Disconnect to Reconnect

One of the struggles of the digital age is constantly feeling like you need to create, to be ‘on’ 24/7, to be connected in a tangle of internets, interwebs, networks and sites.  That if you’re not tweeting and Instagramming and writing another article, another post, another piece, you’re losing out on precious time or views or likes or followers or whatever metric it is that you want to call “success.” I mean, hell, Harper Lee didn’t publish a second book for DECADES.

That’s how starved we are for constant content.

But the thing is, when you’re so busy making stuff, you can sometimes forget how to live your own life. You know, offline. Remember that place? It’s the one where none of those numbers and hearts and stars matter.

Believe me, I know how tough it is. My day-to-day life is filled with notifications and posts and tweets and thinking critically about how to maximize all of the stuff that does not and cannot exist offline. And don’t get me wrong. I LOVE my job! And sure, there are ways to sign off and let a computer do its thang, but even then, I have to keep one eye on it because an algorithm cannot make a critical judgment call.

It’s the nature of the social media beast.

Trust me when I say that to work in social is to never not be working. And at my last job, I spent the bulk of my time writing nearly all day long, every. single. day. There was no overarching editorial schedule, just that I knew I had to write something. That freedom was both amazing and terrifying. And I was chasing numbers and page views, and though I was rather good at making those numbers happen, eventually, I burned out. You always burn out eventually. You run out of things to talk about. You run out of ways to write the same story for the 20th time.

So you find ways to recharge.

You close your laptop. (Dear God, I hope you do this regardless! It’s good for your health and your sanity.) You meet up with friends. You swipe a few times on Bumble or Tinder or whatever the latest hot dating app is, and maybe you go on a date. Or five dates. You go for a run, for a hike. You grab a coffee, you talk to the barista and see how their day’s going, you buy yourself flowers at the farmer’s market you swear you’re going to visit more regularly. You live your one, singular, unrepeatable life.

Disconnect to reconnect.

I wear a bracelet with that reminder everyday to drive home how important it is to step away from the digital screens and i-phones, the apps and the websites. And I will be the first to admit how hard that can be sometimes. But the truth of the matter is, these things will still be there tomorrow. And the next day. And three weeks, three months from now.

That dinner with your family, that road trip with your best friends, that night spent camping under the stars or midnight laughs shared sitting on the kitchen floor over a pint of ice cream? Those moments only happen once. Promise me you won’t get too caught up trying to “connect” that you completely miss out on what it is you’re trying to connect to or with.

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Fear? What Fear?

We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down. – Kurt Vonnegut.

Fear. It’s a funny thing, guys. It’s also a very necessary thing. If you go back in history, fear was what enabled the cavemen to identify a dangerous situation. It’s what heightens your senses, pumps adrenaline into your system, and it helps you survive whatever it is that’s scaring you. But life isn’t that difficult anymore — there are fewer stakes raised, and we live in a pretty safe, comfortable environment – relatively speaking.

Because of that, our fears are the things we now manifest inside ourselves. The things we let fester, the dreams we never pursue, the chances we don’t take, the places we never move to, the people we don’t admit to loving, the jobs we never apply for. There are so many things to be afraid of, but most of these things reside inside our own head.

Because what if we fail? What if we never recover? What if, what if, what if?

But what if we don’t?

What if we do the scariest thing of all — what if we actually get everything we ever wanted?

One of my track coaches used to always say that “you should get uncomfortable, because being uncomfortable is where you begin to see changes.” And it’s true — not just in the biological sense that your body responds to harder work by adapting and becoming stronger, but because your mind becomes stronger, too. You begin to withstand the scary things, the things you never thought you were capable of. And in this, you become more resilient.

Because being scared is fucking uncomfortable.

Being afraid is supposed to be fucking uncomfortable — it lights that metaphorical fire under your ass in order to tell you to work towards being more comfortable. But there are two ways you can do this: either retreating, and avoiding the scary thing in the first place, or working through it to the other side. Riding out the uncomfortable and the scary until you’re stronger and things aren’t as scary anymore. Fight or flight. Do or die.

And of course, in order to really understand how to withstand the scary things life throws at us, you have to get to the bottom of why you think it’s scary. Why it gets under you skin, why it terrifies you, why it dregs up memories of all the other times you faced scary things and didn’t come out stronger on the other side. There’s a whole host of reasons, really, and each will vary from person to person, but I think one of the things that connects this fear we all experience isn’t all that unique.

We’re most afraid of being happy. Of having a good life.

Not that we don’t want to — oh, of course we do. But we wonder if we deserve a good life, if we ought to have one, and so this doubt creeps in and we’re left second-guessing ourselves when we have to stand up to the thing that is in the way of our happiness. Of whatever it is we want. After all, what would happen if we wound up getting everything we wanted? What if it all got taken away?

But that is a risk with everything you do. So you might as well face the scary parts head on, because chances are, the outcome you want least might happen anyway. Whether or not you tried.

And if you don’t try, the what if — the magical, fantastical, best-case-scenario — will never happen at all.

Do the things that scare you.

Get uncomfortable.

Stand your ground.

Speak up, and go after the things you want. Apply for the job, tell the person you’re crushing on that you like them, take the risk.

And if you do wind up with everything you ever wanted, it’s because you did that work. You put in the effort, you found the grit within yourself, you realized that the scariest things in this world can sometimes be the most wonderful.

We’re scared of change, is all. But change is good for us. Change is how we learn. There’s nothing more fulfilling than that.

17 Things in 2017

This is normally my favorite post of the year. Because despite my best efforts, I learn things every year and it’s fun to record them.

And for some reason every year, I learn exactly the same amount of things as the year itself. Weird, no? I don’t know why or how it happens, but I’m rolling with it.

Without further ado, here is my list of 17 things I learned in 2017:

1. Giving feels better than getting. After the craziness of the past year, I spent a lot of time putting my energy into giving back. I have a pretty damn good life when all is said and done, but there are many people out there – families, young children – who are struggling to put food on the table, to find a safe place to sleep, to simply make it through the day. The world can be an ugly place, but it’s made all the brighter when we help one another out. Giving back is the shit, y’all.
2. Cut anything that’s not working for you anymore out of your life. Yeah, it’ll hurt for a minute but then it’ll rock and you’ll be all, oh wow, this rocks! And I’m a big fan of things rocking.
3. Fear not! If there’s anything I’ve learned this year, it’s that the best experiences in life often come as a result of doing what you were scared of, of looking fear directly in the eyes and doing the damned thing anyway. Whether that be climbing that fucking mountain, opening your heart again after being hurt or simply saying yes out of a habit of saying no, you’ll only regret the moments you missed out on due to that pesky fear.
4. Do what you really want to do. A couple of weeks ago I finished the rough draft of a second novel. Yes, fiction! It’s different than anything I’ve done before and it’s a risk, but you know what? It’s been a crazy and awesome and crazy awesome experience!
5. It doesn’t take that much effort to feel close to people. This year I’ve been texting and IMing and Facebooking and Instagramming and group messaging my ass off and it’s made me feel closer to friends all over the world. I’ve made it a point to stay connected to those in my life who matter most, no matter how far away they may be.
6. Chocolate is great. Eat a lot of it. And often.
7. Five years is nothing and everything. This year I celebrated five years in Denver. Five years since I packed up all of my things, got into my VW Bug and traveled across the country. Talk about facing that fear. It’s still the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done, but also the best thing. In the time I’ve been here, I’ve done so many incredible things and have met so many incredible people. I love this city and am proud of who’ve I’ve become, as well as the life I’ve made here.
8. Take a break from the news. And while this year proved that if you didn’t check the news for half an hour, you’d miss something, for fuck’s sake, give yourself a break and just MISS SOMETHING. Go pet a dog or wrap a scarf around your cat. Go fly a kite like you’re those bratty kids in Mary Poppins. You can catch up later. Or not. Sometimes it’s okay to play the ignorant card.
9. Did I mention chocolate?
10. Go ahead and tell yourself you’re awesome. Do it daily. It’s cliché because it works. Trust me, I know because I’m so awesome, y’all.
11. Stop putting off what you’ve been wanting to do. I may be speaking more to myself here, but that trip you’ve said you were going to take for the past  5 10 years? GO! Like, YESTERDAY!
12. Turning 30 isn’t that big of deal. In fact, 30 is abso-fucking-lutely the new 20. My twenties were a time of still trying to figure out who I was, navigating work and relationships and adulting and….well, to be honest, I’m still trying to do that. The difference is now, I own all of that. And I’m okay with it. And I’m slowly making my way there.
13. You’re gonna have to kiss a lot of frogs to find that prince. A LOT. But it just makes for good practice, right? RIGHT?!
14. Go ahead and get bangs. What’s the big deal, amiright ladies? Even if you hate them, they’ll grow. You only live once, yo. I liked mine at least 60% of the time, which is more than I like most things.
15. Except chocolate.
16. Show up. For your friends, for your family, for your co-workers and dry cleaners and neighborhood Dunkin Donuts worker (shout out to John!). Be there for people. One small moment of compassion can spark a shift in someone, redirecting the course of their day, maybe even their life.
17. Nothing is ever perfect, but who gives a fuck? Not me. I have no fucks left to give, y’all, and I’ve never felt stronger. This year has given me PERSPECTIVE. In 2017, I let go of having the perfect *fill in the blank with your own stuff* and, even though we’re living in an actual nation-wide nightmare, I personally feel confident and badass in between panic attacks. Bring it, 2018.

 

There’s a lot of talk about how 2018 is going to be worse, but I don’t believe that. I believe we all learned all kinds of (real) lessons this year and we’ll use them in the year ahead to stand up for what we believe in.

 

I think we’re ultimately gonna be okay, guys. Love to everyone and Happy New Year. Except you, 2017. You can show yourself out.

 

xo,

Adulting 101 (From Someone Who is Still Trying to Figure it All Out)

I’d like to think I’ve got this whole adulting thing down pat, guys.

Really.

But the truth is, I am absolutely, 100% without a doubt still trying to figure it all out.

And I’m realizing, more and more, that that is okay.

Really.

I don’t mean in the way of managing to keep myself alive, or to do basic “adult” type things. I do them, in some way or form, every day. And I don’t mean that I don’t know how to be mature, because I do (ish. I know how to be mature-ish). I think there will always be people who are older — and maybe even more successful — who are less mature, and the level of maturity needed for every adult situation, I’ve found, varies from case to case.

But as I’ve been an adulting adult (which, I admit, is not very long in comparison to other adulting adults) I’ve realized that a lot of things vary from case to case.

I go to the gym most days a week and I eat a lot vegetables because it makes my body feel better, and it keeps me from getting sick, and as much as I hate to admit it, it’s a slightly better alternative to living solely off of ice cream and gummy bears. I try to balance work life with outside-work life, the fun things with the not-so-fun-but-I-really-need-to-clean-my-apartment-and-do-my-laundry-and-buy-groceries things. Variation is the spice of life, right? Or something to that effect.

And I have learned that it is not hard to love someone — you kind of just do it, and let yourself let go and give in — but it is harder, strangely enough, to open yourself up to being loved back, and to rely on the person who loves you, and harder still to find that your love is not reciprocated and you should move on. But it happens, and the only way to do any of these things is to just do it, which is not very helpful advice, or very comforting when you’re sitting around wondering if and when someone will love you in the first place.

But part of being an adult is just keeping on with your own life anyway, even and especially if this thing does not seem to be going right.

And you have to keep on with your life even if and when it is going right, too. The rest of your world does not magically fall into place just because you find someone who cares about you. You still have to deal with the other shit, too.

And speaking of all of that stuff, there is no one and magical way to be a competent adult. You can set up auto-bill-pay and learn how to do your taxes and buy a house and all of that all you want, and there are still things that will fall through the cracks. You will forget which bill gets deducted on which day and log into your account and freak out about the lack of money and think you’ve been scammed until you remember otherwise. There are days that I forget to mail something until five days after I said I would, and have to hope it all works out OK, and sometimes it doesn’t, and I figure it out from there.  But I got there eventually and sometimes that is what matters: crossing off your to-do list as you go, as long as you finally do it. That is, in a lot of ways, adulthood. Adulthood feels less “having it together” than you think it will.

Sometimes adulthood feels like you don’t have it together at all, but you’re trying, and that is what matters.

I love going to work every day, to a job I love, but believe me when I tell you that it wasn’t always that way. But even when I hated a gig, or I felt like that wasn’t the right path for me, or I didn’t know what the hell I wanted to do with my life, I woke up every day and I went, thinking that I could find some time to get myself out of the situation I didn’t want to be in any more. And it eventually worked. Sometimes forcing yourself to do the thing you hate is the most adult decision there is. (But sometimes, the adult decision is deciding you’ve had enough and drawing a line. I admit I’ve done that, too. I don’t know. There’s no good road map.)

By the time they were each my age, my mother was trying to raise two little rugrats, my father working 80 hours a week at a job he hated just to provide for his family.  They had to deal with a lot more and worse than I did, and there are a lot of days when my problems feel insignificant to those of my peers. The adult world our generation is navigating now is filled with a host of new problems we’ve never seen before, some serious and some trivial, and some we make for ourselves because humans are very, very good at fucking up our own lives. But I have also realized that part of being an adult is sitting down and saying that if I got myself into any one mess, I can at the very least try to get myself out of it, and if I cannot do it alone, sometimes the most adult thing to do is to ask for help. And if there is help to be found, I am very, very lucky for it.

And though I have a lot of years of figuring out adulthood left, I have realized that, for the most part, there will likely not ever be a moment at which I finally feel like I am an adult.

There is no magic age, no set routine, no milestone that will make it all “real” for me. I am childish and selfish and impulsive at times, but so are a lot of people, all with varying degrees of success and maturity to their names. And while we’ve all likely had great role models and idols to model what successful adulthood looks like, we’re mostly just figuring it out as we go, and hoping we don’t make too much of a mess of it all. Sometimes we do. Sometimes it’s inevitable. But then we try to fix it, and then we move on, and it’s ok.

Adulthood is not getting married and cooking dinner every night and having kids and remembering to file your taxes early. You might do some or all of these things in your lifetime, sure, but the milestones are changing these days, and so are we. Adulthood is, I think, in a lot of ways, just waking up every day and trying. And none of us really know how to do that, but we do it anyway. We try. That is the most life can ask of us — and it will ask that of you every single day. It will demand you try. So you do, and you try again and again and fail maybe but succeed the next time and try some more, and then look back at it all and call it adulthood.

Whether or not you thought you “knew” how to do it in the moment, but you tried anyway.

The One Before the One

I have recently come to terms with what it’s like to be the girl before the girl, y’all. And it’s not fun. In fact, it sucks ass.

The in-between, a practice run, an incredibly dysfunctional cupid.

#ItMe

Not following?

Let me explain.

Last week, I got a call from an ex — a man I truly believed I’d one day see in a tux smiling at me from the end of a churchaisle. He’s been dating the same girl since we broke up two years ago, and the crushing words that came out of his mouth were ones I had secretly prayed I’d never hear: “Wendi,” he said, “I’m going to marry her.”

I promptly burst into all the ugly snot tears.

See, this isn’t the first time I’ve been the girlfriend before the girlfriend who
becomes the wife. It has happened — you’re not going to believe this — eight times (and I’m only 30)! It’s like I’m prepping guys for marriage to someone else. If you look on Yelp, my reviews are a solid 5 stars across the board.

The in-between.

Practice run.

An incredibly dysfunctional cupid.

By definition, I am the girl guys are with in-between serious relationships. They turn to me at vulnerable points in their lives without really realizing it. I’m a space-filler, a safe place to go because I am consistent and that’s what they need or are looking for at that particular time in their life.

I’ve heard all of the names: rebound, hookup, friend with benefits — but none of them seem to fit.

Until this.

It starts out as something innocent. We figure it will be a one-time thing, especially considering he just got out of a relationship. Or he’s just not looking for something serious. Or we’re friends trying to test the waters, figuring out if we’d be good as more than that.

But then it happens.

We develop those pesky feelings.

And things begin spiral beyond our control.

We officially enter the grey area.

In relationships, that damn grey area is the worssssst. Are we friends? More than friends? Or just complete strangers who shared this undeniable spark, if only for a mere days, weeks, month?  We’ll share laughs, smiles, inside jokes. We see the what could bes, and are swiftly moving in that direction. But then something happens that knocks me on my ass.

We’ll have an awkward encounter – or worse – a shitty text convo,  and I’ll feel seasick on dry land because I have to face the music that I’m just the in-between girl. The end result usually being the inevitable droppage of the, “It’s not you, it’s me,” bomb.

After a lot of introspective thinking, and ice cream (just so much ice cream), I’ve come to  realize that he’s actually right. It’s not me. It really is him.

It’s all of the hims who’ve said goodbye to a great relationship in place of another one. It’s not me.

It’s all of the hims who were unsure, confused or just not ready for a commitment. It’s not me.

It’s all of the hims who were perfectly good guys, just not the perfectly good guy for me.

The truth is, there is no manual for this, no “Dating for Dummies.” We’re all trying to figure it out as we go. For me, it’s been quite the trial-and-error process. There have been a lot of ups, just as many downs and quite a few in-betweens.

But maybe that’s all part of the process. Maybe we go through these trials in order to figure out what it is we actually want and deserve.

Maybe it’s all worth it?

 

Because one day, I promise you, someone will choose us first.

Me Too

I was 18. My then boyfriend’s best friend grabbed my ass in the kitchen and told me I could do better. 

Me too.

I was 21. A group of executives at the ad agency I was working at were talking in the break room, rating the female employees based on “fuckability.”

Me too.

I was 29. Walking out to my car after work, a man forced himself on me, called me “sweat cheeks”, and grabbed my arm, refusing to let go until I gave him a hug. 

Me too.

I am one of the many women who have been sexually assaulted or harassed. I am one of the many women who were at one point too afraid to speak out. But I am also one of the many women who are now sharing their stories in hopes of bringing attention to this problem, to give strength to those who may be going through something similar, to stand in solidarity of the victims who believe they don’t have a voice.

There is movement on social media right now urging those who have been sexually harassed or assaulted to write two words on Facebook and/or Twitter to show the magnitude of this problem: Me Too.

As I was going through all of the #MeToo posts out there last night, my heart broke. So many women (and men) have been sexually assaulted, a good number in their youth. When I sat down to write this, I actually shrugged off my experiences at first as something normal; it’s not a big deal, right? This happens all of the time. Par for the course for being a woman. Hearing so many other stories from so many incredible people, I didn’t think being ass-grabbed or degraded as just something to “fuck” was worth mentioning.

That was my mentality then, and it was almost my mentality now. To brush it under the rug. To not draw attention. To not make myself a victim. I was young, I was impressionable and I didn’t know if was okay to stand up for myself, to intervene, to shut that shit down and shut it down hard. Isn’t that awful? I think many survivors of sexual assault or harassment feel the same way, which is why this movement has been so powerful.

The truth is, it absolutely does matter. Every time you have felt unsafe, degraded, uncomfortable or forced to do something you didn’t want to do, it matters.  We shouldn’t have to out ourselves as survivors in order for people to grasp the magnitude of how systemic assault and harassment are. This is not what women around the world should have in common and this is not what girls should grow up expecting. I say women because while this has absolutely happened to men as well, the overwhelming majority are women, young girls who have walked down the street and been catcalled, who fear for their safety and sanctity of space.

I know some damn incredible men who would never, ever even contemplate acting in such a way, who have some of the biggest hearts that you ever did see. I think most are. But to those out there who aren’t, don’t say you have a mother, a sister, a daughter…say you have a father, a brother, a son who can do better.

I want to live in a world where my future daughter is respected, is acknowledged for her intelligence and bravery and heart and not her body. To all of the women (and men) sharing stories of sexual assault and sexual harassment, thank you for your bravery, your honesty and your courage.

Thank you for speaking up.

You are not alone.

 

Brave

The Oxford dictionary primarily defines ‘brave’ as the following: Ready to face and endure danger or pain; showing courage. I would also add to this definition: attempting to wear white at an Italian restaurant, grocery shopping on an empty stomach, and listening to Hanson in public (YOU CAN’T NOT DANCE AND EPICALLY KAROKE WHEN LISTENING TO HANSON, Y’ALL!!! It’s literally physically impossible.)

But back to my good friend Oxford. According to its definition, me thinks that there are two primary parts, two very crucial ingredients to being brave – the ability to endure, and courage. I might add that when one is brave, two of these qualities have to co-exist, and they are both of equal importance.

IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND BRAVERY, ONE MUST FIRST UNDERSTAND ITS OPPOSITE – FEAR.

Fear. That dirty, four-letter word. It’s a creeper, a prohibitor. It is an enemy, and a cruel one at that. Most people don’t like to get to know their enemies, but I am of the opinion that one must not only know their enemies, but also understand them.

Like a lot people, two of my biggest fears are that of rejection and failure. Which makes sense, because they are supposedly two of the most contemporary and greatest fears humans tend to face (alongside spiders, and running out of Oreos, and spiders, and tornadoes, and spiders and did I mention spiders?) Okay. Maybe these things are just what I tend to fear on the regular, but you get the idea.

Search “overcoming fear” on the Googles, Pinterests and other areas of the inter-webs and you are bound to be hit with a kajillion quotes (I love a good cliché, but for all intents and purposes, I will spare you).  The most profound thing I have learned about fear in my almost 31 years of life is that there really is no escaping it.

BUT KNOWING THAT FEAR IS INESCAPABLE IS EXACTLY WHY BRAVERY IS A NECESSITY IN LIFE.

Fear is the thing that paralyzes, while bravery is the thing that frees. Fear is the thing that chooses mediocre, while bravery is the thing that takes the risk of chance, a chance that could bring greatness or defeat. Fear always leads to regret, while bravery leads to knowing.

Bravery requires endurance because it requires persistence and perseverance  – that thing that keeps you going after the proverbial fat lady has sung and the show is over. Bravery requires courage – first you must make the choice to be at the show, and then to get up and rock out with your bad self too.

When I think of all the people in my life who have been brave and who continue to be brave, I realize that bravery means many different things in many different situations.

Sometimes bravery means being the person who stands out in the crowd, who speaks up, and who must be a voice, either the voice they need to hear, or a voice for others. Sometimes bravery means having the prudence to pause, to sit in silence and to just be okay.

Sometimes bravery means putting up the fight of your life, and fighting till the very end. Sometimes bravery means raising up that white flag, accepting defeat, and finding the will to move on from that defeat without resentment or regret.

Sometimes bravery means to search for the things and the people who make you feel alive; to take risks, to be a long shot and an outlier. Sometimes bravery means to be grateful and content and satisfied with the state of your right here and right now.

BUT BRAVERY, WHATEVER IT IS SOME OF THE TIME, TO BE AUTHENTIC, TO BE ABLE TO ENDURE, TO BE AN ACT OF COURAGE, MUST ALSO BE AN ACT OF LOVE.

Whether of a thing or of a person or of a place, bravery must be manifested through this love. And to be brave you must accept that the great love of anything may result in heartbreak and pain and disappointment. To be brave, you must be willing to risk the possibility of a terrifying ending.

To be brave is to be alive and to live in such a way that the world knows you are afraid, but you love more than you fear.

Bravery rocks, kids!

Almost as much a plate full of Oreos. 😉