First of all, I need to give a shout out to my dear (probably one of my dearest) friend Kollin, who helped me develop this theory.  Or at least he listened while I ranted it out. He’s such a good listener.

Myth: All women are complicated.

Yes, you heard me I said it…myth.  I would like to present myself as the proof to this statement.  I like to think of myself as a pretty open book when it comes relationships.  If I’m not interested, I’ll either let you know or distance myself till he gets the idea (yes I know this isn’t the nicest or most perfect option, but I really hate confrontation, and this is effective for getting the message across.)  Now, I can be mysterious when I want to be, but that’s usually a flirting technique.  I still like to think that when I’m “mysterious” I’m pretty straight forward.

Myth: All men are easy to understand.

I just heard the outcry of men all around the world who read that statement and are offended by my implication. “No way! Men are so easy to get!”  XXXXXX Wrong answer. Thanks so much, please try again.  Yes, I will grant you that most men are pretty straight forward, but this is certainly not true about all of them.  And it seems to me that I’m pretty good and pickin’ the ones who are complicated.  No “relationship” I’ve had has been easy going. Period. And it’s always the guy who makes things weird.

So, that being said, here is the theory I want to present: There must be one person in a relationship who is complicated.  It may be the woman, it may be the man.  But relationships are not meant to be easy.  Perhaps if there was not complication, then things would be boring.   Who knows?

I do know this: I almost wish I was the complicated one.  I think if I went after simpler guys it would save me a lot of heartache. Relating back to my last note in this “series,” women take things more seriously.

I could be just writing a lot of fluff here.  Actually, I get the feeling that I am. I do know this: my conclusion here is to be wary of believing those myths about men and women.  I think that’s what makes relationships so difficult is that we are all so ready to jump into those myths and believe them, that we have a hard time of seeing things as they really are.  Take things in stride; go with the flow; breathe in, breathe out; take one day at a time (wow, could I have fitted one more cliche into that string?)

Oh yes, and communicate. That saves heartache too.  (Does that sound like a lead in to a new note to you, cause it does to me)

It is my intent, with this risky venture, to express my feelings about the difference between man and woman.  Now before you start getting all excited that I am finally going to reveal the secret mystery to understanding the opposite sex, I will not.  Primarily because I don’t understand that myself.  These are rather my own initial observations in the case study of my life.

The subject that I would like to touch on here is casual dating.  I don’t really believe that there is such a thing.

Uh oh a minute, I can already hear you starting to argue, let me explain: if two people agree to “go out” together on a “date,” the sole purpose being having a good time and hanging out, then yes, I can classify that as casual dating.  However, i ask that you notice the key phrase in that above definition: two people. Both. Agree. Together.

That being said, I think that this is an “agreement” that is not often adopted.  Women are emotional beings; we tend to get really caught up in the fanciful ideas of what could be and what might be.  This is not saying that when a guy asks us out the first time that we believe from that point that this is the man that we will be marrying, but I would be lying to say that we don’t feel a bit giddy at the prospect that this could be the beginning of something that has the potential of heading somewhere. We can tell you all day long that we are all about taking things slow, and that we aren’t serious, and more likely than not, we recognize and believe that to be the case. But there’s always the thought in the back of our minds, “What if?” Women get very emotionally involved and invested, and the slightest slight can throw a woman out of wack for a good while.  Yes, it is absolutely ridiculous; it doesn’t make any sense at all,  but that doesn’t make it less true.

So really there’s just one thing that I ask, and that is for men to be careful.  There’s nothing wrong with “casual dating,” but make sure that the women realizes up front that that is the direction you are heading.  Even if it is just a first date.  We know that its not serious and we aren’t expecting a relationship based on that first date, but guard your actions, men.  Be careful of your flattery and word choice; be careful of your treatment. Our hearts are much more easily broken, even when we are guarding them.

As I said, this was not meant to be a rant or to apply to one person or persons in particular. These are simply basic observations I have noted based on my own experiences and the experiences of other women like myself.  God has given humans the incredible gift for love and we should take care to treasure it.

And yet, in recent months, actually since I was in Ireland almost a year ago (Saints preserve me, has it been that long already?), I haven’t journaled. Why not? Well I don’t know really.  Time? Patience? Forgetfulness? Laziness? All possibilities. All likely. And yet, I’m probably at a time in my life when I’ve never needed it more.  I’ve had…shall we say…emotional trials over the last few weeks.  I could have stood for some emotional relief that journaling does.  It’s almost as though it lightens some of the burden. 

But I’m sure you are wondering about these aforementioned trails.  What are they, you ask? Ah, you thought you had me fooled, blogging is not journaling, and therefore, you don’t get to know the specifics.  I’m not yet to the point where I’m willing to put every detail of my personal struggles out there for a stranger in Timbuktu to read.  Which makes me wonder why I’m really writing any of this in the first place.  To let those who love me know that  I am struggling, I suppose.  It’s easier for me to communicate through writing than in person. Perhaps to try and help you understand me just a little bit better.

But for now, it’s just me, my pseudo-journal, a luke-warm glass of white zinfandel (which actually should probably go in the fridge to rechill), and some of the best Irish music I’ve heard in a long time.  I.e. in a pub in Dublin. 

So fill to me the parting glass, and drink a health what ‘er befalls, and gently rise and softly call good night and joy be to you all. 

Literary analysis.

That’s right, I said it.  The English minor in me has emerged full swing.  I’m sitting here, watching Pride & Prejudice, and do you know what is going through my mind?  Austen’s message on the status of women.  Yes, P&P is a lovely story about finding true love while overcoming personal biases.  Yada, yada, yada.  However, when you really break the story down, Austen portrays the inequalities of 19th century English society in the terms of how women are affected by unfair inheritance laws, and the hypocrisy of social status.  Think about just a few lines: “Even my piano stool belongs to Mr. Collins.” “We are perfectly able to keep a cook.” And these are just a few.  Don’t get me started on the {please imagine this spoken with an hyperbolic and ironic British accent} Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

Yes I just went there–I high school English classed all of you.

But that’s just it, you know, I really enjoy picking literature apart and finding the symbols and message hidden amidst its pages.  It’s like a scavenger hunt.  It creates critical thinking skills.  Not to mention that, as often as I complain about how it takes the fun out of reading, what it does in actuality is makes reading more enjoyable.  When you know the author’s true purpose and read with that in mind, won’t the novel (poem, short story, etc) make more sense? I find it so.

And let’s be honest, the fact that this is a lost art is depressing.  People do use their brains anymore!  Technology, as much as I love it, I am convinced has created a generation of dumbed down Americans.   Why read a classic novel over 140 pages when you can twitter up to 140 words?  We are an ADD generation, bouncing around from one thing to the next.  When will we take the time to breathe!!  And how did I get to this conclusion based on literary analysis?  Well honestly I’m not sure.  But I will end with this.  Stop, take a breath, read a book, and think about that book. Don’t be afraid or too lazy to analyze, you never know what you might teach yourself.

I actually don’t really have a whole lot to say anymore.  Chalk it up to exhaustion, work, laziness, whatever really.  I’m in one of those phases, you know, where I get writer’s block pretty badly and just run out of things to say.  However, as this is my creative outlet, hopefully that will change soon.

Biggest change in my life, especially looking at my last blog about escapism, is that I’ve gotten a job.  I know.  It’s awesome.  I’m teaching back at home at my high school–the place where I told my mom when I graduated that I would be working there.  She told me “Don’t get your hopes up, it’s very hard to get a job there.”  Ha, I showed her.

So I’m working.  It’s honestly just about my whole life right now.  They don’t prepare you for the kind of job that teaching really is.  Sure I’ve been trained in the resources and teaching styles and “instructional strategies” and whatnot, but administrative stuff? They managed to leave out a college course on that one.  I’m at the school till 6:00 at night sometimes.  Lesson planning is going to be the death of me, I’m convinced.  And don’t get me started on…well…it’s best to leave that for another time.

So, whew.  That’s really all I can say about life right now.  Teaching is my life. I’m ok with that, I mean I did train four years in order for it to be so.  In the words of one of the guys I graduated it (who is former army) “I mean the military is a lifestyle, but no where near that as teaching.”  One day I’ll grow out of it, I’m sure.  I’m still a rookie, you know.  I’ll grow into it.

What else can I say? I do apologize for being neither as elegant or thought provoking as I used to be.  It’s the nature of the game.  Hopefully it won’t be five months before I post again.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that lately.  It’s never been a subject I’ve dwelt on much before.  And, in fact, I scarcely knew what it really meant.  Yes, I had a vague inclination; I used my context clues and my critical thinking skills.  I majored not in History and minored not in English for nothing.

And why? Why has it been something that I knew of but did not know of?  That, I’m afraid, is the easy part.  I’ve never needed it.  There’s always been something going on in my life.  Seventeen years of schooling does that to you.  Even amidst of the hardships I’ve endured–especially over the last few years–I’ve always had something to keep me busy.  Most often it was school, but occasionally it was a semi-regular job, friend–the few I keep, that is–or even something as simple as the constant struggle of trying to perfect a story I had written.

But now, my life is left hanging.  I’m 22 years old, I have a college degree, a teaching license that allows me three different subject areas, and no means of my own income.  I have nothing that I can really call my own.  The few dollars that I earn in tutoring and babysitting is not enough for apartment rent.  My car is still in my father’s name.  My parents feed me.  Try as I might, I cannot find a job–full time or otherwise.  I feel like a parasite, a leech.

I do not write this to complain.  I do not write this to feel sorry for myself.  I have it lucky, and I know that.  My parents are gracious and loving, I could not ask for better.  I write this because, despite of my parents deep gratitude, I still feel like a burden.  In college I tasted independence, and I do not have that now.  I know that I am young with my whole life at my feet, and I so wish I could enjoy this time more.  I am trying to enjoy it.  Between looking for jobs, I try to think of ways I can take advantage of this new found and short lived (hopefully) freedom.  But it comes back to this: I have not the means.

If I had the means, I would travel everywhere from Alaska, to Disney World, to Germany.   I have missed Hawai’i since last summer; I was truly happy on her beaches and in her sunlight. I have the strong desire to see London again, and to relish it as I could not in my short 3 days there this Spring.  I would be giddy for a return to Italy.  To see Florence and Naples and Venice.  And oh, for Ireland.  My heart aches for those hills of Green.  For the bustling streets of Dublin.  Could it be only four months since I last saw them?  Since I sat in St. Stephen’s Green on the anniversary of one of my darkest days, only to feel love for a place I barely knew?

If I had the means,  I would experience history in a way I haven’t before.  I would see places where great, and terrible, things have happened.  I would soak in the importance of the events that changed the course of human events in this country.   How much better could I teach history when I have been to these places and seen these things?  When I have put myself in the places of those who lived them?

If I had the means, I would be in Boone for the Fall.  It is the best time of year in the Mountains.  The beauty.  The brisk air.  I love it.  I miss it.

If I had the means, I would be with my friends.  Those I left when I graduated.  Those who touched my life more than any other people I have ever known.

But alas, I have not the means.  And so, I turn to Escapism.

First, I find myself engrossed in early British history.  I have always, always loved studying Tudor history (Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth).  Now, my favorite author, Phillipa Greggory, has released a new book about the history of the Plantagenets–the line of British Kings before the Tudors.  I find myself engrossed and overly interested in this new era that I have studied so little.  It gives me a new way of looking at a time I thought I understood.  The historian in me is ravenous.

Secondly, I have rediscovered Sherlock Holmes.  My senior year in high school I devoured all of the Sherlock Holmes stories: 4 novels and 60-0dd short stories.  For my birthday, I received the 1980′s Granada television series of Sherlock Holmes on DVD.  They are brilliant.  I am devouring them much as I did the originals.  And of course, my obsession doesn’t stop there.  I find free audio books for my ipod.  I bought a PC video game.  I am reading up on Conan Doyle’s life and the life of the fictional detective.  I imagine he was a real man.  I wish he was a real man.  I admire him from fiction.  I admire his era and once again wish that I had lived in Victorian England.  I escape into Sherlock Holmes.

Thirdly, I find solace in comedy.  Espcially one tv show in particular: Psych.  For one hour each Friday I am able to laugh at complete hilarity.  The episodes are a combination of pop culture, nonsense, and brilliance. I forget my troubles and my issues for this hour each week.  I am not me, but an observer.  It is a wonderful hour.

And so, I am discovering Escapism.  In this world where I am finding it hard to make things more forward and go right, I am finding worlds where I don’t have to be me.  I don’t have to stress and I don’t have to worry.   It is nice.  But what would be nicer?

Escaping Escapism.

The burden of being a historian is this realization.  Now, I could take this blog to go into the deep details and reasons why history is important, why we must study it, and why this statement is a truth, but I will not bore you with that knowledge.  My goal right now is simply to point out an interesting observation.

Have you ever been on a tour of a Victorian Era Home? I myself, being a NC native, have been to the Biltmore Estate on many occasions.  In this house, as with most wealthy Victorian families, there is a Billiard Room.  This is the room where, after dinner in the Dinning Hall, the men would excuse themselves from the women and go to smoke cigars, play billiards, and discuss business and politics.  The women were not allowed in this room, nor, I imagine, did they really care to go into it.  They were left to their own sitting room to gossip, sew, play music, and, I imagine, to talk just as much politics and business as the men did.  Let’s be honest, it was the wealthy wife who kept the books on many occasions.  Take careful note, if you will, of the furnishings and decor of this particular room:

Now, flashfoward to 2009.  My parents had a couple friends come over for dinner tonight.  After the food was eaten, an interesting thing happened.  Me, my mom, and her friend were left in the dinning room to finish our conversation.  I played the piano for a while.  My dad and his friend retired to the room in our house that has been dubbed “the man cave.” They are currently sitting on the couch, watching pre-season football and talking…you guessed it…buisness and politics.  I went in there for a minute, and wouldn’t you know that my dad said, “What are you doing in here? This is the man room.”  I couldn’t help but laugh a bit on the inside.  Note, if you will, the furnishing and decor of said “man cave.”

I’m just saying, neither for good nor bad.

The world does not change.

I have noticed that going overseas has one of two effects on the average person.  In general, both sets of people will acknowledge the separate cultures they visit and create an appreciate and respect for them.  The first sort of people will leave their heart overseas, converting their loyalty to where ever it is that they visit.  This bothers me.  Yes appreciate, yes respect, yes love, but remember your roots.  I don’t ask that immigrants to this country forget where they are from.  I except that a person who moves here from Ireland will become American, but also keep their connection to their home country.  There are exceptions to this that I’m just not going to get into right now, because this is not a political blog, so we’ll leave that aside for later.  The second kind of effect overseas travel will have is when a person goes to another country and falls in love with the culture they find there, but they come home with a greater love for their own nation.

That is what happened to me.  I’ve always loved being an American, but now I am downright exuberant of it.  I love my God and my country.  I even love North Carolina more than I did before (which is saying something as I have always loved my state).

However, it wasn’t just overseas travel that increased my love for America.  Teaching has done that to me as well.  It was one thing to study American history as a student and appreciate it, but another thing altogether to impart this knowledge and information to children and teens.  Suddenly, I’m drawing conclusions and making connections and explaining their importance.  It makes me so excited to be able to say, “Look at this! Look what our Founding Fathers did! It was unprecedented, unimaginable, and nearly impossible–but they did it.”  I even now more appreciate the story of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (which by the way, today is the anniversary of the last day of that battle).  Before Lincoln gave that short little speech people would refer to the United State as a plural and say things like “The United States are a democracy.” Afterwards, whether because of that speech or because of the war in general, people referred to the country as a singular, such as, “The United States is a democracy.”  Also, think about our pledge of allegiance: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands ONE nation UNDER God, INDIVISIBLE with Liberty and Justice for all.” Have you ever thought about why Indivisible is in the pledge? It seems an odd word thrown in there.  It’s because of the Civil War.  I am a Southerner, and I am proud of that too, but the Civil War almost destroyed what the Revolutionary war built.  Afterwards, we realized that we are a people Indivisible.  We are United under our God and our government to stand strong together.  Amen.

I want to end this blog by expressing again the importance of what happened during the American Revolution. Can you imagine what the Founding Fathers felt when they voted on and signed the Declaration of Independence.  Had they failed in their intent, and by all accounts they should have, they had just knowingly and willingly committed an act of treason to the crown.  They had signed their own death warrant.  THINK ABOUT IT!! The Declaration of Independence could have been the Death Warrant of the 56 men who penned their names to it.  For many of them, it was.  Doesn’t that give new meaning to what they did? Doesn’t that hit it home? It is sobering.  I know that I am sobered by it.  And yet, they had confidence in it.  So strong was the confidence of my personal favorite Father, John Adams, that he wrote back to his wife Abigail on July 3, 1776 of the events of July 2 (the day we should actually celebrate the Independence Day, as that was the day the Declaration was adopted) of a great celebration that would continue in this country for the rest of history.  I am posting it hear for you to read carefully.  Read between his lines.  He is thrilled, but also afraid.  He is confident, but also realistic.  But his forethought is incredible.  He knows he is right, and he knows what he had just done.

The Delay of this Declaration to this Time, has many great Advantages attending it. The Hopes of Reconciliation, which were fondly entertained by Multitudes of honest and well meaning tho weak and mistaken People, have been gradually and at last totally extinguished. Time has been given for the whole People, maturely to consider the great Question of Independence and to ripen their Judgments, dissipate their Fears, and allure their Hopes, by discussing it in News Papers and Pamphletts, by debating it, in Assemblies, Conventions, Committees of Safety and Inspection, in town and County Meetings, as well as in private Conversations, so that the whole People in every Colony of the 13, have now adopted it, as their own Act. This will cement the Union, and avoid those Heats, and perhaps Convulsions which might have been occasioned, by such a Declaration Six Months ago.But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfire and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

You will think me transported with Enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil, and Blood, and Treasure that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet, through all the Gloom, I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means, and that Posterity will triumph in that Day’s Transaction, even though We should not rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

God Bless America.