Funny what attracts you to someone, initially....
I can give you boatloads of lists of things that I found so attractive about Jason.... and I can also give you some much smaller lists of things that I chose to overlook at that time....
Fast forward to nearly 7 years later and here we are....
Every marriage goes up and down....
It is DEFINITELY how you weather those storms, TOGETHER, that determine the outcome....
It's easy to be with someone who makes you happy and smile and laugh and sees you through your good times....
Admit it.... it is easy to be with someone who is HAPPY and radiant and beaming.... no?
Recently, (well within the last few months), I've thought about the things that I LOVE to do....
which then led me to think about the things I DON'T love or even LIKE to do....
which then led to me basically writing a personal ad....
which then led me to send it to Jason, via text, because it kind of made me laugh....
MY PERSONAL AD (if I was advertising myself.... which of course I'm not, but if I were.... this is probably what it would say):
"Hi. My name is Ashley. I love music, dancing ( I don't care WHERE I am or who sees me.... In fact, if you join in, you get bonus points!) .... Love red wine.... and sitting on the beach, especially at sunset.... I don't like long walks in the sand. I usually get tired.... (and hot and sweaty).... and I don't particularly ENJOY being hot and sweaty.... but I DO love the sun! I carry my venti Starbucks cup, filled with water, with me everywhere I go because otherwise I'd forget to drink water and I don't want to have kidney issues.... like, ever.... (and secretly because when I was pregnant and chubby, I started drinking TONS of water and actually lost weight...) and there are just a ton of other healthy reasons to drink water.... so, there's that....
I don't enjoy cooking or cleaning. Ideally, I'd have a housecleaner come every 2 weeks, because every 4 weeks just reminds me what a failure I am at cleaning.... The hair build up on the floor grosses me out.... Don't get me wrong, I'll clean, I just REALLY, REALLY enjoy everything clean at once.... and I get distracted.... A LOT.... I have been practicing being a lot more mindful with what I'm doing, but the internal battle of fighting distraction and the actual distraction just really clash a lot and sometimes I can't even fight the distraction....*
I cry a lot.... like A LOT, a lot.... happy things. sad things. every things..... I think everything has feelings, which leads me to doing weird things like HAVING to put groceries back when other people leave them in the wrong section...**
I love plants, mostly succulents because they tend to be the only thing I can semi keep alive.... and because they are terribly resilient, which I think we all have to be in order to keep moving forward in life, growing and progressing.... we have to have some amount of resilience for that....
I love sweets and good food in general, and I just think that life is way too short to only do grown up stuff all the time...."
*in case you are thoroughly confused, I'll give you an example.... the other day, I put a trader joe's bag of jasmine rice in the microwave for 3 minutes.... and figured 3 minutes plus the additional minute it needs to cool down would be the perfect time to fold the load of laundry that just beeped. So I went and started folding the laundry fresh out of the dryer, cleaned the lint trap and realized the trash bag in the laundry room was full so I took it to the bathroom trash and had to go to the bathroom, then realized I needed to take the bathroom trash out.... took the bathroom trash outside, came back in the house and realized that I had put rice in the microwave and it was now EXTRA cooled off.... so I added my red ginger to the rice, sat down and ate a bowl, rinsed it off and did some other stuff and headed back towards my bedroom and saw the laundry room light was still on and the dryer door was open and the dryer light was on, because the door was open, and yeah.....) It just takes me a lot longer to get done things that shouldn't take that long.... and it is frustrating as all hell and not because I'm terribly lazy, but usually because I want to do everything....
WHO in their RIGHT mind would EVER respond to any kind of personal ad like this??!!
**mostly like me putting a frozen box of waffles back in its frozen section when someone decides they don't want/need it and leave it in the pile of avocados in the produce section.... weird things like that....
Thankful for a husband, (though he didn't respond to this written ad), has loved me through 7 years of this nonsense!
To be continued....
