marriage – Rosie Culture

I Don’t Believe In Soulmates

My high school boyfriend and I once laid in the grass on a baseball field at night looking up at the stars and he told me I was his soulmate…..gag.

I don’t believe in there being only one person out there for you. That there is one person that your soul is destined for and you better find them or you’re just screwed.

I am very happy in the relationship I’m in, but if for some reason we broke up, I’d be able to move on. I could get someone to date me – but they might not necessarily be right for me.

Because what are the chances that my soulmate was waiting for me right here in New Jersey where I’ve been here all along? That out of allllll the people in the world, your soulmate was just right in front of you at your gym, your college, your high school. There are so many people in the world, so many people that could be a good potential match for you.

But if you find someone you like, who you have common interests with, who treats you right and is in the right place at the right time – you can make them your soulmate. The gods didn’t put you together, there is no invisible string in the universe that attaches you. We make it work with the people that work. Timing, effort, and compatibility are extremely important when it comes to the person you’re going to spend your life with. It’s not fate, you just met someone who you enjoy spending time with and you fought to stay with them.

I don’t believe in soulmates, but I believe in love. I believe that if it’s meant to be, it will be and if it doesn’t work out, there’s probably a good reason for it. Do you believe in soulmates?

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Relationships

What It Really Means To Love Someone

I will first start out by saying, everyone loves differently. So I can’t speak for everyone, but I can try to speak generically.

Loving someone doesn’t mean saying “I love you” every morning, evening, and night. It doesn’t mean spending all your free time together and thinking about them every minute of the day. It doesn’t mean falling asleep in each other’s arms or getting them the most extravagant gift for your anniversary.

If some of those things apply to you, that’s all nice and good.

But loving someone means not being that grossed out by all their gross habits. It means thanking them for going the extra mile for you when you’re tired after a long day at work. It means thinking of them a few times a day and being able to go a few days without them, but being so happy when they finally come home. It’s about sacrificing time in your day to pick up the groceries so they don’t have to or walking the dog in the morning so they can sleep a little longer.

Loving someone is about constant care, work, effort, and appreciation. It’s not about getting the perfect photo for Instagram and explaining to everyone why you both love each other SO much. While everyone loves each other differently, loving someone rarely means the things you can see from the outside. It’s everything inside that goes unnoticed by everyone except you two.

man in black long sleeved shirt and woman in black dress — Photo by Jasmine Wallace Carter on Pexels.com

Relationships

What I’ve Learned After 2 Years Of Being In A Relationship

Our two year anniversary of dating is next week! For a reflection of what I learned after one year, click here.

I learned a lot about myself when I was single, I’ve never been one to jump from serious relationship to serious relationship. I think self exploration can be done in a relationship, it’s just harder. The first year of our relationship involved a lot of learning curves for me, I had been single and independent for a long time and was badly burned after my last relationship. As we approach our two year anniversary, I was given more time for self exploration and growth. Here’s what I learned after two years of being in a relationship.

It’s okay to be afraid of big steps. We moved in together, we got a dog, I freaked out. But that’s okay.
Nothing has changed, communication is HUGE. If you are freaking out, you need to tell your partner. They should understand, they should be the one who is able to help you.
Make time for your friends. There are just some things your boyfriend will never understand. It’s important to have at least one other person to confide in.
Things will easily start to get boring in the relationship. The simple thing to do most nights is to plop on the couch and watch Netflix. Put in the effort, switch things up, don’t let it get mundane.
It’s normal to have relationship doubts. Some people just have a harder time settling than other people. If you know yourself, you should know when your doubts are valid or not.
Alone time is still very important.
The longer you’re with someone, the more you think about the future. And the more the future becomes about “us” and not “me”.
No one is as perfect as they look on social media. We bicker – a lot. It’s healthy.
At the end of the day, love isn’t Romeo and Juliet and dying for someone. It’s choosing to be with the person who you like spending time with – every day with – who you don’t actually hate ever.
Take everything at your own pace. It may seem like you NEED to follow the steps of getting engaged, moving in together, getting married, and having kids. But just because that’s the normal plan doesn’t mean it’s your plan.

Let me know how long you’ve been in a relationship for and your biggest piece of advice in the comments! 🙂

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Relationships

Moving In Together – 6 Months In

After about a year and a half of dating, my boyfriend and I moved in together and I wrote about my first impressions here.

Leading up to it, I wasn’t nervous at all. I was excited to be in one place, no more traveling back and forth to see each other and leading separate lives. Everything would be more convenient and it just felt like the next step. But the day we moved in, I freaked. The weight of all that could go wrong fell on me.

We’ve now been living together for six months and a lot has happened. We got a dog, we moved past the newness of living together, we’ve settled. We’ve had friends over, we’ve stayed in, we’ve fought, we’ve enjoyed our time together, and we’ve learned to give each other space.

It all really just happens naturally if you’re not forcing it. Nothing in life is rainbows and butterflies. You’re going to load the dishwasher wrong and he’s going to throw your dry clean only pants in the dryer and the dog is going to chew up all of your socks. Though social media doesn’t quite show those things, that’s just the way life is.

It’s basically nothing like the photo I used for this blog post. It’s not perfect, but that’s okay.

Six months in and we feel very comfortable in our little apartment together with our little family. It feels right for right now, but does have me thinking about the future a lot. Being together is great, but life has other factors and questions to consider. Do we want to live here forever? No, but when can we move? Are we on the right path for our careers? Can we follow those paths together? When’s the time to make next steps? Do we have to get engaged soon? Married? AH!

Everything is moving slow right now and I kind of just want it to speed up. But that’s no way to live and I’m way too uncertain about most of life’s decisions lately to be able to hop skip and jump to the future. All I can do is try to live in the moment and know that the here and now in our relationships and our little home is great.

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Relationships

My Monogamy Skepticism

I’ve been skeptical about monogamy for a while now. I used to be very gung-ho on love, having a family, and living happily ever after. But the older I got, the more unrealistic it seemed.

We are constantly changing. It’s hard for me to fathom that with all the changes we go through, we will like the same person for the next 50 years of our life. The only people that have even been in my life for more than 5 years are my family members and I’m stuck with them. Is that what marriage is? Making it work because you’re stuck with them?

It just seems odd to me that we force ourselves to be with one person for the rest of our lives when there are so many other places, other people, and other experiences out there. I see so many more bad relationships than I see good ones. I’ve seen the beginnings and the ends of marriages. And it just doesn’t seem like monogamy is natural for people who live 100 years.

I think it has a lot to do with my inability to live in the present, always looking towards the future. I look down the line and think that I couldn’t possibly be as happy as I am now in the next 10 years if everything is exactly the same.

It just seems weird to me that most people feel the need to anchor down to one person and they do it in their 20’s. 3 years ago I was a different person than I am today and in 3 more years I’ll be different again – can it really be that the person you marry will ebb and flow with your changes along with their own? That it really does all just work itself out?

PostGrad

I Don’t Understand Satisfied People

I always want change. I want to go places, do things and keep the ball rolling. I want to know a majority of what life has to offer. I don’t want to settle down, the thought of getting married and buying a house and dedicating myself to one thing for a long time is simply terrifying,

And I don’t understand people who are just satisfied. People who have a couple of kids, buy a house, and intend to stay there for 20 years. People who work at the same job their whole life. People who don’t use up their PTO or use it to go to the same place they’ve been 100 times before.

In a way, I wish I could be satisfied. I’m sure it’s easier when it comes to decision making and just in general finding happiness. But I just don’t understand people who settle down and don’t see any problem with it. Do they not get jealous of the people who are all over the world, the people who aren’t tied down?

I could just get back from an awesome trip and scroll through my Instagram feed and get antsy all over again. I just want more and while I’m happy for anyone who is happy, I just don’t get satisfied people.

photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dotbenjamin/

Relationships

How We Met (Part 1)

A response to my very old series called I’m Glad It Didn’t Work Out, view part one here, a series about endings. This will be a series focused on beginnings.

I think the very first time we met was freshman year of college, but I can’t put my finger on when. It could’ve been in class, I could’ve strolled past you in the cafeteria, maybe bumped in to you at a party.

Truth is, I think we’ve had our first meeting so many times because we never let it get deeper than a “hello.”

I know I had a class with you, I remember you giving presentations about your blog project. But I also remember being entirely wrapped up in my own world. Because when I was a freshman, I had a boyfriend and gave almost no one the time of day. And when we had this class together, I was a junior and gave all the wrong people the time of day.

Then we met again. Because our friends became friends and then we sort of became friends. And I was still wrapped up in my own world. We were all graduating college soon, life was about to change and I was ready for it but not ready for it. You tried to pull me in, and like anyone that resembled any sort of serious commitment at first glance, I ran far away.

And we met again, at homecoming a couple of months after graduation. You told me all about your girlfriend and I hit on your best friend. Oops. But you were a friend of a friend of a friend and I told you I was happy for you.

We met again in the online world. You tweeted at me a lot and I thought it was weird. You still resembled that commitment I just couldn’t quite make. I was getting older though, growing out of the people I should’ve never grown into. I got drunk and slid into your DM’s.

The first time we met, not as friends of friends of friends, I almost ran you over in the parking lot because I seriously was not paying attention. I also paid for parking in a garage that was free after 5pm. And then I ordered a tuna burger and there was just juices and seeds and tuna all over my hands and face. Then it started to rain and we went to the bar and you ordered a beer, I got a water, and you felt so bad that I didn’t get a drink too.

And when we both started to think that everything was going wrong, we turned the whole night around. We met many times in the past 5 years. But the awkward smiles and polite conversation we endured was just for the time being. Because when I was ready and you were ready, we met again and it was perfect.

photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/plus45/