Person To Person

translator: nadine hennigreviewer: ilze garda when i was growing up, there was this songwe used to sing on the playground, and it went like this, "tracy and so and so,sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g, first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in a baby carriage." and i'm like, "ok, that's it! that's how you do life.that's how you do a relationship. love, marriage, baby carriage. ok, got it!

(laughter) then i grew up, and this iswhat my life turned out to be. slightly more complicated, right?(laughter) love, marriage, divorce,dry spells, love, marriage, co-parenting, another marriage,another divorce; you got the picture. (applause) so if you're good at math and/ora fast reader, what you've got there is that i've been married three times.

yep, three, and divorced. what that is supposed to mean isthat i'm a total failure at relationships. and that is one wayto look at it, but not the only way. because what i think really happenedis that i kept marrying the wrong person. no, it's not that i didn't--it's not that i chose bad guys. my first two husbands were amazing men who are now marriedto wonderful women who aren't me. and my third husband, well,we're friends on facebook now. so, all is well that ends well, right?

after the collapse ofmy third marriage in 2005, i realized that i've been marryingeveryone in sight, except the one personthat i really needed to marry in order to have a great relationship and that once i married that person, all of my relationships would besuccesses, even the failures. the so-called failures, actually. since we're talking todayabout women inventing, i'm going to talk aboutinventing relationships.

what i've found through a lot of trialand obviously, many, many, many errors, to be the thing that hastransformed my life and love, and that is this ideaof marrying yourself. so what does it mean to marry yourself? it's a big idea. it is as big as marriage itselfexcept, if i could just summarize it, it would be that you enterinto a relationship with yourself and then you put a ring on it. in other words,you commit to yourself fully.

and then you builda relationship with yourself to the point where you realizethat you're whole right now, that there is no man, woman, job,circumstance that can happen to you that is going to make you more wholebecause you already are. and this changes your life. by now, i'm sure at leastsome of you are wondering why you should be listeningto a three-time divorcee talk about marriage? even to herself. and i understand that.

here's what i have to say about that: what i've learned and my experience is that the places where you havethe biggest challenges in your life become the places where youhave the most to give if you do your inner work. i kind of want to say that again: the places where you havethe biggest challenges are the places where youhave the most to give. so let me tell you a little bitabout the person i truly needed to marry:

myself. i am from minneapolis. wooh! my mom was a prostitute and an alcoholic. she put me in foster carewhen i was three months old. my dad was a criminal; he was a drug dealer and a pimpwith a heart of gold - actually, they both had hearts of gold - and he spent more or lessmy whole life in prison. he just got out of prisonafter his most recent sentence

which was 20 years. until the age of nine, i was probablyin two dozen foster homes. the thing you need to knowabout this story - there are a lot of details, obviously -but the thing you need to know is that i came out of that childhoodwith one goal: to never be left. the way i was going to do thatis that i was going to get married. that was the way i was goingto accomplish that goal. so i got married the first timeto a guy i met when i was 17. we got married a coupleof years later, when i was 19.

he was a really good guyfrom a great family, he had an mba. i mean, it was like,you know, marriage material. you know, i was thrilled. i was like, "i have a family.i belong somewhere. this is wonderful." and then after five years i left him. then ten years later, i got married againto another wonderful guy, who is the father of mynow 16-years-old son. we still have a wonderful relationship.he is a really good guy. but after four years i left him, too.

and i am not proud to say that i did that,but in order to really marry yourself, you have to get sometimesvery painfully honest with yourself about what it is that you've done. so i'm not proud of that. then eight years later,i got married again, when i was 40, and i was like, "ok, this feels right!" let me tell you what felt rightto a girl who was in 24 foster homes: a guy who started to dateafter nine months of marriage; essentially, he started datinga 21-year-old girl.

ok, i mean, it would be funny,if it weren't so tragic. you have to have a sense of...that is why we're facebook friends. so, here i am lookingat this person that i just described with a terrible track recordof relationships, and i'm like, "i'm supposed to marry her? this is the womanyou want me to marry?" and the answer is yes. because here is the deal: the thing about marrying yourselfis not just like cohabitating.

you're not just going to datefor a while and see how it turns out. you are going to do thistill death do you part. you are going to take vows. so here are the vows. number 1: you are going to marry yourselffor richer or for poorer. this means you are goingto love yourself right where you are. you don't say to yourself, "when you getto the corner of hollywood and vine, then i will marry you."

you don't say, "when you loseten pounds, then i will love you." and you don't say, "if you hadn'tmarried that loser, i would love you, but since you did,i'm sorry, i think it's over." when you marry yourself,you walk yourself down that aisle exactly where you are. and paradoxically, i foundthat loving myself exactly where i am is the only way to get where i am going. number 2: you are going to marry yourselffor better or for worse.

what this means is that most of usare willing to love ourselves for better, i mean, sure, i am havinga great hair day today. i love me. that's not what i am talking about. i'm talking about for worse,you know, the big life disappointments. maybe you don't own a home,you didn't get the career you wanted, maybe you didn't graduate from college,or get the relationship you wanted. maybe it hasn't turned out--maybe you fight with your mum, maybe you watch too much reality tv,

whatever it is, it doesn't matter anymore. because when you marry yourself,you agree to stay with you no matter what. third, you marry yourselfin sickness and in health. what this means is that you forgiveyourself for your mistakes. a mistake isn't actually a failureunless you don't learn from it and unless you don't grow. there is a saying, "you ask for patience,and what you get is a line at the bank." what that means is that lifedoes not give you what you've asked for,

it gives you the people,places, and situations that allow you to developwhat you ask for. and the thing is if you don't get itright the first time, life will give it to you again. because life is very generous that way. it's like i didn't get it the first time,in the first marriage, and i didn't get it the second time,maybe the third time i'll get it. so inside that terrible experienceof that third marriage, i learned somethingabout "in sickness and in health".

what i learned is how to sitby my own bedside, and how to hold my own hand,and how to nurse myself, and how to comfort myself. what i learned is that i ama person that i can count on. last but not least, you marry yourself-- when you marry yourself,it's to have and to hold yourself. what does it mean to have and to hold? well, i think it meansthat you love yourself the way you wantsomeone else to love you.

i had always been goingthrough life with this sense of lack. i felt like i was kind of half a person,and that i was missing something. i went into my relationships hoping to solve this feelingthat i had my entire life: that i was not wholeunless someone loved me. the truth was that i wasn't ever going to feel wholeuntil i learned to love myself. so this business of marrying yourselftransforms every area of your life: your business, family relationships,kids, social relationships, friends.

because when you marry yourself,this huge thing happens: you become able to lovein this whole new way. you become able to love other peopleright where they are, for who they are, the same way you're alreadyloving yourself. and of course, this iswhat the world needs more of. so when i married myself, and i realizedthat i already had everything i needed, i started seeing it as my job to basically just light upmy little corner of the world. that's my new job.

because i don't need anything,i already have it. so when i take meetings, it's all about how can i helpthis person achieve her goal? when i'm in my social communities, it is like what can i bringto this that only i can bring? when i go on dates, it is like how can i just discoveranother person maybe for just one hour which, of course, brings me a full circle. because people always asked meabout my love life; they want to know.

you know, the answer is,i am still working on it. aren't we all? so this is where i am right now. about three months ago,i went on a first date. about 30 minutes into the date,i found myself paying attention not to whether he liked me,but how i felt in his presence. i noticed that i was light, happy, joking. as i reflected on the date afterwards,i was like, "wow, i got really excited! look, this is how committedi am to myself."

i am not even on this datetrying to get someone to like me. i am more interested in how i feelabout me than how he feels about me, not because i am selfish,but because the only relationship i am ever going to havewith another person is the one that i amalready having with myself - just going to have it with them now. so it turned out he liked me,and we are still together. it's cool and amazing,but i've been married three times, so slow down!

the thing is that i am not tryingto get security from him through marriage, and, god forbid, a baby carriage. i am only here tojust be in a relationship. i am not dying to hear the words,"will you marry me?" because even thoughthose words are very powerful - and very powerful to a person like me - i don't need them to hear it from him because i have alreadyheard them from myself. the way i see it is like i took myselfto the top of a mountain,

or maybe to the bottom of the ocean, and i got down on one knee,and i said, "i'll never leave you." and now i am married to the one personi really wanted to be with all along, thank you.

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