Marriage

Career versus Love, Must a Woman Choose?

November 10, 2014 By Preslaysa 2 Comments

Career versus Love. This was my dilemma for the first few years of married life. I’ve always been a career girl; I’ve been working since the age of three.

In my first job, I sold jewelry in my parent’s business. Early on, my parents plopped me behind a cash register, and I started ringing up sales. Even though I couldn’t read (I was only three, remember?), I quickly learned to calculate 6% sales tax in my head and jealously guard the inventory against shrinkage. Career versus love was not a problem in those days. (I was three!)

My second job arrived at the age of nine: Show Biz, Baby! I wanted to be on the big screen (or a small TV screen with the rabbit ears…I’d take whatever I could get). At nine years old, I called up a talent agent, set up an appointment to meet the agent and later told Dad about it. (I was a precocious gal.) Being the nice, cautious father that he is, he took me to meet the person and decided to entertain this interest of mine. A couple weeks later I landed my first job on a television commercial. That career lasted for over a decade. Career versus love was not a problem as an actress either. I was too concerned with school and auditions to worry about icky boys with cooties.

Then I married a Navy man, and my vision of what a career gal should be changed.

Life went topsy turvy for me after marriage. Along with all the ups and downs that come with adjusting to married life, I had to come to grips with the fact that none of my husband’s duty stations were in New York or Los Angeles (where all the acting work could be found). That was tough for me, and I suffered an identity crisis early on. I sucked it up, put on a false face and entered the dreaded Cubicle Nation.

I told myself this was what a good, supportive Navy wife does. They stuff all their dreams in an invisible closet and do the wife thing. (What is the wife thing?) In reality, I was miserable, but I kept telling myself this was all part of being married. That wasn’t true. I made up a lie and created unnecessary heartache.

Looking back, I know I created that lie because I feared being an artist again; I didn’t want to take the scary plunge into living a creative life. It is a road less traveled. It was cool to be an artist as a kid, but all kids grow up eventually and join the Real World, right?

Despite this, I had a creative itch that needed to be scratched, but I was nowhere near NY or LA. So, I started writing. Writing was a portable job which suited my military spouse lifestyle. During the regular work week, before I went to Cubicle Nation, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning and wrote about anything that came to mind. Most of it was my mental ramblings, but the act of putting pen to paper centered me. During those early morning hours before I left for the day job, my creative fire was re-lit.

After about a year of this (and with my awesome husband’s blessing), I left Cubicle Nation for good. I wrote more frequently, dabbling in different types of novels and articles and such. Shortly thereafter, I had my first child and something happened, my writing hobby went into overdrive.

I wrote while feeding the baby.

I wrote in between feeding the baby.

I wrote while sitting in the park with the baby.

I wrote while the baby napped.

The act of regularly and consciously putting pen to paper during those new mama days enabled me to tap into an inner strength which I never knew existed. I realized I could be an artist and married and a mama. I didn’t have to sacrifice one lifestyle for the other.

I found my center. I found my peace.

Career versus love didn’t have to be a choice. A lot of times, women feel like they have to make an either or type of sacrificial act to keep everything balance like in the case of career versus love and family. To me, that’s a big, fat lie.

You can pursue your passion, and you can pursue love. I don’t think they are mutually exclusive. I don’t believe God gives an individual a great passion for a particular vocation and then says: “Sorry, buddy, you can ‘t do that anymore. You’re a (wife, husband, mom, dad) now. Those days are over.”

What do you think?

Quotes About Love, Thoughts to Ponder

November 6, 2014 By Preslaysa Leave a Comment

I’ve been on a search for quotes about love. I plan to gather one each week for us to ponder. Here the first of a couple quotes about love I discovered (more to come in subsequent weeks!)

Quotes About Love: On Kissing

Writing kisses can be challenging for me. I have to be in the right frame of mind to get the kissing scenes right. It’s ironic that the one thing which Ingrid Bergman identifies as special about a kiss is also the thing that makes it tough for me as a writer. Kisses are wordless (and rightfully so), but somehow I have to transpire that kiss on the page!

Still, when I get that kissing scene right, I cannot keep my hands off the keyboard. I have to finish it. I remember the first time this happened to me as a writer. I was sitting in a coffee shop typing away, bored by the scene…until they kissed. Writing the scene felt like riding a roller coaster. As soon as the characters locked lips, the words flowed fast and furious. It was definitely a writing session I’ll never forget.

Quotes About Love: The Face of Your Love

Have you ever loved someone so deeply that you can close your eyes and imagine every line and curve of their face? Every scar and feature? I think it’s lovely when this happens. I can close my eyes and remember my husband’s face perfectly: coffee bean complexion, espresso colored eyes, dark, thick eyelashes. I have to admit, I am jealous of his eyelashes. No man should have eyelashes as beautiful as his, but I guess that’s why they invented mascara for the ladies 🙂

So those are my quotes about love for this week. What favorite quotes about love have touched your heart?

Love at First Sight? Let’s Talk About It.

September 2, 2014 By Preslaysa 3 Comments

Let’s Talk About It…

Do you believe in love at first sight?

I don’t.

Sorry if that sounds like a splash of cold water on your happily ever after, but I don’t. (And I write romance!)

When I first met my husband in Negril, Jamaica, it wasn’t love at first sight. He seemed like a cool guy. We talked. We danced. Then I lost my friends at the party…and he was the perfect gentleman. He gave me $40 to get a cab ride back to my hotel, and we parted ways.

That act of kindness piqued my interest, but it wasn’t love at first sight. When I returned to the States a week later, I wrote a check for the forty bucks, and mailed it to him with a card thanking him for the gesture. Afterwards, we talked on the phone and instant messaged each other. (Yes, this was when AOL had instant messaging. The olden days.) At the time he was attending college in Annapolis, and I was attending college in NYC so when he traveled to see me for our first date, I was flattered.

Ladies, so far this guy has scored points with me on two fronts. First, he shells out cash for my cab ride when I’m stranded. Second, he travels a long distance to see me.

But it wasn’t love at first sight.

I clearly remember that first date. We were riding an escalator at a mall, and I got a God Nudge. A God Nudge is one of those moments when the Holy Spirit in me says: “Pay attention. This one is special.” And so I paid attention and waited to see how all this would play out. Patience is a big part of this whole love thing. “Love is patient…Love is kind…”

But it wasn’t love at first sight.

The love grew over time. As we got to know one another, I started to like his laid back nature, his straight shooter ways. I was the hurricane and he was the calm sea, always steady, always unmoved.

It’s been like that for most of our marriage. I guess that’s why I’m the creative type and he’s the engineer type.

Still, I didn’t know I was in love until he got military orders to San Diego after he graduated.

This was our conversation:

Him: “I’ve got orders to go to San Diego. How about you move there with me and we live together?”

Me…the formerly backsliding but now on the straight and narrow path Christian: (I’m thinking: Live together?! As in shack up? No way. You ain’t getting any free milk over here, buddy.) So I said, “Can’t do that. If you want to live with me, then we have to be married.”

Him: Let’s do that then.

I dropped the phone.

I eventually picked the phone back up and said ‘yes’, but it wasn’t until I created a boundary that I learned about love. I grew up thinking love meant you have to have your boundaries invaded whether those boundaries were mental, emotional or physical.

True love respects the boundaries of the other person. True love creates healthy boundaries based on one’s personal values and beliefs. (I, for example, didn’t believe in shacking. That was my boundary. That was my deal breaker.) And it’s worked out so far. We’ve been married for a good while now.

If he hadn’t proposed after I drew the line, I would have balled and squalled, but then I would have eventually picked myself off the floor and moved on. Because that’s love too- learning to love me.

Let’s talk about it: Do you believe in love at first sight? Leave a comment. I’d love to chat.

The Child Centered Marriage

April 22, 2013 By Preslaysa 2 Comments

I can’t remember the last time my husband and I have been on a date night. We talk for an hour or two after the children are in bed. I call him on the phone during the regular workday (or a lot if I’m having a very hard day at home). But we haven’t had the time to actully say, we’re leaving the children at home and going off on a date. And during this date we are going to stick to the follwowing three rules:

1) Don’t talk about children.

2) Don’t talk about children.

3) Don’t talk about children.

Child centered marriage. It’s an easy pit to fall in.

We’ve fell in it. Big time.

I hear all these stories about how parents spend time solely focused on their children: shuffling them off to various activities, being too permissive for fear they’ll psychologically damage their children, etc. And when the children are up and gone, there’s nothing left to give to the one to whom you said “I do” at the altar decades ago.

I don’t want to be that person.

I want to celebrate my sixtieth anniversary and say: “It was good. Hard sometimes. But good. I’m glad I did this with you, this life. We did good together.”

To accomplish, I have to make the time, to listen, to talk. To hope with him. Together.

Hope is the engine.

Hope is the fuel.

Hope puts together the messy parts, the hidden parts, the scary parts (and the child centered parts!) of marriage and molds them with the beautiful. Makes them fit.

I know of a woman who lost hope. She lost hope after years and years of being in a physically abusive marriage. After the marriage ended on paper, the divorce settled, fear still haunted her. Kept her from loving again. She lost hope.

I know of another woman who lost hope too. She lost hope in her dream of being a singer after she said “I do.” Not because her husband didn’t want her to be a singer, but because she had a false persception of what a “good wife” should be. And so she lived out her marriage carrying the burden of a false hope. And her relationship with her husband grew strained as the years went on.

Thinking about these women, having a child centered marriage doesn’t sound so bad.

Or does it?

I may not have experienced the same level of stresses that these brave women endured, but I do know the importance of ensuring healthy, loving interactions with the wonderful man I share a one-flesh destiny with.

Hope.

I want to make room for hope, true hope, in marriage. And so I resolve to do something small to keep the marriage part of the family going. Something like a compliment a day.

Then, we can take a baby step towards a date night. {RedBox movie, anyone?}

But hope can be lived out simply. Day by day.

On Real Love

October 24, 2012 By Preslaysa Leave a Comment

Next year, 2013, my husband and I will celebrate our ten year marriage anniversary.

Ten years is a long time, especially when two flawed, Jesus loving people commit to building a life together…till death do them part.

Almost a decade ago, I didn’t even want to get married to my husband. In fact, I wanted to call it quits a week before our wedding. I was so adamant about backing out of the whole thing that I called our pastor and told him I wanted to cancel the wedding. He gathered us both together for a meeting and I gave the pastor my list of reasons why I didn’t want to marry my husband:

1) HE did ….

2) HE is so….

3) HE doesn’t understand that I ….

And on, and on, and on.

Our wise pastor considered all my railing accusations against my husband and said this:

“You have faults too, yet Jesus still chose to die for you. Don’t you think it’s wonderful that you’ll be able to walk down the aisle next week, knowing all of your fiance’s faults, look him in the eye and still say “Yes, I choose to love you. I choose to share my life with you. Preslaysa, that’s Christlikeness.”

The truth of his statement burned me up inside. I couldn’t justify my argument after that. Deep within, I knew that if I backed out now, I would miss out on God’s opportunity to mold me into a Real Lover.

Prior to that meeting, I had my own notions of what being a Real Lover was all about. We all do, and I can’t say that I have all the answers almost a decade later, but I do know that:

Real Lovers commit.
Real Lovers forgive.
Real Lovers see their loved one’s flaws, and love anyway.
Real Lovers don’t accuse their loved one.
Real Lovers are transparent. They can stand naked before their loved one…and not be ashamed.

In the dailyness of life, especially at this stage where we are raising little ones, it’s easy for me to harp on my husband’s faults. The stresses of caring for young children can try my mind, will and emotions. I have to consciously choose to be a Real Lover in these situations. To not complain. To praise. To not nag. To honor. To not tear down. To build up.Hopefully, after many more decades of marriage to my husband, I’ll finally get it right.But even if I don’t perfect love, I know that:

Real Lovers forgive seventy times seven. And so I can choose mercy over justice.

Real Lovers love grace. And so I can choose to be grace-full in the hard moments of life.

Real Lovers commit. And so I can choose to re-commit each and every morning when I awaken with him at my side.

Real Lovers seek the best for their loved one. And so I can choose to lay aside my human need to be validated…and be selfless. Be Christlike.

That’s what makes Real Marriages last.

Teamwork

April 10, 2012 By Preslaysa Leave a Comment

Family involves a lot of teamwork. No one person can do everything alone. I’m learning this more and more as my responsibilities at home increase. I naturally tend to want to do everything myself, but this approach can be counterproductive. Thankfully, The Man helps out immensely in getting things done.

All too often, mothers can find themselves mired in ‘mommy guilt’ which leads to doing too much. In the end, we are exhausted and tired. I did this recently when I awakened with hubby at 1am. He typically feeds the baby at that time. I woke up with him so I could wash dishes. Hubby took one look at me and said: “Go to sleep!” I didn’t listen and in the morning, I paid for it by being extra tired. Now, I’m forcing myself to take a short nap in the middle of the day.

Let’s Chat: When you think of family, do you envision a team?

A New Year, A New Resolution for Marriage

January 2, 2012 By Preslaysa Leave a Comment

I hope everyone enjoyed ringing in the New Year. If you have small children, one of the advantages of New Year’s even is you can put the kiddos to bed early and then have a “date night” with your spouse. My New Year’s eve date night consisted of watching two movies with Hero (that’s my new name for hubby), but then I fell asleep just before midnight 🙂 The next morning we all went to church.

Having a regular date night with The Man has been a challenge. It’s easy to get caught up in the rigors of daily life and forget to nurture the most important human relationship. This year, I’ve set a goal to have two date nights a month with Hero and three family mini-vacations somewhere close to home.

With a new baby arriving in March, that may be a tough goal to meet, but I am committed to making it happen.

What do you do to have a regular date night with your spouse? Comment with your idea. I need some tips 🙂

JANUARY CONTEST: Blog commenters will be entered in a drawing to receive 4 different Love Inspired contemporary titles from 2011. The more you comment, the more entries you receive! Winner announced on Feb. 1st.