Tag Archives: Life

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The Things That Never Happen

Long before teens and tweens become obsessed with vampires – I was deathly afraid of them. Having broken the rules and watched an episode of Tales from the Crypt with my friend who was allowed to watch it, I became terrified. There were nocturnal creatures who preyed on my neck and if they took a bite, I’d be doomed to be a scary blood-sucker like them?

I’m sorry Edward Cullen, but that’s just not sexy to me.

Not being able to hide my fright in the middle of the night, my parents soon realized I had been spooked by something and grounded me for going against their recommendations for proper viewing. But my own fear was punishment enough – I hung garlic on my bedpost, tucked the sheets around my neck (as if cotton would protect me from fangs?), and begged for a clap-on-clap-off light until my parents obliged so I could clothes my eyes and not have to open them again, just in case there was something scary standing above me.

After a week of sleepless nights and crying fits, I asked my mom for the 100th time how she knew that Dracula wasn’t coming to get me in my ballerina-inspired pink bedroom off a gravel road in a two-story countryhouse in North Carolina. Frustrated with me but not showing it, she said, “The things you worry about the most never happen.”

My troubles have changed as I’ve grown: would I make the tennis team, would I pass the SAT, would I have a high school sweetheart, would I pick the right college, would I be heartbroken if Mr. Whatever broke up with me, would I ever find love again, would I be able to graduate early, would I fail in New York, would I become a good editor, would I survive in the notoriously difficult NYC dating field, would I…?

While I’m not a negative person, it’s become a common reaction when I’m worrying to think of the worse case scenario. When I’m upset about my career or wonder if I’m on the right path, I automatically picture myself having to pack my bags and return to my home state, defeated and unsuccessful, hanging my head low while avoiding all of my old friends and sinking into a rocky depression. When I’m worried about love, I picture a messy breakup with Mr. P that involves screaming and hurt feelings, the end of a friendship and the foundation of trust and fidelity shattered into pieces that won’t fit back together. When I stress about how I look, I imagine myself gaining five pounds with each bite of cheesecake, my clothes not fitting and feeling like an ugly ducking that’ll never bloom into a sophisticated city swan that gracefully cascades down the streets of Manhattan.

But when I start seeing with a tunnel-vision of devastation instead of one with realistic consequences, I remind myself that the things I worry about the most never happen. Sure, I could take a few wrong turns on the way to the dream job and the dream may change. I could be silly to give Mr. P another chance and it could all blow up in my pretty little face, as so many have warned me. I could decide to let myself go, curse the gym and gain 50 pounds.

All of these things could happen and maybe they will, but it won’t be in the absolutely awful way I imagine them happening. None of these things would be the death of me – I would be hurt, I’d be a little lost, I’d have to take a step back and reevaluate, but I’d be okay. I would stand up again, I’d figure out a new path, I’d find a new love (or be happy on my own), and I’d build up my confidence again.

I may not have been able to survive if vampires were real and they attacked me when I was a kid, but as an adult, I can handle just about anything that life throws me.  And I can spend my time worrying about these things that’ll never happen to me, or I can live my life. I can dwell in fear or I can be the brave person I know I am. I can waste time conjuring up all of the ways things can go wrong, or I can be thankful for all the ways it is already right.

Daily Gratitude: Today, I’m thankful for my lovely friends who always put everything perspective. 

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One Night Stand-less

I’ve never had a one night stand.

While not all of my sexual encounters have been in the context of a relationship, I’ve known each of the guys far longer than the evening and at least trusted them somewhat. Yes, I’ve embraced a few friends-with-benefits-strings-loosely-attached relationships and I’ve stayed over at a guy’s place the same night I met him. But those sleepovers were PG-13 at best – I always kept my boundaries and my walls strong and tall, protecting all parts of myself – body and soul – from harm.

For a while I was overly concerned with what I would say to my future husband when he asked about my sexual resume or inquired about a number that remains private, unlike most things on this blog. I wanted to be proud of what I told him and I wanted him to view me as someone who thought before she leaped into the beds of strangers or spread her legs for Manhattan. I wanted to feel honorable and somewhat pure, though I passed up the virginity card nearly ten years ago.

But then that stopped mattering to me so much. Instead, I became more interested in what I felt like. If I wanted to makeout with the tall drink of water in the corner of an Irish pub, then I’d do it. If I wanted to have sex with someone I met on the first night, I’d do it. This is my body, these are my morals and my choices, and if I can stand confidently behind them, then what did it matter what my husband thought? He wasn’t around for those evenings because it wasn’t time for me to meet him, so that part of my past didn’t include him. As long as I was sexually safe and emotionally smart, then I could be what I wanted to be and well, do who I wanted to do.

And by the time I finally reached a point where I thought that maybe, just maybe, I could have that steamy one night stand I fantasized about, I met and started dating Mr. Possibility, and a few months later we implemented exclusivity, deleting the option of a fling from my New York itinerary.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m very happy with Mr. P and I’m not lacking anything I think I’d find in a one night stand, but it is something I’ve always wondered about. As a 20-something, it almost feels like a rite of passage before we reach 30, where suddenly worries about fertility and wedding rings become priority over the “Oh my god, I’m three days late, but he didn’t finish inside of me, does that mean I could be pregnant??? Should I buy a pregnancy test?” text messages we send our friends now.

I have more than enough time before I turn the big 3-0, but I wonder if I have it in me to actually execute the infamous one night stand. Almost all of my friends have done it, some more than others, some just because they wanted to try it, and some because they really dig it. A few of my friends are rather empowered by it – claiming their sexuality as their own and sleeping with whoever they damn well please, and best of all, demanding an orgasm out of it. These women are so sexually liberated that it makes me blush and envy the way they view sex. I mean, they can actually sleep with someone without trusting the guy, without knowing his last name, where that scar on the left of his knee came from,  if he has brothers or sisters, if he likes chocolate ice cream instead of vanilla, or if he has any intentions of a relationship or is this just sex?

Maybe that’s what has always held me back – the idea of just sex.

My girlfriends who dig the one night stands like them because they’re not messy like relationships. They don’t come with rules and commitment. They don’t require compromise or a phone call the next day or a birthday present. They don’t grow, they begin and end with spontaneity. They don’t need care and concern to function, they don’t need reassurance or someone calling you beautiful. They just take two willing participants who at that moment, in that apartment or that bathroom or during that vacation – who want to just have sex.

But in my mind, which is probably far too relationship-oriented for this discussion to begin with – one night stands aren’t like that. When I envision my unrealistic notion of what a one night stand entails, I picture sultry kisses that can’t be stopped, conversation that is steady and fervent, and warmth radiating from my lips all the way down my body. I see a chiseled chest and my bare stomach, sweat rolling down places that are only sexy when you’re naked, and I feel the irresistibleness  of a man’s weight on top of me. I see white linen sheets with the light of a candle competing with the summer air and the undeniable smell of raw sex on me as this man calls a cab to my apartment the morning after. I hear myself saying “Stop, don’t tell me your name. It’ll ruin it,” as I blow him a kiss and give him a playful wink out the window as he watches me leave, wondering what could have been, but both of satisfied with the anonymity of it all.

I know the more realistic snapshot is a drunken couple stumbling out of Joshua Tree in Murray Hill, draped over one another as the guy with greased hair attempts to wave a ride while the girl giggles because she can’t think of anything else to do. I know they involve stumbling into things on the way to the two-bedroom shared with three roommates with jack-hammer sex that’s barely decipherable in your memories, and ultimately end with texting your friends to ask if you should get the morning after pill, even though you’re on the pill. They must involved a long hot shower, or at least I think it would for me.

I suppose I haven’t had a one night stand and denied every opportunity to change that because I want them to mean something. I want it to go down in my book as an encounter I needed to have to fulfill my appetite, not as a last minute decision I made because Mr. Tequila thought it was a good idea. But if I want a one night stand to mean something, doesn’t that go against what a one night stand is?

Isn’t a one night stand just a stand-in before you find the guy who lasts longer than a night?

Daily Gratitude: Today, I’m thankful for rain. It’s been a while, dude. 

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Happy & Healthy Love

In an effort to save money, I enjoyed a night in with M, splitting beers and dishes from Brother Jimmy’s. Though I have a TV, it’s in the living room where an air conditioner is not, so Hulu won over any real-time attraction. We watched an assortment of stuff -Grey’s, a special on the Columbine shootings, music videos from the 90’s (remember S Club 7 and Britney, pre-crazy?), and at last, one of M’s favorites, The Newlyweds.

I used to watch Jess & Nick pretty regularly, captivated by their fairytale-like wedding and just the idea of how a couple fairs after joining their lives together. At the time, I wanted to look just like Mrs. Simpson-Lachey and well, Nick was tall and fit, a handsome dude who apparently, was marriage-material too. I was too young, I think to realize how incredibly toxic and dysfunctional their relationship really was.

From episode one, it was evident that not only did they not know how to communicate, but that they led their day-to-day lives differently. He was super-duper-OCD clean, she had lived a life of luxury since 14, never having to fend for herself. He believed his wife should do his laundry and keep the house tidy without a maid, even if they could defiantly afford one, and she didn’t even know how to toss out after 10-day old flowers. She had jealously issues that were rather normal, but she didn’t know how to handle them and often smothered him when space would have cleared up the tension. She whined for attention, he refused to give it to her. He didn’t listen, continuously put her down, and instead of stating how he felt, he walked away and shut down.

Watching this now, after having relationships that were quite similar, my wedded-bliss image of one of my favorite teeny-bopper couples was shattered. I was flabbergasted – how did I not see how poorly their relationship functioned? Why had I been so sad when news broke that they parted ways? Why did it come as such a surprise for me?

They were unlike any other couple that just couldn’t make it work. Simpson was 22 when she married, Lachey was 29, and while I’m not one to base the success or failure of any relationship on an age difference (Mr. P and I are eight years apart), Jess didn’t know herself well enough to agree to marriage. And Nick? He treated her like a child and put her down without taking any of her history into consideration. Sure she was 22, but she signed a record deal at 14 – placing her in the lap of luxury and stardom for all of her adult life.

I’m passing judgment of course – I don’t know them personally and no one except for them can testify to what went wrong after three years of marriage, but watching it now further proved to me how easy it is to fall in love with the idea of love. Of course, there are many splendid things about loving someone and having them return the intoxicating favor. Having the constant support, the sweet reminders of affection and having someone send you good-night text message is wonderful. It makes you feel good, it makes you want to make them happy, and it gives you hope for a couple-oriented future.

But relationships are more than that. They require a lot of work, more patience than anyone has, and the ability to forgive and forget quickly, and even when you’re angry or upset, kiss someone good-night with sincerity. They require understanding and consistent, constant communication, and also having enough faith in your partner to give them space when they need it. They demand compromise and two people who are healthy on their own, happy by themselves, but healthier and happier together. They aren’t always fun and you don’t always adore that person, they don’t always give you what you need and they forget what you want. People are selfish and insecure, immature and annoying – but that’s what makes us human, that’s what makes us children who are learning the best way to lead our lives. And when you decide to go about it with someone else, you have to remember that they’re human too.

So falling in love with love – with this idea that love cures all things, can stand any test of time, any argument, any difference or disagreement – well folks, it’s bullshit. Sometimes it simply doesn’t work. Sometimes there can be no way to resolve what sets you apart and even when it’s tough to swallow, deciding to separate can be the thing that makes you healthier and your partner happier.

Some love – most love – isn’t meant to stand the test of time. You’re supposed to learn how to love, learn how to be in a relationship, learn how to be someone’s companion. And it’s not until you stop falling in love with love, admiring couples from afar without knowing the story behind their cohesion, do you learn that the best of love, the truest of all partnerships, has nothing to do with being madly, passionately in love or with the best story or incredible sex.

Instead, it’s about the love where more importantly than anything else, you love the person for who they are, not how they make you feel. Not because they are handsome and tall, not because they are charming or good arm candy. But because they are themselves and if you weren’t in love with them, you’d still pick them as your friend. After all, in time, you realize the day-to-day is far more important than romance, more important than those butterflies, more important than that fancy wedding. Those things fade, along with looks and chiseled bodies and chins, but having someone you can sit on the couch with and talk about nothing and still be happy – that’s a healthy love.

Daily Gratitude: Today, I’m thankful that I’m inside instead of out in this blistering heat. 

 

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Practice Makes Patience

For 12 years once a week, I took piano lessons. I actually wanted to take voice lessons, convinced I could be as talented as the Go Go’s (the first cassette my mom gave me from her stash), but once my teacher, Mrs. A, heard me sing – she persuaded my mother into piano. After some practice and an understanding of notes and measures, I could switch back to training my voice for be the next Whitney Houston.

Eh, never did return to voice and now that I can hear myself without blinded childlike certainty, I think piano was a much better fit.

I caught on pretty quickly and after a year, had my very first recital. I never did fall in love with piano, but I loved being able to perform and I grew quite attached to Mrs. A – she served as one of the most precious mentors in my life as a kid. She was tough with a stroke of kind and I admired her endlessly. She encouraged me to try harder, to go for a piece that was out of my comfort level, and complimented my courage.

But one thing that Mrs. A never liked was my practice skills. My mom wasn’t a fan either, considering she was paying for piano lessons. When I would refuse to practice for the alloted 30 minutes a day, claiming I had something to do, a bike to ride, a swing to sway on, a friend to visit across the street, she’d drag my 7-year-old self back into the house and sit me down at the piano she and my father graciously bought. If I didn’t practice, she’s stop paying for lessons and I just couldn’t have that – I wanted to be that singer. Or at the very least, I wanted to have another recital and hang out with Mrs. A some more.

Practice never came easy to me. I’d rather just go for an hour a week and play through the chords while Mrs. A instructed me. Sure, I knew that the more I practiced, the better I’d get, but I figured I’d get better eventually anyway. For a while I was convinced Mrs. A didn’t notice when I hadn’t spent any time in front of the piano. If I just played with confidence, even when the key was flat or I missed an entire measure or my beat was off, if I pounded the keys hard enough, if I held my head up high enough and made my back perfectly straight, she’d think I was brilliant. She’d think I had slaved over the black-and-white noise makers for hours upon hours.

I soon discovered playing loudly doesn’t mean playing well, it just means you’re pushing way too hard to make up for a lack of confidence. And Mrs. A could see right through it.

While I stopped taking piano lessons when I landed my first internship, choosing writing over music (though I can still read music and I’m thankful for that), I haven’t ceased to overdo my insecurities with an unfaltering ego. Or rather, when I’m upset or unsure about something, I try to push it so far out of my mind or dwell on it so deeply that it either goes away or it haunts me. I can knot up my stomach with a single thought, I can be my own cruel critic, and if given the opportunity, I can devise the worse possible outcome if I let my mind get the best of me.

And when I feel like something, someone, or the essence of who I am is slipping away, I grab onto it for dear life. I pull the pieces together next to my heart, just like I did with those scattered notes on the piano. I hadn’t seen those measures before because I failed to practice and though I’ve felt lost before, I’ve never practiced learning to find my way, so everything feels new when it falls apart. And just as I did in front of Mrs. A, I still feel vulnerable and fear disapproval, no matter what kind of happy face I may put on.

Unlike piano, there isn’t a set course of rules for life or for love. Things are sometimes out of key and things fall flat when you’d like them to be sharp. Sometimes you push yourself before the measure and while I’d like there to be a metronome to steady my rather-chaotic pace, the only beat I can really listen to is the one that’s in my heart.

That beat, my heartbeat, isn’t something I can fake. It’s not something I can ignore or push aside or beat with a silly ego. And keeping it in check, listening to it, and believing in its rhythm is something that must be practiced each and every single day. Practice doesn’t make perfect because perfection is quite honestly a beautiful allusion – but with practice, comes patience. And with patience, some understanding, and mastering the art of feeling it out instead of forcing it, sometimes, life makes one hell of a lovely melody.

Daily Gratitude: I’m thankful for my roommate’s keyboard that she let me play today. How I’ve missed it! 

 

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Beer, Broccoli and Brownies

You know it’s time to do your laundry when you’re left with only Christmas-themed boy briefs you’ve had stashed for oh, I don’t know, ten years, that you never can seem to throw away. Or when your pile of laundry is competing with the height of your dresser. And you’ve worn the same dress more than a few times, though it’s 90-degree weather and every single possible inch of your body sweats in ways you didn’t know it could.

You know it’s time to actually get some sort of tan for the summer when you’re my friend M, who while on a day date with a cute, preppy, tattooed bachelor of an unknown age, you hold your arms out like a bird to attempt to get some color. Oh, and he calls you out on it and you blush sheepishly. Or when it’s mid-July and your legs glow in the sunshine, instead of glistening.

You know it’s time to actually stick to your exercise schedule when you try on pajama pants that were once super-baggy on you, but now are a little snug. Or when you see yourself in a mirror with four panes and think, “Oh, I just look larger because I’m in between the sections” and then discover, that no, that’s no exaggeration, that’s reality. Or when you weigh yourself at multiple places and even if you subtract five pounds off for water weight, clothes and bloating – you’re still a little heavier than what you’d like to be.

You know it’s time to go to the grocery store when you’re sitting around on a lazy Wednesday afternoon, hungry and busily working on a tight deadline, and you gotta’ find something easy to make. And so, you settle on some Brooklyn lager, brownies from two weeks ago, and fresh broccoli steamed with butter. Along with a bag of Sensible Proportions that quickly loses its senses. Or you start drinking out of the orange juice container in your undies because it’s too hot to dress and too much effort to wash a dish in the air conditioner-less kitchen.

Or is at these times that you learn the most important lesson of all? Self-acceptance.

That laundry can wait when there are career-advancing things to do or free happy hours that don’t break your bank and allow you to make memories you won’t forget. That while a healthy glow looks lovely on our 20-something bodies, at 50, we’ll be thankful for pale skin that wrinkles less and looks younger. That an extra five pounds never turned away a man before and if it did, then he wasn’t a man we wanted to be around to begin with. That crazy food concoctions sometimes turn into interesting conversations and giggles that make the strangeness less strange.

Because I may not be the most dedicated laundry lady, the cleanest, the smallest, the most beautiful, or the best chef – but I’m me. And if I want to eat broccoli and brownies with a side of beer, then, you know what? I will.

Daily Gratitude: I’m thankful that in the shadow of everything that’s wrong, there is always something that’s right.