Tag Archives: Living

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A Year From Now

This morning while trying my best to move quickly — even though vacation starts tomorrow — my friend M sent me a screenshot of this day a year ago from the app, TimeHop.

It was a shot of the two of us at the beach, the first week of July 2012, burying each other in the sand while sipping on the mixed beverages we technically weren’t supposed to have on Long Beach. Our hair was wet and our bodies were freckled, and though so much has changed since then, I remember that day so vividly I could almost smell the ocean air.

It was during that time that I had successfully ended contact with Mr. P after six months of post-relationship sex I grew to regret. At that time, I had not spoken to him three months and had painfully ignored every text, voicemail and phone call. A week after that day at the beach, he emailed to say he was moving overseas for a year and could he please see me. Please take me to dinner. It would be another month before I would eventually give in and meet him at Bryant Park, followed by too much wine in the Flat Iron District. And dancing in Madison Square Park at midnight, on a work night. That would be the last time I saw him, looking out the window of the number one train, watching him walk away yet again.

It was at that time last year that I was desperately uncomfortable with my body and pushing myself to get back on a running schedule. I had gained weight and lost confidence in the aftermath of my breakup and the uptick of my responsibilities at work, and though I wanted to turn down a beer (or four), I found myself feeding my insecurities with fatty food and beverages. I couldn’t stand the sight of myself in a bikini or get enough gumption to go up to a guy in a bar with my acne-prone skin and pudgy tummy. It would still be a month from that beach day, where sand covered my muffin top, before I’d pick up running again and another three before I finished my very first 5k in 28 minutes. A month after that, I’d go on Accutane and six months later, relish being makeup free and ten pounds lighter.

It was at that time that M and I were closer than we had ever been, roaming about town as single ladies on a mission for adventure, for intrigue, for some romance, for anything and everything that piqued our interest. It was at this time that we giggled on her couch in Sunnyside, Queens about who would meet someone first and how it would change or not change, shake or not startle our friendship. How we might miss this time being fun and fancy free. It would be another four months before M met her now boyfriend, another three before they moved in together in Brooklyn, and another two before they welcomed a dog into their home.

It was at that time that I had just gone to a psychic that predicted I’d meet the man I would marry by the end of 2012, that I’d be on TV in 2013 and see a big (positive) shift in my bank accounts in 2014. It was at this time that I was starting to feel released from the past, or at least letting go of its bittersweet hold on me. It was at that time that I started to feel so incredibly settled in a city that doesn’t stop for any heartache, any setback, any stint if unemployment or any hesitation. It was at that time that I found myself building up everything I thought I could, and it was at that time that I started to dream about a year from then.

I imagined that by the first week in July of 2013, surely I would be completely over Mr. P and gladly, happily dating someone, if not the the someone. I hoped I’d be lucky enough to still be at my job, still loving the work, even if I sighed over the sweaty commute in the dead heat of summer. I thought that maybe I’d be writing this blog more often, but also wondered if it would be around at all, if something else other than my dating and personal life would take priority in my writing. I didn’t think I’d have a dog or a new apartment, but I smiled at the vision of a one bedroom all by myself and a baby pup to come home to.

I’m far away and closer to where I thought I’d be at this time in my life. I have everything together and managed and yet, feel like nothing is quite going as planned. I want to be madly in love and am slightly terrified of finding the right person and making it work for the rest of my life. I find myself on the verge of wanting to shift and move everything in my life and holding on tight to things just as they are, for fear that something new will turn everything upside down.

But none of that really matters.

Because while I can come up with plans and visions of where I think I’ll be a year from now, just like I did before, I know that whatever I conjure, whatever I put together in my head, will never be entirely correct or terribly incorrect. Honestly, there is only one thing for sure, one thing that the past year has taught me — and that’s that change is undeniable.

It’s unstoppable.

Men come and they go. Some stay. Others linger. Jobs grow with you and over you. Some you’ll grow out of. Sometimes the best decisions you make are spontaneous and somehow, bring you more joy than the ones you labor over. Friendships have to be given room to bloom and will never grow in shadows. Acceptance of yourself is the hardest battle you’ll ever fight, but the most important one. Remembering you’re not the only one who doesn’t have their um, s*** together is a hard lesson to learn, but it’s the one that’ll bring you the most peace. Giving yourself a break is easier said than done, but something that’ll help you sleep better at night. You’re never going to remain stationary because you’re far too interesting to be boring, to be the same, forever.

The truth is, I don’t know where I’ll be a year from now, but I do know that I will not be the same woman I am today. And instead of being afraid of changing and growing, loving and possibly losing, dreaming and maybe failing, I’m ready for the challenge. I’m excited to see just how much – and how very little – I know about the person I’ll be a year from now.

And whoever she is, whomever she turns into, I bet she’ll be pretty great. Because even with all the good and the bad of the past year, she’s somehow came out even better than she already was.

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The Five Year Scam

As part of our final grade my senior year in high school, my English teacher had us write a five-and ten-year plan for how we envisioned our future life. Already quite deep into my love affair for this sparkling city, my cinco-de viva plan (or however you say that in Spanish?) — for 22 — went something like this:

Living in a luxury apartment in the heart of midtown, hustling and bustling with the best of ’em. Working as an editor at a big magazine, going to fancy parties and wearing fancy things, but writing about important topics — other than accessories and blow jobs. Dating a handsome man who would fall magically in love with me and propose at the top of the Empire State building.

What my life actually looked like at 22:

Living in a rundown brownstone that consistently reeked of reefer, sharing a communal bathroom with strangers. In, um, Harlem (but told my parents it was the Upper West Side so they could sleep at night). Working at a small trade business magazine, writing about tax benefits, sales, marketing and entrepreneurial success stories. My paycheck didn’t afford fancy things and my title didn’t offer fancy parties, but I did master the fine art of making Ramen delicacies. I started this blog a day past the big 2-2, and started my tumultuous relationship with Mr Unavailable/Possibility a month later.

Funny how things don’t really go according to plan, right?

As I (gulp) approach my 10 year out of that Southern high school and my (gulp) five year out of college, I find myself thinking about how I once pictured my life and how it really is, and maybe more interesting, how much of what I thought I wanted at this age, I don’t anymore.

I can blame it a little on conforming to the ways of the city that never sleeps, of how it tricks you into seeing endless options for as far as you see skyscrapers radiating in the distance. The city makes you believe in anything you set out to do, anyone you hope to find and any chance you dare to take. It doesn’t swallow you up for giving something a shot, instead it encourages you to take another leap, have another date, spend a little more money, buy that plane ticket, try something new again.

And so I have been.

I’ve been busy learning and soaking up just about as much as I can from my job. I’m coming up with excuses and finding opportunities to travel. I’m signing up for races I’m not convinced I should run, but fully dedicated to trying. I’m dating when it feels right and stopping when it doesn’t. I’m coming and going, quickly and slowly, just as I want, just as the mood strikes, just how it should have always been.

Because five year plans never turn out in the sweet little ways you think they will. Your illusions of how things are supposed to work out are just that, illusions. They are beautiful pictures crafted with the best-intentioned hand, but ripe with ideas of what life looks like, not what it actually feels like. Not what it actually means to live.

Because living doesn’t include plans and it doesn’t go on a pre-determined schedule or a course or events. It doesn’t follow rules and it refuses to make them. It doesn’t fit into a box of certain size or fit itself underneath a sweetly tied bow.

Instead, it surprises you.

Your five and ten year plan seem silly in comparison to your actual existence. What you dreamt for yourself still rhymes in the some sort of way, but those plans feels more like a scam. If everything worked out just as we hoped, just as we mapped it out, we would miss all the fun. All the good stuff. All the anger, the disappointment, the fear, the love, the passion, the struggle, the conquering, the battle, the success, the failure, the romance, the roughness. The shine after it all.

You’d miss the best parts of your 20-something years.

Especially the part where you look back on your life and those choices you made, out of spite, out of intrigue, and you find yourself smiling at the experience. Thankful you didn’t always pick the easiest road, but the one that seemed the best, and maybe the hardest, at the time. You would miss the part where something hits you — probably in the middle of an ordinary day — and you realize that blueprint doesn’t fit you anymore.

And that no plan really does at all. Maybe it never did to begin with.

Because finally, after fighting the should-be’s and the could-be’s and the supposed-to’s and all the pressuring words that did nothing but haunt you, you have found yourself released from the language. You’ve found yourself free from the scam — I mean, the plan — and happily ever after without a clue of what’s next.

And you know — or at the very least, you hope — it’s going to work out in a way that no pencil, no high school paper, no fortune teller, no anyone or anything could have ever predicted.

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I Just Want to Dance

I walked from 50th and 7th west to Hell’s Kitchen, listening to old music on my iPhone and silently reminding myself that yes, Frankie, the best is yet to come. I carefully avoided that street where Mr. P used to live — or rather, crash on some girl’s couch — in the months after we broke up. It’s on that block where my favorite South African wine bar with pretty white lights outside is. It’s on that block where I tried the only piece of sushi that’s ever made me sick. It’s on that block that on a smoldering summer day last year that I gave away yet another piece of my dignity to a man who never earned it.

I cursed those thoughts away last night, going uptown only to go back downtown, just so I wouldn’t have to walk past that door. It’s good exercise and it’s finally beautiful outside, I reminded my racing mind. Once I arrived at the Thai place, ordered a glass of wine and waited for my friend K who was stuck on a bus in traffic, I exhaled, relieved and finally, sat down for the first time in what felt like a long time.

I looked around the dimly lit place with overpriced entrees and acceltic decor, analyzing the scene before me. Groups of people still dressed up for the derby, others on first dates, one couple who barely shared a word, another who couldn’t stop laughing. Ladies in tight dresses like mine, men who shouldn’t have another shot of sake at 8 p.m. Champagne in the corner, cocktails to my right, a pile of menus to the left.

And me.

Sitting alone in a busy place, getting lost in a whirlwind of considerations and forgetting, again, to consider myself. I’ve had a hard time admitting it — much less writing it — but I haven’t been in the best of moods lately. I’ve felt guilty for being unsatisfied, for being even the least bit sad, for not being so extremely thankful for everything I’ve achieved, everything I have in my life. I’ve beat myself up over the fact that I’m bored, that I’m flustered, that I’m incredibly frustrated and yes, scared. I’m not the girl who backs down from a challenge and never one to face something without a little questioning, but when nothing is exactly wrong, yet nothing feels right, what’s a girl supposed to do?

I’m not sure, but I’m starting with tonight, I thought as I closed my eyes and I took a sip of wine. With the majority of my friends in budding or settled relationships, I’ve had to try harder to push myself to be social. To go out and mingle, to get out of my cozy little apartment with my cozy little dog so I didn’t cozy myself into complete solitary confinement. And luckily, my lovely — and freshly single — friend K was up for trying a singles mixer. The cure, I’ve found, for feeling funky, for not having what you want, for feeling trapped or suffocated by your own life, is to do something different. I’m not sure if my diagnosis or my prescription will work, but at least it’s better than Chinese and another Netflix movie I won’t actually like at the end of an hour and 31 minutes.

After dinner, we walked through Times Square and giggled at the lights and the tourists instead of rolling our eyes. If we were braving the crowd of a “20s and 30s Cinco de May Singles Party” just a block from the chaos of Broadway, we might as well be in good spirits. As expected, the guest list wasn’t very impressive and obviously far past 39 than what we hoped. While the men were primarily much (much!) older or very (very!) short, there were a few who hung around us long enough to pitch in a margarita and hold at least somewhat decent conversation. We didn’t care though — we were busy trying on sombreros and shaking maracas, listening to the odd collection of music and attempting to dance.

One overzealous man who was nice enough, but not enough to make me want to see him past the bar, kept trying to pull me into him to sway along. He’d try to get my attention or wrap his arm around my waist as I tried to move away, until finally, he pushed my Southern manners too far and annoyance won over. With one more tug, I turned around and said:

I just want to dance! 

And there, with a glowstick wrapped around my head, three margaritas and a glass of wine in, people dancing around me and a drum booming, I nailed what it is that I’ve been feeling. I’ve been so terrified of nothing in my life ever changing. Of never making enough money to live by myself in an apartment I love. Of never feeling beautiful in my own skin. Of never meeting someone that’s special, of letting Mr. P haunt my memory forever. Of being the last single girl when everyone around me finds what they are looking for. Of never doing exactly what I’ve always wanted to do, where I want to do it.

Of not being able to get away from the wall and dance. Of not being able to let go of all of these silly little fears to find my own beat. My own pace and my own moves. All this time spent worrying and fretting over what’s next or what’s not, of holing myself up in a tiny room I pay too much for, of exhausting myself with trying to be perfect. Of trying to figure out the answers before I know what questions I even want to ask. Of trying not to the do the wrong thing and writing off everything that was good in the process. All of this time wasted anxiously awaiting for my life to begin…

…when really, all I needed was to dance. And all I really wanted was to dance alone. For now. Until I find my own rhythm and can let someone in for a spin.

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I Love it When it Rains in New York

It was raining when I moved to New York, exactly three years ago today.

I sat at the Charlotte Airport, resting my elbow on my overstuffed carry-on bag and my purse while nervously applying chapstick in small, mindless circles. My mind was everywhere. I had planned this day perfectly and now that it was here, everything that could go wrong, had. It was foggy and misty outside and in Manhattan, my destination and hopefully, my permanent location. My flight was now delayed almost two hours, and I spent every passing minute desperately obsessing over my decision to leave my family and take the biggest, greatest and most important leap of faith I had ever made. I didn’t have much in savings or any job offers or even job interviews. I didn’t have enough rent money for much more than a month or so and I currently only had a futon to my name. On loan of course, from a girl who technically speaking, I had never met before.

I grew anxious as we prepared for takeoff, silently saying a prayer that everything would work itself out. And that all those dreams I had invested in for so long would turn out to be more than just lofty, unrealistic ideas about a life that I’d never actually have.

Once I caught that cab from LGA and headed toward Brooklyn to meet the kind lady who was giving me my first break in the form of a comforter and shelves to put my minimal things on, it was still  ugly outside. I had never ventured too far away from midtown at this point in my New York journey and the thought of going to Park Slope — a place I had never read or heard about except for random Craigslist postings — was terrifying. I knew that I wouldn’t always have this friend around and I’d need to vend for myself — little did I know that the scariest thing about the zip code was the tantrums of the toddlers in their very expensive strollers.

I watched the droplets roll down the taxi’s window and I tried my best to soak up the moment instead of glancing at my phone and taking note of landmarks, trying to figure out where I was. Where I was headed.

What the hell I was doing.

I had similar thoughts six months later, walking home from the grocery store in Harlem to my studio a few days after starting the blog. The rain was just heavy enough to need your hood and not dangerous enough to warrant an umbrella, and yet I managed to go the entire day dodging them. It had been one of those difficult 9-6’s — too much work and too little time, so many questions and nothing on the subject matter of small business I cared to answer. I had made another decision and took another chance — overcoming my own love addiction — and I figured it was probably a terrible idea. I ached for love just as crazily as I wanted to work for a different publication or website. I had found footing here but it didn’t fit me quite right. I was showered with luck but somehow the fortune that was supposed to be in my favor, was off. I hadn’t found the love. I hadn’t found the job – so what had I actually achieved here other than much higher bills and boxed noodles?

“Oh my god, you really want dumplings and noodles aaaagain?” I implored Mr. Possibility. It was the third time we had gone to his place by his job in Rockefeller Center that month and in the middle of February, raining, freezing, and I had no desire to leave the comfort of my apartment to take a train 10 stops downtown. Let’s go, Tigar! I have a surprise for you,” he pushed and eventually, I threw up my hair into a sock bun, wrapped myself up in a white coat and snuggled with Mr. P until we reached 50th. But when we rose from the toasty heat of the underground cart, it had started to downpour.

And we didn’t have umbrellas.

He swiftly wrapped me in his arm and we ran, hand-in-hand from 7th avenue to 5th, to eat $5 shrimp dumplings and attempt to eat thin, stringy japanese food with chopsticks. Admittedly, neither of us were very good at eating properly, but with matted hair from the rain and his fancy loafers nearly ruined, we savored the dry space with florescent lighting. I’m all wet — are you happy now? I teased and though we had just officially made things official, he reached over, planted a big wet one on me and said, Ha! I love you! I’m always happy when I’m with you.

I wasn’t happy anymore, that was the sad truth.

And as I sat there in Williamsburg in late July, counting how many pairs of Hunter boots passed our window, watching him chew his mac ‘n cheese and go on about something I was no longer listening to, I summoned up the courage to tell him that something needed to change. He held me as I cried that night, promising to be better, pleading for another chance and I told him that chances were what I took and that I’d give it to him, but he had to really, really try. With my blessing that goodbye wasn’t coming just yet, I felt his body relax and drift to sleep, but I laid awake, listening to the rain hit his pane and trying so hard to convince myself it was louder than the pain I was feeling. And that somehow, the rain would drown out the fear in the pit of my stomach.

So. Many. Butterflies.

That’s what I told my mom when she asked me how my final interview went at iVillage. It was a hot August day and it had been raining off-and-on, causing my hair to frizz in ways I knew were not professional, but very-me anyway. I’m never quite fully put together in the way I look, but almost always in the way I express myself. And still, my tummy couldn’t have been more upset, excited or anxious detailing the highlights of my meeting with the company I so badly wanted to work for. I was standing in the phone booth near 14th street, protecting myself from the unpredictable summer showers and using my hand to cover my face because my grin was just that big. I couldn’t explain it — even to my mother who I could tell everything to — but somehow, the rain must have seeped through that glass of the booth and right into my bones, telling me that something amazing was about to happen. I was getting ready to run straight into the next best thing that ever happened.

What’s next? What could possibly be next? I wondered a few nights ago, walking home with my red raincoat pulled tightly around me, Lucy pacing at my side, intensely interested in everything we passed.

I could see the storm coming from the North, gray clouds were taking over the Upper West Side and I patted myself on the back for finally remembering to check the weather every morning. I checked to see if I brought an umbrella (I had) and considered how many towels I had in the closet — was there one to dry off the pup? Three years later — and the rain is still following me. But now I know how to prepare for it.

How to embrace it.

How to actually love it. Maybe that’s why a black umbrella is the shelter for all of these posts, surrounded by silly little red hearts, floating their way down the page. Maybe it’s why I moved to New York — to face the pressure, to face myself. To be overcome with challenge. To be pleasantly surprised with sudden down-pouring, infectious, love. To walk and make it through every weather this city can offer me.

Because honestly, I kind of love it when it rains in New York.

The glistening of the buildings. The sound of the droplets on the roof or the window. The sparkle on the street. The sound of kids splashing in the puddles and the sight of couples canoodling to stay dry. The best part of rain in the city is what’s so great about New York itself: after the storm passes — whatever it may be — everything that was bad or grimy or unsure from before is washed away.

And what’s left is up to you create. You just have to decide if you can put up with a little rain to get there.

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This Baby Loves Her Back

My boobs were bigger when I was 10 years old than they are now.

Something happened the summer before I started middle school — my mom let me shave my legs for the first time (at our lake house in a bikini, terrified of cutting myself), acne snickered at my skin and well, every top I owned suddenly was a bit too small. And though I had always waited quite impatiently to look like a real woman, when those curves arrived sooner than expected, I wished they would go away.

Having an inappropriate body for a young girl brought all sorts of things — unwanted attention from older guys, untrue rumors at school because surely if my body looked sexual, I must also be sexual in nature. The truth was I found myself wearing a 32 D-cup and sincerely had no idea what to do with such a massive and speedy physical transition. I hadn’t “french kissed” a boy and yet I had a chest to insinuate I was ready for quite more than that.

Sixth grade was really the first year I started cursing my own body. I was too heavy on top. My stomach pooched more than the other girls in gym class. I couldn’t run as fast because my breasts were too heavy. My skin was speckled. My teeth weren’t perfect and I didn’t want braces. The other girls were prettier. They were skinnier. They didn’t have awfully huge knockers that I hated so badly I kept them only in sports bras for years until one of my friends demanded I wear a proper underwire freshman year of college.

Throughout my many growing body pains, my pants and dress size fluctuated too. Following a stressful period my sophomore year of high school, I gained close to 20 pounds and kept it on until I graduated. To compensate for my insecurity, I covered up the extra weight in loose-fitting clothing and cardigans to cover what I saw as embarrassing rolls in every place. When I went off to college, I not only had to walk — uphill, literally in snow — everywhere I went, but I discovered a newfound love for running, too. The thing that triggered my actual shedding of the baggage around my midsection and thighs wasn’t anything healthy though — it was the depression I fell into following that terribly awful thing that happened on my 18th birthday.

And then I was thrown into a dark world of strange feelings about my body.

Not only was it slowly shrinking due to quite a loss of appetite and desire for much of anything, I also felt foreign to my own limbs. And maybe more devastating to me, that power I had always felt sexually since I lost my virginity to my high school sweetheart… faded. I didn’t want to be naked and I really didn’t want to be touched — unless it was a touch of love. And love was pretty much void for most of college. I didn’t know how to get back all of that fire that got me through everything, so I took the advice of someone special and I faked it until I made it. I led one of the sections at the student newspaper, I volunteered, I became an orientation leader and I went on dates with men I knew I’d never actually care about. And inside, I felt like the ugliest person alive. Like this body I had, was damaged or broken, that it wasn’t worthy of what I once thought it was.

But after lots of counseling and even more determination to pull myself back up, I found myself interning in New York and starting to finally feel beautiful. Or maybe glamorous is the right word. My bra was not only significantly emptier but my waist and heavy heart was too, making me feel unstoppable and vibrant in a city that mostly defines itself by beauty. Or at least being surrounded by it, that is. But when you spend your time trying to be social and liberated and basking in the light of a bright new chapter, you also start drinking more. When I returned to finish my last year-and-a-half of college, I found myself staring at yet another number on the scale I didn’t like and pulling out those hefty bras I thought I could throw away.

And so this pattern continued pretty frequently over the next five years… until last summer.

Mr. Possibility was still in my life — in and out — and though he did help me get over my intense hatred of my acne (“Those are only your freckles!“), he didn’t do much for my body image. His love (and constant praise) of those 5’10-and-up skinny, long-legged gals made my shorter, curvier, womanly frame feel unworthy. Unappreciated. Not good enough for any successful man in New York. While almost every guy I’ve dated (Dr. Heart included) has adored the little extra I’ve always packed, I’ve never felt quite comfortable having them like it so much. If it jiggled or wiggled or moved at all, surely it’s not an attractive sight for a man to see.

But in the sweltering heat of the July sun, after a knock-down, drag-out fight that ultimately kicked Mr. P out of my life for mostly good with the shocking slam of a taxi cab door — I made a decision to be beautiful.

Scratch that — to feel beautiful. To embrace my beauty. To accept it. To know it’s there.

And as much as falling in love with myself is more than my mirror’s reflection, a positive, accurate body image is part of the courting, too. I got back into running after a long-delayed absence, I starting drowning myself in water, I went on Accutane to get rid of 15-year-old acne and I stopped comparing myself to every girl that I saw.

That last one was the doozy.

I had been measuring myself up against every pretty lady I passed, wondering if she had all the things I wanted because her thighs were the size I wished mine were. Or her skin had never seen a bad day. Or her teeth were aligned so symmetrically it blinded me. Instead of seeing perfection in everyone around me — and ignoring my own shine — I started reminding myself about how superbly awesome my body is.

And maybe more importantly — how incredible it will be one day.

Now, it can run 6 miles and not be out of breath. It can make it through an intense Pilates session and hit the pavement minutes later. It can endure the brutality of the city and stay in step with the fastest New Yorkers who push by. It’s hand can comfort a puppy who has a nightmare in the middle of the night. It can hold the head of a friend in need or embrace a celebratory moment. It can rock out a black mini and a red dress, and then look equally good — and damn it, curvy as hell — in tight workout pants and t-shirt an hour later. It can curl and go straight, it can go natural or pageant-faced and be just as pretty. Even if the beauty is in the fruitful flaws.

But one day — it’ll even be better. It’ll produce life. It’ll carry a baby. It’ll give birth to that baby. It’ll grow and stretch and sag and wrinkle and change and with all of that, it’ll just get more astounding. It’ll get lines and have scars that hold meaning — ones that were caused by things I survived. Or memories that were worth every bit of pain. It’ll be touched by a man worthy enough to be loved by me for the rest of his life. It’ll be held delicately because it’s precious and one of a kind.

And it’s mine.

So why not love it? Why not be madly in love with it? Big boobs, freckled cheeks, a baby-got’s-back rear end, frizzy hair in all-weather and everything in between belongs to me. And to me, all of it is beautiful.