Just 5 in 2015

is just fine with me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/06/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-the-myth-of-quality-time.html?smid=tw-nytopinion&smtyp=cur&_r=1

I'm here ;)

Left behind

A guy I know from forever ago, who is in advertising these days and prone to check in with me from time to time, asked me last night where my angst is.

I had "just" been thinking about my lack of angst in December actually.   Last summer, I realized that angst seems like something you grow out of - if you're lucky by the time you graduate high school, more commonly probably by the time you're out of college, and often enough over the course of your twenties.... so when on a fourth or fifth date (save your applause, okay, no fine, go ahead, give me props for getting that far into a courtship - afterall, it'd been a while), anyway, so when on a fourth or fifth date I found myself on around Christmas, the gentleman I was out with referenced his own current angst, I filed the reference under a tab in my mind labeled red flag.

He was almost 40, that fellow.  And he has so much going for him, he's quite a catch.  But yikes, angst that's lingering 10+ years after your quarter-life-crisis must be agonizing and/or at the very least a mindfuck.*

*eloquent.

I told my bud last night that I'd left my angst behind with my mid-twenties.  Because I really think I did.  When I was 27 going on 28.

In hindsight I wish I'd thought to put it on my old taking/leaving list, then maybe I'd have spared the world some final flairs of my dramatics at 28, but I'm not gonna beat myself up about those.  Because the point is, by last summer, when I was pushing 30, I knew my angst was gone for good.

I'm reading "The Happiness Project" and will smugly admit that much of what Gretchen Rubin discovers month to month I already knew or have come to know on my own in the past 9 or 10 years, but tonight I read her June chapter (I'm reading each chapter prior to the calendar year which feels like both a cute and intentional way to approach it), and something she notes stuck with me:

"In a letter to a friend, Flannery O'Connor put this precept another way: 'from 15 - 18 is an age at which one is very sensitive to the sins of others, as I know from recollections of myself.  At that age you don't look for what is hidden.  It is a sign of maturity not to be scandalized and to try to find explanations in charity.'"

No wonder this wise lady's getting a stamp.  She gets it.  And what's there to get is this: get over it.   Hang ups, jealousy, suspicion, insecurity, competitiveness, feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt, regret... angst.  These things weigh you down, dampen your spirit and darken your days.  Ain't nobody got time for that.

There's something I heard at the funeral of a dear friend’s grandmother a while back … “Golden hours are one of the few things in this world you get free of charge.  If you had all the money in the world, you couldn’t buy an extra hour.  What will you do with this priceless treasure?  Remember, you must use it as it is given only once.  Once wasted you cannot get it back.”

I've moved now, ohhhhh let's see, 11 times in the last 9 years (having previously lived in one of two homes in Newton, MA for 23 years).  The nomadic lifestyle lends itself to making cuts and learning how to live a minimalistic existence.  Somewhere along the way to fully valuing time I left my bag of angst behind.  And man oh man, do I recommend others do the same.

Well that's like a metaphor...

Oh hey.

Happy 2015 blogosphere, internets, (sister)friends, Romans, countrymen.

Do 30 year olds blog?  Do I?

I'm not sure, but I put "write a blog post" on my syllabus for the first 14 days of April, and in true procrastinator form it's getting to be about that now or never time, so here we are.

And here's what's new:

I've thrice faced rejection in the past month, and that burns.  You know?  Like I'm glass half full kind of girl, I know not getting this, that, and the other thing for the months of June, July and August only mean that that in that time whatever's supposed to happen for me will happen, and I've been auditioning for 25 years now and not reached Disney star or even guest star status, my IMDB page exists, but it's bleak, so like...rejection's been the name of a big portion of my game for a quarter century now, I realize it comes with the territory, and I celebrate the wins when they come that much more fully because I can compare them to the losses, but none the less, this little triumvirate of "try harder next time's" had me walking around with this song from The Wedding Singer in my head and specifically the line: "when life gives you garbage, you use it to cliiiii--iiii--iiiiimb."

Typical.

So then today I woke up in particularly sunny LA, and put on a "spring sweater" I haven't worn since last year and realized I wanted to wear earrings that matched it, and decided when I grabbed the earrings from my jewelry box that I'd also grab the three delicate necklaces that have been sitting entangled there since last April.

I had wanted to wear one of them last year when I went to watch my mom's best friend run the Boston Marathon, so I packed it and these other two when I flew home for easter, and lo, they were a tangled mess by the time I'd landed in Logan, so I didn't get to wear that one then and I haven't been able to wear any of the three for the past year.  Because the tangled mess just felt like it was too much for me to tackle.  It was the sort of clusterfuck you'd bring to a Meisner class to get lost in the action of untangling so you could let your emotion run free when your scene partner burst into the room with their all important want.

And maybe the fact is as simple as I just haven't wanted to let my emotions run free for the past year.  But this morning: voila, my fingers pulled the silver chains apart with ease, and not surprisingly the last pendant to be freed was the one that said "Boston Strong."

Cause "that's like a metaphor."  Another line in that song from the Wedding Singer.

You heard it here first.  GoldilocksNYC will be trading in the sunshine for the idea of settling in (not necessarily settling down) on the other side of the country July 1st.

It's time to go home.  I have everything I need, and nothing that I don't.

The Last 5 Years / Third Time's A Charm

One time, in the Fall of 2009, I told my friend who was living in DC that there was a girl down there I thought he should meet.  I couldn't really tell you why I just sort of knew they'd hit it off.  I guess I assumed anyone who went to an Ivy League school then moved down to our nation's capital likely had at least a little in common. 

This girl I told my friend about, I had technically been friends with from the time we were two and talking exceptionally well at an exceptionally young age (ask our mothers - they will regale you with tales of our genius).  Really though, since she'd moved with her family to the middle of the country when we were all of four, we'd spent all of maybe 5 or 6 days time together, and we'd been in touch primarily as pen pals.

That first time didn't work for the friend.  He was busy.  And then another time when I told him he should reach out to her it didn't work out either.  Because he'd started seeing someone he thought he really liked.  So a third time, after the girl he thought he'd really liked had left the capital/him, I gave it one last try.

And this time next week, I'll be driving to VT for their quintessentially New England fall themed wedding.

Not bad, eh?

 

You can take the girl off the Island

but you can't take the Island Girl out of the girl.

that works, right?  makes sense anyway?

wrapping up a week in Aruba, no doubt I was Nantucket Naugs literally squeezing in an hour at the beach this morning in spite of a 4am bedtime and our 10am departure for the airport.

give me a towel, a little purse with some gum, my wallet and lipgloss in it, and get me on that sand - I'm home.  pics to come... but I wanted to get this post up so it makes the May tally.

Perspective

I posted this pic to facebook today toting a tagline that said "a little perspective on this Tuesday afternoon:"

Little B looking so tiny.  My apartment so grown up and yet such a work in progress at the same time.  Patio seating I bought in January that doubles as living room furniture and a desk chair.   I like to think I am doing great though - as the picture my graphic designer friend gave me for my 20somethingth birthday in November says. 

I don't - however - think I am better than anyone or anything.  And I am airing a grievance I have with people who do.  People who aren't team players.  People who believe themselves above.  Because I deal with such people day in and day out and it is taxing.  It is tiring.  It is disheartening and disappointing and actually depressing.

To me anyway.  Because I'm all about community this year.  Come to think of it, I may be all about community in life in general.  I work by myself from a home office, I moved across the country solo, and I may not need to have support before I set off in pursuit of something or other, but I'm still a team player.

And I still prefer team players to egos.

It's all how you look at things, so I'll give people the benefit of the doubt that they're simply shining the only way they know how... and we're all born to shine, so Lord knows I can get on board and support that, but I just don't think in the long run those lone riders do too well.    I think we're better for humbling ourselves.  I think we're appreciated and lauded even for giving of ourselves. 

You need help, call me.  I got your back.  I'm game.  I'll say yes.  What does it hurt to give a little time to extend one's self ever so slightly.   Even to go above and beyond.  There are plenty of days when you won't have to or won't be called, but the thing about "doing great" - great is arbitrary, it's fluff, it's a throwaway, the idea is, the point is... you're doing.

May is National Recommitment Month

That's all.

Who knew?