raison d'être.

College feels like a million miles away. It feels so far that it nearly feels like it didn't happen, or barely happened. I don't remember it. I didn't drink heavily. I didn't party hard. Sometimes I'm shocked by the amount of "doing" that I just didn't. I went to class; I auditioned for one play (and got so embarrassed by forgetting my monologue that I dropped out of the theater school entirely); I wrote for the Daily Iowan; I hosted a weekly radio show for three years on KRUI 89.7. I  called it "The Early Morning Airstrike."

Higher education — it's supposed to be this time of self-discovery, learning, adventure, finding out what you're good at, trying things — but I don't really think I did those overarching things. I was busy doing this and then that, creating friendships that when looked at closely these days aren't all that close (at least not anymore). Both of my college roommates ended up in Los Angeles post graduation, yet we seldom get together. It's no ones specific fault. We just lead different lives, have different interests, different priorities. We're different, after all. When I really think about it, it's unbelievable that we've made it this far because we are so different.

This time last year, I was just ending a sub-chapter back in a University setting. I was behind a desk, working in an office, watching students linger outside classrooms, skateboard past signs that say "No Skateboarding," and wear business suits as an assignment — And now a full year after that, I'm left wondering, where did it all go? Even if you're in the same decade, it's unbelievable how different a 20-year-old is from a 29-year-old. The incremental change each day of those 365 days from 29 to 30 hits you the day before your birthday. It isn't incremental at all. And now that keep hitting these painful numbers, it feels like I've somehow moved further away from something rather than toward something else. I don't think I'll ever feel my age again. Maybe when I'm 80. By then my hips, knees and eyes won't let me skip past the truth like they do now.

I'm not old. I'm not. I'm really not. But, I feel old. I feel left behind. I have this overwhelming sense that my life is passing me by. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. Like I didn't just waste a couple decades. It seems that for most people their job is where they find their satisfaction, their reason to be, "raison d'être." And as a performer, it's tough to know that my career is somewhat in the hands of others. Yes, I can create my work — I can write for myself — I can join teams and perform shows, and so on, and on, and on; I can do all of these things, and that is amazing. But what does it matter if no one sees it. If no one thinks it's good enough to pay for. Where is my worth? I have so much control, but what is control anyway?

Google defines it as "the power to influence or direct people's behavior or the course of events." But this is only a half definition to me. Control can direct, sure, but when you're out of control there is also a direction, and it's not always down. The relationship between control and success is a lie.

I have so much less "control" than I think. I can do what I can to direct the course of my life, but life will do what it wants, and other people in their lives are doing the same, and my life will intersect with theirs, and there will be "right time and right place," and then the less popular, but more common, "wrong time and wrong place," followed by the confusing, "wrong time and right place," and then of course, the ever frustrating "right time and wrong place." If we're looking at life as a Punnett Square based on life situations: Time and Place as the main variables — "right time and right place" accounts for just 25 percent of what life hands you, the rest, darlings, is unfortunately 75 percent the mismatching of everything else. We cannot control time. So inevitably control is for nothing.

If I want to make any money at my creative craft, that alleged control I love to have so much, goes to the birds. Others write my paycheck. It's incredibly tough.

Where does that leave me?

It leaves time as the constant variable that won't allow itself to be controlled.

somebody different

“Maybe the first time you saw her you were ten. She was standing in the sun scratching her legs. Or tracing letters in the dirt with a stick. Her hair was being pulled. Or she was pulling someone's hair. And a part of you was drawn to her, and a part of you resisted--wanting to ride off on your bicycle, kick a stone, remain uncomplicated. In the same breath you felt the strength of a man, and a self-pity that made you feel small and hurt. Part of you thought: Please don't look at me. If you don't, I can still turn away. And part of you thought: Look at me.”  -The History of Love, Nicole Krauss

Sometimes I remember that before I was who I am now, I was someone different.

At the end of the day, we are a sum of our parts; when I look at myself in the mirror, I see a collection of my own choices, adventures and failures. This might sound weird, but I'm sure we all do it, so whatever, I'm over it — I have many times stood in front of my mirror totally naked. I know, get over it, get over all the junior high oh-la-las, and just listen to me for a moment. I do this because I am in a way taking stock of myself, and just me. Not me in a cute J.Crew skirt, not me in a bikini, not me in a bridesmaid dress, not me in anything. Just. Me.

There's something about standing in front of the mirror and realizing that at the heart from the outside, this is all I am — a petite body, with pale skin, a nice smile, and long curly red hair.

I remember right after my bike accident, I was very concerned with the way my body looked. I didn't have scars, just tons and tons of broken blood vessels, scrapes, bruising, a herniated shin muscle and chronic pain from a broken non-displaced pelvis. Every couple of days I would get up from my bed, taking a break from the show that kept me company for weeks, Keeping Up with the Kardashians (another blog for another day), and I would get undressed to take a shower. I remember at first being so scared that I would fall, but only once did I ask someone to wait outside to make sure they didn't hear the crash of me slipping and breaking myself again. I still don't really know why asking for help is something I only ask for when absolutely necessary. But, alas, I had to shower, if only to keep up some semblance of dignity.

Before I would make the slow climb into the tub, I would stand in front of my mirror, balancing on my crutches, figuring out a way to slip off my sweatpants without falling. And, I would stare at myself, at the imperfections that had become me.

There's something about nakedness that polarizes how you value yourself. What are clothes, but another thing to hide behind, to help identify ourselves as someone we want the world to see us as? While nakedness is just another way to be vulnerable, even if it's only yourself who sees.

At the risk of jumping onto a high horse and screaming "Clothes are for the weak!" which very well may be true, I think it's important to take stock of ourselves. People say you come out of the world as you came in, naked — but how many people do you know who have been buried in the nude? We go to our final resting place, dressed how the world wanted us to be.

There's a book I truly adore called, The History of Love, that I quote at the beginning and end of this post. The title makes it sound like a much mushier and false account of what it actually is. At the start of the book the main character, an old man, Leo Gursky, in his early 80s decides to throw caution to the wind and be a model in an art class. Before he goes to the class he disrobes in the comfort of his own apartment to assess who he is without any sort of wrapping paper. And it is not an Adonis he describes...it's just who he is, an elderly man with loose skin, sun spots, white curly hairs everywhere, and lumpy bits covering a weak frame. I love this description. I love that it is unapologetic.

It's strange to realize that the body you have seen naked the most times is your own. Yet, every time you see it, it is different, changing as you change, aging as you age. I suppose this post is more of a reminder to myself, if nothing else, that beneath everything, we're all just people.

“At the end, all that's left of you are your possessions. Perhaps that's why I've never been able to throw anything away. Perhaps that's why I hoarded the world: with the hope that when I died, the sum total of my things would suggest a life larger than the one I lived.” -The  History of Love, Nicole Krauss

my mom: "The Truth Hurts"

The backseat of my mom's old car smelled like sour milk and soccer cleats for the better part of a decade. Ah, the mighty Ox. That's what we called her giant black suburban. The license plate was OX-48800. It's not like we had to reach very far for what became a classic nickname. That's the car my siblings and I all learned how to drive with — from learning to parallel park or how to get out of a fish tail situation on an icy morning, to getting in our first fender benders or breaking both the front and back windshields.

I'm thinking of her car now because I'm thinking about her. I'm thinking about her whole life, her life before me, before Larry, before Colleen, before Sean, before Timmy and before Kevin. I'm thinking of her before my dad, before she was a wife and a mother, before she was a nurse, when she was just a young woman, lost, like I am now. I wrote my first solo show, "Heart/s," last week and performed it Sunday night, and honestly, I could not have done it without her; she is such an integral part of me. And for those who saw the show, and for those that will come August 29th in Chicago, you can and will see how much so.

We talked on the phone the other week. It was during my lunch break from a gig I had at a production company in Santa Monica. I was driving to find a Mexican restaurant nearby the office. I'm shocked by the lack of solid burrito spots in Los Angeles. In Chicago there's a burrito restaurant on every damn corner, and they are all the best. Taco Burrito on Lincoln and Diversey, aka Los Tres Ponchos, is really the best, but they are all very good. Garcia's in Lincoln Square? Yeah, also the best. I mean, I could go on, but I have to stop. El Burrito, under the Addison redline? So good. Ok. I'm stopping. Not El Jardin. I'm not a fan of that spot (also in Wrigley — though I will say they do have a pretty stellar margarita).

Anyway, I called my little momsicle to talk because I miss her. I miss her all the time because I love her. Sometimes I feel like I don't know her though. I think a lot of people feel this about their parents. Last night in my Groundlings class one of my classmates did a character based on his father, and when asked what his father's point of view on life was, the student was in some ways at a loss. And when I reflected on how I might do Mary Sheila Marshall as a character (and she is a total character), I don't quite know what her point of view on life is either. If I had to say anything it would be, "Life is hard, things are hard, get over it because complaining doesn't make things better." A painful aphorism of hers is, "The truth hurts," which is a hard thing to hear when you just want an empathetic ear and someone to stroke your hair while not saying anything at all.

Whenever I ask her about her life she is vague, focuses on whatever she is doing at that moment and gives me a little rundown of what her plans are for that day. It's frustrating. It's frustrating to try and get to know someone I've known for almost three decades. She's shocked whenever I tell her I feel like I don't know her very well. I know her, her inclinations, the inflection of her voice, her catch phrases. I know her face, the roughness of her incredibly strong hands, the smoothness of her cheeks. I know what she looks like when she's just woken up, what she looks like when she's already sleeping, and when she's going from being happy to being sad. I know her — but so much of her is her history, so much of her is the past that makes up her present.

Can we ever know other people, truly? It's a widely believed notion that we can only be close to six people at a time. That makes sense. I only have six people in my car speed dial. Most family phone plans are limited to six. The big table at restaurants typically maxes at six, and then you have to add additional tables. As Marshall children, we know what it is to wait for the big table at any given restaurant, read: The Silo in Lake Bluff, Illinois, a Marshall family hot spot from 1990-2000.

There's something about that not being able to be close to many people — it's hard to spread the love to more than a select few. And I suppose, with six kids, a husband, parents, nine siblings of her own, and a slew of friends and acquaintances, Sheila Marshall has become an expert in loving others. She might be all over the place, but it's only because she wants to be everywhere at once, sharing in the lives of the people around her, and letting them know she does care deeply. She really does.

I hope to be more like her...minus her adages and the reality check no one asked for. (But, I suppose I've already inherited those things about her too.)

I can't come up with a title that doesn't sound trite. Perhaps, Living Real.

Lately I've been listening to probably too much music, and I'm at that annoying point where every time I hear a song, I think, "Oh, my God, that is so my life." I am fourteen again. Woo. The Head and the Heart's "Lost in My Mind" flipped onto Pandora at that moment. So, you know what I mean despite the lameness, yeah? In other news, it turns out Katy Perry and I could be best friends because we both have personal whoas. Shoot me if I ever sound this stupid again. I actually hate that I'm writing all this forward intro crap.

ANYWAY. It's been kind of a whirlwind of a week since my last post, which is mostly good. The kind of stress that goes into being honest is unexpected, but it's freeing. I'm sort of done talking about what it means to be real, though. Not that I will cut someone off if I find myself in conversation about it again. I could talk about it forever. It's just, it takes a lot to stop pretending. I am so used to wearing a shield that I sort of don't know what to do with myself right now. Sorry if that sounds real asshole-y, "I'm sort of done," ugh, it's just, what I mean is I want to start actually living more real — not just writing real.

Like, I need to talk things out so that I can know if I'm on the right page with the people in my life. I sort of feel like if I'm not talking to someone regularly it's as if they don't want to know me. No one is a mindreader unless they're a mindreader. That's something I wrote in my last post, not the mindreader part, but the feeling of thinking people don't want to know me. I'm at this point where I can't tell if I should take another step out and tell people I want them in my life, or if it is better to just move on. Who knows if they feel the same way? Oh, the sheer amounts of opportunities missed due to personal gridlock. It's weird. It's so weird.

Actually, something weird happened the other day. I don't normally do stand-up a ton, but it's something that I'm weaving into my life intermittently. It turns out I like to stand up in front of people and open my worldview to them. (We're all shocked.) It's a special kind of rush...knowing you might just blow, and you don't have anyone to blame it on, except maybe high ceilings that swallow laughter. I like to say doing stand-up is like having a conversation where you can't be interrupted, and if you are, you get to go off on that audience member, and everyone is like, "Yeah, lady, you tell them!" That hasn't happened to me much, which I appreciate, though I would sort of love to yell uninhibited sometimes.

Normally I just talk about how much I love my family and maybe tell a story about us all being insane together...things I'm comfortable talking about. A lot of stand-ups find things to gripe about and because it's a shared experience, audiences laugh. They laugh from recognition. That's a very cool kind of laughter, but I love laughs from surprise. What I mean by surprise laughter, is they didn't expect to hear what they heard, but they recognize it still, the laughter of admittance that they understand. I love to surprise myself most of all, probably because I'm a narcissist. (I'm not really a narcissist, and I don't think I actually know any true narcissists in the way that Narcissus, that Greek god, was.)

Anyway, I did a whole set based on honesty, relationships and being real. The first line of the set I got dead silence (which is what I was seriously hoping for, chill out), and then it got laughter because it stopped people in their own brains. It's very uncommon for a comedian, let alone a female comedienne to open with, "Hi, I want to be married." Cats out of the bag! Surprise! I want a lot of things, and this is one of them.

It was so amazing, guys. The fear, anxiety and silence that took over the audience (mostly single male stand-ups) opened the door to the rest of the set: being honest about our hopes for ourselves and the people in our lives — people want to talk about it, apparently, as many of the other comics ended up referencing my set in theirs. It's not as if I want to get married to just anyone anywhere anytime, and not today by any means. But it's real. It's a part of who I am, and I explained why.

There's an unwritten rule in Hollywood that you can't say you want to be an actor on a sitcom, or you want your own HBO stand-up special, or you want to write the next big Blockbuster, what have you. But, clearly if you've made it as far as Los Angeles, those are things that you likely want, and saying you want them makes them more real. It opens you up to others. How are they supposed to know who you are and what you want, if you don't tell anyone?

So, I said it. And I kept up this new trend in my life of being truthful, and it felt fucking good. There's that old ditty, "Truth in comedy," to which I say, "There is comedy in the truth." It has less of a ring, but I think it's clearer. What I think the first means is make your comedy truthful, whereas the latter means, tell the truth, and it will be funny. The difference is slight. It has to do with where you start.

All those things I said before, those are my dreams. And we don't tell what our dreams are because if we tell other people then they know if we didn't get what our dream was. As for wanting to be married, especially as a new-to-LA actress, that's just something you don't say. You don't say a lot of things, life is all about the things that you do not say to one another. There's embarrassment that comes from voicing this particular desire. I would say that the number one thing you don't say as a woman in your twenties or thirties is, "I want to be married." Not everyone wants to be, but I would say most people at least want the comfort of a serious relationship. I'm not going to qualify this much anymore, because I don't think it should have to be, other than to say, marriage is a really great thing if it's between two people who really want to be married. It's being with the person who has your back, is excited to see you, and who you have the freedom to totally be yourself with all of the time — and vice versa, that's important.

Of course, we aren't going to always be 100 percent ourselves with someone else until we're ok with ourselves alone, but that's the goal. You can't be yourself with someone else until you're yourself by yourself. Did you get all that? I had to read it aloud a few times. And that's why relationships should be treasured, given time to grow and fostered with connection.

this is not a poem, this is the most real thing i have written to a group of people who might read this and i am very scared.

This is coming from a place of honesty. I haven't written as myself in more than six months (i.e. my entire time since moving to Los Angeles thus far), choosing purposefully to write through the narrative voices of made up characters in made up settings with made up scenarios — or poems, so many poems. Often these stories and characters are versions of me, or the people in my life, as is the case with many writers, so it felt like I was still able to express what I thought, experienced and have been feeling. But as I continue to think about it more, I know that this has very much been a response to me not wanting to be really open about my fears, my future, my everything. It's my own little "arm's distance away." And because I love telling stories and creating worlds, and I'm good at it, I didn't know the level of self-destruction I have begun to take on.

There's that term, "take up your arms" when referring to battle. Every day to me feels like a battle, and I am so alone. I am fighting off those I am closest to every single day, and I am seriously fighting off those who could potentially want to be close to me. I'm doing this, and it is sabotage.

I don't want to share.

And, I don't want to do it because I am afraid. I am afraid that the things that make me who I am won't be good enough in the eyes of the people around me: close, far, unknown, known, doesn't matter. This is not ok. And, it's something I didn't know was a real problem until very recently, even though it has been boiling since September 2012, if we're being real, and I am. If we're really being real, then I would say it goes back further, but 2012 was the hardest year of my life. I feel like I'm not conveying the real gravity and impact of this period of my life or that it won't seem like that big a deal, but it really was. I am scared that you won't think it was as awful as I do.

In very short, because I am scared, awful things happened, and then I was fake-ok for a time. Performing was good, and I was insanely productive, but all the while I was going through a very destructive phase that involved things I have only told a very select few. But mostly, it involved me not being myself because I am afraid of being hurt. I don't know if I can go through that again.

The other day a truly good friend of mine was talking to me about her perception of me. Besides the multitude of kind things she believed to be true about me, she mentioned how I once told her that I didn't want to be seen as weak. This struck a chord — the idea of being weak. She said, the things that you say about yourself and believe to be true of yourself are in the eyes of others the furthest from how they actually perceive you. The example in her own life was that she didn't want people to think she was mean, and if there is one person in this world with a gentler disposition, who goes miles out of her way for the benefit of others, it is this woman.

I am so concerned about others seeing me as someone who can handle it; someone who doesn't need others. I thought because I still spent time with friends and family, made phone calls and sent emails, 'liked' things on Facebook, sent a note, whatever — that that was enough, but those things, while good and nice, have to be matched with the freedom to really share. It is not easy for anyone to share honestly. And, truthfully, I don't think one should share everything with everyone all the time — this is not what I am advocating to anyone, and least of all to myself. But for those I'm closest to or want to be close to, there is not real love, compassion, relationship, etc. unless it is met with the vulnerability to say you need someone, you want someone, you care about someone, and open yourself up to the possibility of them hurting you. For real connection, I have to be willing to take down this facade of being too cool, of having a game face, of using comedy and stories and small talk, in order to feign comfort. It's a faux comfort. Real comfort, though, that is what we all crave, and that's why many of us spend so much time alone. I'm the only person I can truly just be myself with. No one knows, no one sees. In truth, I want the comfort I have alone but with someone else. 

But I am afraid, so I protect myself. 

I find myself neglecting people, waiting for them to make the first move, and pretending like I am ok when they don't. I convince myself they don't want to know me anymore, and I am afraid to tell them I want to keep knowing them. It is gridlock because we all do this.

I verbalize the words: "I don't need you" every single day. I've said it to my mom, I've said it to my dad, I've said it to my sister, to my brothers, to my friends, to boyfriends, to teachers, to confidantes, to anyone that could remotely affect me. I've said it to friends about other friends. I say, "I like them, I care about them, but I don't need them." 

This, this is something I have said about those I need most. If I admit that I need them, then for me, it feels like they have the power to wound me. The truth is, they have it anyway, because I do care, they just might not know how much. And this perceived notion that I don't care lets them off the hook to show how much they actually care, if indeed they do. (That last bit was me protecting myself even as I write about being open. It never stops.)

The truth is, I care about the people in my life deeply. If you're in my life at all, I care about you. I am so afraid that I don't have the capacity to share who I am fully. I am so afraid that I will be rejected. I am so afraid. It's like a sickness, my fear.

Even as I write this now I find myself censoring my words, my heart. I'm afraid that someone will read this and think: "God, she is so freaking dramatic. I'm so glad she moved to Los Angeles so I never have to see her again unless she makes it, in which case, ugh, I am so jealous, because honestly, she isn't even funny or pretty, or nice, or anything."

I thought this thought the other day: "We are all scared people pretending not to be." I am a huge offender. 

Another phrase I use to hold people at bay is this: "Everyone is the worst, and I am the worst of all."

This comes from a place of shame. Shame is like a cancer, and it will destroy you if it isn't addressed. Shame is what we feel about who we are, and it's why we hide. It can come out of regret, it can come out of past hurt, it can seemingly come out of nowhere. For me, it comes out of past hurt, of past heartbreak. Not always the kind involving a girl and a boy, though it's been known to happen (both me breaking and being broken), but also heartbreak from friends, of let downs from my parents, of jobs I didn't get, of hugs not given, of love and compassion I didn't give myself; in short, when something happened that made me feel like I was not enough.

I listened to a Ted Talk another friend emailed to me (I know, haha, Ted Talks, but those are good!) and the woman, Brene Brown, talked about shame, courage, authenticity and vulnerability. 

She said this:  

"Shame feeds into our sense of worthiness. Those that have a strong sense of love and belonging believe they are worthy of connection. "

After talking to another dear friend about how hard it is for comedians to accept praise and compliments, I concluded that for me, it has a lot to do with the innate feeling that nothing quite fills me — discontent. The irony is that performers are perhaps the neediest people when it comes to them, but accepting praise (love and belonging) is difficult because we can stop for a second and be ok with our apparent success. For me, I always felt being content was the opposite of being driven. This is faulted. It is just not true. Being discontent, not accepting love from others, keeps us out of and feeling unworthy of connection. One can accept love/praise/compliments/etc, and still strive to be a better version of themselves on stage and otherwise, a more real version of yourself, yourself. Your real self.

To have real connection with others is a result of both parties being authentic: letting go of who I want to convey I am, and just be who I am: being vulnerable. 

I am not a vulnerable person, and my personality and actions are often calculated. As I'm writing this, I am rewriting, trying to be more clear, trying to show what I want to show, trying to be authentic, but somehow feeling like I am not, while still writing well, while still making a point, while I don't know. It's as if I want to share more about the specifics of my life, but the truth is I don't want everyone to know my truths. But, I want to be open to those who want to know me and who I want to know. The nitty gritty truths of our experiences aren't what's truly important, but rather they're things that draw us closer to each other. I don't think it's appropriate to tell everyone everything all the time, I'll say it again, but we're not alone in those experiences. And to try to go it alone is an upward and losing battle. I'm realizing this, and to keep myself an arm's length away is really hard and very lonely, and it's not worth it.

I'm just trying to have courage to share what I am going through as a person, because I think a lot of us go through this. A lot of people think we have to be some version of ourselves so someone somewhere will think something of us. Some. Some. Some. I'm trying to tell the story, the truth of who I am with my whole heart. I'm trying to have the courage to be imperfect, to be compassionate to myself so I can show compassion to others, to be real, to accept not except that being vulnerable means being ok that someone might read the first line of this and think, "Fuck this bitch. She is too much for me." It doesn't feel good, but it's necessary in order to be open.

I might be too much, but I would rather be all of me, then just some of me.

There is more, there's always more, but this is where I am at today. Hopefully I don't delete this tomorrow.

Un-unique

Elaine Terre, Ellie to her friends, leaned gracefully over her egg white porcelain sink. Her eye make-up smudged all over her upper and lower lids. Trapped in the corners of her hazel eyes were the remnants of tears she was attempting to wipe away.

"I'm just done." She thought it out loud. "I'm just," a pregnant pause, an exasperated sigh, "done."

She'd been fired. It felt like a glorified dumping. Broken up with by the career that didn't want her anymore. Left alone on the skirts of Unemploymentville Co. Population: her. She felt like a cliché, and all of her thoughts backed that feeling up.

It happens to everyone. The phrase echoed in her head from a conversation she'd finished earlier that evening with her sister. Her sister, Carolyn, was an attractive young woman, aged 29, single, with a semi-high-powered career on the way to an actual high-powered career in fashion merchandising. She had little empathy for anyone when it came to relationships, jobs or general livelihood, likely due to her lack there of.

Carolyn and Elaine had a tumultuous relationship growing up, not unlike most sisterly relationships. Elaine, being the younger, found talking to Carolyn exacerbating, and would dodge opportunities to do so regularly —that is she until Carolyn would figure out a way to corner Elaine into conversation, often by trapping her in actual corners.

During the summers the pair would play a game in their country club swimming pool called, Spider. Essentially, one of the girls would hold onto the sides of the pool, often in a corner, with their legs spread while the other would have to attempt passage through the triangulated legs and arms of her sister without touching. If one indeed touched, even a hair, a strike would be marked. Three strikes and you would have to run around the perimeter of the pool. It doesn't sound as bad in retrospect, but summers in the midwest still brought about a cool air that made the pool a warm sanctuary once you were in, as the outside world remained an icy fortress.

Ellie thought about all those memories as she starred past her own reflection, wiping away her history and whatever Revlon still clung to her cheeks. Still, more tears clouded her vision.

Was I wrong? She questioned for the nth time. But she knew the answer. No, she wasn't wrong. And, she shouldn't have been as upset as she was.

It happens to everyone, El. 

glassy eyed.

The other day I found my childhood diary. Yes, the one I had faithfully written in for five years from ages 7 to 12. As a kid I remember spending a lot of time alone hiding in the playroom's small walk-in closet, living like a hermit listening to the sounds of my siblings playing together while I retreated into my separate imagination. I created a whole world in there. A whole world by myself that Larry, Colleen, Sean, Timmy and Kevin couldn't disrupt. Thinking about it now, there's something about loneliness that has always plagued me. And however cliche it certainly is, I remember how much I wanted to be paid attention to as a child. I remember how accurate the term crush was every day of junior high. I remember thinking the neighborhood girls were snobby and that at heart, we had nothing in common anyway; I could never bring myself to fake it. Now 15 years later not so much has changed. I'd rather actually be alone than feel alone with people who happen to be next to me. Maybe everyone's like this. Maybe not.

There's something about loneliness that has buried itself in my heart. I don't share my feelings regularly. Sometimes I feel like an emotionally vacant person, like a dad in the 50s, like Don Draper. But the thing is about dads and Don Draper is they do have feelings, a lot of feelings and they're wandering lost just like the rest of us. There's this constant struggle of not wanting to show our cards because if you do then you are open to the elements. And somehow, when the moment strikes and you actually find yourself in that moment of vulnerability, you get stung. Every time you vow to keep it locked up tighter next time, don't share, don't care, don't don't don't, somehow someone comes along, and magically they get that guard to come down, and right when you think you're safe -- you just...aren't. Perhaps we're meant to be breakable, but to what end?

Growing up my family mockingly teased me by calling me glassy-eyes, referring to the way my big brown eyes watered uncontrollably whenever I would actually express how I felt. I would try so hard to keep my emotions at bay to no avail. A slight shiny, wet film would overcome my eyes just waiting until those heavy tears couldn't help but spill over. Now, I attempt to close off entirely, if not by neglecting a good cry, at least doing it at the AMC River East some random Thursday morning during a showing of whatever I want to see by myself that day when no one can see how much I care. Perhaps a stranger will see me in the dark responding disproportionately to the sad parts in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine, but that's ok.

One of my life-friends, a compatriot in not wanting to need others, recently returned from a long, long walk. A 32 day walk spanning 800 km along the Northern reaches of Spain. The Camino de Compostelle. She's been a person seeking adventure and finding it as long as I have known her, which is now over a decade. Reading her entries reflecting on her journey and after talking last weekend over french toast, she has come to a place of serenity and openness that I have never quite known. This particular post struck me. I was overcome with how much there is here. I didn't cry, but I wanted to:

There was no other choice. It was clear. 

There is strength in weakness. 

There is beauty in needing people and reaching out your hands for help. 

We weren´t made to walk alone.

It's so easy to become swept up in what it is to be lonely, to assume everyone else is a part of something, to feel as if you're on the outside. It's so easy to be the wallflower sitting in your apartment on New Years, or any Friday in September, listening to the sound of life in the next building over. But even if all those things are true, even if 5-year-old me was that way, that doesn't mean 27-year-old me has to be.

Arc of Time: Life is weird and amazing.

I am not built for a 9-5, and I have no idea why I ever thought I might be.


Arc of Time, Bright Eyes

You can make a plan
Carve it into stone
Like a feather falling
That is still unknown

Until the clock speaks up
Says it’s time to go
You can choose the high
Or the lower road

You might clench your fist
You might fork your tongue
As you curse or praise
All the things you’ve done

And the faders move
And the music dies
As we pass over
On the arc of time

So you’ll nurse your love
like a wounded dove
in the covered cage of night
Every star is crossed
by phrenetic thoughts
they separate and then collide
and they twist like sheets
‘til you fall asleep
and they finally unwind
it’s a black balloon,
it’s a dream you’ll soon
deny

I hear if you make friends
With Jesus Christ
You’ll get right up
From that chalk outline

And then you'll get dolled up
And you'll dress in white
All to take your place
In his chorus line

And then in you’ll come
With those marching drums
In a saintly compromise
No more whiskey slurs
No more blonde hair girls
For your whole eternal life
And you’ll do the dance
That was choreographed
At the very dawn of time
Singing “I told you son,
The day would come,
You would die, you die, you die, you die…”

To the deepest part
Of the human heart
The fear of death expands
‘til we crack the code,
we’ve always known
But could never understand
On a circuit board
We’ll soon be born
Again, again, again, again…

"Who am I?" "I don't know." "I guess I have a lot of things to ponder." -Derek Zoolander

“You don't know me at all.” –Ben Folds, featuring Regina Spektor, “You Don’t Know Me”

We all know what happens when we say things like, “ You don’t know me at all” to a counterpart—whether it’s a friendship where one’s Batman and the other’s Robin, or a parent to a child. The relationship is cut off and you start at scratch (or at least as much scratch as you can get). But what happens when you don’t know yourself at all? You can’t exactly sever all ties.

Ben Folds and Regina Spektor sang a duet on Fold’s semi-recent album Way to Normal (a route unknown all together), titled “You Don’t Know Me.” With a few small tricks of the piano, the melding of a man and woman’s poppy voices together, and rather depressing lyrics, a song was born. It’s actually sort of like The Weepies’ “Nobody Knows Me At All” from “Say I Am You,” but more about a sour relationship than a statement on repeat like The Weepies.

I was listening to both songs tonight. A friend sent me The Weepies tune earlier tonight, and last week Spektor dropped her follow-up album to hit-machine (though not her debut disc) “Begin to Hope.” The album, titled “Far,” plays sweetly, sometimes sadly, but mostly it’s just interesting. Sort of like this question I posed.

I’ve been thinking about the notion of Quarter-Life Crisis’s. Everyone’s heard of the pending Mid-Life Crisis, but it seems that everything is becoming fast forwarded, and now we’re stressing ourselves out earlier and earlier. This evening I was chatting with a friend from college about how I have these mini crises every day about life choices and the like. It got me to thinking about being 50 and wondering if I’d make the right choices. I guess I’m trying to get my crisis out of the way today, make the correct decisions now, so that I won’t have one comes the big five-oh. See, I can’t imagine being nearly done and thinking, “Well, what was the point? Was this the right path? Or just the path of least resistance?”

The only problem is that I don’t quite know what exactly I want to be doing. Leading me back to the serious issue of perhaps I don’t know myself (not necessarily a completely bad thing). We’ll see how this all pans out. I love that phrase, “It all comes out in the wash.” It makes me feel secure in my own strength, even though it’s meant to make people wary about telling lies.

“When I was a child everybody smiled, nobody knows me at all/ Very late at night and in the morning light, nobody knows me at all.” –The Weepies. “Nobody Knows Me At All”

I'm Not 23 Yet, but I will be

"Lelaina: I was really gonna be something by the age of 23.
Troy: Honey, the only thing you have to be by the age of 23 is yourself.
Lelaina: I don’t know who that is anymore." -Reality Bites

Next week I turn 23 years old. I may or may not be something by next week, Wednesday to be exact. In October when I came home for the weekend of my cousin Maureen's wedding I had a 23rd birthday party, off the cuff, at a hibachi restaurant called Mikasa Sukasa. Really I was just out with some cohorts of mine, and they decided all at once without planning that it was my birthday. The slew of Japanese waiters sang me their version of "Happy Birthday," I ate a pineapple with cocktail umbrellas in it, and was sad that I was so old.

It's weird that I'm actually going to be that old pretty soon. The funny thing is, I'm pretty sure 40-something-year-old moms and dads or even 30-year-old unmarrieds think, "Psh! Brigid, you're so young!" But not my parents. No, for them I'm never actually my own age, I'm either the 4-year-old version ["Do you need to get tucked in?"], 15-year-old version ["Brigid, stop being so hostile."] or 30-year-old version of myself ["Why don't you have your own business, job, house? Make sure you have a kid before you're too old."]. For real, this all happens. Seriously.

But I do think it would probably be quite difficult to be away from their kid for so long that they missed those actual maturation years in college, years where they couldn't be there, otherwise there might not have been such a drastic change. So, now that I'm home, there's this sort of push and pull where they don't know how old my age should equate to their treatment of me, or really any of my five siblings. [See our recently implemented 12 a.m. curfew for week nights and 2 a.m. on weekends. For real. I need to leave.]

It would all have been much easier if I actually was allowed by our ailing society to become the "something by the time I was 23." Unfortunately, Troy's response is true, but is something incomprehensible to myself and the Larry/Sheila Duo. And Lelaina's response makes it all the better, because for me, "I don't know who that is anymore" either.

Growing Pains. Life Goes On Whether or Not Anyone Notices

I was thinking about this great scene in Growing Pains yesterday afternoon. I don't quite know how it ended up swirling about in my head, but it was there. Read below if you're curious, then I'll continue.

Mike: Hey dad!
Jason: What is it Mike?
Mike: Gilligan's Island is on every day at three thirty.
Jason: Mike I’m very busy, I’m trying to make a chart.
Mike: Dad, Dad, it's on whether I watch it or not. Gilligan the skipper too, the millionaire, his wife, the professor, and...
Jason: Marianne?
Mike: Exactly.
Jason: Mike, what's the point?
Mike: It's not on for me, it's just...on.
Jason: Mike, are you starting to realize that the world doesn't revolve around you?
Mike: Well, yeah, I guess I am.
Jason: Well, congratulations, you know you've hit upon one of the basic ideas in the philosophies of Camu.
Mike: Don't you see. If Gilligan goes on without me, so does my school. You know all day today life went on, even though I wasn't there.
Jason: Mike this is your first philosophical realization. I’m proud of you. See, you can learn from T.V.
Mike: Dad, all day today life went on without me, and you too...don't you realize, the world doesn't need us any more; it does just fine without us.
-Growing Pains, Season 1, Episode 21- "Career Decisions"

I haven't been diligently keeping up on my reruns of Growing Pains, the hit television show that captured the hearts of youngsters every time Jason and Maggie macked in the kitchen, every time Carol whined about being uncool, every time little Ben impersonated someone famous, and oh, indeed, every time Mike Seaver himself walked on camera. Anyway, the point is that this scene just sort of sprang to mind, specifically the line where Jason says, "This is your first philosophical realization." I was thinking about it because lately I've been applying to a whirlwind of jobs, as I'm now just over half-way finished with my internship with Ode, and I have to start thinking about my life some more. Since I've been in California I've been doing some cool things, meeting new people, catching up with old ones located here in the west, and learning about the magazine business—and that's been great. But, I'm just starting to think more about all the things I'm not doing, too. There isn't enough time in the day, and that is frustrating. If I had all the time in the world I'm sure my list of things I want to do would be similar to many: In no particular order:

1. Be an executive editor at a top-tier magazine
2. Work for a nonprofit
3. Step foot in every country, ie travel all the time
4. Raise a family
5. Be an actress
6. Own a vineyard and a farm
7. Hibernate in a cabin in Michigan all winter long
8. Be really good at skiing, snowboarding, fishing, kayaking, snowshoeing
9. Manage to get killer six-pack abs. (I know vain, but come on, who doesn't get jealous looking at Janet Jackson?)
10. Donate tons of time and money to international aid organizations
11. Live in Washington, D.C., Paris, London, New York, Chicago, Cork (Ireland)
12. Scuba dive and not be scared of sharks
13. Work at an NGO and do things to save humanity
14. I don't know, a handful of other things that I'll think up later.

I have a lot of ideas.