Patricia Danielle

i speed. mostly on the freeway. usually i set cruise control at 80. sometimes 2 or 3 miles over.

if im late for church, all bets are off. one day i drove 90 the whole way. at least i was on time.

oh, and that time i drove to santa barbara for veronicas wedding. over 90 the whole way. bad. i know.

now then, there are some rules of the road that i wont break.

i NEVER drive in the carpool lane if im not carpooling.

and ever since my brother got that ticket for taking the carpool lane on the on-ramp when he wasnt carpooling, i have never done that either.

until last wednesday. thats when i broke my legalism streak. i felt like such a criminal. the non-carpool lane was backed up FOREVER. the carpool lane was backed up a little. i was late. i made the decision and swerved into the other lane to wait for the light to get on the freeway. of course i was panicked. i sat there looking back and forth from mirror to mirror checking for a cop….and really embarrassed because I think its SO obvious when someone is trying to cheat the system and i HATE when other people do that. i try not to cheat. im not a cheater. (maybe that should be in the past tense now?)

obviously, i have been very affected by this decision. i havent stopped thinking about it since then. i cant get over the fact that i was one of those people!!!! those CHEATERS.

of course i know i am over-analyzing this. I KNOW. this is not unlike me. i do this quite often. the over-analyzing thing. over-thinking thing. over processing thing.

im beginning to believe this is the life of patricia danielle off yoga for two weeks……and it is not a peaceful thing.

very not peaceful.

me: “we should take a day off and go to the movies ALL day. we’ll stay from the time the place opens to when it closes and see loads of movies. but we have to pay for them all because i just cant movie hop illegally.”

him: “ok, as long as i can pick a couple of them and one of them can be a scary movie.”

me: “i HATE scary movies, but for this activity, ill give in.”

him: “we should go on vacation to the bahamas, too.”

me: “im sure my mom would love to hear that i am going on vacation with a guy ive been dating for a month.”

him: “well then, when you make the list of things we want to go do, be sure to put a huge space between ‘movies’ and ‘vacation to the bahamas.’

for the love of GOODNESS its flipping HUMID these days!

i may as well be in japan still.

From: Andrew
Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 6:00 PM
To: Patricia
Subject: Fwd:”Temporary Relationships”

Winner’s Circle Network with Lou Tice - 6/21/06 - “Temporary Relationships”

We might as well get used to the fact that, with our increasing mobility,
temporary relationships are here to stay.

Even though we may not have a long period of time to spend developing
and nurturing the relationship, we can still be committed to conducting it
with integrity and full respect for each other’s values. Our short-term
relationships can be much more than superficial encounters. They can bring
us something of great value from the process of mutual sharing and
discovery.

These things are essential in any meaningful relationship, and meaning
should not be purely a function of time.

From: Gina 
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 11:24 AM
To: Patricia O’Neal
Subject: smiling

hey, i think im so excited about today that i keep catching myself smiling for no reason in my office alone and now my cheeks are tired.  im so getting fine lines early!!  i just know it. 

most times when i am out running in the claremont hills, my mind wanders to my time in india.  

india was hard. the fact that i did it at all, makes me proud. the fact that i finished, even prouder.

physically, it was the hardest thing i have ever done. the first day, we hiked 5 kilometers, straight uphill.

there has to have been a hundered times during the trek that i would ask myself what the heck i was doing and why. how did trekking the himalayas ever top my list of things i must do? sometimes i would take a step and the loose gravel would cause my foot to slip, which would force me to take additional steps. usually uphill. i hated those steps. i cursed those steps. i also cursed the time that i was forced to wash my hair with the freezing snow run-off water. actually, i cried, not cursed. other than that, the trip was memory making and amazing.

 that trip, i had an illumination of another side of God. i saw him as the creator of the universe. the power who saw to it that the water would tumble down the river and over the rocks in just a way to make it seem magnifcient. the power who made it so the sunlight would peek through the trees and shine off the glossiness of my eyes. the power who placed these tribes of people in such a place where their agriculture would flurish and do it in such a way that looking out over it all created a view that was incomparable. 

ive always known god as my father…lord…savior…helper….comforter….friend….provider and so many other things. but as the creator? that had never really resignated with me. how could it. everything surrounding me in america and japan and egypt and europe and all of the other places i have been, was man made. the buildings, the roads, the scenery. but in india, it felt as though things were pure. things were in their original state. things were of god.

my god.

the creator of the universe.

these days, marriages seem to be ending like classic sitcoms on the WB. i dont like it. it messes up my understanding of marriage. and my one time belief that most american men and women would make good husbands and wives. the basis for this belief is that most of the guys i know would make awesome husbands/dads and most of the girls i know would make great wives/moms.

but now, things are all fuzzy. “perfect for each other”, may just not be.

and when did people start to use the word “divorce” as a bargaining tool. as if that is a bargain. divorce seems pretty expensive to me. its sad. and i can see how much relationships need something WAY beyond love or fun in order to last. they need god. they need belief. they need a committment to more than just each other. there needs to be a belief that someone higher and more in control than a simple human, knows that two people belong together….forever.

it makes me sad. and mad. and heart-broken. mostly because i come from the line of thinking that any two people can make it work. but thats the key word, WORK. of course im one of the last people that should be validating marriages or the work i think it takes to keep them in tact, considering i am not married and have never been.

so here’s the the world of married people:

 i need you to work on it. make the rest of us believe that we have a hope. make us believe that our marriages are not doomed from the get-go because of the horrible statistics.

love, the “still” singles of america

1. after my hour long 545am lift class, and 20 minutes running, i spent 10 minutes on the elipti-HELL machine this morning, in front of a tv showing a cartoon with purple and green talking blobs. i think i could actually feel brain cells shriveling up to die.

2. 4 day candy strike is officially over as of today at 906am. HAD to have a york peppermint patty. had to.

3. if there is one good thing coming from working out, it is the fact that when i am at the beach and have to use the bathroom, i can squat over the toilet without my legs shaking like a polariod picture.

him- “how many guys have you said ‘i love you’ to?”

me: “4.”

him: “really? youve really loved that many people?”

me: “yeah. i really did. totally loved them. and i would never say that  i didnt.”

him: “that’s a lot of people. you cant tell me that you were in love with them all.”

me: “i was. and i think that love builds from one relationship to the next.”

him: “wow. youre really lucky to have found that many people to love.”

me: “more than that, i think im even luckier to have had that many people love me.”

i wrote an entry about this a few years ago but it got deleted in the miserable deletion fiasco of opendiary. i started loving people early on in life. i thank my mom for that. we have always been a hugging/loving family and that has runneth over into my relationships.

 i loved my high school boyfriend. he was not a goodie-goodie guy, thats for sure. we were together for two years. i just recently figured out that the whole time, we were just mirroring what we understood relationships to be at the time. im glad that i had good family and friend relationships to use as a basis.

then i loved a mormon boy. could have been with him forever…..still think so. next was my clean-cut, short-haired-tiny white-guy christian boyfriend….who, 2 years after breaking up wanted to meet with me for lunch. he showed up to lunch with black dred-locks past his shoulders, 14 tattoos all over his body, and grunged out clothing from head to old vans. loved him. next came the fun guy…..lots of PDA and a year of saturdays at the motorcycle track.

since then there have been a few boys, but nothing substantial.

there have been lots of boys who i loved from high school until today. only four were the in love kind….the rest were just people i knew i couldnt live without in one way or another at one time or another. there are still a few boys who are or were a friend who i feel that i need. most of these boys i end up losing….to wives…girlfriends….children….re-location…..or flakiness. I hate losing people.

im a super attached kind of person. and addicted. i love to love people and things. i love meeting and getting to know people. And im a “more the merrier” person which works out well with me since I don’t have a big group of friends who all know each other. Most of my friends are single people out there who know that I love to invite them to the  most random things ever….weddings, bday parties, pre-school graduations, school trips, volleyball games, salsa dancing, angel’s games, holiday things, museums, tennis, plays, walks to the park to swing, yoga….and so on and so on.

All in all, I feel so blessed to have had and to currently have so many people who love me and people to love, in my life. I love that I have a gauge to work with. Having had great relationships and love experiences with boys, I have high expectations for the next ones to come along.

Or should I say, next ONE?