Tag Archives: 20-something

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7 Things I Do Everyday to Be Happier

I went on a date on Sunday… with my literary agent.

If you could see me right now, you would see a grin ear-to-ear, and if you could get inside my heart, you’d feel it beating frantically out of its chest. There are very few words to describe just how happy – and excited and thankful! – I feel to have someone actively trying to turn this little ‘ole blog of mine into a book. (When it happens, you will all be the first to know, I promise!)

Even so, I was nervous to meet him (and afraid he wouldn’t like me) – but my gut was right: it was two hours of constant rapport, brainstorming and storytelling. And then he said something that just about made me cry:

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25 Things I’ve Loved About Being 25

A year ago today, I turned 25.

Truth be told, I didn’t want to be the big 2-5. In fact, the whole idea of being in my mid-twenties really freaked me out. There was something ominous about making the transition from fresh-out-of-college to real-life adulthood. Sure, I have been on my own for years, but when you’re a quarter of a century, it somehow seems way more serious than it did before.

But I really didn’t have a damn thing to worry about – 25 was (by far) my best year yet. So much so, that as I turn 26 today at 2:14 p.m., I’m secretly wishing that I could stay 25 forever.

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What About Me?

A month ago, I was sitting at a place I didn’t want to be at in Murray hill, drinking wine I didn’t want to drink, waiting on a man I didn’t know if I wanted to date.

I was passing time and nursing my one glass because I didn’t want to leave the place and be forced to sit outside his building where Lucy would die of thirst. Mr. Unexpected had some sort of test that night and Lucy had a grooming appointment the next morning a few blocks from his apartment, so it made sense that I would sleep over… but as I tried my best not to obsess over when he would text that he was out, I wondered what the hell I was doing.

On paper and mostly in person, Mr. Unexpected and I really connected. The sex was great. He made me laugh. He was honest. The chemistry was there but there was also a big ole’ thing missing that I knew, he knew and probably even Lucy knew if we had a way of asking her. I couldn’t put it into words then, but a month later after a weekend of silence to “clear our heads” and “decide what we both wanted,” I found myself sitting across from yet another man who couldn’t give me what I wanted.

But there was one big difference in this mini relationship – and that was me.

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Ya Gotta Do You

When you write a weekly column about relationships in your college paper – that no one takes seriously – but gets great traffic, you suck up the snide remarks from other staffers. When friends and people remind you time-and-time again that when you move to New York, you might not work for a magazine. You might not get a job in editing at all. You might end up being an intern forevermore and never make any money and eat Ramen until you can’t possibly stomach another noodle – you smile and take it all with a grain of salt (or put it on said Ramen).  When you receive hate mail on the very last day of your very last class of your college career, where someone says they hope you fall on your “pretty little face” in New York because “being pretty” doesn’t mean you can be an editor – you vow to frame that letter when get that corner office. When the chancellor of your university says that you just don’t really have what it takes to lead a staff and that you would fit in better at a glossy than writing about “serious topics,” you congratulate the new editor-in-chief, graduate early, move to New York, and land a job… writing about “serious topics.”

Because even if people find you ridiculous or don’t believe you can’t do what you keep sayin’ you’re going to do — ya gotta do you.

When you start a blog way back in 2010 because your day job –  an editorial assistant at a business magazine – just wasn’t quite what you wanted, you spend hours (and hours) after work building your social presence, writing content and scheduling posts. When you meet someone two weeks into designing a blog about being single, about learning to love yourself first before loving a man, you put off the relationship talk for as long as you possibly can and stick to your rules, no matter how self-imposed they are. When your blog generates traffic from all around the world and you’re basking in the afterglow of being featured on the homepage of WordPress, you remind yourself that fans are fickle and the Internet, like some men, loses interest quickly, so be thankful. When your boss at that business magazine isn’t a fan of you posting the blog on LinkedIn and pulls you aside about it, you kindly decline the request to remove it because it’s part of who you are.

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She Will Be Loved

When Maroon 5’s “She Will Be Loved” first started spamming the radio, I was dating Mr. Faithful, my high school boyfriend. I loved the words and I soaked them all in, paying special attention to the “beauty queen of only 17” which was true at the time, and of course, “drove for miles and miles and ended up at your door,” which I dreamed of in many fantastic romantic clichés.

I imagined then that Mr. Faithful was the end-all-be-all for me, the love of all loves, the last man (and only man) I’d ever invite into my bed and into my heart. I instantly sent the song to him and he played it for me a few times while we drove the rolling country roads, and even when we made love in the way only a 17 and 18 year old can. Sweetly, naively and awkwardly.

I hadn’t thought about him or those premature stages of teenage love affairs in a long time, but on my way to a date recently, that song came on my Pandora. And suddenly, it all came flooding back:

Back to when I got drunk off cheap wine coolers and sweet hand-written words on notebook paper. Back to when I could spend hours cuddling in his backyard on a trampoline, talking about the future like we knew what was coming and where we were headed. Back to when flowers were picked from gardens and corsages were given at prom and graduation. Back to when dating a football player seemed so sexy and so important, back to when I watched the lights bounce off of the lake, dreaming about when I’d see lights bounce off of buildings in the Big Apple I’d only visited once.

Back to when I was unaware of what those lyrics really meant, or what they would mean, or how intensely I would feel everything in the years to come. How fleeting and innocent young love is, and yet, how final the end would feel in a few years. How much that girl who always knew there was a life ahead of her beyond the mountains, just waiting.

How that girl had no idea that this girl was always somewhere inside of her, waiting to fly, waiting to leap, waiting for that big opportunity, that big love to happen. How that girl had no idea just how much this girl would be loved…

…She would be loved by men who crossed oceans and took redeyes to arrive on the doorstep of her Harlem apartment with tulips, chocolate cake and a flood of kisses. She would be loved by men who made her homemade Valentine’s Day cards using the old-school paint program and drop off an orchid off at her office – along with a coffee, just like she liked it. She would be loved by men who walked a mile in 6-inch snow to the closest grocery store to buy the staples, including her favorite orange juice, with extra pulp.

She would be loved by men who left notes hidden inside picture frames that hung on her wall in her second New York apartment, and long after the relationship ended and the flame died down, they would ask her to open that picture and find words of encouragement buried inside of it, unknowingly, for years. She would be loved by men who make her homemade gnocchi and ask her to dance in the kitchen, barefoot and underage-tipsy, kissing the top of her head and whispering things in her ear she would never reveal to anyone, not even this blog. She would be loved by so many men that would see her sad smile, who would stand outside in the rain with her, who would care for her even when she preferred someone else.

And somewhere in between all of those men, that girl would also learn to love her own broken smile. And she’d learn how to heal it. She would watch the storm coming in as she ran miles and miles in Central Park and she’d let the rain fall, washing away her mascara, the sweat and her frustrations. She would love someone when they didn’t love her back. She would learn to love herself, even when she didn’t quite like the person she was.

She would be loved by the men, sure, just as promised. But she would also be loved by strangers and friends, mentors and travel mates. By a white fluff that would capture her heart from a pet store in the West Village. By her parents, more and more, with every passing year.

That girl just didn’t know all the love that was coming her way. Not at 15, not at 20, and really, not even at 25. Because that girl has been loved… and will be again. In a way that this girl –that girl – can’t even begin to believe yet.