You can't hurry love -INS

You guys, I am in love. And I am blessed to be in love with a wonderful man, my best friend, my fiance.

These are suppose to be the best days, ya know? Going to drink coffee at a cafe in the City after work, folding our linens on laundry day, as I introduce him to Marc Anthony, blasting on the speakers. Watching pre-season baseball at the Courtyard Ale house while eating sandwiches and drinking Magners. Sleeping in on a Saturday, ordering Indian food for lunch, and going to the gym to burn it off (the gym is his idea. DEFINITELY not mine lol). Sitting with him on Mondays, watching WWE raw, enamored with how his dimples form and his smile beams when Roman Reigns kicks the bad guy's butt.

We should be planning the wedding: a Sunday in June, as his family is off on Sundays. We should be visiting venues, tasting menu suggestions, and thinking about who we will offend for not inviting them. I should be freaking out at the dining table over how much detail is involved, while he walks over to me from the kitchen, bringing tea, and a gentle kiss for my forehead. A kiss that instantly puts out the fire that feeds my anxiety.

We should also be acclimating to each other's ways: I don't eat meat and he doesn't eat pork. I pray before my meals and he prays 5 times a day. I go to church on Sunday and he fasts for a month out of the year. We put up the tree in December for Christmas, and we visit his cousins for Eid.

Unfortunately, we haven't been able to do any of the above, even though we have been together for some time. Because, he is a man who lives in Dubai, and is Muslim. And it is quite hard for "his kind" to be allowed here, in the U.S. He was granted a visa to come visit, and then, a few days later, it was put on "hold". That was almost 2 months ago. My theory is someone who works at INS, perhaps a supporter of one of the current presidential candidates, realized that "that" box was checked on the application, and decided that my fiance was a "bad guy".

And that was it. Some guy at INS decided that we can't hurry our love. That this weekend, Chase, my fiance, will not be with me when I go grocery shopping. Or that tomorrow morning, when I wake up for work, undoubtedly late, Chase won't be there to have coffee with me, and we won't talk about the co-worker at work who I perpetually wish diarhea on. Or that on Sunday, while I am home reading the paper, we won't be planning to have lunch with my mom, and then dinner with his cousins and their kids.

I can't even plan our birthdays, which are ten days apart, and fastly approaching. It breaks my heart to wake up in the morning, and not see him next to me. I mean, my three furballs are with me, and I adore my kitties. So that definitely helps. But there is this life that is meant to be lived, with someone who makes me better, makes me want to be better, accepts me for me: my awesomeness, my humor, my illness, my past, my sensitivety, my cankles that appear for 5 days out of the month, my culture, my faith, my independence, etc. As I equally accept him for him: his positivety, his strength, his love of corny jokes, his dorky humor, his bravery, his "I don't give a shit what anybody thinks, but I will respect you" smile, his faith, his culture, his values, etc.

And all we can do is wait. Wait for the day when I will come home after a long Monday at the office, trying to deal with multiple projects, and general manic Monday mehs! And I will unlock the apartment door, and see my 3 fur babies napping on the couch, having already been fed.  And my eyes will land on those dimples, greeting me with delight, and glee, not only because Roman Reigns served the ultimate ass-kicking to Triple H, but because I am home, and our little family is together. As he would put his arms around me, and kiss my cheek, as if it were a delicate lilac, he would whisper "hows my jaani" into my ear, and the outside world would melt away.

I patiently await for that day to come.


I love you, Chase.

Rambling thoughts - adulting sucks butt

Fair warning: This is going to be a post about love and heartbreak. So if you have a soft tummy, I'd suggest making a bee-line for Candy Crush.

The last 5 months have been another lesson on adulting. I hate adulting some times. For instance, when I have to pay the american express, scoop out the cat litter, iron my clothes in the morning, etc. But some things/events in my recent days really really drive this yearn to retreat to my kindergarden class when Ms. papazian (rip) would teach us how to fingerpaint and finger dance to Itsy bitsy spider.

And it usually involves people. Allow me to summarize, as the last thing I want to do is give these people any more time then they have already sucked out of me. But, in a nut shell:

Girl has good friends. Girl shares everything with good friends. Good friends mean everything to girl. They have amazing, great times. Then they have not so amazing, great times. Good friends turn out to be douche bags. Douche bags turn out to be good for nothings. Good friend = good for nothings. The end. copyright © 2016 by cmartz

While grateful to see true colors well before an investment is lost (gosh, I sound like my financial advisor), it broke my heart to lose these douche bags/friends. Lesson learned, I guess.

Simultaneously, though, brand new relationships were brought into my life. Besides the existing life time friendships that I had, all of a sudden I became closer to some newbies. I found solace in this, and also with my sweetheart. I'd be lying and saying that I don't miss the douchebags. I don't have the ability to turn off my love for someone like that. Sometimes I wish I did. But, on my good days, I am grateful for it. I love hard. Which means I get hurt hard. But it only really makes you stronger. And appreciate the people you have had by your side through it all.

I feel like this is turning into a Celine/Mariah mashup from the 90s.

Just another ramble I guess . . .

Late night narrative

It's no secret to those that know me that I have depression. Not the, "awww, it's raining and there is a 7 train delay due to a sick passenger, and my boss didn't give me a promotion, and my friend won't talk to me anymore" depression. More like the, "I woke up. . ." depression. Have had it since I was 12.

I remember being so young, and not knowing what the hell was happening, but for some reason, I was handling the Zack and Kelly's breakup WAY worse than they were. Or anything related to leaving my small tenemant bedroom in our family apartment. I hated getting out of bed. Hated facing the world. Hated waking up.

Not to be so depressing (shout out!). It's not like I wanted to kill myself. I didn't. I wanted to live very badly. I just wanted this internal pain to stop. But trying to explain that to a family that called me a "drama queen" from the moment I popped out of my mother's canal: it was a lost cause.

Almost 23 years later, and I still have a fear of leaving my bedroom, or, in this case, my very own 1 bedroom apartment. When it hits me, "it" feels even worse than it used to. I find myself asking myself, WTF. Why do I still have these horrible bouts? No longer do "Zack and Kelly breakup"-like scenarios send me over the edge. Nope, thanks to the likes of Instagram and Youtube--the puppy-saving, kitten cuddling, soldier returning, dead people rememebering videos of the world--put me in crying states for hours and hours.

"Why do you like to poke the burn?" my friend, Sara said to me recently. "Why do you like to torture yourself?"

I didn't have an answer. More like a revelation. She was right, I do. I like to kick myself when I am down. But why?

Maybe it's just what I know to be life. Maybe any other way would be so foreign, I might want to retreat back to my bedroom. Maybe I do that already.