What's in a name?

Why Poor Ophelia? I've been asked this question more than once in the last few years.
A difficult question, that directly questions my identity.
My biggest struggle would most likely be defining myself by what I do for others, rather than what I do for myself. Doing things for myself often seems lackluster. I get in moods where I just don't care about me. Looking for motivation in others needs seems easier than listening to my inner voice.

I like to read Dr. Alice Boyes online. She's a Social and Clinical Psychologist among other things. A few months back I found myself taking a personality test to help identify my some of my strengths and weaknesses for fun. Of all the things I found out, my levels of sympathy and morality are low.

Low scorers believe that a certain amount of deception in social relationships is necessary. People generally find it more difficult to relate to the unstraightforward low-scorers on this scale. It should be made clear that low scorers are not unprincipled or immoral; they are simply more guarded and less willing to openly reveal the whole truth.

This information was difficult to digest at first. I've always considered myself rather sympathetic and honest - maybe too honest for my own good.

How this all ties into my screen name is just going to be hard to follow. After studying Hamlet in school I stumbled across a book, Reviving Ophelia. My self-help book addiction started young. After a few rocky relationships in high-school and college (yes -I was a slut, I blame society and all the skinny models), I wrote a lame poem an inspiring poem, that detailed my feelings regarding some guy who's name I don't even remember now.
This particular boy had a mild case of Tourette's syndrome, which I found interesting. I always knew the exact moment he fell asleep, when his body stopped twitching. Accepting his illness was easy. We had a similar struggle with food issues and body image problems. It was not surprising, just mildly hurtful to be dumped for being 3 months younger than the legal drinking age - so we couldn't go the the bar together, get drunk and make out. Tall Blond, handsome, with piercing blue eyes. Too pretty to trust.

Death To All

Innocent joy

Destroyed

By a single touch

Rotten flesh

Tastes Bitter

Unlike your love

That doesn’t flow easily

“Hot dogs! Get your red hot ones right here!”

Bellows a vendor on a street corner

He sells meat the same way I sell myself:

Short

Crushed dreams

Begin to glow

Giving new meaning

To life

Yet I choose to wear a blindfold

And drown with grace like the poor Ophelia

Who was killed by a man -

But also by his tragic flaw.

-Alison Adelaide Rogers 1998Ó

The men I dated, until meeting my Prince Kansas, never felt long term - seldom conveyed feelings of security or trust. It wasn't about friendship either. Purely sex driven with most, and never truly satisfying. How I found my prince on the internet, I'll never understand.
"Poor Ophelia" was chosen as reminder to balance myself within my relationship with others, myself and society. Compounded with my love for Hamlet (my favorite on-screen Ophelia portrayed by Helena Bonham Carter) I somehow latched onto the play in school with a dorky passion that couldn't be shaken. To this day, I still find myself occasionally referring to my parents as my Aunt Mother and Uncle Father, as they were my legal guardians from age 13 on.

When in college, I had to come up with a screen name to register on the match.com website. Over my one week free trial period, this is where I met my husband of 10 years this coming, cash gifts welcome May 2010.  Remembering my poem, the name itself should have easily eliminate some men in mullets, and/or haters of Hamlet, which needed not apply for internet pen pal status.

Looking for your address at work the other day I found this. The first email you sent me, dated 3/27/98. I don't save outgoing, so I only the vaguest recollection of what you are responding to. Gosh that's a while ago. Below that is your match.com profile. The first things I knew about you...

"Poor Ophelia, will you throw yourself into the mill pond now?"

"Sorry, the url address didn't work. No, I shall not drown now that you are in my computer... hehehe. Nice to hear from you. Tell me about yourself. I don't really belong to that matchmaking thing anymore. "

~ poor_ophelia

Distance: 912 miles
Artistic, passionate, mature female looking for you!
18 year old female, located in Peterborough, Seeking 20-30 year old male for short-term relationship or long-term relationship.
To express my inner self, I guess I must divulge the following... I love to write, draw and cook. I like to talk and look for people who can entertain me with interesting conversation. I am stuck in a time warp with Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. I am caring and expressive. 5 foot 3 inches, green eyes. I have a bizarre sense of humor. Half Monty Python, Half Douglas Adams.

Ethnicity: Caucasian
Religion: Agnostic
Body Type: Average
Height: 5ft. 3in.
Smoking: Don't smoke
Drinking: Drink socially/occasionally
Children: None
Plans for Children: Want children

In a fight, long ago before college, my Aunt said I was going to marry the first man who asked me. She made it sound like a careless act on my part. These words stuck with me a long time. I was very suspicious of my husband when we became engaged, wondering if I was loosing some bet my Aunt had made.
On one of my latest trips visiting family, my Aunt said to me in a Zellers department store, she is very proud of me - of where I am, who I'm with and of what we have together. I remember covering my face with sunglasses conceal the tears streaming down my face. I was happy to hear the words from her, but sad to know, that inside, I'm not satisfied with myself... and terrified I may never be.

"If we can make dogs happy, children happy, and even cats happy, certainly we can make adults happy, especially an adult we know very very well."

It was challenging last week, to be part of the conversation. I feel a little dirty now talking about it, but what came out was -

"Your husband is mean... to you."

Am I not to him sometimes?

"How can you stand for this?" "How can you let it happen?"

Sometimes I try to ignore it. Sometimes I become passive aggressive and sometimes I really do get angry. Why is this a problem? Nothing is going to change. My best hope is our circumstances do - and a little piece of myself, a deep wound will heal. That's all I can hope for.
Then came:

"You need to find another job"

WTF? Where? Doing what? With more restrictions, less pay, giving up the very laptop I'm typing on? I heard myself say, there isn't a pill that can fix what's wrong. If there is one, I don't think I'm the one who always needs to be taking it. Not working together won't fix it either. We've just hit a rough spot, it will pass. His father just died. Things will change.

The things we once found endearing about one another may become stale and irritating as time moves along. But, we continue to love one another.

This is what being married is like. It's not for everyone. It's very normal to fall in and out of love - which makes the bond stronger.

Some days I imagine slapping my husband when he says something really derogatory, as if in a black and white movie. We fight, he grabs my hand and kisses me with fire and passion.

Some days I feel so blue from a fight, I want to tunnel deep into the flannel of our bed with heaps of pillows - drowning my sorrows with a drug-induced slumber.

Where did my confidence go? When did I become just as mean-spirited? I try really hard to be a good wife, a caring person. Sometimes, I find it hard to care. Sometimes, the negative body language really gets to me, our egos get in the way when talking to one another.

Don't tell me I'm a victim - I'm not. It takes two people to be married. Tonight I've reread some marital wisdom from a couples book, recommend to us by our wonderful therapist.
I Will Never Leave You: How Couples Can Achieve The Power Of Lasting Love
Here is my summary of the last chapter The six promises of a real relationship

• I promise not to question your needs: We are all a little screwed up. Be relaxed about the human condition, take each other the way you are. Acknowledge that you each have separate needs, accept, commit to helping each other meet them.

• I promise to seek your peace: It doesn't mean shutting down the emotions or placing a limit on enjoyment. Peace is not an affect but rather a conscious connection with your core. It is simply a quiet decision about who you are, which you do not forget.

• I promise to put your happiness first: To carry out this promise is merely to practice the way love feels. Love has no fear. Start simply by guessing what you think would make your marriage happier, and put it first. Take care of your body and your emotional needs, yet still put your relationship first. Do kind, loving, nourishing things for each other throughout the day.

• For it is in giving that I receive: Do something just to be doing it, to bring light simply because there is darkness, to bring joy simply because there is sadness. It is impossible to relate and not have a relationship, but it is possible to have a marriage and yet wait forever for the relationship you want to come to you.

• And it is in helping you awake that I awake: People don't actually take on negative vibrations, they react to them with negative vibrations of their own - which continue for as long as they choose to continue them. Marriage is dependent on your trying to see your partner's deep innocence - until that vision becomes permanent.
  

• I love you; I bless you; I want to walk to God with you: A real relationship is perhaps the quickest and simplest path to the top of the mountain. There, in stillness and humility, Love shows us a great splendor that covers everything and embraces all. To take our partners hand is not a weakness, but salvation.