I really want to paint, and I really want to write about why I want to paint. Every time I think of telling someone I want to paint, I imagine myself explaining to them the rationale behind it. I typically hypothesize what I would do in any given imaginary scenario. I feel like it’s my way of making me feel safe, figuring out all the answers before they are due. It’s probably why I like to write so much; writing gives me the opportunity to fully explore my thoughts and feelings. Because I think of writing when I think of painting, I must need to write about it.

Writing and painting are the same, to me. Well, not in any way you might expect two things to be similar. You use different tools and mediums. You use different kinds of strokes. My hands stroke across a keyboard in a way that was not taught to me by formal education. I was well versed in the Kyrston style of typing before my computer classes. Too many summers cooped up in the house spending time in chat rooms, I guess.

When I write longhand, my hand is held in a certain way because I am left-handed. I have to be very careful where the other parts of my hand touch the paper when I write, because I am passing over what I have already written. Many, many days as a childhood with my hand and forearm covered in every possible writing medium – crayons, colored pencils, pencils, markers… the markers were my favorite. I have a memory of looking at my hand and arm and seeing a blend of colors smeared over one another. Yellows turned a sickly green from a blue; reds adding a deeper and more sinister hue to it, and smudges of black. My arm looked a lot different from the other kids, who may have colored fingertips or perhaps a mark on the desk from general childlike uncoordinated. I had all those things, but a permanent layering of the work I had done on my skin.

When I write longhand, it is a mixture of cursive and print that I picked up from years of documenting in patient charts. I use shorthand and write the letters in the fastest and most streamlined way possible. I try to avoid picking my pen up. I prefer pens over pencils, and I prefer a pen with a smooth feel to it as opposed to a sharp pen that, if you press too hard, tears through the paper.

When I write my thoughts and feelings down on a computer, it pours out of me with a ferocious intensity. All of the things I am writing – I feel it in the moment my fingers touch the keys. It is representative of the rawest feelings I possess. I don’t hold back – I just put it all out there. As I write, depending on the topic, I can feel anger. Sadness. Lust. Confusion. Joy. Patience. Understanding. Love.

When I write my thoughts and feelings down longhand – it is jagged with a lot of incomplete sentences. The sentences aren’t as ornate, either. The structure is basic and raw. I am more direct. I ask more questions because I am brainstorming. And it is a lot shorter.

I don’t follow any rules when I write. I have a style that I developed over time, mostly through reading a lot. I picked up stylistic cues from other authors and I began to become accustomed to different methods of creative writing. Each author has his or her own unique and distinct style. You can pick any page from any Stephen King book without looking at the author or title and know that it is him – because he is Stephen King and that is his way. The same goes for Bill Bryson, Stephanie Meyer, John Greene, J. K. Rowling, and David Sedaris. It is just the way.

I, too, have my own unique style. That is not to say that I am in the same league as these other authors – not at all. Instead, I like to think that I have found my voice in writing. I write how I want to, not how I am told. I love fragmented sentences, hyphens, run-on sentences, and grammar errors. I love words that have a very specific meaning, like abhor or effervescent. I like my writing to flow and feel smooth – the consistency of pudding in your mouth. I want it to slide down easy and for it to be pleasant the entire way.

This is how I find my creative expression. This is how I express emotion. This is how I art.

I want to apply that same thinking to painting. I don’t want to take a painting class. I don’t want a skill. I don’t want to understand spatial relationships or how to capture negative space. I don’t want any of that. I don’t even know that I want to know what kind of paint I should use with which brush, or how to mix colors.

I want to approach painting the same way I approached writing: through experimentation.

I learned how to create a writing style by borrowing some (subconsciously) from my favorite authors. I believe that I have seen enough art to know what moves me and what doesn’t. There are many things I find visually appealing and many things I do not. There are types of paint that I like and types that I don’t. I have been looking at the strokes of painters my whole life, never really seeing what it is I am actually seeing. Every stroke you see is the work of another human being’s creativity. I can tell when a painting is done in a particular way, or with a certain purpose. Landscapes and portraits are this way – some of the most famous and renowned pieces of art are pieces that I find boring and predictable. What do I find alluring? Paint spatters. Hard strokes and soft strokes and fat strokes and skinny strokes. Seemingly random and completely abstract. I want splashes of color or no color and I don’t want to know if it was deliberate.

When I imagine my painting, it is a mess of color. It is never a bowl of fruit or a forest. It is… basically a bunch of shapes and lines of different colors of paint based on how I feel.

When I come home from a long day and I am stressed, I want to grab the loudest colors I can find that strike me in that moment and just brush while I embrace the emotion. I want to close my eyes and focus on how I feel and let that feeling guide my hand. In the same way that I think a word and it flows from my brain down my arms and through my fingers onto the page – I want that with a paintbrush. I want my paintings to be a colorful and messy representation of my feelings. I want you to look at it and for you to feel what I felt in that moment. I want you to know who I am through lines and shapes and visual sensations.

I have been thinking about this for months, but I have just been too nervous to see it through. How would I explain all of this to the artists I know? I may offend them by thinking that I can create anything with no formal training or school. To these people, I explain to you –

What I do – this writing thing – I do not concern myself with whether or not it is good. I do not concern myself with whether or not it is rational or reasonable or well-organized. I don’t worry it others will read it and I don’t worry what they will think. It just so happens (by complete coincidence) that a great many people enjoy reading my writing – and I chalk it up to a fluke. I didn’t try to write this way. I am not presenting you with something that I worked on and slaved over to create this masterpiece. With my poetry – yes. I do slave over those. I slave and slave and tweak and work on it. With my creative pieces that are meant for entertainment – yes. With my research papers and essays – yes. All of these things, I use them for validation and to earn respect.

But my flow of consciousness? No. This is a purely selfish outlet for my many intense feelings and thoughts. Some people process things inside, and some people process things outside. By writing, I save a friend or lover or parent from having to sit there while I talk this all out out loud.

So, do I want you to like my paintings? I could honestly give a shit. If I were painting a woman in a silk robe reclining on a couch or painting a bowl of fruit or a sunset – then I would want to impress. I would want to know that my technique was right. But for my flow of consciousness painting exercise? That is purely for me.

I know I have imagined all of these external pressures for myself. I doubt that any artist I respect would tell me that I am being ridiculous. And they would also tell me that art is the expression of the human condition. What can be so artistic as channeling am emotion into a paintbrush and letting your soul do the talking?

Next step… supplies.

Today’s blog post will probably read a lot like a journal entry. I have some confessions to make and some things to get off my mind. If my dad were here, I’d probably talk to him about it, but he’s out-of-town for the week so I’ll just have to splurge (word choice?) to the internet.

Yesterday I had my Anatomy and Physiology class. The course is so intense that it’s actually split into two courses that are scheduled back-to-back: Anatomy and Physiology I and Anatomy and Physiology II. You have to take both classes and pass both classes to receive credit for the A&P course. A&P classes are regulated by a national association, and because of this the courses are the same no matter what college you attend. This is not an allied health class, it is simply A&P. It is not specific to any one degree, rather it fulfills this specific science requirement for many degrees. Thus the course objectives and syllabus include a wide range of abilities and tasks that set you up for success in further education in many different fields.

What is Anatomy and Physiology? Briefly, it is the study of the human body and how it works. The anatomy of the body is the structural aspect (i.e. we have a heart and arteries) and physiology is the things that the structure can do (i.e. the heart pumps blood that circulates through our entire bodies). We learn, over and over again, that structure always reflects function. In layman terms, our bodies have evolved the way that they do in order to survive, and each part of our bodies is shaped in a way that allows it to carry out a specific set of functions. The opposite of this would be that our bodies are just shaped the way they are and the function somehow happens around the structure, which is not the case.

Anyway, our textbook weighs about ten zillion pounds and it is VERY dense. I’m talking extremely dense. It’s actually very easy to read and understand, there is just a lot of information. Just about every third word is either underlined, bold, or italicized. Everyone knows that this is a tool meant to convey a level of importance about a word or theory; but what is a student to do when almost the entire textbook is highlighted as being important?

I’m several weeks into the semester and I quickly realized that I am not interested in memorizing hundreds of theories and vocab words. This is partially because I understand that science is always evolving and partially because I am a practical human being. Everyone learns in a different way, and I am best at explaining the highlights of a concept instead of every nitty-gritty detail. To give you an easy example: I can tell you that when you screw a light bulb into a socket and then flip a light switch, the bulb illuminates. I can even tell you that it is a filament inside the light bulb that makes it light up, and that it is an electrical current that the switch controls that makes this happen. Anything more in-depth than that might be fun facts for a cocktail conversation, but simply isn’t practical.

So, when I am reading about The Cell, I have fifty pages packed with diagrams and information. I have the different types of cells, functions of cells, things inside a cell, things inside the things inside of cells – it goes on. What I’m looking for – like the light bulb – is the information that I will REALLY need to know. I know it’s all important, and it’s important to understand (at the very least) that these things exist, but I don’t want to dedicate my time and brain-space on parts of the chapter that won’t really help me later. The material on The Cell is so dense that a college could probably create an entire course on just The Cell itself. But we aren’t just covering The Cell, we are also covering (in these two back-to-back classes):

An introduction to the human body, basic chemistry, cells, tissue, the integumentary system, bones and skeletal tissues, the skeleton, joints, muscles and muscle tissue, the muscular system, fundamentals of the nervous system and nervous tissue, the central nervous system, the peripheral nervous system and reflex activity, the autonomic nervous system, the special senses, the endocrine system, blood, the cardiovascular system: the heart, the cardiovascular system: blood vessels, the lymphatic system and lymphoid organs and tissues, the immune system: innate and adaptive body defenses, the respiratory system, the digestive system, nutrition metabolism and body temperature regulation, the urinary system, fluid electrolyte and acid-base balance, the reproductive system, pregnancy and human development, and heredity.

Seriously. That’s my life for the rest of this semester and the spring semester. You understand why I’m looking for the highlights.

So, I went to my prof (who is amazing) and spoke with her about my concerns. I’m worried that if I have to memorize the thousands of vocab words in this entire book, I will have a stroke. I am willing to read every single word – even twice – but don’t expect me to retain it all. She smiled gently and completely and immediately understood my concern. She instructed me to look at the learning objectives at the beginning of each chapter – because those were the highlights I was referring to and those would be the types of things on the exams. I was relieved to find out that despite the massive child-sized textbook I have to lug around, not all of that information needs to be crammed into my brain. After all, if I discover during the chapter on the digestive system that I really feel passionately about tummies, I can take additional specialized courses or training that will expand on that. Otherwise, I just need a basic understanding of how the human body works.

That being said, I love the class. I like the textbook, even if it does take a long time to read through. And, now that I know what the objectives are and what their purpose is, I can “lightly read” the parts in the book until I get to the core concepts, then I can really focus on detailed note-taking and memorization.

That’s my Monday from 1-4. Three straight hours of A&P lecture. She uses power points, which I have printed out for note-taking during he lecture, and she follows the textbook. She also glosses over the stuff that’s not directly stated in the objectives. We talk about it, but briefly.

From 4-7 it’s a whole different ball game. I have come to realize that Mondays are my least favorite day of the week.

You see, from 4-7, it’s a three-hour lab that relates to the lecture. This week we finished talking about The Cell and moved onto Tissues. The lecture is FAST PACED – designed to highlight the important concepts from the chapter reading that is supposed to be done before class begins. The lab exists to see – in real life – what the textbook is talking about. So, if we are talking about different types of tissue in the body, we go to lab and look at slides under a microscope to relate it to what we just learned.

There’s only one problem. I suck at it.

I don’t suck at using a microscope – I know what all the parts do. I can adjust the eye things (definite word choice.) so that it’s a binocular view, I can use the knobs to move the slide where I want it to go, and I understand how different levels of magnification work. All of that is fine. I run into trouble when it comes to locating what I am supposed to locate – which is what I learned yesterday.

Our lab assignment was to view different tissue types under the microscope to find different kinds of cells. Tissues have many different kinds of cells in them, so you have to be careful you find the right one. They are all stained purple so you can actually see what you are looking at, and because of the stain you can see the nucleus of the cell so you know it’s there. But there’s not just one, there are thousands and it’s hard to tell which one is which.

Let me give you an example. I was looking at epithelial tissue. There are different kinds of cells found in epithelial tissue. Here are the types that my textbook gives me:

Seems simple enough, right? Just look at that pretty picture. They are all so distinct and awesome-looking. The columnar cells look like columns and the cuboidals look like cubes. I am confident in my ability to find distinct shapes. So, I pull out the slide and this is what I see:

Uh… okay. So, clearly this is a god damn mess. Look at it! There’s all kinds of stuff going on here. Anywhere you see a dark purple dot (or a dark purple oval or circle thing) is a nucleus, so you know there are tons of cells here. From this far away (scanning power on the microscope) it all kind of looks the same. Let’s say I want to find the stratified squamous. Remember that those are flat and squishy. I locate the area that I think is the stratified squamous:

Doesn’t that look like the picture from the textbook? They are flat and squishy. In the big picture, they are about a fourth of the way down from the top, right in the middle. I am so proud of myself! Check out my ability to look at a diagram and find the cells!!! Go me! So, I call my teacher over excitedly, to tell her that I think I found what I am looking for but I need verification – I am nothing if not thorough. She peers through the microscope for a split second and says:

“No.”

Now, she doesn’t say No in a way that is at all insulting or soul-crushing – but I am devastated. I was riding high on my ability to match a diagram from a fucking science textbook to the real thing. Aren’t the diagrams supposed to be HELPFUL!?!? Dammit!!!!!

My prof made a few adjustments and asked me to look in the eye piece. She had located the ACTUAL cells I was trying to find. She explained what I was trying to find and I, in quite an ashamed tone, told her why I thought the cells I had found were the right ones. I was not defensive, nor was I pouty. But I was embarrassed. There’s a diagram for god’s sake.

Here’s what I was SUPPOSED to look for:

ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME. Let me ask you to scroll up a few times. See the top of the picture where all the lines are and a bunch of blobs? Yeah. That, according to the diagram, is this:

Those two things don’t even look alike! I was half embarrassed at my inability to translate what is obviously meant to be a cruel joke (textbook demonstration) to the real thing (tissue sample) and half angry at the stupid author of the textbook for not being more realistic. If it were me, I would have just drawn a big winking smiley face with the caption “Good luck, chump.”

To say that it deflated my self-esteem and confidence would be an understatement. I didn’t exactly run out of the room crying, but it only got worse from there.

Every. Single. Tissue. Sample. that I continued with from that point forward – I got them all wrong. I asked her over to verify (as she was doing for everyone else) and every time she had to show me where it really was. I became more and more agitated that I couldn’t find even the simplest things. I tried harder and harder to compare what I saw in the book to the real-life example, even jacking up my magnification to ensure that I had the right thing – and they were all wrong. I tried to explain to her what I saw through bizarre descriptors, like: “See that white blob that looks kind of like a silly lake around those other blobs that look like pink lakes? I think that’s what I’m looking for!” and she just looked at me like I couldn’t science. I felt like I should be wearing a t-shirt like this:

By the end of the class, I was emotionally spent. Completely out of confidence and steam and also on the verge of tears. Even the graded assignments she passed back – all As – couldn’t cheer me up. What good is an A on an assignment if I can’t locate something in a microscope – which is the whole point of the lab? I’m not kidding – they all look the same to me. I don’t see what I am supposed to see. It would be like trying to have a conversation with one of the Swahili people. I don’t speak Swahili. I don’t even know how to say hello in Swahili. It is completely lost on me. At one point during my spiral into madness, I even considered that I may not be intelligent enough to pass the class at all. I thought to myself that maybe I’m just not smart enough to pursue a nursing degree at all. You have to be really smart to be a nurse, I know that, but I thought I was smart enough. Social skills could use some work, but I can learn anything if I really try. With this, though, I literally do not comprehend it. I can’t see it. It’s the visual form of gibberish to me. I briefly considered abandoning the nursing path to professionally pick up dog shit instead. No way I could screw that up.

Then, on my drive home to make dinner for my wonderful Dave, I considered this – what is intelligence actually? What does it mean to be smart? Dammit, I’m smart. I can tell you lots of things about lots of things. So what if I can’t see a stratified squamous cell under a microscope no matter how hard I try? Even now – searching for the Google images – I can’t locate the columnar cells in the tissue samples (or the picture above) because I just don’t see it. I see a bunch of purple, some purple dots (which I know are nucleus, because they are so distinct), and a ton of odd-shaped blobs. Some lines. Don’t know what the lines are – could be the cell membranes, could be a hair.

Side note: two classes ago we were looking at sperm slides and I found what I thought was a sperm. Actually, it was a hair trapped in the cover slip. I thought it looked kind of funny, but I searched and searched and couldn’t find anything else, so I figured it must be that. As it turned out, I am a fucking idiot. Has anyone seen my village?

But anyway, I AM smart. I am very smart. I can tell you a lot of useless stuff and I can also tell you a bunch of important stuff. I know lots of things. I may not be comfortable talking about economics with my friend at work, but I can definitely tell you the purpose of a semi-colon and I can tell you what a standard deviation is in statistics. I just can’t translate the conceptual illustration with the real thing in a microscope.

When I told Dave the highlights of this (congratulations if you’re still reading this epic bitch-fest) he told me it was good that I wasn’t good at it. It’s good to try new things and have to try harder. I am pretty sure I did not receive that well – it is logical so I know I begrudgingly accepted his comment. I do know that I asked him if he had this trouble and he dodged the question and went back to making pies. I also know the other students in the class were able to find their cells pretty easily because I was listening to the chatter. At least I was alone – I had no lab partner so I didn’t have to be humiliated in front of someone else. But, I also didn’t have someone to share that confusion with, either. I was alone with no friend or face to share that burden. Les sigh.

In conclusion, Cs get degrees and I am going to scrape my way through lab. Also, I will probably spend a lot of Monday nights drinking red wine and trying not to hate myself. =)

When we are little girls, we dream of a prince. Maybe he has a horse (definitely white) or maybe he lives in castle. He will have perfect hair and save the day and take care of us. Also, we dream of someone to love us they way our daddy loves us.

When we are pre-teens, we just want to be able to make eye contact with the cute boy across the room. We wish we had different hair or clothing to attract his attention. We wish that our boobs and hips would just GROW IN ALREADY because we are behind the other girls in our grade. Seriously, we look like a boy. We want to be kissed but we have no idea where to even start.

When we are teenagers, we are raging with hormones and are confused about everything. Our bodies are changing rapidly and we have this deep need to procreate on a lizard-brain kind of level. We fall in love for the first time – and we fall hard. The world stops moving and then keeps moving again, and it is the force behind our passion and undying love that turns it.

When we are young adults, we have a variety of experiences that excite and confuse us. We experiment with all kinds of things – including being a lesbian or a slut. We are trying to cram our way into an existing society and create an identity for ourselves. Friends come and go and relationships are even more unstable; but we thrive on the passion and excitement of it all.

When we are heartbroken – again and again – we sometimes get to a point where we just want to stop trying. When you, say, flee an abusive marriage – you are shattered. It feels just as bad as when we were girls, pre-teens, teenagers, and young adults. The world, previously moved by our passions, continues to move and we realize it was never our passions that moved it. The plans we made and the feelings we have seem false in light of this new information. We want to crawl into a hole and forget everything that ever happened to us – good or bad. We are so broken – irrevocably it seems – that we don’t even know where to begin.

I used to want a prince. Someone to love me like my daddy does. Just to make eye contact with the cute boy in middle school. For breasts and hips and more expensive clothing. To sleep around and experiment my way through my sexual walkabout. I used to want to – more than all else – just to be loved and have the opportunity to love someone. That used to be enough.

I find, now, that I want so much more than for someone to just love me. The amount of heartbreak I have experienced and severely raised the bar. A casual hookup based on passion can be no more complicated than that – but lasting relationships need more than just love. They need a whole lot more.

I learned that I want to be respected. Ask anyone to define respect and they may look at you dumbfounded. We know all the things that are disrespectful, but what is respectful? Only the lack of disrespectful things? I don’t know. I don’t know how to define it, only that I want it.

I want to be listened to. I have a whole lot to say about everything and it’s all important. I don’t want to trim it down or give you the highlights. I want long and involved intellectual conversations and lively debates. I want you to ask me for more, not tell me to wrap it up.

I want to listen to someone. I want to be intellectually challenged and I want you to have your own opinions and own ideas about the world. I want to be exposed to your mind so that it may help me grow.

I want to be who I am without being asked to be someone else. I don’t want you to tweak me or make minor adjustments to my personality so that I fit your needs. I don’t want you to be embarrassed that I like to swing my arms when we hold hands or that I want to skip and sing in the grocery store sometimes. I want you to embrace my weirdness. I want to make my own decisions and I want your support.

I want to be trusted. I want to earn the trust and have it because I earned it. I want you to give me the space to make my own decisions without worrying that I may hurt you. I have been hurt in so many profound ways (and I will tell you all about them) and I would never hurt you that way.

I want to be able to be angry without having to yell. I want to have calm and rational decisions about how I feel. I don’t want to have to repeat myself. I want you to bring similar concerns to me so that I may decide for myself if I can provide what you need. I want you to provide what I need because you want to, not because you feel like you have to in order to be with me.

I want to make love. I want it to be sincere and emotional. Tender and intense. I want it to be a special act representative of the way we feel about one another. I want it to strengthen our connection and reflect the respect we have for one another and our relationship.

I want to be vulnerable. I want to be able to cry in front of you – and not the slightly attractive adorable cry – I’m talking the runny-nose and hysterical irrational emotional crying that people do sometimes. I want you to hold me and tell me that it will be okay because you understand that you cannot rationalize with someone who emotional.

I want you to have dreams, and I want you to stick to them. I don’t need sweeping sacrifices or a lifestyle change. If we are incompatible, that is okay with me, and it should be okay with you too. No hard feelings.

I want to be able to explain my boundaries to you, and I never want you to push them. I want to talk out my hopes and dreams, my innermost fears and secrets, and my shames. I want you to be a safe place where I can reveal the most carefully guarded parts of my heart because I know that you will handle them tenderly.

This list took many destructive relationships and poor lifestyle choices to come up with. It is this list that I use as a measuring tool for my relationships. I am so careful with my heart as it has been broken so many times, and I feel I don’t have another awful heartbreak in me. I came very close to throwing in the towel altogether… it is just so hard want to try when you get knocked down so many times.

Although I wrote this list thinking about some of my worst relationships and what I was lacking, it was not lost on me that this list also represents my current relationship. It started so simple – just a couple of people who met in a bar. The older brother of a friend of mine; I had met him only once. I knew his brother’s name but not his, and it was a comical introduction.

From there, the invitation to go on a date. Yes, that’s right, as in “Will you go on a date with me?” Naturally I said yes – the women in my generation will know how completely uncommon it is for a man to ask a woman who. It is always “Hey, wanna grab a drink?” or “Hey, wanna chill at my place?” Dude, that’s not how you get my attention. And yet that tactic had worked for so many years… despite my reservations, I had to accept. Who was this man?

On the first date I knew exactly what I needed to know about you. I knew that you were the real deal. I also knew that I was completely unprepared for what you had to offer, so I told you that I couldn’t see you and that we would remain friends.

A month or so later, I saw you again. I don’t really remember how it all got started, but I know that you would know – probably to the date. You’re good like that. We began seeing one another on a casual basis. I was still jittery about the idea of being official and exclusive. It didn’t take very long – however – to realize that if I didn’t just do it, some other woman was going to come take you away from me. I definitely couldn’t let go of someone so special, but I was still afraid. You were thrilled to be exclusive and understood my reservations.

We worked on it. A lot. Many conversations about my past relationships and yours. Many nights of emotional anxiety and fear of being vulnerable. You were patient and kind and you never pushed. You waited. You knew what I didn’t – that I was capable of something so deep and profound – if I would only come around to the idea!! =)

And then, one day, I realized that I had nothing to be afraid of. I realized that it had been six months and I had never gotten angry at you. I realized that, I’ve never worried what you might say or do. I realized that I knew you would never hurt me, and that you really loved me. The mushy stuff that everyone loves in the beginning of a relationship didn’t wear off. You still tell me at least twice a day how beautiful I am and how lucky you feel. You tell me that I am special and smart and funny and you enjoy my weirdness.

We never stop talking. About everything. You are just about as long-winded as I am. We laugh, we are serious, we are lively, and we are patient with one another. We pay attention to everything. We ask how the other one is doing. We have meaningful kisses every time we see each other. We have fun no matter what we are doing – whether it’s you reading me Chronicles of Narnia in a British accent or hanging out on the river in the canoe or just taking a walk. We always have a blast.

I came to realize that I feel most like myself when I am in your presence. I don’t have to be a version of myself for you; I can simply be. I can tell you absolutely anything. I trust you, completely, because I know you are a man of strong character and a good heart.

I love that we talk all the time. I love that we never have fights. I love that we have all of the things on my list. You are the reason that I feel I deserve these things for myself. You showed me how a person ought to be treated. Your behavior is the perfect definition of respect, and I find myself hoping that I am half as good to you as you are to me. I don’t know that I can pull off much more than that, but I want to try every day.

You never asked me to be something I am not. Rather, you asked me what I wanted to be and then you provided the support and space to do so. You watched me evolve into a person that didn’t want to have brunch (because that’s too intimate and serious and relationship-y) to a person that wants to move in with you and create a home for us. I went from being a person that was afraid to open up to a person that embraces being who I am. By providing a safe environment – where I would never be judged – and always providing honest feedback and positive reinforcement, you helped me repair my broken self-esteem. You gently guided me to the place in my heart where I know I deserve to be loved and treated with respect. I think I always knew that deep down, but it is so hard to really believe in your soul when so many people rip you apart inside. You showed me that there are people out there that care about others just as much as they care about themselves.

Most importantly, you helped me to realize that I can survive anything because I am a strong woman. Even in the unlikely event that you and I don’t work out long-term, I know that I will always be okay because I am here today. I don’t say that you saved me or that without you I wouldn’t be the person I am; you helped me realize I can save myself and I am special all by myself – not because of the person I am with.

I like myself more and more each day because you really made me believe that I have always been special, and no one can take that away from me.

For this I am eternally grateful – and I find it funny when you tell me that you are so lucky. The truth is, I am the lucky one.

I love you.

Kyrston

I approach the table, feeling weary from my summer cold and the late hour. Hopefully this will be my last round of guests before I can finally go home and get some rest. It is table of four – with an older gentleman (my dad’s age, maybe older), and two young women and a young man. I greet them with a smile, welcoming them to our restaurant, and ask them what they would care to drink. I am looking at the older gentleman, mostly because he is the ranking adult, but also because he is position “one” in my lineup.

One of the younger women, perhaps my age, speaks up immediately. She tells me what she would like, in a polite but assertive tone, and adds “waters all around” at the end. I look at her, bemused, and smile and nod and write her order down. I then watch as she helps the older gentleman select the wine he should drink. I am then puzzled; clearly this young lady is wearing the pants at the table.

When I return with their drinks and take the order, she again speaks up immediately. She has questions about the menu, and again is polite but assertive. This chick knows exactly what she wants. She is direct, makes eye contact, and I immediately respect her for the way she carries herself. She is commanding the conversation and I, like the others, fall in line – bemused. I find myself wondering – who is this girl? How old is she?

When I return some time later, I find I cannot help myself and I politely ask her how old she is. She gives a knowing smile, and declares that she is thirteen. I smile, look at her, and say, “Honey, you are a natural-born leader. I want you to remember that when it comes time for you to pick your path in life. You are meant to lead others.” Her beaming smile warmed my heart and she proudly responded “I’ve been to several leadership camps.”

She was, in every way, just a thirteen-year-old girl. A little rough around the edges with the joy of a child in her eyes. It didn’t appear as though life had really taken away that spark. It made me very sad to think of all the things she might experience to take away that spark and self-confidence. Because I am who I am, I wanted to sit her down and give her some words of advice. However, that is not my job. My job is to create a wonderful experience for my guests at the restaurant, and I made sure they had a wonderful evening.

But, it kept me thinking all night and this morning, and so I want to write down what I would have told her if I could have – simply because every young person should know these things, and I could stand to remember them as well. I don’t pretend to have any grand wisdom at the ripe age of twenty-four, but if I could go back – this is what I would tell my thirteen-year-old self. And again at fourteen, fifteen, especially sixteen and seventeen, and onward. I should really be telling myself these things every day. So, in no particular order…

14 CHEAT CODES FOR THE YOUNG ADULT

1. No one, and I mean no one, decides what kind of person you are. You must decide, for yourself, who you want to be. Whatever you decide, it is you that must live with it. It can be hard, as a teenager, to want to fit in. For a lot of people, they have this problem in their adult lives. The pressure to be liked or to find a place never really goes away. You must decide what your place is and create it for yourself. You take all the credit for what you have built from where you started, and you have all the power.

2. How you feel about who you are is your responsibility. There will come a time when you fall in love. You will almost certainly pick the wrong person, through no fault of your own, and these intense feelings can change the way you feel about yourself. They can make you feel high and glorious… and when it’s over you can feel as low as a person can feel. This is not the other person’s fault. No matter what they do to you, it is on you to manage your own sense of self-worth. You have to believe – really believe – that you are a person deserving of love and respect without anyone helping you to realize that. When that external influence goes away, you will be left broken. So, remember to always be who you are, and accept the love from someone who appreciates you, not some version of yourself.

3. You will make mistakes. You will make a lot of them. You will feel pressured to make the right choices, but you won’t. You’ll make some good choices, and some bad ones. Such is life. Your parents, your older siblings, your teachers, anyone you respect – they all make mistakes, too. Sometimes an adult will look at a teen and be frustrated – but this is because we don’t want you to make the same mistakes we did, we want better for you. The truth is that you are going to make them. Try as hard as you can to make good choices, but at the end of the day remember that the mistakes you make are a part of growing up and it’s okay. Forgive yourself for not being perfect, because perfection is impossible.

4. Your parents will break you. When I say that, I mean that when we are born we are a clean slate, more or less. Our parents shape us into adults, and things influence us along the way. Whether you have the world’s best parents or the world’s crappiest parents, every young person becomes an adult and realizes, over time, that we are broken. This may be their fault, but it is on you to fix it. Sometimes it can happen even with the best of intentions, and sometimes it can happen because they are unprepared to be parents, or sometimes it can happen because they don’t really care that much. No matter what kind of parents you have – you must understand yourself and change the things you wish you could. You can say out loud “I am this way because my mom/dad did x-y-z…” but at the end of the day – it is on you to be different if you want to. You cannot blame them for something that, as an adult, is your responsibility.

5. Life isn’t fair. We all have these plans of grandeur for our adult lives. We are shocked to find that some things are impossible or some things take more work than we thought. And, even if we try our hardest and do everything right, we don’t always get what we want. The wrong person gets the promotion, the wrong girl gets the guy (or the wrong guy gets the girl), and the wrong student gets the scholarship. We realize – life isn’t fair. It doesn’t work how it’s supposed to. Don’t let this break your spirit! Make it work to your advantage. Be prepared so that it doesn’t knock the wind out of you with disappointment. And, things do balance over time. Even if you are struggling at 19, you will feel better at 20 or 21. Have patience and a little faith that it will all work out in the end. In the meantime, enjoy the experiences you are having.

6. You have absolutely no idea what will happen to you. This can be hard to wrap your mind around, because maybe you want to feel in control of your life. If you are this kind of person, let go a little. I don’t mean some catastrophic event like getting hit by a meteor, I mean… you are only in control of you, and you might change your mind. Your boyfriend or girlfriend could do anything they want, and it could blindside you. Your best friend could stab you in the back, you could be fired for some bullshit reason – you could have cockroaches in your apartment! You never know what will happen. But there are good things that happen, too, and you’ll never know it. The right job could be just around the corner, and you may bump into your next great love. Never close any doors on yourself – the world will close enough of them for you, be open to everything and anything.

7. It’s okay to ask for help. Everyone does it. Whether it’s asking your parents for a little bit of cash to make rent, or seeking a therapist for talking this stuff through – because it is HEAVY stuff sometimes – asking for help does NOT make you a failure. It makes you smart. Smart individuals achieve things with the help of others. All great thinks are a collaborative effort.

8. No one is looking out for your best interests but you. No matter how close your friendships are or how great your relationship is – most people are selfish and are thinking of themselves. If you have a strong family, seek advice from them and listen carefully. Adults know more than you do only by living longer and experiencing the very same things you are experiencing. But, always remember that your well-being is your responsibility, and you should always look out for your own safety.

9. Most relationship are temporary. It can be hard to accept this when you are in high school or have just graduated and are in college. The relationships you make feel so permanent – whether it be a friend or romantic partner. It is possible that the relationships you make will last, but unlikely. Most relationships you make as a young person are based on mutual need or proximity. Don’t be heartbroken when in a year, all of your friends are different. Be careful with your heart, because your peers are figuring it out just like you are. They will come and go, and this is a natural part of growing up.

10. You are going to change… drastically. This is just a part of growing up, too. One year you’ll feel one way, the next year you will change. Your interests, your feelings, and your goals. This is all a part of becoming the final version of yourself, although you will change more and more your whole life. Embrace new things and expose yourself to as many new ideas as possible. Try everything – that is truly living.

11. It will feel super-important in the moment, but it’s not. That fight you had with your boyfriend, that thing your friend said, and that one class that just made you crazy. In a few weeks, or months, you will forget it ever happened. Keep this in mind when, in the moment, it feels like your world is falling apart. It’s not. You’ll be okay. Try to only invest in the things that benefit you!

12. Plans are important, but so is flexibility. Taking into consideration that you will change and you never know what will happen, it’s hard to say “make a plan”. The reality is, goals are important, and be flexible if they change, too. You should have a general sense of where you want your life to go, but that doesn’t mean you are a failure if you change your mind. That is the true beauty of being an adult – you have the power! You have the freedom to go wherever you want and do whatever you want. Embrace this mentality. Don’t be so rigid that you push through your life getting to the next checkpoint. You will find yourself wholly unsatisfied. As you grow, your needs will change and your goals will change too. That’s a part of growing up.

13. Money matters, but so does your happiness. Unfortunately, we live in a capitalist society and it takes cash to do everything. You’ll need all kinds of things and for that you need money – so you have to work. As an 18-year-old, even up to 25, you’re going to be stuck doing jobs that you hate. It’ll be some bullshit low-paying job that sucks away your soul. This is a necessary evil in order to survive. The best thing you can do is make wise financial choices – ie don’t go into debt, don’t max out credit cards, start saving immediately. You don’t want to be in a position where you are living paycheck to paycheck or at the mercy of your money choices, because then a lot of these cheat codes are moot. You won’t have as many options if you have to work at your job in order to keep the lights turned on. Your best bet is to have an emergency fund of three-month’s pay in case your car breaks down (which it most certainly will) or you have to find a new place to live immediately (which is possible, too).

14. Lastly, you will feel more or less lost and miserable for the first few years. It takes time to adjust to all these things, and I know that you’re not really going to remember any of them anyway, but if nothing else sticks – remember this: it’s gonna suck. There’s going to be a lot of nights when you can’t fall asleep because you feel so hopelessly lost and out of control. Remember that this is normal and it will pass. Things will normalize and you will get used to it. You’ll turn out just fine. Don’t be afraid, because you can do this. You have all the tools you need right inside your head, and whatever you are missing you can easily learn or acquire. You have the mental capacity to learn anything, do anything, and be anything. Trust yourself. On the other side, you will look back and just smile at how crazy it all was, and how you can’t believe you through it when, at the time, you thought you never would. But you will. And it’s going to be awesome.

This morning I read the Facebook status of a childhood friend. It was very open and honest, and it was about the depression she suffers from. It did not read like a “poor me, why can’t everything be okay?” status, in fact it was beautifully written and poetic. She certainly has a way with words. The general point of her status – aside from how she feels about the sadness – was the irritation at this thing getting in the way of her achieving her goals. She feels so frustrated that she can’t take the world by storm, because as she puts it, it can be so hard just to get out of bed in the morning.

Many individuals suffer from some level of sadness, anxiety, or depression – I would say everyone, actually. As human beings, we are capable of feeling things very intensely. We feel intense joy, and the counterpoint of that is the sometimes debilitating effect of those negative emotions. How we deal with it is specific to each individual and the level of depression. It can be as simple as a nice long run for some people, while other require hospitalization to achieve normalcy. I don’t think either of these extremes is wrong or right, I just recognize that each person feels differently and requires a different level of intervention to find balance in life.

I am not an expert on the field – not a psychologist or a physician or anything like that – I can only bring my own personal experience to the table. The internet is sometimes used for pictures of cats or videos of people running into things, but it can also be used to connect one another in a true online community of emotion and feeling. It is for this reason that I will share my personal experiences, for her and for anyone else that finds themselves stuck with what to do.

As an adolescent, I had some struggles with overwhelming feelings and not knowing how to handle them. It was common around my house to say that Kyrston’s cup was overflowing – onto everyone else. It didn’t matter what the feeling was – happiness, anger, sadness, excitement – I just couldn’t handle it. I would act out in the most annoying ways, and my parents realized that this issue had better be addressed if I ever hoped to survive the sometimes cruel and harsh adult world. Thus, they taught me how to properly analyze my feelings and discover where they come from, rather than just feeling it. This can be extraordinarily painful; who wants to go into that black hole of madness and see what lies at the center? But, as time passed, it got easier and easier. It is a reflex now – when I feel something, I automatically try to get to the bottom of where that feeling comes from, so that I can understand myself and try to work through it.

As a teen, I did have bouts of what some people may call “depression” – I am hesitant to use any specific words because I was never clinically diagnosed (as if they know what they are doing, right?) and it seems that, as a culture, we typically toss these words around that are supposed to be serious. The reality is – depression is a word to describe a feeling that we collectively share, and it’s okay to say it out loud. It’s really okay to say that you are depressed, even if it’s just for the day, and the next day feel better. Sometimes you can be depressed for a few months or even a few years.

I know that some people have a chemical imbalance in their brains that require the use of medication to intervene, but I shy away from using prescription medication for pretty much everything. This is only how I feel, mind you, and I do not judge anyone that does it differently. I feel the same way that my friend wrote – “I didn’t want to become dependent on them, I didn’t want to pollute my body, and I didn’t want them to change me in a negative way. I don’t want to become a drone. I don’t want to become benumbed to the world. And I especially don’t want it to trick me into thinking that I’m okay with my life right now, that I’m content and I can settle for things I know I don’t really want.”

I typically prefer using holistic healing to heal my body. For those of you that don’t know – the holistic approach takes into consideration the entire body as a whole, rather than addressing the symptoms. For example, when I have a headache, I do not immediately reach into my purse for the 500 mg Tylenol. I drink a glass of water, I stop drinking coffee, I eat something, or I get some sleep. A headache is my body’s way of telling me that something is wrong, and needs to be fixed. It works the same way – with some cases – with depression and anxiety. Am I saying that your particular case of anxiety or depression does not require medication? Of course not. I’m not a doctor. But it can be pretty scary to feel as anxious as you do, or as depressed as you do, and you don’t understand what’s going on and just want to feel better.

In the months prior to getting married, I had severe anxiety. Actually, I had anxiety long before that, but getting married just amplified all of the things I was feeling. I was constantly nauseous to the point where I couldn’t eat – for years I had this problem – and I was always feeling blue. Then, a few months before the wedding, I noticed that I felt like I had this giant lump in my throat. It was right at the base of the throat – I could feel it (from the inside) in the hollow between my two collar bones. It felt like I had taken a big bite of mashed potatoes or something, and it was lodged there. I could still swallow, and breathe, but it was uncomfortable and it scared the hell out of me. Of course, being scared about it only amplified it. It wasn’t always there, but I started to notice a pattern. As soon as I felt anxious, I could feel that lump when I swallowed.

Naturally, this was all in my mind. The brain is a powerful tool – but the mind is even more powerful. The mind is where our memories come from, and our feelings, and our decisions and actions. The mind holds our personality, and we can do powerful things with it. Monks can meditate to the point of keeping themselves warm in freezing temperatures just by using the mind – and so too I would make this terrifying sensation go away by the power of thought. It was one of the few moments in my life where I almost “broke down” and went on anti-anxiety medication, because I felt like everything was completely out of control. In fact, things were going unchecked, and it was my mind’s way of telling me “danger! danger! something is wrong! pay attention!” It worked, alright. It took awhile, but eventually I was able to manage my anxiety just by thinking myself out of it, and I’ve never felt that lump since.

Another problem associated with depression and anxiety is the inability to fall asleep or stay asleep. When my ex-husband and I first separated, I was so afraid for my safety that a friend of mine had to talk me to sleep on the phone every night. I went to bed at one or two in the morning, from exhaustion, and always woke up at five or six in the morning. I was crashing – big time – exhausted at work and completely at a loss for what to do. I started smoking marijuana before I went to sleep so that it would calm my mind, and this seemed to work for me, because I felt rested in the morning. Who knows if this was actually the drug or if my mind simply felt like it was taking charge and it was a placebo effect. No matter – it worked – and it was a temporary “emergency” fix.

Others may find themselves feeling stuck in their lives – which I think is incredibly common for people in my age group. You spend your entire childhood completely unprepared for adult life. Most people, I find, didn’t listen to their parents in their teen years and we are shocked when we realize how different the world is (and being an adult in it) than we thought it would be. Sure, there’s lots of partying and sex and freedom to enjoy – but there’s also rent and the electric bill and the soul-crushing realization that our future is on us, now. And what are we to do? With the external pressure from society or our friends and families to behave a certain way – going against how we feel inside – it can all be very depressing.

I have definitely had days where it takes all of my energy just to get out of bed in the morning. On those days it’s easy to feel worse about myself because I feel like a ghost. I’ve learned – over time – to forgive myself for those things that I think I should feel bad about. There’s all this pressure to do certain things in life, to amount to something, but why can’t we just be honest? No matter how old you are, you are still figuring it out. Then you come to a moment when you realize – I know absolutely nothing. It can be scary at first, but it is also liberating. There was a time when I thought I knew where my life was going to go – I was married and I was trying to have a baby and I was going to have a life that I had planned out. When everything changed, in one night, I realized – I have no idea what’s around the corner. Absolutely no clue. Instead of being afraid, I let go of trying to be any one thing and just make minor wins. Those minor wins end up being major wins, when you look at the time in the rear view mirror.

A minor win, for me, was seeing a therapist to address my feelings about my divorce. It seemed like such a small thing, but looking back, I am better now and it was ME that did that – no one else. Another minor win – my first college class as an adjusted adult. Sure, it was just Humanities, and sure it was only one class. But I still got an A and that led to more self-confidence and another A and another.

Another thing I have learned is patience. In a particularly bad moment of depression or anxiety, the panic can set in or the feeling of complete desolation and apathy. It can be terrible – but just wait. Just wait. One day, two days, maybe a week. When I arrived here a year ago, I was a basket case. My dad told me, very gently, that in a year I would feel a million times better. Although he has been right about nearly everything my entire life, I just couldn’t believe it. I cried and cried when he said that, because how could that even be possible? It didn’t even take a full year. Six months, maybe, before I started to feel better about it. And my therapist warned me – you will lapse, and have negative feelings, and this is normal. It will come as a shock, but we never really get over anything, it’s all mixed up in who we are.

Your anxiety and depression is a part of who you are. Make it work for you. My anxiety is a tool that I have. When shit needs to get done, no one can accomplish things under pressure like I can. I am so used to feeling pressure that success comes easily to me that way. When I am sad, I use it as a respite from my life. I do sometimes just lay in bed, if only to forgive myself that I feel sad and be a little self-indulgent and wait it out. Some people do not have this luxury, because of jobs or responsibilities. If you do have to get out of bed – what looks like a minor win is really a major win. Don’t say that it’s all you can do to get out of bed in the morning like you’re worthless and weak. If that’s where you are – and you get out of bed – throw yourself a mini parade in your awesomeness. This sounds silly, but it helps.

Lastly – it is a proven fact that when we make decisions or when we behave in a certain way, we create neural pathways in our brain. There is the separation between the physical part of our body – the brain – and the ambiguous part of our body – the mind. The two work together to do everything, and you can make your brain do whatever you want, if you try. Every time you have a negative reaction to something, you are reinforcing that neural pathway. Soon it will become a reflex. There is so much medical data to support this claim – so this is the one thing that I am saying as a representative of the medicine. The rest I just pulled from my own experiences and things my therapist has told me, but this is true. Whenever you repeat an action, you reinforce that pathway. The best way to keep your brain healthy and strong is to use your mind to be a brand new person every day. So, that means, take risks. Try new things. Go outside your comfort zone. Concentrate on really seeing another point of view in an argument. Every time you do, it will feel incredibly unnatural (depending on how stuck you are in your current way) but you are healing your brain with your mind. Every time you try something new – maybe don’t have this one cigarette, wait until the next one, you are weakening an existing pathway and strengthening another, or building a new one. This same mentality can be applied to anxiety and depression.

This holistic method does not work for everyone, obviously, and I do not wish to offend anyone by my perspective. It works for some, for others it does not. But as a general rule, my advice is: forgive yourself for the way you feel about being anxious or depressed, make your anxiety and depression work for you, try new things and build new neural pathways, take a break from your life, pick a minor win and recognize that it is a major win, and let go of the idea that you are in control of everything. Go with the flow, give yourself a break, and be creative. Try yoga, try therapy, try the medication. Go for a bike ride, do some cartwheels, make a list of the things you love about your life or that you have accomplished. Figure out where your emotions come from. Don’t be afraid to go into that scary place in your mind.

And above all else – love yourself for exactly who you are, whether you feel broken or not.

Tonight’s blog post is entirely about sex. I’m telling you upfront that if you blush easily, or feel uncomfortable talking about sex openly, you should probably just close your browser window and move along. Scratch that – reverse – if you feel that way, then you are like me and you should definitely read this post.

I have been contemplating writing about this, but certain things always gave me pause. What will my parents think? Their parents? My friends? What if someone “important” comes across this blog post and judges me for being so open? On and on my mind went, considering this and that. Finally I decided that I can’t say I believe in something if I am unable to post it publicly with pride. On the other hand, just because I believe in something doesn’t necessarily mean I am comfortable with it (more on that later) – so this journey will be just as uncomfortable for me to write as it may be for you to read it.

I came across a YouTube channel a few months ago that inspired me and also horrified me. A very brave woman named Laci Green has a video series all about sexuality. She talks about the stuff that no one wants to talk about: masturbation, foreskin, losing your virginity, anal sex, body image, relationships, periods, pubic hair, the list goes on. Even more amazing, Laci is so incredibly frank in her videos and unapologetic. She says the word vagina without blushing and doesn’t seem to mind openly discussing these things as if she were discussing the weather. Her videos are as supportive as they are informative; she easily answers questions about sex and helps us feel that talking about these things is okay. My first inclination was to give this resource to my 17-year-old sister, who may have questions about things that she doesn’t want to talk to adults (read: my parents or myself) about. Since I personally know what’s on the internet (Yahoo questions is a scary place, people), I wanted her to have this tool.

Exploring sexuality and sexual essence is a journey. It begins when you discover that touching your genitals can produce a wonderful feeling. You may have heard about it at school, or read about it on the internet, or just happened upon it by accident. I don’t quite remember when I figured it out or why, but I remember that I wanted to do it again. First message of this blog post: masturbation is not only completely normal, but it is also completely healthy and virtually EVERYONE does it.

We never talk about this. At least, most women don’t. I don’t know about men, but I think most women generally don’t talk about masturbating. Even the word masturbation sounds disgusting… something about the “tur” part of the word. I don’t really care what it’s called… private time, alone time with myself, me-time… no matter how you slice it, it’s important. There is something very important about discovering who you are sexually. If I could go back and do it all over again – I would have spent more time asking questions or researching just this thing before having sex. Don’t get me wrong, I was doing it all the time, because an orgasm feels amazing. But, instead, I supplemented my routine pleasure with sex with a partner. I would have been better off spending the time to explore my body. Where are my erogenous zones? Where do I like to be touched? Where don’t I like to be touched?

Where do we learn these techniques, anyway? Mostly through self-exploration or articles, but also through pornography. Message number two: pornography is a powerful erotic tool for pleasure and you should not be ashamed that you watch it. Let me tell you something. Nearly everyone (and because I am taking a statistics class it is important that I not generalize for there are several outliers that can skew the data set) has watched or currently watches or plans to watch porn. Ladies – if a man tells you that he doesn’t, he is lying to you, probably because he is afraid of how you will react if he tells the truth. Let’s face it – we put our own insecurities on our partners. Gentlemen – if a woman tells you that she does not watch porn, she is lying. I don’t know the statistics, but I know from my own conversations that it is a lot more common than women care to admit or men know. We do it too. We also masturbate on a regular basis, and we also like sex.

Pornography is a great tool because it creates a safe environment for you to explore different erotic areas without fear of judgement or embarrassment. Let’s face it – how many of us wouldn’t necessarily mind if our partner knew we looked at porn, but we definitely don’t want them to know the KIND of porn we watch? I know I don’t. I don’t mind telling people – it seems any chance I get I proudly pronounce (with a hand in the air) that I watch it. But if someone asked me what kind of erotic material I liked? Well that’s just too personal a question, now isn’t it? But why? Because sometimes I am ashamed.

I know that we live in a society where men are characterized to be crazy horny carnal creatures that always want to have sex. From my extensive research among men throughout the years, this seems to be more or less the case. They are not one-dimensional, but they love sex. Women, on the other hand, are pressured by societal expectations to be lady-like. We are not to be slutty, we are not to be dirty or skanky, and we are certainly supposed to cherish our bodies and treat them with respect. What makes the famous novel Fifty Shades of Grey so appealing? Well, it allows women to experience – almost firsthand – the kind of naughty erotic stuff that ladies are not supposed to be into. This is a truly disturbing phenomena. Why is it that men are celebrated for embracing their sexual essence whereas women are taught to subdue it? Sure, we like to wear revealing clothing to accentuate our features and seduce men into bed with us… but then what happens?

Honestly, I am not sure about the rest of you, but I am pretty vanilla. Or, at least, I want to seem vanilla. There is some powerful stuff going on inside my brain that tells me that “nice ladylike women” do not say the kinds of things featured in “filthy” pornography. Women are meant to be submissive and soft and sensitive. They are not meant to take charge in the bedroom or communicate about what works and what doesn’t. For me, at least, there are some things that I want to do and some I don’t, but then there are other things that I want to do or have done to me that I am ashamed to admit, only because it doesn’t seem ladylike. And I gotta tell ya – I’ve seen a lot of different stuff and my wants look tame compared to the wide spectrum of sexual indulgences.

As far as talking about sex, I don’t know how men talk about it, but women seem to talk in detail. I have a limited number of friends (maybe two) that talk about sex in detail. We talk about positions, sounds we or our partners make, new things we try, and how it makes us feel, etc. It’s hard to initiate a conversation about it because some people are just private, but I find myself wondering why.

For example, a package came in the mail yesterday. I toyed around with the notion (no pun intended) of upgrading my current pleasure device, and I was just wondering what would happen if my father asked me what came in the mail. Would I tell him that I upgraded to a new vibrator because I am a grown-ass woman who needs a real toy? Would I tell him that he “doesn’t want to know”? Turns out we had a nice long chat about this very subject this evening, because I have the coolest dad ever that is so progressive he makes most liberals look conservative.

Message Number Three: toys are a great way to give something back… to yourself. Also, they are not a substitution for a man (or woman) in your sex life. You work hard! You are tired! You are stressed about all kinds of stuff! My recommendation is spend a solid twenty minutes (or however long it takes) just taking time for yourself. It’s relaxing, indulgent, and fun! A friend of mine once told me… I don’t have a vibrator and never have tried one. Ladies, if this includes you, you gotta trust me. There is nothing else like it, and it’s awesome. They make similar products for men that simulate the feeling of penetration in all kinds of places. Every man I’ve talked to that uses one endorses it completely. You are missing out if you don’t have this particular tool in your tool box. For that matter, you should have a variety. These tools help you to locate spots that you didn’t previously know were there. They help you get used to the sound of your own voice when you are in a happy place, and they teach you how to orgasm properly. Ladies – if you aren’t having an orgasm during sex, try this out. See what it takes to get you there, and talk to your partner about it.

Like I said before, this is not a substitution for actual sex. Sex is great, making love is great, all of it is great. There are so many ways to do it and so many new things to try – it’s fantastic. But time with yourself is purely selfish in that you hone in on only your own needs. It’s so healthy and so empowering. No one is there to judge you and you can build confidence and feel sexy knowing that you can fulfill your own needs. It’s not gross, it’s not un-ladylike, and it’s not abnormal. Everyone is doing it, and you should too. This is the one time that you should do what everyone else is doing. If you try it and you truly don’t enjoy yourself… well, I won’t even make a wager. I know that you will.

Also, gentleman, please do no feel threatened by your partner’s use of a vibrator in private. You do masturbate, don’t you? Don’t tell me that because you are a man you have different needs than a woman does. Everyone needs to orgasm to keep a balanced and healthy center. Just because we are ladies does not mean that we don’t have needs, too. And just because we fulfill our needs alone does not mean that we don’t need you. We love you, we love your body, we love having sex with you. But sometimes we just want a little r&r. If you really want to impress your woman, invite her to use it during sex. The reality is that a vibrator moves about a million times faster that you can make any part of your body move. It is a unique sensation that only belongs to the tool. It is certainly not as satisfying as actual sex or any kind of foreplay, and there is no emotional connection involved, but it is utterly satisfying. Imagine if you had trouble climaxing quickly… now imagine that something existed that took that problem away. Many women struggle to orgasm during sex, and a vibrator can really help,

Message number four: for some women, climaxing during sex is hard work. Not only that, but many women feel embarrassed at their inability to climax at all. The phenomena of women “faking it” during sex likely comes from the pressure from the partner (which is often self-imposed – not your fault) to climax. I, for one, refuse to fake it. If your ego is so delicate that I can’t tell you that I didn’t, that’s on you – not me. I am always honest with my partners, and I can typically tell why it didn’t happen. There are many ways a woman can achieve climax. For some women, simply stimulating an erogenous zone for an extended period of time can cause them to orgasm, even if it’s not around the vagina. For other women, the erotic feelings take time to coax out. We know how long it takes, and we feel bad for you working down there for so long. We don’t want to let you down, so we fake it (we meaning some women, myself not included). Although orgasm is not the most important part of sex, it is a piece that everyone seems to focus on, especially the men (or so we feel). Ladies – if your man seems like he wants you to orgasm because he wants to feel good about his manly powers – red flag. Pleasuring one another should be about reinforcing the bond that you have, or simply having a good time. The famous line “was that good for you” is too often used to restore self-confidence. That question is okay to talk about the sex in an exploratory way, but when it’s laced with all that insecurity – we can tell, and we will lie because we are kind creatures. Except for me, apparently. I do make it a point to say that I really enjoyed it (when I really do, which is almost always) to soften the blow.

But, as a tip, most women need at least clitoral stimulation in order to achieve orgasm. That means that forty-five minutes of pounding away isn’t going to get it done. Some women do have a g-spot, which is on the inside of the body, but it can be hard to climax that way alone. The outside must also be stimulated in order to climax. This is a crucial piece of sex that most men are not aware of. And please, guys, don’t feel bad that your penis isn’t enough. It’s just the way we are wired. Just like certain types of stroking get you to climax, we need stroking too. This is a great way to incorporate a vibrator into the bedroom, especially if it is a small clitoral stimulator. It saves your hand from getting tired and works must faster. You can use it on your partner, or if she is very brave, she can use it on herself while you are having sex.

That brings me to the next point – message five – if it turns you on, let it turn you on. I can’t speak for other women, but there’s no getting away from what you find sexy. It can be silly to admit or feel embarrassing, but if you really like someone talking to you in a dirty way so you can feel like a dirty girl (or naughty, if you prefer) that doesn’t mean you are actually dirty in a bad way. It’s just what you’re into. In contrast, if you’re not into something, you’re not into it. The “right” kinds of women aren’t the ones that just LOVE threesomes or anal sex or any of the things that men are rumored to love. There are some men that love those things and some that don’t, but only go where you are comfortable. That may change over time, but it is certainly a journey that you need to take at your own pace. Men, that goes for you too.

Message number six! The number of sexual partners you have DOES NOT MATTER. Seriously, this one bothers me the most. In my opinion, two consenting adults having safe sex… nothing wrong with it. Nothing at all. Slut shaming is HUGE in our society. There is so much pressure for men to have a high (but not too high) number and women to have a relatively low number. Why is this? Do I think it’s dangerous to have unprotected sex with strangers? Yes. STDs and STIs and unwanted pregnancy and all that. Do I also prefer to make love rather than bang away? I guess it depends on my mood, but for the most part I am pretty emotional and like it to be a special magical thing. Will I judge you if you tell me that you prefer safe-sex hookups rather than enduring relationships? Of course not! Will I be offended if you judge me for the number of men I have slept with? Quite offended indeed. The reality is that we are all on a sexual walkabout of sorts and it takes all kinds of things to figure out who we are. Just like with food – it is best to try everything once. I typically say I will try everything once, but because I am who I am it has to be with a person I trust. Not all women have that requirement, but I certainly do. But if I say no – how will I ever fill in that piece of the puzzle? How will I ever check off the box that says “incorporated food in the bedroom” or “experimented with someone of the same-sex”? Sure, some things just seem bizarre to me personally, but that does not mean they are not bizarre in general. Just not my taste. But, by and large, it takes a lot of different partners to figure out what it is you like. Different people make love in different ways. I have been with men that are completely silent and men that are very expressive. I have been with men that are very aggressive and men that are rather tame. I have a better understanding of my needs and erotic desires from the last four sexual partners than the ones before that, because I am finally learning that it is okay to experiment as long as I make good choices.

Of the number of partners that I have had, I have never had a sexually transmitted disease nor have I ever been pregnant. I’d say that for a solid eight years of being sexually active this is a pretty good feat. And no, I did not accomplish this with one or two partners. More than ten but less than twenty. I honestly don’t even keep track anymore, because the number doesn’t really matter. If I tell some people who, they are impressed. Others seem disgusted. I am not sure why. I am a consenting adult making rational and logical choices. I have only once gotten so drunk that I had sex with a complete stranger, and I must admit that I am proud to say that. It is one of those life experiences that really teaches you something about yourself. Also, much of loving oneself is about looking at the life one has lived and forgiving oneself. Be your own best friend and ally and live free of shame.

Message number seven – talk about sex. All the time, and about all of it. This in particular has always been something I enjoy. It’s not something I had always done, but I picked it up a few partners back and have sort of used it ever since. It really reinforces the bond you have with someone when you can talk during or after sex about what happened. It also helps to LAUGH when something goes wrong. Did you just hear a farting noise coming from DOWN THERE?! Oh god! The embarrassment! First of all, the term is called vaginal flatulence (slang term is queefing) and it’s completely normal. Basically, when air gets trapped there (because the vulva is a body orifice of sorts) it comes back out through a narrow, moist opening and sounds like a fart. It can be terribly embarrassing, about as embarrassing as a man losing an erection (I would imagine) but if you laugh about it, it’s no big deal. Most men know what’s up, and may resist the urge to laugh, but I typically just give an exaggerated sigh and make some offhand comment about how strange that noise is. Or, perhaps a bullfrog is in the room. Either way – when weird things happen, you should probably talk them out. We spend so much time in our own heads, and it’s time to stop wondering and start asking questions. Ask your partner – do you like this? Do you like that? What do you like? Tell me what to do. I find “tell me what you want” to be particularly useful because then I can just follow instructions and let them tell me what they want. Every time I’ve told a partner later – I didn’t really care for it when you did x-y-z, they wish I had told them in the moment so they could make an adjustment. Chances are – your partner is just happy to have someone to have sex with and will comply with most anything you say. Try it out.

Lastly, I would like to reinforce that sex is an important and healthy part of being a balanced human being. We are, first and foremost, mammals programmed to procreate. We have urges that ought not be suppressed because they are there for a reason. Unless you find yourself taking “bathroom” breaks every half-hour at your job to masturbate quietly in the bathroom, you’re fine. Nothing is wrong with you, you aren’t broken. The same goes for sex. If you want to try something, talk it out with your partner, and try it. Open a dialogue. If you want to have sex with a stranger, please do, but wrap it up for heaven’s sake. If your partner wants to do something and you don’t, then don’t! Try to find a way to explain it so they understand your discomfort. If they pressure you further – RED FLAG. A partner should always be on your team, not trying to find a way to push your boundaries to meet his or her needs.

Now go and have some fun. I know I will.

This morning I was thinking about one of my best friends, Heather, who lives quite far away from me. I was singing the new One Direction Song (Best Song Ever – catchy, isn’t it?) and thinking about all the times we would go dancing. She is a really good dancer. That got me to thinking about her daughters, and whether or not they would be good dancers as well. I thought to myself how strange it is – Heather and I met when we were 19 and have had a rocky road for a friendship, and now we are so strong and I’ve been married and divorced and she has two beautiful daughters. It’s funny to look at where we are now versus where we started. It took several years for us to get to a place where we could just be nice to one another. I am so grateful to have her in my life, but it made me wonder… Why the hell are women so mean to one another?

I am particularly sensitive to bullying – especially when it comes to women bullying other women. I don’t really remember bullying before the age of 12, but I was so naive and probably didn’t notice it happening. I have little memories… not being allowed to play tether ball at recess with the boys, being excluded from playing Uno with some other kids at school… but nothing that I remember being really devastating. When I moved from Ohio to New Hampshire, at the age of 12, everything changed.

I know that the age of 12 is rough on all adolescents. I am sure that the things I experienced after the move would have happened in Ohio if I had stayed. I associate the first few years living in New England with a lot of pain and suffering. The bullying was intensified by the culture shock – the midwest is quite different from New England. Also, I was adjusting to not only not knowing anyone, but my parents didn’t know anyone either. The move was stressful on all of us at the time, except for maybe my youngest sister who was five at the time, so she has few memories of her childhood in Ohio.

I was a bubbly and energetic kid. Always smiling and always happy – for the most part. I stuck out like a sore thumb in my school – with a slight accent and cowboy boots (my dad always wears them and so of course I wanted a pair of my own!). I was overly eager – always friendly to everyone and chomping at the bit to make new friends. I didn’t really understand where I was or how the kids expected me to behave, but looking back on it, it feels like I did everything wrong. A lot of these kids had known each other – like my sister and her friends – since kindergarten. To say I was an outsider was mild – it felt more like I was a malignant growth in my social group.

I also tried very hard in school; I loved learning and kids didn’t really respond to that well. I bonded with teachers easily because I had a wide vocabulary and tried really hard. I respected them and talked to them like they were my friends, and I quickly developed a reputation for being a teacher’s pet. Even though that is the best place to be if you are a motivated, eager student – it kills you socially.

Kids wrote things about me on posters in the bathroom, which was devastating. No one talked to me at the bus stop in the mornings, which was difficult because at my old school everyone talked to everyone, even if you had never met them before. My middle sister wasn’t even with me – she was in the fifth grade and so she went to a different school. The bus rides were brutal, no one wanted to sit with me, and I always felt on the outside.

There was a huge class system at my middle school – the kind that cliché movies about high school feature. All the cool kids wore clothes from the same kinds of places – and they were always the kinds of places my parents wouldn’t shop. There’s truly no sense in spending that much money on a child’s clothing when they are growing too fast to wear it for very long. And as a child, I played really hard. So why spend the money on the real Adidas shoes with the lines on the side, when they would just get dirty anyway? So I wore the Payless Adidas knockoffs (thinking if I had those kinds of shoes, maybe the kids would like me), and everyone could tell and it didn’t work.

There was an invisible line in the lunch room – this is probably my second worst memory. I didn’t understand my “place”, and so I went to sit with some kids that looked cool. They were the ones that everyone else seemed to revere, and I wanted to sit with them. As soon as I sat down, everyone at the table started talking at once. The kids next to me, the kids in front of me, and the kids next to the kids in front of me. Things like, No one likes you and Get up and go away or You can’t sit at this table. We don’t want you here. The shame of awkwardly getting up from the middle of a bench seat at a long table and carrying your tray anywhere else – as long as it’s on the other side of the invisible line – was brutal.

I made a few friends, but they were all the wrong kinds of people. They were the low-range of the social class, and they were mean to me as well. Nothing but trouble, those few, and as their lives unfolded, that became all the more obvious.

In my eighth grade year, I wanted to start off on a new foot. I tried and tried to get the popular kids to accept me. I don’t know why it mattered to me so much – looking like them, talking like them, acting like them. I just so badly wanted to fit in. I had spent the majority of my seventh grade year coming home crying after school. It was awful, and I was going to make the most out of eighth grade.

I came very close to mimicking what the girls wore, and they eventually accepted me into the group, but it was hesitant. I wore my hair and makeup like they did. It was so obvious that I was completely falsifying who I was to fit in – looking at my seventh grade yearbook picture, I am beaming. Looking at my eighth grade picture, I look like I am on the verge of tears. Soon I was mostly integrated into the group and I felt a deep satisfaction that I could make these other kids like me. Suddenly I was welcome at the cool kids lunch table, and during school trips and assemblies we always sat together on buses and in the auditorium. I had a group. I may have even participated in those things that they did to me, but to other kids. I honestly don’t remember. If it happened, I am sure I have repressed the memory out of shame.

My single worst memory from adolescence – worse than the bus accident I was in that knocked my teeth out-of-place and required some fancy handwork, braces, and dental surgery – was the day that one of the girls in the group, and I wish I could remember which one – told me that I wasn’t actually a part of the group. I remember exactly where we were standing – in a stairwell after one of our classes, it may have been home room. It’s a little fuzzy, but I think she sat next to me in home room and I had confided in her that I had a crush on one of the boys. He hated me, of course, but I didn’t see that. I just thought he was dreamy or whatever. Anyway, I think she felt sorry for me and couldn’t stand it. So she told me, privately, that I wasn’t one of the popular kids at all. That I was allowed into the group as a sort of pet. It was all one big joke that pretty much everyone was in on.

After that, I didn’t sit on that side of the lunch room anymore.

Similar things happened after that – the most amusing (looking back) was when a friend I had the summer before high school started flipped out because I told her that I loved her (in a casual “love you” friend kind of way) and she called me a fag and my parents fags and spread rumors that I was a lesbian. Great way to start high school. After that, it didn’t really matter. I made more friends, some were cool and some weren’t – but that moment finding out about my pretend social status pretty much sealed the deal for me. I would never really want friends again. Not that bad. Of course I still wanted friends, but I stopped being something to be desired, and I started being whatever I wanted.

This probably all sounds very familiar, because kids get teased, right? What I found interesting, as I aged, was that it doesn’t stop. When I was 19 or 20 I began working at my first real grownup job – or so it felt like – at a hospital in Ohio. It was like middle school all over again. It was very clique-y in my department, and I was a real go-getter. I tried really hard at my job, always completing tasks well before the workday was over. I made an effort to get to know my new boss, because she was new to the department and everyone talked about her behind her back and I wanted her to know she had a real friend, a real supporter. I had meetings with her to try to improve business processes, which just about everyone hated. I went on smoke breaks with some girls in the office, and they were always nice to me and friendly. One day, one of the women was accidentally copied on an email conversation about me. She told me about it, privately, so I would understand that these women weren’t my friends – they hated me. They were nice to my face, but talked so much behind my back. Cruel things, true things, mean things, horrible things.

Once, I was sitting in my cubicle waiting for a ride because my battery had died. Everyone else thought I had left, and in the cubicle next to me I heard one of these women talking about me. She was mimicking my voice and saying all kinds of mean things about me. I was just sitting there reading a book, waiting for my ride to get there, and when I overheard her talking I couldn’t breathe. Every nerve ending in my body seemed to come alive and I had the most peculiar humming all over my skin. I generally associate this feeling with anger, because I have quite the temper. My head started to hurt from the exertion to not beat her half to death (exaggerating) for being such a rotten human being. I was… 21? Maybe younger. I grabbed my stuff and walked outside – right past all of them – and burst into tears once I got into the fresh air. I started smoking a cigarette right there in front of the building – because I honestly didn’t give a shit.

When I moved back to New Hampshire, I quickly found a job at a restaurant. I love the job, but very quickly I had similar problems. When they made me a trainer, I started to hear from a few people at work that the other women really did not like that. Not all of them, but some. I would say that part of the staff can’t stand me, part of them like me because they know me fairly well, and the other part are indifferent. It’s the part that don’t like me that I just can’t understand. It’s been the same problem my entire life – I am different from others around me. In actuality, we are all different from one another – but I think I am different in a way that makes others dislike me for specific reasons. I usually go against the grain, I try harder than most people (not because I actively try to work harder than them, but I work how I work and it tends to be better than other people), I build good relationships with my superiors, I am motivated, a go-getter, I learn quickly, I am young and at the beginning of my adult life, I have a nice body, I am beautiful… before anyone out there thinks I am being conceited, these are not exactly my opinions, these are the opinions of the other adults watching these scenarios unfold. I would call my mother, crying, about the women at my job that were so terrible to me and made me feel 13 all over again. She would explain that this kind of treatment never really stops – especially with women.

It puzzles me, greatly, this thing that women do to one another. Why are we so mean to each other? Why do we cut each other down? I hate to say the thing that sounds cheesy and predictable, but don’t women have enough struggles in life without turning on one another? I feel one of three ways about people: I like you because you have proven your character to me and you are useful to me in some way, I am indifferent to you, or I dislike you because you have behaved in a way that I deem morally inadequate or you hurt someone I love. What is this thing where one woman doesn’t like another because she has a “better” body? Or because she is younger? Or because she maybe talks too much or is too happy all the time or has a great relationship? I see women going at each other for the dumbest reasons. Maybe you heard through the grapevine that she smiled at your boyfriend at the bar, or perhaps you don’t like the clothing she wears because you think she is trying too hard. Why can’t we just appreciate each other in some way?

There are a few times that I have been mean to someone, including my dear friend that I mentioned at the beginning of this post. It stems from jealousy, naturally. She had a better body (seriously, you guys that have seen me, can you believe I would be jealous of someone else’s body? Mine’s damn near perfect) and she was a better dancer. She had a (seemingly) better relationship, better just about everything. I hated her. I loved her, but I also hated her. She loved me too, but she also hated me for her own reasons, and we yo-yo’d between being inseparable and sabotaging each other. It once got so extreme that we almost came to blows!

Fortunately, those days are LONG past and I can build relationships with women that are meaningful and honest. I always tell the truth to a woman, including when I think she looks nice because she isn’t dressed as slutty as she normally is, or that she seems like a lunatic because of the way she is handling her recent breakup. I wait until they know they can trust me and know that I would never talk about them behind their backs, and then I tell them the truth. I find this to be infinitely valuable in a world where most women will lie to your face and then scheme behind your back. I watch this all, utterly fascinated, but utterly devastated. We are truly getting in our own way when it comes to affecting change in the social structure of things. It is not surprising that women have a reputation for being manipulative and bitchy – look at how we treat each other!

I just wish we could appreciate one another – and get past our own inadequacies so that we may treat one another with kindness and respect.

Today is the first day of the fall semester! Totally exciting, right? I know. I’ve been twiddling my thumbs waiting these past few weeks for school to start. I took the paperwork from the school and wrote my schedule on the calendar – Statistics Mondays from 9-1 and Anatomy and Physiology Tuesdays from 1-7. Yesterday was Labor Day so there was no class, but today is the first day. Anatomy and Physiology! How exciting!

Not.

As it turns out, I got my schedule backwards. I actually have A&P on Mondays and Stats on Tuesdays. Which means… Statistics is happening right this minute and I am at home… writing a blog post.

I haven’t written anything since my awesome vacation, and it’s been nagging at my brain that I want to write. There have been lots of things happening, but nothing that I really wanted to write about exactly. Today provides an excellent opportunity to write about something that I have tons of experience with. No, it’s not proper time-management, nor is it a lecture on the importance of paying attention to the details and ensuring that no mistakes are made. Rather – today’s blog topic is all about giving yourself a damn break.

You see, when I awoke this morning and logged onto Blackboard, the online tool for students to check their assignments etc, I realized my error and I almost burst into tears. I was sitting in my boyfriend’s apartment while the most sinking feeling enveloped me. My mind began racing – how is it possible that I could have screwed this up already? I angrily gathered all my things and came home to look at the paperwork the school gave me, hoping that perhaps they made a mistake. (Don’t feel bad for laughing at me, I am as well.) I figured that must be it because I sat at my dining room table with the calendar and that paperwork to write down my schedule.

So, I get home, and of course the paperwork is right. That just means that when I sat down with the calendar and wrote down my schedule, I looked at the paper and saw Statistics on Tuesdays and wrote it on every Monday on the calendar. I’ve been referring to the calendar ever since, so my dyslexic moment caused me to miss class this morning. Les idiot.

As I’m driving home this morning, I also realize that the modeling gigs I booked for every Tuesdays morning (due to the incorrect schedule I had in my mind) would all have to be cancelled (meaning they would have to find another model for the class) because I’ll be in school on Tuesdays at the same time. This caused me to feel even worse. Not only did I miss the first day of Math class, but now I have to tell the art professor that he needs to find a new model on Tuesdays. The sinking feeling, urge to cry, and anger at myself double at that idea.

I’ve really gone and made a mess of this, haven’t I?

Then I realize that I have to explain to my parents why I’m not in school, and that just about does it. This thing that I was so excited for and supposedly really cared about… I couldn’t be bothered to make sure I had the simplest detail – time and place – right? Real-life grownups don’t pull shit like that.

At this point, on my drive home this morning, I took a deep breath and considered my options. Stay angry at myself and continue this cycle of mental flagellation, or let it go. The mental flagellation is something I’ve been doing my whole life – I push myself so hard sometimes. I have such high expectations of myself and I never really give myself a break. Failure isn’t an option for me, I have to do everything right and to the best of my abilities. As innocent as the whole scenario is, making a mistake when writing down my schedule and getting the days mixed up just isn’t an option for someone like me.

When I told my mother, who is a saint, what I did – she told me that she missed a meeting this morning for work. Just completely missed it. Somehow, this helped me to realign my universe and see things in a new way. First of all, even the most badass of persons make errors. I am, after all, a human being. Sure, feeling bad about it is appropriate because I don’t want to be flip about my life, but to take it to the extreme where I completely meltdown because of a silly thing like this is probably a waste of my time and energy. Just fix the problem.

I abandoned my mental flagellation (which was super hard because I was resisting a pattern of behavior that has been in place my ENTIRE life) and took deep breaths to calm the anxiety. What can I do? I thought to myself. Time to make an action plan. It’s too late to be a responsible adult and attend class on time, but I can absolutely go to the school when the class ends and apologize to my professor, in person, and get the syllabus and assignments. I know the professor because I had him this summer, and I know some of the other students because they were in this summer’s math class as well. That’s the best I can do, hopefully it will be enough.

I changed the calendar as soon as I got home so reflect the accurate schedule – not that I need a calendar at this point because the error will cement my schedule in my brain. And, I emailed the art professor about modeling and apologized and gave him the name of someone else that should be able to pick up those classes in my place. That actually kind of works out, because she told me yesterday she wanted to work this month but I had already been booked for the classes.

Last step, actually buy into all this irresponsible crap and give myself a damn break already. I have a really bad habit of coming down way too hard on myself. The reasons for that vary… and aren’t all that relevant because this is who I am, regardless of where it came from, so it’s on me to be different if I want to be. And, as my mom put it, the key is to come down on yourself… and then stop. Just fix it and let it go.

Now that I’ve fixed it, I can let it go. This may seem a little (read: a lot) neurotic to most people, but the other over-achievers will understand. Funny now that I have written it all out and actually dealt with it, I feel pretty silly that I was so miserable in the first place. On the to-do is changing my reflexes… when I make a mistake, shorter guilt and disappointment in myself and more forgiveness.

Be my own best friend. =)

I should probably start by admitting to you all that my birthday is my second favorite day of the year. My favorite day is Christmas, for the abundance of joy and warm-fuzzies that I get when it snows and everything is decked in reds, greens, and golds. But next to that, my birthday is my favorite day.

Birthdays were always celebrated with gusto in my house growing up. We got to have a birthday dinner of whatever we wanted – one year I asked my mom to make crab legs. She did, because she loves her children fiercely. Over the years my birthDAY has sort of leaked into my birthWEEK – any excuse for a young person to get drunk. Even better if the birthday falls on a Friday or Saturday – possibly a Thursday if you can swing Friday off work (or just call out, if you’re that kind of person). The festivities tend to continue until grownup life resumes, or until the liver begs and pleads for the abuse to stop.

As an adult, my birthdays varied. When I turned 19 I went clubbing with some girlfriends, which was a blast of course. 20 and 21 were the same weekend as the alumni softball tournament in my hometown – which requires an even more elaborate back story – suffice to say that my special day was lost in the alumni craziness. 22 was just a few months before getting married, and I honestly don’t remember what we did, but it clearly wasn’t that remarkable. 23 was almost immediately following the separation from my then-spouse, so I am pretty sure I celebrated in some way, but it was gloomy all the same because of the circumstances. And this year – 24 – was the most epic birthday I have ever had, except for maybe the birthday that we happened to arrive at Disney World on that day.

Anyway, so I subtly hint (read: find a way to work it into every conversation) to my boyfriend, Dave, that my birthday is coming up. He was supposed to be out of town for the summer and I had requested the weekend off to visit him, but plans changed and he is home for the summer (which rocks), but I already had the time off. I wanted to do something really fun and spectacular – less because of my birthday and more because I had four whole days off work (a lot of days if you are a server). He told me he would think of something epic.

Because I am who I am, I tried and tried to figure out what was going on. Hi, meet Kyrston, the Type A personality that feels the need to control everything. I must point out that even though that is at my core, I do an excellent job of suppressing those urges. Being a mellow and easygoing person does not come naturally to me, but I try very hard to be that way and enjoy it. So, for every ten times I wanted to ask what we were doing, I only asked once. Every time I got a vague-ish answer because he didn’t really know. Despite the inner Type A wanting to freak out, it was actually quite refreshing to just go with the flow and see what happens. So many serendipitous moments happen when we aren’t making an itemized schedule of our day.

Finally I find out we are going camping – something I haven’t done since I was a kid and my parents took care of all the details – and I start to get nervous. Sure, I know how to start a fire. With unlimited materials and a warm bed to sleep in if I lose interest. I can also pitch a tent, given enough time to mess around with the damn thing. Truth be told, I know almost nothing about camping except I know it involves weathering the elements and not being clean. Despite my nervousness, I had complete and total faith in Dave’s ability to pull this off more or less by himself. Cause, if we’re being honest, I’m probably not going to be much help.

Dave books the campsite and I immediately ask him if he checked the weather, to which he says no, which is completely Dave’s style. Honestly, what does it matter? This is what camping is all about. Besides, you can’t plan trips around the weather, especially since we all know the most accurate forecast is the one happening right this minute, and even then, sometimes it’s wrong. But of course Type A Kyrston had to check, and of course it was supposed to rain. No problem. Dave has all-weather gear for both of us. I think he might actually survive a zombie apocalypse, if we ever have one.

I was getting pretty excited… naturally all I talked about for two days leading up to Friday (the 26th) was my birthday weekend-vacation-best days of my life. Friday comes, which is my day, and I am too excited to sleep and wake up at six in the morning. That gives me about two hours to take a shower, unpack my bag and repack it (a habit I learned from my dad), and do a 12-point idiot check to make sure I have everything. As far as the rest of the details… he took care of it all. He booked the campsite, he asked me what I wanted to eat and went to every (and I mean EVERY) grocery store in town to find what we needed. He packed the car and picked me up and we were on our way!!

Let’s see… we live in southern NH and drove to Acadia National Park in Maine… about 300 miles but a six hour drive because we took US Rte 1 most of the way… it runs along the coast and is just a lovely drive. The time flew by with listening to all sorts of great music and talking about all the things we wanted to do. Dave had a complex map book thing of the state of Maine which I enjoyed looking through… maps are really cool for navigating. Even though it’s only supposed to be a six hour drive it took us closer to eight. By the time we checked in and got all the campgrounds paperwork and pamphlets of things to do, it was after 5. We arrived at our campsite and that was when I left Type A Kyrston in the car. No place for her outside my comfort zone. Time to put the brave pants on.

I’m sure this all sounds very silly, but when you spend your whole life generally doing things that you feel comfortable doing, it can be scary to try new things. It was pretty easy considering I was with the camping zen master, though. We set everything up and I immediately realized that Dave is just a fantastic person. Not even to me, but just in general. He is so patient and so kind. When you’re trying to help someone who clearly has more skills, sometimes you feel like you’re just getting in the way. I didn’t want to be the girl who just sits while someone else does all the work, so I asked to help and he gave me tasks to do and I asked questions and he gave me answers. My mom told me that you can learn a lot about someone from going camping with them, and she was right. More on that later, but immediately I learned that I can go outside my comfort zone without feeling stupid or him getting exasperated at my lack of inherent camping knowledge.

We got everything set up and it was time for dinner. We had a really hard time getting a fire started. Even though Dave made the fire, I say we because he did everything exactly as I would have done it. I was not sitting watching him wanting to say a word. This is a person that has been camping more times than he can count, and not at a campground. In the real wilderness. If anyone can make a fire, Dave can. Unfortunately, despite all of the proper measures, the damn thing just wouldn’t start. We figured out that it’s because the wood we picked up on the way was not dry wood – it clearly had been split recently and had not sat for a season. Anyone who’s made a fire knows that you start with kindling and work your way up to larger pieces – but for each larger piece of wood the base fire has to be hot enough to light the other pieces. In this case, the base fire had to be hot enough to first DRY the larger pieces and then light them. Have you ever tried to make a fire with wet wood? It sucks. The best thing to do is get something very small and smoldering started and then just blow on it like an hour later and it will go up in flames, once everything has dried out. Anyway, we just decided to go out to dinner instead.

We had a lovely meal in Northeast Harbor and went back to the campsite to settle in for the night. Of course it was raining when we got back to the campsite, and I am fairly sure it rained all night. I woke up several times damp and cold in the middle of the night and did not feel particularly rested when I woke up. My morning routine generally consists of sitting quietly with multiple cups of coffee while my brain gets started. So, in the morning, Dave knew that coffee was priority one. He bought a French Press before we left, so that I could have coffee every day (is this guy sweet or what?!), and he went about getting the fire started. Again I watched him do everything right and the damn thing just wouldn’t light. Finally he got it going and we had some coffee.

As far as learning things about people, you can learn a lot about someone making a fire. It has been my experience that most young men have their testosterone and man cards tied up in their ability to make a fire. To make matters worse, they love to just throw gasoline on wood and think that’ll work. Gasoline is great for a big, hot flame – but it’s brief. The flame doesn’t get hot enough to really get the wood going, which is how a fire is maintained. Layers of heat on layers of heat. So many bonfires typically started with some idiot siphoning gasoline out of a lawn mower or something to douse it on some wood and throw a match on the damn thing. Big shock when it doesn’t work. Meanwhile, I’m sitting patiently thinking about how idiotic they all look, and after twenty minutes I make the fire myself. I don’t even have to mock them, because they know without me saying it how stupid they are. Not to mention the fact that they get all bent out of shape when their methods don’t work – as if it’s the wood that’s the problem. No, dude. User error.

Anyway, none of that happened this weekend. I sat quietly and observed Dave mess around with it for an hour, endlessly patient. He never once appeared the least bit frustrated or impatient. He just kept tending to it and trying different approaches and exerted all this careful effort to make the fire, whereas even I would have kicked a log at that point. It was so interesting to see how he reacted to the circumstances.

Once we had some coffee in us, we set out for the day. Dave was interested in hiking Cadillac Mountain, but I wasn’t really in the mood for hiking all day. The pamphlets the campground gave us talked about so many cool things to do, and we just couldn’t make up our minds. A friend of mine had told me about one particular natural feature, so it was important to me that I check it out. The access to the place was on a road that looped around the entire park – Park Loop Road, of course – so we set out to find an entrance to the park road to drive to the place I wanted to go.

On the way, we stopped at pretty much every cool place we saw. We did some moderate walking through the woods by the shore to get from one place to another, and we saw a bunch of cool stuff. We went to Sand Beach and played in the Ocean. It was hot only because the sun was shining on us, so the water was cool and refreshing. There were some pretty cool waves – some so big they came over your head – and we body surfed. Well, Dave body surfed. I either jumped into them or turned my back while they crashed against me and knocked me over. Because I didn’t wear my bathing suit, I was wearing spandex running pants and a tank top. Turns out that a lot of surf means a lot of sand in the water. Also, it means that sand gets everywhere and it’s kind of impossible to get it out just by being in the sandy water. When we finally got back to the car, I just took my pants off and put Dave’s jeans on instead. Much better.

After the beach we went to Thunder Hole, which was the place my friend told me about. A lot of the Maine coastline is bedrock, it looks sort of like bluffs or cliffs. In some places the rocks aren’t very steep so you can walk around carefully along the coast. But, falling would be pretty dangerous because there really isn’t anything to stop you from falling down the rocks into the ocean. At Thunder Hole, it’s a big hole in the cliffs where the water crashed into it and sprays up and is really loud.

The rocks make a gentle slope down right to the water. Because Dave is the adventurous kind, he wanted to walk down right to the water… right on the wet rocks that the surf kept crashing onto. I declined, but did take some great pictures of him walking about sixty yard to the water just as a huge wave crashed up over the rocks all over him. Then he ran back to me because he was A) soaking wet and B) almost was carried out to sea. Yikes!

When we left Thunder Hole we went to Otter Cliffs. We had a nice walk up to the cliffs and along the way there was another opportunity to climb on some rocks. Dave spotted a cool spot to sit, and I again declined while he made the dangerous trek to the spot. I assumed he was walking to his death.

Once he returned safely, we hiked to the top of the cliffs and walked on the road back to the car. Just to give you a sense of scale, here is a picture from the top of the cliffs looking down to where he was sitting. Now I know I wasn’t being dramatic.

From there, we drove to Cadillac Mountain. We really wanted to reach the summit before sunset, so we were on our way. Driving to the top was cool, because we both agreed that it was nice not to spend the day hiking and got to do so many other cool things instead. When we got to the summit, we spent some time walking on the paved paths and also free-styling our walk on the bedrock around the summit and away from the people. We were trying to get to the west-facing side of the mountain to watch the sun set, without walking on the vegetation (as posted) and without going too far down so the trees obscured our view of the horizon. It was about an hour of walking to find the perfect spot. We found a cool place to sit and enjoyed the view.

We went back to the campground before it got dark because I knew the wood would still be wet and it would take an hour to really get dinner going. We made steak for dinner and then crashed – we were exhausted from a day of so much activity.

Sunday we woke up and it had rained overnight. More messing around with the fuego and we finally got to breakfast around noon. We were still exhausted, and it started raining, so we took a nap until about five. I was back to being cold and wet, so I said screw it – let’s go out to dinner. At this point I was very tired and trying to figure out the best way to ask Dave if we could leave a day early and just go to Portland (we had already planned to leave Monday morning and go to Portland for the day/night, head back home Tuesday morning) because I just really needed a shower and a good night’s rest in a warm, dry place. I was getting pretty snippy as well, just tired and tired of being tired. Once I had some beef stew and a philly cheese steak (because almost every meal/snack had consisted of seafood) I felt my sense of normalcy return. Dave agreed that we should just pack up and go, considering there wasn’t much left to do and the rain would only continue.

We went to the campsite and got everything in the car just as it got too dark to really see and we set out for Portland. It took us a few hours but I was just looking forward to a bed and a shower. By the time we got to his friend’s house it was midnight, too late to shower without waking them, so I just crashed in the guest room and slept until mid-morning Monday.

Whereas my first inclination in the morning is to have a smoke and a cup of coffee, I went straight for the shower. Don’t get me wrong – swimming in the ocean and hiking around and never really having clean hands is not that big of a deal – but there’s nothing like washing your hair after three days of having it in a bun. Dave’s friends were already gone for the day, so I went to the Portland city website to see what there was to do. I came across the Portland Ice Arena, so I immediately told Dave I wanted to go ice skating. I love ice skating, absolutely love it, and haven’t been in a few years. It just so happened that the Portland Ice Arena operates year round with public skating Mondays from 11-1. We had just enough time to get out the door and go.

Even more amazing, when we arrived, there was NO ONE THERE. We were the first ones on the ice! A few people showed up shortly after, but even still, there were fewer than fifteen people there all day. It was lovely to show off my slightly impressive (read: not at all impressive) skills, which mostly consist of not falling down and some minor turns and some awkward backward skating. After an hour or so of that, we went to Old Port.

Old Port is a great place. Lots of boutiques and stuff to wander around and see. I could spend days just wandering the cobblestone streets, but food was a priority. We went to this great restaurant on the water in a three-deck boat. So elaborate and fancy – but the sign on the door said casual dress was okay. Good for us, since we were wearing jeans and flippy floppies.

After lunch, Dave’s friend was home from work so we headed back that way. We went to the park to play Frisbee (read: I chilled on the grass while they played Frisbee) and we had lots of laughs, because Dave has really funny friends. Makes sense, he’s a funny guy.

We grabbed drinks at a local pub then went back to the house to have dinner and played a game of Balderdash. If you haven’t played, I highly recommend it. It’s a game all about making stuff up and everyone trying to guess which definition of the word/person/movie is the real one. Hysterical.

The drive back was pleasant and I just knew I’d be riding my vacation birthday buzz for days. I jokingly say that I’m worried that the happy police are going to come knocking on my door and demand that I cut it out – I’m just too happy. We had such a great time!!

I did learn, also, that I should never be on the show Survivor (a lifelong dream) because I am a big whiny pants and can’t rough it for real. I’m okay with that, though, because I can sort-of rough it for brief periods of time, which is all it takes for a great vacation!