Saturday, April 30, 2005

Love or Faith

Today I attended a wedding.... my first wedding in the U.S.... probably the third wedding in my life. It seems that that's a regular occurrence nowadays and it's only I who doesn't want to accept it as such. After all, I am 26 and most people I know are around the same age or a little older. It is only normal that they should be getting married, because that is what people at the age of 20 or 30 something do. Yet, I try to put myself in their shoes and I start feeling a certain kind of fear. Why? I have asked myself that question a million times, and I have no good answer. Maybe it's because I'm not ready, maybe it's because I've lost my faith in a long-term relationship, maybe I am just not "the marrying kind" (to quote the show I live and breathe nowadays, "Sex and the City"). Today, as I stood and watched my friends take their vows, I thought "You have to have a lot of faith to do that." And really, the more I thought about it, the more I seemed to come to the conclusion that faith is all it takes. You may love, you may want, but if you don't have the faith, that doesn't amount to much. While people are often quick to throw "I love you's" around, taking the next step comes as a challenge. And it is precisely because of this little word, FAITH. How many times have we seen the following scenario: two people really love each other, they live and laugh together, then the man proposes..... and all of a sudden everything changes, and it just doesn't work anymore. Is it because they did not truly love each other? Is it because they weren't "right" for each other (whatever that means)? Or is it because of the lack of faith in long-term love? I have had this argument with one of the people closest to me and he claimed that people often say "I love you" without really meaning it. They don't realize what true love is, so they assume that what they feel at that moment is love, whereas it might not be. Well, I think that often when people say "I love you" they do mean it, they do feel it, they aren't making it up, but then when it comes to the faith to have something long-term, to take that extra step, they falter. Maybe love is in our DNA but faith isn't. Or maybe faith has taken a harder beating from reality. Either way, is it love or is it faith that really matters?

Saturday, April 23, 2005

Food....or Power?

Friday, April 22nd.

Something funny happened today. I experienced first-hand how food can change people's mood. There I was, standing in line at the CVS pharmacy counter, when the man in front of me gets barked at by the pharmacist, "May I help you?!" (It came across more like an attack, than a polite question.) The man, startled at first, responded by giving his last and first names; he was picking up a prescription. After retrieving the prescription (and asking the man to spell his extremely complicated name--Peter Baker--about 3 times), the pharmacist turned her attention, and her bad mood, to Peter again. "Do you have a CVS card?" He searches in his wallet. "CVS card??!!" Peter continues to search, feeling the pressure building. "May I have your CVS card, PLEASE?" He finally finds it (probably breathes an internal sigh of relief) and hands it over. "Thank you for shopping at CVS... NEXT!" I think to myself, "I wonder what she will do to me?" And I don't have to wait long to find out. "May I help you?!" I proceed to spell my last name..... very slowly (people usually don't get the L-K-O part). In the midst of my careful spelling, the pharmacist suddenly exclaims (with a hint of a smile), "Mmmhhmm, somebody's lunch smells sooooo good." "I think it may be mine, " I say quietly--I can't tell whether she is annoyed or pleased with the smell... and I certainly did not want to make her any more angry. (Ten minutes earlier I had bought a stir-fry lunch from the deli across from work and was carrying it in a plastic bag). She smiles, "That smells so good." And believe it or not, just the smell of that delicious lunch bought me her good mood (and graces) for the remainder of my time at the pharmacy. She was polite, friendly, albeit a little distracted by the "delicious smell"--she had to count my change about 3 times to ensure she hadn't made a mistake. So, it seems that she was just extremely hungry, and thus cranky. My conclusion--when foreseeing a situation in which you would need to interface with (infamous) customer service people, make sure something on you smells good........

Edin den

Edin den se subudih i neshto prosto ne beshe sushtoto. Ne mozhah da si go obiasnia, ne se beshe sluchilo nishto, ili pone nishto vidimo. Lezhah izvestno vreme, uzhasnoto chuvstvo produlzhavashe da me chovurka otvutre, opitvaiki se da izblikne na povurhnostta, no ne mozha. Niakolko dena po-kusno, sled razgovori s niakolko choveka, razbrah kakvo me chovurka…. Faktut che veche ne sum malka, che ne moga da se skriia zad nikoi drug, a triabva sama da poema otgovornostta za vsichki reshenia ot tuk natatuk i che vsichki ostanali shte stoiat otstrani i shte oceniavat tezi reshenia. Talk about pressure! I to samo kakvi reshenia—na tova miasto li shte sum nai-shtasliva? s tozi chovek li shte sum nai-shtastliva? sega li e pravilnia moment? zashto vsichki okolo men misliat za brak i deca, a men ot samata misul me pobivat trupki? Chuvstvah se hvurlena po techenieto, no na men ne mi se pluvashe po nego, iskah da se vurna nazad, no tova se okaza nevuzmozhno. Sushtevremenno nikoi ne mi beshe podhvurlil poias za da se spravia po-lesno s burzeite…. Izvednuzh se pochuvstvah uzhasno sama… dori kogato se provikvah za pomosht, nikoi ne me chuvashe. Horata, zaeti po svoite si techenia, susredotocheni da izbiagvat kamunite po tehnia si put, prosto mi biaha oburnali grub, ne narochno, ne umishleno, prosto fakt ot zhivota (kakto bi kazal bashta mi)…. I se zamislih… tova li e to zhivota? Priatelite ti se otdalechavat, naprezhenieto raste, otgovornostite se umnozhavat, vsichko stava vse po-slozhno, trudno, tragichno…. Malkite greshki stavat ogromni greshki, uvelicheni ot lupata narechena "zrialost", "porasnalost" ili kakto tam iskame da ia narechem; vsiako reshenie kasae veche ne samo teb samia, ami i budeshtite ti pokolenia (zamisliali li ste se niakoga nad tova?); mnogo iasno che chovek mozhe da se skurshi pod tova naprezhenie. Az vse oshte ne moga da razbera horata kak izdurzhat i uspiavat da zhiveiat normalen i pulnocenen zhivot, kak ne gi e strah, kakto men me e strah v momenta, kak sa napravili krachkata? Schitala sum se za dosta smela. Vse pak ot 18 godishna zhiveia sama i sum se opravila niakaksi. Zavurshih kolezh, namerih si rabota, ustanovih se po niakakuv nachin vuv Washington…. i vse pak, me e strah. I tuka se seshtam za dumite ot edna pesen na Frou Frou "Let Go" koiato dosta me vpechatli naposleduk. Ne biah razbrala tochno do kolko, dokato ne gledah filma "Garden State", i togava izvednuzh neshto mi preshtraka: "So let go/ let go/ jump in/ well, what you waiting for?/ it’s alright/ cause there’s beauty in the breakdown".

Edin den, viarata mi izneveri i vsichko stana mnogo po-strashno i trudno.