Tag Archives: Relationships

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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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The Next Heat Wave

I’ve been eating my words lately. Or rather, sweating them.

Compared to last summer, I was convinced in late June that 2011 would be different. I would barely use my air conditioner, though Mr. Possibility so lovingly installed it for me at the end of May, promising me I would need it sooner than what I thought I would. Let’s hope he doesn’t read this post because I hate to admit when he’s right.

The second I leave the cool air into the 90-degree heat, my body starts to melt. I sweat in places I didn’t know I could sweat and I can feel droplets of stickiness slide down me continuously. The ten blocks I would have walked now seem like 20 and I decide to take the train instead. I not-so-smoothly double-back in front of stores with their industrial size AC units blaring because that shot of cool air gives even a powerful orgasm a run for it’s power. Anything in my purse – from my NY Mag to copies of my resume – serve as a makeshift fan, and though it may make me rather ridiculous and cheesy, I’ve considered getting one of those battery-operated on-the-go fans to lower my body temperature while waiting for the train. My clothes can’t come off faster once I reach the frigidness of my room in my Upper West apartment, and I hope the tenants who can see into my windows don’t mind me standing butt naked, still wearing my heels, downing water, and worshiping my air conditioning. I still stand proud and hold true to the fact that it was the best $140 investment of my life.

With a few weeks left in July and just a handful of months until my birthday, I can feel this blog’s expiration date coming to a close. As I move to Step 10, sweaty and uncertain, a few pounds lighter, a million lessons stronger, one boyfriend and a dozen of wonderful new best friends richer, and one bank account that’s dwindling as it should smack-dab in the middle of my 20’s, I can’t help but think about what’s next. What comes after Confessions of a Love Addict? I’ve already decided the journey to loving oneself is never-ending, so though this blog and it’s daily writing commitment will end, the commitment I’ve made to myself and to my life only grows. I only tighten my grip so I can loosen the boundaries I’ve had on myself for so long. I vow to love myself without regard to wedding bands, love songs and sentiments, or any Mr. Possibility that may enrich (and beautifully complicate) my life.

What’s the next heat wave I’ll experience? What will be the next turning point? The last one found me naked in a Victorian tub, crying about a guy who was never mine, and realizing I was acting far more insecure than I really was and letting a parade of penises steer my life instead of claiming myself as a woman, as a person. And so this blog was born and this incredible journey that’s taken me to many places, most of which I never anticipated.

So what words will sweat out of me next? Where do you go after you decide to love yourself? To accept yourself? To always ask for more and demand the best – out of your friends, your love, and yourself?

Tell me readers – what’s next for Love Addict?

Daily Gratitude: I’m thankful for this blog, even if writing every single day sometimes gets the best of me. 

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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.

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Things Like This Happen

When you lose a piece of yourself because you gave it away too easily. When you lose a job your heart wasn’t in and then maybe one you put your heart into too much. When you lose that loving feeling with someone you really loved. When you spend more money than you have, place more faith in something that’s not worth your trust. When you get what’s coming to you, but it’s not what you hoped it would be. When you waited too long for a transformation that was never in the cards to begin with.

When something doesn’t go according to a plan you made, even though you know better than to make plans when plans always, always change.  When there are no words to say to someone to comfort them when all of these things happen, the easiest phrase to pull out of your bag of cliches is: “Things like this happen.”

This saying isn’t inaccurate. It’s completely true – things like this do happen. People do fall in and out of love. People fight. People breakdown. People breakup and makeup. People lose their jobs. People have their spirits crushed. People make new friends and forget old ones. People get caught up in today and don’t think ahead. People are people, and things like this happen, but hearing that never makes anyone feel better.

Because everyone wants to be the exception.

We want to be the lucky one who gets away without a scrape, a scar, or a tear. We don’t just want the piece of cake that we can eat, we want the whole bakery and maybe the rest of the block too. We want to be the one who enjoys all the finer things in life without paying for the finer price tag. We want to test our limits but never push them too far and we want to love without boundaries, without reservations, no matter how much relationship residue we build up. We want to find a job that’s perfect with a paycheck that’s too high for it, work a few days a week, and vacation for months in Europe, just because we can. We want everyone we love to love us back, and those we aren’t that into to quietly go about their business without being taxed with the task of breaking someone’s heart needlessly. We want the silver lining – but not the rain.

But things happen. And if they didn’t, we would wish they did. Because perfection seems nice when it’s unreachable, but if we really could have everything we ever wanted, we would still always wonder when the bottom would fall from beneath us. We would still always wish for something more, even if we had the world. We would still see our life as we see it now, even if it looks a little brighter than what it feels like now.

Because the best of us, the ones who are damned-and-determined to reach those dreams, to find that love, to pave that path, to see that big, beautiful, attainable world out there – we’ll never be satisfied. We’ll keep pushing ourselves and those closest to us to demand more, to push for better, and to believe in tomorrow.

And as long as we’re living, things like this happen, so do things like that. Things happen, people change, relationships ends, jobs come to a close, chapters start over, apartments get messy along with hearts – but I’d rather see it all fall apart than to stay put or to settle for even one day of my life.

Let things happen so I can happen, too.

Daily Gratitude: I’m thankful to see the beauty in change and to embrace it with all that I have. Oh and for two very wonderful friends who talk me down from a ledge for an hour or so on Gchat and right next to me.

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Miles Behind Me

Both transitioning between one part of our life into another, my good friend M and I spent a recent afternoon going to the gym for several hours (no exaggeration, actually), sunning ourselves slightly (we’re embarrassingly pale for July), and talking about our futures. What’s coming seems to be a popular topic of interest among the majority of my 20-something friends, as we’re all continuously waiting for a grand gesture from the universe that somehow never seems like it’s coming.

(Until it does, that is. And it always does, eventually…probably, maybe, hopefully…right???)

As we’re walking back to my apartment in desperate need for a shower, we are faced with toddler traffic. Three strollers with happy, bouncy, adorable babies are coming toward us, their nannies leading the way. Reminded I live on the Upper West Kiddie Side, we moved aside to let them pass before crossing Amsterdam. Getting closer to my place, I casually say to M, still thinking of the cute blue-eyed, dimpled two year old, I say, “Isn’t it strange to think that we’ll probably have a baby of our own in ten years?” Not one who is keen on commitment and breaks out in hives at the thought of trying on a wedding gown, M said: “Yeah, it’s odd but think of all that’s happened in the last ten years!”

Hmm, let’s think about it.

In the past ten years, I’ve graduated from high school, started, and finished college. I’ve moved from my first home to a second home, from that second home to a lakehouse, from that lakehouse to a third home. I’ve packed up my all of my things to move to college, then a year later, packed up more things to move into an apartment, put those things in a storage unit, only to take them out a week later to move into another apartment. And then again to move to New York, my family mailing a box a week for six weeks. I’ve had several New York addresses. I’ve interned and transplanted myself in the city. I’ve bought furniture twice, paid utility and credit card bills, taken out students loans and started to pay them back, with a lovely thing called interest. I’ve saved up my money, only to spend it, and then save it up again, and again…and again.

I lost my virginity and then proceeded to sleep with x-number of people I’ll never reveal to this blog. I’ve fallen in love three times, learned how to orgasm, how to break up with someone, and how to nurse a heartbreak with puppies, alcohol, and cupcakes. I’ve shattered spirits and hearts, made friends and lost them. Joined groups and made them better, left them and started new ones on my own. I’ve experienced the annoying curse of Mother Nature for being female 120 times. I started getting acne and never stopped. I learned the difference between a push-up and a regular bra, miraculously in front of the mirror at Victoria’s Secret with the saleslady encouraging me to purchase a dozen outside the door: “Don’t they look great, pretty thing?”

I’ve gained ten pounds, only to lose 15. I’ve gone through clothes and through men, trying different ones on for size, only to find they just didn’t fit quite right. I learned how wear makeup, how to straighten my hair, and how to just accept my natural little, uncontrollable waves as they are. I passed the driver’s test in North Carolina, only to crash my car a month later, and have my parents say a prayer of thanksgiving when I moved to New York and was off the road, off their insurance. I became a runner and slacked on my schedule when things heated up with Mr. Idea and again, when things became official and steady with Mr. Possibility. I learned to play tennis and then took almost every guy I could to play a match with me as a great second date (and to see them run a bit).  I’ve traveled across the states, but not abroad, though my piggy bank will soon allow me to go overseas. I’ve seen my first byline appear in a tiny publication in a tiny town in North Carolina, and then on Cosmo’s website in bold, beautiful pink letters I’ll never forget. I’ve had two four-page spreads in national publications and started this blog, that you, whoever you are, wherever you are, are reading, right now. (Thank you!)

I’ve figured out I like it on top more than I like it from the side and while charming and handsome is great, dependable and cute is better. I’ve fallen for the wrong guy and passed up someone who may have been the right guy if he was just a few inches taller (or larger). I’ve been kissed in Grand Central Station and the Lincoln Center, as I always dreamed, and figured out that sometimes dreams are more vivid in your head than they will ever be in reality. I’ve landed my first job, paid my dues as a hostess (with the most-ess), a maid (seriously), a freelancer (always), retail sales clerk (folding clothes, yay!), and a babysitter (girls are better than boys).

And now, I’m here. A 20-something with a lot of highs and lows, ups and downs, trails and successes, loves and losses, hopes and failures, miles and travels behind her. But you know – it’s only been two decades. I can’t even begin to list what I hope (and know) is ahead of me.

Daily Gratitude: I’m thankful for huge coffees and the company of a new best friend :)