, she might find herself on a lecturing circuit selling my books to 30somethings who have wasted their time with people who hid behind the truth throughout most of their adult lives and have waken up and asked, “What now?”

We can try to make a difference in this area by really being honest with ourselves about the reasons we spend time with certain people. If it’s a fear of being alone, it’s not really a good enough reason to waste the time of another person. The trouble is that explaining that to someone who is begging to stand in front of the train is often a fruitless effort! It’s not easy to protect someone else if they won’t at least try to protect themselves a little. We should just remember that someone might end up standing in front of you one day blaming you for stealing her life. Is it really worth it to be able to tell her, “but I told you so.”…

It's just another day?

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 11:36:00 +0000

I ran into an acquaintance in the store today. I smiled and asked how she was. She said in a matter of fact way, “It’s just another day.” Oh my!...I thought in that moment, how easy is it to turn a day into “just another day” and how many of those can we afford to have? If we throw away this day, one day has the potential to turn into months...maybe years. I’m not sure we have that much extra time to waste. What is your definition of “life” or “happiness?” Is it all about just making it through? It seems like a huge waste to me. Michael Jackson died at 50. How tragic. What’s more tragic is that by definition, he had it all. We need to be careful not to calculate the value of our lives by analyzing what we have. We may have one day to toss away to feeling lonely or sad but the next has got to turn around. I like to find one thing in every single day to notice as something new and fresh. Maybe people aren’t as willing or creative as I am in this area…well…cause honestly sometimes I’m downright ridiculous! Like for example: I have been known to be able to dance and kickbox...but sometimes just spinning around the living room with a great new tune on,like I did when I was a kid, is enough to make me feel like one again. I let my arms go limp and turn in circles without spotting anywhere special on the wall until I fall down laughing. Note to self: This can actually be much more dangerous than you may think. Be careful not to slam into the wall or the coffee table (oops...yeah...it's happened). But then again…if you do, I am certain it will be a day of notable happenings! I took a walk today and looked up at the sky. I do this all the time. It never looks the same as the day before! There was a huge black cloud over the tops of some brightly sunlit trees! It was absolutely amazing. Some people would’ve noticed the black cloud but I saw the sun that was shining from the opposite direction as it reflected the treetops as a message that there was something always shining through the darkness as long as I am willing to see it. I would suggest that if you ever take a moment to try this, you turn your music down a little because you just may get run over by a car. But then again…that would put an ironic twist on your day and I assure you it would most definitely not be “just another day!”

“OH. Hot!”

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 10:09:00 +0000

My nephew is 14 years old. I watched him touch the gas fireplace the other day and then say, "oh. hot" as he pulled his finger away...He and I shared a moment when he looked at me and realized that logically, he should’ve known it was hot without touching it at all. We looked at each other with confused expressions and then started to laugh...and then he ran his finger under cold water...
What is it about people that makes us feel the constant need to find things out for ourselves? Sometimes I wonder why we aren't able to learn from each other's experiences. How many girls do you know who have gotten involved with guys who were "taken" and then ended up being surprised when eventually someone else took him from her?…”Oh. Hot.”…If he will cheat with you, he will cheat on you. We all know this to be true, but somehow believe that rules don’t apply to us as individuals. It's the same at any age. I would bet that if another kid had watched my nephew burn himself on the fireplace, it is very likely that the second child would try to touch it too…Yep. It’s still hot! I have often spent hours with friends talking through all the reasons why the direction they were heading wasn’t a good one. I have used my own experiences in addition to common sense on subject areas where one’s judgment may be clouded. Do you think anyone has ever heeded my advice?…Nope! It’s as though I can tell them, in vivid detail, what the negative outcome will be, but they continue on as if they have never heard me. It’s funny because eventually all of the details come true and they ask me why I didn’t warn them…Oh. Sorry…Hot!…I feel like that Greek Goddess who was given the gift of prophecy, but when she angered the God, he altered the gift to make people think she was lying about it and they refused to believe her…What was her name?…Don’t remember…Cool story though!
About a year ago, I was helping a friend through a rough time in his life. He was leaving his wife of nearly 20 years and desperately wanted to find a girlfriend. I have about 400 or so emails talking through the repercussions of meeting someone too soon by flaunting his money as his only asset. I worried that he would meet someone immediately and she would get pregnant and then he would start the whole cycle all over again. He agreed (on paper) that I was right and that he would proceed cautiously while he was getting his life in order…He is expecting a baby in 2 months….hmm…If only someone would’ve seen that coming! I guess he’d better work on getting that divorce now. I’m sure it’s true love this time!…Good luck with that!… “Oh. Hot!”…

Wipe off and start fresh!

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 10:47:00 +0000

I tend to enjoy waking up, applying some lip gloss and acting like I’m ready for the day! It seems to be the perfect thing to distract the eye from any imperfections I may have from sleeping with my hand pressed against my face! My pretty pink gloss is shiny and lustrous! Granted, the wind blows and I have hair stuck to my teeth, but overall, it’s usually a good topping for a fresh girl look! Well!…I was very disappointed in my lip gloss last night. I had been wearing it all day and was actually quite proud of myself for not licking it off. I reapplied after work and went to sing at a party. I was driving to the party and noticed that my lips were sticking together! That’s not good. I can’t breathe through my nose. I checked it in the mirror and it was all chunky and gross. Darn! I was all out of sorts. When I got to the party, I searched my trunk for something to wipe it on that wouldn’t stick to it and have to be worn as a mouth accessory all night! I found a washcloth and got rid of all but a little glitter and used a new layer of a different textured gloss. My frown turned upside down and I felt like a new girl! Ah! That’s better.

I walked into the party, and within 30 minutes, a guy came up to me and said, “My wife divorced me and I had to move out of the house at 11:59 pm last night.”…I thought, “Wow! If he was 20 years younger, 6 months out of that relationship and Italian, I’d snap him right up!”…and… “that reminds me of my lip gloss”! (Danger! Danger! Attention Deficit Hallucination coming!) The problem with people sometimes is that they have such a need to fill a void with an instant replacement, that they keep layering relationship after relationship without wiping off the old ones. It really just makes for a film of life distracting sticky chunks on them. Personally, I don’t get involved. I can’t tell you how many guys have asked me out right after they’ve broken up with someone who I’ve asked to take some time to get over their previous relationship and then give me a call…I could count on 1 hand how many of them have called – 0. They have all gone on to the next girl and married her…oh yeah…and then divorced her…apparently those relationships didn’t work out for some reason. Uh…do you think? How can you possibly be the person you are going to be in the future if you are still wearing a layer of your past? I am always afraid that I’m going to meet someone on the rebound…That’s actually hilarious! Everyone says, “On the rebound from who? It’s been 7 years!”…I reply with a smile, “No. Not him! The one before him!”…I liked the original one better! The one you remember was just a sticky chunk of rebound lip-gloss. The one before him was actually a pretty good match for me…other than the depressive tendencies. He’s still a sight for sore eyes though. (when I run into him every 10 years or so) Oh well…wipe them off! You can’t re-date the dated and you can’t reapply the dazzleglass. You may as well take a shower and start fresh in the morning!…I looked up from my thoughts and the guy was still standing there staring at me… “Oh. I’m sorry. Were you talking?”

Suction Cups suck

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 09:02:00 +0000

Who invented suction cups? They seem like such a great idea…but…when the temperature rises or lowers by 10 degrees, you get everything that’s suction cupped to your window, in your lap. This can be a huge distraction. There I was, driving down the highway, as my GPS leaped from my window onto the floor on the passenger side, hitting the hazard light button and bouncing off the gear shift on its way. Whoa!…I thought, “This is freakin’ Joel’s fault!” …I actually think that this is hilarious. He’s pretty much the person I blame for everything. I don’t really believe it (completely), as it has been 7 years since we broke up…but he really did act sort of like a suction cup! He stuck to me while the temperature was right for him (falling off a few times a week of course! I’d just pick him up and stick him back on!) By the time he crashed to the floor the last time, shifting my transmission into neutral, he had already stuck himself to someone else’s window. Clearly the world is really just full of suction cups that can only be counted on if all factors are perfectly aligned! I have to say that I’m pretty sick of suction cups! I’m going to invent some sort of window attachment device that is less susceptible to climate change. How about superglue? At least that way when I was done with whatever I had mounted to it, I could just take it to the dump so no one else gets to drive around town with it.

I Guess This Says it All!

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:18:00 +0000

I find this to be absolutely hilarious! Not because it is indeed superficially hilarious, but because it is also startlingly true to form when it comes to assessing the importance of intellectual ability placed on the beautiful people. Don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing good looking people. I have been considered to be good looking but it always threw me off since I spent most of my life just being the "funny, flute toting,computer geek!"...actually I'm not sure who called me that last part other then me right now, but you get the picture. The strangest thing is that most of the guys I have spent any time with sort of just wished that I would shut up (and fix their computer after they left the room). Looking back, they may have been right. Having a conversation with them over the noisy banter in their heads about whether or not "she will do me" may have been a waste of my voice. I will say that there is something glaringly wrong with this video though: What girl that looks like her ever orders fries? I thought we had an unspoken agreement with the universe that we have to pretend in public that we can't eat anything other than berrys and lettuce?...Oh well...That's it...I am inspired now! I'm going to stop eating my fries in bed!

I just saw an interview on FOX news (no dissing- I like FOX news! It's sort of my favorite! I like it because it insights so many people into an incoherent rage that they can't communicate in complete sentences...I think that's funny!) Anyway...let's talk about the interview with the new Miss Universe. Yes! She was definitely beautiful....Yes! She was definitely beautiful...Yes! She was definitely beautiful!...She said, "um...I think it was a destiny thing. There were 83 beautiful woman and only one would win."

...Yes! She was definitely beautiful!

Apparently the clincher that won her the title in the pagent was her answer to her question about how she felt about the internet: "It is a door, uh, and I think, uh, we should teach children values, uh, cause it's good and we should use it."... Is it a tiny bit spiteful that I sort of envisioned myself holding her head under a sink and spelling the sign language letters into her hand "www-aaa-tttt-eee-rrr", but then I took a step into reality and realized that I could never do that. It would've messed up her hair!

Now, I'm sure I'm going to get all sorts of angry responses to this. I apologize up front because I am mostly just joking. I'm sure Miss Universe is smart and she's just playing into the act that we all sometimes have to in order to gain respect from the opposite sex. Too much strength and confidence is often a turn off to the wrong person! The catch is knowing when someone is attracted to your strength and confidence because he/she wants to break it down as a self-fulfilling project! The moral of this story is...wait...I don't know what the moral is...the moral is...um...always do your hair before leaving the house?...

or...you could just be yourself and not worry what people might "want" in a partner...Most likely, someone wants exactly what you already are. Never be afraid to be that person! Besides...playing dumb the rest of your life might actually make your brain freeze that way!

Getting “Off Track!”

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 16:20:00 +0000

I have been running into people lately who have insisted that they keep meeting all the “wrong type” of people and are thinking of giving up on being with someone all together! Believe me when I say that I hear them on this. The interesting thing is that I have sort of figured this problem out! (Now let’s get this straight here…I figured it out- I didn’t say that I can fix it!) I have found that simply making the statement “I meet all of the wrong people” brings more of whatever your definition of “the wrong people” is. We can really get into a rut that seems to leave us stuck wondering if things will ever change. The problem is that the more time and energy we allow our minds to give this problem, the bigger the problem it becomes!

Here’s an example: I thought I had it all together in my 20’s when I met a guy who seemed to be who I was “meant to have met” and spend my life with. Wow! How confident I was that I had it all!

Scene fades in…Calia is sitting at her ping pong table (yeah…well I was in my 20’s and in college…who needs more than a ping pong table as her dining room table?)

Calia’s inner voice: Wow! I’m so lucky! I have met this great guy and I am ready to have it all- good times, vacations together, I’ll probably get married, I’m going to get my first job in my new exciting career, I’ll have a house and children and live happily ever after! Everybody wants to be me!

(cue the doom music that Calia can’t hear lurking in the background…)

Calia’s friends: Wow! We want to be you!
Calia: I bet you do!

(fast forward a few months…cue the thunder and clouds in the sky getting ready to open up a storm over Calia and the guy’s beautiful new house as the guy starts to suck the life and personality from Calia’s every living breath!)

Calia’s inner voice: Boy! I’m so excited! This is sure a beautiful day! I’m really on my way to having everything! Everybody wants to be me!
Calia’s friends: Have you heard from Calia lately? She is really in a bad situation. She’s not allowed to call us anymore. She has really changed!

(cue the roar of the monster hiding in the closet next to Calia’s beautiful dresses!)

Calia: Look at all of my beautiful dresses! Everybody wants to be me!

(fast forward a few months…cue Calia’s mother coming to the end of the driveway of Calia’s ex’s new house as she picks Calia up with only her beautiful dresses and the license plate from the car she has just signed over to the ex!)

Calia:…
Calia:…
Calia:…I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming…I don’t even want to be me!

Calia picks up her old car from a lot that she had left it on when she bought a new one the year before that would be acceptable to her new boyfriend. The crying Calia gets into the old car after the friendly guy at the lot pulls the license plate from her weak and shaking hands and puts it onto it. She pulls out of the lot and 100 feet from where it had sat for a year, the muffler drops off into the street…She opened the door, got out and started walking…She wasn’t sure exactly where she was going. Just walking I guess…Her new apartment with nothing in it but the dresses she took from the house she thought she had started her future in and the silverware her parents had put into the drawers in the kitchen didn’t seem to make her very happy. But then again, nothing really made her happy anymore. So she just kept walking…

The next chapter starts but unfortunately it is longer than Calia’s “plan” had originally intended. She wasn’t sure what was making her more unhappy: Losing him, or losing all that time and having to completely start over after believing that she had already started her life!...yeah…she decided that all she needed to do was meet someone else and quickly start again! She gave herself a specific time-frame- 5 minutes! That was all she had right?...She even set an alarm on her blackberry to go off 6 months later with the message “get a life!”…OMG!...that thing went off every 6 minutes for 4 weeks until she decided that hitting the snooze on this negative message was becoming counterproductive to actually “getting a life!” She’d go on dates with the “wrong guy” and the alarm would go off! He’d ask what it was. She’d politely tell him. “Yeah…it’s my biological clock!”…This was actually extremely hilarious to her in a sort of “poke your eyes out” kinda way…the guy never thought it was quite as funny for some reason though.

That chapter ended a few years later- way behind schedule, with absolutely no worth while content…other than some pretty funny dating stories. Dating when you’re not ready and constantly choosing to date people who your subconscious mind has picked out to prove to your conscious that life, indeed sucks, can throw you way off track but can make for some really great tales to commiserate about with other jaded, angry people who are paddling in circles in the same boat! Something happened as she came to that realization. She woke up one day and turned off that alarm. At first the silence was deafening…then it was a little scary…then it was soothing…

Ahh…

No more pressure to get “on track”. No more self-defeating dates with people who were more of the same. No more commiserating with people about how “there’s no one out there!” No more negative energy. No more need to have done things on the time frame that had already long passed. No more believing that since it didn’t happen the way she had planned it to happen, that it would never happen. The more she had tried to control it, the more energy she had put into believing that no good was ever going to come and that time was up. She took up a new phrase that she really started to enjoy. In fact, she used it nearly all the time. She found her old playful giggle as she started to free her self-imposed restrictions and negative believes with it.

“What are they going to do to me?”…

What are they going to do to me if I love my life?
What are they going to do to me if I meet the one a little later and the old “not the one” is one or two divorces ahead of me?
What are they going to do to me if I have my children a little later because something magical saved me from false starting my life and living completely on the wrong track?
What are they going to do to me if I drive 95 on the highway?...okay…um… ‘giggle’…so they actually can do something about that…oh well…you live, you learn…hee hee…

The point is simple: When you think you’re off track, it’s very easy to stay on that track for much longer than you need to. You don’t have to impose a specific age and set of circumstances that you must have to make you happy. You can make a list of the things that you would like to achieve. In fact, I would suggest it. It’s nice to be clear about what it is you are looking for. Just make sure those are the things you really want and you are putting yourself into situations that bring you closer to finding them. In the meantime, don’t sit around waiting for your life to start! Do everything in the world you’ve ever wanted to do and life will find you! That’s what I call getting yourself on the right track!

Note: I wrote this in response to an email that I got that I was unable to respond to because I didn’t know where to send it. I hope it helps to make things clear enough to recognize that you are exactly where you are meant to be right now, and changing a few simple things about the way you treat yourself will set your life in motion towards everything you’ve imagined for your future. Possibly this is more wordy than “entertaining” but I’m like that sometimes! Happy day! Calia

Weather haters!

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 09:46:00 +0000

I was in the grocery store the other day and the lady in front of me was complaining about the weather. She said, “Thank God this weather is going to break soon!...I felt the need to get into the conversation. I’m not sure what it is about me that allows me to get provoked to respond sometimes, BUT it happens from time to time. (I probably ate sugar or something. I do know that when I am free of sugar for 48 hours or so, someone could actually punch me in the face and I would say, “I’m sorry. Did I get in your way? Have a very happy day!” – This was not the case today.) I said, “What? It's summer! This weather is perfect!" I was beginning to think that all that global warming was a pile of crap! I hope it stays this hot until October!”…She took this statement as a personal attack as she loaded her bologna and diet soda into her cart and replied sternly, “Don’t wish that on me!”…I could’ve left it alone, but I didn’t. I said, “What’s the heat going to do to you?"…again, this was not what she wanted to hear and she stomped away as the cashier and I giggled together.

I am VERY aware that I like extremes. It’s like that in my life. Possibly it’s a manic state and my synapses are stuck on “high!” Who cares though? I have a feeling that this same lady is the type who will complain about the cold in the winter. As a matter of fact, I like to flit around the grocery store when it’s 100 degrees out, looking for people to engage me in a conversation about whether or not it’s “hot enough for ya?”…They are called seasons! Move if you don’t like them! The issue is that some people are NEVER happy! Of course I’m not quite sure that they want to be. It’s a lesson that I have long been learning. Sometimes I think I can “fix” the world. It’s a family trait though. When my sister left her husband many years ago, my mother said, “Go back and fix it!”…It sounded like good advice to me, but where that topic was concerned, my sister wasn’t interested in wearing our “Roze Colored Glasses!”

So what about the lady who lives on the east coast and doesn’t like seasons?…well…it likely isn’t my place to convince her to love everyday as it is given to her- hot, cold, or mild! She likes to complain so I should SHUT UP!…(ha…good luck with that!…I’m working on it though!…as long as someone doesn’t say something that reminds me of something that I could say back... But maybe that’s what makes me a good conversationalist.) I’m going to practice what to say to people so I don’t always feel the need to egg someone on who is asking for a confrontation from now on!

Lady in Store: I hope this weather is over soon!

Calia: Yeah. You can always wish you were dead so you wouldn’t have to deal with it!

(darn…that wasn’t good. It’s as if my writing has the same problem my mouth does. Even fictional lady in my little skit just provoked me! Let me try again!)

Lady in Store: Boy! I sure wish fall would come. I hate this weather!

Calia: What are you? About 60? I guess you should’ve considered that 30 years ago before you moved to NY State!

(crap…again?…)

Lady in Store: Ah! I can’t wait until this dreadful summer is done!

Calia: (stop…think…smile…wait…darn…I can’t type a response that isn’t in direct conflict to her statement. It’s like my “leave it alone” switch is broken…ah…okay…here goes!…) giggle…

That was the best I could do! Not to mention that the resistance I felt to it was incredible! Oh well…if you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all!…but maybe she should consider not crapping all over my world with her unhappy existence!…I’m just saying…

Half full!

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 14:19:00 +0000

I just used some “energizing hand soap” in the ladies room at work. I really think it worked! My hands do feel energized! Sometimes I go in there and the older ladies have filled the half empty dispenser to the top with water. That drives me crazy! My gosh ladies! It’s not like it’s 1983 and your parents only have $8 until payday! Geez…As a single person who is sort of “the boss of me”, when my soap is gone, I buy more. The funny thing is that I always see my glass as half full…of course in the past, people have definitely walked by and peed in it… but I have always just watched as they’ve done it, smiled and said, “thank you”, then simply washed my glass and started over!

Time to empty our closets!

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 09:41:00 +0000

Doesn’t it seem like everyone in the world has some sort of issue? I have to wonder if “dysfunction” is the norm. Nobody does anything in moderation. I know that I don’t! If I want to have a slice of pizza, I eat a whole pizza. If I write a song, I sit down until an entire album is done. If I find an outfit that looks nice, I buy it in 5 colors…This is one of my personality traits. Am I weird?…sure…but no weirder than the guy at the gym who likely passed over the point of getting his body in shape about 6 months ago and now can’t rest his arms at his sides. Did he just get obsessed or is his image of himself distorted? He looks like he is his own reflection in a funhouse mirror. The question is, what was his issue before? Was it the other extreme? Is it possible that some kid in high school made a comment to him about having small shoulders and now 15 years later, he still worries that his shoulders are small?…uh…they aren’t man!… The point is that we bounce from one extreme to another with little ability to stop when we hit the middle of the road.

I don’t think that everyone has this tendency but it is clear that “personality disorders” are the new “black.” Our subconscious mind is so powerful that we can stare in a mirror at ourselves and see the person we may have believed ourselves to be at one fleeting moment during our past when someone else’s insecurities forced them to redirect their self destructive thoughts towards us. Great! Thank you! What is wrong with just being confident with the person we’ve become?…well…nothing…as long as we can see clearly who that person actually is.

I noticed an older couple at the gym last night with a similar issue. They weren’t obsessive though (that I know of). They are stuck in that fleeting moment when someone told them that they looked “great!”…their “glory days” if you will. They definitely had strong healthy bodies and had worked hard for them, but they were both wearing outfits stolen out of the 1983 movie, “Flashdance.”…My only question about this is, how does this stuff not fall apart in the dryer? I have a fleece that I’ve washed once and now I’m wondering where I can get a new one. Were clothes in the 80’s made with some sort of indestructible fabric?…and too bad if so because whether it still fits you or not, there should be a general rule on how long to keep things in your closet. I have a way to make this work for me. If I’m wearing an outfit that I think I may have had for too long, I ask the person next to me how long they have been married. If I’ve owned the outfit longer than their marriage lasted, I take it to the Salvation Army. One time, I had to get rid of an outfit I had only for 6 months…apparently the guy’s wife started getting really emotional when she was 3 months pregnant and he didn’t want the child to grow up in an unhappy household. Until then, she was his best friend but “she just changed!”…Yeah…just throw it away…I’m sure there’s someone better out there that won’t change!…Whoa…so we can easily toss away our relationships but won’t empty our closets?…I think I’m going to try to empty my emotional closet. Things can be done in moderation with little or no consequence. But if you eat an entire block of cheese every single night, your pants from the 80’s that you’re still hoping to get back into, will stay there forever!

Imagine Something Better!

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:10:00 +0000

Sometimes I wonder if we spend so much time protecting ourselves from repeating the past, that we are virtually unable to feel safe enough to feel anything in the present. Everyone has something in their past that has left some sort of residual side effect that influences how we treat others. I’m not much for digging up the past in order to release those issues to become free of them. This is a huge time commitment and we already know that we can’t afford to waste that much of our valuable time being angry, bitter, cycle through the silent treatment, not talking to our mothers, wanting approval from our sisters, learning how to eat 1500 calories a day from the pyramid, fighting with our mothers, realizing our sisters wanted approval from us, learning how to eat 1500 calories a day, not talking to our sisters, wondering what was wrong with you that you would even think of giving a jerk of a man any of your attention to begin with, questioning what happened to the cat when your parents took it to the farm…? There! …I took care of it all for you so you don’t have to bother! (and don’t think that I’ve even been to a therapist. Well…actually I did go once cause I thought I had a problem with food. She said that I didn’t have one and I should cut salt and exercise more! – Excellent! Problem solved!)…I know that every psychotherapist in the world is getting out their textbooks to prove me wrong on this so no need to email the data to me. I know how it works! I do agree that we definitely need to recognize our past experiences that may cause our initial response to people who come into our path. The trouble is that once we come up with these answers, going back and telling all of those people who have “done us wrong” that they did, and asking them to change the way they treat us now, is virtually impossible. Our past experiences have varying degrees of traumatic affects. For example, I could be completely screwed up now due to the fact that my family was so amazing and provided such a fairy-tale, happy view of the world that I’m actually shocked every single time someone demonstrates to me that all people aren’t good. As a matter of fact, I still think that there is good in everyone. That…or I could use the one about my ex being one of those people who likely isn’t a good person at his core and then protect myself from more people like him. The funny thing is that the “Pollyanna” view I was raised with, still makes me think that he isn’t a completely evil man. Don’t get me wrong…I did stub my toe this morning and I’m pretty sure it’s his freakin’ fault! (but it’s only 6 years later so it’s still a little fresh!)

I guess what I’m saying is that all the time we spend superimposing our past experiences onto the new people who come into our lives, might be spent more wisely getting to know him by his own merits and not being afraid that he may let us down in the future. Let’s not get crazy here- he will likely screw you over! But wouldn’t it be nice to say, “I can’t believe I met another one of these idiots! What are the odds?”…and then walk away with your head held high knowing that you put yourself out there!

Okay…so I got a little edgy there for a second. I’m still working on this one myself! What we need to do when we meet a new person is try our hardest to allow him to show us who he is and not bring our past to the table. I’m not saying that if he has a tattoo on his arm with a list of women he’s killed with extra lines to add more names in the future, you should dismiss this gut feeling as you being overcautious and “afraid to put yourself out there!” You should likely walk away from that one…actually… don’t make any sudden moves. Possibly you should just make a phone call from your cell phone in your purse and leave it on throughout the night in order to have the proper evidence later if necessary. On the other hand, there are nice guys left out there. Instead of sitting at a banquet sized table with him and the hundreds of memories that could fill that table twice over, imagine something better than what you’ve come to expect. When the hostess comes to seat you, simply smile and say, “Yes! A table for two please!”

Women are from venus…Men are hiding their heads under a blanket in my living room?

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 09:52:00 +0000

I’ve known for many years that women and men think and communicate differently. For example, over the last few years, it seems that men are more comfortable with communication via text messaging than actually talking or getting together. It must be due to the need for some attention but the additional need to control the amount of attention given back. How many times have I been in the middle of a “conversation” text message and then all of a sudden there was just no response? The conversation never ended. There was no “okay, catch ya later.” – Nothing. Just cut! Apparently this is the male version of one of my favorites – “blah blah blah! I CAN’T HEAR YOU! Wah bladaladalada!”…usually when I uncover my eyes, the guy who started the conversation that I was uncomfortable with, is gone.

I met a guy one time that had his own version of this. He was older than I was but he insisted he was 8 years younger…that should’ve been my first clue that something wasn’t quite right! One day we were talking in my living room and then all of a sudden, as I sat on the floor, he was lying on the couch with the blanket tight over his face… Um…huh?... I tried to move the blanket away from his face so I could find out what was wrong. I couldn’t recall what could’ve gone wrong in the conversation. He grunted and said in a muffled, blanket covered voice, “just go!” uh…confused again! It was my house! After struggling with the blanket for 5 minutes or so and getting nowhere with this 6 foot 5, 38 year old man, I walked into the kitchen. As I walked back into the living room, his BMW was pealing out of my driveway. Of course I did what any girl would do: I made myself a pizza. I played with whether or not to go find him over a slice, or 3… I mean…that seemed like an irrational action on his part. I’ve had guys flip me off cause I wasn’t singing Mony, Mony in a small town bar, guys invite me places and just not show, I even had a guy kick a footprint into the side of my little red sports car when I was 22. I was totally unaccustomed to the “hiding his head under a blanket” tactic. Eventually I went looking for him. We had been hanging out for nearly 2 weeks so I was beyond the 1 week rule where you can simply let someone speed out of your driveway without having to wonder why. I caught up with him later and he told me that I needed to read some book about that blanket being his cave. I didn’t read the book though I’m quite certain that there is no book that tells grown men to hide under a blanket and run from a 5’3” blonde girl. I suppose I don’t really care. He disappeared completely a couple weeks later. – and I’m not talking about him just not coming around- DISAPPEARED! Quit his job, moved out of the area…gone! …I think he left a pair of scrubs at my house. Does that mean that we’re together?

Oh! That explains it- we’re all getting bad advice!

noreply@blogger.com (Calia Roze) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 10:39:00 +0000

I was looking online at what the dating rules are to see if I am following them at all. And by the way... I’m totally not! I am going to give a few of them a shot though. My friend Robin talked about “the Rules” book and noted different areas that she does or doesn’t follow them in her blog. I actually think she does a little better than I do. I definitely call too much and do feel the need to explain up front why I’m still single. It’s only because I have actually been asked, “why are you still single”, as though I’m broken or something and then I feel the need to explain myself. Ok! So I was in a relationship too long and ended up in a weird demographic. If I followed the rules, that guy would be wondering on the first date if I had a house full of cats! - NO CATS!

I also have an issue with not calling. I can’t stand that one. I feel like I’m being rude if I don’t thank a guy for a nice time in a text or something when I get home that night or the next day. A big no-no apparently! Oops…As a matter of fact, when a guy waits 3 days to call me, I’ve completely readjusted any excitement I had felt about him to the realization that he just wasn’t interested and by the time he calls, I don’t even feel like talking. I’ve moved on. (I suppose that is either a protective mechanism or the fact that I move at the speed of light and get bored and go on to my next goal- either way- 3 days is a long time in my world!) Oh well!

So that brings me to this site I came across. I may have just uncovered the problem. Men are being told to play a completely different game than women are. It’s no wonder that there are any couples at all. “Just be yourself”… but be a completely different person and you’ll get her? Uh…huh? It’s a huge game. Some guys like rules girls while other guys get mad and think girls are playing games. I suppose that dating is sort of a game but it is getting ridiculous. A little bit of a chase is a good idea while you’re getting to know someone, but come on! Do we really need all these books of rules? I haven’t even read the manual on my toaster! Shouldn’t I just be able to stick a piece of bread in and make toast without being told that shoving a metal object into a conductive electrical device might be hazardous? Thank God for the warning on my hair dryer or else I would be showering and drying my hair at the same time! Feeww!

Here are a few of the statements offered as advice to men that may be single handedly taking down the dating community:

Be willing to let her moan and groan and not give in because the nice guy isn’t respected.

This is absolutely crazy. I think that in this regard, if a woman is moaning and groaning about something, you really aren’t going to get very far with her in a relationship. I don’t think I’ve ever “moaned and groaned” about anything that I wasn’t able to take care of for myself. The person who wrote this was trying to help a nice guy compete with that ‘jerk’ with confidence that many of us try to ‘fix’ because we know we are “different and he’ll come around”. Well…that being said, we can’t fix him and he will likely still be a jerk, but we will eventually figure it out. There’s really nothing a nice guy can do to pretend he’s a jerk so we’ll like him! It’s just bad advice. We are the ones who are wrong here…but that isn’t really going to change much. Sometimes a nice guy is just not strong enough or does not demonstrate a sense of security that peaks our interest! Hopefully at the right place and the right time, we will choose a nice guy who has a little something of his own that attracts us to his inner character and we’ll be with him forever while the ‘jerk’ can continue to play out all of these rules.

You must have the attitude which shows that you are not there to impress her rather she is the one who is lucky to sit next to you.

Oh my! This one actually made me cringe. Why would I spend even a few minutes with someone who thought that he was doing me a favor by going somewhere with me? If he has a line of women, he should go to the next one and leave me out of the game if this is how he feels!

Do you know that women do not always mean what they say? They might say something and mean the exact opposite.

Another gem of advice! It has been my experience that women are much better communicators than men sometimes. If someone has told men that I mean the exact opposite of what I say, it truly explains why I am constantly trying to figure out how they could’ve possibly misinterpreted my exacting nature when it comes to open communication. I just thought they weren’t listening! Now I suppose it’s that they are listening and using a secret decoder ring to figure out what the opposite of what I said was! …On a positive side… this means that they are at least smarter than I had originally noted- not any better off with me, but smarter!

When it comes to impressing women, your looks do not matter. That gorgeous girl in the corner does not care a full blow beer belly, a bald head, or if you work as a mechanic at your brother's garage. None of these things matter.

Sorry about this one. That girl does care if you have a beer belly and are a mechanic in your brother’s garage. Every girl that I talk to seems to be hoping to meet an educated, driven man and is constantly saying that “there are no single guys out there.” There are single guys out there…and many of those guys are single for a reason. The thing is that while confidence counts and impresses women, how could a guy have any confidence if he has a beer belly and works in his brother’s garage? This goes for people in general. We need to make sure that the person we make ourselves into is the type of person we’d be proud to be. When we are working towards, or have achieved many of our goals in life, we are one step closer to wearing the confidence it takes to attract great people into our lives!

Good luck ladies!