Growing up

My brain got to thinking today ....about childhood and young adulthood and adulthood---- and that journey......

Do you remember how magical your childhood felt at times??  I do.  I can remember the excitement of the first day of the school year and all its possibilities.  I can remember thinking that Santa was amazingly strong to carry all those gifts around the world.  I can remember the warmth of a beach trip and thinking that the coast was always bright and filled with great restaurants (I LOVE other people cooking me food).  I can remember watching movies late at night or tickle fights with my sister.  I vividly remember drama summer camp (because I was a theater geek and it was heaven to me).  I remember all the little details that made my life possible.

Childhood is filled with magic.  It cannot exist in any other form.  Every day is exciting and new and is an adventure and is warm and bright and full of the crazy impossible.  I don't know exactly where it comes from but it's best witnessed when an 18 month old wakes from a glorious long nap and jumps up excitedly (with damp head curls and droopy eyes) to see what magic is happening outside her bedroom door.  It's as if the entire universe has been flipping over and reinventing itself during her slumber and she absolutely must see the transformation immediately.  (In actuality, her 2 hour nap consisted of a load of laundry, a perusing of Facebook and 40 rounds of Candy Land with a 4 year old who must ALWAYS win).  As a child- life, in all it's reincarnations, is absolutely possible.

Then comes puberty and young adulthood.  It's where you learn about bullying and death and mean girls and belly fat that actually matters to other people, and heart break and self conscious nerves and failing at important things and disappointment and insecurity and all the ugly truths about being human.  Sadly, to be human means feeling all these things on every level of who you are.  I remember being asked out by a 'popular boy' in middle school and discovering it was a 7th grade prank.  I remember not being cast in the role I so badly coveted.  I remember not being liked by the boy I had a crush on (many times).  I remember worrying about the belly fat I couldn't seem to get rid of.  I remember being ridiculed by a teacher for not being a good enough singer.  I remember all those details of being human....of being not quite myself....of being not quite whatever it was I was supposed to be.  

Then comes adulthood.  Beautiful, sweet, well-deserved adulthood.  Adulthood with its adult bills, cars with flat tires that Daddy doesn't come to fix, adult family decisions about moving where my opinion is actually the important one, dinner decided and cooked by me, adults dealing with small children, adults trying to get a good nights' sleep, plumbing explosions handled...by me, adults trying to make all the puzzle pieces they have picked up along life's journey fit together.  After everything I've been through (both boring and a little extraordinary), I've realized that I just want my kids to enjoy their childhood for as long as is absolutely possible.  Later on, I want them to realize what I have recently realized: that the magic of their childhood will be created by the people in their life who love them the most.  Above all the bullying or stressful situations or awkward belly fat or bad acne or bad life choices, the people in their life who love the essence of their soul will be the key to the magic of life.  It's kind of cool to realize that magic totally exists....in the space between you and the people you love.  It would be great if we could all get away from laundry and paying bills and walking the dog long enough to work on that magic just a little bit.  But-either way-- I will do my very best to give my kids a magical childhood that will empower them to get through the terribly awkward young adulthood years that we all must suffer through so they will have a story to tell when they are older.........

Awhile

It's been awhile I realize.  As many of you know (and some may not), I've started teaching piano and voice lessons.  I have 12 students and I'm 8 weeks in.....it's been exhilarating, exhausting, emotional, challenging and truly energizing.  I may have found my 'thing.'  But all those thoughts are for another post.....of which I will never find time to write now that I'm wiped by 8:30 every night, eating sleeve after sleeve of Girl Scout cookies and reading books about vocal technique in my 'free' time.

It's been an interesting journey to go back to work after 3 years doing the mommy thing.  That's been a roller coaster ride in itself.  I've been teaching and glanced over my shoulder at a noise and seen my 4 year old and 18 month old standing on the precipice of our office (aka teaching room) drinking juice and staring at me.....old enough to realize I'm not available to them....but also sooooo close.  I don't think they fully understand what is going on.  There are 4 year olds and 6 year olds and 9 year olds getting a lot of attention from Mommy and I won't invite them in.  So weird.  It's weird for me to hear the dog get loose upstairs and start tearing down the stairs to find the action while hearing the babysitter running after him throwing treats.  It's weird to glance out the window and see my kids going for a wagon ride down the street.  It's weird to be thinking of songs for my students while making my 10th grilled cheese sandwich of the week.  Those kinds of things are taking some adjustment.

But I love it.  I actually really do.  I feel busy, truly busy, unabashedly busy, actually too busy to call or email busy for the first time in years.  Who the hell starts an at-home business with a 4 year old and an 18 month old?!

I know I'm busy because I watched the Oscars the other night and laughed and relaxed and fell asleep before the big awards.  (Full disclosure- I think of myself as a tried and true feminist.)  The next day, I awoke to the scathing reviews of the sexist jokes and terribly awkward telecast and how they are setting women back and how it's a shame that these jokes are still allowed.  My first thought (albeit not very feminist of me) was 'who gives a crap?!'  I'm too tired, too busy and I don't care what a bunch of men in Hollywood think of me.  I  just don't care.  I know that the large majority of the Hollywood machine are trying to create really intriguing forms of art, tell interesting stories, feed their families and find their place in film history.  And that's when I realized I've moved into a new dimension of my life:  too tired to stay awake for the Presidential election results in November, too tired to give a crap what Bruce Vilanch (the head writer for the Oscars) has to say in any given February, too tired to do much of anything but care for my family and treat them and my students with the utmost respect and consideration that I possibly can.  I hope I'm able to teach my daughter and son two things in life about people: 1. Life is too damn short and you should be too busy to give a crap about what people think about you and 2. Treat everyone you meet with respect (not how YOU want to be treated but with a genuine, unearned, heartfelt respect-it will empower everyone involved).

Watching the Oscars made me realize I've really started the cross over into not caring what people think and teaching my new students has made me respect everyone I encounter in a new way.  I have a feeling that not thinking about the first will make me really good at the second.  And that's a satisfying way to spend your life...respecting every opportunity and not giving a crap about the rest.

Duct tape

If you've been reading my blog, you may remember that Brad and I are firm believers in the power of duct tape.  More importantly, duct tape as a car accessory is vastly underrated.  Many years ago, we duct taped a hole in our car for 2 years before we got it fixed.  Well, as luck would have it, we are proudly carrying on that tradition in good 'ole South Carolina.  Two weeks after Brad got a car, he had an accident on the highway by getting sideswiped by an 18-wheeler.  Luckily everyone was okay-just a bit shaken.  He has a huge gash on the driver's side back door.  What did we do?!?!  We duct taped that bad boy....14 layers of duct tape later and he's been driving that car around our town for weeks.

We are going on 5 weeks now and still haven't bothered to figure out the door.  It seems like there is always something far more interesting and exciting to do instead of fixing the door (which Brad is insisting on fixing himself).  We took the kids for pizza yesterday instead of fixing the door.  I even think Brad is ironing right now just to avoid dealing with the car.  We have proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we really don't care about cars.  If it were left up to me, I'd drive a car around without a back door just so I wouldn't be bothered to deal with it.  I guess this means that if I ever ask to borrow your car.....you should probably turn me down.

A whole bunch of nothing

It's been a truly busy week.  I just started my new life endeavor....teaching piano and voice lessons.  Week 1 and I had 4 students.  Week 2 and I have 5 students.  So crazy.  In my new year's resolutions, I stated that I wanted to blog once a week-- my thought being that I would take a few days and craft an entry.  But no, Sunday night and I'm sitting down with 5 minutes to spare to write something.

So- it will just be a few snippets of nothing....

Last week, I wrote about the TV show "Girls."  I loved how the show was written, directed and starred in by 26 year old Lena Dunham.  I'm amazed at the powerful voice this 26 year old has and wish I had had this kind of role model when I was in my early 20s.  Last night I watched a movie called "Take This Waltz" written and directed by Sarah Polley who is my age.  Again, an absolute masterpiece created by a woman: beautiful storytelling, beautifully acted and so artistically directed with moments of pure art woven into the story.  I love Mindy Kaling- her TV show is clever and her book "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?" was delicious.  Whitney Cummings and her multitude of TV shows wows me and entertains me every single time.  I love Chelsea Handler and Caitlin Moran and Jenny Lawson and Adele and Imogen Heap and an array of other artists that I'm not recalling tonight.  I love all these powerful, thoughtful, articulate, intelligent women creating really amazing art in their chosen medium however they see fit.  These are women I could share a drink with....

I love Maya Angelou but I couldn't share a drink with her.  I wouldn't be able to speak.  I think Tina Fey is beyond talented but she's intimidating and I've heard she's not all that charming in person.  When I was a teen, I was lucky enough to discover Ani Difranco but she is one righteous babe not really cut from the same cloth as the rest of us.  She's easy to admire, to love, to idolize but not as easy to link arms with and chat over coffee.  The riot grrrl movement was big to me when I was a teen-- those ideals are much like mine but the rest of it was too far removed from me....    I just get really excited when I see women in all walks of life accomplishing so much with so little fear or trepidation and am so thankful that my daughter is going to grow up in a world where women are much at the forefront.  Back in my young days, the really powerful women got the press and recognition....now I feel like women with all different points of view and levels of subtlety are embraced and it's so exciting.

Girls

I moved to NYC at 22 years old, single, by myself and didn’t know a soul.  The fairy tale “Sex and the City” was the huge current TV hit.  In my subconscious mind, I had images of women shopping daily and dressing like Sarah Jessica Parker in $2000 outfits to meet friends for coffee or to have a fabulous date with a really rich, handsome man.  The “Sex and the City” women all worked but it was an afterthought and only one episode I can recall talked about money troubles. 

My life looked absolutely nothing like “Sex and the City.”  Nothing.  I had the lovely ‘life’ experiences of living with a roommate who had a severe eating disorder, dealing with a psycho roommate who stiffed me out of 4 months rent by disappearing and eventually living alone in a 300 square foot studio apartment with no kitchen.  I waited tables until my feet hurt and never had the pleasure of shopping casually in Soho.  I was so mentally screwed because I was subconsciously looking for the “Sex and the City” NYC with Manolos and ‘meet cutes’ around every corner yet my reality was living in a shithole, trying to cook on a stove smaller than a hotplate and auditioning for all sorts of terrible theater shows (like the children’s show that spent 15 minutes trying to get me to quack like a duck in a more convincing way-whatever the hell that means).  And don’t get me started on the dates.  Being in your 20s and dating in NYC is not a fairy tale—it’s more like a horror film where you want to scream at the girl in the movie to “Run!!”  I had far too many horrible dates with guys that I would love to hang out with now…..now that they’re out of the closet.  There is nothing worse than getting excited and dressed up for a date….only to realize over the appetizer that you’ve got a wonderful gay man for a companion for the evening.  Kills all the romance.  (I could mention the more outrageous dates….but my dad reads my blog so I’ll just say that sometimes it was a relief to spend a night at home by myself eating pizza from Big Nick’s.)

Which all brings me to my point….”Girls”- the HBO TV show.  I just started watching it.  During the first three episodes, I don’t think I blinked, breathed or moved a muscle.  I didn’t even sip my glass of wine.  I just stared at the screen.  I felt like my early 20s just ran up and smacked me across the face.  Lena Dunham (the 26 year old writer, director and star of the show) is a genius.  She has managed to capture a period of life, a rite of passage, in the most honest way I have ever seen it portrayed.  I had no idea that all the bullshit I went through in my 20s could actually be that interesting or that real or that raw or that unselfconscious or that unapologetic or that worthy of examining.  I’m just floored.  I’m mostly floored by a show written, starred and directed by a 26 year old that hosts a cast of actresses that don’t all look like they were ordered out of a casting catalogue in Hollywood but have real hips and real stomachs that actually jiggle when having terrible 20s sex. 

It’s weird to watch the show as a 34 year-old married mother of two.  I am oddly attached to the story and have flashbacks to similar situations that happened to me and I’m also so far away from that world that it’s almost laughable.  Becoming a wife and a mother tends to wash away the ridiculousness of youth.  Being a wife has made me stand a little taller and laugh a little deeper and fight a little more passionately.  Being a mother has made me discover my true strength—a strength that you don’t get from lifting weights or navigating the streets of NYC alone but the strength you get from knowing that I would actually kill someone with my bare hands who came near my children to harm them.  The strength that says “I AM WOMAN, HEAR ME ROAR” and “I’M A MOTHER, I WILL CUT YOU.”

I know I’ve rambled.  I went from Sarah Jessica Parker wearing Manolos to Lena Dunham dancing in her bedroom to being a mom.  It’s just so weird to remember what you thought your 20s would be like, to living the real version of your 20s, to then seeing your 20s reflected back at you through a 30 minute show and ultimately watching all of this through the lens of your current ‘adult’ life.  It’s a wonder any of us survived.  I could never muster the patience to sit through some of those terrible dates ever again or put up with some of the bullshit I put up with years ago.  But- it is really amazing and refreshing to be reminded of the freedom, honesty and rawness of a being a young woman in a big city who had absolutely no idea what she was doing….quacking like a duck and all.    

New Year's Resolutions

2012-- What a crazy year.  Exactly one year ago I was sitting with my husband in a small NYC apartment actually stating out loud that it might be time to leave our beautiful city for an easier lifestyle.  One that included a few hundred more square feet, a 3rd bedroom and a washing machine.  After much discussion, much city hunting, many tears, many mixed emotions and a few hysterical breakdowns, we made it happen.  We packed up our family and moved from NYC to SC (which I keep writing about because it still seems surreal to see it on the screen before my eyes).  I would absolutely say that this fact is the biggest thing that happened to me in the last 12 months.  As simple as it really was to move (and as much as I wanted to ease up on the insanity of big city living), it was definitely a defining moment for the next several years of my life.  That one event has changed the trajectory of my future.... 

So- I have some really specific goals for 2013.  I just turned 34 and I'm beginning to realize that if I want to fulfill some life dreams, I need to start mapping out a detailed plan to make it happen.  If I can find time to read Perez Hilton every day, I can certainly find time to do a few sit-ups and pushups.  

I'm putting my goals on here so I will feel even more accountable.  If I continue to put them in writing, maybe I will actually focus all my spare time into accomplishing a few easy things.  If I can get through these things, I can actually start dreaming about my apartment in Paris.

1. Music teaching business- I want at least 3-4 students by the end of March.  I need to do a lot of advertising and research on my end but the goal is 3-4 weekly students in 3 months time.  I need to work on this every single day.

2. Out of debt- I want 2013 to be the year we get out of debt.  We only have 1 credit card left to tackle and I want it gone from my life by December 31st, 2013.

3. Writing-- I don't want my hobby of writing to distract me from the teaching business so my goal is to write one post a week on this blog.  It might be a dumb story or a quick anecdote but it will be mine.

4. Health- I want to stick to our diet and find time to exercise every single week.  I want to learn 1-2 new dinner recipes because things are getting a little repetitive in the evenings.  

My goals are now out there- I don't want to give up chocolate or lose 10 pounds or anything like that.  I want to build a life I'm proud of and that is balanced.  I want to stop reading gossip about celebrities- it's rotting my soul (and truthfully, now that Kim Kardashian is pregnant, I think it will be extremely easy for me to turn all that shit off).  I don't want to watch reruns of Top Gear or old sitcoms- I want to read novels that are inspiring.  I don't want to starve myself on crazy diets that I can't make last more than 72 hours-- I want to eat cookies or pasta when I want but in moderation.  I don't want to have a full time job away from my kids- but I do want to build a small business that allows me to be creative, earn a bit of money and use that other part of my brain.  And- I still want to discover my writing voice- but I won't allow it to be my new distraction so I don't focus on the business.  

So- I've cleaned out my head.  I've said it all.  If I could accomplish all this stuff- then in 1 year, I could be really proud of my progress.  For now, I'm going to drink my glass of wine, read my book "How to be a Woman" by Caitlin Moran (utterly fabulous!!) and ring in the new year watching my husband yell at football on tv.  

Cruises

I have a Life Bucket List that is 20 pages thick.  Sometimes it's intimidating to think about all the things I want to accomplish and experience in my few short years.  I start looking at the list.....and then promptly eat a Xmas cookie and watch House Hunters International or Downton Abbey reruns and go to bed far too late again.

So- I've decided to think about one thing I never ever want to do-- almost like I'm crossing it off the life list so I can feel like there's one less thing in the world for me to knock out.  I never, ever, ever, under no condition or circumstance, ever want to take a vacation cruise.  I've never been and never want to go.

I like boats.  I like the water.  I like traveling.  I've been on two dinner cruises-- one was surprisingly amazing and the other was utterly horrible.  We booked a touristy dinner cruise in Paris on our honeymoon and was fantastic.  You get to the dock after walking down a quaint street to quaint stairs and wander down the Seine until you find your boat.  We were the cheesy newlyweds who rushed to the front of the boat to grab a table so we could get the best view and feel like we were alone.  We figured the food would be barely edible at best.....and I had one of the best steaks I've ever had.  All of Paris's sites are situated on the water front so we got to see so many amazing sites without moving a muscle.  And- we totally ate up the cheesy, touristy fabulousness of watching the Eiffel Tower light up at dusk.  Perfect dinner cruise.

To relive the feeling, I booked a dinner cruise for my husband's birthday in Washington, DC.  Totally different night.  No offense to the truly dangerous parts of DC, but we parked in a fairly trashy neighborhood and quickly walked from our car to the dock anxiously looking over our shoulders because the shady neighborhoods in DC are always a little too quiet..... The boat was packed and it was a four hour cruise---it took us five minutes to realize that nothing in DC worth marveling at was on the water front.  You basically float south and see a few lights from the highway and a power plant or something.  The food was terrible- I think it was a buffet of soggy noodles and barely recognizable meat.  The wine was the cheap wine that gives you a headache when you are just reading the label.  The tables were an inch apart.  They had horrible music playing and a small dance floor for the wilder patrons.  At one point in the night I turned to my husband and said "I feel like we are at a wedding and we don't know anyone and the party is long over and I can't leave unless I jump overboard."  We were the first people off the boat that night.

So- I don't want to go on an actual cruise for a week.  I don't want to be stuck in a small room (I've lived in NYC- been there, done that), I don't want to meet new people every night at dinner at some big round table (I want to relax and barely talk to my husband if I so choose), I don't want to lay on a deck of some boat or play games.  I don't want to dock at an island I want to explore and have a curfew.  I don't want to get food poisoning (I know this can happen anywhere but I don't want to be sick on a boat).  I enjoy a good drink now and again and I'm a clumsy person...I don't want to fall overboard.  These are just the basic concerns.  But the big one is this: I never again want to plan for a fun event and feel like I'm stuck at a stranger's terrible wedding...and that I have to swim my way out of it to make it end.

I'll stick with the Parisian dinner cruise or an island getaway.