Why We Care: The Royal Wedding

This blog is for all the men who ask me, "Why do you care?" in regards to the Royal Wedding, so instead of explaining it over and over I can just refer to them here.

So, why do we (women) care?

It's a good question first off. I can see why my boyfriend and several other guys have asked that question. I know why they give us strange looks when we tell them that we're getting up at 4 a.m. to watch it on television. I understand they think it's ridiculous we keep our noses behind computer screens and scroll through all the wedding details and look at the photos of Kate and William. Guys, trust me, I get it. I know what you're thinking. But if you really want to understand why we care, it starts long before Kate and William ever even met.

About 15 years ago I was six years old, growing up in a red-bricked cape-cod house in the suburbs of Cincinnati. I had a father who was off delivering packages for UPS and a mother who stayed at home to take care of me and my two younger sisters. I had a wild-eyed imagination and like many little girls I had one inspiration to fuel it: Disney.

Disney was the source for all childhood dreams. My sisters and I watched Disney movie after Disney movie. Snow White, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid... you name it, we had it. And we ate it up. We loved the idea of these beautiful women getting swept off their feet by the handsome prince. We dreamed of what it would be like if we were those princesses trapped in the tower, waiting for the day our knight in shining armor would come to rescue us. Men, if you want to know why women care so much about romance and why we want to look like a princess on our wedding day, you can blame Disney.

And that was how most of my childhood was spent. I believed that love was being a damsel in distress and the most perfect guy in the world would come along and save me. A lot of little girls grew up thinking real life could be a fairytale.

Until that fatal day we realized it's not.

I'm not sure when it struck me that my ideas on the matter of love were not realistic. Perhaps it was as early as third grade when I had a crush on a kid in my class and he didn't seem to want anything to do with me. Or eighth grade when I had my first "boyfriend" and we said I love you over AIM (real romantic, right?). Or maybe it was tenth grade when I got up the nerve to ask a guy to homecoming and he told me no. Either way, somewhere along the way I realized love, and men, weren't what I made them out to be.

Now that doesn't mean that love isn't all it's hyped up to be. I still believe it's very possible to live happily-ever-after. It just doesn't come as easily as expected. Men don't ride white stallions, we don't receive invitations to fancy balls, and love at first sight is, in my opinion, a myth. We usually don't get to see our Disney dreams come true.

But tomorrow morning, at 4 a.m. Eastern time, we do.

I doubt Prince William and Kate Middleton's relationship has been anything like a fairytale. In fact it seems rather normal. They met in college, became friends, dated, broke up, dated again, and so on (according to my sources via the internet). But tomorrow we will witness a fairytale. Kate will marry a Prince. And women all over the world will be celebrating it.

So men, don't roll your eyes when you hear us gush about her dress or talk of how handsome Prince William looks. Don't give me a funny look when you hear I'll be setting my alarm at 3:50 a.m. Even if you still don't get it, just understand that this is something we have to do. It's for the little girl we once were, who just wanted to see her fairytale dreams come true.

Time, why you punish me?

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

The clock is taunting me.

It's an ugly Tuesday morning and I am sitting at my desk trying to cross more things off my never-ending list of to-dos but I'm having a hard time concentrating. Because just over my shoulder is the robin's egg clock on the wall, going tick...tick...tick...tick...

I think this is one of the few times I've actually noticed that clock and the ticking sound it produces. Normally I am so wrapped up in what I'm doing I barely hear it. It's just background noise I've learned to subconsciously ignore. But here I am, with less than three weeks to go at Ball State, and all I can think about is the tick...tick...tick...

Time, normally my best friend and most precious gift, is turning into my worst enemy, constantly chopping off the seconds of the little time left remaining. I can't stop it. I can't prolong it. There's nothing I can do to fight it. I just have to brace it, and try my best to appreciate the few days, hours, minutes, and seconds left remaining.

Time made itself known to me just the other day when I was walking to my boyfriend's house from the library. As I crossed campus on an unusually warm spring evening I noticed how beautiful campus was. And out of nowhere it occurred to me: this is one of the last times you make this walk from the library to the house. Which in turn led to thoughts of, this is one of the last times you'll be on campus as a student. And before I knew it my face turned red and the tears began falling. I tried to fight them but the more I tried the sadder I felt. Even though I felt sad, I realized my tears weren't necessarily a bad thing. They're simply a testament to the past three years I've had here at Ball State.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. I am one of those people who just doesn't know how to live in the moment. I've been getting better but I still find myself constantly yearning for the future and missing the past. Of course, I've begun to realize I miss the past so much because I was looking forward to the future and didn't appreciate what I was experiencing right then and there. Living in the moment is not something I've ever been able to fully accomplish.

Until now. Because now I realize I am going to miss my university. I am going to miss being a student. I am going to miss my friends, my experiences, everything I've gone through in the past three years. All I can do now is try to desperately hold onto what is left.

This also has turned me into the clingy girlfriend I've never wanted to be. The future, which I once felt so calmly about just a few months ago, has scared the shit out of me again. Because after these three weeks my boyfriend and I will see each other just a few more times before I start my internship and he starts working. And then after that he will be in Milwaukee. And me? I have not a clue where I'll be. All I know is my goal is still New York.

So then what? Let's say things work out as I hope. Let's say I do land a job in New York City. How long will I be there? For the rest of my life? What about my boyfriend? He'll be in Milwaukee for at least six years working for his doctorate. Does that mean that after these next three weeks we'll be long-distance for perhaps six years?

You can see now why I panic.

I shouldn't panic though. Milwaukee, wherever I am, will only be a drive or flight away. After going to England and seeing how easy it is to travel from place to place, I've realized that distance is not something to fear. Distance is not what separates me from the person I love. The only thing that really separates us from one another is time.

When I was in England I was fully aware that it only takes a minimum of two flights and in less than a day I could be reunited with my love. The problem was I could not hop on a flight whenever I wanted. I had to wait. I had to wait six weeks before I returned to my country, and even a few more days afterward before I saw my boyfriend again. Distance was not my enemy. It was time.

And that's what I'm afraid of. That in my future I will be wasting my most precious resource because it will also be my greatest separation. I will wish the seconds to go even faster and then later wish they had slowed down. I will hate time for separating me from my boyfriend and then hate it even more when the time I spend with him flies by, all while appreciating the few seconds I get to spend with him. As of right now, there is no win-win with time.

But now I must return to my homework. I still have two weeks of classes and one week of finals. I still have much to accomplish and much to appreciate. And not nearly enough time.

Dreams of my Father

"Do what you love, love what you do."

It's a simple, perhaps cliché, saying but it's one that's been engrained into my mind since I was a child. Over the past 21 years of my life my father has repeated that phrase to me, constantly reminding and encouraging me and my sisters to chase down our dreams. When I set off for college in 2008 my parents knew my dream was to become a writer. Contrary to the negative comments I've heard about aspiring writers, no such words spilled from my parents' mouths. They did not tell me to go for a job that would make more money or one that would guarantee financial security. In fact they were very supportive of my decision to major in journalism. And there was my Dad, always reminding me to "do what you love, love what you do."

On Wednesday, April 13, I finally realized the beauty of those words.
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My father grew up in my hometown, a suburb of Cincinnati. His father was self-employed, the owner and employee of a flooring company. While I don't believe my father ever lived in poverty, money was tight in his household and it must've been through his up-bringing that he learned the power money plays into one's lifestyle. When it was time for him to go to college, he wanted to major in something that would allow him to work at a local paper-producing company. His parents however, encouraged him to major in accounting. My father was good at math, and so accounting was the path he decided to embark on.

By the time he graduated college though, my father was already working as a driver at UPS. The job paid well and offered decent benefits. He knew if he were to quit his job to start a career in accounting he would be backtracking financially. He decided to stick with UPS.

But my father, like his father, ended up taking an interest in the stock market. He bought books and learned the rules of the trade. I remember when I was younger, before cell phones were around, my father purchased this cute little blue beeper, that would send him updates on the stock market. He kept his computer on and would call the house if he needed someone to make an adjustment to something. When I was in my preteens my father paid me to review the stacks of charts he printed out and taught me to search for patterns.

"If this line goes above this mark," he would say, "make a note here." I had no idea what any of it meant, but for the sake of a few bucks I happily obliged to help him out.

It was during high school that my father decided to leave his route and took up working at night at UPS. He wasn't getting paid as much, but he did for two reasons: 1) So he could attend mine and my sister's after-school activities. 2) So he could focus on his dream of playing the market full-time.

His night-shift gig didn't last for too long though. After I went off to college and my younger sister attending the next year, he went back to driving for the financial reasons. He had to, for the sake of his family, put his stock-market dreams on hold.
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It wasn't until my second-year of college did I realize the sacrifices my parents made for me and my sisters. This holds especially true for my Dad. As I've worked harder and harder to try to achieve my dream of being a writer, I've begun to realize what it must be like for my father, who wants so badly to succeed in the stock-market, but cannot take the financial risk to give it a try. Because he goes to work day in and day out, and delivers packages to hundreds of people and businesses, I am here at Ball State with the opportunity to go after my dreams.

The more I thought about it, the more it broke my heart. My father has done so much for the happiness of his family. There are the big financial things, like getting a pool for the backyard and taking us to Disney World. There are the little financial things, like paying for my gas and cell phone when I can't afford it. There is time. The time he took to watch every cross-country and track meet he could possibly attend. Or driving down to EKU to watch my sister's french horn performance. Or going to the high school's play, just to see the set my other sister worked on.

The list goes on. Needless to say, even as I type this, I am getting teary-eyed thinking of all the things my father has done for me, just to make me happy.

All I ever want to do is make him proud. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

On Tuesday, April 12, I realized I accomplished my goal.

It was a beautiful sunny day when my father called me. For the most part of conversation was a fairly normal one; we talked about running. He told me how he did in a recent 5k and the new runners he met. I told him my lack of training for a full marathon and how I will be dropping down to the half marathon for the Flying Pig in two weeks.

And then we got onto something else. My story that just got published in Running Times magazine.

My father is proud. He was proud before the article came out. He was proud before he even knew if I was going to get published or not. Just the mere idea that the editor from Running Times magazine, one of his favorite magazines, was interested in my story was enough to make him happy.



Fortunately for me it did get published. My father text me the day the magazine showed up in our mailbox, thrilled to see my name in the table of contents and my story on page 53. My parents then went out and bought four more copies. My father has shown pretty much every person he knows my story. A family friend from church told me on facebook, "I told your VERY proud dad I would have to pick up a copy." Knowing I made my Dad this proud was the best thing I could've ever asked for.

But then he told me something that I never expected. When my father called me it was around noon and he should've been off working. But he had a cold and UPS told him to stay at home. So before we talked, he was at his computer, looking at the stock market and doing more research. And over the phone he told me, "You know I always tell you guys it only takes one thing. For you it's one book. For Julie it's one painting. For Beth, it's one song or performance. All it takes is one thing and you're set for life. And after seeing you get published, I realized, 'Hey, maybe I should take my own advice.' So now I'm trying to get back into the stock market."

Although he never directly said it, I knew what he meant. The man who is the reason I have decided to embark on my dream of being a writer, was telling me that I inspired him. All I could do was smile.

The next day I went to Books a Million and bought four copies. One for myself, one for my boyfriend, one for my professor, and one to show my friends. I found my story and I sat down on a comfy chair in the bookstore and read it. And I realized how my father was right. Writing is the only thing I really want to do with my life. And I love it.

The funny thing is, after all of this, I don't think my father has directly said, "I'm proud of you." In the past he's said this but I don't think I've heard him say it about this story. But he doesn't need to. His actions, as always, speak louder than words.