Divorced, but not apart

March 7, 2021March 10, 2021 by Maelyn Murray ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I come from a divorced family, but I hardly view it as such. Even though my parents divorced when I was young, our family has never truly been separated. In the early days of the divorce, my parents managed to stay friends (no matter how tough it was) and were able to hold conversations about our lives. And to be honest, the initial transition was really tough for us to navigate. Growing up, my sister and I would switch between houses every other day, then every other week, and when we were old enough, we simply got to choose where we went. And over time, we began to gradually spend our major life events in a group. This includes birthdays, graduations, engagements, weddings, births, and holidays.

It’s odd when I think about it, but when I was old enough to discuss divorce, it wasn’t some no-no subject. Almost all my friends had split families, and none of us viewed it as abnormal, because it was our normal. We all grew up with multiple lifestyles, and I think in the long run, it helped us learn to adapt to the continuous changes in life.

My family may be rare in the way we live our lives, but truthfully, I can’t imagine it any different. I know, sounds strange right? But I can’t really imagine a life where my parents were still together. If I were to imagine a life where my parents were together, I would also have to imagine a life where all of my step family members and all the people who came with them were non-existent, and that is tough.

Being newly married myself has shown me that love and marriage can sometimes be broken up into categories. I also learned that marriage is a choice made everyday, and not just on the day you say “I do”. Everyone deserves to live a life filled with the people they love, and a life where they love themselves. I believe that’s what happened when both my parents found love for a second time. They built a beautiful family, and they loved us and themselves enough to add to it over the years. My circle is immeasurable and it feels like it’s always growing for the better.

I don’t like the term “broken family”, and this is why. While the world has been better about simply accepting the different classifications of family, I think that normalizing and seeing the beauty in the cracks of family is next. My family reminds me of Kintsugi – the japanese art of repair. Kintsugi is when cracks are filled with gold. It is based on the idea that the cracks and imperfections can actually make things better. My family is filled with gold, and is stronger for it.

Social Media, are you listening?

March 6, 2021March 10, 2021 by Maelyn Murray ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Social media is both a dream and a nightmare. I get to connect with people all over the world, at different parts of their lives, and I get to share mine with them. I love the fact that I am free to connect with people I haven’t spoken to or seen in 5+ years, but at the same time, I really hate it.

If you really think about it, it’s a blessing and curse to know that someone you went to school with has their dream life. You root for them, you’re happy for them, it even proves it’s possible, but it also makes you review your life, and do the dreaded comparison. You immediately feel that you are way behind in life or might have messed up along the way somehow. The question: Why aren’t I living my dream life yet? sashays across your train of thought, and it’s a huge bummer!

Do you know the song “High School Never Ends”, by Bowling for Soup? I remember hearing it for the first time on my sister’s iPod shuffle while at the airport on our February break trip – and I thought – this song has got to be wrong. I was beginning high school and all the academic stress, student body hierarchy, and all around competition was in full swing. I remember thinking, there’s no way the highschool mentality continues into adulthood! I felt confident that high school was gonna be great, maybe even just like the movies. But it wasn’t.

While movies show all the cliques in high school, most of them generally focus on the person that a lot of us strive to be. The popular/mysterious, beautiful, and smart girls or guys – who always get the guy or girl they want in the end. They always seem to manage to learn some grand lesson at the end of the movie too – wouldn’t that be nice? Most of the time, this isn’t the case, and we go through bouts of depression, anxiety, bullying, eating disorders, and years later we might learn something from it. Movies don’t show all that – just like social media doesn’t show all of it. Everyone shows the highlights, the things we hope others will see and think about us, even if it’s not entirely our reality.

While all these platforms have the power to connect us all, they also have the power to destroy us. Destroy our feelings of accomplishment, happiness, and sometimes even love. I have started an unwind process, and I detach from platforms for certain periods of the day. It has helped me be present and proud of my life, undocumented and in real time.

Has anyone else found this to be true and/or do this too? Let me know if the comments below!

Game or real life, the humorous life of a gamers wife

March 1, 2021March 10, 2021 by Maelyn Murray ♥ 1 Comment

My husband is a gamer, and I have to tell you, it’s sometimes really impressive. His attention span for these games and all the action items are insane and never ending. I have tried to play video games with him (Legos), but there must be some disconnect for me, because I am the worst with my visual and remote control reaction times. I once tried to play a game where I drove a car, and I crashed a lot, it was really hard! During this fail, I looked over at my husband, and he’d already found the special hidden item and was onto the next level. Umm, how did that even happen?

He mostly plays FPS (first person shooter), RPG (role playing game), and puzzle/ strategy games. And sometimes, I’ll try and follow and watch for a small amount of time. Some of the games even include storylines that I can follow for a bit, but most of the time I am at a loss. I can’t seem to follow the map layouts or even the small icons in all the corners of the screen, they are just too darn small! In fact, a lot of times the music tracks to his games became my study soundtracks or lullabies. This randomly developed since most of the time he played his games late at night. We even tested it out, if I can’t fall asleep, we will turn on a soundtrack or he will tell me his future game play strategy and I am out like a light!

Throughout the years, I have semi watched him beat a bunch of games, like Doom, Wolfenstein, Fallout 4, Red Dead Redemption II, GTA V, and most recently Cyberpunk 2077(to name a few). When I say he beat these games, I mean that he successfully finished them, watched all the credits to the end, and then RESTARTED them from the very beginning. He does this to see where he might have missed anything during game play. Talk about dedication and patience! He easily spots things on the screen that I don’t even notice, or register as holding any importance whatsoever. Gaming is intense, and as crazy as it may sound, it’s a skill.

Let me be clear though, this kind of eagle eye attention is reserved for the games. In real life, he can’t find simple things in the house or he doesn’t remember a conversation we had. I grumble and mumble when this happens, but it’s pretty entertaining. Many times we are sitting down for a meal or cooking in the kitchen and he will start talking about a car, a person, or a strategy, and I will have to say “wait, is this game or real life?”. These little instances never fail to make us chuckle. I love that even though I don’t have much interest in that part of his world, he manages to include me by sharing little stories about it and asking my advice. Finding the humor in small, everyday things is our strong suit, and to tell you the truth, it’s one of my favorites.

Let’s talk about burnout

February 28, 2021March 10, 2021 by Maelyn Murray ♥ 2 Comments

Burnout is a relatively new term people and some businesses are starting to recognize, and let me tell you, it is REAL! Burnout can affect you physically and mentally. According to Mayo Clinic, “Job burnout is a special type of work-related stress — a state of physical or emotional exhaustion that also involves a sense of reduced accomplishment and loss of personal identity”. If that doesn’t explain half of the jobs I have ever had, I don’t know what does! There have been a few times I’ve experienced it, and I told myself – never again! Turns out that’s easier said than done, it creeps up on you. You don’t always realize you are stretched out so thin, until doing a simple task like making a cup of tea is just too much.

I work full time, and I pick up side jobs when and where I can. One of my weaknesses is saying yes, when I should really say no. Especially if it’s a favor or a task that will help another person out. I am a helper, and I like feeling like I could have positively contributed to someone’s day. But here’s the thing about being a helper, people figure it out, and take advantage. Whether it is your time, your generosity, or sometimes even your trust.

Being an adult in your 20’s is hard, your in this weird limbo of “live your life, its okay to be a little crazy!’” and “plan for the future, stay on course”. One side says enjoy this time, travel, spend time with friends, and find a hobby. While the other side says find that secure job, travel when you have the PTO (but also save it), and you can freely live your life when you retire. I have always tended to favor planning for the future, but my brain sometimes manages to flip a switch if there is something I really want to do, and it doesn’t necessarily contribute to my future. I can’t think of any examples off the top of my head, but I am sure some of you guys can relate.

I am in that wonderful snippet of time for a woman in her 20’s, where the questions: “are you married?” And “Are you getting pregnant soon?” are ingrained in some people’s question rolodex. These questions are sometimes okay, but if you’re asking someone in the middle of a burnout period, it’s the worst, and be prepared to be told why.

As you might have guessed, this happened to me recently. It came from one of my side jobs, during a period of burnout. At first I was stunned by the person who asked me this, since it came after an uninvited string of advice for my life, but also because it was none of their business. After a little bit I realized I had to cut the burnout source in the bud. This meant cutting the side jobs out, and letting my life settle back into its normal semi burnout status.

If you can relate to any of this in your past or present, my advice is to find the source of the strain, and try to find a way to cut it loose.

M. (2020, November 20). Job burnout: How to spot it and take action. Retrieved February 28, 2021, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/burnout/art-20046642

A glimpse

February 26, 2021March 10, 2021 by Maelyn Murray ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

If you have siblings, you already know the insane range of benefits and well, drawbacks of being the younger one, this post will focus on the benefits. My husband and I are both younger siblings, and we got lucky with having our sisters show us the ropes on certain things in life. And sometimes, they were even kind enough to show us examples of what NOT to do. We get to peak at the blue print of growing up, and make educated choices on how we might change our own lives. Sometimes it is as simple as, don’t do this, because mom and dad will react like this.

One thing I love about being a sibling is being able to watch my sister grow into the mother she is now. I obviously learned a lot about being a great mother from my own mom, but there is something really special and fun about watching someone you used to fight over the TV remote with, become a parent.

Since marrying, I now have 4 nieces and nephews and I am so grateful for all of them. Each one of them are great kids, with big hearts, great senses of humor, and they are on the right track to being some of the most amazing future adults. My sister and sister-in-law make it look so easy, but I know that they have worked very hard to become the role model mothers they are now. I feel like parenting is like a crash course and an extra credit project all at once. You have to know what you’re doing immediately after delivering, but if you make a mistake, you have time to make up for, learn from it, and change course.

I often get to hang out with my sister’s kids, and it’s one of the best things I can think of to do. When I have free time, I get a glimpse of parenthood. Note, I am very aware it is a glimpse- because no way does 3-4 hours with the cutest kids constitute as full on parenting. Parenthood is around the clock, and I really love that I get to enjoy snippets of what is in store for me. I think it’s one of the best and only things in life that is so unpredictable, but also constantly available to learn from. And as a bonus, you often get to learn from people you really love and admire.

Someday I hope to also experience the full time whirlwind of being a parent, but for now, I am content with getting to know some of the sweetest kids I get to call family.

Family vs. family

February 25, 2021March 10, 2021 by Maelyn Murray ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

In the department of communication, my husband and I come from very different family styles. My family is wordy, they love planning a call, text, email, or even a visit at least once a week, if not more. My husband’s family is the opposite, a text, call, or visit, once a month or every other month works great for them. There are things that are so starkly opposite between our families, that it often amazes us that we were able to find each other in the middle, and fall in love.

A conversation with my family is like opening a large filing cabinet drawer, but accidentally opening the other drawer above it, because the file tabs are so full. Our conversations usually start one place, and end up on a completely unrelated topic. Sometimes it even feels like opening a web browser with a bunch of forgotten search tabs open – and in order to close the browser, you have to decide to close all of them or one by one. This often means lengthy conversations, that includes some range of emotions. My family is filled with social workers, HR representatives, nurses, teachers, and counselors. And yes, we are all in these professions for a reason. We like to talk, we like to help, and we like to connect about the past, present, and future- sometimes all in one conversation..

My husband’s family? Conversations with them are more like headlines, often only the important bullet points. Conversations have a clear beginning and a clear ending. His family comes from a background of engineers, techs, and other straight forward analytic professions. Conversations have a purpose, and once there is a found solution, case closed! There are times when there is a catch up call, but once everyone is all caught up, we are good to go until the next update. These conversations are not any less meaningful or special, but they definitely tend to be much shorter than conversations with my family.

As a married couple, our worlds have had to collide and become one. My husband has learned how my family communicates, just like I have learned how his family communicates. It’s a learning curve for both of us, but it is one we welcome because we both prefer the split of communication styles. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is definitely a whole lot of love from both sides, and we realize we are lucky and so grateful for it. We have come to realize that it’s helpful to remember we all have different ways of showing up for one another, and that’s okay!

You learn a lot about your partner through their family, and a lot of times you will learn how to better your relationship with them, based on what you find.

Where are you REALLY from?

February 24, 2021March 10, 2021 by Maelyn Murray ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Okay, I’m going to answer that question right off the bat. I am adopted from China, and I honestly know very little about my original home town. I’ve seen pictures, heard stories, and even watched documentaries, but I’ve never experienced it. It’s been on my bucket list for a while.

I don’t even remember when I found out I was adopted, it might have been self explanatory. In my early days, I remember being different, different hair color, eye color, and skin color. In many ways my family worked hard to make the differences an excuse to celebrate my uniqueness in our daily lives. For one of my birthdays my family spray painted their blonde hair black for my birthday (it sounds like it was in bad taste,but I loved it).

My parents tried to keep me involved with cultural groups, like dance and language classes, but I was never into it. Not because I wasn’t interested, but because I immediately fell into a category. Chinese girl, adopted into a caucasion family (my dance class was filled with identical situations). It felt more like a label than my race difference, and with time the classes slowly disappeared from my life.

Growing up, I remember people asking where I was from, speaking to me in chinese, or thinking I didn’t even belong with my family group. It stung, and often took me back for a second, but I got used to it and learned to live with the constant replies of “I am from China”, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak chinese” (in my very american accent), and “I am with them”.

As I got older, friends were sometimes the worst. I often forgot my different looks, in my house it was never mentioned, but in school – I was asked the same questions that strangers asked me. The most popular though, was “where are you from?” or “WHAT are you?”

Friends would ask – do you ever want to be white? And I remember thinking about my response – it was often a short no (but in secret, sometimes it was… yes). My friends mostly consisted of non – asian individuals, so I was never the friend who was called the twin or the sibling. These little instances really hurt, but I learned to mask it and eventually learned to own my differences. This was definitely not over night, and took a lot of self love. No one can really make you happy about you, except you.

Once I got to my teens the stereotype shifted into something more adult. There were times where the shift was thrown in my face, while other times it was less recognizable. Once my father took me to a restaurant after one of my choir concerts, and the hostess seated us in a private room. It wasn’t until we asked to be moved to the main dining room that it dawned on me – they thought I was only with him for the night.

In high school and college I no longer knew if people liked me for me or if it was an “asian thing”. Sometimes it became self explanatory, a phrase like “I’ve never been with an asian girl” would eventually be verbalized or “can you speak with an accent?” and it would set off my radar.

As an adult – I still deal with these insecurities. The difference now is that I know where to spot them, and how to digest them, and eventually grow past them. Like all things, it ebbs and flows – with time, with news, and with who I meet.

OK cats, you win

February 23, 2021March 10, 2021 by Maelyn Murray ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

I suppose this could apply to anyone with an animal they absolutely adore, but in my case- I’m talking about my two Maine Coon Cats.

My husband and I love them so much, and we honestly treat them like absolute kings. They are our little buddies, and get treated as such!

The two of them get a variety of decadent wet foods, and not one, not two, but three DIFFERENT types of foods to rotate throughout the day (something my husband keeps track of, thank goodness). Not to mention the many times they demand to be pet and loved, while they consume said foods. They even have a plethora of tiny houses and XL scratching posts , strategically placed in almost every room of the house. All of this according to their preferences (I mean, but of course!).

Our house is 40% ours and 60% the cats. If a piece of paper falls and they fancy it, it stays for the rest of the week. If a bag from our take out has the right crunch when they step on it, then….you guessed it – the bag stays. Heck, we don’t even move if they decide to grace us with their snuggles.

Sometimes I even go to the store and think about giving myself some shop therapy, and end up buying some fun snacks for them and organic cat nip!

So, why? Why do these little fur balls get whatever they want, whenever they want? I mean, their cute fuzzy pawed selves obviously play a huge part, but I think the ultimate power they have, is that they DEMAND it and don’t settle for anything less than what they deserve.

I often look at my cats during my work week, while sitting in front of my double computer screens, and while I’m glued to my desk, I think “I’d love to be a cat, what a life!”.

I’ve decided that one of my 2021 goals is to now have the confidence and authority of a cat. I’ll demand for what I deserve, and I’ll MAKE it happen or even will it into reality (I’ll have to think of something that is as convincing as a meow, tail rub, or intense pur).

In all honesty, we should all embrace how our animals have the authority to make us do what/treat them how they want – and channel it for our everyday lives! Want that promotion or raise? Channel your inner animal mindset!

Star Wars and Chill

February 22, 2021March 10, 2021 by Maelyn Murray ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

After dating for a month, my husband and I were in a bit of a date rut. This was mostly because we had to see each other around our restaurant job schedules, and my college classes, but we wanted to try to keep things both fun and relaxing. One night, we were sitting on the couch, and finally decided to watch something I had never watched. According to my husband, we had a list of amazing movies that I needed to watch. And because of our age gap – this list was far from short. We ended up deciding on Star Wars, and as everyone knows, the ONLY way to watch Star Wars is in ORDER.

Originally I wasn’t really sure about it, or even too keen on the idea. I am more of a romantic comedy type of gal, but my boyfriend – now husband, was and is a super fan. When I say super fan, I really mean it. He had the box set at the ready and knew all the answers to every question I had (yes, this included planets, foods, ships, and even language names). He even debated on not making me watch the first three episodes of the saga, but eventually decided it needed to happen due to the plot & questions I would inevitably have later on (disclaimer : this something he asked me to include). Anyways, we started with the first movie – and watched it – with him watching me, almost more than the movie itself. He was set on me not missing a thing!

Now, here’s why I ended up loving watching the movie series. This was the beginning of 9 pre-planned dates, there was no need to plan what we might be doing, or even go anywhere. Score! I am an extreme homebody and love a night in:) We also had take-out (Indian and Chinese are our go-tos) and cozily set ourselves up to watch the movies in order – perfect date night if you ask me!

I saw a side of my husband that was so damn lovable, that it was probably one, amongst the many things that made me fall for him. I think when you see someone love something and want to share it with you, you also start to love it and them that much more.

Fast forward to being married, and it is still something we do! We watch the movie series in order, and we of course add in the appropriate movies that have been released since.

My advice to any couple: Find small things like this, and make it a special thing to do with your S/O. Little traditions like this are magical, and keeps us reminded of why we really fell for the other person.

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Take the trip with your parents, you won’t regret it

February 21, 2021March 10, 2021 by Maelyn Murray ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

When I was 20 years old, I drove across the country with each of my parents. My father and I drove and camped through US & Canada to Seattle, and my mother and I drove/camped/sketchy hoteled all the US way back home, to Upstate New York.

As children, we forget that our parents crave just as much adventure and experience that we do, sometimes even more. I believe this is because they know what there is to experience outside of everyday comfort zones – like our cozy blanket bundles and computer screens.

I say this because, while my parents definitely fall into some of their age stereotypes (goofy dances & embarrassing moments), but I mean don’t we all? On these trips, I saw their love for life and adventure were much greater.

My father journaled, drew pictures of what he was seeing on our drive, and managed to plan our roadmap on the go. My mother took pictures and stopped at beautiful little stands for jewelry & experience. They both made sure to push their 20 year old to enjoy the unknown and unexpected. I learned what else life had to offer besides college, and a 40 hour work week. I learned how little I knew of other cultures, and oftentimes how willing people were to teach you.

Genuine appreciation for life is contagious, even more so when you are seeing it on the faces of people you love. Sitting on the top of a mountain in Bamf and on the edge of Bryce Canyon, made me realize the vastness this world and all it has to offer. I experienced first hand the gift that our parents are for getting us to the point where we can see it and experience it.

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Author: Maelyn Murray