I Know Nothing: Reflections on Turning 30

I'm what a handful of reputable sources would call a middle-of-the-night insomniac: while I rarely have problems falling asleep, I almost always have problems staying asleep. Sometimes, I wake up three or four times and pass out again immediately; other times, I wake gasping from vivid dreams in which something is coming after me and I'm powerless to stop it; and once in a blue moon, my sleep is so fitful that I wake up unsure whether multiple events and interactions were real or imaginary. Sometimes, sometimes, I feel like my waking life and my "sleeping" life are indivisible. That feels especially true today, the 30th anniversary of my birth.

It's weird enough to realize that you've been alive for three whole decades -- and though there are dashes of vanity here and there (like my recent horrified realization that I've got whispers of crow's feet, or the creeping disfigurement developing in the joint of my right big toe), I'm struggling to really comprehend that I've been alive that long. I'm 30! I have been alive for three whole decades! Three whole decades! How did I get here?

But what's far weirder is that I've already spent one of those decades here in the greater Boston area. I've spent one third of my life away from my family, my home state, the little city where my grandparents provided piles of juicy tomatoes in the summer, the swath of the south where I frolicked on the shores of North Myrtle Beach every summer and the name Mandy is a three-syllable word. I've spent one third of my life letting go of my religious upbringing -- without much resentment, thankfully, but letting go nonetheless. I've spent one third of my life wrestling equally with the part of myself that is an independent feminist and the part of myself that longs for a family of my own. I've spent one third of my life learning how to live with people who are not my family -- or at least, not by blood. I've spent one third of my life struggling to balance work and play (and failing most of the time). I've spent one third of my life slowly and quietly acknowledging to myself that although I really like boys, as I always have, well… I also like girls. I've spent one third of my life battling a crippling case of Impostor Syndrome, unable to call myself an artist or actively pursue my creative goals, and yet also unable to deny that maybe, just maybe, I could do it if I really tried, and maybe, just maybe, the people who tell me I have talent aren't totally full of shit.

I've been alive. Alive! for three. Whole. Decades. How did I get here?

And where am I going, now? Those days when the lines between my dreams and my reality get oh-so-blurry, I try to wake myself up, as when your alarm clock intrudes on a deep sleep and you can't get your brain completely out of the fog and you don't know if it's been minutes or hours or days since you last comprehended what was really happening around you. I fail at that, too, and even as I write this it's hard to say for certain whether I'm asleep or awake. When I was little my dreams involved flying and underwater mermaid lands and meeting magical creatures (including Satan himself, who was actually quite fascinating and a pretty genial guy); these days there's a lot of yelling, a lot of running, a lot of hyperventilating, and the line between sleeping and waking gets blurrier by the minute.

And the lines separating what I have from what I think I have from what I think I should have from what I wish I had… I couldn't even begin to map those out. I'm smart enough to know that I have a hell of a lot to be grateful for, but then some days, well, some days, I think about my post-traumatic stress disorder and my anxiety and my seizures and my failure to meet anyone's expectations of me -- and I wonder, loudly, fretfully, how did I get here?

Those first two decades of my life revolved almost entirely around pleasing other people. Oh, sure, I had my moments of rebellion -- various piercings, minor deviations from fashion norms, moving up the east coast, underage drinking, smooching the wrong boys -- but I always felt a nagging desperation to gain approval from someone, but without putting myself out there too much. The risks were always small, and so were the rewards; so it went with my writing, by which I gained high praise in English classes and high fives from peers but from which I ran like mad when the stakes became too high. I knew that the "real" writers, the "real" artists, weren't afraid to fall down on their faces from time to time because in order to succeed you had to fail and keep going away. The failing, the falling, the embarrassment wasn't worth it in my mind. And so I stopped trying. And so I still failed, but silently, voluntarily, on my own terms, and so I told myself it was ok and it was what I wanted.

And so the heart of the matter is this: The real sadness and frustration that surrounds turning 30 isn't about vanity. It's about realizing that I've been alive for three whole decades and I feel like everything that I really wanted slipped through my fingers, or maybe what I thought I wanted wasn't what I wanted after all, or maybe I have no fucking clue what I want and I'm doomed to wander this life dissatisfied and disappointed in myself. It's about realizing that I've spent three whole decades fundamentally confused about what I'm really capable of.

It's about knowing that the one thing I know is that I know nothing.

How did I get here -- but the real question is, where do I go?

How I (Mostly) Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the L-Bomb: Part 1

[I have been thinking a lot recently about Valentine’s Day and romance and tradition and lurrrrrve, and I have too much to say in just one post! Thus, I present my thoughts in a series; here is part 1.]

When my mom and my stepdad first got married, I remember being somewhat shocked by the number of times they said I love you each day. Every time one of them left the house, every time they spoke on the phone, every elbow-to-the-ribcage joke—they took every opportunity to toss out those three words. After awhile I began to wonder how much meaning they could possibly ascribe to the phrase while saying it so frequently; didn’t the habitual nature of it all cheapen it somehow? Don’t many things hold weight and value due in part to their rarity?

But then, what other conclusion could the child of an acrimonious divorce come to? I have very few memories of my parents together as a happy couple, memories that I can no longer be certain are even real because they are so frail and frayed round the edges. What I remember much more vividly is the day they sat me and my brother down in the living room in our pretty little shiny-wood house in a nice neighborhood, the house where I had a big room and a front porch and a back porch and kittens, and told us they were separating. I remember how helpless I felt, how confused, how irritated I was that they couldn’t (wouldn’t?) explain to me what had gotten us all to that point. They told me repeatedly that they had grown-up problems that they simply couldn’t work out. What they didn’t have the heart to tell me was that they didn’t love each other any more—or rather, they had forgotten how to demonstrate their love in a way that made them both feel safe and respected. Or perhaps they never fully loved each other, not in the truly-grown-up way, because their love had never progressed beyond their high school days. I don’t know. I suppose it doesn’t matter, in the end, as it doesn’t change the outcome.

And so, when I look back at the relationships that were modeled for me as a child, I can now see how I might have become a little… bewildered. I was merely eight when my parents divorced, and in the years that followed I watched both of them muddle through many forms of relationships with a variety of people. Some of them were clearly silly little flings with an ever-looming expiration date; some were rebellions, whether against my parents’ respective social norms or against each other; some might have worked out in a different time and under different circumstances, but ultimately failed; and one for each of them, finally, stuck.

Throughout all of this, I managed to miss out on my own trial-and-error in the dating world, and thus I was woefully unprepared when, at 20, I finally landed a partner of my own. I’ve written about him before, but I did not elaborate too much on how incredibly insecure—and perhaps even desperate—I was by the time I met him. I am naturally highly anxious and self-doubting, and by that point I felt I had no barometer for what constituted a normal level of attention and affection from a partner. What I interpreted as sincere love and admiration was mostly obsession and co-dependence, and I ignored many a red flag because I needed to believe that I was worthy of all the time and energy he directed at me. We know how that story ended, although I’m not sure now if what happened between us could be described as real love. I suppose that, too, does not matter in the end.

When I look back on our time together, I can recount in intimate detail the ways that he devastated me psychologically, yet while I know I loved him very much when we were entangled, I cannot remember the first time we exchanged I love yous. I think perhaps it’s too difficult to reconcile such tender words with the violent way by which our relationship imploded. I and love and you became words with entirely different meanings in subsequent partnerships, neither better nor worse. In one, they were bargaining chips—something to withhold from me when I wanted them, only to be dangled tantalizingly over the distance between us after our breakup. In another, they took on the sparkle and bang of fireworks at first, only to turn into trails of dust that clogged his throat a little bit more every time I said them. So it goes, says Vonnegut, and how can I argue?

I’ve been with my current partner long enough now to admit that I thought those three little-big words long before I actually said them. It seems we both wanted to play it cool, keep it casual, all those heart-guarding clichés, until suddenly I realized that I was swimming hopelessly against an emotional tidal wave. I knew when that first flirty moment occurred that I was in no position whatsoever to fall in love, but I was powerless to stop it, and when I finally (and, yes, drunkenly) dropped that L-bomb I was absolutely certain that I had launched a bullet through whatever promise we might have had. The seconds that passed between my confession and his reply felt like an eternity (another cliché, I am well aware, but never has it been more true). But then he said it back—with no caveats, no apologies, no footnotes, he just said it back.

He said it back.

And now, just as suddenly, I find myself saying those words to him every day. Like my mother, I see that saying I love you all the time doesn’t cheapen the sentiment—because every time I drop an L-bomb, it bursts with truth. Even if he’s already fallen asleep and I’m murmuring it into the gently-heaving valley between his shoulder blades, I mean it. Even if he tacks it to the end of an email sent at 3:00 am on a rare night apart after wreaking havoc on Cambridge with his dude-friends, he means it. Even if it’s blurted out on the phone just before one of us has to switch over to a work-related call, we mean it.

Once a day or a hundred times a day, we mean it. And that means more than a silly blog post could ever explain.

Broad Strokes

The initial interaction is perfectly innocuous and, in my mind, not an invitation—as it almost always is. The man standing in front of me is transporting a guitar. It is held loosely on his shoulder by a thin strap, threatening to collide with the face of the woman behind him should the bus lurch just the wrong way. Perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties, he is tall and broad, occupying most of the little nook created by the horseshoe of hard, plastic seats. Without thinking, I offer him my spot. He insists that the instrument is light and that I remain seated. I nod and turn my head toward the front of the bus, absentmindedly shuffling through various applications on my phone. Minutes later, the man removes one side of his headphones and begins the sincere-yet-intrusive sort of examination that I am incapable of shutting down. I cringe and chide myself; some indefinable characteristic of my demeanor always leads me here, and I regret opening myself up to his questions, however inadvertently.

“Are you a student?” he asks, and I immediately burst out laughing.

“No. No. No. Definitely not.”

“So you must be an artist. You definitely look artsy.” This is a comment I have heard countless times, particularly when my tattoos are visible (though today, thankfully, my leather jacket conceals them). It is usually used as a pick-up line or a backhanded insult, depending on context. I am instantly uncomfortable, aware of the teenaged girls to my left, who are now leaning in to find out whether I will reject or accept this stranger’s label.

“Um, yeah, I do stuff sometimes,” I stutter. “I’m not, like, you know, trying to get rich and famous for it or anything. I mostly do it for myself.”

“What do you do—like, painting? I bet you paint.” He’s stuffing his earbuds into his pocket. He’s in it for the long haul.

“No, I don’t really know how to paint. I draw and write.” I wonder if he can see through my sunglasses enough to know that my eyes are darting about, glancing nervously at the surrounding passengers.

“Oh, cool. What kinda stuff you paint?”

I just said I don’t paint! I want to shout at him, but my people-pleasing side has me on autopilot. “Animals and people, mostly. But you know, like I said, it’s not a big thing, just something I do sometimes. I’m not, like, crazy good or whatever.” He wants to know if I have any paintings up anywhere, or if I have a website. I chuckle half-heartedly. “I have a blog that I haven’t updated in a long time. And I don’t really promote myself because, like I said, I’m not trying to make a living being an artist.” I pause. I awkwardly utter a few vowel sounds, trying to figure out how to describe my marginal artistic ambitions without sounding like a total loser. I lower my voice. “I know a lot of artists. All of my friends are artists or musicians or whatever. I could probably do more if I wanted to, I just… I guess my focus is elsewhere at the moment.”

“Gotcha. So which art school did you go to around here? Mass Art or somethin’ like that?” I’m starting to feel panicked. Why does he persist in identifying me this way? Is he that desperate to connect to anyone, even a random woman on public transit, or does he simply refuse to acknowledge that people aren’t as one-dimensional and easily-categorized as we’d all like them to be? “No, I went to Northeastern.” His face contorts into an expression of great surprise. He echoes “Northeastern,” his tone both declarative and interrogative. I shrug. “Yeah, a lot of people expected me to go to art school, I think. But I didn’t really know what I wanted, and I guess I thought I should try to be more practical. So I ended up trying to establish a traditional career path.” I cannot stop myself from rambling. I am aware that my cheeks must be pink by now. “I guess, you know, it could still work out…”

He interrupts with a laugh. “Gotta make that paper!” He teases me by rubbing the thumb of one hand across its fingertips. “But you’re still young, right?” I chuckle again, unenthusiastically. “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I’m 29, but... Well, you never really—” He interrupts again: “Lots of great artists did their best stuff when they were older. It’s not too late. Never too late. You know?”

I notice with great relief that the bus is approaching my stop. As I ring the bell, I quickly add, “Yeah, I mean, I guess I could do more. I’ve just, you know, I’ve got a lot going on right now. But I should do more.” He is grinning now. He raises his eyebrows and asks, “Hey, do you have a website or somethin’? Or can you give me your name, so I can find your blog? Can I get in touch with you?” I’m slipping toward the steps that lead to the rear door of the bus, unintentionally tapping strangers with my purse, scrambling to escape my vulnerability and confusion and unease. “I’m sorry, no,” I call over my shoulder. “I don’t give out my personal information like that. I’m sorry.”

The breeze that greets me as I stumble onto the sidewalk is having an identity crisis of its own, caught somewhere between warm and cold, wet and dry, fall and winter. I jaywalk across Mass Ave and think of all the labels I’ve been given over the last 29 years: Child. Adult. Girl. Woman. Dancer. Writer. Artist. Editor. Massage therapist. Student. Intern. Professional. Lower-middle-class. Unemployed. Southerner. Yankee. Christian. Agnostic. Atheist. Single. Partnered. Dog-owner. Car-owner. Commuter. Permanent. Temporary. Freelance. Hippie. Hipster. Dork. Snob. Cheerleader. Flautist. Bitch. Virgin. Prude. Slut. Feminist. Feminazi. Idiot. Smart. Advanced. Late bloomer. Bookworm. Space cadet. Short. Skinny. Squishy. Cunt. Cute. Average. Desperate. Crazy. Bitter. Romantic. Naïve. Self-absorbed. Self-aware. Self-flagellating. Neurotic. Lazy. Depressed. Anxious. Effervescent. Straight. Bisexual. Experimenting. Alcohol dependent. Co-dependent. Independent. Overreacting. Overly compliant. Inconsiderate. Ungrateful. Attentive. Avoidant. Irresponsible. Cowardly. Brave. Weak. Strong.

I clench my jaw. I shove my hands into my jacket pockets.

I think of all the times I’ve been asked, “What do you do?” and all the implicit follow-up questions that weigh it down: How much money do you make? How competitive is your industry? Were you smart enough to get into one of the good schools? How hard do you work, really? How connected are you? How much upward mobility does your future hold? How much time do you waste on activities that are beneath me? How can you help me promote my brand? How visible are you on Facebook? How many times have you been featured on someone else’s website or published in an indie rag? Are you an ARTIST, or just an “artist”? No, seriously, how hard do you work? How dedicated are you to what you profess to believe in? Are you a sell-out? Are you above or below me on the talent scale? How likely are you to recognize all my semi-obscure cultural references? Should I feel threatened or smug when I think of you? Could you play the role in my personal narrative that I envision for you, or will you disappoint me?

I shudder as I step onto my partner’s front porch. As I fumble with the house key, I think of my dog and the way he emerges from a heavy pile of blankets, sending assertive ripples down his tiny body from nose to tail. He needs to be walked—another bullet point on the evening’s to-do list. I think of my bank account and its dwindling numbers. I think of Monday night’s refrigerated leftovers and my unopened box of whole-grain cookies. I take a deep breath and walk through the door, rushing up the stairs to the steady embrace that awaits me.

Drawing-a-Day Sidetrack: Reflections on Turning 28

Built To Spill – You Were Right

Most of my friends are at least a year older than I am. As I've been a part of many birthday celebrations over the last few years, several of my friends have made jokes about avoiding membership in the 27 club. I was tempted to do the same -- the opportunity appears only once in a lifetime, after all -- but it seemed unnecessarily macabre in light of recent events. Had just a few details of my car accident in March of this year been altered slightly, I could have been severely injured or even killed -- a thought that has alternately terrified me or allowed me the freedom to consider restructuring my life completely, depending on my mood.

But let me backtrack a bit: In July of 2011, while sitting innocently in a lawn chair on a friend's patio, I had my first grand mal seizure of my life. I regained consciousness in an ambulance soon after, but I had no understanding of where I was or why. I couldn't speak, I couldn't think clear thoughts, I couldn't move; it felt like one of those surreal dreams that result from slipping into the shallowest of sleep. I understood on some level that the EMTs were asking me questions, but I couldn't figure out what exactly they needed from me or how to provide it. As the hours went by -- hours that felt like minutes to my confused mind -- I regained the ability to process information and form coherent sentences, but only very slowly. Even toward the end of my ER visit, about five hours after the seizure, it took a few seconds for me to bridge the gap between the doctor's questions and my answers. I was unsteady on my feet and completely exhausted. I felt almost drunk or high, but it was incredibly disorienting and frightening. Once all the basic tests had been administered, the IV drip had done its job, and my heart rate had fallen to a normal pace, I was released -- with no insight as to what had gotten me there in the first place.

Over the months that followed, I endured many medical tests -- some draining, some embarrassing, some merely inconvenient, and all rather expensive. The day I turned 27 -- the same day a nasty storm plowed through Massachusetts -- I began my day at Mount Auburn Hospital with a brain MRI. Eventually, my neurologist flatly told me that sometimes people have one seizure and never have one again, and that that was probably the case with me. We agreed to schedule another check-up down the road, but he seemed quite confident that I was just fine and dandy, and maybe my body had merely had an unusually strong response to stress or sleep deprivation. He gave me the green light to resume all my normal activities -- exercise, swimming, driving, and so on -- once six incident-free months from the first seizure had passed.

Fast forward to late March 2012, during the week when it was unusually hot, in the mid-90s. Then-boyfriend TJ was out of town; I was taking Memphis, the dog, to visit my friend Jen at her apartment not too far from mine. The location was just far enough and the weather just hot enough that I opted to drive. I remember the dress and shoes I was wearing that day; I remember that I was chewing peppermint gum; I remember the feeling of the humid air swooshing through my windows; I remember approaching the intersection of Temple and Broadway in Somerville, where I was preparing to turn left. What I don't remember is the impact of rear-ending an MBTA bus, demolishing the front end of my car and scraping the tops of my feet beneath the brake pedal. (I found out a few days later that the car was totaled.)

I awoke for the second time in less than a year on a stretcher in an ambulance, motionless and completely baffled by the circumstances. I remember freely shedding enormous tears, frustrated at having been rendered mute once again by the misfired electrical pulses in my brain. The EMT, a young woman, showed immense patience as she tried to coax information from me: Where was I going? Who was I going to see? Who could she call to come get the traumatized (but unharmed) dog from the scene of the accident? Somehow I conveyed to her that we should call Jen, but when Jen answered her phone, I was still too out of it to explain what was happening. Somewhere in all this, a very angry police officer stomped into the ambulance, thundering at me about how my license would be revoked. My heart rate was stuck at a whopping 160 beats per minute, so I ended up with another (ultimately inconclusive) trip to the emergency room.

Adding to my feelings of helplessness and utter frustration, two weeks after the car accident, TJ and I broke up. A few weeks after that, I moved out of the apartment we shared, and in with Craigslist strangers; meanwhile, my job moved from the South End to middle-of-nowhere Newton, dragging out my commute to an average of an hour and a half each way. Many friends were also going through big life changes, but positive ones -- weddings, babies, home purchases, grad school, and so on -- and I felt completely out of sync with everything that was happening around me. I struggled to adjust to the sedative medication I was given to control the seizures -- medication that was eventually doubled in dosage when my doctor decided that what he once thought were panic attacks were, in fact, minor seizures. I oscillated between an odd sense of manic relief at the possibilities provided by a fresh start, and the feeling that my entire world was crumbling, far beyond my control.

The late spring and summer had that contradictory and impressionistic feel to it -- somehow simultaneously insanely fun and horrifically depressing, assembled from smears of dulled colors and unfamiliar sensations, blurred by the new chemicals coursing through me as well as too much alcohol, made complicated by too little sleep and disturbing dreams of ex-boyfriends and lovers. The energy at my new home was unpredictable, and I felt compelled to stay out late, overindulge in rich foods (after initially losing my appetite completely for about a month), skip showers and much-needed trips to the laundromat, leave mail in unopened piles on the floor. I spent more time socializing than I had in many years -- maybe ever -- yet I was suffocated by a ruthless isolation.

Gradually, some sense of balance -- or at least a more urgent need for it -- crept into my life. I celebrated my 28th birthday on August 27th, a perfectly warm and blue-skied day that I spent away from my office, basking in glorious sunshine and the company of dear friends. Now, as fall settles in and everyone is slowly returning to their tamer routines, I'm attempting to prepare myself for transition. I've spent most of my life analyzing everything to death but rarely acting on my instincts. I have been in a constant state of doubt, letting other people's opinions slither into my world view until I forget which ideas originate within me and which are infiltrators. I think I'll always struggle to conquer my anxiety over potential failure, but I'm wearied by the equally heavy burden of all that I could have done by now and simply haven't.

In the aftermath of all that has happened over the last few years -- and especially the last six months or so -- I've realized that I'm so much stronger and more capable than I ever dare to give myself credit for. I know myself better than anyone else, and the vast majority of the time, I know what the best choice for me is -- I just don't always listen to myself closely enough. Year 27 was extraordinarily difficult for many reasons, but the truth is that nothing has gotten in my way as much as I (and my unrelenting fear of rejection) have gotten in my own way. I can feel my perception of my future shifting, allowing me to see the many different directions in which I can go rather than all the lurking obstacles. That need for validation is slipping away and revealing something better: myself, as I have always been and always will be.

I've been reading a really excellent book that frequently refers to Michelangelo's belief that every block of marble contained a statue, and it was his job to chip away and "set free" the work of art that already existed within it. I see myself this way -- that is, a store of potential confined by the weight and restrictions of everyday life, waiting to be liberated. The difference between me and Michelangelo's block of marble is that I am both art and artist, the instigated and the instigator, the idea in need of emancipation and the emancipator. I think maybe I have been waiting all this time for someone else to chip away at that exterior, that fear, when I have had the power to free myself all along.

One week from tomorrow, I'll begin classes at Cortiva Institute and thus begin my journey to become a massage therapist. I hope it's just one step toward a better life, a happier one, a life that is defined by my terms and my goals. I know it will be hard for me to tune out the static of doubt, but as I said to a friend early in the summer, I feel more like myself now than I ever have -- and that should be more important to me than the other (mostly arbitrary) markers of adulthood and/or success to which I have previously held myself and inevitably fallen short.

This is my year. I know it. I feel it in every cell of my body, vibrating with anticipation. There will be struggles, as there always are, but I'm ready.

"The greatest danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short, but in setting our aim too low and achieving our mark."

-Michelangelo

30-Day Drawing Challenge: Day 14

"In my own little corner, in my own little chair, I can be whatever I want to be."
- Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, 1965

I've always been a bit of a hopeless romantic. I'm not really sure how that happened, considering that my parents divorced when I was eight and they viciously hate each other, but somehow, I came out on the other side still believing in some version of happily ever after. Cinderella is at the top of the favorite fairy tales list -- maybe because it reinforces the idea that no matter how bad circumstances may seem or how many people kick you when you're down, a little sacrifice and a kind heart can eventually lead to everlasting love (a bit cheesy, perhaps, but not the worst idea I've seen on a TV screen).

Most of you reading this know that I just went through a pretty difficult breakup myself (immediately following a very traumatizing combination of a serious medical issue, the resultant car crash, and the revocation of my driver's license -- another post for another day). It stings a little less every day, as one might expect, but every now and then the hurt still takes my breath away. Sometimes I wish I could harden my heart and mind, develop an unrelenting cynicism, put my desire to marry and have children in the same category as my desire to win the lottery... but I can't. No matter how many times my heart is shattered, I keep hoping -- and I guess on some level, believing -- that finding a long-term partner to be happy and make babies with isn't totally out of the question.

I guess I am my mother's daughter in that regard -- despite how difficult that divorce must have been for her, she got right back in that saddle and started dating, eventually leading her to my amazing stepdad. It's difficult to imagine going through such a traumatizing relationship experience and being willing to open up to someone again, but she did, and she was rewarded handsomely. Maybe it will take a few more trials and errors and maybe the source will surprise me, as was the case with her; maybe I will come up with a less conventional way to arrange my life and be just as happy. I'm trying to move forward with both eyes open and mostly focused on myself, for now, and perhaps one day, things will fall into place in some form or another.

I guess we're all doing the best we can... but I think I can do better. Honestly, I think I deserve it. And pushing myself to return to this 30-Day Drawing Challenge is as good a place to start as any, don't you think?

No matter how how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true.
- Disney's Cinderella, 1950

30-Day Drawing Challenge: Day 13

I've always considered myself a cat person -- I've never disliked dogs, exactly, but they always seemed so needy and noisy and annoying to bathe. I grew up with cats (our one dog was an outdoor dog and, honestly, didn't get the attention she really needed, which made her more irritating to try to play with, which just made it less likely we'd go out and spend time with her, and so on), and they always seemed to me to be a perfect combination of affectionate and aloof.

When TJ and I moved in together, we brought his little dog, Memphis, along with us. I hadn't had a pet in several years, and I had never had an indoor dog. Having seen how aggressively cuddly he was in our few encounters before, I knew I'd be OK in the lovin' department, but I was a little nervous about suddenly being thrust into the stepmom role with a pet I hardly knew -- he had, after all, been living with TJ's brother in Quincy up until move-in day.

Now, I'm damn-near obsessed with the little nugget. We've had to kick him out of our bedroom, as he constantly wakes me up with his frequent location changes under the covers, but I sing to him, snuggle him, smooch him, and tug on his enormous ears like he's always been mine. He can drive me nuts with his eternal lick-fests (anyone who has been to our apartment knows exactly what I'm talking about), but I can't deny that he's a never-ending source of entertainment.

The following comic represents a fairly typical day in our apartment.

Memphis, bless his little heart, ain't the sharpest tool in the shed. He convinces himself that he can't jump up onto the couch or the chair in the living room, despite the fact that he's done it a million times before. He burrows himself into blankets, only to find himself stuck. He can't always find his chew toy once we throw it. And even though this isn't his fault, the fact is, he has really bad fart breath.

But I have fallen completely in love with him, more than I ever would have imagined. The excitement he shows every time I walk through the door -- even if I've only gone on a fifteen-minute Walgreen's run -- shatters my heart (in the best possible way, of course). I still love cats and always will, but come on -- just try to resist this precious face. I dare you.

30-Day Drawing Challenge: Day 12

I feel like it would be a little silly for me to draw this, my drawing/blog project, even though it feels like a much bigger accomplishment (despite how far behind I am) than what I'm about to discuss. I have to save that for the end, unfortunately, so instead I'm going to talk about a small accomplishment that still feels really, really good: staying in the no-hangover zone.

I'm not an alcoholic (though it does run in my family on my dad's side); on the other hand, I've realized recently that it's rare that, once I start drinking, I stop when it's appropriate. I like to think I knew where that line was at some point, but maybe I'm romanticizing the past. I don't know -- I just know that there have been way too many times where I've told myself I could have just one more, only to deeply regret it the next day.

It was different five or six years ago, in my early 20s -- which is funny considering that that's the time when everyone expects you to drink the most heavily. My self-destructive phase was more in my mid-20s, after college, when I was single. I went out all the time, especially when I lived in Allston. I think mostly I was bored, and getting drunk and being foolish was an easy way to distract myself without feeling truly responsible for the consequences of my actions.

These days, I don't go out with self-destruction in mind the way I used to, but alcohol has become a part of my daily existence in a different way. I don't drink every day, but it has somehow become an integral part of every weekend and every social engagement. It's extremely rare that I spend time with friends in any context without alcohol. It's not the worst thing -- we're all fully functional adults with jobs and creative lives and relationships and blah blah blah. Maybe it really isn't that big of a deal. But... maybe it is?

As someone who struggles with anxiety, it's disturbingly easy for me to rely on alcohol as a social lubricant. After a drink or two, I stop clenching my teeth and fists; my tongue loosens and I laugh more frequently. On paper, that sounds like a good thing... until you read the next chapter and discover what happens after drink four or five or six. My habit of mentally reliving embarrassing drunken moments for days after they happen should be enough to stop me or at least slow me down, but it doesn't. Hangovers don't seem to bother me much, either.

But how difficult would it really be if I went out one night and hardly drank, or drank nothing at all?

I tested myself twice last week. As it turned out, the fear I had built up over confronting the world sober, anxiety and all, was much worse than the reality. And waking up the following days, maybe a little tired but without a hint of a hangover, able to remember the conversations I had, was heavenly. I'm a creature of habit, so it may take a lot of reminders that I am just as awesome sober as I am tipsy to make social sobriety a regular thing, but I think it's worth a try. That doesn't mean I'll never drink again, of course, but I don't have to drink every time alcohol is available to me, and I don't have to drink to the point of intoxication. I have a lot of nasty habits I want to change, and it seems like this is a good place to start. Wish me luck.