Tag Archives: Life

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Make a Little Wish

I wish to be a princess like Sleeping Beauty, I closed my eyes super-duper tight, envisioning a dress of revolving blue-and-pink, and clicked my heels three times for good Wizardly measure. I opened to see my mom with her fluffy permed hair and big, bright smile that served as a gentle reassurance that my dreams would come true. I would be a princess. I’d get that fancy castle and the charming prince. I’d be able to sing like the songbirds and I’d have that hourglass figure I thought was so grown-up, so pretty, so princess-like.

Until I stopped wishing for crowns and crayons, and started wanting recorders and notebooks.

I wish to be on television! To be like Lois Lane and find Superman, I wished while wearing a more mature dress, toting around my recorder and interviewing anyone who would speak with me. I quizzed my party guests on how they felt the party was going, what they would have liked to be different, and if they were having fun. I even questioned my kitty, Indy. Then after the Aladdian cake was cut, the pinata was smashed and the presents were revealed, I went to write away the events of the night. I then would properly hand them to my mom, bounded with string, and retire to the sitting room to watch Nick Jr. My wish would come true one day, I’d be a journalist.

Until I didn’t want to be filmed anymore, but I just wanted to write. And I wanted to write about boys.

I wish that Mr. Curls would fall madly in love with me and we would get married and have babies and be happy and he’d be smitten. OH MY GOD, Please, please, please, PLEASE – just let him love me!!!, I wished through crooked-teeth while covering my pimply chin with Covergirl makeup, and sporting a totally rad crimped 90’s hairstyle. My cheeks were flushed red from skating to Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. I anxiously looked above the moms standing by and my friends, all chattering away and eating intensely sugary cake, to see if Mr. Curls had arrived. He was invited, he said he would come, but he was late. I looked at my mom who looked angry and frustrated, probably just as disappointed as I was, but angrier that I was sad on my birthday. That night, I cried while silently wishing he’d have a good excuse and listening to Mandy Moore’s, “I Wanna Be With You” on repeat. I wished he’d be mine. I wished that adorable little mop head would fall for me.

Until I got over him and moved onto other boys who fell for me quickly, yet not as quickly as my father had fallen.

I wish, dear God, that my father would get better. I hate seeing my mom sad and I’m so scared of losing him forever. I don’t know what’s wrong but I wish for it to be fixed. I wish for his health, I looked around our tiny kitchen while my puppy Suzie circled my feet, whimpering. Dad attempted a smile, though he never quite got all the way there. I knew he was equal parts happy for the birth of a new year, and then sad that I was getting older. I was terrified of him getting older, of getting sicker. There couldn’t be any better gift than his health, even if I was going off to college. I wished for him to find his peace, so my mom could rest. I wish for his happiness so I wouldn’t feel so guilty leaving.

Until he did fully recover and turn back into that jovial man I adored growing up. The only downside was now I wanted to leave. I needed to leave.

I wish that once I graduate, I’ll be able to make it in New York City. I wish to be a writer, to live in the city. I wish to leave Mr. Idea behind and find someone else. I wish for it all: my city, my job, my man, I looked up and greeted Mr. Idea’s stare, noting the deep wrinkle in between his eyes. Those eyes that just weren’t as doting as I wanted them to be. I was finally 21! Now, I can drink and be cool, sophisticated and employed. I have to move to New York – it isn’t even a wish as much as it is a demand. It can’t be wishful thinking, but positive thinking! If I can believe it, I can do it. I wish to be a New Yorker. I wish to write. I wish to come into my own.

Until of course, I do live in New York. I am a writer, or actually, an editor. I did ditch Mr. Idea and I did find something else that I may very well ditch, too. I’m not a princess but I feel royally blessed. I don’t desire to be on television but you may see me from time-to-time in an unintentional cameo, especially when my wonderful job gives me the opportunity to meet Sarah Jessica Parker. I’ve been able to move past guys who don’t do as they say they will, and I’ve found myself smitten with the life I’ve been lucky to lead.

So when all those wishes come true, when you have everything you ever wanted for this stage in your life, what do you wish for? When the pieces fit together, when you’re content and blissful, when all worked out in a more perfect way than you could ever wished – what’s a girl to do? What’s that birthday candle for?

What do I think when I close my eyes as my friends say: “Make a wish Linds!! Blow out those candles, girl! Get em!”

This year, it’s for you. For all of you who have read this blog for the past year. Who have been supportive and dedicated, consistently giving feedback and advice when I needed it the most. For my birthday on this special day, I wish that all of your dreams come true just like mine have.

And most of all, I wish you all love. The kind of love that starts and ends from within. It’s the kind of love that makes you realize you don’t need all those wishes after all. They aren’t what got you here – it’s you. It’s all that love that makes you believe in the magic that is you.

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I’m a Feelin’ Old

My first business was babies.

I became a Red Cross Certified Baby Sitter around the age of 12, my dad whipped up some pink business cards cleverly titled “Lindsay’s Baby-Sitting” with our home number and a totally original slogan: safe, reliable childcare, and I was off to make my first hard-earned cashed. To ease me into the role that would pay a whopping $7 an hour, I practiced with my the children of my godparents: two twin boys.

I grew up with this duo — they had incomparable energy, and while I remember them always being very kind, they also always seemed extremely loud. My parents joked then (and still do now) that it was good practice for me to care for twin boys (I went on to babysit another pair of matching dudes a few years later), since the twin-generation hits me on both sides. And since my cousins are already finished birthing and have only had girls, it’s up to me to bring in the men.

Of course, the girly-girl is destined to have a house full of little guys running around. Fate’s funny.

Anyway – my very first babysitting gig was taking care of K and C, who wanted to play hide-and-seek in the dark and watch action flicks, resulting in one of the worse headaches of my life and snoring on the car ride home because they wore me out so badly. My mom found it humorous (so did my godmother) but I was nervous: what if I was a bad babysitting? Where would my boomin’ business go? My worrying pre-teen self anxiously awaited my next opportunity to care for the boys so I could prove myself as fun and responsible.

A few weeks later, I stayed in with them and they actually managed to fall asleep rather early. I munched on brownies and watched television, proud of my accomplishment and praying they didn’t wake up before their parents got home. The next few years would follow in this manner, I’d babysit and sometimes feel great about it, sometimes be exhausted, sometimes love the idea of kids, sometimes decide (at 15, no less) that I’d never have children. I guess not too much has changed — I’ll admit I still feel a little unwanted and unworthy of baby-love if I smile at some tot on the train and they burst into tears. What is it about that sound that rips my heart to shreds?

I hadn’t thought about children in the context of my own life for a while now, until Facebook popped up yesterday morning with some interesting news. One of those twin boys – the first child I ever babysat for – is engaged. He’s several years younger than me and he’s going to be gettin’ hitched before I figure out how to make a long-term relationship work. I’ve blogged for nearly a year, and doubt I’ve actually learned much of anything other than the fact that all courtships are different and must be treated as such.

Sensibility tells me that he’s in college, that he’s been with the broad for years, that he’s in the South, that his parents were married young, that he’s happy with a little home and a little church, and I’m still searching for so much more than that. I’m confident I’m nowhere close to meeting the man I’ll marry or even wanting to marry – but it’s so odd to think that the kid I babysat for has found true love before I have.

Talk about making a gal feel old.

Alright, fine – I’m not old. I know that much. I have more than enough time, and I’ve recently sincerely relaxed after realizing so many women have babies well over 35 and are fine. I don’t feel pressure to pair up, I don’t crave white lace as much as I desire my Friday night out with the girls, and if Mr. P is any indication of New York men, I think I’m going to search for transplants like me, instead. I’m happy -actually I’m quite smitten – with how my life is right now. I feel blessed to have this much success and love surrounding me constantly, and if I could capture these years in a ViewMaster to click-through in years to come, I’m sure I’d be a very joyous middle-aged woman.

But in a little girl voice, just like the one I had before I was old enough to drive, yet competent enough to care for twins, I have to whine about one thing immaturely (but rightfully so!): Hey Southerners! Stop getting married so young! It’s scaring me into becoming a Northerner, and I know ya’ll don’t want that, now!

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Pigs Can Fly & Hell Freezes Over

I prefer to do my crying in the shower. Naked emotion seems to pair well with literal nakedness, plus mascara used as blush just isn’t cute. The issue though, is that I tend to bathe in the mornings before work, so my hair is freshly pressed for the day. Or as it is in most cases, unpredictably wavy in all the wrong places. So when I retreated to the bathroom at my designated time (with four roommates, you have to auction out privacy), with warm, salty drops splashing on my cheeks, I wasn’t concerned with why I was actually crying but frustrated that my eyes may be puffy for work.

Luckily with some careful washing, I managed to escape any noticeable marks of sadness that anyone could see. However, the raw emotion that caused the tears didn’t wane as easily.

I’ve been attempting to put it into words, both here and in my own head, what I feel about Mr. P. We haven’t been able to go even one night without an argument or without me crying in quite some time now. For a relationship that has always been chaotic, this isn’t exactly out of the norm, but it’s most certainly out of my comfort level. The thing I always loved the most about us, about him, was that I could talk to him about anything. Nothing was off-limits, no crazy outburst was too crazy, no ridiculousness distracted him, no irrational fear seemed irrational to him. For the past year, he had a way of putting me to ease and he offered a secure shelter from any New York frustration I battled.

I think I fell in love with the friendship and then as I started to fall in love with him as a man, as a partner, as a lover – I started to pull away. I stopped conversations about exes, even though we had always analyzed our lovable (and unlovable) pasts together. I stopped being able to stomach the fact that he had lingering feelings toward women who refuse to talk to him. I also stopped being able to ignore that as a gaudy red flag right in front of my face. My preferences in bed changed, I wanted our weekend plans to change, I wanted him to march up to his rooftop in Brooklyn that’s cleverly decorated by his domestic-fied roommate, and shout that he loved me, that he was crazy about me, that he was so happy to be mine.

But I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I still know it won’t. Mr. P may be infamous for too many little white lies to count, but he won’t scream something so absurd. Especially if there’s a chance someone could hear that he was smitten. Because…he’s not.

Sure, he loves me. I know he cares about me. I’m confident if I needed something, if I was in dire danger, he’d come to my rescue. I think he could see a future here, he could picture us together in the long run and he knows I’m marriage material (whatever qualifies that anyway). But he’s not there yet. I think those were the words he used. And if I could just slow down my feelings, if I could just take a breather and stop wishing and demanding that he feel the same, we could go back to that easy happiness we once had.  If I could just relax and be that carefree, easy-going woman that he fell for. The one who didn’t pressure him or who didn’t want anything more than what he could give, then maybe I’d have a shot at holding the prized title that so many women are eyeing by blowing up his Blackberry and Facebook. I could have the opportunity to be The One.

But to do that, to stay in the relationship, to keep him in that role in my life, I’d have to put my feelings on hold. I’d have to fall out of love enough to meet him down at that level he’s at. While I’ve progressed the last six months or so by gradually becoming more attached to him, he’s stuck back in February when everything was new and unsure. I’m not questioning how I feel anymore, but I can’t stop doubting how he does.

And so, I cry. I pick fights. I stop in the middle of foreplay because my mind won’t shut off. I don’t return calls and I ignore emails. I attempt to go an entire day without a text message. I try to resort back to how I was before I fell for him, before I told him I loved him, before I started imaging visions of happily ever after with him. I try to convince myself that I want this, that we could really be something one day, that we could come out of this and he could see that I’m irreplaceable. I keep reminding myself that it’ is possible for love to bloom out of complication, that so many relationships have rusty beginnings, that he could very well end up changing his tune and be the man I crave.

I see the facts, I understand the reality of the relationship. Yet I’m stuck in dreamland, lingering on some hopeless prayer that Mr. Possibility still has possibility, that he’s still capable of releasing the past to build a future with me. That just because I fell in love with him before he fell in love with me, he could still feel all of those things I want him to. That if I can fall in love, can’t I fall out of love so someone else can fall in it?

Or am I waiting for pigs to fly and for hell to freeze over, spinning my tires on some dirty gravel road that leads to a bleak dead end that’ll only waste my gas and piss me off? I suppose we’ll have to wait for my give-a-damn to weaken to find out.

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When Will Loses its Way

They say where there is a will, there is a way. I’ll agree — but what if there is no will? Then is there a way? Or are they mutually exclusive?

I almost always have a will to do something — even if it’s just to have that Champagne-infused brunch or to see a discounted show for Broadway week. My wills are bigger too –I willed to live in New York, to be an editor, to have the things people come to visit in my backyard. I’ve willed to be better and stronger, more independent and sufficient, and here I am financially, emotionally, adult-ally all on my own. And I’ve willed myself into overcoming an obsession with men and their presence (or often, their absence) in my life. Though I’m teetering between possibility and impossibility, I’m still standing firmly and finally, not compromising what I need to feel needed by a man.

All of this willing has always found me a way to something, to someplace, to someone. It is rarely the something, someplace or someone who I crave – but whatever it is, it’s always there. But what happens when it’s not anymore? What would happen if I lost my will?

My life bloomed when I stopped waiting for it to change and changed it for myself. I was stuck in a pattern that I had made inevitable: meet a guy, fall for him, ask for commitment, be denied, cry, moan, whine, obsess, think I’m the ugliest thing ever, blow my confidence and money away on exercise and Ben & Jerry’s, then meet someone new….and start all over again. My oh my, did I find it exhausting. But I willed to find love and love was what I wanted, so there would be a way, right?

A year and 12-steps later, I wouldn’t say that will is gone but it has most certainly lessened. I don’t long to get married or to start a family. I don’t need an engagement ring to feel settled and secure. I’m not crawling into bedrooms, looking for remarkable sex because I know I’ll most likely just find a heartache hangover the next morning. I don’t feel the pressure to rush down an aisle as my cousins and my childhood friends have done, and when it comes to wondering if the stranger on the next cart is my mate – that curiosity has mostly killed the Tigar.

But does that mean I’ve lost my will? Do I not hope for love anymore? Do I not value how wonderful, how overpowering, how incredible it can feel when it’s right? When the man is right? If there is a man that’s right, that is? If I have indeed lost my will, will love still find its way to me? Or without that will, is there surely no way to one day stumble across holding-hands-in-Central-Park-while-raising-babies-in-a-brownstone-in-Brooklyn bliss?

I’m still willing to be successful, willing to find happiness in my single shoes, willing to make New York more of my home than it already is, and most importantly, willing to just be myself and be okay with that. So a will for love is still there, it’s just not in the spotlight. It doesn’t get front-and-center attention because it’s not at the forefront of my attention. It’s still there in something, in someplace with someone I haven’t met — but it hasn’t disappeared. My love will hasn’t lost its way, it’s just found a new way to exist.

It’s found a way to exist without being all-consuming so that I could do more than just exist. So I could really, remarkably, beautifully, live.

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I Wish for Wrinkles

It is often the first thing I notice in the mornings, when I wake to splash water on my cheeks and prepare for the day ahead. I see it when I powder my nose in the shadowy mirrors of downstairs basements of downtown clubs I don’t pay to get into because I have breasts. I see it when I click through tagged pictures on Facebook and reflected back to me in the sunglasses of my friends on hot summer afternoons, sipping on mimosas and pretending Eggs Benedict isn’t bad for me.

It’s become part of the structure of my face, a defining feature that adds to my visual character, something that most would refer to as a flaw, but I see as beautiful: a wrinkle, quite deep for someone my age, smack dab in the middle of my forehead.

If I hold my face perfectly still and refuse to react during conversation or to concentrate while writing, it is hardly noticeable. But if you’re around me for five seconds, you’ll quickly see that I almost always have something to say, and I say it extremely animatedly. So even if I wanted to disguise my wrinkle, I’d have to try extremely hard with careful thought, and then I wouldn’t be acting like myself.

I haven’t always been fond of this crease – I used to try to clog it up with makeup, somehow convinced foundation would work like cement, filling in this hole I despised. I considered it ugly and distracting, an imprint I couldn’t erase that caught attention instead of my baby blues. I envied my friends with their flawlessly-tanned skin, without any acne scars, without even the slightest indication of aging or sagging to be found on their faces. Some of my friends are blessed by the kiss of a complexion so clear, you’d think they still had the layer of skin they were born with.

It’s easy to feel insignificant and even invisible in the presence of those who have something you want. It’s easy to compare yourself and to measure all the ways you fall short on the levels of attractiveness when put up against someone who you find alluring. I’m still guilty of entertaining self-defeating thoughts when it comes to my looks, but instead of analyzing the bar scene to see if my friend is getting more attention than I am, I’ve started reminding myself that she’s probably doing the same.

We all have insecurities and parts of our bodies and faces that we wish we could change. Even though we’re all familiar with the prevalence of PhotoShop and the fact that models in person don’t look how they appear on the ads – we all secretly wonder if we could look that way. We see the chiseled, defined bodies of celebrities who we know have the luxury of a personal trainer and dietitian to tell them what to eat and what to work out – and yet, we think we can exercise the same self-control they do, sans scary-drill-sergeant, sans certified-brownie-thief. And we all see features on our friends that we wish we had – crispy, white smiles, legs to die for, hair that always shines. But rest-assured, they see something in us that they want, too.

I’m sure my friends or strangers don’t long for my little wrinkle, but I’m also sure they don’t really notice it. Come to think of it, the only person who has ever mentioned it was Mr. P, but it was in the context of compliment during an intimate moment. Contrary to my personal belief, it isn’t the first thing others notice about me, nor something that would be a deal-breaker for a could-be mate. That wrinkle, which is only the first of many to come, is a tiny reminder of the things about me that are beautiful.

It came to be only because I chose to laugh so hard that I couldn’t control the corners of my grin. It came to be because I’ve spent endless hours thinking and writing, trying to put into words the story that’s always lived inside of me. It came to be because I decided to cry when I was sad, to express enthusiasm when I  was happy or inspired, and to verbalize anger when it couldn’t be softened.

I don’t really wish for more wrinkles and I’m not against plastic surgery within reason, but if having no fine lines means never living one hell of a fine life, then I’d rather have those memories outlined on my face for the world to see. For the world to witness all the beauty I’ve been able to find – in its people, in its challenges and joys, and especially within myself.