Don't Hate Me Because I'm Boastful

Being the supremely multitask-oriented woman that I am (so that I have enough time for my naps), I am combining both Mama Kat's writing workshop idea (click on icon to learn more) "What did you compromise when you married" with the Beautiful Blogger awards so brilliantly bestowed on me by first Mlle Toca La Bocina followed closely by Dusty Earth Mother, two bloggers whom I adore, where I am to say five things about myself that you all didn't know.  So, here goes - and this is the part that is so vain I'm going to lose half of my readers (the half that didn't sign up because I begged them to and then promptly forget my blog existed).


One thing about myself is that I have an excellent memory for numbers.  I can remember phone numbers from people I called six years ago, bank accounts (send me yours, I'll remember it), credit card numbers - you name it, I remember it.


Another thing is that I come from a family of musicians, so it should be no surprise that I play(ed) piano, oboe, viola, my sister's violin just for fun (which is in treble clef like piano and not c clef like viola), and flute in the marching band because oboe was too complicated to do while walking.  Plus I sing (very well in the shower).  And had lead parts in the musicals and plays in high school.


I speak Chinese, which is a lot like music, actually, considering the same words change meaning completely depending on how you "sing" the word.  After 17 years, however, I use it mainly to say, "I used to be able to speak Chinese, but I forgot everything I know."  I obviously speak French and English given where I'm from and where I live.


I've been to 22 countries I can remember (not including the US and Canada) and have lived in 6.  I traveled all over Asia selling advertising to banks and central bank governors for the IMF/World Bank meetings and the Asian Development Bank meetings, held annually.  (This was the most frightening case of pretending to be a grownup and not exactly succeeding in convincing others that I knew what I was doing).


I used to paint, and take and develop pictures, but one has to pick and choose amongst hobbies, doesn't one?  I still read a great deal.  A Russian Lit major told me I had read more than he had, having almost all of Dostoevsky under my belt, plus Turgenev and many others.   I've read almost everything by Dickens and am a big fan of 19th century literature as a whole.


I come from a family of talents.  My sister got a free ride to Harvard to get her PhD in Biology, but got bored after the Masters and moved to Germany for her MBA.  My brother won a competition at age 16 to play Rachmaninoff's 3d Concerto as a guest pianist with the symphony (then went to Cornell for Engineering and Penn for his PhD in Geology).  Plus he brews beer.  My mom was a musician, then went back to school to get her degree in Landscape Architecture, is a historic preservationist and a Master Gardener.  She's also worked her way through the 100 most significant books ever written, including the complete Arabian Nights.  My dad was a symphony musician until retirement, although he easily could have been in finance, which is his hobby.  The high school coach begged his mom to let him be on the basketball team (she was strict and said no), and he knows the ins and outs of farming, being the Hooser boy that he is.


So, with this impressive pedigree, I was not about to fall for any ole sucker now, was I?  Well, actually I was really trying to get just about anyone who would have me.  Most of my accomplishments were things I went after so I could stick them on my little date resumé and hope to impress someone well enough to actually like me.  And it didn't work very well because the feeling underneath that I was somehow not good enough always peeked through.  (Or I scared the pants off of them with my overachievement, sending them running to the woods).


Now, Mr. Welcome was the only man I ever met who was more talented than me.  Kindly bear with me and my vanity, here.  I'm also super nice and a really great person to know, not the kind you would want to un-follow or anything.  


Did I know classical music and play instruments?  He knew classical and jazz and played saxophone.  I knew numbers?  He was top of his class at university in Computer Science (and programmed an elevator, of all impressive random things).  Did I travel and live abroad and speak languages?  He had been to many of the places I had been to, and then some.  He speaks Spanish, in addition to the French and English, and can get by in Portuguese and Italian.  Did I swim competitively?  He swam faster.  Did I know the Bible well?  He knew it better - and in Greek!  Did I write the occasional poem?  He wrote more, and better.  I was out of my league.  I had nothing on him.


On our first date, in spite of our bright eyes and my niggling excitement, I thought, "This guy is going to be a really good friend.  I mean, we have so much in common.  Too bad he's not really my type."  And then he took me dancing.  And would you believe it?  He dances salsa.  Really well!  My bright eyes and niggling excitement turned into full blown stars and weak knees when he started commandeering my 
movements with a firm hand and swift feet.  I was knocked off my own pedestal and was licking the dirt.


So basically, I compromised nothing when I married him.  Because not only is he full of talents (that he would never boast about as gauchely as I have just done, being the discreet gentleman that he is), but he seems to love me - and for no good reason!  The other day, when I shocked him by skipping my nap (the naps he never reproaches me for) and cleaning the whole house, then preparing one of his favorite meals, he gave me a big hug and said, "Thank you for cleaning!  Thank you for cooking!  Thank you for saying "yes."


So by marrying a man who was not only more talented than me and much kinder and more gentle than I could ever hope to be, I not only compromised absolutely nothing, I also married a man who loved  me - not for anything I could do - but just for who I was.


And that's what I really needed most of all.