The Diary Complex

When I hear the word "diary" my mind immediately jumps to the episode of Full House where Stephanie steals DJ's glossy pink, gold plastic locked book of secrets. Diaries are cheesiness to the max, the girliest of all girly pre-pubescent ventures. But I'm concerned that we're letting the outdated nomenclature of such a timeless hobby stop us from pursuing the documentary art of personal note keeping as old as writing itself.

The practice has gone through several make overs. We call it letter writing. We call it journaling. We call it writing. We call it blogging. But by any other name, the captains' logs of our lives remind us of the things we've done, the people we've seen, and how we've felt. One of my favorite Joan Didion quotes, I think it's from Slouching Towards Bethlehem, is this:

“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.” 

And it's true. If we don't know who we are right now, how will we ever be able to look back with confidence from whence we've come.

My ode to the self narrative is obviously personal. The process of keeping this blog is, I'm pretty certain, the only thing between me and a cliff off the PCH. So whether you share it with the entire world or with a friend in a letter or with the most important person in your little universe (you), do it! Because what greater adventure is there than the journey of finding yourself?

Buenos Suerte Conquistadores

The Uncompromisingly Irreplaceable

Every year on her birthday my mom closes her eyes and wishes for the exact same thing: complete health for my family, my friends, and me. It's really a great wish. The most essential. The least superfluous. I can't quite say that if you have your health you have everything, but if you don't have your health you really have nothing.

Well, yesterday I was similarly reminded of an irreplaceable source of happiness. Friends. Not people or acquaintances or frenemies but honest to god friends. People who are interested in your well being and invested in your happiness and looking out for you when you don't even realize it. There are a million ways to notice a good friend, to realize that they're there for you, but what I've found to be the most effective is to go out and spend a night with perfectly nice, well-intentioned people and discover the absence of any comfort, humor, or conversational spark.

It's really wonderful how easy and effortless your friendships seem afterwards. How easy it is to convey a thought with an eye roll, or know someone well enough to know what they need before they do, or to have someone know what you need and to help you figure it out. And also there's just the comfort of conversation. What better way to spend an evening then nestled in a couch with a glass of wine learning about someone else and learning about yourself. And usually the more people the better, but there is something really lovely about the type of relationship where you can sustain a 4 hour conversation with one person. And there's something even more wonderful about those friendships where silence is truly, genuinely comfortable.

I've been the agnostic equivalent of blessed with the people I have in my life. Both of my parents are only children, so I don't have any aunts, uncles, or cousins, but they valued their friends as their family. It was one of the most important lessons that they didn't consciously teach me: If you love someone, hold on. And I have. I'm still very close with friends from childhood, adolescence, and the teenage years. And that's definitely one of the reasons that I want to spend the next year at home. It's hard being away from them.

Maybe that's part of my discontent with yesterday evening. I don't have a ton of friends from college that I'm dying to hold on to, but I have a small, strong group. And I don't have a blue print for that. I'm afraid that by choosing NY i'll lose everything LA. The friends, the diversity, the food, the person I've become. How do I prevent that? And how do I prevent the worst case scenario, which is Friday nights spent with meaningless relationships for the rest of my life.

I suspect that it's a set of fears that I just have to live irrelevant, prove that it will work and I can have everything I want. Because really, why can't I have everything I want? I have my health. Check. I have friends. Check. Now I just just have to trust the system.

Deep Breath. It's all going to be OK.

The Hardest Thing (and I'm not talking about what she said)

Do you want to know the hardest thing about being a young twenty-something on the epic verge of graduation? When other people are happy.

Seriously, we're all doing fine, commiserating with each other over failures and disappointments and the unlikelihood of our financial independence in the coming calendar year, and then all of a sudden someone gets a job or a fellowship or an apartment or the smallest and least promising of leads and we're de-railed. Snap. Just like that, we're goners.

Because really, how do you expect me to be happy for the competition? Even when they're not my competition, isn't it our duty as the downtrodden of the economy to root for the underdog? To root for the "us," not the "them"? And despite wanting to be happy for friends and acquaintances who are stumbling on success (dare I lend their accomplishments the agency of hard work and achievement) all I can do is add those efforts to my list of failures. No amount of will, passion, or ice cream can sway my emotions toward their favor.

And I don't think I want them to be unhappy. It's not really a "misery loves company" scenario. And I also don't think that getting a job offer or a trust fund would relieve my animosity. So what would? Now that you mention it...nothing. One of the many burdens of the quarter life crisis, I suppose. The perpetual, rippling self doubt associated with any glimmer of success and the insatiable taste for accomplishment seem to be the ying and the yang of my mental state. What a terrible ying and yang.

So what's the solution? How do we make ourselves happy for the people we despise? Fake it till you make it is the obvious solution, and the one I typically adhere to. But I think my new favorite is asking questions that poke holes in the longevity of their success. Like, "What are you doing after your 1 year highly competitive fellowship?" The illusion of interest blended with the satisfaction of masked fury. I think that's as close to a win-win as we get in these situations.

Life Philosophy

I've decide to let you all in on a little secret. Much to the detriment of my blog I've been in a delightful mood for the past several days, which translates to few angsty musings for blog fodder. My apologies. So I thought I'd share my life philosophy. One of the many people who shared their thoughts on my blog with me after my last facebook share was my Pseudo-Aunt (I don't have any real aunts, but I'm pretty content just having her and a few others). And she actually shared something that I whole-heartedly agree with, which is that happiness is a choice. Happiness is totally a choice. And in response to the million counter examples that your brain just automatically racked up, I say calm down. Wait to hear what I have to say. What I mean by "happiness is a choice" is that the world is a mess and we have no control over 99.9983674%  of what happens. Add that will be true whether we choose happiness or not. The roughly .1127436% of the world that we have control over is the way we respond to it. And in that way, happiness is not just a choice. It's the only choice that we have. The choice that affects all other experiences. So choose happiness. Because really, why wouldn't you?

OK, so that's only a part of my life philosophy. More just something that I wholeheartedly believe. Here's my life philosophy. It's an idea that it took me thousands of days, hundreds of failures, and a bit of gut instinct to discover, but now it's a phrase and concept I return to regularly:

be at one with the chaos of the universe

It is a challenge, for sure. But if you can manage it you'll be astounded at how much better your life becomes. At how much easier things seem and how much more elegantly simple or beautifully complex everything begins to appear. Be at one with the chaos of the universe. Accept your lack of control. Roll with the punches. Best laid plans etc. etc. And once you align yourself with the pure chaos that has ushered in the world as we know it you will find that big changes seem smaller and everything seems a little less do or die. So give yourself a break. Embrace the beauty of unpredictability  Choose happiness. Choose chaos. Choose excitement and adventure. Be at one with the chaos of the universe.

Because really, it's never that big of a deal.

The Circle Game

Over the past few weeks I've had several conversations with different people about the idea of graduating college and ending up exactly where we started.

I just want to say that that cycle of thinking is not only destructive but flat out wrong. Really? Even if you had lived in a cardboard box, shut off from the rest of the world, you would still emerge paler and more socially awkward. People change in 4 years. That is the nature of time and air pollution. So consequently, even if we're in the same relative position that we were in 4 years ago (the bottom) it's impossible for us to be in the actual same position. We know more, about ourselves and about the world. We have access to opportunities that we couldn't have dreamed of four years ago. We understand the world differently.

And even if we return to the same geography that we grew up in, It doesn't mean that we suddenly and immediately regress. On some fronts, sure. But you would switch opinions on some things if you went anywhere. The necessity of a winter coat, the appropriateness of taco meat on your pizza, EDM, for just a few examples. We change our minds, and it's ok if we change them back on some of the small things. But I maintain, moving back home does not mean that you become your 18 year old self. Because seriously, if the 18 year old version of yourself is better than your current version in any way besides maybe being more hopeful then my recommendation to you is not to go home but to spend a year in the Australian outback reevaluating how you make life choices. Seriously, just go now. Because moving home is only going to work if you feel comfortable with the person you've become. And you feel comfortable seeking out new opportunities and outlets in your original neck of the woods.

But something that's extremely important to remember is that you do have to change. The next 4 years of your life are not any more static than the last. New experiences and opportunities are going to throw us, and to try to hang on to the exact version of yourself that existed the moment you accept your degree is a dangerous but effective way to prevent yourself from experiencing anything or growing at all. Be open to the newness of the next stage, especially in places we've been before.

The Age Calculator

A dear and brilliant friend of mine turns 22 today. In a rare lull in our conversation yesterday I asked her, awkwardly and out of obligation, how it felt to be 22? Her response was, as always, wise and true.

Like me, and I assume many of you, she stated that she had never really gotten birthdays because they didn't make her feel any different. What? Now I'm 22? great. It's still only been 1 day since yesterday and nothing besides a bar tender's relative perception of my age according to my ID seems to be different. All the big things have stayed the same. So we began talking about all of the things that do contribute to your age, since numbers are so vividly useless. Things like the number of car crashes you've been in, how many times you've lost your job, how often you've moved, how many funerals you've attended, on and on. I realize now that these are mostly negative things. But it got me thinking...how do I measure how old I feel? How should we measure that? So here are some of my thoughts, and I'd love to hear yours! Please comment with any additions, logical or illogical, strange and/or beautiful. I'd love to hear.

Measure: Car Altercations
My Count: 7
Explanation: Tickets. Accidents. Fender Benders. They cost you money and they ruin your day. This is probably the greatest cause of concrete stress in my life. I'm not even that bad of a driver. I follow the laws of the road. I don't speed too badly. I maintain reasonable distances between vehicles and I obey all posted signs. And yet, some combination of my compromised vision and undiagnosed attention disorder have left me with an impossible high count of 7. I think the stress of these moments alone would put them as the most ageing moments of my life, but then there's residual anxiety too! I really just don't love driving. And that's where we're at.

Measure: Stressful Seemingly Life Altering Decisions
My Count: 3
Explanation: I think this is probably the most obvious thing on the list. But whenever you're asking the question "How will this affect the person I want to become?" you know it's a trying decision process. It ages you, but when you make the right choice it also holds the potential to keep you young. So good luck with those.


Measure: Cavities
My Count: I've lost count. 6 maybe?
Explanation: This is not a reflection of bad oral hygiene. I'm a mouth breather, particularly at night. There's only so much I can do. More than any other reason, cavities are on the list because they make me feel dumb. Like, really? You couldn't even brush your teeth well? And because they make me feel immature, not young, just immature. Which is really just the worst combination.


Measure: Times out of the country
My Count: 6?
Explanation: I didn't say countries visited or new cities seen because I wanted to address the emotional and physical preparation of packing your bags, getting on a plane, and flinging yourself warp speed into the unknown. I'm whole heartedly invested in the benefits of travel, for the psyche and the soul, so while this type of travel does the power to age and de-age, I think it actually has the most positive effect. You feel younger at heart but you get more mature. Travel. Just do it.


Measure: Graduations Attended
My Count: 7

Explanation: This is not just about how many time you've graduated, but about how many times those closest to you have given you the opportunity to endure hours of pomp and circumstance. Not only do you lose life matter by making it through these endless ceremonies and their accompanying events, but graduations are a convenient reminder that as we move forward and accomplish more we up the anty. When we have more there's more to lose, more to live up to. #pressure #dontevenworryaboutit #stressisageing

Measure: Cups of Coffee
My Count: 7,302,418 (estimate)

Explanation: For me a cup of coffee is part of a daily routine but it's also a social centerpiece. Let's go grab coffee anyone? This age marker is an indicator of how much time has passed, just because I'm always drinking coffee, and it suggests how many times I've shared a beautiful conversation, or gone adventuring to find some drip in a foreign country, or cuddled up against a window and been equally stimulated by the words on the pages in front of me as the newly ingested caffeine coursing through my veins. Coffee is my drug, social lubricant, energizer of choice.

Measure: Road Trips
My Count: 5

Explanation: I think road trips make us older and younger all at once. They remind us of the excitement of adventure, the joy of the unknown, and they also provide ample time to get lost inside ourselves and grow and move forward more maturely, older and wiser. I've done a few short trips with my mom when I was visiting colleges and a few family vacations on the eastern sea board, but the bigest and best has yet to come. After graduation I'm driving from Los Angeles to New York with mi hermana. @ weeks. A ton of states. Lots of danger-opportunities. Ageing will abound. But if we have to get older, isn't it nice to do it with someone?

Measure: Funerals Attended
My Count: 2

Explanation: Funerals are a big deal. They're upsetting and unsettling and from my perspective the worst part is that it's impossible to offer any comfort to those who have just experienced the greatest loss. I think funerals remind us that we're moving up the list, and we have to make the most of everything while we're still on this side of the grass. Whatever their effect on you, they're still affecting.

Measure: Weddings Attended
My Count: 4

Explanation: Most of those that I'm listing were before I was 7. This one is actually a shout out to one of my favorite people, who is sharing her vows at the end of the summer. I'm SO excited for her wedding. To share in this exciting moment for her, to spend time with friends, to eat, drink, and be merry, all sounds incredible. And while I suspect that 7 weddings from now my emotions may turn bitter, I maintain that I think weddings are going to populate the next decade of my life and are going to present frequent and easy ways to gauge where I'm at in life. Introspection, in my opinion, has a tendency to slide you towards the old end of the age spectrum.

Measure: Glasses of Wine
My Count: Infinite

Explanation: This is my favorite way to measure my age. Glasses of wine are similar to cups of coffee in that I've had them everywhere, with everyone, and in every emotional state possible. No drink has punctuated the ups and downs of my life so aptly. And with this one I'm really not sure if it makes me feel older or younger, but either way it makes me feel happier, more content, and regardless of how I measure my age, I can't really see that being a bad thing.

You are Exactly Where You are Supposed to Be

Warning: Melancholy ahead

You are Exactly Where You are Supposed to Be

There is a moment when this turn of phrase transforms from affirmation to accusation. I discovered it in a state of contentedness. I was at one with the freedom that my future offered. I was pleased with my steadfastness in refusing the conformities of contemporary culture that my peers had so easily fallen prey to.
And then, this evening, when in a fit of self doubt and frustration I came upon it again, it read like a punishment.
No longer did I feel that I was OK in my state of flux. No longer was my plan of aimless wandering acceptable. No longer was I qualified or pleasant or helpful or sane. All at once I understood that my uniquely temporary misery was acute and, worst of all, self inflicted.

The terrible moment when you realize it's all your fault.

It's a double edged samurai sword. I'm critical and hyper aware, which makes me a great problem solver and potentially a valuable detective. But it also tunes me in to emotions, thoughts, and experiences which I don't need to know. And when I do know them I get weighed down with the judgement and criticism. And then I become judgemental and critical. And then I just hate myself more.

I'm not sure what I want to share here. I suppose that this is me admitting that I don't have much of anything figured out. And while it's great to share my life affirming moments with this increasingly diversifying readership, I think it would be a disservice to you and to me if I didn't share the depths of my doubt as well.

Some days I just don't know what I'm doing at all. And I don't know why I'm so unhappy or miserable or unbearable. I don't know how to be happy. And I guess I'm just crossing my fingers and wishing on stars and rubbing rabbits' feet that that's ok. Because I have to admit, I really do want to be happy. Even though I don't seem to be very good at it.

I'm looking for answers, so if anyone has figured it our feel free to share. Compensation available.

Bitch, Please

Over Spring Break I went home and spent the week seeing friends and lounging around my house writing my thesis. There was also a fair amount of Dunkin Donuts Coffee. (literally, my biggest problem with Los Angeles). On Friday night I accompanied my dad to temple as he had his mother's first yahrtzeit (which my computer just tried to correct to "yahtzee," what, is google a secret front for a 1950s country club?). Our Rabbi, who I don't care for in the least, I find him devoid of inspiration, intelligence, and social skills, insisted on a traveler's prayer which dear old dad sold me down the river for. Really, how far is 3K miles? It's a plane. Not the Oregon Trail. Soon after we released from the chamber of rambling a new addition to our synagogue approached me demanding that I clarify where I was going that I had required a blessing, and I replied, begrudgingly, that I was returning for my last semester at USC.
Let me clarify, my begrudgement was not a reflection of dissapointment in it being the end of college. That's an idea that I've pretty much come around to. I was not thrilled with the prospect of the conversation that would inevitably occur between me and this poorly dressed stranger. And despite my greatest efforts at California charm the exchange ended with me saying "And for the year I hope to get a job in writing" to which she, full of the confidence and poise that accompanies a dress sewn in a country that no  longer exists in the eyes of the U.S. government with an even more dated haircut, responded "Well. Good luck with that."

I cock my head. Squint my eyes. And walk away. Who does she think she is? Excuse me, I've never met you. It's clear why you're speaking to me and not someone who could recognize you from past social trauma. Lock it up. You wouldn't say that to someone you knew, so why would you let it stand as a first impression?
I was genuinely taken aback. And it could've been my pre-temple blood orange cosmo (#delicious), but it also could have been the fact that I had become unaccustomed to people being so frankly rude. I took a few things away from the encounter:

1. Never be like that woman
2. ...no, i guess that was it

If you don't get what I'm doing, that's fine. But let me be. It's not your place to offer judgement on my life, just like it's not my place to offer judgement on yours. If you're not on my team, you're not welcome in the stadium. This is practice. Let me figure my shit out before you start offering unsolicited advice. Because just like you're much more than the answer to one deceptively ambiguous question (When was the last time you went shopping?), so am I.

Good Day. I said Good Day!