Alyssa Milano Gets Married

In a city of grown up child stars, a literal graveyard of broken little dreams and big time drug habits, where one can go left, and another go right, Alyssa Milano has been my role model, because she's stayed down. Grounded. Looking never left nor right. And it's difficult to not like her. Although brunette (a fault I too have had to overcome), she's smart and perky, a fantastical writer, a healthy independent woman, who you don't see forever in the press for a string of high profile relationships, but instead for what she wants to be known for: being an actress, and being a baseball fan.

Her MLB blog is one of my favorites because she's forever humble in her access, a grown-up child who hasn't lost the luster for her hometown team. Who sees baseball, not as a game, but as a storytelling experience. Who saw the necessity for cute dodger outfits, and created bedazzled jerseys, mini-skirts, and velour jackets which show team pride. A stylish, independent, grounded woman, with a love for sports, and my own team. How she wouldn't be my role model is more a question.

I've experienced the meeting and greeting, first date to second, year one to two, to three and four, fights and reconciliations, more fights and reconciliation, growing together, and growing up in the human experience. I've listened to what works and what doesn't, and tried to craft the ways in which I respond to relationships out of a learned way. I've watched movies and television shows, reality and scripted, 4 sessions of couples therapy, one visit with a life couch, a row and a half of self help books on a bookshelf, regular calls to my mom and my best friends and a sister who is all together tired of my questions. What I learned from the books and the coaches, a random woman at Starbucks, and $135 dollars give or take state sales tax is this, and this alone: when you ask people their opinion, they will give you one. They will define your reality by theirs, take some offense in you not listening, but almost always do so from a place of trying to help. A place of love.

I ask a lot of questions. My mother shakes her head angrily at the day she ever thought I wouldn't speak. It's been years of asking questions, and wanting answers, but the more I see, and the more I know, the more I ask, and the more I question, the less I know for sure.

I know for sure when I was 17 I wanted no part of boys at all.
I know when I was 20 I thought I couldn't live without them.
I know by 25 I was so hurt I couldn't live with them.
I know I've seen movies that describe relationships as "finding your other half."
I know I've seen more movies that say more of the same.

If relationships are about finding your other half, then being single must be about being empty.
Right?
A baseless void-fused experience of chaos and loneliness - until you can find someone that will love you.

Yikes.

None of that sounds quite right. Which is why I like Alyssa Milano.

Someone grounded, who I admire, who's stayed single well in to their 30s. Who has pursued their passions and lived fabulously. Who's interests lie in her desire, and who's partner came as a result of all that.
"A lovely gift," she describes it.

I like Alyssa Milano most for being a Dodger fan. But during the off season I like her for seeing relationships as I have asked and answered and see them now, as being nothing more than a lovely gift, to an otherwise beautiful life.