Sleeping

It's 5 am.

I have been AWAKE since 4 am.

I cannot seem to fall asleep again. Again, something is making my brain, my pulse race race raccccccce since I jolted awake an hour ago.

And, so, here I am. In Auburn, Alabama; chilling in the bed that has been mine for so many years. Surrounded by my things, although they are in a different room, a different house.

Like usual, I'm wondering how to turn it off; the worry, the waiting, the wishing. How to make my mind sit by nicely as I take a ten day respite from the struggle against the cold, against the money I don't seem to ever have enough of, against the exhausted, burnt out feeling ofhavingheld multiple jobs for multiple years now.

I'm closing my laptop. I'm turning over and hoping for the best. I'm going to be calm and, damnit; I'm going to sleep. And sleep well. All wrapped up in this bed and its memories and an overwhelming amount of love and tiger stripes.

Goodnight.

You're too Pretty to be That Girl

Someone very dear to me, in a heart to heart on a Musical Monday, told me a few weeks ago in reference to my qualms about relationships and men and vices and moving on and whatnot, "You're too pretty to be that girl."

I am thankful for this thought, even if I'm having a little trouble completely agreeing that it is applicable to this girl at this very second in my life. This is a good thought. I like this thought. I like that carefully manicured nails and well-trimmed bangs and thoughtfully applied Chanel 75 can battle being that girl. That a little playful confidence can will a text message during a tryst to work out the way you want it to. But surely enough, no amount of red lipstick seems to cover it in my eyes: I. Am. That. Girl.

Insecure, moody, messy, jealous, and sometimes even spiteful. Kind even when it kills, sunny dispositioned and fighting a slew of dark clouds. Worried and watchful, waiting. Trying to get through the tangle of how to move on and be ok for good. Well-intentioned but not sure how to make my dreams come true; sleepy and smart, a whirl of emotions exponentially more complicated than I could ever put into words. A ball of white hot rage burning in a huggge heart that would love everyone and everything if it could.

Furthermore, I am still THAT girl.

Worse, I am THAT girl and I'm not sure if I even believe in the fairy tale anymore. That's right. I said it. This princess can't seem to find a fairy tale she fits into, a glass slipper in a size 7 1/2, and trust me, poufy ball gowns on this figure just make me look like a cupcake.

I'm feeling dull, lackluster; this feeling vastly increased by a series of failed attempts to get back out there and misplaced emotions of the garden good and bad variety. This feeling vastly increased by the constant inescapable comparison in the back of my mind, excacerbated by staying in on weekend nights, by that truly desperate loneliness that only the holidays can bring, by the paralyzing fear of making all of the same mistakes that I have ever made in any friendship or relationship before.

I get it. This indicates a certain degree of not-readiness. Fine. These things will happen when they are meant to. But why am I having such a hard time feeling pretty inside and out? I have lovely things. I have people who love me. I am kind to others. I try really hard to match my shoes to my ensembles (Unless it's snowy and then the Croc boots win every time.)

Not to like get all crazy on the lack of self-esteem train because this most assuredly is not what this is. I believe in myself; I'm just feeling invisible, transparent, somewhat ashamed of my ongoing inability to be ok, to be functional, to pay my bills, to get enough sleep, etc etc etc.

And this is where it was always nice to have someone to curl into a ball with on the couch, to flatter my vanity and kiss me on the cheek before I left for work/school/shows. It's a time when it would be nice for out of nowhere, in some back corner of the bookstore where I buy my french books, I brush hands with someone who wants to buy the same French translation of Crime & Punishment that I'm looking at. When my umbrella breaks on the street, some tall, dark, and handsome stranger offers to let me borrow his. It's where it would be nice to be swept off my feet, surprised, reminded personally and not just by seeing it in others that magic and fairy tales do exist.

I'm a dreamer. I'm a hopeless romantic. I have honestly watched Notting Hill hundreds and hundreds of times. I don't think romance or fairy tales need to be standard to be magical; I don't expect Prince Charming to appear out of nowhere in the snow outside in a puff of smoke and whisk me away to a place where I don't have to worry about money or papers or writing or findind a job. Where I feel pretty sitting on my couch in my pajamas, typing furiously on a snowy Sunday morning, in spite of the way my bangs have crimped from a failed attempt at a side braid the night before.

But, I mean, my polka dotted fleece-y pajamas are pretty adorable. And I know that someday, I'll meet someone who isn't Brian or Elyse or Matty that thinks so too. And I wear red lipstick like it's going out of style. I understand the timelessness of black liquid liner and how much a compliment can make someone's day, how far a little kindness can go.

I'm going to go put my teacup in the dishwasher and start my day and try to ignore the things that being that girl implies. I'm going to go to the gym. I'm going to read. I'm going to keep being me, keep trying to be kind, keep trying to be forgiving, keep trying to stay abreast of current trends without destroying my bank account, keep putting on lipstick just to walk to the grocery store, keep talking to strangers on the train, in line for lunch, and in the elevator. Maybe I'll even ask that guy that I keep running into from Marketing for coffee.

Mostly though, I'm going to keep reminding myself that I'm too pretty to be that girl until I can finally agree inside and out, see it in the mirror and feel it from within. I'll probably always be that girl. That's who I am. Granted, usually happier, but someday, I'll run down the list without cringeing. I'll agree that my exceptional qualities vastly outweigh the bad, and I'll be happy with the smile I see in the mirror. I guess it's all moving forward and figuring it out until I get there.

Thanks Jennie

Dearest Jennie,

It's always funny how people from your past past wander back into your life at the most curious times. I could not have been more happy to walk in to you on my couch yesterday. You always make me smile with your dry wit, your cool humor, and your overwhelming intelligence and poise. I loved getting to catch up with you and hope to see you many times over again very very soon.

Love,
me

Thanks Swagger and Tampa

Dear Swagger and Tampa,

Thanks for interrupting Bailey's and my post-dinner-well-earned-after-the-completely-crazy-day-we-had drinks last night with your questions, your interest, you general amusing qualities. You certainly turned our random tripout of the rain and into the bar for a beer into a serious adventure, talk of tea-bagging and all.

I know it's because Bailey and I are so bad-ass :) (She is the B to my A, after all).

Most of all, thanks for a little attention when I was starting to wonder if people were looking straight through me to the other side, and for being the answer to my current need to meet and befriend everyone in the world.

I hope Swag's post-T-Box-having-been-drinking-for-at-least-12-hours-when-we-left-him-at-the-bar hangover is manageable and I hope Tampa succeeds in becoming a sports analyst someday.

Love,
me

Thanks Kim

Dear Kim,

Thanks for coming over on Friday night at 10:30 from across town just to catch up. Thanks for chatting and listening and bringing a present. Seeing you, spending time with you always always always warms my heart. I'm so glad that you are happy, that you are settled, that you are successful. Your contentment always gives me hope that things are going to shake out exactly how they are supposed to for me one day too, and that is something I could never be reminded of too many times.

Love,
me

Thanks Mollie

Dear Mollie,

Thanks for helping me mix cocoa powder, crush candy canes, and whip up peppermint buttercream for the cookies I took to work on Friday. Baking with you always makes me feel a little calmer, in a whirl of flour and accompaniment provided by Miley Cyrus. And those cookies were absolute perfection.

Love,
me

Unsettled

I'm feeling dreadfully unsettled and restless tonight.

I need to be awake in five hours, but I can't seem to will myself to sleep. I can't remember how to still my mind, how to slow my breathing, how to slow myself. It's all run run run run run this way and that way in circles until I can't seem to see where I started or how to end.

And so I'm chasing my tail. Trying to calm myself. Trying not to worry about the future and tests and papers and jobhunting and drama (which I'm much too old for!)

Time to count sheep?

Burlesque

New life goal:

Christina Aguilera Pipes. Glitter. Fake Eyelashes and Red Lipstick. Leboutain Heels. Hot-Sometimes-Plays-An-Evil-Vampire-But-Is-Way-Cuter-Playing-the-Piano kind of love interest.

Check.

(Show a little more...)

Thanks Madeline

Dear Madeline,

Thanks for always making friendly conversation and having the answer to all of my silly questions from across our shared cubicle wall. I'm glad you like lattes and Taylor Swift and have an affinity for boots and books and black eyeliner. Thanks for accompanying me to the Company Book Fair and for not judging me too much when I purchased more books than I could carry. It always makes my afternoon when you ask if I want anything from Starbucks or when we get distracted talking about what to wear when. If anyone was going to replace Laura, my old cubicle neighbor, I'm just so glad it was you.

Love,
me

Thanks Melanie and Martha

Dear Misses Melanie and Martha,

Thank you for covering for my super sick behind while I sat with my head between my knees, bundled up in my winter coatn in the back room. You guys are my heroes for facing the Saturday crowd, for braving the snow and for handling limo complications while I felt like I was going to die. I appreciate you guys taking care of me.

Love,
me

Battling the Holiday Gloomies

Confession: I have been unusually gloomy this Holiday season.

Perhaps this started with having pneumonia and still not being caught up with the flurry of work work and school work and house work I got behind on during this period of my life. Perhaps it's the the lack of daylight awake hours caused by daylight savings time. Perhaps it's the realization that without my car, I have to spend a great deal of time traveling from place to place, generally in the cold.

Regardless, I have been anxious, sad, generally disgruntled.

I mean, I walked into Macy's last week, the mecca of Christmas shopping, holiday melodies, glitter, glitz and ornaments the size of an average human child. Things that have always made me smile. When I was in high school, I used to plan elaborate treks to the mall at Fairfield Commons to go Christmas shopping for the perfect gifts for my friends, humming Christmas songs from Thanksgiving to New Year's. Casey and I would spend a crazy evening every year assembling little bags of Christmas cheer for people in our classes.

This year, the music made me sad. The couples scurrying around together on Black Friday made me feel infinitely lonely. When I tried to go shopping for my roommate I drew for Secret Santa, I was unfocused and in desperate need of a picker upper by the time I came out, empty handed no less.

Maybe it's a growing pain about Christmas and being away from my family. Maybe it's just another reminder that things are not the way they used to be, not as comfortable as that week we spent at the sewing machine making those quilts. Maybe it's the walk in the rain when I realized that that thing that wasn't going to be a thing meant more to me than I ever bothered to mention and the moment for mentioning slipped past.

I don't know.

But here I am. I'm in my living room. Surrounded by my roommate's Christmas joy. A village, a tree, sparkly pieces of felt draping everything like snow, even the Eiffel Tower. There's a wreath, there are even presents, mailed to me from people I love in Ohio. I've talked to my family 4 times today.

So where is the holiday cheer I've always wrapped so closely around my heart to keep me warm and bubbly and effervescent when it's snowy and freezing and it's just me and Ewok at night? Is it in batches of Christmas cookies? Holiday films about Santa?

I think it's about slowing down, about seeing love in it's hundred and one different forms and not getting so caught up in spreadsheets and boys that don't call or care and who you did that with last year that you forget that Holidays are about the people you love unconditionally, for thankfulness, for taking more than a lunch break to find a Christmas present. It's for snail mailing cards sealed with kisses to people you haven't talked to enough since last Christmas. It's about small victories in the toy aisle and sharing Peppermint Mochas and heart to hearts with your best friend. It's the joy of the first rip of wrapping paper and kisses from your Granny's lips and the smell of White Shoulders powder on her neck, familiar and welcoming, no matter how long its been between phone calls. Love. Love. Love. It's all about remembering that love come in all shapes and sizes and from all people and places, where you expect it and where you don't; when you need it the most, it's always there.

So, with that thought, I'm going to take a deep breath, still my thoughts, and drink some tea. And remember all of the tiny things that Christmas is really about.

Winter...

Well, Winter is upon us. And I, delicate Southern Belle though I may be, happen to really and truly love Winter. In all of its snowy, occaisionally gloomy, overly-commercial-jam-packed-with-too-many-holidays-to-really-enjoy glory. There are several things that make me particularly happy about the onset of Winter.

1.) Snow. God, I just love the way snowflakes look blowing against a deeply purple sky, swirling about in streetlights, finding windows, branches, and eyelashes to rest upon. Snowballs, trudging to the bus stop in giant boots and mittens, watching it snow from the warmth of inside. White, powdery perfection.

2.) Hot Chocolate. I know hot chocolate is not reserved only for the Winter. But only in the Winter does it have the magic, the crazy-restorative-healing-tingly-warmth to save even the icicliest of people from the Winter blahs. Mix with Bailey's and friends for warm and wonderful conversations.

3.) Snuggling. Baby, it's cold outside. And when it's cold outside, I just want to stroll and hold hands and snuggle in for movie night or a glass of wine by the fire. I get all, If you really hold me tight, all the way home I'll be warm, eyelash-flutter-kiss-on-the-cheek. Maybe it's the magic or snow and twinkly lights and feeling the wind gusting, willing you someplace warm; I just like to be warm not on my own I suppose ;)

4.) Ice Skating. Ok, I know I'm the least coordinated person in the world, and odds are, if you are reading this, you know me and can second this motion. But, give me ice skates and I'll Nancy Kerrigan you. Well, at least I'll try. And as I wobble close to the side where you can hold on and wipe out occaisionally, I always find great joy in sore ankles and busted kneecaps when they are accompanied by ice, the Chicago skyline, and great WinterWear.

5.) Cuddl Duds. I swear by these things. I seriously wear them all the time; under jeans, as leggings, doubled up and tucked into boots. Thanks, Mom and Granny.

Anyway, you know how I feel about everyday romance and magic, etc etc. And I think you know that Winter is just full of magic. Anyway, I was feeling awful this morning, coming off of a terrible bout of some random and awful stomach virus (Ew.), and then I discovered a Winter Wonderland just off my front steps. Love love love.