Resolutions That Matter

Happy New Year!! Right in time for 2013 and the shameless appeals to do better next year, I finished the book "Cold Tangerines" by Shauna Niequist. The book is a series of short stories celebrating the everyday-ness of things. So for example, appreciating the way your hand warms up when you grip a hot cup of coffee, or celebrating the rock in your life - the person who always is there to hold you up even if they are the one to make your knees weak. It's one of those books that will make you think with each word, each sentence and each chapter. I'm telling you about this book because it inspired my New Year's resolution. It made me realize that I've been having a hard time the last year being comfortable, you know feeling content and enjoying the every day. Worrying about if I have enough friends, if enough people like my writing, what will my life look like in five years, do I need a bigger couch, etc. I do things like this and I also do things like qualifying the best and worst of things without appreciating the just plain ol' good. And when I initially thought about my resolutions I was thinking I should resolve be less nervous, or be more spontaneous. But, quite frankly, when I was being honest with myself, these are traits of my personality, not a lifestyle change.
I wanted to do something that would help me feel better about the coming year, and then I finished this book and thought "ah ha!" what better way to start the year than by resolving to start appreciating what I have. So, that's what I'm doing today and hopefully the rest of the year and onward- planning and executing a way to appreciate the good.
I know it's going to be challenging -- it's going to take some work to start seeing and celebrating the hidden gems in mundane activity or completely terrible situations. And the catch of the book and this resolution - is that you can't do it retrospectively, you have to let yourself be open to the goodness of something when no one else can see it, in that moment. That's what it's about. Now, how does one do this you might ask?
Well for starters when I stop thinking about something better, something worse, something that's not right now... I can start living and stop waiting for things and hopefully, they will just happen.

So, readers wish me luck. Hope you don't think this is a cop-out, I'll be working just as hard as those trying to swear off cookies (which would be equally challenging for me). I wish you all the best in 2013, and no matter what your resolution is I hope it makes your ever day a little better than it was last year - because that's all that matters, right?

Holiday Reminder

Ah, the Christmas season. Where Christmas fanatics and self-proclaimed Scrooges sprinkle the streets like a fresh winter snow. Encountering a few too many bah-hum bugs this holiday season made me question what makes people so anti- a merry Christmas that they act like disciples of the Grinch. For as long as I can remember Christmas was always the time of the year where no matter what kind of cascading terrible sequence of unfortunate events you had the holiday season hinted the promise of family, support and some form of appreciation with a gift or inspired gesture. But now, instead of the fear of coal in your stocking you become worrisome that the next encounter will be someone that just hates everything about Christmas or they try to ruin your Christmas mood with some asinine joke or sniped remark. So, what gives?
I know what you're thinking; here's another holiday nut telling her readers to spread Christmas cheer. Nope, not doing that today - especially since Christmas is over.  Here's what I am telling you, though: when people get older the simple elements, you know that out-of-the box happiness -- becomes way overcomplicated. People start with the compare and contrast method to qualify their happiness and designate what their Christmas should look like. The bubble of Christmas cheer serves as a reminder of all the bad things or reasons why Christmas is overrated. Then Christmas becomes what you don't have instead of a celebration of what you do have. No wonder people get upset and melancholy runs rampant through their conversations.
But, here's the thing Christmas is a little reminder that patience has a pinnacle, and ebb and flow exists in more than just an ocean. It's like when someone is going through a hard time and you can't find the right words to say, "hang in there" or when you want someone to believe that it just takes time for something to pass over, like heartbreak or getting to acceptance. Sometimes, it's hard to see or feel where the waiting game of life will take you, but in its own joyous way, Christmas is the example of a season where hope and "on pins and needles" gives you an exhausting ride, but eventually comes to a close and leaves most people with the inspiration to make new promises (oh hello, new year).
So, M/Mrs. Grinch, what say you now? The holiday season that just culminated in the last day (with remnants that will delicately extend through week's end) is just a bittersweet reminder - this too shall pass.

The Escape.

Apparently there's a mass exodus from New York. It can affect those in their mid-twenties, through the early thirties. Reader, beware.
Symptoms include: restlessness and a sudden impulse to see what else is outside of New York.
Yes. This is epidemic is true, in the last two weeks I have either experienced or heard approximately seven people in search of pastures (greener or not) gather their U-HAUL and hit the road, Jack.
And, yes these folks are friends so in some respects my fear of this epidemic slowly infiltrating my inner circle is like a animal-lover with arachnophobia cornering a spider; terrified, but compassionate that they need to live to.

It's hard to digest the idea that your dream of New York and the reason why people come here doesn't satisfy the appetite of others. I can't think of a time when I didn't want to live in New York, I mean from movies always staged in this city that seemed to stem love and endless promotions, who wouldn't want to live here?
I remember in high school; when I went through my contrary period (aka hanging out with bad influences) and I had this archenemy, let's call her Esheda. Now, Esheda was what someone could call pretty, but her attitude was so ugly. She used to prank call my house, threaten to start a fight with me at school so my record was scarred, oh and my favorite she use to taunt that no matter what "I couldn't be her." Little did this girl know I knew the kind of person she was and her status at school and empty threats were the last thing I wanted. That year, I decided - I'm moving to a place where insecurity isn't the motivator, but ambition is - I'm going to New York. And once I had that in my mind, her yelling at me in the hallway, or teasing me I just heard those Charlie Brown teachers "womp, womp, womp womp womp..."I had to stay focus, a pit stop in Charlottesville for some down south education and I was in the home stretch.
So I guess like any pseudo-small town girl, New York was a city to experience everything that wasn't my normal. I just knew I was going to be the displaced Shaker Heights girl that kept her 216-number, but saddled up with an attitude and coffee permanently in her hands walking through New York streets. I had to believe that the anxiety, better known as high school drama, wouldn't pull me down. But, you know, that's just my story on why I came here - I can't speak for anyone else and clearly my experience was unique. So, for the friends that do choose to move along and find their normal, discover what their everyday will look like, I can't be mad, I can't be terrified. I just have to hope my everyday matches what you see yours as being - happy, successful and exactly what you'd want to escape to.

Makeup or Bust ...

I’m going to be 26 soon… Give me a little more than a month and I will be 26. See ya later 25. Suddenly, all those things I wanted to do this year are creeping up on me and you know the one that sticks out the most, right now? The promise I made to myself: 

“Before you are 26 you’ll learn to put on makeup.”
Like real application, you know, the kind that looks just like your face only slightly enhanced for the perfect photo and candid pic people seem to be endlessly taking. Oh to dream...Right now, I'm makeup illiterate.
Here's what happened: Before my 25th birthday my roommate at the time pointed out a giant faux pas of my makeup routine: I was doing it all wrong. I only wear eyeliner on my lower lid and mascara. It was easy to apply, an inexpensive routine, and it seemed to satisfy my quell of wearing makeup and walking into the world with “my face on.”
 So as I'm getting dressed for my party, my roommate tells me “you know, you’re suppose to wear eyeliner on your top lid…helps bring out your eyes. You only use the bottom lid for smoky eye and going out, not for daytime natural…” Hello, earth-shattering news.
I was proud of myself for making this very grown up thing happen all on my own– but when she mentioned the error of my makeup ways, might as well jam the mascara brush in my eye! She spent like an hour putting on makeup and all I had to do was smooth on a little bit of my eyewear… I waited in her room admiring the technique and then I got the awkward question “didn’t your mom ever teach you?”
"Nope" I replied, “oh, she died when I was little.”
It's not that I'm shy about my history, but it's one of those things about my life that I try to keep covered so the blemishes don't show through. Since I was so young when my mom passed, it became one of those things that as I got older I had that pang of missing her less and less, until nights like this one when I asked myself what if… Case and point...what if she would’ve taught me how to wear makeup?

So I sat there, feeling slightly robbed of a feminine rite of passage and embarrassed about showing a scar that's normally covered. I can't change what happened oh, so many years ago, but I can change what I do with it, thus the promise... 
The absence of a mom is to me my natural foundation, it's there on my face for the world to see - a glimpse at someone who once was. I just want to make sure I learn enough about this to pass it along...so that if I ever have a daughter she gets a chance to remember me every day, when she goes to put on her makeup.