Relationships with people: my family, my friends and my clients are the most important element of CBS LIFESTYLIST. I’ve included this section in my website so I have the opportunity to discuss my book, my family, my life as a wife, a mother, a sister, a friend, a wedding coordinator and a wardrobe stylist. My relationships with people is what teaches me who I am and whom I want to become. I want to be better, more compassionate and more understanding. Every failed relationship and every successful relationship has ultimately made me CBS Lifestylist. Relationships matter and relationships are what make my world (our world) go round.
Catherine's Book: Love Never Goes Away
Isn’t it ironic? Weddings are what I do for a living. Weekend after weekend I witness the coming together of two people and their families, yet here I am experiencing the split of my own marriage.
I started this book for therapeutic reasons. Journaling helped me understand my thoughts and emotions about the end of my marriage, and allowed me to come to terms with the realization that the man I was married to no longer wanted me.
As I wrote it, I realized I was really writing this book for my sons. I want them to know and understand that life is full of the unexpected. I want them to know that it doesn’t matter what happens (because something unexpected will definitely happen), it’s how you handle it. I want them to know that even though I’m sad and disappointed and hurting, love doesn’t go away. Faith that life can still be happy and fulfilling doesn’t go away.
Lastly, I realized I was writing this book to make sense of the nothing I was. I don’t mean that I had terrible self-esteem. I felt like nothing because I had nothing to come back to. I didn’t have me. I lost the core essence of me and it was terrifying and lonely. I didn’t have my philosophy, my beliefs, or my own wisdom to draw from. It was gone. It was shattered like a bulldozer smashing a house’s foundation.
I have always observed people and what they do in certain circumstances. I take what I like and make mental notes. Then I come back to me. I check in with my own beliefs and truths and I remember that everyone does things differently. I’m always comforted by me. I always have faith that I have the answers within me and I believe my own intuition. This time, this year, this space, I had no beliefs and I couldn’t find the intuition. I couldn’t come back to me because there was no me. This was the hardest realization. Not missing my ex-husband, Joe, which I did. Not missing my boys, which I did. Not missing my life, which I did. The very hardest was that I was missing me. I couldn’t function. It was excruciating. It was so unfamiliar and scary. As I wrote, I realized I was writing this book about how I was going to bring the demolished foundation of my life back together again. First I had to collect the larger chunks and start piecing them back together. These larger pieces symbolized my belief in unconditional love, the belief that I need to relinquish control for great things to happen, and the belief that Joe was a good man and that he deserved this space and time.
Next, I began slowly assembling the smaller chunks. One was the belief that I was never alone. My friends and family, and especially my boys, would see me through the pain and confusion and listen and care and be with me. The craziest epiphany was that although I was physically alone for the first time in my life, I never felt lonely. This is huge coming from a person who was not even conceived alone. I shared a womb and all the stages of growing up with my triplet sisters. I partnered with a man I thought I would be with forever at age twenty! What did I know about being alone? Realizing that I did not feel lonely was the greatest self-esteem boost.
This Month's Relationship Feature:
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Relationship Focus: Family
Photo by Dennis Kwan Photography, Copyright © 2016 by Dennis Kwan
Relationships with people: my family, my friends and my clients are the most important element of CBS LIFESTYLIST. I’ve included this section in my website so I have the opportunity to discuss my book, my family, my life as a wife, a mother, a sister, a friend, a wedding coordinator and a wardrobe stylist. My relationships with people is what teaches me who I am and whom I want to become. I want to be better, more compassionate and more understanding. Every failed relationship and every successful relationship has ultimately made me CBS Lifestylist. Relationships matter and relationships are what make my world (our world) go round.
My book, Love Never Goes Away, is a memoir of the ups and downs of a 20-year-old marriage ending. I don’t like to say it failed or that WE failed, instead, I discuss how life changes in unexpected ways and how we deal with disappointment. Through my experience of separation and divorce, I wanted to teach my sons, Lucas (now 16) and Max (now 13) that it’s not what happens it’s how you handle it. I wanted to show my sons that love never goes away. It stays: it changes and evolves but it doesn’t to go away.
I am now married to Brian who teaches me everyday how weaving more people into your life has its challenges but proves that love is ABUNDANT. There is enough love for everyone! He also teaches me to be kind, forgiving, and patient… these are all amazing qualities to improve when you are a wedding coordinator and stylist!!
My career of wedding/event coordinating and wardrobe styling is another shining example of how more opportunities affords us the opening to be more efficient and creative with our time. I love meeting new people everyday, producing more and more relationships with more chances to discover and understand “me”.