Tag Archives: family

Re-entry

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Arriving home from the Ranch is a shock to the system.  It might as well be on another planet, the atmosphere is so noticeably different from our daily world. We call the transition from ranch to real world “re-entry”.

For a week, you live in a sage, rosemary and jasmine-scented wonderland where the loudest sound is the crows calling out to each other across the valley.  Food magically arrives in front of you; just picked fresh fruit and vegetables from the six-acre organic garden and fish that was swimming in the ocean just a few hours earlier – fully of healthy things and delicious. There’s not a car, television or iPhone in sight. Everyone is snug in their beds by 10 p.m. and up before 7. Days are spent between yoga, meditation and luxurious massages – in a haven where everything that happens is for your personal well-being.

I made the mistake of hosting a rollicking 4th of July party on Sunday, just one day after I arrived home.  Although I told everyone to come at 4:00, my first guests arrived at noon.  Here, in the real world, no one is concerned for my personal well-being.  It was ten hours of sheer pandemonium – with kids playing hide-and-seek between house and yard, stereo and TV blaring and more carne asada than should be legal.  I spent the entire day cooking, cleaning dishes, cleaning up after other people…and just generally “fetching things” for my guests.  Everyone finally cleared out around 10 pm, leaving me with a sink full of dessert dishes, firework “butts” in the front yard and a house full of dirt, crumbs, spilled drinks and wet towels.

Re-entry was definitely a little bumpy this year.

My Secret

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I’ve begun dating someone new – and I’m keeping him a secret.  No, I’m not having an affair and there’s nothing elicit about our liaison. Why, then, is mums the word? I’ve come to the realization that my relationship trouble starts to bubble once “others” are invited in.  Things are fine and dandy until I introduce him to the friends and family.  For example, I have a dear friend who dislikes 50% of the guys I bring ‘round.  She also says, within two minutes of me announcing I’ve met someone, “what’s wrong with him”.  She has a belief that I find fault in every man I date and she wants to know what I don’t like about him.  So, right out of the gate, she has me thinking about his negatives (and, yes, EVERYONE has negatives) and there’s a 50/50 chance she won’t get along with him anyway.  Even though it’s not high on MY agenda, she looks at each of my new paramours as a potential husband and so she is either quick to try to push us towards something serious or dismiss him if it wouldn’t work long-term.  She’s like a Jewish mother in that respect.  My sister, on the other hand, cannot understand why I would date anyone who’s not a wild, artsy, iconoclast at least ten years my junior.  She says, “What does it matter – you’re not going to marry him anyway, right?”  If he has kids or a sensible job, she dismisses him as unworthy of my affections.  If I bring a new boyfriend to meet my brother’s wife and her family, the first question out of their mouths are, “when are you getting married?”  I’m tired of trying to mesh my “dating” world and my “life” world.  This time, I’m going out with him, we’re having a good time and friends and family be damned.

We’ll see if this works any better.