Dear Sir: A Series of Letters to the Men of Match.com

Dear Sir,

Your "ideal match" does not exist.

Sincerely,
Andrea

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Dear Sir,

Let me be more specific: Your ideal match (fun, outgoing, easygoing, good-natured, loves playing and watching sports, is athletic and toned and exercises 6-7 times per week, and is both driven and quick to relax) does not exist. NO ONE has all of these qualities all the time. Please consider expanding your search.

Sincerely,
Andrea the Realist

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Dear Sir,

It is considered polite to respond to emails that other members send you, even if you aren't interested in them. Pro Tip: most women would rather hear honesty (i.e., that you're not interested but thanks for the email) than silence. I can SEE that you opened my email, you know.

Sincerely,
Andrea, Part-Time Stalker

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Dear Sir,

So you're looking for a girl that is slender and toned, but also enjoys going out for a beer, dining out, and tailgate parties on a weekly basis. NEWS FLASH: this woman only exists in the toy aisle of your local supermarket or toy store. Heads-up, she's only about 14 inches tall. 99% of women do not have bodies that function this way. You'll have to pick one or the other - the hot body or the pursuit of food and drink. What about the other 1%, you say? Sure, stay the course, look for that girl that can do both, but I'll warn ya - you're going to be fighting off quite a few of your bros in the process. Best of luck to you. I'll be over there, waiting for you to realize that intelligence and kindness don't drop off sharply after middle age.

Sincerely,
Andrea "A Few Extra Pounds and Loves a Good Cocktail" Campo

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Dear Sir,

My profile clearly states that I am looking for men aged 22 to 34. Your profile says 59, divorced, and looking for a good time. HARD PASS.

Sincerely,
You're Older Than My Dad

P.S. Stop sending me winks. Don't think I won't call the cops.

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Dear Sir,

Updating your profile to say "sorry for my absence ladies, my girlfriend found out about my profile and I had to lay low for a bit" is EXACTLY the way to our hearts. 

Sincerely,

Sarcasm Is a Virtue

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Dear Sir,

......

Where are you?


Love,
Me. Just me.

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Dear Sir,

Yup, I'm sure. I'm NOT looking for a sugar daddy to have a "no strings fling." I don't care if you are independently wealthy. Who's younger, me or your daughter?

Sincerely,
Consider Yourself Blocked and Reported

P.S. You will find someone. Your life isn't over yet. But I can promise you that I don't go for that.

The Why

Have you ever been around a little kid who asks "why?" to everything you say? They ask a question, you give an answer, and they ask why. You give an answer to the why, and they ask again. You answer again, and they just keep asking. Usually, the only thing that's going to stop this train is you saying either "Because I said so" or "I don't know."

I feel like that little kid lately. My depression has been really bad the last couple of weeks, and I keep asking why. Why now? Why so bad? Why can't I make myself feel better?

And, perhaps selfishly, Why me?

Several positive things have happened in my life lately, things that any outsider looking in would think, uh, why is she so down? Professionally, I finished up a clinical internship with high marks and good recommendations, I get a little break from school in between internships, and last month I had an essay published in the book Kissing in the Chapel, Praying in the Frat House: Wrestling with Faith and College. Personally, I spent a wonderful Christmas vacation on Anna Maria Island and then on a cruise, I have a job that I absolutely love working for people who are kind and understanding and whose son is a natural antidepressant, and I just found a massage therapy office that charges me 20 bucks for a one hour appointment.

But I'm sad. So many great things happening to me, so many things going right for me, and depression seems to poison all of it. I try my hardest to keep it from invading, setting up camp, and taking over, but it's always there. Ready. Waiting. Biding.

It seems to be worse than usual lately, so much so that I saw my therapist two days in a row, which I'd never done before. I don't know why I've been feeling worse. And believe me, I've asked. On Thursday morning, I was watching Tyler run around and shake the maracas I'd got him from Mexico. He ran over to me and climbed up on the couch next to me. He snuggled close, then looked up at me and smiled his goonie toddler grin. I started to cry, which scared both of us, I think. Usually Tyler's smile and giggles make me smile too. I was so down that I couldn't bring myself to smile. So I cried instead. Tyler put his hand on my cheek, and then put his fingers underneath my glasses and into my eye. It was the best and worst thing ever.

I tell you all of this not in an attempt to inspire pity in you, but in an attempt to inspire strength in myself. I think many of you would agree that it is easier to write than to talk out loud. Writing helps me prove to myself that this is real, that my feelings right now are real, that my life is real.  It provides me with marker stones to look back on, to see where I've been. To remind me that it's real and worth fighting for.

God's answer to my whys is not "I don't know," because I trust that He does know what He's doing. Instead, it's "Because I said so." But it's not the "because I said so" of an exasperated parent or babysitter. It's the answer of a Father who has a plan, has a good reason, and can see what's coming.

I have to trust that something is coming.

Not Where I Thought I'd Be

Have you ever noticed that kids have a tough time figuring out age? Anyone that looks and acts like a grown-up is automatically about 40. Just for a laugh, I routinely ask my 5-year-old neighbors how old they think I am. Their most recent guess was 45. I told them that their mom isn't even close to 45 years old, and that I am younger than their mom.

Their next guess was 50. It's like living next to a comedy club.

Today is my 25th birthday. When I was younger, I always thought I would be married and maybe even have a kid by the time I turned 25. Especially when I was a kid, and didn't really understand age, I thought that 25 was the same as my parents' ages. You know, like, after you got to stop going to school, you turned magically into a mom or dad, and after getting gray hair, you became a grandma or grandpa. I had no understanding of the concept that one's choices contribute to certain outcomes. Like most kids, I thought it was just automatic and that it happened to everyone.

If you don't believe me, here's another example from my wonderfully wacky neighbor girls: this is my second year of being a nanny for a beautiful little boy named Tyler. He is a little older than one and a half now. At the end of last school year, his parents were in the process of moving and some days it just worked easier for his mom to bring him to my house, which is near her workplace. My house is not exactly set up for toddlers, especially one who loved to explore and put things in his mouth. So I took him over to play with the neighbors. I told the girls that Tyler was the little boy that I take care of during the day while his parents at work. That seemed to make sense to them. but then the next time I saw them, a Saturday, they asked me where Tyler was. I replied that he was at home with his mom and dad. One of the girls said, "I thought you were his mom."

Five-year-olds just don't have to think about things like never seeing me pregnant and never seeing Tyler as an infant. I know they know that babies have to grow inside their moms first because they had a little brother and two years ago I had many excited (albeit logically inconsistent as only children can) conversations about the baby growing in their mommy's tummy. To their mind, it just made sense for me to all of a sudden have a child because I was a grown-up.

As I grew older, I better understood how age works and how the typical life events timeline involved time in college, a "real" job, marriage, and then kids, according to my parents and my church. You wouldn't go straight to hell if you got pregnant before you were married, but they made it abundantly clear that they would be very disappointed if things went in that order.

The first time I met with my school counselor was in the first few months of 9th grade, when the counselors try to touch base with student in the class. I remember him asking me, "Andrea, where do you see yourself in ten years?" I didn't know how to answer, since I didn't know yet what I wanted to be when I grew up. So I gave a standard answer: "I see myself married, maybe starting to have kids, graduated from college, and working at whatever job I went to college for." 25 seemed like such a far way off - ten years was plenty of time to find the person I was supposed to marry and have babies with him.

Now, here I am, just turned 25 years old seven hours ago, and I have completed exactly one of the things that I told my counselor I wanted to have completed ten years later. I did graduate from college, but I'm not working at a job I went to college for. I am not a mom. I am not married. I am not even close to married. Sometimes, that makes me sad. Like I'm behind somehow. Like I'm missing some key trait that other girls have. Like my shelf life is running out.

I can usually put these feelings away and focus on other things, but they're still there. However, there are a few things in my life that I never would have thought to hope for at age 25. Things like:
1. I have a job that I absolutely love, even though I didn't go to college for it.
2. I am a grad student in a field that finally feels right to me. Teaching, which is what I went to college for, never felt like a good fit, and I'm glad that I didn't go into teaching just because other people expected me to.
3. I know my values and I haven't compromised them for anything. Furthermore, I formed those values as a single person, which means that I know what I'm looking for in someone else.
4. I am not in debt to the federal government, unlike thousands of other young adults in this country. I never would have thought of this as something to look forward to when I was only 15, but as I see my friends and colleagues navigate the repayment of those loans, I grow more and more thankful.
5. I am surviving depression. The CDC estimates that 1.6% of deaths in the United States in 2010 were suicides. This seems like a small percentage, but it equates to 38,364 people who completed suicide that year. You know what isn't recorded? The many thousands of people who attempt suicide each year because of mental illness. So while I definitely wouldn't have said "living with depression" when asked where I see myself in ten years, the 'living' part is something that I'm proud of.

I'm slowly learning to be content with where I am instead of frustrated by not being where I think I should be. Here's to another 25.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation: A Love Letter to the Conference Grounds

Until Sunday, August 17, my summer was unremarkable. And that was at best. At worst, it was horribly frustrating. I took three classes this summer, and while they weren't difficult, they were a lot of work. Not to mention, spending 4 nights a week in class was less than enjoyable. My job was nothing to write home about, either. I had the summer off from my school year nannying jobbecause the mom is a teacher, so I had to pick up a summer job. I knew I would miss my little boy, but it was only three months and then I could go back to nannying him when school started again. I won't go into details, but I ended up quitting the summer job that Sunday night because I was frustrated and wasn't making the money I was promised. Let's just say that there were unmet expectations on both sides.

Now, under different circumstances, I would have just accepted the 2 weeks off and enjoyed some free time. However, I worked only 5 weeks out of the whole summer when I was told I would work 10. Half the weeks meant half the income. A quick look at my bank account online told me that I was $800 short of tuition, which was due on the first day of the semester. If I didn't make that money, I wouldn't be able to go to school in two weeks. The people I worked for couldn't guarantee me that I would work during those last two weeks (they pretty much said they would let me know the day of) and that wasn't going to work for me. I needed to make money, and I had to be sure that my hours wouldn't be canceled on me at the last minute.

So I quit.

Then I panicked just a little bit.

How was I going to make $800 in two weeks if I had just quit my job?

Then, a flash of brilliance (or perhaps divine intervention): THE CONFERENCE GROUNDS. The last two weeks out there are always understaffed because the high schoolers and college staff go back to their regularly scheduled sports, orientations, jobs, classes, and activities. Where else could I get a job on short notice with no application, no interview, no training period, and no hassle? I didn't even have to fill out any of the usual paperwork because they still had it on file from two years ago! So on Sunday night at about 9pm, I made a few calls, sent a few texts, secured two weeks of guaranteed work, and moved out to the Grounds the very next day.

It was as if I had never left. I slipped back seamlessly into the ice cream store and teaching Bible school. I received a hero's welcome when I arrived because I was able to pick up so many random shifts vacated by the people who had already left. It was actually kind of embarrassing - the way I saw it, they were helping me out more than I was helping them by giving me a job so that I could pay my tuition.

Being around people I liked and who liked me turned my entire summer around. At my other job, I never felt like they liked me or trusted me, and those are important things for me to have in my job. Going back to a place that felt like home, where I felt safe and accepted, was exactly what I needed after a summer of school stress and getting the run-around at work. It felt great to be trusted again - trusted to know what I was doing, trusted to do a good job, trusted to take care of the kids. It's hard for me to put into words just how much this all meant to me.

Now, when people ask me how my summer was, I feel like I can truthfully say that it was good instead of disappointing. My self-confidence suffered quite a hit after I quit my original summer job, especially because I knew my employers didn't care that I was frustrated to the point of quitting. They told me they had hired someone else the week before. I'm 95% sure that they would have just strung me along until the end of the summer instead of telling me they were dissatisfied with the job I was doing. That's never a good feeling. But after my two weeks at the Grounds, I felt like my heart was put back together. The people there are genuinely interested in how you are and what you have coming up in your life. I don't have to pretend there. They accept me as I am. They make me smile. They make me laugh. They care.
They are my people.

Honduras, Days 4 and 5 – Local Television Star

Yesterday I took a nap instead of writing a post. So there you have it.

Today (Tuesday), was business as usual, with a little bit of extra stuff for me. Rather, I got kind of bored with the dispensary stuff, and there were no kids because they were school. Plus, Jefa Sandy wanted to teach me how to locate glasses in the inventory, and I didn’t really want to do that, especially because I get pulled in enough different directions already without having to get called away for interpreting in the middle of finding 

glasses for a patient.

Anyway.

The last two days, the technicians on our team have been teaching two students from San Pedro Sula how to make glasses. Now, this is complicated to do in English. And the students don’t speak much English. So Marian and I have been stumbling through the directions that Dick gives us about the various machines and technical stuff. Sometimes it’s really difficult, between the technical vocabulary and the complicated directions. At one point, one of the guys asked me to tell the student to “spot it in” and I had no idea what he was talking about. I asked him what he meant, but he said, “Just tell them to spot it in, they’ll know what it means.” I had to say, “Um, yeah, but I don’t know what it means, so you’re gonna have to describe to me the process of ‘spotting it in’ so that I can describe it to them.” We had several moments like that. Along with looking up the words for “bevel,” “axis,” “trace,” and “centralize.”

Something interesting that happened yesterday and today was that crews from two television news networks came to interview Dr. Bob about the clinic and the work we were doing here. And, of course, since he doesn’t speaking Spanish, they elected me to be his interpreter! It was a little bit scary at first, but it turned out to be not too difficult. The second interview went better because I stopped Dr. Bob more often to interpret and then I didn’t have an entire paragraph to remember. Turns out that’s the key. Who would have thought?

I spent at least half of today being the interpreter for Nisha, one of the doctors who I’ve become really good friends with. We’re the same age and we have perhaps too much fun together. Lots of laughter. Lots of giggling. Lots of broken Spanish. It’s a good time. I was getting a bit tired of the dispensary, and Nisha was getting a lot tired of her interpreter who was prone to texting during every spare moment, so I sat down at her exam station and took over. It was a lot of fun! It was a whole different set of phrases and instructions, plus more questions and answers from the patients, so I got to do interpretation in both directions. Plus, it was Nisha. I always love it when you can meet someone and become instant friends during a trip. I’ll probably not see her again after this trip (unless we meet up on another of these trips) because she lives in Canada and looooves to travel. But that’s okay. There’s always Facebook, right?

I suppose that’s all for now. We’re heading out to dinner in 20 minutes or so, with a cultural dance demonstration after that. I’ll post pics on the blog when we get back to the States, the internet just isn’t fast enough here in the hotel. ¡Buen día!

Honduras Day 3 – Adventures in the Dispensary

Today (Sunday) began with pancakes in the dining room of our hotel. Normally, I’m not a huge panqueque fan, but these seemed different. Mine were much thinner than the ones my dad makes, almost like crepes. After that, half of us went to church and the other half went to the Sunday morning markets. I’ve only been to a Catholic church service once or twice in my entire life, so the service here was unfamiliar, but interesting anyway. I was able to follow along fairly well with the flow of the service, except for when to sit down and stand up. It was a kids’ service, so there was a kids’ choir and upper elementary-aged kids led the liturgies and some of the prayers. That was neat to see. They were so cute.

After church, we hustled over to the clinic to begin working for the day. It was pretty much the same as yesterday in terms of the process, but in addition, we had a handful of clients from yesterday that needed custom-made glasses and returned today to pick them up. We give those that need to return a slip with a day and time that they can come back and we allow them to come in through the back door so they don’t have to wait in the regular line to pick up their glasses. I think they really appreciate that. I know I would.

I got to meet so many great Hondurans (both adults and kids) today. Yesterday was more hectic, but today I had some time to sit with people and talk to them. I even got to hold a few babies!! I miss Tyler (my little hombrecito that I take care of during the week) and he’s not so little anymore! He doesn’t always want to sit and cuddle with me anymore, so I absolutely loved holding the little 5- and 6-month old babies that came through with their parents. It seemed like there were a lot more kids today too, and I got to have a lot of fun with them. While Jefa Sandy and Aunt Penny would find the right glasses for them, I would help them pick out some sunglasses. We try to give sunglasses to everyone here because the sun is much more powerful here, closer to the equator. When I have boys picking out sunglasses, I always show them the pink Barbie pairs first, and they all say “Nooo! Aquellas son para chicas!” (Those are for girls!) Then we all have a good laugh.

One of my little bebecitos, Isaac, a little boy who turned 1 yesterday, had pinkeye. I felt so bad for him. His parents came through for vision tests and glasses, and when they got to the dispensary, they asked me to look at his eyes and tell them what was wrong. I told them that I would get a doctor for them, but even I could see that the little guy’s eyes were all bloodshot. Dr. Bob came by and explained through me about pinkeye, how contagious it was, how important it was to keep the eyes and eyelashes clean and wash hands often, and how the drops worked and how often to use them. The little guy was a champ. He didn’t cry or squirm when Dr. Bob had to shine the light in his eyes or when he put the drops in. One of the other team members got a great picture of him and me, so I’ll have to post that one when she emails it to me. It sucks that he has pinkeye, but that means he has to come back, so I’ll get to see him and his parents again! P.S. to Rob and Susie - Isaac does the "how old are you" hold-up-one-finger better than Tyler does. I couldn't get him to clap, though, which seems to be T's speciality. :)

My Spanish is doing pretty well too. I’ve gotten lots of compliments, both from team members and from clients, about how fluid I am with the two languages. I feel so affirmed by that. My Spanish professors would be absolutely horrified by how sloppy I’ve been with my pronunciation, but I’ve found that trying to mimic the accent that my client has helps me to communicate better with them. For example, the older generation has very thick accents – they tend to leave the ‘s’ off of their words, they say “pah” instead of “para,” and they tend to just garble their words a bit. Like they have rocks in their mouths. The younger generations, especially the kids, speak more clearly, so I try to match accents with the client. Today also went better because I found a little stool on wheels that I sat and rolled around on. Since the patients were sitting down, I sat down too, and then I was eye-to-eye with them. It helped a LOT. I could see their mouths, I could hear them better, and it was just easier to talk. I hate looming over people. I’d rather sit with them on the same level to talk. Hopefully that wheelie stool doesn’t disappear.

I think that’s all for now. We’re supposed to have a “night off” from organized dinner and entertainment, so hopefully I’ll be able to get some homework done and relax with some books. Or maybe I’ll just go to sleep. I’ve been waking up at 6am here, even with earplugs and a white noise app on my Kindle. Oh well. When in Honduras…

Honduras, Day 2 – Don’t Flush That

Today (Saturday) was the first day of our eye care clinic. It works like this: people come to the Lions Club building in town, where there is a dental clinic and an eye clinic. A Lions member registers each person as they come to clinic and gives them a ticket, telling them what day to come back. This is so that they don’t spend day after day waiting in line. The first stop in the clinic is a basic acuity test – the patient covers each eye and does a simplified version of the vision chart you see at the optometrist’s office. The one with the big E at the top. The chart I tried to memorize when I was younger so that my vision didn’t seem so bad. Our charts have numbers and pictures on them because some of our clients don’t know how to read, so a chart with letters would be useless.

After that, the adult patients go to a glaucoma test. When that’s done, everyone goes to a station where they sit down and put their face in that machine where the technician shines a light into your eyes to look at the shape of your corneas. At least, I think that’s what it does. I should know, after going to the eye doctor so often throughout my life, but I didn’t ask.

We have five optometrists on our team who see the patients after the preliminary tests. They assess the patients’ vision more carefully and provide eye drops and glaucoma treatment drops to those who need them. They write the prescriptions for glasses for those who need them, and for the special cases like terygium (they tell me it’s like a callus on the eye) or sores or diseases, they write medical referrals to the Lions Club clinic in San Pedro Sula, which does surgeries and more advanced treatments.

The patients that need glasses then come to the dispensary, where we have approximately 1,500 pairs of donated glasses, sunglasses, and reading glasses. I worked pretty much all day in the dispensary with the team members that pull glasses, adjust glasses, and cut lenses. The doctors had bilingual students to help them speak to clients, so I stayed in the dispensary to talk to patients about taking care of their glasses, how important it is to use sunglasses when they’re outside, and when they should come back to pick up custom-made glasses.

That’s the basics. It was kind of a whirlwind day. When I closed my eyes at the end of the day, I saw patients’ faces and heard lots of Spanish in my head. For most of the day, I was able to speak the right language to the right person (Spanish to a patient, English to a team member, etc.). But by the end of the day, I was speaking Spanish to everyone. I was helping my Aunt Penny communicate with a woman selling shawls and scarves after the clinic closed and at one point, she asked me what the scarf was made out of, the woman said “algodón” (cotton), and I turned to Aunt Penny and said, “Algodón.” She just stared at me, with a little Auntie Penny smile on her face, and waited for me to realize that I hadn’t spoken English.

I had never had that happen before. Even at the end of five months in Spain, my default was always English. I always had to think before speaking to Spanish-speakers because my thoughts were in English. But after just one day here, where I probably did more speaking than in 3 or 4 days in Spain, I was speaking Spanish first. At the welcome dinner at the home of the Lions Club president, I was finding it harder to form English sentences than Spanish ones. Crazy, huh?

Here’s a fun fact (and those of you who have spent time in Central America will recognize this one): you don’t flush your toilet paper here. You use it, then put it in the trash can next to the toilet. This took a little getting used to. I have flushed paper only twice since arriving because sometimes it’s so automatic to just drop the paper in the toilet and flush it. You may ask, doesn’t it get stinky? Surprisingly, not too bad! And they change the trash often. Every bathroom that I’ve been in so far (except the one in the airport) has a window to the outside, which helps a lot. Plus, they maintain the bathrooms more often here – I saw a sign in the airport indicating that theirs would be “refreshed” approximately every four hours. Maybe all they do is Febreeze it, but whatever. It helps. The bathrooms here are no stinkier than the public bathrooms in the U.S.

Today (Sunday) is church day and markets day. We’ll start the clinic a little bit later than normal to accommodate those who want to attend church and those who want to do some shopping in the Sunday market. Then, it’s business as usual! Thank you for your prayers and thoughts. We’ve had a very successful first clinic day. And, yes, my suitcase arrived yesterday afternoon, so I have clean clothes again! Stay tuned for more fun stories and maybe some pictures. I haven’t yet had time to organize and upload them. ¡Hasta mañana!