This is totally a cocktails kind of conversation. Here we have a Spicy Ginger Mojito and a Cosmo, sweet and zesty. @jenmyronuk has gotten me totally hooked on the Canadian show Being Erica. I've been literally glued to Hulu.com on my laptop watching episode after episode.
The premise of the show is that Erica Strange is a 30-something-still-trying-to-figure-out-where-her-life-is-going who thinks her life is screwed up because of all the bad decisions she's made in her life. Dr. Tom, a "therapist," shows up in her life, has her write down her "regrets list" and then gives her a chance to literally go back in time to those pivotal moments so that she has the opportunity to make a different choice.
The learning twist is that she retains her present day knowledge when she goes back in time, and she can use whatever she learned in that "going back" experience to help her in her present day situation.
I put the word "therapist" in quotes because we are not sure exactly what Dr. Tom is: an angel, left over of the 4400, magician, human with super powers... Who knows. He does however, have the power to manipulate time in order to help Erica in her therapy. The Sci-Fi junkie in me loves this angle of the show, time travel and life strands.
It's no surprise I'm wildly fascinated with this show because the over-thinker in me likes to rewind to my own past and go over what happened, analyze all the red flags, and wish I had done something different. Many of Erica's "regrets" are things we can all relate to like:
- Dating {insert the name of the asshole}.
- Not standing up for yourself to {insert name of bully}.
- Making the safe choice versus the choice your heart wants because you're afraid of risk.
Being Stephanie
So now, of course, Being Erica has gotten me thinking about my own regret list, and if I could do an episode called Being Stephanie, what is one pivotal moment I would go back to and make a different choice?
It was 2000 and I chose money over love. If I could go back, I would chose love. Here's what happened.
My marketing career was on fire. I was at a hot startup in Silicon Valley, and had pre-IPO options. The company went public and the stock kept rising and rising, and even split once. I was on my road to becoming a millionaire, the first in my family. In 1999, I dated this guy, we'll call him Eric, not his real name. I'll call him Eric because he kinda looks like actor Eric Stoltz, whom I've had a school girl crush on since Some Kind of Wonderful.
I met Eric at a tradeshow after party, and thought he was really cute in a little boy trapped in a grown man's body kind of way. He was so sweet and constantly looked at me like I was the most gorgeous thing he'd ever seen. He always made me feel that way...beautiful. And our physical chemistry, oh boy, it was very intense.
At the time however, I wasn't looking for anything serious, I just wanted to have fun and have some awesome sex. I was young, skinny, rich, and living the fast career life, and was pretty much good with that....for now. I thought I had plenty of time for something serious later.
The unexpected
Eric lived in another state, and that was okay with me because I had a pattern of dating guys who lived in other states like Connecticut and Texas. Looking back, in real therapy, it was part of my intimacy issues where I would create literal distance between me and my guy. It was years before I actually dated someone who lived within a car drive of my house.
What started out as something just fun and carefree turned into something more serious and substantial. I fell in love with Eric....a total surprise to me. But this love was different than anything I had experienced because Eric was the more mature one between the two of us. He was the one who wanted to "talk." I just wanted to have sex. I'd joke about how sometimes it felt like I was the guy in the relationship and he was the girl. Emotionally, most women want a man who wants to "talk" and here I was feeling so highly uncomfortable with that because I was a clam, emotionally.
Long story short, one day I broke up with Eric because of some lame excuse that it just wasn't working out. The truth is that we had our bumpy issues like any other couple but there wasn't anything that couldn't be worked out....especially too if I had just opened up to him and talked to him about what was really going on in my life. I really hated my job and how people treated me there so I was constantly complaining and in a bad mood, but also, Eric was the first guy I really dated since the boyfriend rape, and I never told him about that because well, I hadn't even admitted it to myself.
The truth was that Eric was just too good to me and I couldn't handle that. Nope, I was more comfortable with the asshole unemotionally available types, than with the emotionally available "I'm here for you" types. I'd spend years in therapy disecting the whys. I did learn that a big part of my attraction to the asshole types was because with someone emotionally unavailable, I too could be emotionally clammed up. Intimacy goes both ways, and my relationship with Eric was the one that really made me see for the first time my own intimacy issues.
Decision time
Eric and I then went through this period of being on-and-off, being friends, getting back together but then not really. One of his big issues was that we lived too far apart. At the time, I wanted another chance so badly, that I offered to move to where he lived. I had always wanted to move somewhere other than California anyway. What that move would have required though was me quitting my job and giving up my pre-IPO options which at the time, I was only 7 quarters into my 16 quarter total vesting period.
Eric said to me that if I quit my job and moved that I had to do it for myself and not for him or us. His reasoning was that if he and I didn't work out that he didn't want me feeling bitter and resentful that I gave up my pre-IPO options for a shot at us...a future of togetherness that may or may not happen. It was a really good point. So, I had to think about that pretty hard because when he said that to me, one of my initial reactions was that I would be really pissed if that happened...or would I.
After thinking about it, I decided to stay in my job. I wanted the money, and not just the money but the idea of being a millionaire. He and I couldn't make it work romantically, but we did stay friends through the years, and eventually I did tell him about what happened to me with the other boyfriend. Even to this date, Eric is the only boyfriend I have had an amicable break up with....amicable meaning there was none of me ending up in tears and therapy because of the guy.
What happened after making the choice
I did go on and become a millionaire. I bought a fancy car. I traveled to glamorous places and stayed in high end hotels and ate at 5 star restaurants. I could buy whatever I wanted. I also was the most miserable and self destructive in my entire life which I shared many of those adventures on Back in Skinny Jeans.
I don't regret that Eric and I didn't work out because things do happen for a reason. I do wonder though had I moved would we have gone on and gotten married and had kids or maybe we still would have ended up broken up. What I regret is that I chose image over what my heart wanted. At the time, I was more in love with the image of being a millionaire so I could look like I was some kind of hot shit. I felt like I failed and disappointed my parents when I didn't become a doctor, so being a millionaire was something I thought was even better.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to be a millionaire, it was my reasons for wanting it....so I could feel important like I was a better person because I "made it"...meaning the money.
I also thought that being a millionaire could somehow erase what had happened to me with the assault. My big learning lesson was that of course it didn't or never could, and the only thing that would have fixed what was eating away at me was to talk about it and heal it. Outside stuff can never fix the inside stuff. I ended up having an emotional breakdown and going on medical leave from work, but it was the chance for me to fix in my life what was broken which is how I ended up here today blogging about my experiences to help others in their own journey to feel less alone and stigmatized. You can have a better life!
After that experience with Eric, I have always chose love whether it be with lovers, career, family, and friends. You can always make money and get a job, but those great loves come along so rarely, time with your friends and family slips away, and you can never buy or get time back...at least in our reality.
As I take a sip of my Mojito, I say, always choose with your heart :)
