Dear God:

Is that what you like to be called? I don’t know. I’ve never really sat down to talk to you before. Oh, I know we’ve been briefly in touch throughout the years, but usually during frantic situations in which I was on top of a roller coaster pleading fervently for the “harness thing not to snap so as to prevent me from plummeting to my death- oh and not getting stuck upside down for 5 hours like those kids on the news would be great too because I don’t like when all the blood rushes to my head thanks.”

We spoke briefly when my mom left my dad, but haven’t really reconnected since she moved back in with him. Thanks for that, by the way. And I mean that sincerely, not in a way that’s a sarcastic afterthought, but sincerely and with every inch of my heart.

We speak sometimes when I’m really deep in it- depression that is. When the weight of it all presses me down into myself and I’m too consumed by it to see a way out. When everything slides over me like a gradual trickle of water, dripping and dripping until I finally look up and exclaim, “Hey, I’m drowning.”

If you are the one who takes my unbearably heavy body and makes it light again after that, I am more grateful than you could ever know.

So yeah, we’ve spoken a few times. We tend to speak a lot while I’m having sex. Or more accurately, I yell your name a lot, which I’m sure gets distracting.

In all seriousness though, I guess I only come to you when I want things, huh? That’s pretty shitty.

Sorry, I know I’m probably not supposed to swear.

Oh, and so as not to buck tradition, here I am, wanting things. Or more specifically, one thing: balance.

I’m looking for my spiritual path, and by looking for it I mean desperately wanting it but not knowing how to go about finding it. I knew pretty early on that Christianity wasn’t the path for me, it just never resonated and I had too many unanswerable questions about it. There was just too much that didn’t feel right for me, and that’s what spirituality is supposed to be, isn’t it? Something personal? Something that in the dark places of our soul just feels right? That’s not to say that I don’t find a lot of Christian holidays really comforting, I celebrate Christmas and Easter, but more in a family-and-friends-togetherness-tradition way than a religious way. And I’m okay with that.

But I’m still searching, feeling lost and unbalanced and lacking a spiritual core. I just bought a book on Buddhism, and I’ve read books on Wicca before, because something about the more earth based practices stirs me, awakens me. So maybe that’s my path? Or maybe I’m supposed to create my own path by handpicking the things I like from different faiths and practices and making them all my own? How do I do that though?

I just, I don’t know, want to feel closer to you. I want to feel like there’s something bigger, something more powerful, something wonderful that connects us all. And right now I don’t- but I’m trying. And any help or direction would be incredible.

I recently found my first gray hair (and one other thing that makes me want to kill myself)

To be clear, it wasn’t so much that I noticed the bright gray hair on top of my head as it was my boss who noticed it and pointed it out in the middle of a serious meeting (in all fairness, he and I were the only people in the meeting and the embarrassment factor was therefore pretty low).

“What do you mean GRAY HAIR?” I shouted.
“One of your hairs is gray,” he responded calmly.

(cue my eyes transforming into big Frisbees of panic)

“No fucking way,” I mumbled as I flew from the chair to the mirror.
“Yeah, see, right there,” he pointed.

“Fucksauce,” I thought. Followed by “great, now I’m going to have to start coloring my hair, like, tomorrow, which I totally can’t afford. A month before my 23rd birthday and already my body has given up on me, brushed me off as an old ass lady who should crochet onesies for babies she’ll never have now that she’s thundering toward menopause with the force of a hundred bison.”

Somehow, I managed to not to let my crazy tongue reveal what my crazy head was doing, and kept the thoughts reined in enough to just be a dull roar beating against the inside of my skull.

“Are you okay?” my boss asked laughingly.
“This ISN’T FUNNY,” I whined.
“It’s no big deal,” he answered nonchalantly.
“Oh yeah? Until I QUIT because you’re working me too hard aka causing me to get prematurely GRAY HAIRS.”
“Let’s move on,” he suggested.

**
The other (completely unrelated) thing that makes me want to kill myself is when a rap song uses police sirens as part of its musical accompaniment. Stop terrifying me! Every single time I hear one of these songs on the radio I’m convinced that I’m getting pulled over. Every single time. There are instruments you know, use those.

taking inventory, part 3: the questions

(Part One and Part Two)

Is acupuncture helpful?
How can I get involved in freelance writing?
What’s the best low cost health insurance for a single person in her twenties?
How can I train myself to like beans?
What three beauty products could you not live without?
What are some cures for insomnia?
What’s the most poignant book you’ve ever read?
How many people in your life would you say truly know you?
What are the best resources for inexpensive travel?
What color walls make for a calming room?
Would learning Italian for no practical purpose, other than that I want to, be worth the effort?
What one place have you been would you most like to return to?
Up until what age is it okay to make selfish decisions?
What’s the best recipe for homemade bread?
Are fate and destiny real things?
How can I find the spiritual path that’s right for me?

If anyone has answers to give or guidance to offer on any of these questions, well, um, you know what to do.

taking inventory, part 2: the findings

As described here, I spent the weekend doing quite a bit of introspective question asking. I took an inventory of my life, my choices, my circumstances, and most importantly, myself. This, in no particular order, is what I found.

I am more reactive than proactive. I will wait until something is a certain way and then respond to it, instead of foreseeing how it will be or could be and taking early action.

I love to travel, mostly because I love to experience newness, to see things and touch things and taste things for the first time. Along with loving to travel, I love thinking about travel. Talking about it, planning it, researching it. I love to be on the move and if I can’t be on the move, I love at least knowing when my next trip will be.

Lately, I find that I’m constantly antsy and on edge. I’ve stopped sleeping soundly and never, ever sleep through the night anymore. I wake up in a panic.

Children make me smile. I am great with children and am really looking forward to being a mother some day; I already have baby names picked out. I joke about this, but I’m really fearful of infertility. There’s no family medical history that indicates that I should be worried, but it still weighs heavily on my mind sometimes.

I’m happier when I’m in the middle of a great book. I love reading and writing and being surrounded by flurries of words. I miss the sense of accomplishment I felt after completing a paper in college. I’d love to get into writing more seriously, and yet I am still convinced that this couldn’t be a “real” career for me. I would blog more often, but am honestly scared that people would get sick of reading it.

My weight fluctuates easily and frequently. I weigh 128.6 pounds, and yet I only weighed 124 pounds at this time last month. I’m troubled by the up and down and often spend the majority of my day thinking about (and hating) my body. More than any other aspect of my life, I need to get this under control.

I am virtually incapable of living in the present moment because my mind is always someplace else (or ten thousand other places).

My favorite thing about California (vs. NYC) is that when I’m here, I am infinitely calmer than when I’m being rocked by the bustling city. I feel more connected to myself in California, which is a step up from not feeling connected to myself at all in NYC.

I do miss New York though. Most notably, I miss the tingling sense of possibility that lives in the air. New York City makes me feel like anything, incredible or horrific, could happen at any moment.

I know I’m going to get bored of living in Thousand Oaks at some point, just like I get restless and bored with everything else after awhile. What if I’m never able to settle down?

I live in constant contradiction to myself. Everything I want seems to fight something else that I want and it’s exhausting. Completely exhausting. It leaves me feeling unsatisfied and empty, it means that no matter how much I accomplish, I’m always grappling with unhappiness over something else. I want to settle down, I want roots, I want to cultivate a home- not just a house, a home. But equally, I want adventure. I want frequent change and constant excitement. I want to be stimulated. I want I want I want. I want everything.

I don’t know how to pray. I crave spirituality so deeply and yet I’m totally lost on how to find it. This, in addition to my body image issues, is the biggest thing holding me back from being who I want to be and living the life I desperately want to live.

Despite my successes, my education, my passion, and my intellect, I am shockingly lazy.

I shy away from the spotlight. I have never really aimed for greatness because I don’t know how I’d recover from falling short. Despite how drawn I am to spontaneity, I live a surprisingly safe life. I’ve spent so long feeling safe and bored within my own skin, and I think that finally, I have had enough of that. I’ve passed over so many opportunities and not followed through on so many ideas, solely out of fear, and I think that finally, I have had enough of that. I let things fade away, skills, friendships, knowledge, people, possibilities, all because I am afraid to try for more, because I’m too lazy to try for more.

But I want more. I’m ready for more.

Maybe this time, more really is better?

taking inventory, part 1: the preamble

I’m not going to be one of those girls who blogs about Grey’s Anatomy.

Okay, I am going to be one of those girls who blogs about Grey’s Anatomy, but only sort of and only for the beginning of this post.

As a person who has seen every episode of Grey’s, I’m obviously drawn to it for a lot of different reasons.  While some of them are girly (Weee!  Derek & Meredith!), and some of them are wildly superficial and inappropriate (I wonder how much I’d have to pay Mark Sloan to come over here and McSteam up my business), those aren’t the main reasons I tune in every week and own every season on DVD.

The main attraction for me is how unconditionally connected each of the characters is to being a doctor.  That kind of relentless passion is so rare, and it’s something that I desperately envy.  Because you can like your job, you can even love your job (which I definitely do), but feeling that gut connection, just knowing that you’re doing the right thing and that you’re working endlessly for something larger than yourself, is incredible.  I can’t imagine putting in those kinds of hours and sacrificing so much, I can’t imagine doing something so deeply satisfying.

And so I watch, week after week, as the lives of the characters are complicated by personal relationships, family issues, and a whole myriad of other things, and marvel at how they remain grounded and balanced through their pursuit of surgery.

I wish I knew what I wanted that badly.  I wish I could be that dedicated to something, anything.  I wish I were working to achieve something that I knew I valued above all else.  I wish I had a comparably passionate goal.

And right after wishing all of those things I look around and think “shut up douchebag, you chose to live The Life Without A Plan.”

And I did.  I chose to graduate NYU a year early.  I chose to go back and forth between NYC and California for a year and a half without ever really settling in one place.  I chose a job that didn’t offer me the long-term benefits and traditional security I could have gotten elsewhere.  And most recently, I chose to move to California for a job that still hasn’t proven it’s real worth yet, even though it meant leaving behind my life, my stuff, and my boyfriend.  I chose to not know what I’m doing the next day, yet alone the next year.

I chose to not have health insurance.  I chose to rent a room from someone I found on Craigslist.  I chose not to put any real effort or money into decorating my new room because, like every other time, I was completely unsure how long I’d be staying.  And most notably, I chose to put off committing to anything or anyone.

I acknowledge that I am where I am as a result of my choices.  I largely believe they were the best choices for me, and yet I’m still unsatisfied in a lot of ways, still restless and unhappy in a lot of ways.  And so this weekend I’m taking an inventory of myself.  Going through the compartments of my life and trying to see what’s working and what’s not, what’s worthwhile and what’s holding me back.  Hopefully in the process I’ll figure out how to harness that kind of drive and intensity, because I know I have it in me.  I see how passionate I am about certain people and how crazy I can be about certain fleeting aspects of my life, and think that if I can just figure out how to focus that unbelievable energy in positive and productive ways, I’d be unstoppable.

So like I said, I’m taking inventory.  I’ll let you know what I find.

i’m back, baby

I just laughed so hard I was literally crying.

And then I couldn’t type because my fingers were wet with my laughter tears and I couldn’t wipe them off because I was struggling too hard to breath through the hilarity. The laughter outburst though, it was less because anything was actually funny than it was a much needed release of emotion. I get like that sometimes, so overwhelmed by everything and so not making time for how I feel that the emotion finds its own way out.

This weekend was another form of release for me.

VEGAS! (yes, I’m still writing it in all caps because it was that fun)

The best part? spending time with Jessica and Frankie.

The second best part? picking out some funny (read: inappropriate) little gifts for my Million Dollar Blog Contest. Unfortunately, I didn’t win a million dollars so I couldn’t try out any of your fantastic suggestions, but that didn’t stop me from randomly picking a winner! By random I mean I looked in my wallet this morning at how many dollars were left after my weekend (22) and then counted down and declared my 22nd commenter, Chelsea from Chelsea Talks Smack, the winner!

That’s pretty random, right?

Right.

And in sticking with the 22 theme, I’m going to describe my weekend in twenty two statements.

1. Escalators and moving walkways make me want to pose like a model. I need to be frequently reminded that I am, in fact, not a model.
2. Getting from Thousand Oaks, California to Las Vegas in exactly 4 hours is totally possible.
3. I drive 90 miles per hour when I’m excited.
4. I ate more goldfish this weekend than I ever have before (yes, the cracker, not the actual fish you win at carnivals and take home in a plastic bag).
5. Girls wear really inappropriate outfits in Vegas.
6. Jess: “Look at those funny shirts!”
Me: “Ah, there’s one of a guy holding hands with two girls. Like a G rated threesome!”
Frankie: “That’s totally like our weekend.”
Me: “Get over here, what size are you, I’m totally buying you this shirt and then you can wear it while the three of us hold hands and walk merrily down the strip.”
7. I want everything at Tiffany & Co.
8. One of the things I bought my blog contest winner is shaped like a penis.
9. The men passing out stripper/escort/hooker cards on the side of the street will hand you exponentially more cards if you reach for them excitedly while yelling “Pussy! Free pussy!”
10. I have no self-control at buffets.
11. Everything smells like smoke in Vegas and I love it, even though I don’t smoke and hate smoking.
12. I seriously need to do laundry now.
13. It’s possible to go to Vegas and not gamble at all the entire weekend.
14. Those yard long margaritas are way too sugary for me.
15. I almost got another tattoo (well, I thought about it anyway).
16. Jessica didn’t wear underwear the whole weekend.
17. Cheese plates are where it’s at.
18. My legs are sore from walking up and down the strip in non-supportive flip flops.
19. Frankie is really bad at evenly putting on sunscreen. This = disaster for a fair skinned red head.
20. I don’t do roller coasters anymore.
21. Vacation is better than real life.
22. Returning to real life after vacation is Not Fun.

a little sin in my city

I shall be absent from bloggie land until Monday because I’m off to VEGAS.

I’m not sure why I feel the need to write VEGAS in all caps, but… I do.

So yes, VEGAS.

ME IN VEGAS.

Woot!

Since I’m, well, me, I will obviously be buying some ridiculously inappropriate souvenirs in VEGAS.  But what will I do with all of the ridiculous things I buy?  Why send them to a lucky blogger of course!

So if you are someone who likes inappropriate gifts, or inappropriate gifts from a stranger, or (even better) inappropriate VEGAS-related gifts from a stranger, feel free to answer the following and get yourself in the running for this lil blog contest:

If you were gambling in VEGAS and won a million dollars, but only had 24 hours to spend it all, what would you do with it??

it’s all about friendship

I have a friend named Frankie who I’ve talked about before (namely here and here and, most notably, here).

I have had friends in the past who I’ve looked at and wondered why they were in my life, why I spent so much time with them, how good we really were for each other, questioning if they really made me a better person or not, if their friendship was really worth it.

With Frankie, I don’t have any of these questions. I just know.

I’m friends with Frankie because he stands out, because he has red hair that’s so long in the front that his forehead is usually paler than the rest of his face. I’m friends with Frankie because he doesn’t care that I tease him about stuff like that.

I’m friends with Frankie because when he laughs, he does it with his whole body. Because he gets me, so much so that I never feel like I have to explain myself to him. He’s there when I’m a mess or when I’m all pieced together, he’s curious and bold and has managed to firmly grab onto the belief that people are inherently good.

I’m friends with Frankie because he cooks the most delicious chicken, because he owns an industrial vacuum, and because he says words like “bitchin.”

I’m friends with Frankie because he makes inappropriate comments about the size of his cock in front of his dad, because he’s obsessed with lists and all things organizational, because he’s non-judgmental enough that I always want to tell him the whole truth.

I’m friends with Frankie because he runs 5Ks with me, because he gets excited about little things, because his handwriting is better than mine. I’m friends with Frankie because the capacity of his heart and his dreams is limitless, because we can talk about anything.

I’m friends with Frankie because he listens to me complain about everything from my family to my body to my constipation and offers equally serious advice on all three. I’m friends with Frankie because he doesn’t really like salad, but tries to eat it anyway when I’m around.

I’m friends with Frankie because he’s patient and kind, because he’s taught me what it means to have strength, what compassion looks like when it’s unconditional. I’m friends with Frankie because he can build things with his hands, because he isn’t very good at math, and because he’ll readily talk about how he likes chunky peanut butter better than the smooth kind.

Basically, I’m friends with Frankie because my life would be a whole lot less awesome if I weren’t.

Happy Birthday Frank!

on being a real adult

When I was a little girl I used to get so excited about having homework. Back then, homework meant responsibility and responsibility meant I was getting older, getting closer to being a grown up, closer to freedom.

The definition of freedom was frequently changing though, and soon enough homework became something to be despised, something that got in the way of all of the other, cooler, more grown up things I wanted to be doing. Drastically important things like going to the movies with my friends and gossiping about whether a kiss with no tongue still counted as a real kiss.

Freedom came and went in phases: being allowed to go out with a boy for the first time, driving, having an extended curfew, flying alone, and finally, going away to college. I’ve always been independent, but I never really knew from freedom until I moved to NYC for college.

Once again, the meaning of freedom shifted, because I had all the damn freedom in the world. I was swimming in freedom, diving into it, living it the hell up. I could go to class (or not), I could stay out all night (or not), I could have casual sex (or not) with whoever I wanted (or not), I could keep in touch with my parents (or not), drink shot after shot of bottom shelf vodka (or not), and on and on (or not and not).

At some point though, I think I maxed out on the freedom. Maxed out on the skipping class and pounding shots. Maxed out on the making out with random guys in bars, maxed out on coming home at ridiculous hours. I had ceased to be swimming in freedom; in fact, I was drowning in it. Because the thing with freedom is that it indicates that you’re free from something. For most people, it’s freedom from their parents, from authority, from having to report to anyone else. And being independent is great, being free is great, but I quickly found that with all my new freedoms came the weight of my conscience, the weight of answering to myself.

Because while I’m an excellent liar and have gotten a few (or more) things past my parents over the years, it’s pretty fucking hard to pull one over on yourself.

And so, like always, the grass became greener. I started to think longingly of the times when I didn’t have to do my own laundry, the times when I didn’t know how tempting happy hour was, the times when I never had to suffer through an all nighter to write yet another paper that I had procrastinated on.

Sometimes I forget that I’m a grown ass woman. I complain about not having enough time or enough money, like it’s someone else’s responsibility to teach me how to better manage either one. I eat cookies late at night in a dark kitchen, as if no one seeing me will mean it doesn’t count. I start sentences with “when I grow up.” I often look in the mirror and feel like I’m doing an awfully bad job of pretending to be a Real Adult.

complete this sentence…

I consider my biggest accomplishment to be…