Memory Holders

Prior to the breakup (see immediately previous post), I had developed a number of the photographs from the trips to Malta and Spain.  After the breakup, I had to decide what to do with them.  For some reason, I have a hard time throwing out any photo of any kind.  Something about that glossy photo paper, just says I can’t throw it away where the memory captured will slowly decay into nothing.  Maybe I would be okay with burning them, like the American flag.  But I don’t have a fireplace, so I simply hold on to them.

 

So for 6 months, I had these photographs sitting on my desk, in those little cardboard carrying cases that you get from the developer, while I thought about what to do with them.  A large part of me said to throw them out.  If I should change my mind in the future, I always have the digital copies.  I should throw them out because it helps the process of moving on, and is emotionally easier.  Additionally, it could be awkward if I should ever happen to find another girlfriend and she sees them.  But I didn’t like these options for a number of reasons.

 

First, who goes and looks at old digital photos?  No one.  This culture has gone digital and it is not for the better.  We have lost a layer of intimacy.  What produces the more profound emotion, holding an actual photograph of your memory, or seeing it on a computer screen?  There is a difference.  More of our senses are involved with the actual photograph.  We can touch it, hold it close, maybe even smell it if we are keeping it in a box that has scents from the experience.  It is more personal.  And we are far more willing to pull out a photo album and reminisce, than we are to pull out the computer and load up the photos.  Plus they are great coffee table fillers.  Digital copies should serve as backups and nothing more.

 

Second, why are we always so eager to do what is emotionally easy?  If we have an incredible experience and some tragedy occurs afterwards, that doesn’t mean we should stop remembering the good times.  When your spouse of 40 years dies, do you simply decide to burn all the memories and forget you were ever married?  We mustn’t live in the past, but we also shouldn’t pretend like it never happened.

 

And as for future girlfriends, they’ll just have to get over it.  I had an adventure and I’m not going to hide the fact.

 

So, while it took me awhile to make up my mind, I decided to keep the photos and get an album for them.

 

Which brings us to the purpose of this post.  Photo Albums.  Picking one out was a terrible experience.  I was appalled, offended, and ready to scream.  The albums were devoid of any quality.  They were flimsy, cheaply made, messes.  Pages were wrinkled, easily ripped, and offered insecure holdings for the photos.  Think about who buys photo albums anymore.  Despite all my comments above, most of today’s culture won’t buy photo albums, because their digital backups are their main means of presenting the photos.  That means the people who buy photo albums are those who really have something worth preserving, at least in their lives.  These are some of their most cherished memories, to be shared and remembered, and the offerings to preserve some of those memories were cheap filth.  That the makers of the albums, and the stores that sold them, felt these were in any way suitable was what got me so mad.

 

After going to 3 different stores, my fourth stop landed me at Jo-Ann Fabrics, where I was able to find a photo album that didn’t make me want to throw it against the wall.  As a side note, I noticed it also happened to be made in America.

 

It isn’t a perfect album, but the main problem I have with it is not its fault, but has to do with the mechanism for keeping the photos in place.  I have what they call the magnetic paper.  That’s where you lay the photo on a sheet of paper in whatever orientation you want, and the paper is slightly sticky to keep the photo in place.  Then you place a thin transparent plastic sheet on top of the page.  That thin plastic sheet is a huge pain!  It is staticy which means dust loves it.  And once that dust touches the sticky paper, you’ve got a mess on your hands. And it is really hard to keep out air bubbles, due to the thickness of the photos themselves.  The thin plastic sheet is meant to lie perfectly flat, but the photos add the smallest of change in height from an otherwise flat surface, and the think plastic sheet doesn’t know what to do about it.  So you get air-bubbles.  And because the pages are slightly flimsy, you can get more or less air-bubbles just by simply flexing the sheets.  But the benefit is that the photos aren’t going to budge, and you can orient them however you want.

Flowers

After the trip to Spain, Mellen and I essentially became pen-pals for the time being.  With her still being over there, until later this month, there was little we could do other than write each other letters and Skype.  Unlike myself, Mellen's days are full of activities and true to the Spanish culture sometimes she is out until about the time I wake up to start my day!  But she has always found sometime to talk.

 

We talk about all sorts of things, such as what I had to get Brittany for her birthday, and how what I wanted to get her was all wrong.  She also has the tendency to find 20 things I am doing wrong, and 100 ways on how to improve myself.  Haha, I always like guessing what new thing she's going find that I need to do.  Like how I need to go to Mass more, or pray more, or read more, or play less video games.  She even got me to change my brand of milk!  But it is all enjoyable.  And we talk a lot about our future plans and God's will for us, and how He is calling her to the religious life.

Oh my.

On March 20th, she let me know that we can no longer date because she felt a strong internal push towards the religious life and that she needed to explore this.  We decided that we would talk again on Father's Day to see how things were going, but until then communication was "illegal".  I lasted a good two days.  But then I got quiet, and nearly a month later we came to Father's Day.

On Father's Day she said that she was still feeling a strong calling to the religious life.  But the conversation was good and not too awkward.  Or at least I felt I did a good job not being tremendously awkward, just my typical really uncomfortable awkward.  We planned our next conversation to be a little sooner.  This time we decided to talk on July 5th.  Actually, she planned to talk on July 4th, but because I couldn't stop laughing about the idea of us "celebrating our independence day", she made me wait another day which brought us to the 5th.  And that is today!

The first span of quiet time, that part leading up to Father's Day, wasn't too bad.  The night I received the news, I felt the only appropriate thing to do was to go get a carton of ice-cream.  I brought it home, and was looking at it, but then decided the most appropriate thing to do was not have it.  So I gave up ice-cream and pop, and still haven't had any since.  I felt this would also allow me to have an excuse against any particularly obscene flair ups that I might have at completely inappropriate times, such as at Brittany's upcoming birthday 5 days later.  Fortunately however, I did not have any flair ups, and the month went by alright.

The second time span, even though it was only around 2 weeks was much more difficult.  Haha, I even started learning Herb Alpert's "This Guy's In Love" on the piano.  Actually I'm still practicing it, but wow am I tone deaf.  You may not see it posted up here anytime soon.  This goes beyond vanity and is more out of charity to your ears.  A part of the difficulty is that for various reasons I strongly believed that Mellen and I were supposed to be in the relationship.  So if she is really meant to join the religious life, then that means I am mistaken.  So I had to re-evaluate some things and pray.  Eventually I finally (finally because I've known about them for a long time but never took the time to bother looking them up) came across St. Teresa of Avila and St. Therese of Lisieux.  They fixed me right up.  Actually if you ever wonder what Mellen sounds like to talk to, just read St. Therese of Lisieux's autobiography.  Mellen sounds identical (in engineering, 'identical' is how we say something with 5 exclamation marks) to St. Therese of Lisieux.  So these readings and others were comforting and helped me at least get my mind rightly oriented which is to say focused on God rather than on "poor poor pitiful me".

Which brings us to today's conversation.  Today, she told me that now she absolutely believes she is not called to be married.  And so now it is a matter of her determining what sort of religious life is meant for her.  This naturally means that our story has likely come to a close.

Lean Eats

Pamplona was incredible and a bit of a culture shock even though Spain is still a "Western" country.  But first, a word on flights.  The first time I flew to Madrid (going on to Malta), I flew American Airlines, and the second time I flew Delta.  Overall I preferred Delta.  The one area they slacked on was the hot towel.  Other than that, I preferred the meal and the in flight entertainment.  But I think both were very comparable overall.  There was plenty of legroom in both cabins.  However, for these long trips, I advise getting a window seat.  In general, I prefer an aisle seat, but on the long trips a window seat gives your head a prop.  When I flew to Madrid the first time, I had an aisle seat, and quickly learned that not being able to lean yourself up against a surface can become very uncomfortable.  You think you can simply tilt your head back on the headrest but that requires muscles and when you sleep, so do your muscles which brings your head forward and bobbling around.

At the Madrid airport, Mellen was waiting for me with a huge sign so I couldn't miss her.   We planned a time to meet and a gate to meet at.  I arrived very early and she got delayed so I had about an hour and a half to kill.  We were going to meet at a particular cafe at Terminal 4, which is where international flights go.  So I found the cafe, and anxiously tried to read for class.  The hour and a half came and went.  Another half an hour went by and I got a little concerned.  We had a backup plan that if we should miss one another, I would purchase a ticket and take the 6 hour bus ride to Pamplona from Madrid and meet her at her apartment.  I started walking around, and learned that I was at Terminal 1.  I was supposed to be Terminal 4!  And I had no way of contacting her!  So I hopped on a bus, and rode over to 4, and immediately found her walking around with the huge sign.  She had had a 6 hour bus ride and I the 9 hour flight, so we were very hungry and we had our second date, this time at the airport McDonalds.  Chicken nuggets and a chocolate shake never tasted so good.

We then got on the next bus out, and rode to Pamplona.  I don't remember sleeping.  I think we talked the entire 6 hour ride.

The entire time I was in Pamplona we had a blast.  Unlike Malta, the bus schedule is not as frequent, so we missed a lot of buses and had lots of down time as a result.  This was not so bad, because instead of running around everywhere, it meant that we could simply pal around like chums and take things at a more relaxed pace.  That was first time we simply hung out like normal people.

The culture shock, as you might guess, was the food.  In Spain, they don't really eat much.  Portions are much smaller, like they might have half a chicken breast for dinner.  On the final night, I made Mellen and her roommates, stuffed peppers with mashed potatoes, and Mellen made brownies.  The Americans who joined us were so happy to have a proper meal!

First Date in Malta

Malta is a beautiful country.  The citizens are friendly and English-speaking, the food is great, the cities are safe and the scenery is fantastic.  I met Mary Ellen at the Madrid airport the following morning of my arrival to Madrid.  Being unfamiliar with the area and airport, I got there first by about an hour.  Turns out, if I knew what I was doing I probably could have shown up about 1hour before my flight and had time to spare.

 

When Mary Ellen arrived I immediately recognized her.  Happily, she was not a 300 pound creepy looking man.  She looked just like her photos.  Not wanting to make the initial greeting awkward we had already decided that we would follow the traditional Spanish greeting of kissing cheeks.  Upon further inquiry I learned that this actually meant kissing the air, and that you lean left first.  So we did that and then had about 1.5  - 2 hours to talk before the flight.  So we did that.  It was primarily a mixture of chit-chat and indepth discussions.  I don't remember having any awkward moments, but there was a bit of anxiousness on my part and she probably had some too.  Recall that we had not even spoken on the phone prior to meeting.  Outside of e-mails, and just a couple text-based chats, this was our first time having a real conversation.

 

During the flight, it was more of the same.  However, I remember we brought books in case we felt that we needed breaks during the trip from one another.  We are both taking classes and we made plans before hand to have time in the afternoon to study.  So during the flight she pulled out a spiritual based book on lesson's learned from "It's  A Wonderful Life", and she had me read the first chapter aloud.  We were going to read a chapter a day.

 

None of this really creeped me out.  Actually I greatly approved of one of her books, the writings of Josemaria Escriva.  He is awesome.

 

When we landed we got a taxi and road to our Bed and Breakfast.  Mary Ellen heard of this place that charges only $35 a night, and is located in the heart of beautiful Valletta.  The Bed and Breakfast was run by an 80 year old 4 foot tall lady.  She was incredibly sweet, and like anyone her age would not suffer fools.  Mary Ellen caught her yelling at someone who wasn't behaving.  But as far as guests in the Bed and Breakfast, it was just her and I for all but the very first night, where there was one other guest.  We had huge separate rooms and our own showers.  So it was very nice.  At nights we would sit in the kitchen and watch movies on my computer since the Bed and Breakfast had free wi-fi.

 

Our first official date was in a cafe not more than a 5 minutes walk from the Bed and Breakfast.  Although due to the disorienting layout of the city, we had to ask for directions 3 times.  We both had the lasagna.  It was interesting watching one of the locals feed a pigeon part of her lunch while sitting inside the cafe.  The food in Malta was excellent when it was good and unedible when it was bad.  By unedible I don't mean that the ingredients were spoiled, I mean that the cultural differences between their taste and American taste are not necessarily the same.  Our first night, I ordered a dish that came highly recommended by our waiter.  Mary Ellen tried it and then proceeded to laugh at me the rest of the night as I had to eat it or go hungry since it was so late and no other place would be open for service.  While hers was delicious.  But one night we found a restaurant called Nenu.  Oh my.  The chicken.  You have not experienced chicken before.  We had to go back the next night for more.  In fact, we discussed that if we were to marry, Mary Ellen would have to fly the chef (remember the girl's family is in charge of the reception) out to our reception hall, and everyone would eat this chicken dish.  There would be no other vegetarian or meat options.  Just chicken, and everyone would be the happier for it.  I have no idea how it was prepared.  It looked liked a piece of chicken was beat thin, then rolled into a tube without stuffing, then cooked over a charchol grill, and served with a vegetable-based sauce.

 

Mary Ellen and I grew close very fast.  The entire trip was a blast, primarily spent hiking through towns and up and down cliffs, and eating.  We probably ate 5 - 6 times a day.  Mary Ellen is a practicing Catholic who goes to Church every day and that did not change in Malta.  However, I would be surprised to find anyone who would complain about going to Mass in Malta.  These Churches were jaw dropping.  For example, one of them had the floor tiles decorated with skeletons and Death (and also interestingly a seemingly random chicken).  Then as you started to raise your eyes to the ceiling you started seeing the angels and finally at the highest peak the Trinity.  And every view was a masterpiece.  So no complaints.

 

At one point Mary Ellen decided she wanted to be in a relationship.  She wears one of those rings with a heart and depending on how it points it means if you're taken or not.  So when she decided she wanted to date, and I certainly wasn't going to disapprove, she turned her ring around.

 

The final night was actually spent in Madrid.  I was to fly out early the following morning and she was to take a bus back to Pamplona, where she is currently studying.  That night in Madrid we took a taxi to downtown Madrid and had a steak dinner.  The steak seemed very expensive at first.  Then I realized the price was per kilogram.  A kilogram is 2.2. pounds.  And a 2.2. pound steak is quite a thing.  So we ordered one which is served on two very hot plates.  The plates are hot so that the steak does not get cold while you are eating it.  Steaks in Spain are served with french fries.  No baked potatoes, or brocolli, or whatever else you think might go with steak.  French fries.  The idea is that you are to use the french fries to soak up all the juices from the steak.  And what a steak it was.

 

Finally the trip had to come to an end.  When we got back Mary Ellen told her parents.  She did not tell them beforehand!  Could you imagine if your college age daughter were to call you up on the phone and say, "Hi Mom and Dad.  I just got back from a 5 day trip to California (assume you live in Eastern America), which I spent with a guy I had been talking to for the past two weeks online.  We had a blast and now are dating."  The appropriate response is to flip right out.  But no, her parents were thrilled.  Perhaps it's because she is 1 of 10 siblings, but their happiness about the situation caught me by surprise.

 

Since then we continue to talk everyday through e-mail and usually text-based chats.  Typically once a week we have a Skype-date.  And right now I am typing this in the Atlanta airport, because I am currently on my way to go visit her in Pamplona.

Help From Above

The trip to Malta required some planning and I decided to seek the help of a travel agent.  Marilyn, the travel agent's name, helped me book plane tickets and lodging in Madrid.  The idea was I was going to fly to Madrid and then from there fly to Malta with Mary Ellen.  It would be in the Madrid airport where we would first meet. 

Marilyn was very helpful, she booked the flight, found me a hotel with English speaking employees, and she was even able to convert some American currency into Euros.

Recently, my friend's Mom died from cancer.  She had been sick for sometime.  My Mom had told me I needed to pray for her, but I wasn't told why.  So for several months I prayed for my friend's Mom, and then around Christmas I was told the sad news.

It was maybe a month after this time that I started speaking with Mary Ellen.  The interesting thing about all of this is that my friend's Mom name is Marilyn and her daughter (my friend's sister) is named Mary Ellen.

St. Paul's Shipwreck

Having to ever expand my search radius on my current dating sites to impractical distances, I decided perhaps it was time to try another site.  This certainly seemed more reasonable than even considering the possibility that the problem could be with me.  So I signed up for a subscription to a Catholic oriented site.  I already had a profile so I was allowed to creep around, but I couldn't communicate with anyone, and there were several girls I wanted to say hello to.  This now made for site number 4.  But almost immediately I started having some luck.  Sure I still got one response in twenty to my own e-mails, but I was getting a lot of first-time messages from the girls.  Unfortunately, and much like the other sites, it seems it only takes about two messages from me before the girl's alarms start to ring and she bolts.  I'm still puzzled on what exactly I say that is so off-putting because I feel the girls haven't written me enough to determine that quickly how difficult I can be.  I expect them to run, just not so fast.

 

Nevertheless, exactly two weeks ago to the day, I got a message from a girl.  I think I had viewed her first, which she probably saw and gave me a look and then after seeing my manly physique she felt compelled to write.  Actually it was the site's version of a wink.  Anyway, while I liked her photos, I had some misgivings about her profile.  Oh, it was a great profile.  She was clearly someone I had to write.  But it was a very happy profile.  All these hahahas, and exclamation points all over the place.  It was all a bit much.  In fact, to highlight my point here is a passage from her profile:

Don't stop reading because I am in Spain...for that would make you a GIVER-UPPER! hahaha!

All caps, two exclamation points, and a hahaha.  Oh my.  However, she has a tremendous smile, and I can't really fault someone for being happy so I decided to send her a message.

But then there's that whole bit about Spain.  It turns out she is studying abroad there until May or June.  Well alright, I can live with that so no problems I suppose.  And we've been talking a bunch.  A bit surprisingly because as bubbly as she is, I really have no idea why she keeps writing a non-bubbly guy like me.  But she does.

Next week I have to take a holiday.  It's a long involved account of how work does vacation, but basically I'm going to have 4 days off next week.  And I am in the mood to go skiing.  I called up some friends who live somewhat nearby where I wanted to go, but unfortunately they couldn't join.  Then I thought that I hadn't been to the Alps in Italy before so maybe I should go there.  So I asked Mellen, I call her Mellen, if she'd want to take a train from Spain to Italy to go skiing in the Alps with me.  Okay, that would be a little crazy, but I put the question as a joke so while she could say yes, she could just awkwardly laugh it off.  But no, I got neither of that.  Instead I was informed by her that the Alps are crazy hard so it might not be best to go there if my skill level is not much higher than being able to sit up right on a moving sled.  And it isn't.

So now we're going to Malta instead.  I fly out Sunday to meet her in Madrid where we'll be catching a flight that day to Malta and then spending the next four days exploring the Mediterranean island and its neighbor Gozo.