Should We WANT To Lose Ourselves?

We all know the sayings: Lose yourself in the moment. Lose yourself in your work. Lose yourself to find yourself again. But should we want to lose ourselves in the first place? Lately, I've been wondering what good can come from losing oneself. I hate that moment in a relationship when you suddenly realize that you're not happy being alone anymore, or, at the very least, have come to expect that someone else will be around to entertain you. And when that's not the case, then that thought becomes an obsession, and it's like you're suddenly a half of a Siamese twin severed, who feels like they've lost their identity, or what was special about them. In many way, identity theft may be kinder than the moment in which you find yourself realizing you're losing yourself, or, at least, losing the things that used to make up your life or define you as an individual or Single Person.

The existential crisis started around 56 hours ago (and counting). Thursday morning, I was woken up by a text from TGIS, and we continued correspondence from afar until about 5 o'clock that night, after which, I haven't heard from him since. (Granted, I haven't been trying very hard, but that's because A.) I'm under the severe impression it's just better not to nag, and B.) I've always thought it gives you a better symptom of your relationship to see when he finally gets back around to you.) One day was fine. But when I woke up this morning, I felt odd, disoriented. And that's when I realized it was because I'm so used to waking up beside someone. Noon came, and I found myself still in bed, because no requests for brunch out had been made. By this evening, I was in full-out obsession mode about not only the state of my affair, but also, about what the FUCK I was supposed to do with myself and all this free time that had suddenly (and unwelcomely) been found on my hands. So while I may not be neuros-ing about it all over him, I found an outlet for it elsewhere: With my girl friends. Obviously. Because some things never change, even if your established weekend routine suddenly does.

I'm in my twenties. I'm so close to having my Bachelor's Degree in hand I can almost feel it; I paid for the insanely expensive and insanely luxurious Ralph Lauren sheets on my bed myself; I'm paying down my credit card; and I'm giving a presentation at a national writer's convention in Boston in March. My life is pretty fabulous, and yet, all it takes is two day's worth of silence, and I find myself acting like I'm 16 again, trying to occupy myself by making a list of things to do with items like "Wash dishes," "Moisturize entire body," "Watch a 'thinking' documentary to try to get my mind off of 'thinking' about the fact it is a weekend and I don’t believe it without another person here: Sexual Intelligence; Wild China; Food, Inc.; or Prehistoric Predators, Season 1," "Find some way to make a palatable drink with Skyy vodka, the dregs of orange juice, whipped cream that’s lost it’s whip, and anything else in the fridge, all while really just wanting a nice glass (or bottle) of wine," and "Try not to 'wine' anymore." It made me wonder: Do our lives really still revolve around boys?

Once upon a time back in sophomore year of college, my mother thought my friend Madison was secretly my lesbian lover. I can see why she might have thought that-- we spend an uncomfortable amount of time talking to each other. Mostly, I think, it's because we usually have equal levels of confusion in our lives, and think about things similarly. So it was Madison I turned to when asking, "Why do I always panic like this if I don't hear back from a guy for like, I'm not shitting you, two days? I mean, it's TWO DAYS. My sane self knows this. However, my relationship self is going mental. What I want to know is, why do I FREAK out?"

And then Madison said something very true, yet not very heartening at all: "Because you haven't had good luck with similar situations in the past."

Touché, my dear, and good fucking lord, there is no hope-- I'm done for.

I am not the only one who seems to be wondering about the ramifications of losing yourself for someone else. Madison has her own issues, too. "The problem is that I've always known that [I was letting him use me like a doormat]. I just kind of let it happen. And that's not me at all. And that's why I'm ashamed."

And that's when I hit my epiphany in our conversation: "Secretly, I think we're all ashamed at things we do in relationships or non-relationships with other people. Look at me-- I've forgotton how to be ok with being suddenly alone. I think there's something about wanting to be with another person that makes us crazy and makes us forget and sacrifice parts of ourselves because we want something else SO MUCH."

It's all so terribly ironic, because as I was driving home on Wednesday night after bringing TGIS back to his hometown, I was smugly reminiscing on this relationship versus past relationships, thinking to myself how you can be the person you're supposed to be and want to be when you're with the right person. Give me 56 hours of silence, and I'm still the confused little mess I was a year ago, give or take a different man, situation, and a few relevant learning curves. Look how far I've gotten on the road map to finding myself.

XOXO

So what about you? How have you learned not to lose yourself, or how to occupy yourself when you'd rather be doing something with someone else? Do you think that we're more willing to sacrifice parts of our lives and our selves if the payback of having the love of someone else is an option? Comment below and tell me what you think-- who knows, we might be able to solve all our relationship issues and neurosis together. Wouldn't that be a freaking miracle? What would the world do with so many more sane people?

That's Life.

People love to be loved. It's strange, because right about the time you start trying to move the world for someone is usually right about the time in which they start trying to move away from you. I don't understand it-- we all profess to want nothing more in this world than to be loved and adored-- but it's true. It's been done to me, and I've most definitely also done it in return. Maybe it's the gravity of the situation. Maybe it's the fact we just don't know how to deal with it yet, emotionally stunted as we are.

It's impossibly easy after something like this to fall into the familiar Pit of Despair trap and become a miserable human being. It's impossibly easy to become moody and withdrawn, stop showering as often as is really socially accepted, and start self-medicating with alcohol, weed, what I fondly refer to as "suicide sticks" (otherwise known as cigarettes), and if you're feeling really low, you can go as far as consuming the cooking sherry and the bottle of wine with half a glass left that you opened for a house party over three months ago in "the better days" in a quest for something more than self-immolation.

Lord knows I have been caught in bed with the silty remnants of a bottle of wine at 10 AM.

But the thing that we don't tend to realize is that it's not a personal affront to US. WE are generally not the problem. I'm sure you're a perfectly lovely human being, once you, I don't know, maybe shower and shave and put on something other than the same shirt you've been wearing for the past 3 days, and it's probably not your fault that someone couldn't decide if they really wanted to be with you or not. IT'S THEM. I'm pretty sure that there are other people out there who would LOVE to be with you, and that they'd find your early smoker's cough and combative attitude charming.

So, Jesus Christ, stop acting like you're the only person who has ever had someone not fall completely in love with them, get your self-respect back, and stop spiking your afternoon coffee. Jesus. THAT'S LIFE. It sucks. It hurts. You're not the first, nor is this the last time you'll ever want someone who doesn't love you. And guaranteed, your spectacular sulk is not going to make you any more attractive.

Here are just a few things you can do to get over yourself:
- Take all your misguided self-loathing energy, and throw it into your friendships, because those are people who, believe it or not, still love you, irregardless of how infrequently you shower.
- Pick up a new book or hobby, preferably something very involved that doesn't leave much room for outside thought. "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace is a good book choice, as it's over 1,000 pages long and requires infinite patience to follow, and I've found that learning to play the guitar is a hobby conducive to narrowing your world down to just your fingers and the strings. Because even I cannot sing and play at the same time, and I've been singing for years and years and years.
- Get out of your apartment. Go see a movie. Go on a short trip.
- Do something for other people. Volunteer, donate, compliment someone, whatever. It'll give your self-esteem a boost.
- Cliche, but eat some ice cream. Dublin Mudslide is my feeling-sorry-for-myself ice cream of choice. Because, after all, Ben & Jerry are the only two men a woman can really trust to give her what she really wants.
- Cut off contact with the person who was too stupid to see how awesome you really are. Believe me-- you don't need them right now.
- Sleep with someone else. Just, you know, don't start using other people as a crutch. That's just not nice, either.

I hope that helps. Because if I have to see you feeling sorry for yourself one more time, by god, I will REALLY slap you across the face and be forced to break into "Intervention: The Musical." And if song and dance still does nothing to shock you out of it, then I don't know what will.

I'm not kidding. I've created a musical about this self-pity-party phenomenon.

XOXO

Carissa Goes To Jail

Jeepers Creepers appeared again for an encore show the night after his first performance, now with a new act: masturbating in front of his window while looking up at ours to see if we were watching. For what we pay for rent, we should have a view of shirtless hunks washing dishes or carrying heavy lumber, not a man who only gets close and personal with blow-up dolls, his palm, and apparently, us. While variety may be the spice of life, his little variety show understandably turned us way off, so the living room blinds have been closed for the past two days, and today, Alli and I went to Burlington P.D to lodge a formal complaint against our unsightly scenery.

Considering the last time I talked to two cops, I was drunk and said "good evening" like a Transylvanian brothel madam, I was understandably a little nervous. That, and I may or may not engage in some activities not exactly kosher with the law. And I always feel cops just know that about you. Like psychics. But with handcuffs instead of crystal balls. And arrest records seem to be far more damning than birth charts, from what I've seen, at least. But knowing that I am a grown-ass independent girl (or at least, should be), I sucked it up, and went.

In hindsight, I really shouldn't have been worried. My behavior never came up-- just his. If you were wondering, "lewd and lascivious" is the definition for it, and in Vermont, you can only be fined up to $300, which to me is a pittance when compared to what you're knowingly inflicting on other people, or spend under 5 years in jail for it. Unfortunately, unless Creepers initiates more attention from us than just standing full-frontal in his window and whacking it silently, there's not much the police can do about it, given it is technically in his own apartment, as I suspected. I voiced my concerns about the fact we're two small young blonde women living together, and that this may be his way to seek attention, be it positive of negative, along with the fact that I wouldn't recognize him if he and I were both out on the sidewalk checking our mail, which is just icky to think about brushing shoulders with this freakshow and not know it.

However, I was pleased as-- no pun intended-- punch when the Corporal gave us permission to either have a male friend talk to our Chippendale's wannabe or, and I quote here, "kick his teeth in." So-- how many male friends do I have who are willing to help me out of this awkward skin-pinch? Because we really do need some help, guys. We would do it, but we were instructed to not involve ourselves with him in order to not egg his delusions on any more. We're here for another year, and I don't want to be afraid to walk in or out of the front door to my own apartment or feel forced to not stand by the same window the cat loves to sleep in. After being grabbed in Italy, I'm more sensitive to these things than I'd like to admit. I wasn't able to do anything in Florence, but I'll be damned if I do nothing on my own home turf. That's just not cool, at all.

Later, as Alli and I sipped our restorative Slushies from Cumbies in the oppressive afternoon humidity and discussed our dilemma, I looked at her and said, "I can't tell if I'm disgusted by it or if I really like it."

She looked horrified for a minute before I caught myself. "I mean the slushie. Not the creeper." Obviously.

XOXO

The Young and the Restless

There are 2 types of people who can't sleep: The genuinely not tired, and those who are being kept awake by their thoughts that are too loud. Lately, I've been one of the latter. Granted, I've never been someone who kept up with a solidly respectable sleep schedule-- I'm more of a "night-owl and sleep until noon" person, myself. But when it's your fifth night in a row pressing the lighter side of 4 AM face-down in your bed, rest nowhere to be found and utterly restless, it's time to face facts:

One.

There is no one you can call or go see at 4 AM for a good limb-entwined sleep. There may have used to be. But there is no longer. And granted, you may have all sorts of friends to call on: Friends to drink with, friends to dance with, friends to discuss literature with; friends who will cook for you and go on drives with you and will lend you ten or twenty dollars in a pinch, but there is no one really who you can call, wake up, and say in that hesitant low voice that needs to be specially reserved for hours after 1 AM, "Hey, what are you doing? Can I come over?"

Two.

This may be what's keeping you awake.

Three.

You may be in mourning.

Four.

Every morning.

This is one of those times where you realize, yet again, that some aspects of being single suck. I've had, most of my adult life since the age of 16, someone handy to share a side of a bed, or, in the case of the small and cramped college extra-long, extra-narrow mattresses, a whole bed. Or, in other cases, the downward tilt of the mattress and the wall. And for the first time, I find myself, a grown girl of modest means, with her own new bed, most everything she could wish for or desire, with scads of experience and options, realizing that all that doesn't mean much unless you can get a good night's sleep. For which, apparently, my egg-timer of sleeping sand has run out, and all my trains have left the station.

Humph.

Is there a service for this sort of thing? A bed companion? A room-share? If it would cut down on the rent, that would help, too.

XOXO

Sweet Is For Candy And Cavities. And, Apparently, Me.

I've been struggling lately with feeling like I failed my gender. (And no, this is not about my love of football, beer, or comics.) I've been grappling with feelings of inadequacy. Like, maybe, if I had been just a little bit sweeter, life would be different right now. Maybe, if I was a little less jaded, I wouldn't be so pissed off. Maybe, if I were more of a people-pleaser, I would have a job right now. Maybe, I need to stop feeling sorry for myself, and kick myself in the ass.

On How To Be Lovely is a-- for better lack of a word-- lovely blog that really encapsulates the essence of perfect femininity; it's a kind, caring, intelligent, easy-on-the-eyes blog. So I was thrilled when I found this post on the difference between "sweet" and "smart" women. I know I'm smart, but "sweet" is something that I struggle with. I can be sweet, and defer, and be laid-back and go with the flow, but I can't be that all the time. I would get nothing done. I would be like a chronic stoner without access to massive amounts of weed. And so, sometimes, I can be a little sharp. I can be a bit demanding. I can be rough around the edges. But it's only because I want the best to get done. I want to be my best. I want to be in the best position possible. I want you to be at your best. So sometimes, I get a little irritated when I see the exact opposite of those things happening. I can't help it-- it's genetic. If you've ever met my mother, you get it.

This paragraph really summed up my struggle with smart versus sweet. "...Because I value my independence and intelligence, I initially have a hard time when a guy says he thinks that sweetness is more important. It makes me think that he just wants someone to fawn on him and tell him how right he is about everything, and I'm not really sure how to feel about that. The word "sweet" seems to imply something saccharine and fake to me... On the other hand, I've met women who didn't want to show their intelligence because they felt like it made them hard or inaccessible, like they were somehow disgracing womanhood if they weren't all sweetness." - On How To Be Lovely.

Am I? Am I disgracing womanhood? It's hard not to feel like it when I'm pretty sure it's the whole smart/sweet debate that usurped me. But then again, like Meg asks, do you really want to be with a guy who prefers the "yes, dear," approach to life over someone who challenges them and says "I think you might be wrong-- so prove it to me?" After all, where would have Antony got without Cleopatra? Napoleon without Josephine? Macbeth without Lady Macbeth? (We'll ignore the fact for a minute that the last example were two despots.) Maybe it just boils down to the fact that for me, exercising my mind and bickering are some of the best forms of foreplay to me, and I just can't understand when other people don't feel the same way. Smart's sexy, just as surely as Victoria's Secret, fuck-me-heels, and Jessica Biel.

But then again, sweet's good, too. Sweet to me is more of a come-and-go mindset then an inherent thing, though. Sweet for me is feeling feminine and tiny and taken care of. Sweet comes included with baking brownies and little gestures. Sweet needs to happen in person, because sweet is really damn hard to be achieved over a phone line. Catch me on the off Tuesday night when I have nothing to do, and I can be real sweet with just a couch and some ordered-in wings and good company.

In the end, I guess I have to come to grips with the realization that I will never be the girl who can always say "whatever" and be fine with it. But I can be, and am, that girl who can say, "I'm down with pretty much anything, but can we agree on it together?" If I can't be "sweet" 24/7, I guess I'll have to settle for the glimpses that I get while I wait to calm the fuck down and be more accepting of it.

In the meantime, anyone know where I can find a dude who likes being verbally upbraided? I kid, I kid...

...But really. Tough love is my specialty.

XOXO

"Something More," Said The Clock.

I've been spending a lot of time lately thinking about what makes a perfectly functional and happy person decide to throw their lot in with another person and want to be in a relationship. Not being a big fan of relationships or the institution of commitment myself, I was recently horrified to hear the first audible "tick" of what I previously thought was my busted biological clock. Maybe it's the fact that a close friend with whom I played wing-woman for has now reached past the 1 year anniversary with said boyfriend I did the winging maneuvers for and are vacationing and cohabitating together, or the fact that I'm watching people I grew up with planning for their long-term serious relationships, weddings, and even babies, or maybe it's just the fact that I have done the "I'm so not serious about you I'm going to do everything to prove to you I think this is a lark and self-sabotage this whole state of affairs" thing for the past 5 years, and now with a landmark birthday approaching I'm realizing I should be acting as old as I'm getting and I'm ready to give it a rest for awhile. Whatever the reason, the ending thought remains the same: Scary.

I think as graduates of first grade, we can all agree on the fact that 1 + 1= 2. So why, then, do proponents of love and the Hallmark company seem so hell-bent on convincing us that two people in a relationship are one entity?

I've found myself wondering where my extremely colorful past fits in with my new desires. What about all of a woman's past relationships? Are they now halves? What happens after the union, no matter what sort it was, how serious or how tenuous it was, is gone? How can anyone be expected to deal with so much continuous disappointment? Are we trying to be martyrs, or can we just not get out of our own way? As long as there are women, there will always be women who fall for the wrong guy. Women with a predilection for the Bad Boys. Women who have convinced themselves that if she just loses that last 5 pounds, if she never says "no", if she can change her inner desires to be less demanding and more like him, he will somehow realize that she is perfect, just perfect, for him. These are also the same women who often end up finding just the sort of man who is not perfect for them. (Guilty as charged.) Usually, if anything, I'm over-confident. Most of the time, I am pretty sure I could rule the world single-handed if all the nation's leaders suddenly all came down with a deadly infectious disease at a U.N meeting and keeled over. But for some reason, when it comes to men, all bets are off. Maybe it's because women really have no idea, past a good steak and a blowjob, what men really want. Maybe, if they talked about it, like women have a tendency to do (myself not included here, as I would usually rather extract my own wisdom teeth sans Percocet than talk about my feelings), we could all be a lot more clear and a lot less confused and apt to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy on someone, just to realize that they are never going to change. At least, not for us.

Which brings us to why men like some women and not others. Frankly, I cannot understand what anyone sees in me. And I am not being self-depreciating here. At times, I want a divorce from myself. I have altogether too many flaws and personality quirks to be consider either easy to live with, enjoyable, or sane. When I see a guy look at me like he adores me, I want to shake him and ask, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? DO YOU ENJOY BEING RUN RAGGED? BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT I DO!" Because no matter how crazy women can get at men and relationships and love and how delusional we can make ourselves, there is that-- that ONE MOMENT-- where you watch him watching you, and you are hit over the head with it like a two-by-four that he likes you. Not, "I think you're entertaining" likes you. Not, "I'm imagining you naked right now" likes you. But that often sought-after and rarely found moment where the guard goes completely down behind his eyes and you catch that look and instead of what most men would assume, you do not go "There is the answer to all my dreams and desires!" but instead think, "OH. SHIT. That's real."

While I may make a good friend and a fun time, I really cannot see what would make me captivating to a member of the opposite sex. Maybe this is a great example of why love and infatuation are random and women need to stop comparing themselves to other women and asking "Why her, and not me?" Maybe there is no reason. There are other people out there, other women and other men, who are not going to demand a single thing from you, but in the long run, are they really the sort of person you want to be with? Shouldn't you want to be with someone who wants you to be the best you possible? I'm apt to believe this, especially when faced the with realization that despite all my bullshit, there are people out there with a soft-spot for me a mile wide. That would be the only explanation. But the problem with a connection like that with someone else is despite all of your warning signs and pros and cons lists, you're loathe to let them go. It's not, believe me, that you are so unlovable that you will never find someone else who will look at you that way again or make you feel the same. It's just that nothing will ever be exactly like that connection, and that connection may just be the one that you need, questions, hard work, disappointment, and all.

I'm getting old enough to realize that despite my parent's fairy tale, love is not easy. Loving someone, in fact, is one of the hardest things in the world, because loving who they really are, and not who you'd like them to be, requires a nearly Gandhi sense of acceptance. And there are times-- when the trash is spewing forth from the garbage can because it hasn't been taken out in over two weeks, when he forgets meeting with you for the second time in a week, when their tongue is in someone else's mouth-- that love and acceptance seem damn near impossible. And that's the hardest part-- keeping that love despite all of someone's faults. I'm tempted to say that we fall for who we do because they're difficult. It's said that nothing worth having is even gotten easily, and I think we'd become more quickly bored if it were so easy and simple. And when we get bored is when we hop onto the next slowly passing train, or person.

"A human's desire to mate, the pair up, to be part of a couple, will never change. But the way we go about it, how badly we need it, what we are willing to sacrifice for it, most definitely does" (Liz Tuccillo, intro to her novel, "How To Be Single"). That's the problem: what two people want is rarely the same thing. How people manage to "work it out" is beyond me. I used to be a status-quo girl. Most days, I still am. I'm content to share a bed, share some time, share a few meals, and otherwise, be on my own. I don't demand much, time- and commitment-wise. A friend of mine who just got out of a three-year relationship asked me how I do it, how I maintain my life when trying to juggle it with someone else's. The real answer to this, and the answer that is not quite the most flattering in the world in regards to the whole "selflessness" item, is that even when I'm in a relationship, my mentality is still that of a Single Girl. I can't separate the Independent Me from the Someone's Girl Me. I've lived far too much of my life being my own girl that I don't think I can, or would, ever want to lose that part of me.

I'll admit, some of it may also be the fact that I do not have a stellar retention rate, either for keeping relationships, keeping an interest in one man, or actually doing things By The Book: dating, commitment, relationship, a satisfactory amount of time, clean break-up. I tend to operate outside of the lines of public dating decency. That's just the way my stripes run. I am tempted to say, "It's not long long you were with someone that matters; it's the effort you put in," but then again, I have also never stayed with one person any longer than six months. As Tuccillo writes, "I have dates, I have flings, I have "situations." But I don't have men, one after another, whom I cart around as my boyfriend, and then break up with for some reason or another and say later to my friends "What was I thinking?"" (Tuccillo, 197).

But the more I see of the world and of other people, the girl who used to be content to sit on your sofa and order in starts to wonder, "Is there more than this?"

I'm tempted to say that there has to be. I'm tempted to say that despite people's fundamental differences, there is something that is akin to the look in someone's eye that makes them willing to stretch who they are and what they can do for someone else. I'm tempted to say that, because if I don't, I'm pretty much admitting defeat right here and right now. I'm also tempted to say it because we cannot live with all of our bullshit intact for the rest of our lives. We're all pretty ridiculous people who start out one way, and gradually change because of our love for someone else that is not ourselves. That is the only way we're ever going to get better than we are this very second. One day, there is going to be a guy who will look at me and say, "I'm not trying to clip your wings, so just fucking stand still with me for awhile more than a month or 6 months. It's not so horrible. If you keep trying to run, I'm just going to let you go." And if I care about him as much as I should, that will be the day that I should get smart enough to slow my roll and start thinking about someone other than just myself. And if I don't, or if you don't, then we really are all just helpless fools when it comes to love. So best of luck.

XOXO

Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost.

My friend Arielle, who is a very wise woman, said something to me the other day as we were discussing our time living in Italy-- "No one decides to go halfway around the world and study abroad for months for no reason. If your life was perfect, you wouldn't be in Italy, or Ireland, or France. I think everyone who studies abroad, whether they know it or not, is trying to escape from something."

That girl knows how to kick me in the ass like almost no other.

What she said is true. Think about it. If you were perfectly content and happy with your life at home, why would you leave? Why would you uproot, leave all your support systems, and decide that maybe, living somewhere 4,000 miles away sounded like a good idea? Why would you exchange your apartment, job, college, local grocery store, friends, climate, coffee shop, and daily routine for new ones if you were still so enamored with the old ones? It is not because, as some might say, you "wanted the experience." To that, I say bullshit. Yes, it certainly is an experience, but so is going to your closest amusement park and riding a roller coaster. If you wanted to shake your life up a bit, you would find a new job or get a haircut. You would not pack your life into two suitcases, a backpack, and a very large purse and move yourself across the globe for a nice jaunt. That is not an "experience." That is a life change, and you have to have a very good reason for making one of those, believe me.

I know because what Arielle said applies for me, too. One thing that I have learned while over here is what I am, and what I am not. And one thing that I am is a runner. If I have an issue, I tend to run away from it. In fact, Italy was my biggest runner of all. Italy was my answer to running away from my life for over three months, putting everything I could not fix on hold, and distancing myself from reality. In the months before I left, things happened in my life that I didn't have answers for. I lost someone incredibly important to me. I was stagnant in my job. I found myself in a situation that I didn't know how to deal with, because I did not have the guts to actually speak up about what I wanted and what I needed and what I was feeling. I experienced raw, emotional pain for the first time in my life like a tidal wave that sucked me down into the deepest depression of my life. Nothing was working. I got scared. I was flailing, and falling, and striking out at whatever came near me. I remember, hazily, screaming at my mother in the car while sobbing hysterically. I remember my hands shaking from thinly controlled nerves as I tried to paint. I remember turning back to chemical release because I still could not use words to remedy the situation I was in, and so, smoking could do it for me. I remember hours spent lying on my bed, in the dark, not doing anything, because just moving hurt. I remember days where I did not talk. I remember not wanting to look at myself in the mirror, because then I would see hipbones and ribs and sharp angles that I had never had before.

And so I came to Italy because I was letting go of everything that was holding me back, because I was leaving. I was checking out. I was done with living the way I had been. I came thinking that that would be the answer to life. I got shiny and sleek from the hot sun and rich food. My hair got longer in passing with the days. I started to heal. But, like Arielle, I started to realize why I had come to study abroad. I started to separate the experience from the impetus.

It took some massive struggles and some pretty tough self-love. I didn't like myself all of the time. I still don't, some days. I can be obsessive, illogical, irrational, jealous of things I cannot change, and--yes-- neurotic, and a HUUUGE flaming hypocrite. I cannot, in other words, get out of my own way. Like every person, I like to think that I was a great baby. In reality, my mother tells me that until I learned how to "get out of my own way" and crawl, I was miserable. And just like when I was a baby, with the stress of finals looming, eight-and-over page papers due in nearly every class, trying to find a job to now go with my apartment and nearly $700-a-month rent from across the ocean, my body rejecting nearly everything I try to put in it because at this point it is trying to physically reject Italy itself, and a massive question-mark hovering over the status of my life back in Vermont, I am fussy and just want to go home and figure all that out. NOW. I started to panic. I started to obsess and started to expect more than was feasible from other people, and then take it personally when things didn't pan out. I started to shut down. Like, "Get me on a plane tomorrow, ship me home, and the devil take my finals and credits and grades, because I have figured out me, I have figured out my life here, and now it is time to rejoin reality and figure out my life there."

But then I realized that if I went home now, I would have forever run away from something else-- something which I will never get a chance to get back. I also would incur a large amount of debt from switching my ticket that, seeing as I am currently job-less, I would not be able to pay back until the already large lump-sum had accrued even more money not being paid off on my (brand-new, never used, very scary) credit card. Overall, I think staying for the next 16 days is in my best interest. And so, to make it easier on myself, I cut the things out that were making me unnecessarily worry and over-hype and expect and wait and wait and wait for SOMETHING to happen, for some divine clue that everything was alright and that life back home was waiting for me to return, just as it was when I left, just as I hoped it would be. This means, for the next week, no skulking around Facebook. No waiting on Skype. No Twitter (except to Tweet these updates to the blog). This, of course, I cannot cut out, and wouldn't want to. If I couldn't write, I would die. As simple as that. (One of the things I discovered, inequivocably, I am: a writer. In that, I chose rightly.)

It does not mean, however, that it isn't very hard. I now have an apartment in Burlington that all I want is for it to be June 1st so I can move in. I want to have Saph's head on my chest again, impossibly heavy and nearly knocking me over, her nostrils making wet pockets on my shirt, my nostrils filled with the scent of hay and dust and horse. I want to wake up early and go for a walk with the trees overhead like a canopy, so early that no one else is up and I can savor a Vermont morning, all by myself. I want to drive my Civic again and panic about hill-stops on Main Street. I want to be back among my people, my friends, and the plaidness of it all. I want to find out what's going on, and where I stand. I want to have (physically, if not also emotionally if it is not too much to ask for,) safe sex again. I want to not have to smoke as much, though this is a completely open-for-interpretation desire, as my smoking habits vary directly with my stress levels. In any case, I want to not have to buy a new pack every five days.

Right now, I need more than is fair to ask from others. And so, that leads to having to ask myself to be everything I need. And this is why I came abroad, come to find out. I had to leave so that I could find myself. So that I could learn to be nearly everything I need. So that I could learn that I am obsessive, and illogical, and irrational, and jealous, and-- yes-- neurotic, and that I can be a huge hypocrite. The one thing I have to say about this period of time of running away is that though Arielle may have been right in the fact that I had a reason for leaving my life, I found an even better one to return to it: who I am, what I want, and what I need. And so, I close with this thought: though wanderers and runners and study abroad students may leave to go someplace for reasons they don't know, they will find them once they get there. If you leave someplace, you will discover why. And if you go somewhere new, you will discover something new about yourself, not just about your location. Many times, I have foolishly wished I didn't come here, just so that things could "stay normal" at home and so I wouldn't "have to worry." But in the end, what I have found here, and what has happened in Italy will be what sticks with me for the rest of my life, despite whatever I find has or has not changed back home. Not all those who wander are lost.

XOXO

Planes, Trains, And Automobiles

Planes, trains, and automobiles are where I’ve been doing most of my learning here in Italy. Jetting off to new locations on mini-vacations has slightly settled my fear or flying, or, rather—my fear of crashing and burning. In the horrendous traffic and speeding cars in Rome and Dublin, I have trusted people enough to hand my life over to them and let my white-knuckled fingers go from clutching the seat. I always sit facing backward on trains. I like being able to see my past so I know what’s done and gone is really gone. Plus, travel, especially on slow trains, gives you hours and hours to think. Hindsight is an amazing thing. Once you start to gather together the pieces, the picture is astounding.

I’m a runner. It’s true, so I’ll admit to it. I don’t tend to face the hard stuff and have been known on numerous occasions to turn my back on it and put some distance between us instead. I am flawlessly passive-aggressive. I don’t like facing things head-on—I’d rather saunter around the side of it and meet you somewhere near the conclusion. But you can’t live life like that. Italy (which may possibly be my biggest runner ever,) and the circumstances I’ve dealt with while here have changed me, just like I expected and hoped they would.

I came with a purpose: to get better at saying what I wanted to say. To actually say what I needed to. And damn it, if I could learn to do it in Italian, there was no way in hell it couldn’t be easier in English by the end of these 3-plus months. But I never expected that there are some aspects of this trip that wouldn’t be so easy. I don’t know what I was thinking when I left—maybe it was exactly that, and that I wasn’t thinking. I was operating solely on survival mode, for the last two weeks in the States, and for the first month I was here. There was no time to think outside of the present and where I was and the what I was doing, RIGHTNOW. I didn’t have the luxury of time to think or dwell on what happened. I didn’t have the opportunity to miss people or be any less selfish than just thinking about myself. In other words, I was literally not thinking. I was not thinking about how my choices affected others. I was not thinking about how other people’s past choices affected the choices I was in the process of making. I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to put all those pieces together and to start to map out my present. It’s no wonder I got a little lost along the way.

I remember getting off of the train in Assisi and standing there at the entrance of the station, looking left, then right, then at the distant hilltop town far too far to walk to and being floored because I never expected that it wouldn’t be easy. I had been taking so many things for granted, or just not even choosing to think about how hard they might be that I had completely overestimated myself, right until the point at which I took a deep breath, turned to look at the bus schedule, and then walked into the station’s tabacchi shop and asked for a return-trip bus ticket, in Italian. That’s what terrifies me sometimes. Sometimes, it really is just as easy as stepping off one thing and onto another, and other times, you find that you’re out in the middle of nowhere with not a clue how you got there and not a clue where to go from there. And that's when it all hit me-- how lost I was, yet how sure I was about some things. How much I missed people and how far I'd come, literally and figuratively. How much I'd grown and changed. How much time I still had to pass, when, internally, I was pretty much done with what I had set out to do. The Number One fear of all children is that they will grow up to be exactly like their parents, and lately, I’m terrified that this could be it and 20 and I could find out I’m more like my mother than I really would like to admit to. I’m terrified by how fast time has passed. I’m terrified to prove everyone right, and all my friends wrong. I’m terrified to admit that I’m growing up and getting older, but I’m also terrified that I’m too young for all of this. I’m most terrified that this thought doesn’t scare me or even give me a moment’s sway. I went to Assisi, and I had an epiphany as I sat there in the train station.

As Holly Golighty asked in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”: “You know those days when you get the mean reds?”

Paul Varjak: “The mean reds, you mean like the blues?”

Holly Golightly: “No. The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?”

Paul Varjak: “Sure.”

Holly Golightly: “Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany's. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there. 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!”

For me, the only thing that calms the mean reds and all the questions and terror of the unknown is the fact that in 45 days, I will be home. Every new sunrise brings me one day closer to being home. I can take all of the things that I’ve learned in Italy: how I am not afraid to ask if I’ve lost my way; how I have mellowed; how I can be confrontational—I can demand answers, and I can demand them in both English and Italian—; how I have learned about 20 other new life skills I did not have before, or did not know I was capable of and were hidden away somewhere inside of me, and I am going to bring this new girl home. I have changed, for better or for worse, which means that like it or not, my entire life has changed with me. So, like I recently discovered, even if I do somehow miraculously find an apartment, I don’t have a freaking bed to put in it. So it’s time to buy some furniture, and finally settle on a name for the cat. My path may be straight, but it’s not narrow. The mean reds are not here to stay.

XOXO

Miss Indipendenza

Late last night, I was chatting with a familiar gentleman when I remembered the fact that my parents are going to be flying across the Atlantic to join me here in Italy TOMORROW. I am tremendously excited, as one can imagine, both to see them since A.) They are my parents, and B.) Two of the most familiar of the faces that could ever be familiar.

I have restaurant plans and…oh, remind me to make reservations at Coquinarius!...day plans and must-see museum trips and meetings planned for them, but it wasn’t until he said, “Isn’t it great to show your parents that you’re making it?” that I actually started to think about it.

Initially, I brushed the thought off, as I have only, very, very rarely felt the need to impress my parents—the only examples I can think of were when I found, negotiated, and bought my car with minimal help from my father, the first time they visited me at college, and when I’m riding and they’re watching their little girl and multiple-K, hay-munching investment. (Dear Mommy and Daddy—I love you!) Maybe it’s because I wasn’t raised like most children are, but they only people my parents taught me are actually needed to impress are you, yourself, and on occasion, your bosses or professors. (Usually right around the time of yearly reviews or mid-terms and finals.)

However, the more I mulled over it, the more I started to wonder if maybe he wasn’t right—maybe there is something about showing your parents that you’ve “made it.” If I wasn’t making plans at Jazz Club and buying that white-and-navy striped dress at Zara and matching cage heels for a specific reason, then what was I doing? And where better a place to show them that you are no longer their little menace in rompers and scrunchies than in a foreign country, across an ocean, in a different culture? As I take them down the old, worn cobblestone streets, deftly navigating in my heels, maybe I’m actually navigating them through my independence. And with this food and music and wine, it’s a fabulously sweet independence, indeed.

XOXO