You really start to believe in the power of manifestation.
5,000 feet above land, suspended in air, I giggled out of sheer euphoria and I teared up at the sheer beauty of New England with all its trees. And I'll write this coming Sunday about how much I hate trees. But I swear the perspective I'd gained when I walked out of the air and stepped back on solid ground was like nothing I could have acquired before last Sunday.
Nothing seems impossible. Everything seems relative. "Life is not a matter of milestones but of moments."
Sometimes I take away a renewed commitment to waiting for "the one." Sometimes I take away a feeling of relief I haven't "settled." Sometimes I take away ideas about flowers, readings, bridesmaid dresses, place cards, signature cocktails, and scheduling. Sometimes I just take away the box of chocolates with the bride & groom's name on it, or the flip flops they had on the dance floor, or bag of sweets from the candy bar, the swarovski swan, or the strip of pictures from the photo booth.
But this past weekend I took away a sentiment similar to sweet Anne Frank's here.
The wonderful thought that I have a wonderful day or weekend I'll simultaneously "never want to end" and never get the chance to recreate yet to come.
How lucky, right? Put that in your proverbial goody bag.
(c) song by my CFF.... I'll share a clip when he and my BFF have cut their EP and I've figured out how to do so on the blogosphere.
2/5 weddings in to the season, I'm going strong and learning a LOT.
I'm also working on a major book edit right now. So I want credit (doled out by yours truly to yours truly) for posting regularly, but I need to be okay with not generating cool content.
Consistently inconsistent's going to have to do for a spell.
It's classic for so many lines in it... "it's not gonna be easy, it's gonna be really hard," and "well, that's what we do, we fight... You tell me when I am being an arrogant son of a bitch and I tell you when you are a pain in the ass..."
But the one I think of on average once or twice a week (I wish I were joking) is "what do you want? What do YOU want? WHAT - DO - YOU - WANT?"
The idea of asking for what you want is so simple. The practice even, is so simple. My middle/baby brother, the head of his own household and father of this unbelievable source of limitless joy, told me yesterday he's taking his career in to his own hands.... "All you have to do is ask for what you want," he said.
And I know he's right. I've done that professionally.
I do that at restaurants.
I know what I want when I go to the hair salon.
I know what I want for breakfast on a morning after I've had too much wine the night before (bacon).
But to be able to ask for what you want, you need to first KNOW what you want.
And I'd be lying if I said there weren't corners of my life where I still don't know what I want.
So lest my sweeping generalizations fool folks, have no fear, my Goldilocks Complex is alive and well...
When my heart got stepped on in September of 2013 and then further mangled around May/June of 2014 by a southerner who sold me for a country song, I made the mistake of thinking wine would help.
It didn't.
Then this Lady Antebellum song came out conveniently a week or so after a NOLA bartender named a drink after me and booked a trip to Boston to overlap with a week I was spending there with my family.
Throughout my late teens and in to my late twenties, I drank for a lot of reasons. I copied pages of my diary to show my parents when I got caught drinking my senior year of high school. I wanted them to see how I'd struggled to decide to deceive them, how I hadn't simply caved to peer pressure, and how I was actively attempting to lower my inhibitions.
Prude, first born, over achieving, daughter of squares that I was, I had A LOT of inhibitions blocking my access to what I believed to be the full teenage experience. So quarters games led to funneling and I toasted to "the nights we'd never remember with the people we'd never forget" for about a decade before waking up with a resolution on my 28th birthday. Never again did I want to have that "oh shit" moment upon opening my eyes for the first time after a night out....
I didn't want to regret or forget conversations, canoodling sessions, or any uncharacteristic behaviors that might have been benchmarks of the evening prior. Ever again.
So far so good since then.
A big trick I've been using: drinking less... even not drinking at all, especially in circumstances where I'm prone to experiencing emotion. Because emotion + alcohol = a lack of cognitive control.
It's actually like only now, at 31, I understand the value of inhibition. Only now do I appreciate and honor my internal barometer for what I'm comfortable with.
I wasn't lying to my parents, I didn't follow others in their decision to drink. I definitely made my own and had so much fun in the years I spent drinking recreationally. Once in a blue moon, I love a few too many blue moons or vodka sodas or what have you.
But I'm actually really content with the decisions and lifestyle of Sober Naugs. She's still super fun. She just also never needs her parents to pick her up from the party because she's gotten too sloppy. And she just doesn't chase that disco ball around till she can't remember.
Not everyone's game for redeyes and volunteering to take the first shower, but I do what it takes to get the most out of my time away. So I packed meetings, a movie, a beach day, mass and a girls' dinner in Santa Monica into my 46 hour excursion to my home away from home away from home away from home.
Was technically there to drop this little one off in LaLa Land for a week of living la vida entertainment industry. She's "a peach" who'll "do great there" according to a friend of mine who's been going for it for the past three years after first dipping his toe in the water with a move west eight years ago (right around when I Boltbussed out of Boston with my 3 bags, 2 bucks and pocket full of NYCity dreams).
Monday was August 1st, and while Wedding Season 2016 kicked off for me at a bridal shower in Long Island back in early April
it being August now means shit's about to get REAL for the next four months.
So as I prepare to be my most fun and love-loving self, I have to sort of issue a fair warning to the people in my inner most circles. Cause month after month revolving around the love and commitment and progress and joint filing status of my dear friends and family will simultaneously fill me with immeasurable joy in general and deplete me of just shy of every last ounce of my seemingly limitless joie de vivre.
This is the reality of the (going on 9 year long) wedding season of my life.
100% worth it for the picture, pride and preservation of my belief in fairytales.
