In five years I hope to…
the one where i have the crazy eye (and something about yellow wallpaper)
I feel like I just gave birth to a cookie-shop-sized baby (ouch?)
KK is open. OPEN!
It’s exhilerating and exciting and I love it. But I am More Exhausted Than I’ve Ever Been in My Life.
Working open-close everyday is insane. I don’t do anything except work and sleep (minus that I don’t sleep because I’m too stressed and amped up when I get home and I can never seem to come down). Also? camp starts in 21 days. How am I going to manage KK and run a day camp at the same time? How? How!!
I’ve been at the camp office since 6:30 this morning (because staff training is in 10 days and there’s so much to do!!), and now I’m about to leave to head to the store for 12+ hours. And then again tomorrow, and the next day. And the next day? yes.
I’m typing furiously just to get a blog post up there, because I miss my blog. Blogging is my sanity and not having internet at home (who doesn’t get internet at their apartment in 2008?) is infinitely frustrating.
I’m starting to go a little bit mad, just a little bit. The no sleeping and the eating too many cookies and the not having time to do things like balance my checkbook are not good. Not good. And I look terrible- pale and fat and glassy eyed (crazy eyed, really). I always feel like I’m buzzing with this weird yellow energy (why yellow? I have no idea), which makes me think of this story I read in high school about some unbalanced woman who lost it over yellow wall paper.
I’ve accomplished a lot, I know that. I work hard, so hard, and I know that. But I feel like there’s never enough time, that I’m not doing enough or being productive enough or well rounded enough and I can’t sleep because I spin around wondering what could have been done smoother or better and I feel like I’m failing at everything.
It was at about midnight last night that I started to slip and it’s gotten progressively worse since then. I’m in some kind of manic spiral and I have no idea how to slow down.
stiff drink and sweatpants
The thing about breaking up with your boyfriend two weeks before the Grand Opening of your new cookie business is that you don’t have time to process or deal with any of it.
This is both a terrible and a wonderful thing.
I know that keeping busy is key, that sitting around feeling miserably sorry for myself isn’t healthy (which isn’t to say I didn’t completely lose my shit last Monday, a situation that required Frankie to drive me home and stay the night with my pathetic, sobbing ass). But being too busy to feel much of anything probably isn’t that great either.
I just, I don’t know, I have even less time for this break up than I had for the relationship. Work is consuming all of my time and energy right now, but honestly? that’s the way I want it. I’m so dedicated to the success of this company that I don’t really feel guilty about not having time for other people. And while I acknowledge that some of the busyness is a self-preservation and defense mechanism, it’s also just how it has to be right now.
I spent the past week and a half in a blur of setting up equipment, cleaning windows, baking cookies, training staff, oh, and watching some Grey’s Anatomy to soothe my hurt, sad, girly side.
Other than that I don’t really remember where my time went. It was basically the time at work and then the time at home, with the time at home being minimal and filled with a few stiff drinks and lots of being on the couch in my sweatpants (that’s the cure for everything, no?)
It’s funny- I sat down to write this post and thought I would be going on and on about how sad I feel about the breakup, or the reasons/specifics behind it, but I just can’t. It’s not fair to him to have our business floating around in cyberspace, and it’s not something I need to put myself through right now, all of those thought provoking emotional shenanigans.
And then I thought I would write about the Grand Opening of KK*, but really? what I feel like doing is just putting a post out there, letting all of the wonderful people who reached out to me know that I’m still very much alive and kicking and that I’m spring-boarding back into blogland right now!
*I’ve started referring to the company by initials only, because although I’m exceptionally honest and love to live my life outloud, my bosses probably don’t need our company linked with my personal life. With that said, anyone who wants more info on the business (did I mention it’s a create-your-own cookie shop and we’re opening THIS SATURDAY??) should absolutely feel free to contact me about it!
the one without a title
My boyfriend and I broke up last night.
In some ways, I saw this coming. In other ways, I absolutely never thought it would happen.
I’m not going to be around blogland for a little while, because there’s nothing I could say that wouldn’t be trite or ridiculous or just completely unintelligible.
I’m falling apart. But somehow, I know I’ll be okay. I just don’t know when.
And until then, I’ll be taking some time for myself.
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
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.
