Wasn't Meant to Be

On a rainy day in May of 2010, I achieved a goal that had been on my radar for the majority of my childhood.  I graduated from college in one of the coolest and most unique cities in America.  During my time there, I witnessed a resurrection of a city that was brought to its knees and despite all evidence leading one to conclude otherwise, I can report that today, in July of 2013, it is back and better than ever.  This place and its people had every opportunity to close up shop and say, “Wasn’t meant to be”, but they didn’t.  When I left in 2010, I feared it would be permanent.  I would be leaving behind all the memories that I had created and I had no idea what to do next.  It was a crippling feeling.  I did not have a job and felt as if everything was falling apart.  It took six months, but I ended up getting a job, back in that wonderful city and a really cool one at that.  I was given the chance to make new memories in the same old place.  It was not until my last day of this wonderful opportunity that I realized why none of the other jobs I had applied for worked out.  This one was meant to be. 

Fast forward 2 ½ years and here we are.  That fantastic job was temporary and has just come to an end.  I have been looking for a job since April 2012 in the wide world of sports and have had no success.  Could it be worse?  Most definitely.  I am blessed to have the greatest “sponsors” in the world who have made my search for happiness possible.  Is this how I ever imagined my life at 25? Most definitely not.  I’m single and unemployed.  Although I love being 25, it’s just not what I had in mind.  I thought my life would be a little bit more together at this point.  The thing that is hardest to swallow is how little things have changed since the crippling month of May 2010.  I made progress, but find myself back in an all too familiar place.   I’m on my knees, looking for a sign with no idea what to do next.  I will most likely be leaving that city down South I love so much, but where I go next is the real unknown.  I have applied for more jobs than I would like to admit and have been told far too many times, “Wasn’t meant to be.”  The question I have is, what IS meant to be?  When will THAT one appear?  As I struggle to keep my sanity, I don’t have to look far for an inspiring example and another popular phrase, “It will all work out.”  22 year-old me was worrying about the same things, paralyzed by the fear that it would just never work out.  I’ve never been so happy to be so wrong.  I learned the meaning of, “Wasn’t meant to be,” as I found the exact opposite.  Like the city I love, I feel I have no choice, but to keep on fighting until I find the WAS meant to be I’ve been looking for. 

“Everything will be alright in the end.  If it is not alright, it is not yet the end.”              

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.

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.

Mixed Tape - Installment Uno

I'm not sure which mix nomenclature is appropriately outdated, but I settled on mix tape because it is from just before my adolescence. Today, I wanted to share with you the first group of 20 songs that capture the essence of what my life feels like right now. Future lists may include 20 emotional songs to wallow with, 20 songs to drive with, but these are the songs that, when I feel overwhelmed by life, make me feel like it could all be OK. Here are the first 5. Now go dance. (not to these, they're all pretty slow, but to something else).

Fun - Some Nights Intro

#anthem

Frank Turner - Four Simple Words

Enjoy the moment with this punk-folk-rock ditty

Adele (and Glee) - Rumor Has It and SOmeone Like You

This mash-up is fabulous. It's bold and fierce and I love it. Y'know what? Shit happens. Don't cry. Do something kick-ass.

Mumford and Sons - Lover of the Light

I just love mumf and I especially love this song. Enjoy the here and the now. Look forward with positivity. And how elegantly simple: I'll be yours if you'll be mine. Maybe it's that easy.

Sara Bareilles - Once Upon Another Time

Classic S.B. This is an easy pick me up that reminds me it's not all over.

Caveat: Never have I ever pretended to be some sort of music guru. I know very little. I can express even less. This is just what makes me happy. I hope it makes you happy too.

The Apartment Period

Here's a puzzle for you:

What do Carrie Bradshaw, Hannah Horvath, and Jane NoLastName from 27 dresses have in common? (Besides, of course, their varying degrees of despairing singularity, their gender, and, incidentally, their geographic location...)

That's right! They all have absurdly fabulous apartments.

As if by magic they have all managed adorable little dwellings in the urban jungle which provide spacious stomping grounds for them to explore their independence, sexuality, and wardrobe. Beyond the utter irrationality of them affording these apartments with their slave labor professions there is an important message about the American (20-something) dream.

Once upon a time it was the expectation that you did or didn't go to school and then you used that time to court a future spouse, nail em down, marry em, and go on living happily ever after (or until divorce was popularized as an alternative to prolonged misery). But now...the 20-something dream has evolved. The vision of perfection includes me-time, self exploration, orienting oneself towards a career, building relationships outside of your future marriage, and what does a young 20 something need to realize these exploratory,experimental dreams? A fabulous apartment of course.

An apartment is no longer a stepping stone to a house in the burbs or a decadent status symbol for the highly cultured elite; it is a cupboard-under-the-stairs sized backdrop to a  period in a young chica's life (or chico's, I suppose, but  then my mind just wants to call it a bachelor pad) when all that matters is finding yourself. But, to be honest, my inner feminist conscious is a little concerned that these intensely valuable exercises in self development are a moderately well veiled attempt to figure our own shit out before moving into the big, final, will-be-the-real-thing relationships. We're trying to make ourselves less of a mess (a challenge that I suspect will be a huge part of my life, for the rest of my life) to make ourselves more desirable.

And I have two huge issues with that:

1. Do it for yourself! The "self" in self improvement isn't just referring to the person doing the work, it's referring to the person reaping the benefits. Improve yourself so that you can do more, be more, feel more. And part of that is opening yourself up to the world and the people in it, but part of that is also opening up new parts of yourself.

2. I want to spend my life with someone who can help me wade through my shit. How will I know if they're up to the task if they don't help me? In the least manipulative way possible, it's the ultimate test.

The apartment era of your life is about finding yourself on your own, but if you're completely on your own it will be pointless. I know for me the hardest form of courage is social courage, or being willing to open myself up and let other in, to trust, to receive, but you have to be learning that for yourself, not for someone else, or you'll risk it meaning nothing at all.

So let's enjoy the apartment period. Especially if it comes after having moved home. Amirite?

Goodnight, Room

In a series of incredible decisions, I elected to let my parents repaint my childhood bedroom during my last semester of college. I'll share some details to give you a better concept of the gravity of this decision.

First, I take full responsibility. I did it to avoid the emotional trauma of taking down 13 years worth of inspirational Keds ads, class pictures, ticket stubs, and other such paraphernalia of a Manhattan-adjacent adolescence.

And yet, shocker, it turns out that is still quite emotional.

Back to those enlightening details I promised you...I am a loner by nature. I'm actually very social by nature, but that sociability is dependent on a set period of me-time within given time frames. Week. Day. What have you. But in my suburban paradise that place was my room. I loved my room. I spent a shit ton of time there. I read books in bed and did projects on my floor and in the winter I would read books for school next to my space heater and nod off as a combined result of exhaustion and fumes from the aforementioned space heater.

It used to be a heinous pink, because when we moved into the house either my mother or I was operating under the assumption that I was a girl and would therefore love pink. I have disdained pink ever since. But after several years of pleading, when I finally wet away to camp for the summer, I returned to a room that was befittingly wild. A royal blue carpet let loose six different wall shades which were capped with a cerulean ceiling. Lime Green. Sunshine Yellow. Salmon. Deep blue. Aqua. Rose. But the colors became irrelevant as my mind moved at break neck speeds over the next few years to cover my walls with collages, playbills, bands, posters, projects, and pictures from every trip and experience I had. Handmade cups and game boards became homes for pens and my grandmother's old jewelry. I acquired books and t-shirts and hand bags and books and by the time I graduated high school my room was a perfect candidate for that MTV game show. It captured perfectly who I was.

I actually haven't spent more than 4 consecutive weeks at home since graduating high school, and I haven't spent a summer there since before 11th grade. So as I prepare to relocate back to the east coast in my post-graduation spiral, I am made especially nostalgic by the idea of being back in my own room. And I am irrationally undone at the thought of it no longer being mine. I know we all have to grow up and parents move out of houses, and we donate clothes and books and bras...but what I haven't shared (at least not explicitly) is that at the forefront of my irrationality is my sentimentality. I've gotten better at ending things and leaving things, but sometimes a wrench gets thrown in, and the change makes you as miserable as ever.

I suppose it's possible and you're probably insistent that my nostalgia for my multi-colored tornado of a collage that I call my bedroom is merely a metaphor for the waves of change my life has already begun to undergo. But this time, I think it might actually just be my room. Not "just," I mean it's solely about my room. It's about the person I was allowed to be there, the person it set me up to become, and all the less desirable versions of myself that died between phone conversations and replays of Rent and journal pages and America's Next Top Model marathons. It's about having the choice, and looking back and feeling you've made some right ones.

And no place, whether it remains the same color or not, will ever witness such evolution in my life.
So let us bow our heads for a moment in memory of what was, and raise a glass to what might be.

Let me tell you, this time around, there will be coasters for wine glasses.

It's Vegas, Betches!!!

So this weekend I went to Vegas. I go to school in Los Angeles and since I'm graduating in a matter of months (weeks sounds too intense here) I thought it was high time that I see what all the hype was about. My experience was unique because it was for a friend's birthday and her dad got us two suites at the Cosmopolitan, so I was definitely a little spoiled. But here's the good, the bad, and the ugly:

The Good:
Damn. There be some good food. It's expensive and disorientingly large in quantity, but hands down, the best part of my weekend (besides indulgent day drinking) was the food. I had some of the best chicken pot pie that I've ever had the pleasure of consuming, accompanied by a Mambo Italiano, which is a delightfully spiced Bloody Mary. Boom. I had $5 Margs on national margarita day. I indulged in the $50 buffet (line jump and bottomless mimosas included) which gave me a southern comfort course, a breakfast plate, an asian italian fusion (or so I have dubbed the combined plating of garlic bread and cucumber-avacado sushi rolls), and desert tasting. Juicy Fried Chicken. Creamy Mashed Potatoes. Perfectly Flavored Green Beans. Succulent Stuffed french toast. Fresh fruit. Rich Gelatto. Mini pockets of perfect Tiramisu. Mini Pecan Pies. Later on we got street tacos and finished the weekend with some delectable sandwiches. Leave it at this: Gluttony is my favorite of all the sins of sin city.
I should also give a shout out to dancing. Which was incredibly fun, especially at Surrender.

The Bad:
The best advice I could give you about going to Vegas is keeping the group small. I think, depending on your level of closeness, 3 or 4 is perfect. You'll all fit in one room. You can easily break into pairs. You can be really honest about what you want, do that thing, and easily stay in communication with all members of your party. I was there with 8, which is approximately double my recommendation. Keep it small. Keep it easy. Keep it fun. I whole heartedly believe in the "go big or go home" philosophy, but not when it comes to Vegas group size. May you avoid the anger, frustration, and passive aggression that plagued my Vegas adventures.

The Ugly:
People are SOOO mean. I think that everyone has spent a lot of money. To get there. To stay there. To gamble there. To drink there. To eat there. And because humans are apparently incapable of understanding what other people experience, particularly when they're shwasted on 64 oz of margaritas, they act obscenely towards others. I got cut off, pushed, spilled on, yelled at, and called out in just one night more than I have in the rest of my life combined. And it didn't end when I left! There was a white lexus SUV full of girls coming from Vegas (complete with "Party On Board" stickers. vomit.) who were literally ALL texting at a red light. When they looked up to notice that I had started to pull into their lane the driver honked, pursed her lips, and shook her head at me like I was an infant trying to lick a live outlet. Fuck You. Another girl, at the casino, trying to pull her friend away from my friend, shouted, "Come on! Leave the fucking grenades, let's go!" (for those of you who are as unfamiliar with MTV's television stylings as I am, a "grenade is a terrible term pulled from the set of Jersey Shore which means a girl who you would hook up with only to wake up sober and realize that she's hideous and a terrible human being). Great. Really killing it Vegas.

The whole experience raised one of the not-at-all-timeless conundrums of the twenty something's life style: At what expense am I forcing myself to be young, wild, and free? Because really, at the end of the day, wouldn't I have been happier hitting up an awesome club in LA (a probable small downgrade from Surrender and Marquee) and spending a night watching Arrested Development with my friends? I return to a valuable mantra: You do YOU. Don't try to be someone else. Don't go on trips or do things just because you're supposed to. Because guess what. The worst way to waste your twenties is by being miserable, waiting to do do things you want to do, or waiting for something better to come along. Get the giant margarita, but only if it's what you want. Do things on your terms. Try new things, because there's usually an implicit level of fun in the novelty, but don't force yourself to repeat frustrating things just because there supposed to be fun. If Vegas exists to teach us a lesson it is not a warning against over indulgence, it's a warning against indulging in what we're supposed to want. You do you. The rest will follow.

Peace Out Betches (More posts in the coming days, I promise.)

In It to Win It

I suppose it's true that every crop of adolescents-turned-adults commiserate similarly, swimming in their own self-important exceptionalism until the next group comes along and pushes them into adulthood. But I will make the self-awarely ironic (and admittedly incorrect) claim that we, las hermanas de generation Y, or Z, or AA or whatever initial we're at now, are a truly unique breed.

And it's more than our philanthropic tendencies, our technological aptitude, and our self-awareness (read: stylish humanitarianism, collective addiction to all things electronic, and our self indulgent analytics of the minutia of our lives). We are unique in our mixedness. Our layers. Our ancestry of teen angst. No other generation before us had the benefit of so many oscillations of pop culture. And now not only can we indulge in the cinematic genius of John Hughes while wearing high wasted jeans, but we can do both while ironically carrying a tin wonder woman lunch box and using a Polaroid camera. Go us!

But the real reason that we are a superbly particular generation of 20-somethings? Apart from the fact that we are supported by a highly individualized society, we actually have our 20-somethings to ourselves. Joan from Mona Lisa Smile proved that even the brightest young minds of the '50s were in it win it. And here "it" means "college" and "a husband" respectively. Skeeter from The Help was an Ole Miss Old Maid for graduating with a degree instead of a husband. The examples go on, but even up to contemporary pop culture we have the lingering sense that we were already supposed to have found our future hubby. In  How I Met Your Mother, Lily and Marshall, dating since the first week of college, are the relationship ideal while Ted's failure of a love life is a convenient expository device to tell us more about the gang's past and Barney's antics. And Robin's inability to nail down a man is conveniently written off by her decision to put herself and her career first and not have kids. How interesting. And by interesting, I mean rude.

It hasn't been all that long since we were allowed to enjoy our twenty-something years, at least the first few, guilt free. And there's a solid spectrum of indulgence with New Girl on one end and Sex and the City on the other. But regardless of the extent to which we let our freak flags fly, how wonderful that we have a flag pole to hang 'em on.

So tonight, raise a sinfully indulgent effeminate cocktail to the fact that we have these years to cultivate resumes and bachelorette pads before entering that sacred bond of marriage. Lots will be sacrificed on that altar (the ladder half of your nominal identity comes to mind, as does the financial independence won for you by the women of the 19th century). One day there will probably be grocery lists where juice boxes are for kids, not chasers, and dinner partys that aren't thrown ironically or as an homage to Mad Men. So before we get there, toast the fact that we're enjoying the most exciting of all life stages thus far. We're in it to win it.

And here "it" means "our 20s" and "life" respectively.

A Penny Doesn't Get You as Far as it Used To

I, the modernist, am a young twenty something on the verge of one of the handful of terrifying precipices that face us young twenty somethings in this glorious decade that bridges teendom and genuine adulthood (which I'm defining here as the final rejection of Target furniture and mismatched dishware). Anyway, the dangerous ledge to which I refer is college graduation. Cue the cheesy but effectively eerie Vampire movie:

Bum bum BUUUM.

So, as any responsible young lass would do, I've started a blog. Job search? Study for the GRE? Two words: Yea. Right. In some ways this blog is a creative release from all of the academic work I have 13 weeks left to complete. In some ways it's a scrapbook of the beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning, or the first days of the rest of my life blah blah blah. Whatever this era is, I want some documentation. But most overtly this is an outlet for the quarter life crisis that I suspect more than one of my readers has dealt with in one form or another over the past few years.

The quarter life crisis. An admittedly fictional social and psychological malady that manifests itself as anxiety, binge-drinking, and over sharing as a response to the mysterious and threatening future. Sometimes it leads you to exciting new places, like Morocco. And sometimes it leads you to the worst possible scenario, like a layover at an airport chili's in Ohio. But the crisis over the future is not the same as the future. The future will inevitably work out. Probably for the best. But Pt A to Pt B is a winding and dangerous road, filled with wild things (Maurice Sendak status) and pot holes and probably some pot. The journey is dangerous, made more so by our irreconcilable anxiety about what is coming next. But in reality it's like the field test in Men in Black. The things that look the most suspicious are the most reliable, and the things that seem the most innocent are pure evil.

Before I delve into this journey I should mention that I did not seek a degree or any alternative certification in psychology, sociology, anthropology, or feminist theory. I'm an English major, history minor. I love literature, world history, museums, and old music and my only qualifications to speak on the quarter life crisis is that I live my life in an intensely observant way and I'm experiencing the QLC on the daily. On both counts, I can only hope that something I share might help you, if not at least entertain or distract you for a while.

So whether you're joining this blogging adventure because you take pity on me, or you like what I have to say, or you like how I say it, or you find this to be a useful outlet for your newly risen angst against societal expectations, you are equally welcome. (though, full disclosure: anyone who is here primarily because they like my writing is my new favorite). I'm excited to get through this together. See what this year becomes. What this blog becomes. Because, after all, "I just want to bake a cake out of rainbows and smiles and all eat it and be happy. I have a lot of feelings." Indulge me.

XOXO Gossip Squirrel