Carie Lieu

I like what I like. I write what I write. Now leave me alone. @carielieu

[carielieu]

Pain is Inevitable; Suffering is Optional

From the archives...

Jackie Kennedy: She also wrote candidly of her concerns that JFK might stray. "He's like my father in a way," she wrote to the priest in the early days of her romance with the future U.S. president. "Loves the chase and is bored with the conquest and once married, needs proof he's still attractive, so flirts with other women and resents you. I see how that nearly killed Mummy." 

At a certain point I had to come to terms with what lie ahead. Having a partner that closely fit the description above would forever require me to walk on egg shells to protect my husband's ego in the name of our marriage. It would call for a life without authenticity. In his words, it would be contrived. In my opinion, it would be unbearable. I would have to bite my tongue and suffer in silence for fear of him and his affairs. To continue on this path would be to accept this insufferable arrangement. So I chose the unknown over my ticking time bomb of a husband as he proved his promises to be worthless. "You inspire me to be better." "I want to be better for you." Ha. 

Some of his blood acknowledged his cheating ways, “He isn’t capable of being faithful…” Some of his closest friends told me, “He doesn’t deserve you…” My best friends said, “I never liked him…” My mom: “Are you sure you want to marry him?”

Everyone was talking under the assumption, better late than never. Thanks, all. Tell me how you really feel, all after the fact.

Years later, I am choosing a different partner and hence, a different life. My ex’s pattern, his history, his cheating, his story, are no longer mine. I can finally see his deficiencies, or qualities that I have no use for. 

Marriage, even the second time around, will be challenging. But from where I stand, the outlook looks much improved. Goodbye past heartache, hello future adventure!

[carielieu]

Curse of Knowledge

From the archives...

A self-proclaimed soothsayer once said to me, "you're too smart for your own good, but not smart enough." I would have to begrudgingly agree that this is an accurate assessment given all that transpired while my husband was having his affair...

I still recall the first night when he didn't come home because he "fell asleep at Charlie's" (where are you...where am I?).  The day his mistress walked past me in Chinatown, NY wearing his company's baseball cap (cute cap, ugly girl).  The day he was spotted in SF or the times in LA and later in Asia. Too many indiscretions, too many eyes, too many wagging tongues, and ultimately, too little secrets. I didn't need to hack computers or hire private detectives. My network fed me information and mosaic theory confirmed it. 

In hindsight, perhaps I should have appreciated his lies because at least he cared enough to put on a show. How's that for some positive thinking?

[carielieu]

Me Tarzan, You Jane

From the archives...

There is a category of men that I’ve learned to avoid: the profligate privileged.

It is my belief that they have an insatiable need to be admired, a thirst rooted in self-esteem issues. These men are like children in some ways. They want to be gazed upon with awe. Perhaps this is why we see older men with younger women. My own husband preferred the company of women 6+ years his junior. What you get with this sort of age gap is a different mentality. I was trying to start a family and build a future, wife material, but dull. A younger model is less concerned with marriage and its trappings and may prove to be more fun and carefree. They may have accomplished less career wise and look up to their older partners for direction, thereby making the man feel like the big man. With women better educated and achieving more in the workplace, being close in age changes the dynamics of such relationships. Power struggles versus mentor-mentee dynamics. 

Obviously I'm stereotyping and simplifying and there are always exceptions, but this is my blog and I'll write what I want. 

[carielieu]

Thanksgiving Year Round

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” -1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

From the archives...

Supporting my endeavors are all of the wonderful people in my life who maintain my sanity in my times of need. My family and friends, both those who know every trespass against me and the marriage and those who remain unaware, have been my life raft while I navigate the turbulent waters. Having suffered betrayal in every sense of the word, I have come to possess a greater appreciation for the good people in my life. Those who make the conscience decision to choose - to choose day in and day out to do the right thing despite the challenges. I look to them for inspiration and guidance in my attempt to take the road less traveled so that I may emerge untainted by the prior evil and lies enveloping me to continue on with my life with my head held high and life in plain view.

To be unappreciative of the good in our lives can be a severe Achilles heel and can lead to one’s downfall. I’ve always prided myself on a general level of good sense. These days I can finally set aside my disappointments and disbelief in order to appreciate all the blessings in my life. For those who are never satisfied or who cannot give thanks for their good fortune, well, that’s just asking for it. Perspective, perspective, perspective. Another round of turkey, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie for me as I celebrate the spirit of Thanksgiving all year long.

[carielieu]

Hocus Pocus Fishbones Choke Us

From the archives...

My ex-mother-in-law once said - sometimes when all is going to the shitter, you have to consult alternative sources. With no hope on the marriage horizon, I abandoned my pre-conceived notions, temporarily at least, and sought counsel from a fortune teller, a hypnotist, an astrologist and a person with psychic tendencies.

I submitted our birth dates, times and places. I questioned, I listened, I tried to believe. I changed my name, I changed some ways, I changed...but the situation? Not so much. Instead, I was left with a mess of confusion, uncertainty, headache and heartache. Grasping at straws at its best. A Hail Mary shot at marital survival. 

According to the stars and planets, 2011 was supposed to be an improvement over the prior 2 years of crappy “luck.” It started well enough but my already fragile universe came crashing down mid-March 2011. 

However, one thing has rang true or perhaps coincidentally so. Whatever it is, I am grateful for the appearance of a number of helpers or guardian angels who have been particularly kind to me in my time of need. 

My soothsayer says that my big love arrives in 2012. 

Sometimes I want to go back to some of the people I consulted with and do a follow-up session.

Would I do it again? I don’t know. "I don't know" has become my standard response to almost everything because it’s the one truth I have in my life.

I want to know what the new tea leaves now say about my new life. 

[carielieu]

Life Lesson on Attitude

"In addition to friendship, attitude is one of the few things in life where we have a true choice. We cannot change what is fated to happen or the actions of events or other people.

What we can change is our reaction to such things with the attitude we adopt. In truth, our attitude can be more important than anything we do. It can make or break families, companies, and nations. It is more important than schooling, talent, looks, or wealth.

How we react is everything and our attitude is the choice we have; it is a choice we make every minute of every day. It is a state of mind that no one can take from us. If we are in control of our attitudes, we are in command of our lives. And that is the best way to live."

-Active Sports, Inc. www.the-house.com

[carielieu]

The One, the Only, the Doctorate

In December 2013, the Doctorate and I met at a mandatory dinner, coerced by our respective families to show up and play nice. With our parents in attendance, we were assigned to sit side by side in a matchmaking exercise. Strange? Awkward? Traditional? Yes, to all of the above. 

Our meeting was unusual, our newfound relationship unexpected. But in less than six months, we've already discussed plans for my name change - Mrs. Doctorate. That's my name, don't wear it out. 

"It will be a little messy, but embrace the mess. It will be complicated, but rejoice in the complications. It will not be anything like what you think it will be like, but surprises are good for you. And don’t be frightened: you can always change your mind. I know: I’ve had four careers and three husbands." -Nora Ephron (1996 Wellesley commencement speech)

[carielieu]

From Father to Son

A letter from Jason Biggs to his son.

Sid, 

I wanted to write you a note on our progress as a father/son team now that you're 4 months old. I, for one, am having a blast. Judging by your chuckles and coos and general inability to control your bowels when I'm around, I'd say you're having fun too. 

But I want to prepare you for a time when things won't be as easy between us. You see, your daddy - despite his very best efforts - will make mistakes. It is just one of life's many inevitabilities. Now, I know what you're thinking: impossible! Not my daddy! He's so strong and handsome and funny...and handsome! Well, sure. But your daddy is also human. And being that he is a first-time parent, he is learning as he goes. (First thing he should probably learn: Stop speaking in the third person.)

These mistakes will be subtle or obvious. You will shrug them off or you may never forget them. Perhaps, like my father when I was small, I will lose you on a crowded beach, leaving you to wander for what seems like days. You'll have just resigned yourself to becoming one of those weird old dudes who scavenges the beach with a metal detector when you'll be grabbed by a lifeguard who will hold you up, Lion King-style, shouting, "Has anyone lost this kid?!" And I'll come running, shouting back, "Yes! Yes! He's mine!"

I can't predict how I will mess up. But I assure you that everything I do, every decision I make, will be filled with love. And if you are ever unhappy with me, I encourage you to let me know, so that I may make the necessary changes. 

I leave you with an apology, for my future missteps: Sorry, kiddo. I promise to do better next time. 

Love always, Daddy

P.S. I'm also sorry for using the word inevitabilities. I imagine you're gonna have to look that one up. 

Source: redbookmag.com 

[carielieu]

Fate and Facebook Brought Us Together

Our story began in December of 2002. Sweaty and frazzled, I fell into my aisle seat, the last to board the plane. After my semester abroad, his mastery of the English language was music to my ears. As an added bonus, this tall, broad shouldered gentleman in the window seat was easy on the eyes. I abandoned my policy of not talking to strangers and initiated contact. We spent the hour long flight chatting, oblivious to the gentleman unfortunate enough to be sandwiched in between us. Before we deplaned, my airplane stranger took my hand and wrote down his number. Sadly, his height and musculature didn't translate over the phone...

Years later, Facebook would help me find "the boy from the plane". In December 2009, seven years after our fateful encounter 30,000 feet in the air, he would become my husband.  

Fate and Facebook brought us together, poor judgment sustained us and incompatible values would tear us apart...ours was a fairy tale that descended into a book of horror. 

[carielieu]

Egg Freezing, the Modern Woman's Egg Hunt

In 2014, I will earn my MBA and embark on a new career. 

Academics - check.

Career - in progress.

Motherhood – to be determined.

To celebrate the final chapter of my 22-year academic endeavor, I will spend my last summer vacation freezing my eggs while my younger classmates travel the world.

The reality is that I am 33 this year and my eggs are on the decline. While I’m conflicted about kids, I’m only one year away from the dreaded 34, otherwise known as the age when women become increasingly susceptible to higher risk pregnancies. Without a life partner and unwilling (at this point) to go at it alone, the odds of avoiding a higher risk pregnancy appear slim to none. So to give my maternal genes more time to kick in, I’m buying an option on motherhood and investing in an expensive summer project - egg harvesting. Let the egg hunt begin!

[carielieu]

The One Who Got Away

AY. The first boy to ever like me. My protector during playtime, the one who made sure I was never picked last, my first crush. I discovered and reciprocated his feelings too late, a pattern that would repeat in my life.

Timid as a mouse, I relied on him to take care of me in large gatherings. Three years my senior, he gave me the best hide-and-seek spots and won stuffed animals for me in Vegas. He was my guardian, playmate, and hero in those years before first grade. Holding his hand, I would look up into his handsome face for assurance in overwhelming situations. He was my rock. 

My feelings of admiration and adoration quickly intensified when I learned of his fondness for me when he was accused of playing favorites "just because he likes Carie." Of course, my awkwardness interfered for a number of years until I moved away after third grade...

Six years later in the prime of my adolescence, I returned to California to finish high school. My discomfort with myself plagued our every interaction. Standing before me was my childhood crush - UC Berkeley golden boy standing 6'1", a delicious 180 pounds of perfection. And there I was, a gawky high school kid with bad posture who could barely make eye contact, let alone carry on a semi-intelligent conversation. I wasn't stupid, but his good looks and easygoing manner rendered me deaf and dumb. I still cringe when I think back to when I overdosed on cough syrup in his presence because I was too nervous to understand the instructions ("Are you sure you're taking the correct amount?"). Or the time he invited me to get Jamba Juice and I declined, only to nurse my sad mung bean dessert at a table full of adults...every interaction presented more downside risk than upside because I couldn't behave like a normal human being.  

When I was accepted to UC Berkeley both sets of parents excitedly decided that his parents or my potential in-laws would help me move into the dorms. I finally graduated from high school, but not from my awkwardness nor foolishness. Six hours of quality car time degraded by my nervous, incessant chatter about my shoe collection. Long story short, my freshman self failed to impress my senior crush and that opportune year of overlap came and went. 

He eventually started dating a fellow classmate and after a couple of communications that year, our paths never crossed again. Over the years, our mothers exchanged updates and sighs of regrets over what never was. Unfortunately for him, our mothers' wishful thinking jokingly continues to this day despite his marriage.

In hindsight, I failed to take advantage of our proximity to cultivate a relationship, let alone a friendship. He was my 情梅竹馬 in childhood but a stranger in adulthood. I put him on a pedestal as a child and took him off as an adult. The stars never aligned for us to rekindle our childhood closeness, or rather, I never got out of my own way. Though there is little to regret (besides my sub-optimal behavior), I sometimes wonder what could have been...with the one who got away. 

[carielieu]

My Scumbag aka BFF

From the days of yore...

I’ve never been in the habit of engaging in public displays of affection or  proclamations of love on social media sites. In fact, I used to and sometimes still ridicule those who uninhibitedly share their relationship status online. However, once in a blue moon I come across a couple who give me hope rather than trigger my gag reflex. In an attempt to find a happy medium between being a hater and an overexposed blogger, I dedicate this one post to my special someone, aka my Scumbag.

They say love happens when you least expect it and I have found that to be true. From the first moment of eye contact and physical proximity, there was something happening on a molecular level that I cannot explain to this day. According to him, “I’m kind of a big deal and you knew it.” As much as I hate to admit it, he’s right, because there’s no other explanation for my uncharacteristic behavior following that fateful encounter. We can call it chemicals, pheromones, or just plain fairy dust. Whatever it was, I now refer to him as MY Scumbag rather than THAT scumbag.

So here I am on a new romantic adventure where I find myself wildly entertained by my partner’s antics and attempts to make me smile. Careful to preserve his public facade of being an asshole, I won’t be sharing specifics except to say that his private monologues, songs and dances, our inappropriate and nonsensical conversations and our shared smart-ass tendencies amuse me to no end.

He once said, “I know you hate me so much right now, but one day I’ll make you happy.” Little does he know, he already does. And there ends my mushy post declaring my fondness for a certain Scumbag who taught me how to live, laugh and love again. xoxo.

“I am because you are.” -African proverb

[carielieu]

Reparation

"No one other than he who inflicted the wound can heal it." And then he says that a man who has done evil must (1) "with a broad and enduring wave of light" find self-illumination about the sum total of his guilt; (2) even after he has long passed out of guilt to persevere in "humble knowledge" that he is the same man as the man who was guilty; (3) and then proceed on to reparation of the wounds he has caused. Those wouldn't cannot be called back or wiped away. But "the wounds...can be healed in infinitely many other places than those at which they were inflicted." - Phillip Graham

[carielieu]

To love and to cherish, for better or worse, for richer or for poorer...

Pre-wedding letter from Mary Gates to Melinda soon-to-be Gates:

Dear Melinda,

In just a few hours you will be married and you and I will share the same name!

Although Bill and I have been married 42 years, we continue to learn what it means to be married.

"To Love and To Cherish" - Celebrate his good points and remember you don't have to love everything about him. If you see some things about him that you simply have to improve upon (things his mother did not get just right) recognize...re-forming a husband is a long term project and it doesn't always work out. Sometimes it is better to reform one's own expectations.

"For Better or Worse" - Don't expect calm waters. Pray for courage. Keep your sense of humor. No man and woman ever had a perfectly harmonious marriage. A good marriage takes effort, resilience, and suppression of personal ego, but the fundamental requirement is living with the fixed vision that your relationship is permanent and forever.

"For Richer or Poorer" - There have been but few couples for whom this phrase has had such special meaning. Everyday will test the need for a sense of humility about your circumstances. Your lifetime together will, in the end, be a verdict on your recognition of the extraordinary obligations which accompany extraordinary resources.

...Mary Gates

Source: Showing Up for Life: Thoughts on the Gifts of a Lifetime by Bill Gates Sr.

[carielieu]

Prince Charming? No, Prince Charm Me.

Given my pattern, I have to confess that I am attracted to bad boys. It's true, guilty as charged, like a moth to a flame. These boys have wicked humor, swag galore, and know how to do a thing or two. Best of all, they don't apologize for their self-confidence and a demeanor that stems from a robust self-esteem. These boys are few and far between in my dictionary and not suitable for the faint of heart. And no, my ex-husband was more of a lost boy than a bad boy. With him, I let my head overrule my heart and put greater emphasis on what he looked like on paper as opposed to what he actually brought to the table. Reason told me he was the safer, logical option. How ironic that my lost boy hurt more than all the bad boys combined. 

Maybe the heart does know best. New math for a new me: Feeling > Logic. As one of my favorite bad boys advised, "Just f@ck everyone and do you." Regret nothing, deny everything. Amen. 

"On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux." -La Petit Prince (translation: The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes, but with the heart.) 

[carielieu]

WIP: Work in Progress

..."The reality was that I was alone not because of my politics but because I did not know how to live in a decent way with another human being. In the name of equality I tormented every man who'd ever loved me until he left me: I called them on everything, never let anything go, held them up to accountability in ways that wearied us both. There was, of course, more than a grain of truth in everything I said, but those grains, no matter how numerous, need not have become the sand pile that crushed the life out of love." -Vivian Gornich from Bitch in the House

There's really not much to add except to admit that it described how I became at the end of my last relationship. I had little to nothing to look forward to in my career and marriage and so I took a magnifying glass to examine my relationship to its eventual death. Now it's time I applied this same magnification to my own personal flaws and deficiencies. No double standard for the sake of self-preservation. Only by turning inward can I move forward and become a better version of my former self. 2013: Carie Lieu 2.0.

[carielieu]

Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda

Me: (rinsing apples)

Aunt: "That's not clean enough."

Me (sarcastic): "Shall I boil some water to rinse off the germs?"

Aunt: "You can't do housework. That's why you got left."

We stared at each other for a few seconds and then burst out laughing at her inappropriate and wicked sense of humor as my marriage fell apart. Yes, this conversation really happened. 

*End Scene*

All joking aside, I made my fair share of mistakes and I must also shoulder part of the blame for the demise of the marriage. We harbored poison from our dating phase and it festered in our marriage from beginning to end. We both suffered from each other's poor judgment and behaviors - his many indiscretions and my building resentment, both pre- and post-wedding. We both could have spared each other and our family and friends the pain and heartache that his affair would wreak. But we couldn't stop the train that was our relationship and the wreck that was our marriage. My perseverance became my Achilles' heel as I sought to maintain the union for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. 

In hindsight there were many things that I should have done differently. For starters, I should have taken a page from his book and accepted his family's financial support without shame. Instead, I was embarrassed by my unemployment and worried about his spendthrift ways. There was no way he could have bankrupted us but my actions suggested otherwise. Many of his elders asked me in private to help him manage money and I took this responsibility much too seriously. Despite my good intentions, my execution was poor and the results an utter failure. In the past he had said, "you inspire me to be better...I want to be better for you," but I failed to note that he no longer spoke those words. 

If I could do it all over again, I would be more carefree about our finances, but that's not who I was or who I am. I became the naysayer to vacations, dinners, shopping...all the elements that had sustained our relationship before. I removed what I felt were frivolous expenses, but those were the elements that sustained us, the oxygen to our relationship. I took the fun out of our relationship and family and so he sought it elsewhere.

Facing setbacks in the office and disappointment in the industry, he needed a safe haven that I failed to provide. I wanted a man to make my world safe and secure. He needed a woman to look up to him and hold his hand. In the end, we were two kids in over our heads, neither mature enough to rise above the fray and make the necessary sacrifices for the greater good.

And so it all unraveled and I found myself alone for the first time since turning 18...coulda, woulda, shoulda...