For many years heart failure has been a matter of intense debate. This has propelled many researchers to find a one stop solution for this outbreak. Alas! We have been unfortunate in this regard. So let's take a Pledge at this very hour and make it unfaltering that not even a single person ends up in a cardiologist's office in the first place itself. Yes, it is now possible to seal the fate of this condition star. All we ought to do is simply follow some of my reckoning tips and experience the difference.
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Our mission is to advice, and to make the people of the world healthier through the power of information.
Is Looking Fat Now the Latest Trend?
Governments throughout the world are concerned about how much of humanity are now large or even obese members of society. Why has this come about? The way of life today has discouraged home cooking and encouraged the establishing of so many fast food outlets. Through this phenomenon it is so easy to stop and buy a take-out meal either for lunch or to take home with you after work.
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20 Awesome Things About Being in Your Late 20s
A lot of people think college was the best four years of their life, and others never wanted high school to end. Maybe you can’t wait to hit that age where it makes sense to settle down with a spouse, 2.5 kids, and a house in the suburbs surrounded by a white picket fence.
But your late 20s? Ugh. They’re just an awkward, in-between phase. No one ever talks about how excited they are to turn 28 or 29; there’s even an alleged curse on age 27 because a surprising number of celebrities die at that age.
Well, I’m here to argue that our late 20s get a bad rap. No one ever talks about the good parts. Sure, there are difficulties: trying to build your career; juggling said career, friends, and dating; dating in general. But there are plenty of perks to take advantage of between 25 and 30 that we don’t discuss enough.
1. You have an awesome group of friends.
By now, you’ve established some rock-solid relationships with people who truly get you (and won’t make fun of you for staying in on a Friday night). High school and college throw a lot of randoms together in classes and dorms—who become your friends through default—but now you get to choose people who complement your interests and actually add value to your life.
Cooking with avocado AND red wine—can't beat that combination.
2. You know how to cook more than mac and cheese.
Not that there’s anything wrong with mac and cheese, but expanding your palate and kitchen skills in your 20s will benefit your health and your wallet. You don’t have to know your way around the kitchen like Ina Garten, but it’s nice to know how to whip up a few nice dinners. (Not there yet? Start with one of these incredibly easy and healthy meals anyone can master.)
3. You know what kind of person you want to date...
... and you’ve stopped wasting time on people you know you don’t. There’s merit in dating different types of people, but by the time you hit your late 20s, you’ve—hopefully—realized what qualities are actually important in a significant other (honesty, ambition) and which aren’t (cool car, hot body).
4. You make better life decisions.
So it turns out your brain isn’t even fully formed until after you turn 25. Research indicates that the frontal lobes, which manage impulse control and planning, are the last areas of the brain to develop. (That explains those 3 a.m. Jager bombs.) Now you’re better at making the right choices for the long run rather than the short term.
5. You know what works for your body (and what doesn’t).
You’ve figured out that liquor does make you sicker, so you stick to wine (or vice-versa). You may have also realized that eating a lot of sugar and processed food will make you feel like crap. And that a yoga class or a run feels really damn good.
You might also like 6. You know how to take care of your brain too.
Staying mentally healthy is something you (hopefully) don’t have to think about much in your teens or early 20s. But the more life experiences you go through, both good and bad, you understand the damage that stress, anxiety, or depression can do. I’m not saying it’s easy, but learning how to handle whatever is going on in your mind is crucial. (And if you are going through a tough time, here are 81 mental health resources to turn to.)
7. You’re not afraid to ask for what you want.
Something clicked for me after age 26: I realized that it's OK to be assertive. I realized that if you want to be in control of a situation, it’s OK to control it. Speaking up is something especially young women struggle with, although I think the tide is finally changing. Personally, I’ve started to be more vocal about my desires in work, life, and relationships—and damn, does it feel good.
8. You've learned how to say no.
Along those same lines, I’ve also realized that it’s OK to say no. Saying no to something doesn’t mean you’re being rude, lazy, or negative. It simply means you’re choosing to give more time to things that matter in your life than those that don’t—like that second date or third beer.
9. You actually have $ to spend (and save).
By your late 20s, chances are high that you have more disposable income and a few more zeroes in your savings account than you used to. And let’s be real: Getting a raise or a promotion is so much better than good grades in school. Plus, your late 20s are a win-win: You’re still young enough for stores like H&M or Forever21, but you also know it's smart to invest in some nicer clothes that’ll last longer than three washes.
10. Your friends are getting married.
I know, weddings can be crazy expensive (refer to No. 8 if your social schedule is getting out of control). But on the bright side, they’re fantastic excuses to visit some surprisingly beautiful places (looking at you, New Jersey!), hang out with friends and family you don’t see that often, and take advantage of an open bar and free food.
11. You get to play with said friends’ babies.
It’s a totally trippy feeling when your first good friend has their first child, and you realize they’re responsible for raising another human being. But it’s pretty sweet to get your baby fix and hang out with your friend at the same time. Plus it gives you some time to get the hang of it before you decide whether or when to have kids of your own.
Hanging with my parents... and my friends.
12. You relate to your parents on a different level.
It’s pretty cool how family dynamics change as you get older. My parents and I relate on a different level now that I’m a full-fledged adult and can thoughtfully discuss real-life things like politics or finances. Who knows—maybe they’ll even ask you for advice.
13. You’ve made your house or apartment into a ~home.~
Not saying you have to graduate from IKEA and Target completely, but chances are your house or apartment has some unique, creative touches that aren’t cliche posters of Audrey Hepburn. Hanging out in a comfortable, cozy space you’ve created from scratch (even if you have roommates) is a pretty fantastic feeling.
14. You can appreciate a night out as much as a night in.
This may be my favorite thing about my late 20s. I still love to have the occasional big night out with friends, but I also love staying in with Netflix and popcorn. And I don’t feel bad about doing either. #IDoWhatIWant.
15. You don’t have to prove yourself at work every damn day.
Now that you’ve been working for a few years, you no longer have a resume that lists your high school student council experience. That makes a big difference; people at work have probably grown to respect you and your ideas, and maybe you even manage a team of your own. The responsibilities are bigger, but mentoring someone younger can also be super rewarding (and duh, it's awesome when you can pass off some of your busy work).
16. You can network without feeling like a fraud.
Another work perk of your late 20s: It’s way easier to email people whose work you admire, and they don’t automatically get annoyed by some college kid wanting to "pick their brain." You’re at the point when people are not only willing to meet you, but they’re more than likely interested in your work as well.
17. You’re not (as) addicted to your phone.
If you’re born in the late '80s to early '90s, you’re one of the last (lucky) generations to experience life sans smartphone. Obviously, you’re still on Snapchat, Instagram, and all the other apps of the moment, but you’re also well aware there’s more to life than staring at a screen 24/7. Savor it, folks.
Playing around with a newly discovered hobby: photography.
18. You get to decide how to spend your free time.
One of my pet peeves is when people say they’re bored. I know it’s so easy to fall into the standard weekend trap of going out, waking up late, working out, hanging out, etc., but there is so much you can do in your spare time: Take a photography class, read, practice yoga, start a side business. Take advantage of it now—all that alone time is going out the window when (if) you have kids.
19. You’re finally OK with just being yourself.
I’m not saying to settle for mediocrity, but at some point in your late 20s, you stop worrying about how you stack up next to other people. You realize that life is no longer a popularity contest (thank God) and that your only real competition is yourself. It’s cheesy, but as long as you’re doing your best, whatever that looks like, you’re doing great.
20. You’ve figured out your values and priorities in life.
By this age, most of us have experienced a tragedy of some sort—whether it’s losing someone close to us, going through a health scare, or dealing with serious family drama. The silver lining? Going through a rough patch will make you reassess your values in life, which is a really important thing to do in your 20s.
Maybe you realized that being close to your family is more important than traveling the world. Maybe you realized that helping others makes you happier than making a lot of money. Maybe you decided you want to be a creative entrepreneur, not a corporate lawyer. Whatever it is, now that you’ve got your priorities straight, you can start planning a life that lines up with them.
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The Challenges of Being an Interracial Couple in America's Whitest City
Our wedding day. Photo courtesy of Meredith Bacon
I love my husband unconditionally, and we have amazing chemistry, but we’re also definite proof that opposites attract. He loves dogs, and before I met him, I was an aspiring cat lady. He was raised Mormon; I was raised a Methodist. He is white, and I am black.
None of these differences were deal breakers as we fell deeper and deeper in love, but even before America appeared to be on the verge of collapse, being in an interracial relationship came with its fair share of challenges.
From the beginning, I knew Xavier wasn't like any other guy I’d been interested in. For starters, he seemed to express genuine interest in me as a person… unlike most of the other white guys I’d encountered over the years, who desperately wanted to add a black girl to their roster of hookups. I called interactions with these types of guys "science projects," because they approached me like I was some sort of foreign specimen in a lab they just couldn't wait to examine.
For a very long time, I allowed this. Growing up in the predominantly white suburbs of Fairfield County, Connecticut, the dating pool was pretty shallow for a black girl. In my hometown, the guys who were genuinely attracted to me (beyond mere lust) would never admit it to their peers—they’d have been ridiculed for actually liking a black girl. So in order to feel the touch of a man in my adolescence, I played the role of a "Jezebel."
I grew up black in a mostly white area, so I was accustomed to casual racism. As a survival tactic, I learned how to disassociate every time I heard someone at a party "accidentally" drop an N-bomb. I was also under the illusion that because people thought I "sounded white," it was possible for me to transcend racial stereotypes. I figured that as long as I was able to abide by respectability politics and not be lumped together with those "other lazy Negroes," I could just be the token black girl. So I hid my natural hair under Brazilian bundles—not as a way to protect the beautiful kink that grew beneath it, but to assimilate more closely to European beauty standards.
You might also like But then Xavier came along, and things felt different. I’d always thought "the butterflies" were bullsh*t, but anytime I saw him, that’s the only way I can describe how he made me feel. He has these crystal blue eyes that had a way of unintentionally staring right through me, and best of all, he really made me laugh. I was sprung. So much of my seduction technique relied on being fetishized that when I finally met a man who had no interest in doing that, I became even more enamored.
When we met, he told me he was from Chicago, which I thought was sexy, because I imagined he had all kinds of wisdom from being raised in a city so full of culture. Of course, he failed to mention that the first years of his life had actually taken place in Salt Lake City, Utah, which isn't exactly a melting pot of diversity. Luckily, he’d been exposed to a mélange of different people during his time in Chi-Town, and had gotten the chance to develop a more worldly view.
Soon, Xavier and I were madly in love. But the second summer after we had moved in together, he went to visit a family member in Portland, Oregon. When he came back, he told tales of a magical land packed with breweries on every block and fine artisan cuisine spilling from food carts all over the city. Then he produced an engagement ring and persuaded me to move west with him. Once I’d officially been promoted to fiancée, we drove cross-country to our new home.
Of course, Portland was just as amazing as he’d described; this city is full of doughnuts shaped like voodoo dolls and an air of creative enthusiasm that encourages locals to "Keep Portland Weird."
There was only one detail my husband had left out. As the weeks passed, I slowly started to realize that I hadn’t seen any black people since we’d arrived. Because my husband is white, the lens through which he views the world had allowed him to visit Portland and never think twice about the fact that it was such an overwhelmingly white city.
But for me, this lack of diversity came as a complete culture shock. Connecticut is practically as white as Portland, so on its face, the transition should have been simple. But on the East Coast, there was so much more exposure to diversity, and I’d worked in New York for several years. Outside of working in metro areas, I had a support system of friends and family to seek refuge with when I felt like a black person engulfed by white space. Portland lacked these important elements.
Thanks to Google, I quickly discovered that we were now living in a place that is often referred to "Whitetopia." Not only is there a shortage of black people, but their lack of diversity was actually intentional, and the city has a long history of white supremacist activity.
Photo courtesy of Meredith Bacon
People we met were never overtly racist, but they seemed to tense up once they saw me approaching them, and they’d relax once they realized I was with Xavier. When he and I would go out, I noticed that people would often intensify their eye contact with my husband so they wouldn't have to acknowledge me. On one fun occasion, a white waitress flirted with my husband all night, then referred to me as "Sister Girl."
These unbalanced interactions became routine, and I started to develop severe social anxiety. As I grappled with the new experience of trying to converse with people who were too scared to engage in sincere and authentic conversations, I started to understand the different nuances of racism. I became very familiar with the word microaggression, and pretty soon, I realized that everything I was experiencing had been happening my entire life… I’d just never fully noticed it.
We mostly continue to face the same changes as every other couple. Even though race comes up, it’s not what defines how we feel about each other.
When my husband was around, these microaggressions—like people touching my hair—happened way less often, if at all. Pretty soon, I stopped leaving the house without him. I didn’t feel safe in the city.
For a little while, I became resentful of my husband; I’d never felt so completely out of place in my entire life. Xavier tried his hardest to sympathize, but how could he have predicted this transition would be so difficult for me, if I hadn’t either? To make matters worse, while I was struggling to find my place as a black woman in a pseudo-liberal city, Xavier was thriving in this "A White Man’s Paradise." My resentment manifested itself in various ways. It ebbed and flowed, changing between tears and anger, and became a very rude awakening for the both of us. I suddenly understood the term for socially conscious people being called "woke." All at once, I felt wide awake.
The tables seemed to have turned. My city-slicker husband had quickly grown accustomed to the homogeneity of his new surroundings, but suddenly, his formerly racially indifferent fiancée was completely hypervigilant about her race.
I started to become increasingly furious with institutionalized racism. While my husband was mostly willing to listen to me, the subject sometimes became a source of contention as injustice after injustice continued to roll in, and examples of race-based police brutality flooded our news services. There were days I felt so heavy from seeing the deaths of unarmed black men go unpunished. A special kind of rage began to fester in me; I was surrounded by white people, all of whom were able to go about their lives during a time of political unrest… and my husband was among them.
When I had lived in Connecticut, I knew I could go home to my family and feel the safety of being among my family members who looked like me and could immediately relate when I told them something was racist. In those conversations, no one ever cast a doubtful look my way or asked, "Are you sure they were being racist?"
You might also like When you’re asked this kind of question at the end of the day, sometimes you’re just too tired to respond. Other times, you have no words to rationalize your humanity to your spouse. The rest of the world is so busy reminding you how very little your life matters, the last place you want to put in that work and explain yourself is in your own home.
As I tried not to slip into a deep depression, I focused on the biggest bright spot in our lives—planning our wedding. Planning a wedding was a way for me to appreciate the positive parts of our experience together. It wasn’t all bad; other than the racism, things were actually really good! We got a Boston Terrier puppy named Ralf Garfunkel. And creatively, I was producing the best work I had in years. Because Xavier was walking the puppy everywhere, he was getting increasingly healthier and svelte. And we were about to get married.
I was regretting the move to some extent, but there was and still is only one reason why I came here: I couldn't imagine a life without Xavier. By then, two years had passed, and regardless of feeling like an alien in my new city, I wanted to believe there was a light at the end of this tunnel, despite the darkness of feeling constantly ostracized by my race. Even though wedding planning had its challenges, the process helped me take my mind off a lot of the negative aspects of my life. It also gave me a chance to introduce the people I’d left behind to our new life together. We had an incredible wedding surrounded by the people we loved most, and it was after that day that I finally started to feel at home.
I tried not to blame my husband for being unable to understand my experience. Since becoming "woke," Xavier has learned a lot about his own privilege. He knows better than to get offended when I talk about dismantling white supremacy, and he doesn't need to chime in with #notallwhitepeople to relieve his guilt. It’s hard to ignore that the world feels like it’s on fire right now, with so much political change happening throughout the country. Still, we mostly continue to face the same changes as every other couple. Even though race comes up, it’s not what defines how we feel about each other. And as with any other marriage, we vowed to love each other forever and no matter what... or at least until the world ends.
Jagger Blaec is a freelance professional journalist located in Portland, Oregon. You can keep up with her on Twitter @basicblaecgirl.
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Stop Body Hate: Seven Mindset Qualities to Love Your Body
Body hate is a nasty consequence of rising popularity of a fitness lifestyle. As much as fitness is about changing our body in positive ways via exercise and diet, it rarely involves exercising our mind to treat our body right. Even the whole idea of going to the gym often begins with a thought that there is something wrong with our body. Suppressing, avoiding, or exacerbating, we all are dealing with our body hate in many unhealthy ways. To start making peace with our body requires these seven mindset characteristics that can be trained.
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Why Is "Vogue" Trying to Make It Seem Like Ashley Graham Isn't Plus-Size?
Ashley Graham is one of seven models on the cover of the March issue of Vogue, and that's a really big deal. Graham is the first plus-size model to land the coveted gig:
But as much as we wanted to stand up and cheer on the fashion bible for finally coming around to the idea that plus-size women are beautiful and desirable, the cover left a bad taste in our mouth.
We can't help but think Vogue tried to minimize Graham's size. The other models have their arms out in an embrace, while Graham's right arm is by her side, perhaps covering part of her thigh. (It's worth noting Graham said, "I chose to pose like that. No one told me to do anything.") Then there's the fact that the models are wearing colorful, patterned bikini bottoms, except for Graham. And there's something about the length of Gigi Hadid's forearm and hand that makes us question if it was Photoshopped to cover some of Graham's torso.
It's likely we (and dozens of other people on social media) are overreacting. We doubt Vogue made all of those decisions intentionally—though that doesn't let the magazine off the hook. The cover feels like a horrible game of "one of these is not like the other." It's like being asked to play with the cool girls in school, only to be told you'll never really be like them.
It's a step in the right direction, but it isn't enough. Vogue said this cover was supposed to showcase "modern American women," and while more diversity of size, race, and age would have felt truer to the America we know, we're at least glad to see Graham was included.
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Why Organic Beauty Products Are Best For Your Skin
This article explains why organic beauty products are better for you in terms of health. It also details the effects mainstream beauty products can have on your health, as well as safer alternatives you can use instead.
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The 12-Minute Core Workout That Helps Prevent Back Pain (and Strengthens Your Abs!)
When your back hurts after a long day at the office, it's easy to think that you need to focus on back strength. But it's actually a weak core that causes most back issues. If the muscles around your spine are weak, the vertebrae and discs aren't properly supported, so add a quick core workout like this one into your regular routine.
You might also like This workout isn't your average abs session. It helps prevent back issues because the exercises target all of the muscles in and around your core, not just the ones you can see. You'll need a small fitness ball, which will support your back and allow you to engage your deeper abdominal muscles. Deflate it a little bit so it's soft and then hit play to get started.
To recap: You'll need a mini fitness ball (like this one) for the routine. An exercise mat is optional. Most of the exercises are performed for 10 reps.
Workout:
1. Core "Fly"
2. High Reach
3. Low Reach
4. Side Crunch (Left)
5. Side Crunch (Right)
6. Stacked-Foot Toe Reach (Right Foot)
7. Crossed Leg Crunch
8. Stacked Foot Toe Reach (Left Foot)
9. Crossed Leg Crunch
10. (Adjust Ball) High Reach
11. Low Reach
-Repeat-
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The Don'ts of Skincare That Every Girl Needs to Ignore
The human skin covers the entire body which makes it vital for every individual to take necessary steps in order to keep the skin healthy and happy. Drinking enough water and wearing sunscreen are the generic skincare tips that you might have heard everywhere. But then again, how many of us follow those generic dos of skincare?
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Choosing the Best Blonde Hair Highlights
To create the most natural looking results you may need to choose two or more highlight colors. Once you have made your decision about the highlight color to use you will need to choose the density, placement, and thickness of the color. These will help you determine whether our highlights will completely transform your hair color or just add depth to the color.
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Five Things You Probably Didn't Know About Alkaline Water
Wondering if the alkaline water concept is meant for you? Read on to find some of the essential aspects that you might have missed or probably never came across.
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Why Weight Loss Diets Fail
Well, I hate to be the one to break the news, but most of what we've been told about losing weight is wrong. The reality of weight loss, while not difficult, had lots of moving parts, so one article can't cover it all. But this article explains why most attempts to lose weight fail.
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So... What's Polyamory? Allow This Comic to Explain
Webcomic by Tikva Wolf
Still curious? Check out our Q&A with Tikva Wolf, the creator of this comic and the author of Kimchi Cuddles.
Order Tikva Wolf’s book, Ask Me About Polyamory!, or check out her Facebook page. Her new graphic novel, Love, Retold,will be released this spring and is currently available for preorder.
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Tikva Wolf of Kimchi Cuddles Discusses Polyamory, Sex, and Jealousy
Based on real life experiences, the story explores a wide range of relationship topics that are relatable to everyone. She uses humor as a way to spread awareness and encourage others to see themselves and each other more honestly.
Jess Novak: What’s the biggest takeaway you hope readers gain from reading Kimchi Cuddles?
Tikva Wolf: The most important message I want to convey is that whatever people truly are is OK. Whether they’re monogamous, polyamorous, straight, gay, genderqueer—who they are is who they’re supposed to be. It’s such a simple idea, but I think a lot of people need to hear it, and I want to be a source of self-acceptance for others.
JN: For a lot of people, the definition of lasting love is monogamy. When a relationship moves from casual dating to exclusivity, that’s seen as an indication of seriousness. Given that exclusivity is such a fundamental aspect of love for so many people, how do explain what love looks like for you?
TW: I think there’s an assumption that lasting love is more significant, but I don’t think that’s true. People’s needs and desires change over time, so it's important to notice what you actually want to share and experience with your partner, and pay attention if that changes. I just don’t think that a relationship is any more valid because one of you dies before the relationship is over.
There’s also an assumption that exclusivity makes your relationship special. I get it! Sometimes there’s a strong desire to close yourselves off from the rest of the world, especially in the beginning. But I don’t see exclusivity as necessary; in fact, I feel closer when we can talk about our attractions to other people.
If the drive to make a connection with another person is very strong, I want my partner to follow that; I don’t want to inhibit anyone out of the belief that restricting them will benefit me in some way. It’s not been my experience that I get anything from creating that artificial bubble with another person, and when my relationship needs come from a place of fear, that separates me from my partner.
Courtesy of Kimchi Cuddles
TW: Yes! When I'm only sharing what I actually want to share with people, I don't end up having sex out of coercion or obligation (which is something I often experienced in monogamous relationships). And when my partners don't see me as the only person who can fulfill a certain role for them, we are more easily able to share the kinds of sex (or any other type of connection) that we most deeply want to share with each other, and everyone ends up feeling a lot more satisfied. I'm never having sex where one of us is just going along with it, and I don't need to suppress any part of myself. All the sex I have now is a really strong hell yes for everyone involved. That's obviously also possible in monogamous relationships, but that simply wasn't my personal experience with them.
JN: One of the scariest parts about transitioning from a monogamous to a polyamorous relationship is the potential for screwing up what you have. What makes the potential risks of a polyamorous lifestyle worth it, and how do you mitigate them?
TW: I understand the desire to be in a relationship without any danger to the status quo, but I also think the idea of safety is imaginary. Being monogamous doesn’t keep you safe from those outside forces; people can cheat on each other, or just grow apart. They might realize they want different things, or they’re just no longer compatible.
You might also like I don’t think that polyamory increases that risk of separation, but it might alter a breakup’s timing. In a monogamous relationship, you can coast for a long time without having to examine things, but in a polyamorous relationship, triggers tend to arise more frequently. I don’t think one way is inherently more enlightened; they’re both valid, different choices.
JN: How do you handle issues of trust and jealousy?
TW: If you really trust your partner and your metamour (that’s your partner’s partner), then if something upsets you, you’ll seek to understand why rather than jump to judgment. If you’re secure, you don’t automatically think, "It’s because she’s a bitch, and she’s trying to upset me!" You come to that person and say, "Hey, this happened, and it really upset me." It’s a lot easier than people imagine.
If there are elements of distrust—or people who don’t understand what they want or how to communicate—life can get difficult. Polyamory is a model that a lot of people don’t have much practice with, so people who are just starting out encounter a lot of bumps when figuring out what works.
The folks behind morethantwo.com have noted that jealousy can be an indicator of something amiss in your relationship that already existed, but you might have been ignoring. Jealousy can be a huge gift, because it encourages you to ask questions like, "What do I feel like I’m lacking in my relationship that’s causing this intense feeling?" Being able to talk about it and uncover those issues is a huge opportunity.
Courtesy of Kimchi Cuddles
JN: While all marriages are unique, do poly marriages tend to share any specific values? What do weddings tend to look like?
TW: Marriage is changing and evolving as people change and evolve, and as we discover more about what we’re looking for. Polyamorous people tend to have a more DIY mentality toward relationships, so when poly people get married—and not all do—their ceremonies tend to reflect that.
Some people want everyone involved, so group marriages can happen. I've also seen ceremonies where one person will marry their partner and then marry their other partner. None of this is marriage in a legal sense, but the ceremony matters; for some, a wedding is a sacred experience between the people sharing vows, some want a sense of being witnessed by their friends and family, and for others, it’s just a celebration.
JN: Being poly and a parent in a culture that’s pretty fearful of polyamory has to have trials. What are some of the expectations you’ve had to confront, and what are some of the joys of being a poly parent?
TW: Initially, I had a fear that being poly would negatively affect my kid—the idea that dating people who weren’t permanent figures in her life would upset her. But that’s just never happened. What kids actually see of their parents dating looks just like friends coming over to make dinner, so she doesn’t register it as any different than that. She’s 7, so she’s just starting to ask about folks’ different roles.
You might also like Her life seems to have benefited from having these extra adults around, many of whom don’t get to spend a ton of time with kids, so they’re fresh and excited to do things we’ve already done 5,000 times that day. I’m not really sure what other people imagine it’s like, but kids in poly households just end up having an abundance of loving adults in their life, giving them attention, helping with homework, offering advice... Dr. Elisabeth Sheff wrote a book about poly families, and her findings indicate that kids raised in these households have a highly supportive structure.
In a traditional marriage, child rearing often falls on the woman. I think that dynamic is a factor in why so many of these relationships end in separation. When there’s more help and creativity in our roles as parents, I think that’s beneficial—whether or not you’re poly.
JN: How do you avoid having hierarchies among partners?
TW: Right now, there’s this stigma against hierarchy in poly relationships, even though sometimes that just happens. If you’re married to someone you’ve been living with for years, and you have kids together, your relationship is going to be different than with someone you started dating last week. That new person isn’t going to get all your bank passwords, for starters.
Courtesy of Kimchi Cuddles
To pull back for a moment: "Ethical non-monogamy" is a blanket term for any relationship that isn’t monogamous, but where everyone is in agreement. Some people who fit under that umbrella don’t use "polyamory" and prefer "relationship anarchy" instead. In this, the focus isn’t about having multiple relationships so much as approaching all your relationships as special. I use "polyamory" to mean this, but not everyone does.
The important part is to just treat everybody with respect and not to institute rules that people are uncomfortable with; as long as everybody’s on the same page, it’s going OK. A lot of the time, holidays are a non-issue—everybody can hang out together, or sometimes you’ll have a partner who just hates Christmas, so you’re relieved that you have another partner who you can decorate the tree with. Different people like different things.
JN: So you can enjoy the fact that your partner’s partner gives them something you don’t?
TW: There are different love languages. If you’re someone who is terrible at giving gifts, and your partner really loves gifts—like that’s their main thing—then you might feel really happy if they have another partner who gives amazing gifts. Then you don’t have to worry about it!
That’s something I really appreciate about polyamory. People aren’t expecting these things from me that I can’t do or that just don’t come naturally to me. Nobody’s angrily waiting for me to fulfill a need of theirs that I’m just not capable of fulfilling. It’s such a huge relief to have some of that burden taken off me; this way, I can share with a partner what I’m good at, without this awkward sense of obligation.
Courtesy of Kimchi Cuddles
JN: What’s life as a poly activist been like in the months since the election?
TW: I’ve been nervously waiting to see what’s going to change, and I’m trying to figure out what my role is now. My work deals with the idea that all relationships are equally valid, and also engages with LGBTQ issues, but I’ll probably become more overtly political in the coming months, dealing with more current events than before.
I live in a little liberal oasis in North Carolina, but I’m still in North Carolina, so there’s a lot of intolerance. Many people I’m close to are genderqueer, and people are all puffed up on their intolerance, making them feel unwelcome and unsafe. It’s disconcerting, and gives me a desire to be more vocal.
JN: Your first book just came out, and your second book is debuting this spring. Would you tell us a little about these projects?
TW: Ask Me About Polyamory! is a helpful resource, almost a how-to. It’s very easily accessible—people who are intimidated to read a whole chapter can just read one comic.
Love: Retold is my first graphic novel. The book comes from my life experience but goes into a lot more depth. It’s a polyamorous love story following a character who’s similar to Kimchi as she learns what types of relationships she cares about and why. She comes to a place of discovering what she wants in a relationship and how to also have that with herself.
Check out Tikva's webcomic for Greatist, "The Secret Lives of the Polyamorous."
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Why Christie Brinkley Posing for SI's Swimsuit Issue at 63 Is a Big Deal
Christie Brinkley is a Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition veteran, but she's also 63. Posing in this year's issue makes her the oldest model to ever be featured in the annual magazine. And even though she's white and thin and traditionally beautiful, this move breaks modeling's age barrier in a big way. It pushes back against society's stereotype that people (especially women) are increasingly irrelevant, undesirable, and invisible as they get older.
Brinkley was surprised to be asked by SI and says she wants to use this platform as an opportunity to fight ageism. "On a personal level, I thought, if I can pull this off, I think it will help redefine those numbers and remove some of the fear of aging," she told People.
If Ashley Graham's iconic 2016 Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover is any indication, the magazine is getting better about showcasing diversity among its models. Of course, we'll always need more. But this is an essential step in the right direction.
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Ladies, Tell Your Man It's Time for Him to Take Birth Control
Contraception for men has been the same for decades. Finally, science found a form of male birth control that's more effective than condoms, but not as drastic as getting a vasectomy. It's called Vasalgel, and it's a gel that gets injected into the vas deferens to block sperm.
It’s the same idea as a vasectomy, except it’s completely reversible (all it takes is a simple ultrasound to stop it from working) and much less invasive. And unlike the male contraceptive shot that made waves a few months ago, Vasalgel hasn't shown any side effects.
So far the gel has been tested on 16 rhesus monkeys, a relatively small sample. But it was 100 percent effective at preventing pregnancies, so researchers are planning on testing it on humans soon. That means there's a good chance that in the not-so-distant future, men will no longer have an excuse for shying away from long-term birth control.
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The Things You Do and Don’t Miss Out on by Marrying Your First Love
My husband and I are pretty stereotypical Brooklyn creatives. We live in a Bushwick apartment filled with comic books and art supplies; he and his two partners run the ad agency GrandArmy, and I started the geeky clothing brand Jordandené. We spend our time working, creating, and partying, and at first glance, seem like roll-your-eyes cliches.
So when I was in my early 20s, the fact that I had married young was pretty shocking to practically everyone I met. Responses ranged wildly, from "OMG that’s adorable," to "Really? Why?"
When someone thinks my relationship status is unexpected, my favorite thing is to let them in on all the other details that are even more surprising. I got married when I was 21 to my first boyfriend, whom I met in high school… which we attended with fewer than 80 other people only one day a week.
We were semi-homeschooled in the age just before online classes were a norm. Our parents weren’t thrilled with the public school options available, so we attended a co-op high school in Delaware. Our friend groups overlapped, mostly because he had an unrequited crush on one of my best friends, which conveniently let us slowly get to know one another.
When we got engaged!
He was adorably genuine and sweet, in that Chris Evans Captain America sort of way. We spent many long nights chatting away online and officially started dating the week after my 16th birthday, because my parents wouldn’t let me have a boyfriend when I was 15. We stayed together through high school, our separate college experiences, and into our adult lives.
We never broke up, but we did create our own lives apart from each other. His college was an hour away from mine, which was far enough to create a bit of a long-distance relationship, especially since I didn’t drive. He had an internship in Oregon and spent a summer in London; I studied for a semester in Spain. He spent the last of his college kid savings to come visit me in Sevilla. Between meeting all of my new friends and touring around the city that had become my temporary home, he asked if we could take a trip to the neighboring beach town. While taking a midnight stroll down the sandy shore, he asked me to marry him. I was 20, and we’d been together for five years. It wasn’t even a question.
You might also like I think one of the biggest concerns about marrying someone you meet so young is that you might miss out on more experiences and opportunities to find someone who’s an even better fit. You don’t want to just meet one person, decide they’re it, and stop looking for anything else. What if there’s something better out there? What if you let yourself blithely slide through the steps of dating, engagement, marriage, starting a family, without stopping to consider what you really want?
I decided early on that I wasn’t going to do that. Every day that we were dating, I asked myself if I still wanted to be with him, and promised myself if that answer ever changed, I would do something about it.
This is funny to admit, but a moment from Jane Austen’s novel Emma stuck with me. In an effort to convince her friend not to accept a proposal from a man she deems unworthy, Emma asks, "If you prefer [Mr. Martin] to every other person; if you think him the most agreeable man you have ever been in company with, why should you hesitate?" This question was meant to dissuade a friend from pursuing a relationship, but for me, it became a way to confirm that I was intentionally choosing what I really wanted.
At New York Comic Con.
Despite my firm commitment to actively make a daily choice that would make me truly happy, it can be strange to have missed out on an experience that so many of my peers have had. I technically understand how online dating and apps work, but I don’t really get how to make a connection with someone through a profile. I have absolutely no game; my flirting skills cap out at about a 15-year-old level. I got pretty good at crafting a cute response to an AIM away message, but that doesn’t exactly transfer to the adult version of sending a sexy reply on Tinder or to a late-night text. The only romantic experience I’ve ever had started as a teenage friendship, developed into love, and ended in our staying together forever… which isn’t exactly helpful when a friend is trying to figure out what a guy means when he texts her nothing but the strawberry emoji.
Someone joked at my college graduation that I was an old married lady, but by 'settling down' so young, I’ve actually learned the importance of not settling down at all.
In our early 20s, almost all of my close friends were single. I never wanted to stop being in my relationship, but the young, single life did look like a lot of fun. Going out, meeting someone new and interesting, and hooking up with them is just one of those exciting things I never got to do; I haven’t had a first date since I was 16. So when a group of friends is chatting about hook-up stories, I’m not exactly able to participate.
Of course, I also don’t find myself nostalgically comparing the relationship I’m in or the sex I’m having with other—perhaps fonder—memories, simply because there aren’t any. I don’t have to miss the fun aspects of adult single life because I never experienced them. Someone joked at my college graduation that I was an old married lady, but by "settling down" so young, I’ve actually learned the importance of not settling down at all.
So young!
It’s easy to fall into a routine when you’ve been with someone for years, which is a very unattractive position to be in at the ripe old age of 23. Staying with the same person for over a decade can make your world seem very small, but I don’t want to let myself stop being interesting or interested in what’s happening outside of the two-person world I live in; I want to keep meeting new people, having new experiences, and learning. For every trip we take together, we take five with other people. Instead of coupling off in social settings, we make sure to catch up with everyone around us. We’re active participants in separate circles: he in the New York design world, me in the growing community of nerdy women. Our honeymoon phase should have ended years ago, but I’m not interested in letting that happen.
You might also like The most important thing I’ve learned by being in one relationship for my entire adult life is that adapting to change is vital. We both went through so many changes in the decade between ages 18 and 28, and we got to go through them together. Some of those changes have been easy and great, and some have been a nightmare. On a day-to-day level, we traded in washing machines and driving for the headaches of laundromats and public transportation. Ideologically, we’ve both shifted politically from being pretty conservative to very liberal, although not at the same time—and there was some serious awkwardness and frustration in-between. We’ve had part-time jobs, freelanced, worked 80 hours per week, and started two businesses, each taking different tolls on our finances, free time, and happiness. And we don’t even have kids yet.
Hiking!
In a dating relationship, you can decide which issues are worth fighting for. In a marriage, there’s no option; seemingly unsolvable problems need to be solved, which can teach you a lot about being creative while working through issues. I’ve learned to compromise and adapt every day. Not only has this increased flexibility been very healthy for all of my relationships, it also allows me to enjoy things in life I otherwise never would have. I never wanted to live in a city, and I spent my first few years here planning my escape. I made myself miserable until I realized that this situation wasn’t changing, we weren’t moving, and I could resent that fact forever, or start looking for things to love about New York. I found them.
We’ve been there for each other through nearly all of life’s ups and downs. We’ve celebrated high-school and college graduations, new jobs, personal victories, and every exciting thing that’s happened to our friends and families. We’ve suffered through national tragedies, deaths, failures, and the struggles of making really hard choices. We’ve changed political parties and religious beliefs. We know how the other person makes decisions and how to work through problems together. We’ve learned which issues we simply don’t agree on and which we may never change our minds about.
Love.
I absolutely understand why what we have is rare. For all the beautiful moments we enjoyed, there were so many hard ones. We’ve made a lot of huge changes that the other person had to be OK with, and we didn’t have the freedom that comes with being single. And if you asked me 10 years ago to describe the life I pictured for my future self, what I have definitely isn't that. It’s not four kids and a house in the suburbs, baking cookies at home while my partner works a normal 9-to-5. It’s not being able to plan out exactly what my future looks like. For me, what I have is so much better.
Jordan Ellis founded Jordandené, a geek chic clothing brand for kids and kids at heart. She’s a proud Hufflepuff who loves dressing up and throwing extravagant theme parties. Follow her on Instagram at @jordandenenyc and Twitter at @jordandene.
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Lena Dunham Shares the Unhealthy Way She Lost Weight
Lena Dunham has been an outspoken critic of President Trump from the get-go, and she recently revealed in an interview with Howard Stern that Trump’s win even caused her to lose weight.
“Donald Trump became president, and I stopped being able to eat food,” she told Stern. “Everyone’s been asking like, ‘What have you been doing?’ And I’m like, ‘Try soul-crushing pain and devastation and hopelessness and you, too, will lose weight.’”
Dunham’s definitely not alone. Stress can disrupt your eating habits in all sorts of ways—leading to everything from binges to a total loss of appetite.
Given the current state of affairs, it’s easy to get caught up with worry, but in times like these, it's more important than ever to practice self-care. Go for a walk, treat yourself to something, and please, for your own good, take a break from social media.
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This Couple Proves It's Way Easier To Lose Weight With a Partner in Crime
Last year, Lexi and Danny Reed turned date night on its head. Instead of heading to their favorite all-you-can-eat buffet, the married couple started cooking food at home. And rather than lounging and watching Netflix, they headed to the gym.
At one point, Lexi weighed 480 pounds, and Danny tipped the scales at 280. Together, they've lost more than 300 pounds and documented every step of the way on Instagram—talk about some serious #couplegoals. Their story shows the power of having a workout buddy and someone to hold your hand on your healthy(ish) journey. Because we could all use a pep talk on those days when we don't want to go to the gym and someone to commiserate with when we're not feeing another salad.
Now that the Reeds are healthier, they can be more active. For their anniversary last weekend, they went go-karting and climbed the stairs to the top of a monumnet—two things they couldn't do before.
Take a look at some of the #swolemates’ photos below.
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We’re All for Being Healthy, but Shaming Kids for Eating Cake Goes Too Far
We should be teaching kids what it means to be healthy. But sending a 3-year-old home with a note shaming them (and their parents) for including a slice of chocolate cake in their school lunchbox? That's too far. But it's exactly what happened to one Australian family.
The note comes from a country-wide policy that uses the "traffic light system" to categorize food—green for good-for-you foods and red for the ones you want to avoid.
But that system is flawed. Preaching the idea that certain foods (cake, candy, or fried food, for example) are always evil can set kids up with unhealthy relationships to food. It'd be more helpful to teach moderation—chocolate cake is fine as an occasional treat—and stop teachers from judging a student's overall eating habits based on one lunch.
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ESR Blood Test - The Detector of Causes of Inflammation in a Human Body
An ESR Blood Test or Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate Test is a simple blood test that aids in the revelation of inflammatory activities occurring in the body. Also known as a Sed Rate Test, it's typically advised by a physician along with other essential tests depending upon the kind of symptoms witnessed by an individual. Read the article below for an in-depth analysis of the test type.
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Struggle With Anxiety and Depression? Check Out This Nifty DIY Tracker
Dealing with depression and anxiety is tough. When you're in the thick of it, everything seems like a trigger, and it's easy to think things will never get better.
But there's a clever way to keep track of the highs and lows—and remind yourself that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Twitter user Kelly Kale (@TheLifeofKale) shared a photo of his sister's genius solution:
Source: TheLifeOfKale
It looks like Kale’s sister has already had plenty of good days. Here's hoping there are lots of red and blue squares over the next 11 months.
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Why Lemon Is Used in So Many Products
Have you ever wondered why so many products sold on the shelves have lemon as a main ingredient? Lemon has so many different qualities and benefits for the body.
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5 Health Benefits Of Coconut Oil
Coconut food is on the list of foods that fall under the category of superfood. The oil offers a lot of benefits, such as improved brain function, weight loss and a lot of other skin health benefits. Here are 5 major benefits of the product for you if you are going to use it for losing weight.
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Can a Health And Fitness App Help You Lose Weight?
According to an estimate, there are over 40,000 health apps for smartphones. And these apps claim to help you lose weight. Now, the million-dollar question is, do these apps really work? Let's know more.
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5 Little Ways to Stop Being Stressed and Start Being on Time
I’ve known a few people like Natalie, and I always think, How do they do it? I mean, isn’t it so anxiety-inducing to always race against the clock? If you take a few minutes for preparation and think ahead, it’s way easier than contending with time as a constant enemy. Natalie’s approach didn’t do her any favors, that’s for sure. Her lack of organization meant she never got selected for leadership roles, and she wasn’t considered for the promotion she wanted. It wasn’t surprising.
The good news is that punctuality is not a gene. Anyone can master it! Yes, even that friend who always makes you lose your table at the trendy new restaurant and the colleague who is consistently 10 minutes late to Every. Single. Conference. Call.
I have four inboxes, a business with several facets, and I live in a non-central part of the city, so I am constantly on the go. Here’s how I manage to stay on (or ahead of) schedule 99 percent of the time!
1. Refuse to take on too much.
Overscheduled people (guilty!) run the risk of being late, because they squeeze more into their calendar than a 24-hour slot will allow. Hey, you can’t fit seven eggs into a half-dozen carton without a mess. This one simple rule will transform your life. Natalie was always going to unnecessary meetings with unlikely vendors and allowing trivial coffee dates to run way over their finish time within her precious working hours.
What can you scratch off the agenda before you even begin today? Get real with yourself here. What can you say "no" to in order to give your best to the stuff that really matters? You know, don’t you? So decline! Delete! Reject that caller dialing you with an unknown number who will hold you up. Say "No, thank you," more than "Well, OK."
2. Set aside a few minutes to plan.
Look at your day the night before or first thing in the morning. Where do you have to be, and by when? What do you have to do, and how long will each task take you? All you have to do is a bit of time budgeting!
You might also like Say you have three tasks to complete, and two meetings that both require a little prep and travel time. Schedule an approximate time for each of the three tasks, and give yourself some extra padding in case you need a little longer than you think. Accounting for error is not only practical, it allows you to zip around without worry. Bliss!
Now you have a gorgeous, on-time day ahead, with zero schedule-related stress. It can be that simple.
3. Have some hacks handy.
Without dry shampoo, an accessory collection that dials up a basic black outfit, and a handbag-ready bright lipstick, getting ready would take me at least 30 minutes more per day. When you have some time-saving hacks in your life, your appearance remains strong in a fraction of the time.
Someone once taught me to decide my outfit for the next day on my commute home every evening. Figure out what’s clean and what will work with the weather to make the next morning that much smoother.
4. Start batching.
Whether you’re planning Instagram updates, sending emails, or even make-ahead meals for the week, batching is a time-saver. Once you’re in a shopping, writing, or social media mindset, optimize that by thinking a few days or a week out. When you’re already at Whole Foods, could you satisfy not just your current craving, but also make snacks for the week? A working mum shared with me the secret of batching meals, chores, and even paying bills online. Try it—you won’t go back.
5. Just lie.
Yes, lie! If late people in your life hold you back, tell them that the event is an hour before it actually is. Tell your perpetually tardy friend that the reservation is for 7 p.m. when it’s actually 7:30. I do this with my husband a few times a week, and I think he secretly doesn’t mind. He needs the nudge.
How will you save time this week, early bird?
Susie Moore is Greatist's life coach columnist and a confidence coach in New York City. Her new book, What If It Does Work Out?, is available on Amazon now. Sign up for free weekly wellness tips on her website and check back every Tuesday for her latest No Regrets column!
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Scientists Developed Fertilized Eggs From Mouse Stem Cells
Japanese reproductive biologist, Katsuhiko Hayashi at the Kyushu University in Fukuoka, headed the research that published its findings in the journal known as 'Nature' on how they had been able to produce mouse eggs from mouse stem cells under laboratory conditions and then pushed the eggs towards fertilisation, yielding a fertile offspring as the end result. This is usually a territory that scientists tread with utmost caution.
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Malaria-In-A-Dish Paves the Way for Better Treatments
A new method to examine potential antimalarial drugs and vaccines possessing the potential to treat the liver stage of malaria infection has been engineered by a team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) using human liver cells, derived from induced pluripotent stem cells. Malarial infection caused approximately 500,000 deaths globally every year. This innovative methodology could possibly present fresh prospects for customized antimalarial drug testing and the progress of tailor made medication to fight the condition.
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This Woman's Letter to Her Younger Self Is What We Wish We Heard As Kids
When you're a kid, it's easy to feel out of place. It can happen to anyone, even the people who grow up to be models. That's Dana Patterson's story. The curvy model wrote a letter to her younger self to explain that as much as she used to hate her thighs and her skin and her "Hagrid hair," she's thankful for it all now.
Patterson wants others to share similar letters using the hashtag #DearYoungerMe, so that young girls and boys struggling with loving themselves can learn that beauty doesn't look one specific way. Check out Patterson's full letter below:
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Marriage Isn’t for Everyone: You Can Be Your Own "The One"
My wedding day
At some point, most of us have heard this question from well-meaning friends or relatives. The frequency increases if you’re in a relationship, and even more so if you’re of the age that people associate with "settling down."
And why not? We’ve been primed our whole lives to think that getting married is a goal we all should achieve, lest we die alone in pathetic failure, surrounded by cats and pitied by society.
How many movies have you watched that end with a wedding, presented as the ultimate expression of happiness? How much praise and admiration have you seen women receive when they can show that they "got the ring?" In the world of dating, even when you try to take it slow and date casually, you know underneath that your ostensible goal is to find "the one." It’s easy to internalize the idea that getting married is practically a must; it’s an accomplishment, a victory. It’s demonstrable proof that you are worthy of love.
And so, when my live-in boyfriend of six years pulled out that diamond ring, of course I was thrilled. I had won the game, right? But once the initial excitement wore off, a lingering dread started to set in: Now I would have to plan a wedding and, after that, the rest of my life. Is this what I wanted for the rest of my life? Did I even know what I wanted for the rest of my life? Did it matter? I wasn’t getting any younger, and someone wanted to marry me. This was the dream, right?
You might also like In hindsight, I think this line of reasoning is why I went ahead and got hitched despite the many, many red flags indicating that I absolutely shouldn’t. In hindsight, of course my marriage spectacularly crashed and burned.
By the time I married my boyfriend, I was already having an affair with a stranger I’d met at my bachelorette party, and had to down a few glasses of champagne to force myself down the aisle. In the moment, my reasoning was that I’d already paid so much for the wedding, and everyone was already there. I kept telling myself that I had invested too much time in the relationship to back out.
The marriage lasted a whopping month and a half before he kicked me out and subsequently served me divorce papers via breakdancer (get it? I GOT SERVED). Being newly homeless, I ran off on a lark to live on a tropical island. My family was pretty mad at me, his family stopped speaking to me, and everyone thought I was crazy. It was pretty much the opposite of a happy ending. If marriage is considered a success, then failure at marriage is considered a particularly shameful failure, and mine was an epic fail.
Out of the wreckage, however, emerged an important revelation: Marriage isn’t for everyone, and it definitely isn’t for me. I don’t consider my marriage a "starter marriage," and I’m not telling myself, "The next time will work out!" The real lesson I learned is that I am not the marrying kind. It’s unfortunate that I had to get married to figure that out, but in the end, I’m just glad to know this about myself.
I’m not saying that getting married is a bad idea, or that nobody should get married, ever. Maybe you are the marrying kind. Maybe you want to share everything with one special person forever. Maybe you want to raise a family, or you hate sleeping alone, or you want to feel taken care of. Maybe solitude makes you anxious. Maybe you don’t like cats. If that’s the case, go forth and prosper! But don’t get married—or stay married—just because you think you should.
With my 20/20 hindsight, It’s easy to see that I was never going to be the marrying kind. I had always been independent, I didn’t want to have kids, living with another person and sharing financial burdens stressed me out, and I constantly fantasized about having my own place. I was bad at compromising, and had a tendency to just give in to avoid conflict, then harbor secret resentments.
You might also like Even though I had managed to stay monogamous for seven years, it was more from lack of opportunity than lack of desire; throughout my relationship, I constantly had crushes on other people. In the end, I just didn’t have the emotional energy to take care of another adult until we died. When we were just drifting along in our lives, it was easy for me to be in denial, but getting married forced me to consider whether or not I wanted this relationship to last the rest of my life. Of course, the answer was a resounding no.
As I packed up my things to be put in storage, I cried. I cried because I was losing the home I was emotionally and financially invested in and because I knew I was hurting my husband, and it always feels crappy to know you’re hurting someone, even if it’s for self-preservation. We were fighting up to the last, and since I had conceded to the "bad guy" role (the cheater is always the bad guy, right? That’s the narrative), I felt like I just had to suck it up and take all the blaming and shaming.
As I looked, red-faced and teary-eyed, out the bedroom window, I saw the phrase "Life Is Beautiful" written across the roof of my moving truck. I still believed that it was and that it would be even more. In one of our pre-divorce fights, I had told my husband, "I don’t feel like my life is my own anymore." Now, I was excited to take my life back. Underneath the feeling of mourning, there was a tickle of giddiness at the knowledge that I was about to be free.
It's true!
Once I was settled in my own place, I kept waiting to miss him. Surely you can’t spend seven years with someone and not feel a void when they’re gone, right? I waited, but it never happened. I never missed him. All I could feel was relief. I felt unburdened and light, like a huge weight had been lifted off me. I could do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, without consultation or negotiation, and I wasn’t responsible for anyone’s emotions but mine.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t just go back in time seven years to when I was last single. The world had moved on: The economy had changed (my small business was in shambles), rents had gone up, opportunities had decreased, technology had advanced, and I had to reconstruct my life accordingly with no partner to fall back on.
Here we are, fully in love.
But I started online dating (which is much more fun if you’re just trying to meet people and not looking for something serious), and I experimented with jobs and living situations. I lived alone in a cabin in Honduras and with roommates in Brooklyn. I did an artist’s residency in Mexico, worked at a pizzeria in Nebraska, and a cleaned rooms in a hotel in Florida. Through some struggles and trial and error, I gradually came to feel like my life was my own again. I was living and making choices on my own terms. Even my emotions were my own again and not being dictated by someone else who thought they knew better than me how I "should" feel.
Five years later, I’m still living happily on my own. I eventually moved to Mexico with nothing but two suitcases and my cat, and started over. Since my divorce, I haven’t felt alone or lonely. When you stop putting all your emotional expectations and dependency on one person, you learn to cultivate better and deeper relationships with everyone else in your life. My family has mostly forgiven me for my disaster marriage (although a lot of them still think I’m crazy). I’ve had friendships, flings, and romances, but I’m no longer looking for "the one." I no longer believe in the idea of "the one." In fact, I think that maybe I am my own "the one," and the idea of growing old alone, surrounded by cats, sounds pretty much like heaven.
A.V. Phibes is an artist living in Mexico with her soulmate, who is a cat.
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