When We Chose to Breakup Instead of Make Up

Processed with VSCO with c3 preset

Processed with VSCO with c3 preset

Processed with VSCO with c3 preset

If you’ve been in a relationship of any length you know that there comes a point where one or both of you have to make a choice: should we break up or stay together? In some cases an event might spark a breakup, the main examples being cheating, lying, or stealing but sometimes it is not that cut and dry, especially if you’ve invested time and love. No matter what the factors, at the end of the day whether you choose to break up or stay together the fact is that it is a choice. We reflected on relationships when we chose to break it off even though an event didn’t spark the decision. We chose to end the relationships for the betterment of ourselves and our then partners. While discussing this post we found that while the context was different, the names, the places, the factors, etc, the reasons were very similar and we’ll share below our experiences…

Processed with VSCO with c3 preset

Sass: The relationship that comes to mind is one that involves (*spoiler alert*) my first proposal. I was in college dating a guy who was a out of college and in the military. Very soon into our relationship he was stationed to another city which put a lot of pressure on us early on. We made trips to see each other when possible and I had the most emotional experiences each time I had to leave him. At the end of one weekend together in the airport parking lot, I was sobbing until he hits me with, “Baby, I love you. Will you marry me?” The crying stopped, better yet, it came to a screeching halt. “I love you very much but I can’t answer that right now,” I finally said. His face dropped and my heart broke.

From then on we were never the same, as you can imagine. He lashed out at me repeatedly over the next few weeks and we fought a lot. Looking back I believe he was just too hurt to know what to do so instead of talking it out, we fought it out. I can clearly remember the moment when I made the decision to breakup. By about the tenth or eleventh listen of Beyonce’s “If I Were A Boy”, I made the decision to strip my room clean of anything that reminded me of him and made the call.

I learned a lot from this relationship but the biggest take away for me was if you want to ask a grown up question then be grown up enough to handle any answer. I could have chosen to stick it out, fight through it, and make it work but I chose not to. I chose to recognize that ultimately this person was not right for me and that to continue to endure the negativity would be harmful to both of us. So in breaking if off with him, I broke both of our hearts but I can say that I knew even then it was the right decision.

Sweetness: Choosing to break up or stay together seems pretty black and white but I’m sure everyone can agree that it’s definitely a gray area, an area of uncertainty. I have been in a relationship where I was head over heels in love and the guy I was with … well idk if he entirely felt the same but his dreams were different than mine. Baseball was his dream and he joined the minor leagues after he graduated college and continued to chase that dream. I was still in school and though I should have been enjoying my final year, all I wanted was to be with him! The distance, time zone differences, and always being in a different place was always working against us. We could rarely figure out a time to see one another and if we did, one of us was traveling a far distance just to try and make it work.

Being so young, it was just not sustainable or realistic. We both needed to choose if we were going to make this work or not and being that we are no longer together, I think you can guess what we chose. It doesn’t mean it was easy and that there weren’t any tears or hurt feelings. It was just simply the situation that ultimately lead us to realize this was not something we could both continue pursuing.

So, as you can see our stories are different but share underlying themes and the biggest one being choice. We made choices in these relationships based on the circumstances, age, time and place, and future goals. In reading our stories we are a bit envious of our younger, more fearless selves. As hard as those choices were to make in the moment, looking back it seems so easy and clear. We are going to take our younger, more fearless selves into our next tough choice and know that in 10 more years from now we’ll see the choice as easy and clear!

Xo Sass and Sweetness

Sass and Sweetness2 Comments

How My Body Changed After Baby

Processed with VSCO with c3 preset

Ohhhh the body after baby! I’m just not sure that any blog post can adequately encompass the full scope of the changes in your body after having a baby but I, Sass, will try.

I would first like to acknowledge that I am skipping right over all of the changes that occur during pregnancy because I feel like pregnancy is a talked about over and over again while the postpartum situation isn’t talked about enough. And full-disclosure, I had a natural delivery with no complications so I can’t speak to a c-section recovery or any effects of complicated pregnancies or deliveries.

So, to begin, I want to make clear that right after you give birth your pregnant belly does not, I repeat, it does not magically go away. You pop that baby out and still look about 6 months pregnant. This was a major let down for me and also pretty shocking. I was feeling my most mentally and physically drained in my entire life and still had to carry a gut around that I didn’t recognize with NO BABY IN THERE! At least I was pregnant I knew in my mind, and could say to others, “There’s a darn baby in there!”

Anyway, the first 2-3 weeks with a baby are GRUELING (I’d even push that number to 6 weeks). They need to eat every two hours and if you’re breastfeeding like I was that means you cannot sleep for more than maybe 45 minutes at a time. For those who are unfamiliar, newborns can take up to 45 mins to an hour to eat so in doing the math…the baby eats for an hour and then you burp her for 15 minutes (45 minutes) then if you fall asleep right away you get 45 minutes before the baby is ready to do it all over again! You see, it’s every 2 hours from the time they start eating not from the time they finish! I was mentally and physically in awe of what was happening. I cried a lot. My boobs hurt, my back hurt, my wrists hurt, my head hurt, everything hurt including the who-ha! For crying out loud a bowling ball just came out of there, things were not normal!

Processed with VSCO with c3 preset

So while I was trying to get this whole mom thing and breastfeeding a stranger thing down, I couldn’t sit without a pillow under my butt, I couldn’t sleep, I was wearing a pad the size of a ice pack in mesh panties that needed to be changed what felt like constantly and in lieu of wiping, I was squirting myself with a water bottle. Oh and don’t forget the who-ha numbing spray for the stitches and the ice packs that would go in between the pad and the witch hazel wipes….get the picture?! It’s brutal.

A few months later I started to feel less like a stranger in my own body but I can say that even 9 months, almost 10 months postpartum I am still not normal and at this point I’m not sure I’ll ever be “the same” as I was pre-pregnancy. My body is just different now. Sometimes I have pain in places I didn’t before, my weight is distributed a little differently (yup, a little bit more in the belly), and for awhile there, although it seems to have stopped, my hair was falling out like crazy. This is all “normal” as they say but what’s normal to the world is all new to first time moms.

Processed with VSCO with c3 preset

My skin is different, mainly from lack of sleep and stress, but the bags under my eyes just never seem to go away. And these are bags on a level I have never seen. My hangovers are worse than ever before. But at this point, even though I don’t physically feel like my pre-baby self, I am down to my pre-pregnancy weight. I went into my pregnancy a little bit heavy so the battle to slim down continues but I have to say that for awhile that was one of the toughest parts about it all…

Ya know when you’re feeling crummy and you start mentally piling on all the shit in your mind that’s terrible: “I haven’t slept in what feels like years, I’m tired, so so so tired, from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep my time and my life are no longer my own…oh, and I’m fat.” It’s awful, it really is, but it’s true. I felt and still very often feel so overwhelmed by being a mom, working, taking care of my family, doing laundry, making dinner, trying to have a social life, everything is hard…oh, and my clothes don’t fit. It’s like this little cherry on top of everything. In the most physically and mentally challenging time in my life I was not at my peak level of physical fitness to handle it and I believe that is a reality that all new moms, even the most fit ones, will have to face at one point. If you are more fit, that time period might be shorter than it is for others and as for me, I’m getting there. I’m almost back……and then I get to do it all over again for baby #2. YAY!

LOL and that’s the thing, I’m making all of this sound awful, and to be really honest, it is sometimes BUT there is a reason people do this over and over again. That reason is obviously the baby. They do make it worth it, maybe not every minute of every day but looking at her now as I write this I know I’ll do it again. And lastly, in hindsight, part of why those first weeks and months are so hard is because you have no prior experience to know that this too shall pass. Your mom, your sister, your friends can all tell you it will and deep down you know it will but it’s the WHEN that is daunting…when will it end? For round two I’ll at least have some idea of what is happening and I’ll look forward to days like today when I can sit on a hard chair without pain, my boobs are not infected from mastitis, and my baby can laugh and hug me. I’ll know that with all the change comes the reward!

Sass and SweetnessLeave a comment

Changes at Work

 

Processed with VSCO with c3 preset

“Work, work, work, work, work, work, you see me I be work, work, work, work, work, work,” (Rihanna), I mean how could we not start this post with that song? We like to sing it to each other anytime a post about working and careers comes up. You can picture it, can’t you? With our fake British accents of course.

Anyway, making a career change can be one of the most risky and scary transitions and yet the most rewarding. On the one hand, you know what they say, sometimes the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. We believe, however, that just like most things in life there are pros and cons to changing careers, changing companies within your same field, or even the change that occurs when you (hopefully) get promoted. Woo!

We have some experience on these changes that we’ll share below:

From No Rules to Corporate America (Sass): Right after I graduated from college, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do so I got my job back at a bar in Georgetown. This was a legitimately no rules kinda place: I got paid under the table, we drank through our shifts, and often talked back to customers (the customer is always right rule certainly did not apply here). I picked right up from college to a sports bar with no rules to a start-up company where my “bosses” worked out of California and pretty much had no idea what I did all day to finally, the corporate job I held for the last 5 years. In just over a year my work attire went from Daisy Dukes, to leggings and a sweatshirt working from home, to black suits every darn day. I remember the first few weeks of having to be at work in a suit at a desk at 8:30am…it felt like the worst thing in the world. There were plenty of days where I took naps on my lunch break rather than eat. It was bruuuuutal but seeing as I was there for 5 years, I got the hang of it. Adjusting your schedule can be daunting and I’d offer advice on how to do it but I definitely don’t think I did it the most graceful way (LOL) but hey, I was 23 and could handle it.

I also had to change my mindset. In my corporate job the customer was pretty much always right and thankfully I’m a smart cookie and figured that out right quick! I also had to adjust back to answering to someone and learn new processes and systems for doing things. I had to learn the lingo and the hierarchy too. So.much.change but like I said, I figured it out pretty quickly.

From No Rules to Corporate America (Sweetness): For me, Sweetness, I was babysitting and cheered for the Nets right out of college, however I was really excited to join “corporate” America. I thought dressing in work clothes each day would be really fun, even though I absolutely loved my babysitting and cheerleading job, I was ready to be more professional. I worked for Verizon Wireless for a long time in HR and Sales and though I learned a ton from working in a corporate setting, if anyone needs a babysitter – I’ll gladly be yours! The 9-5 is not something that I want to do for the rest of my life and it is often hard to have to be somewhere everyday at a particular time. In my current role, I often get complimented for how professional I am, which I will thank Verizon for, however I’ve come to learn that I want more time for myself and more flexibility, especially when I have kids.

Processed with VSCO with c3 preset

From Entry Level to Middle Management (Sass): So, I worked for a corporate residential property management company. I started on the ground floor as a leasing agent. Being a leasing agent is mainly about sales but it is also involves hand-holding residents through rent increases and construction, putting out fires when the renovation team accidentally knocks through the wrong wall, handling office politics, and paperwork. Good LAWD, the paperwork! But pretty much if you could handle the politics and the paperwork and had excellent sales numbers, you could get promoted, which I did (quite a few times – oh yaaaass)! Details of the promotion aside, the biggest changes involved now leading a team and answering to the bigger bosses at a different level. Basically as the low man on the totem pole, as long as your sales were stellar people left you alone. As a manager, however, no one leaves you alone. The team below you needs you to inspire and lead them but also sometimes babysit them. And the team above you needs to do all of that for the team below you but also do the projects and tasks that the they don’t want to do or have the time to do. In my case this meant one word…SPREADSHEETS! My company loved spreadsheets. It also meant reporting, lots of reporting and numbers. You get me, right? Specifics aside, it meant double duty aka more responsibility. In some ways it was nice to get away from the battlefield that was the leasing floor and to have an office to get work done in. On the other hand, it really meant that I only talked to clients when they were unhappy, you know, the “I want to talk to a manager” types. There are pros and cons, as there is with anything to getting a promotion but of course the big fat nice pro is that it usually comes with a pay increase!

From Corporate America to Working From Home (Sweetness): There was a period of time where I was strictly working from home right after I moved back from California. It was what I needed at the time since I went through a hard break up and needed to get my life back on track. I enjoyed being able to settle back in, especially on those hard days when I was upset due to my recent break up. As I started getting more settled, I realized that working from home has it benefits, however it also has its downfalls. I wasn’t in a setting where I was talking and interacting with new people, which is what I started to need after some time.

Though I am really good at sticking to a routine, it would often be 2pm and I was still in my PJ’s and haven’t ate anything the whole day. For some reason when I am home, I just do, do , do and forget to eat. Crazy I know, but it was starting to become something that I really needed to change. I made a change and acted like I had to be somewhere at a certain time so I was getting up, working out right away, actually getting dressed, and would eat lunch at a reasonable hour. Having more of a routine helped me be more productive at home, while still being able to enjoy the benefits until I got a new job in an office setting.

From Corporate America to Working From Home (Sass): While I was out on maternity leave an opportunity came up for me to work from home for my parents’ business. When we looked at the cost of childcare, it made sense. Also, I get stressed out about things like who is dropping off and picking up, who is making lunch, she’s sick and I need to take off of work, etc. My company was NOT flexible in any way shape or form so eliminating those stressors made sense for me and the fam bam. Working from home, as Sweetness said, has its pros and cons. My days went from the rules having rules to leggings and Elmo songs. My “office” moves wherever the baby wants or needs to be, most of the time I’m on the floor with my laptop on my lap! It’s chaotic and not always the most productive but it works for us. I definitely miss the office environment from time to time, mostly the handful of people I really love working with but otherwise, this is working out just fine!

IMG_0156

We’ve gone through our share of changes and we’re sure when we rewrite this post years from now there will be more changes! Changing jobs, careers, titles, or working environments can be stressful but at the end of the day we try to find the positives! And as always, we want to know: what was the biggest move you’ve made in your work? Did you change careers? Did you get a big promo recently? Tell us everything!

Xo Sass and Sweetness

Sass and SweetnessLeave a comment

Moving Means Big Changes!

 

Processed with VSCO with c3 preset

Aside from relationships, another huge change that both of us have experienced is moving! We are both born and raised in New Jersey and went to school out of state, which was when the first big move out of our comfort zones happened. Sweetness went to University of Delaware and lived at school all four years and Sass went to Georgetown University and not only lived in Washington, DC during college, but for 5 years after too!

It seems pretty obvious that with moving comes change, however our moves were definitely more complicated and extensive than that. We are sharing our experiences and how to adjust to the changes that moving brings along as well as the new life you will experience!

Processed with VSCO with c3 preset

Sass:

Hola, Sass here! So, as we’ve already mentioned I lived in Washington, DC for college and upon graduating, I moved home to New Jersey to figure out what I was going to do with my life. Well, that lasted for all of 4 months before I picked up and move back to DC. I moved back because I had a sense of independence in DC that I was unable to achieve at home in New Jersey. I knew I could get my bartending job back just in time for football season and continue to look for a job both in NJ and in DC in the meantime because I never intended on staying in DC very long.

But then don’t ya know it, 2 months after I moved to DC, I met my now husband and 6 months after moving there we were officially unofficially dating and the rest is history as they say. As he is born and raised right outside of DC, it looked like I was bound to the area forever.

That all changed, however, when a job opportunity presented itself for him in Boston, MA. You all know that I credit this move and the year we spent there as one our best years yet; it was the best experience. Within that year we got preggers and as you know, moved home to New Jersey.

So not only have I moved states several times but within those states I’ve lived in 5 apartments (not including college) so moving and I are no strangers. The process is an actual b*tch but each time I get more and more efficient. Boxes? Oh I’ve labeled each side with absurdly descriptive descriptions, like embarrassingly descriptive but who knows where any item is when I need it? THIS GIRL.

But all kidding aside, my recommendation is to be as organized as possible, even over the details that you don’t think will really matter or that you take for granted when you are in a routine. For example, you will want internet set up ASAP, you will need a place to sleep immediately, you will want to know where to order delivery from the first night, and you will need to take off a day from work. I’ve attempted the “no days off” thing when moving and it really makes for a stressful first day at work in a new place or even in your same city just trying to find your stuff!

IMG_0080.JPG

Sweetness:

Hey everyone, it’s Sweetness! As mentioned above, I have lived in New Jersey and Delaware during my childhood and college years. After college I moved back to NJ until I met my ex. We both lived in NJ for about a year, however he was from California and wanted to move back home. For me it was a no-brainer at first! I have always loved Cali (I dated a guy in college that was from there too!) and thought it would be really awesome to live in a state that pretty much everyone dreams of living in.

So off I went to LA to live with my ex and bring on a whole new life. I had these thoughts that every day would be sunny (which it was), we would go to the beach all the time (um hello, have you heard about the traffic?!), and also that we would have an amazing group of friends that we would always do fun things with (did I mention we lived in LA…). Though the sun was always shining and the beaches were beautiful, California was a different experience for me than I thought. It took over an hour to go 10 miles, which limited our travel to about a 2 mile radius and the people I experienced in LA were not the most welcoming with open arms.

My expectations before the move were high and when I first got there, though it was exciting, it was MUCH harder than I thought. Yes, it was fun going to Home Goods and finally having my own space with my then boyfriend, but boy do you realize how much in a routine you were in your last place you lived to only realize EVERYTHING changes. Like literally everything, even those small things that you don’t realize, which we will be talking about in our next post!  

So we believe everyone should step out of their comfort zone and make a move that will give you a new experience, just make sure to really evaluate the move before you do it! You will miss things about the old place you lived and love things about this new place. Sometimes this will be great, sometimes they will be not so great. Keep your expectations low and if you are struggling and having a hard time, make sure you have someone you can turn to!

Xo Sass and Sweetness

Sass and SweetnessLeave a comment

How Meeting “The One” Changes Your Life

marriage1.jpg

marriage3.jpg

So we’ve gone through all the breakups, eaten all the pizza, kissed all the frogs, and finally found the one. Now what? Some of us will make the decision to marry this person and that’s what we’re here to talk about today….marriage and all that comes with it!

SoOo, hey there, Sass here! As of today I have been with my husband for 6 years and we are 21 months into marriage. That being said, if you are a gazillion years into marriage, or simply in it longer than we are, take everything below with a grain of salt as I am sure I will read this years from now and laugh at myself…

marriage2.jpg

When You Know, You Know
When you ask most people, “So how did you know he/she was the one?” We are often met by the same response, “Ah well, when you know, you know.” I definitely subscribe to gut feelings and I too experienced this sense of cosmic “knowing” about my husband. However, I could also analyze our relationship and know that we aligned. Relationships do not often fail because of differing religious viewpoints, differing wants on children, smoking, or any of the “big ticket items,” as I call them, because when people differ on these aspects of life most often the relationship never begins in the first place. In my experience, relationships fail because of differing viewpoints on lifestyle, money, and affection. When two people generally share the same hopes, dreams, and goals for how you want life to be things tend to work out. For example, it could be difficult for a relationship to thrive when one person loves to travel and the other couldn’t care less, when one person wants to be social all the time and the other is a constant homebody, when you have a morning versus a night person, a clean versus messy person, someone who craves physically affection and a partner who isn’t into it, or when you have differing opinions on how to spend money. I truly believe that the “smaller ticket items” build up over time and eventually someone (or both people) explode.

That being said, my husband is messy and I am neat, he is very social and I am more of a homebody BUT I think what people mean by “when you know, you know,” is that you experience these differences in every relationship but you know it’s “the one” because this person makes compromises for you. And equally important, you see that you are willing and happy to compromise for him/her.

My husband and I also share the same values and are on the same page about our big life picture. We both appreciate and love to travel, we both want family to be a big part of our lives, and we both understand that while we like nice things, buying our first home is the priority and limit our spending accordingly. We are not going to get in arguments about credit card charges, public versus private school for our daughter, or seeing family on holidays, as examples.

So, yes, I knew I was in love with him, physically attracted to him, and enjoyed my time with him but when it came to deciding whether or not to marry him, I knew that the vision of what I wanted my life to look like very closely aligned to his vision of his life. This was a big indication to me that we could make this darn thing work for the long haul.

The Big Day
My husband and I have huge families and lots of friends so the decision to do a destination wedding came pretty easily to us. We needed a way to simplify our big day and keep it “small” without insulting a large part of our extended circles. In a perfect world would we have had everyone there, of course, but we simply couldn’t afford it. And I’ll be very honest with you, growing up in New Jersey and having attended some of the most beautiful and extravagant weddings I knew that even if we took the 80 people that we had in Mexico to a venue in NJ, we would not have afforded the type of wedding that I pictured in my head in my teens and early 20s. I needed to make our wedding so different from the $100,000-500,000 weddings that I’d seen in my younger years in order to not feel like my wedding wasn’t as nice or as glam or as beautiful.

So, we took our wedding to Mexico and let the beach be our backdrop and the party and vacation with our friends and family take the place of the over the top centerpieces, the big band, and the king crab leg cocktail hour. It’s not that I didn’t want these things, and I am not mocking those that have this type of wedding, I just knew we wouldn’t have been able to do it to the level that I would have wanted so we made it completely different. Ultimately the entire party was dancing before the salads were served and we had an incredible time. So 21 months later, I’m not bothered by the simple white flower centerpieces and I can’t remember what I ate so there’s that. It’s true what they say though, it is a blur so try to enjoy it in the moment as much as possible!

Love and Marriage
I’m finding it difficult to adequately put into words the wonderful aspects of marriage other than to say that I know I have a partner for life. This is such a secure, wonderful feeling but rather than type out a bunch of lovey dovey stuff about my marriage and my love for my husband I’m going to let two songs do the talking:

“Home” by Phillip Phillips (our wedding song):
Hold on, to me as we go, as we roll down this unfamiliar road. And although this wave is stringing us along, just know you’re not alone, ’cause I’m going to make this place your home.

“Feel the Tide” by Mumford and Sons (one of “our songs”):
It’s you and I now, we can be alright, just hold onto what we know is true. You and I now, though it’s cold inside, feel the tide turning…

I think you get the picture: we’re in this together, I love him more than I can describe, and we always have each other’s backs. Done and done.

The Challenges
Welp, there isn’t enough time or space to go through the challenges of marriage but I’ll share some of the most relevant ones to me right now. My husband feels loved through food and while it seems like an easy enough thing to make happen, sometimes getting dinner on the table feels like running a marathon. While on my own I could eat hummus for dinner, in order to keep my marriage happy and healthy, I generally need to get dinner on the table even when it means sacrificing other errands, chores, or a workout class for me. It’s just one of those things, ya know?

Secondly, having a baby has presented all sorts of new challenges and I think the biggest one is that as a first time mom, I have experienced so many changes in the last 18 months (including pregnancy and now my daughter is 9 months), that my husband literally cannot relate to. He can be and is supportive of me but there’s no biological way for him to truly understand how I feel mentally, emotionally, and physically and that.is.hard. He is my go-to guy for everything and in this instance, we have had to accept that there are aspects of my life now that I sometimes need to turn to someone other than him to work through, which has been an adjustment.

I can continue with specifics but overall, it comes down to making choices, decisions, and compromises for another person even when you don’t want to. It is more challenging than I first realized to balance standing my ground with knowing that at the end of the day being right takes down the other person, the person I love most in the world. Years ago my husband and I were arguing about something, I can’t remember what, and my mom said to me, “Christie, I know. I get it. But in being right and ‘winning’ this argument means that he, your person, loses. And as much as you believe and know you’re right, is it worth him losing?” That is something I try to keep in mind when we have disagreements because disagreements are always going to be there but it’s how we work through them that make or break us. We are not perfect but I have one of those marriages where even when we argue I always know that “we’re fine.” If you have this, you know what I mean. Having the “we’re always fine” thing is our confidence in our foundation and I’m just not sure what I’d do without it.

marriage4.jpg

Change
So, we think it’s pretty obvious how your life changes when you get married. You go from doing what you want, when you want, to making decisions together, spending money together, bringing babies into the world together. Everything is suddenly about the togetherness! But not only does your life change when you get married but your marriage changes as your life changes. So.much.change. Sass is going through this now with her husband and learning how the marriage changes with having a kid. She is also learning what it means to have “married couple friends,” and how to balance the wild and crazy single nights out with Sweetness! But when it comes down to it, all of the change and all of the challenges are worth it for the marriage, for your friends, for your family, and for us as individuals!

So tell us what marriage means to you! What’s the secret sauce to making your marriage work? What is most challenging for you right now? Or what are you most looking forward to in marriage? Are you choosing not to get married? We want to hear from you! Leave a comment here or on our Instagram!

Xo Sass and Sweetness

 

Sass and Sweetness4 Comments

How Friendships are Impacted by Life’s Events aka LIFE!

Processed with VSCO with c3 preset

As life takes us on differents paths, it’s a crazy balancing act to try and stay in touch with your friends. People grow older, move to different states, get married, and have children and suddenly the timeline everyone was once on is no longer in sync. It’s funny because as kids you often think you will get married and have babies at the same time as your friends and then your babies will be best friends. However, that’s not always how life goes and not what we have experienced.

We both were in long term relationships at the same time and were able to have that in common. The trouble was that we were living in completely different parts of the country, California and Washington DC. It was tough to keep up with one another’s schedule and not to mention the 3 hour time difference! Sass would try and call Sweetness on her drive home from work, however it was the middle of the day for Sweetness. And talk about trying to get together! We always had to coordinate when we would be back in NJ at the same time or we would only see each other during the holidays or for some event.

So this is where the story and paths got different. Sass ended up getting engaged and married. Sweetness got engaged, but unfortunately that relationship ended and she is now single. Sass also recently had a baby, which has added another “difference” to the equation. So now we have one married with a baby friend and 1 single friend trying to maintain their relationship with each other and figure out this new way of life. So how do we handle being on two different ends of the spectrum? We’ve shared our own personal views below.

Processed with VSCO with c3 presetSweetness:

Hey everyone, Sweetness here! So as you read above, I am currently single after being in a long term relationship. I’ve experienced moving across the country, changing jobs, being a bridesmaid several times over, and dealing with this new single life of mine all while my friends have continued on with married life. Do I feel lonely at times? Yes… actually more than usual. The reason though is not because I am single. It is not because I don’t have someone that I am dating – it is honestly because my friends now have their own significant others and I feel like I can’t go to them like I used to. But wait – it’s not because they’ve done anything to make me feel that way. It’s honestly a subconscious feeling that I get in my own head about (because trust me I know Sass would love to go out any chance she gets!)

To further explain, I think it is because we are all in different stages of life so it’s hard to figure out who is feeling what. I don’t want to be a burden on them or to make them feel “bad” for me. There are times where I might get upset because of my situation and although I know I can call them, I don’t always want to because I know they have their own responsibilities to deal with. From this, I feel our relationship has gotten closer but also further. We are getting further away from having commonalities, however we are getting closer because we are more mature and can have very candid conversations.

Trust me, I am happy for my friends and again trust me I want to get married and have like 10,000 babies, but for now, this is the stage we are all in. I’m sure once I do get married and have babies then our relationship will take an even different turn! We will be asking for one another’s advice about diaper rash and complaining about how our husband’s never pick up their socks. But for now, it’s trying to balance our friendship in these two completely different stages and schedules.

Sass:

Hi friends! So as you know, if you’ve been keeping up with our posts, I am the first of our core group of friends to have baby. In fact, I was also the first to get engaged and married. And I know what you might be thinking, “Wowwww, Sass, your life is SO hard. Is your wallet too small for your fifties and are your diamond shoes too tight??” [Friends reference, duh] but it has not always been a smooth sailing road. Because I am the first to take these steps, I am sometimes left out of the single and/or baby-less lifestyle I used to lead with my friends. When my friends decide on a whim to have a girl’s night out, not only do I need a babysitter but it means leaving my husband at home. Or how about when I was pregnant, the last thing I wanted to do was pop bottles at Wicked Wolf (a sports bar in Hoboken, NJ) on Sunday to watch football but it meant being “left out” of the day. Now, to make it very clear, I was not purposefully being “left out” but the FOMO was the same!

It’s tough because I never want to complain about having a husband and a baby because in the grand scheme these are obviously people and decisions about life that mean everything to me, but as Sweetness said, for most of our lives up to this point, we’ve been in the same stage on the same timeline. Now we are all over the place and have aspects of our lives that we can’t understand fully about each other. I believe this is where some friendships fall off but when you have true, meaningful, OG friends like ours we push through. We have open and honest conversations that may still not make it so that we can fully relate but we can do our best and be there for each other all the same.

Xo Sass and Sweetness

Sass and SweetnessLeave a comment

Making Friends at (nearly) 30 Years Old

winery3The funny thing about making friends later in life is that we didn’t think we’d be faced with doing so. We don’t know about you but we made our friends and then figured, “That’s it, no new friends!” But the thing is that we do have to keep evolving and meeting new people. We make new friends at work, at the gym, in mommy circles, online, in our communities, etc, etc.

Making friends at (almost) 30 is easier in some ways, and harder in others, than it was when we were in middle school, high school, or college. It’s easier because we are more secure in who we are. Our lives won’t be over if someone doesn’t like us, which is how you might feel when you’re younger. We have a little less #FOMO and a little more, we gon do what we want, thanks. We think that self-security and confidence is what attracts people to you. It’s cliche but it’s true, you just have to be yourself. Anyone who has survived middle school, high school, and college can sniff out a phony in an instant. A phony doesn’t make friends well past a certain age because who has time nowadays for any of that?!

winery1So ironically enough, it’s a little harder to make friends now for the same reason as it is easier. Ladies, what the heck are you talking about? Well in our younger years, the easiest way to make friends was to conform. You find out what the group likes, doesn’t like, and you adapt and say that you feel the same way. Conforming gives you instant friends, not best friends or meaningful friends, but hey, you’ve got em! In this case, we’re a little too old for that. Not only do we not have the time to be anything but ourselves but we are too mature and less willing to settle for anything but a meaningful relationship.

We also believe that in our specific case, we definitely are less likely to conform for any new friendship because we know we have our solid ya-ya friendships in our back pocket. Any new friend is a bonus to what we already have with our core group of women. The women that we’ve been friends with for 10, 15, 20, or like us 30 years now.

winery2Anyway, we’ve talked quite a bit about what it’s like to make a friend later in life as far as being in a situation where making a new friend is on the horizon. What we mean by that is that we’ve discussed what it’s like to make a new friend when the situation is in front of us. What we haven’t yet touched upon is how it can be challenging later in life to make a new friend when you need one because well, life is life. When we were younger there was school, teams, and clubs designed to help people make friends. Now, as adults of course clubs and teams do exist but don’t you feel like most often people go into those scenarios with their friends?! It takes courage to walk solo into a club or group and attempt to make friends versus walking in with a posse of people!

winery4So, all of that being said, we want to hear from you! Do you find it challenging to make friends later in life? What do you find to be the biggest challenge? Have you successfully made new friends? What worked for you? Comment below and let us know whatever you think about this topic because we know there’s someone out there who feels the same….and is perhaps looking for a friend!

Xo Sass & Sweetness

Sass and SweetnessLeave a comment