Tag Archives: being single

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In Terms of a Blog

Do I think in terms of blogs or are my blogs the products of my thoughts?

After hundreds of days (over 300 now!) of writing, I’m not so sure anymore. This space, this blog, these words have become such a part of my life, so engraved into my everyday functions that it’s strange (and sad and refreshing and…) to think of my life without it. It’s so much a part of me now that my friends always make sure I’ve written for the day before we go out: “Linds, did you write today? I don’t want a midnight curfew, we don’t turn into pumpkins because of your blog!” And it’s a topic of discussion between Mr. Possibility and I after we have an intimate chat or we go on a trip or have an adventure he’d rather keep between us: “Hey, Tigar, don’t write about this in tomorrow’s post, okay? Please?”

And so I write earlier, I schedule a few out, I leave out some details here and there, and I do the best I can to keep my commitment to the blog, to myself, to this journey without sacrificing friendships. But always being on deadline (even if it’s one I created for myself) has a way of keeping constant pressure on you. These days, my battle with self-worth isn’t nearly as difficult – minus a few insecurities, I’m pretty happy. I’ve learned how to maintain a healthy relationship without losing myself in the process, and though it is far from perfect, it’s the most honest I’ve been with myself and with another person I’m involved with. I’m not exactly where I’m meant to be, but I’m somewhere and for now, that’s good enough for me.

Most of the time, now, as compared to six months ago, I don’t have something to work through or a task at hand that requires deep thought and consideration. I’m stable and secure, figuring out the ups and downs as they come, and mostly, not needing to write it out to work it out. But because I decided long before I reached this period of self-fulfillment, I vowed to be a daily blogger for a year as a way to keep myself focused on the progression of my 12-step program, I just can’t quit when life is pretty easy. Or when I’m happy.

However – I also can’t live my life in terms of a blog.

I can’t look at every experience I share – with M, with K, with R, with E, with J or N as potential blog material. I can’t chronicle my developing relationship with Mr. Possibility through a dot com, some things, most things are meant to be private.  I can’t end a fun night at 10 p.m. so I have enough time to get home and write before the clock strikes 12 and I miss a day. This blog was started because I wasn’t living my life how I wanted to be, and now that I am, the blog has to develop, not cease.

But how do you stop thinking as a blogger? How do you just enjoy a moment without wondering how it will translate into words or how you’ll describe this feeling, this experience, as beautifully as it is? How do you stop scribbling down ideas when your career is all about ideas?

How does a blogger – a writer – live without working on a make-believe deadline?

Daily Gratitude: I’m thankful for Central Park and all of its beauty and clarity.

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An Idle Imagination

In times past, I’ve never enjoyed idle time. Something about actively not doing anything made me feel lazy, unproductive, and well…bored. If I don’t have a to-do list that’s as tall as I am or a million things to keep my attention and drain my energy, then what am I doing with my life? Wasting away into a quiet oblivion, destined to be a failure that lives in one of those huge, rent-controlled apartments in Greenwich with a half-dozen cats, a garden, bookshelves full of steamy romance novels, all alone knitting and drinking tea? (Well, add in a lover and being the author of a few of those novels and maybe that doesn’t sound too bad…)

But lately with a lot more tim eon my hands and a new reason to explore opportunities, I’ve found myself with more idle time than what I know to do with. My first instinct, of course, is to fill it up with coffee and drink dates, classes, aerobics classes, freelancing, and cleaning sprees. But after a while of filling up my days with time slots and blocking off designated periods to do designated things, it occurred to me that really, idle time with no obligations – except to myself – is a great way to think of new things. It’s a great time to consider things I never took into consideration. It’s a good time to figure out what I want, what I need, what I desire, what’s most important, what’s happening, what could happen – and the differences between all of those.

Idle time is a great way to…imagine.

To stop doing everything just as I did it. Even if my choices have led me in different directions than I expected, maybe I could be making better decisions. Maybe I could be a better person. Maybe I could be happier or stronger or full of more spirit. Maybe I could be a more knowledgable writer who takes greater risks that reap more reward and of course, more shortcomings. Maybe I could be a better friend who slows downs and listens when her friends needs them, who is supportive and more readily available, and who actually returns phone calls, emails, and text messages (I’m sorry). Maybe this blog could be better or maybe I don’t want to blog at all. Maybe I want to live in New York – maybe I want to take a year off and move to Australia for the hell of it and to fully experience going down under.

Maybe idle time gives me freedom to dream and to imagine all of the things my life could have, if I stopped for a moment. If I stopped filling it up with all of the things I have to do because of who I am – maybe who I am is different from the person I imagined. If I stopped being dead-set on one career path and imagined all the innovative ways I could do what I love, make money doing it, and broaden my skill set.

Maybe if I stopped doing because that’s what I’ve always thought got me places and started imagining because that’s what I feel like I doing – I’d imagine myself doing and being something more than what and who I am.

Daily Gratitude: I’m thankful for unexpected opportunities. No matter how scary they may be.

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This is My Home

I consistently purge my belongings. When my bookcase is too full, I’ll sell a handful to Strand, only to bring more than a handful. When my closet gets too crowded, I make a donation or attempt to organize a swap-party with my friends. When a heel is beyond repair, my heart breaks just a little as I toss it and take out the trash before I have the urge to fish it out again. I throw out expired beauty products near-weekly and honestly, if I just get tired of looking at something, it goes.

But there are certain things I never, ever throw away. Like my dream journal – a book I’ve kept for over a decade that chronicles my firsts, my lasts, and any huge life changes. Or the boarding pass that brought me to New York and the sticky-note I wrote to myself on the plane to remind me I was doing the right thing, no matter how afraid I was. Then there’s the first piece of mail that had my NYC address on it (a bill, of course), dozens of cards from friends and families encouraging my dreams, ticket stubs to operas, movies, and Broadway shows. A copy of my first paycheck, my job offer letters, my first freelancing contract, magazines with my byline in them, fan mail, hate mail, and pictures of homes and apartments I cut out. Pictures of what I want and pictures of what I had.

These things aren’t necessary to my survival, I could do without them. I’d have far more room in my closet if I didn’t have a huge chest filled with papers and photographs, heavy magazines and ribbons from things I have to really think about where they came from. But I can’t imagine throwing any of them away. Trust me, I’ve tried.

Like last night, for instance.

Feeling the need to get rid of clutter, I cleaned my room from top to bottom, gathered a bunch of items I was done with and stumbled across my chest of memories. Having not looked through it in a long time, I pulled it out and sat it on my newly washed-and-made bed, and went through everything. And though I haven’t dropped to such a level in a while, I cried my eyes out.

Just looking at pictures from college, from when I interned, from when I first moved, from when I was a child, and an unattractive adolescent. I reread letters I wrote when I was still full of hope, when everything seemed in reach, from when I was unstoppable. I found fortune cookies with dates on the back and names of people I shared a meal with, but now don’t talk to. I cried when I found penny after penny, each carrying a special memory, if only I could remember every time one cent has changed my perspective. I laughed at silly promises I use to hold, journals about breaking up with guys I can’t picture in my head anymore, and I carefully held a mini-stuffed animal my mom gave me when I went away to summer camp for the first time, so I wouldn’t be afraid.

This isn’t Camp Greenville though – this is my new life. This is my home, as Mr. Possibility carefully reminds me from time-to-time when I’m really frustrated with the thought of the future and I whine that I just want to go home. “Baby,” he says. “This is your home now.”

And it is.

That box of memories is special to me but that’s all it is. It’s papers and frozen smiles and silly faces inside years that I’ll never return to, places I’ll never live again, and moments I can’t relive even if I close my eyes and click my heels three times. I have a new life, a new adventure that I can’t run away from, no matter what challenges I face or what obstacles I have to overcome to get to where I’ve always wanted to be. Even if the greatest obstacle to get through is the challenge of facing myself as I am, especially when that person isn’t someone I thought I’d be, and maybe a person who wants different things than she originally planned.

My old home, the old me, the old day-to-day I use to enjoy and experience is locked away in that box in my closet, underneath a Kate Spade bag and surrounded by shoes. I may never forget those people, the smell of the house I grew up in, or the path that led to me to where I am now, but it’s now, in this moment that will ultimately be a fleeting memory, that I have to live. I have to make this place a home, this life my own, and let myself out of the box of the past I’ve been afraid to let go of.

Because memories are wonderful to cherish, but I’d rather continue to make more than to dwell on the ones I’ve already created.

Daily gratitude: I’m thankful for today. That’s all. 

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There’s My City

Driving back to Brooklyn with Mr. Possibility today, we crossed the expressway at sunset, the skyline illuminating its everlasting shine. As he always does, he said “There’s your city.” I turned to him and grinned and then placed my attention back to the place I sometimes feel is mine and at other times feel like it’s not even within my grasp.

Like I did when my father would zip down old curvy country roads in his black Toyota, I rolled my hand in the wind, feeling the pressure and pretending I could touch the building tops. I always find myself reaching and extending when I see New York in the distance – perhaps the view from afar is even more enchanting than the view from the Top of the Rock or looking down from the Empire State.

Stuck in traffic though, I felt a pain that hurts me to admit, but lately, the city has lost its luster. Or maybe, it’s just me.

Yes, Mr. Possibility is accurate by giving the city to me – part of it does belong to me. It gave itself to me many, many years ago when I was a snaggle-toothed seven-year-old, grinning in a pink jacket as I saluted Lady Liberty and giggled at my daddy buying five pieces of New York Style pizza in a single day. I loved it then and I love it now, but like a guy can make you feel when a second date doesn’t result in a third, I’ve felt like New York has rejected me.

With some recent changes and a disappointment I can only credit to myself, I’ve wondered about my footing. I haven’t felt sturdy and stable, but rather wobbly and uncertain, trying to squint into the future, or at the skyline, to try and see  a glimpse of what’s next. I’ve been pulling at anything I have in me to gain some hope, to see the silver lining on top of smog and heat, and the offices of opportunity that have turned me away. And in Mr. Possibility’s car, watching the sun fall along with my spirits, I remembered I was returning to a borough and not my actual Upper West Side pad, which made the city seem even further away than it already did.

I watched my hand flutter in the wind in the passenger’s side rear-view window and I realized I was pointing toward Brooklyn, not toward Manhattan. I was going with traffic instead of fighting against it. I was not claiming or revealing myself to my city, instead I was going with a flow I didn’t want to ride. And so, with Selena Gomez’s “Who Says” blaring in the background, I turned my hand over. I placed my palm toward Manhattan and I whispered a silent prayer to let opportunity and faith find me. To let me rename myself and reroute my path so I can find that joy again, that peace, that confidence I’ve always had in New York. And in myself.

Because if it’s my city, I can’t be turning my back to it or to the wind. I have to take it as it is, even when it’s tough and rough-around-the-edges. Even when it doesn’t give me what I want and when it takes me far from where I expected. If it’s my city, I have to always remember to make it mine…and give it (and me), a little time.

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Can’t Put Your Life on Hold

Today, in the company of those I love the most, my friend J and I are hosting a Bubble Q on my rooftop.

A Bubble Q, for those of you who are not Southern bred, is a get-together of sorts, where the hosts provide champagne and a few dishes and their guests bring a Southern dish (i.e. fried and bad for you) or alcohol of their choosing. Then of course, all are encouraged to dress in their best Lacoste polos, dresses cinched at the waist, pearls, and boat shoes, as well as clap and dance to the best of today and of country music at its finest. If such a genre could be fine, that is.

J and I have been planning this for months -ever since a drunken bar hope in West Village where we happened to run into SJP and nearly lost our breath – and I couldn’t be more excited. Although J is British, he loves all things the South produces (me included) and he has a certain affinity for baked Mac N’ Cheese and the drawl only possible  past the Mason-Dixon line. We’ve been friends for over a year now and though we bicker like a married couple, he’s become one of my closest confidants and someone who no matter what, always seems to come up with the right thing to say. He also keeps my best interest at heart, so much that last week when I received some bad news affecting my bank account, he sweetly offered to cancel the Bubble Q.

I considered it. I’m now managing my money closer than before, watching what I spend and recreating new concoctions based on Ramen and cheese. If we’re being honest, it probably makes a lot of sense to postpone an event that while it doesn’t cost that much between two hosts, it’s still unnecessary expenses when expenses are already plentiful. I could save the funds and then put on a better Bubble Q in a few months when things settle down, when I’m more stable, when I feel more confident financially.

But then my mom in her endless wisdom and Mr. Possibility in his kindness,  gave me the same simple advice: “You can’t put your life on hold.”

Even in times when nothing seems certain, where you face more challenges than opportunities, where you can literally feel yourself approaching an end, and you’re faced to prepare yourself for a beginning you can’t predict – you can’t just stop moving. You can’t pull away from all who love you, away from the things that make you happy. You don’t run because running is easy, you walk instead. You don’t leave all you had when you lose a part of it – you just keep moving, keep going, keeping living.

So, I’m not putting my life on hold. Instead, I’m raising a glass of bubbly, sportin’ my pearls, and bakin’ up a baked Mac N’ Cheese, y’all.

Daily Gratitude: Today, I’m thankful for the sweet friends I have who are always, always there for me. Even when someone gets pushed down the stairs, a lamp breaks, and all hell breaks loose. You are wonderful – each and every single one of you.