Growing up... and forward.

Adult. 

Well, to be or to not be has been the question. I recently turned twenty-five and have been entirely engulfed in my ability to define adulthood. Up until recently, I hadn’t thought too much about what it means to be an adult. I did know, however, that regardless of what it was, I most likely was far off.

In the previous post I mentioned that I wrote a self-reflection outlining the last few years of my life. This was included in a theater story-telling project about “beginnings”. As I wrote my story and revised, I realized that my twenties have been a series of attempts at beginning… beginning adulthood. College graduation, a relationship I thought would lead to marriage, corporate employment, home-ownership… you name it. At the age of twenty-five, all I had to show for these attempts was confusion… left-over puzzle pieces from different pictures. I came to the realization that adulthood may mean different things to different people. Maybe some of those aforementioned life experiences worked for some, maybe they didn’t. And that’s okay. My revelation lies in the ability to self-reflect, to be constantly refining my mind and my heart, to be committed to self improvement/ self-sacrifice, and make life choices accordingly.

"A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong.”

And holy cow, is that difficult.

Just when I thought I was finally on top of this topic, I was thrown another curve ball this weekend. At Crossroads, Brian Tome discussed sacrifice. Sacrifice as a symbol of maturity and freedom… two ideas that I include in my perception of adulthood. He described sacrifice as a few things: not doing something though those around you are and seem to be doing just fine, and not keeping what you could keep/ giving without keeping count.

Pretty vague, eh?

When I heard this, my mind started to race; that description has infinite meaning and permeates throughout all of life. What am I doing or saying in normal behavior that is not necessarily beneficial, yet permissible? What am I accruing that I don’t necessarily need? How acutely aware am I of each time I give of myself to others?

As these questions began to multiply, I began to feel heaviness upon my shoulders. This sacrifice thing sounds like an asset to adulthood and to maturity… but to freedom? I’m already feeling weighed down by this and freedom is supposed to be, well, freeing. 

He went on to paint a picture of a fish in a bowl. A fish is seemingly constrained in a bowl… it has boundaries, limitations, has been forced to sacrifice its life outside the bowl. However, if you break the walls of the fishbowl and the fish goes free, it will surely die because the elements that give it life are no longer in reach. Freedom without borders isn't freedom, it's chaos and cumbersome.The fishbowl LOOKS like sacrifice, looks like harsh boundaries… but it actually provides the fish a freedom to be- and to live. 

* 

Yet another adulthood lesson… Boundaries, sacrifice, and modified life perspective may not help me climb the corporate ladder, walk down the aisle, or pay my mortgage but so far, seem to be paving the way to a certain type of clarity just as fervently.

Beginnings are messy.

I recently wrote a summary of self reflection roughly outlining the last five years of my life. As with most lives, I imagine the summary dons the shape of some temporal pattern that ostensibly illustrates hopeful beginnings and the inevitable shit holes that follow. Beginnings typically connote grace, hope, adventure… carte blanche. And this is why I liken beginning phases to unicorns: their existence is a neat thought: Oh! A small horse with a growth on its forehead; a fantastic new chance to be untouched by the past with zero obstacles ahead…

This perspective sounds jaded but looking back on the last five years of my life my beginnings have produced themselves in the following manners:  


Cue acknowledgment of a beginning—the idea is exciting yet immediately overshadowed by all the preceding crap that characterizes this as the beginning and any idea of fresh untouched creation is suddenly only a sporadic positive thought while you're desperately trying to get over the rest.


Cue the shit hole--  too much crap to realize you've gotten a second chance and you actually had an amazing opportunity to start anew and you missed it due to a thousand other distractions. 


This generally leads to feeling like you can never catch a break… and goodness have I ever felt that… and felt that… and lived that.


Despite my ignorance and self absorption I HAVE been given that new beginning. Note: Given is one thing, capitalizing on the gift is quite another. Thank God (literally). Most of the time, however, I am too stupid to actually submerse myself into this grace thing and end up missing out on way more than I actually even want to know (la la la ignorance la la ) So thank goodness for honest friends and family.


Thank YOU to those of you who have called me out for being selfish, oblivious, irresponsible, too content. Thank YOU for recognizing some of these beginnings for me and pushing me to actually look for the tiny horses with horns. Without the honesty I couldn't be a better me, and trust me, compared to the last year me, I'm pretty awesome right now.


Awesome. 


And here's my self challenge: drag my (most often self-induced) way too tired body out of bed in the morning and remind myself I am forgiven—and forgive myself… for not working out the day before, for paying a bill late, for operating out of fear, for hindering myself before even trying, for judging those different than me… for lying to people about watching sports just so they don't think I'm weird.  For anything. Because I am entitled to a new beginning whenever I am ready…. To do and think in fantastic, creative, adventurous ways because I can. I have been given a creative mind and the ability to give love and be loved.



Now THAT's a feat-- to live my life as if I actually believed those words...

THAT's the Beginning.

...it tolls for thee.

"Why do you think this city went broke? They playin' too much. Play with your heads, play with your money. They think all that hater stuff from Germany is cute, I see it everyday. But it ain't. Ain't never gonna change."

"It's simple man. We all learned the ten commandments. If you don't get the "obey your mother and father" part down by the age of ten you ain't never gonna be any good."

"They already know who we are, where we live, how much we make. What do you think the census is all about? You know what it can be used for. They wanna phase us out. Pretty soon we all gonna have bar codes. All our shit will be there open for whoever wanna know. You ain't got money, you're out. You ain't got a skill they want, you're out. You ain't got nothing to give, you're out. Survival of the fittest, man. They'll even kill they're own poor white trash because it ain't doin' them no good."

Last week the Indian man who owns the corner store warned me from moving downtown Cincinnati. He told me they'd be watching me because I'm white. He told me to move to Mason or Fort Thomas where I'd be safer. Black Bob the painter walked out of the store with me and told me not to be worried. He said no one will be watching me because of my color, "we're all just people. people against people."

With all these quotes it's safe to say I am an expert iPhone note taker. 

Why do differences make us afraid? Why do we fear things we do not know or know well? Both behaviors are buried deep within us, as we've acted on them since the fall. (No, not autumn, but when Eve had the balls to scarf down the apple.)

I haven't drawn the connection. Humans are afraid to be alone. We long for community, for friendship, a sense of belonging, a recognition of love... yet we fear and even seek to destroy those who are different. 

Do the very differences define our sense of belonging? 

And how quickly the alliances change! "I didn't like him because she didn't like him..../ ... "She and I got in a fight and he and I found we have a lot in common."

Drama, drama, drama. 

Drama that hung jesus, massacred the nigerians, swept out the jews, enslaved africans, targeted gays, embarassed kids in middle school and so on and so on and so on and so on and so on ..... you get the idea.

WHY?!

I do it every day. I just realized the other night that I sometimes act, say things, like things, eat things, don't eat things, wear things, read things, basically live my life in particular ways because I am afraid of the alternative...and/ or I want a sense of connection or belonging to the person or group who introduced me to the thing in the first place. Sometimes I want these things so badly I heavily guard against all else holding tightly to the image I have in my mind. It's controlled.

(I'd like to take a moment to note : grammar fail. I digress...)

Shaping our lives from bits and pieces from those we come in contact with is a fantastic method for self growth and reflection; however, molding ourselves into these things while becoming deathly afraid of being tarnished from the outside is.... so freaking easy we don't even know it is happening.

I've challenged myself to examine those areas of my life that perhaps are not my own. 

...And then I asked myself, "great ambition, but how the heck are you actually going to implement that?"

All I have come up with so far is to repeatedly ask myself, "do you like it?" From the sweater I put on, to the Pandora station I play, to the facebook profile I stalk out. Why am I doing this, do I even like this, for what am I prospering

Every single one of us is affected. It's hasty generalization the truth (really). Down to the very deepest part of our hearts. We love love and we are afraid of things we don't know... 

and we kill for both.

Just another exercise for self awareness. Cheers.

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory [a bluff, headland] were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; 
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." 
-John Donne

If I could find a real-life place that'd make me feel like Tiffany's, then - then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name!

“A rite of passage is a ritual event that marks a person's progress from one status to another” (thankyou Wikipedia). I wish life’s transitions and coming of age indicators were as easy as having a bar (t) mitzvah, quinceanera, or school graduation.

From what I understand, we:

began school in kindergarten,

learned cursive in second grade,

multiplication tables in fourth grade,

felt outcast at some point between fifth and ninth grade,

dissected something as a sophomore or junior

and graduated from high school.  

I always thought we were more or less all moving in the same direction at similar speeds. Then once we hit our twenties, any semblance of direction, consistency, or normalcy for me had disappeared.

Some of us:

got a job,

went to college,

went to three colleges,

lived with parents,

moved to Spain,

graduated from school,

went to school for seven years and never graduated,

got married,

got married and got divorced,

never could fathom being married,

had kids,

got great jobs,

lost great jobs,

could never find jobs.

Phew! We go from having relatively similar lives to observing the great divergence. This has made me completely confused.

For example, based on my involvements and accomplishments in high school I was pegged to have a different future than what has been realized thus far. I didn’t go away to college for four years and graduate with new best friends, a fiancé, and a steady 9-5. Why? Many reasons of course, but based on what I had heard, I felt the college experience was supposed to be a certain way. I never found my experience to meet those expectations- so rather than realize that my personal experience would be different, I transferred a few times in pursuit of what I thought it was supposed to be. And therein lays my first experience with cognitive dissonance. I heard that college is the best time of your young adult life… I am clearly not enjoying this at all- something must be wrong. I was one of the few amongst my peers who didn’t find their “fit” in a college environment, so I transferred in order to find it. NOW I realize that some people loved their college experiences, some people got a degree and got out, and some people have never set foot on a college campus. These options and multiple directions are not abnormal (repeating to myself x3).

That back story leads me to present day questions. What's normal, acceptable, supposed to happen now? I grew up thinking that as a mid-twenties female, I should be gainfully employed, be married by 30 28 (at the latest), and have a cute clean apartment with matching furniture. Having my own place with my own curtains that match my couch and plates that match the bowls simply doesn’t interest me. I don’t currently want or feel capable of owning anything...feels caged. I am not home enough to want to pick out paint colors, I do not watch tv to care about whether or not I have a couch and ottoman combination or have a chair. Figuring out who I am as a twenty-four year old and trying to be successful in a career is time consuming enough, I just simply don’t have interest in the other things yet.

Must I revoke my girl code now?

A girl I know recently settled into a new apartment. I tried to set up plans with her one night to grab dinner and she politely declined saying she was setting up her new apartment… she then used the word nesting and said, “oh, you know what I mean.”


?!

No I don’t really know what you mean. I like clothes and sleep, so I need a bed and a closet. Is all of this considered settling down? Is that a natural progression? Does that happen to some people in their mid twenties, and I’m just a late bloomer? OR is it like college experiences and some people find themselves settling in and others just never do?

Are there books written on this grey area, endless options, no rites of passage period of life? The only related literary "guide" I’ve found to strangely connect with is Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

The similarity began with Holly and her cat she never named. When I first got my cat, Miss B.O.S. made some reference about me being the cat’s mother. This made me flinch. Mothers are motherly, wise, put together... My cat once had a cold and had a lot of trouble breathing. I panicked, sat across from him on the couch and stared. From that day on, I was adamant about the fact that my cat and I were roommates and I just happen to feed and water him because he lacks opposable thumbs.

In Breakfast, near the end of the novel, “[Holly] gets out of the car, cradling her unnamed cat in her arms. ‘It's a little inconvenient, his not having a name,’ [She] told the narrator when they first met, ‘But I haven't any right to give him one: he'll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I”. That makes perfect sense to me.

At one point she says, “...home is where you feel at home. I'm still looking,” establishing the theme of the novel. This exemplifies her outlook on life and her refusal (or inability?) to be settled down. She says, "I'll never get used to anything. Anybody that does, they might as well be dead.”  I can’t seem to figure out why or how I’ve taken this path or this mentality, I definitely have embraced this as just a part of me... but then there’s this:

"You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness." You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.”

 Maybe it’s fear, maybe it’s figuring out growing up or growing old. I am able to recognize that there is much comfort and success in being settled, established, having consistency and desiring establishment. I desire responsibility for sure, just not the rest right now. I think I really will want all that… and maybe that desire is forthcoming. Maybe it’s okay, or maybe it isn’t. When all is said and done, I’m sure I’m not the only one… cheers to the nebulous twenties.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOByH_iOn88&feature=related

Batting Streak

I picked up a Starbucks Frapp bottle today at a little corner store. While checking out the clerk grabbed the bottle to check the date. I thanked him because it didn't cross my mind that a it could be expired as it was only a tiny little store. He said that he always checks the expiration dates on products for his customers because "people in America get sick." He went on to explain that in his homeland (India), people are much stronger. He said that the temperature in Cincinnati today was 82 F and we all run into our air conditioned stores, homes, public trans, or personal automobiles, while Middle Easterners are in constant 95+ degree weather. Middle Easterners don't have expiration dates on products because their bodies are conditioned to be stronger and they don't need the printed dates. I was about to petition the existence and reasoning for the FDA but decided to leave well enough alone and said, "well thank you for preventing any expiration related illness." I must admit, there's some truth in what he had to say, but I'll gladly accept any weakness I've enabled due to the FDA and air conditioning over the alternative.

 *          *          *          *          *          *          *

So it's after 11:30P, you text me (and you're not bff, miss b.o.s., or my mother)...

         I'm not answering.

Maybe I'm becoming an old liner OR have been simply oversaturated by the late night prosaic and pointless SMS. If I am expecting to hear from someone who is previously/regularly busy later in the evening, late night texts are perfectly acceptable. But the random receipts of "How are you" or "What are you doing?" at 1:00AM are no longer welcomed on this line. These days my friends and I just laugh at the silly texters making fun of the inane "What are you up to?" messages that pop up around midnight or after...

           Dbag: (1:12 AM)- "What are you up to later?"

...Later? Really? Oh, you know me, going for a stroll and running a few errands around 3:00 AM...

I'm not being naive. I know the meaning of these text messages. But the late night offenders know the pursuit is futile and I am left to blog in jest. 

In the words of Mary Tyler Moore, " I hope I didn't mess up a batting streak..."

Muah.

Mushy.Mush.

I saw a mother of an ex today.
No, I don't have a lot of exes and I would say hello to most of their mothers (especially this one because she is a nice lady), but today was an exception. I overheard a woman discussing what she should wear to a wedding and with particular interest (inevitable. i blame girl genes) I turned to listen in on the conversation. It was then I discovered I knew the woman, I dated her son and she's talking about his upcoming wedding... this is an unpaid acting gig and I'm out. So, I quickly, very quickly, exited the scene. Ninety-nine percent sure she didn't see me high tail it in the opposite direction; one hundred and fifty percent certain I was not interested in 'catching up' while she ran wedding errands, as this past year comprised an exit and engagement. It's strange how these things make us feel nervous or awkward, but for now I'm okay with darting in the opposite direction.

And on a completely unrelated note : I've been learning a lot about love.

Mush.mush. 
Love among friends and family. 

Now, say that out loud.

(the love part, not the mush part)

Frankly, that sounds like baloney to me. Ahem..:

     I love bunnies.

     I love rainbows.

    And I love my friends and family. wahwah.

Although extremely overused and cliche, this mush statement carries a lot of meaning. A year's worth of unfortunate events has tested this idea and I am confident in saying-- we've come out on top.

Por ejemplo:

My balls of steel friend and I were introduced about three years ago. We strongly disliked each other as much as two people could for the first two years. Then, for whatever reason, decided to join forces and have developed a solid friendship. She's nice (to me), fun, smart, and harasses my ex boyfriends-- all the basics of a good friend; but she also has proven herself to be a friend after my best interest through sacrifice, respect, and bold honesty.

Awesome! What can be better than that?!

My freakin' family. (Sorry mom, I'm a sucker for alliteration.) In my twenty-four years I've certainly cost them way too much money, time, heartache... and plenty of delightful entertainment. Over time, I've witnessed many friendships dissolve due to conflict, tension, and distance... but the love of family has endured. Thank God.

Mushy moments mit Whitney.

Vom.

Offbeat hoopla will ensue.

equal.opportunity.avoider

Last night we went to DanceMF at Northside Tavern. In a nutshell, DanceMF is too many people in one room, covered in sweat, for hours of (non mt adams style) dancing. We danced, sweat, got free tshirts, saw friends, found a bullet from an assault rifle, and ate skyline by the fountain. It was perfect.

On a separate but semi-related note, I've realized that my "fear" of confrontation stemming from emotion has made me an equal opportunity avoider. (I wish it was avenger because that sounds cooler, but alas, this action has made me very uncool.) I hate the thought of hurting someone's feelings just because I didn't want to do/say/ or be something. I don't want to get caught in a situation where I turn someone down with no real concrete excuse. It's not you, it's me. Seriously! I'm weird! I just feel stuck and nervous not knowing how to explain. It's crazy because the other women in my family would never hesitate to say, "No, because I'm tired/don't feel like it/ don't care/ think it's a bad idea..." and peacefully sleep at night. However, I feel I need a five paragraph essay excuse with references to accompany my "No".

So instead?

I avoid.

I should really look into changing that behavior.

In other news, recently discovered "six hour energy". Five hour, you've been trumped. I still play it old school by sleeping at night but it's nice to know I have options.