Awkward Teens

You travel in packs, hungry as wolves, starving for identity. You share sticks of gum, ipod earbuds, and tragically romantic secrets. You still look, wide-eyed, at the world around you, yearning to seem wise, anxious about your own vulnerability.

I envy you your sense of immortality. You approach the world relatively undamaged, yet certain of your own dramatic history. You haven't yet learned to question the importance of your wounds. Instead, you declare them proudly to the world, penned in black Sharpie on your jeans, your backpack, your Converse All-Stars. You walk the world with your strange and beautiful fashion disasters, the rebellious nose-piercing paired with the 1940's Maryjanes so akin to your great-grandmother's. You pin political insignias and smart-assed slogans on your hat or your backpack. You sneer in derision at the commonplace world around you, the commonplace people (like me, someone who creates the events that you proudly tout as being "anti-establishment" or "alternative"). You know, without question, that you are destined for extraordinary things. You know, without question, that the it's only a matter of time until the rest of the world realizes how exceptional you are, too.

You struggle for breath, your individuality like oxygen in space: so simultaneously elusive and critical. You are so certain of each love in your life, loving for all you're worth, without hesitation or remorse. And, when it ends, you wallow unabashedly in your exquisite pain.

You are distinct without standing apart. You are alike without pandering to the desires of others. You are waiting for life to strike you as you turn the next bend in the river. And you are ready to strike back.

You are desperation.

And you make me smile, you make me remember, you make me thankful for who and where and what I am.

The butterfly effect

Yesterday morning, while changing my sheets, I noticed that the corners were essentially just four big holes. I thought to myself, "How can this be? These sheets aren't that old! Why, I've only had them since... uh... oh. Right." And so, off I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond.

People. I hate these kinds of stores. They suck me in, with their fancy-kitchen-appliance sections, their beautiful knife displays, and their mountains and mountains of fluffy, fancy, wonderful pillows. These stores make me feel like my home could be an oasis, draped in chenille throw blankets and filled with the scent of fresh-baked gourmet scones and designer coffee. I escaped relatively unscathed, with a set of (um, hi. expensive!) sheets and a "bargain pack" of wooden coathangers. I hopped in my car and drove home.

But visions of my ideal apartment still danced in my head. And, while the new, fancy, hole-free (and did I mention expensive?) sheets washed and dried, I began to ponder my options. I vaccuumed. I scrubbed. I moved some pictures and rehung others. I threw unnecessary things away, and put usable ones on Craigslist. And by 10pm, my apartment looked better. Not amazing, but better. Almost like I live there.

I've lived in this apartment for a year and a half, and as I began to create a living space that really feels beautiful to me, I realized that my apartment has really embodied my life over the past 18 months. It saw the hope that J and I would be okay, followed by the immediate demise of our relationship. It was a safe haven for Sis, a summer home for Shelly. I moved in with two cats, and when one moved out I acquired another. It's seen three sofas, each an improvement over the last, and a change in almost every other piece of furniture. And through all of it, it has been a transient place, a place I was planning on moving out of. And now, suddenly, it is where I live. It's not the most beautiful apartment. There's a wall of old-school paneling that I do not love, a very pink bathroom with frosted shower doors, and myriad other quirks. But for good or bad, it's mine. And it's about time that I started living there.

So it started with new sheets. And it's still not finished. But I can almost walk through the door and see myself staying for a while.

The cool kids

Here's the thing: I make no pretense of being "cool." I feel pretty socially awkward a lot of the time, which is something that surprises other people. I honestly think most of us feel this way, like we are imposters just waiting to get called out. I don't know. Maybe I'm full of crap. Feel free to tell me, if you think I'm wrong.

I will never be the it girl in the room, the one everyone wants to meet. I'm comfortable with that. Despite my love of performing on stage, I hate being the center of attention in a big group. I love making a big group laugh, I love contributing to the conversation, but I don't like realizing that people have been staring at me for the past ten minutes. That just makes me feel squirmy and awful.

And I've never felt like I'm in competition with the "popular" kids. I use that word in quotes, because I think the label of popularity has nothing to do with how many people like you in the world. "Popular," to me, connotes a personality trait, an extrinsic air of superiority that conceals an intrinsic need to be accepted. Even in high school, at an age when acceptance seems to be the number one desire, I was never a kid who wore cool clothes, striving for inclusion. Frankly, my outfits were tragic. I look back on the men's XXL t-shirts, the oversized jeans, the birkenstocks with thick socks, and I throw up a little bit in my mouth. (Particularly upon considering that I weighed 98 pounds, and my proportions were 36-23-34. sigh What a missed opportunity. I will never look that hot again. But I digress.) I was lucky in high school, with a large group of friends who shared my lack of sameness, and who all had friends in different circles. I still count many of my high school friends as my nearest and dearest. Being "cool" was simply never important.

The point is, I suddenly feel thrust into a situation where I am competing with a stereotypically "cool kid." I am comfortable enough in my own skin that I feel no urge to be more like this person in order to curry favor. The choice between us is simply going to be a matter of personal preference. But it is making me feel insane, because there is nothing I can do about it.

I am not demanding, I am not the kind of person who gets in your face and screams "choose me!" I feel like this person is of that ilk, and I am at a loss as to how I am supposed to assert myself. I can hope that I'll make the cut, simply because of my general niceness, my enthusiasm for life, or any other thing that makes me... me. But I've had enough experience to the contrary that I'm concerned.

I know that I shouldn't care so much. But there's always that underlying desire to beat the competition, to score higher despite the odds. Intellectually, I get that eventually someone will wake up and realize that I'm fantastic, even without all the flash. I know that I shouldn't have to be in competition with anyone, because I'm worth undivided attention all on my own. But again, it's all about this feeling that I think we all have, waiting to be called out as an imposter.

Carpe Diem, baby

If there is such a thing as a perfect day, I lived it today. A whole day with no obligations presents so many options, so many possible ways of filling the time, that each moment seems like a lifetime. Add to that the fact that today was insanely beautiful, warm, and sunny, and you have the makings of the most outstanding day I've had in years. I slept in, had lunch at the Ferry Building, hung out at the mushroom store, went to the Museum of Modern Art, ate a fresh chocolate eclair, walked all over my city in the sunshine, took myself to a movie that no one would ever want to see with me, and sat in the grass of Yerba Buena gardens listening to the sound of the world. I breathed. I thought. I let the world pass without looking at the clock.

I honestly can't remember the last time I let myself just take up space. I know that doesn't make much sense, but I feel like we all spend so much time validating our own existence. Days like today make me feel like it's enough to just exist and be happy, to own the space that I occupy in this world and be okay with that. I feel like today existed in a vaccuum. Tomorrow will bring its own set of problems, stressers, and spectacle. I hope that there are more days like today in my near future, though I think the rarity of such a day makes it all the more special.

There is no point to this posting. I haven't posted in so long that I'm not even sure where to begin catching you up on all the news, so this is all I can give you at the moment, this love letter to a perfect day.

I love Sundays off!

Today I slept in. I did not go anywhere near any kind of work. I shopped for groceries. I made homemade biscuits. I watched seven episodes of Alias and did three loads of laundry. I've done some yoga, eaten a respectable amount of ice cream, and snuggled with both of my cats. I have not fixed my hair or put on makeup. I'm currently lounging around in my fuzzy teddy-bear-like sweatpants. I vacuumed, washed the dishes, and even gasp unloaded the dishwasher. I may or may not have tomorrow off for MLK day, but even this one day of retreating from the world has done miracles for my psyche.

Now, if only I could figure out how to get one particular person to pick up the telephone and call me... sigh

Redefining Regift...

As an aside, I feel like I should state for the record that this is the most unflattering photo that I've ever seen of my legs. Or, at least, of my ankles.

That is all. lol

The truth of the matter

The Big D is rearing its ugly head, attempting to devour me. Depression has been a personal battle of mine since I can remember. I hate that I can feel it approaching, shaking the ground I stand on, and I hate that I am paralyzed standing in its path. The irony is that I am so overwhelmingly positive on a day-to-day basis that I think no one would ever think of this as an issue for me. Yet every second year, on average, I lose several months of productivity to this monster. Each time, I am determined to stand my ground and fight it, and I am sometimes successful. Today, I am fairly certain that this is just the warning alarm sounding after a few high-stress (and moderately lonely) days. Growing up in a family that considered depression to be a made-up problem, something that someone should just be able to "snap out of," I am still hit by waves of guilt that I am sitting around, feeling sorry for myself. Realistically, I know that this will not go away on its own. I know that I need to own the Big D, and the only way to remove its power is by giving it a voice. There's still a big part of me, however, that requires me to maintain the facade of perfection (or, at the very least, optimism) that I have spent the past 26 years painstakingly constructing. Tonight, I feel surrounded by an impenetrable barrier of darkness. I find it difficult to concentrate, and nearly impossible to see the light at the end of the tunnel. This is my version of the Big D, this feeling that I am swimming through mud towards a prize that is not worth the effort.

This may be the most honest thing I've posted on the blog. And I don't mean to alarm anyone. I've been reading more and more inspiring people, and I feel that I owe it to them to exhibit at least a modicum of the courage that they've displayed in recent weeks. So yes. The Big D is rearing its ugly head. And I'm going to fight it, as I always do. And eventually I'll win, I know that to be true.