The Little Things

Lately, I've been trying to focus on the little things.

Walking to the L with confidence.

Blasting the new Regina on my morning commute.

Taking the ferry home from work.

New experiences.  New people.  New boundaries.  New mindset.

Eating a fresh beefsteak tomato - in one sitting.  Raw.

Accidentally spilling an entire waste container filled with bright blue, yellow, and pink ink from the copy machine all over myself.

A new phone cover, courtesy of Vera Bradley.

A Mr. Softee dip cone.

Having a conversation with a lonely older woman on the boat ride home.

Seeing my apartment building from the water.

Spending 3 hours eating and chatting in a famous-but-new-to-me pizza joint in a neighboring neighborhood.

Summer beers garnished with oranges.

Walking through the lit up park on a late summer night.

Stooping.  It's a thing.

The blue moon.

Rediscovering an old dress.

Rediscovering myself.

Driving with the windows down singing at the top of your lungs.

Walking past a kid playing with a 6 weeks old white kitten.  The same kid you walked past the week before, playing with the same kitten.  The kitten is bigger.

Watching Strong Bad Emails at work

Not changing the station when The Thong Song comes on the radio.  And remembering all the words.

Finding and loving new music.

Realizing you have 934 individual purchased songs in your iTunes.

Knowing where you are supposed to turn right, but going straight instead.  And continuing to drive.

Finding the entrance to a secret beer garden.

Learning about a secret bar, that is located behind a secret door in a secret phone booth with a secret dial code.

Retrieving the last thing that smells of you.

A sleeping kitten.

Learning that everything, and I do mean everything, is about timing.

A train ride to Moms new home.

A rainy train ride back with a good book and a new giraffe.

Finding the first fall leaf on the ground.

Noticing that the pink buildings I used to pass on my long NJ commute are still pink

Sitting on my giant roof, staring at the sky, the moon, the planes flying by.  Not seeing stars.  Knowing I know just where to go to find them.

Someone painting the word DREAM on the door to the roof in big bold capital letters.  DREAM.

Noticing the forgotten on my walks home, and finding the extraordinary in the ordinary - the things unseen or unnoticed.

Catching up with old friends.

Catching up with new friends.

A hug and a kiss from a Sweet Caraline

A hug and a kiss from Mommy.

How nothing ever changes.

How everything changes.

Spending the last summer weekend with family and friends, eating and drinking, barbecuing and laughing, getting eaten alive by mosquito's and not knowing it until the following morning.

Finding the moments of happiness in between all the rest.

Expunging the negative to make room for the positive.

Enjoying a night of complete inner peace, and hoping for many more to come.

Walking Through Memories

I did something today that may be considered, perhaps, slightly unorthodox.

Lately, I have been taking a different train to work - a different station, a different line, and in the completely opposite direction of him.  The fact that it is not a mere 2 blocks away from his apartment just adds to it's already growing appeal of being a little more ideal for work.  Today, however, I had a doctors appointment near that train.  That train that simply reeks with memories of him, completely saturated with a year and a half of wearing my heart on my sleeve for someone who simply couldn't handle it.  It took summoning a great deal of courage (I mean, ridiculous) just to enter that stop.  I even made an active decision to get on the train at the opposite end of where he would normally take it, just for fear of seeing him from a distance, or hearing his voice ringing through the subway cars.  As soon as the train reached my stop, I slipped out, and hurried up the stairs through the opposite entrance amongst rush hour traffic, and arrived safely at my destination, unscathed.

Then a funny thing happened.  I walked out of the office, and instead of taking the slightly longer, completely out-of-my-way, safe route home, I turned directly towards his street and walked.  I walked right down one street, and turned on to another, and found myself directly across from his apartment building.  I had no intention or urge to go near it, but I stood across from it, and I stared.  I stared at the green door and metal buzzer.  I stared at the elevator shaft notices and cracked window bars.  I stared at the crumbling bricks, the dripping water, the beat up air conditioners balancing out dirty windows.  I stared, and I breathed.  And I took it all in.  And then I let it all out.  I saw myself, bouncing towards his building, day after day, so excited to see him and climb the four flights of stairs, only to stop for a moment at the top to catch my breath so as not to seem tired when I finally got to lay eyes on him.  I saw myself, meeting him right outside, hoping he would grab me in a giant embrace, as if he hadn't seen me in weeks, and always being slightly disappointed when I had to ask or lean in for a kiss.  I stared, and I remembered, and then I moved on.  I walked away, feeling as though I had just conquered this tiny step, this little street I had been so scared to walk down.  I was nervous about seeing him and kept my eyes wide and peeled for the short time I stood there, but I knew that I needed to be there, just for that moment.  And then I needed to let that moment go.

I ended up walking home the way we would normally walk to my place together.  I stopped in front of places with our memories - the beer garden I threw his surprise party at and where we had our third date; the bar where we ate Cheese Puffs and Twizzlers, played pool and Risk and drank girly beer; the movie theatre we frequented and tried to go to far more than we ever ended up being able to; the building that was "so far away"; the old flea market-turned-outside-bar that we could never figure out how to enter.  I stopped at all these places for just a few moments to admire, and release.  And after feeling the memories, good and bad, I walked on.  It was painful, yet cleansing - as if I was saying goodbye to these memories for now because, just maybe, they are too painful to carry with me.  This neighborhood, this city, reminds me of him.  Everything screams his name, his voice, his smell, his movements - and it's all a little too much.  And since I can't run or move away from it all, I need to re-learn it.  Without him.  And it's really, really hard.

I'm absolutely still feeling the breakup pains - the "what is he..." thoughts plague me often, though maybe not as frequently as they did the first two weeks.  Not being able to talk to him hurts (my decision), and not seeing him or being held by him are probably some of the worst feelings in the world right now.  I hate missing someone all the time.  I hate feeling sad, ever.  But if I'm ever going to get through this to move past this, I have to.  I have to move on and let go - and I don't want to, but I have to.  Every day, though getting easier, has been a struggle.  Getting out of bed is the worst.  Falling asleep is the worst.  Missing him is the worst.  But it's all I can do.

I spent so much time trying to be enough, trying to be the best girlfriend and person I could be, feeling like I was always inadequate or not good enough, hoping that "maybe today, he'll love me", trying to be worthy enough of him and his ability to fall in love me, when really?  It was he who may not have been worthy of me, and my love.  I wanted so much from the relationship, and from him, and he was not capable of giving it to me.  And instead of taking that on as a fault of mine, I need to realize and truly understand that there was nothing I could do.  You can not draw blood from a stone, and you can not make a man who does not have it in him to love someone love you.  This is the challenge that I need to embrace, and move on, so that the person who can love me, and will love me, can come along.  Because I deserve to be loved.

"The truth is, you can only give a person so much time to realize what's standing right in front of them. You can only let a person chase you for so long before you realize that maybe, just maybe, they never intended to catch you at all.  The right one for you will always handle your heart with care and treasure it for the precious gift that it is" - Mandy Hale

"Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving.  You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing" - Elizabeth Gilbert

Floating Advice

What if everything that's happened so far, Hilary, was just practice for when things get really, really good? 

Really, really soon - 
    The Universe

Dancing The Tightrope

I do not see my life as one long string of events - I see my life as a series, in compartments, segments, phases, if you will, joined together to create the person I am at the time.  I enjoy life as I live it, and dissect it as it passes.  I over think, overwhelm, and become completely immersed in various aspects I find I am the most passionate about.  I go in waves and stages, up hills and down valleys, and in the end, I try to be the best me that I can be, hoping that in the end, I come out stronger, wiser, possibly more flexible, but overall more rounded and experienced.  I yearn to learn and grow and find more and more about who I am and what I want.  That may be the best way I know to express who I am - a curious creature trying to learn and explore, make mistakes and fall, get up, try again, and embrace all I can pick up along the way, even if I don't see it at the time.

The thing of it is, I'm sure I will learn from this. I'm sure I will grow and this will help me become the person I one day will be, but in the meantime? I have no other way to tell you other than having your heart broken completely fucking sucks. This crawl into bed under the covers with a roll of toilet paper because you ran out of tissues can't wash your hair want to constantly vomit what is he doing who is he sleeping with why can't I sleep why can't I get out of bed why hasn't he called me is he thinking about me I'm thinking about him why doesn't he miss me why doesn't he love me where did my life go sucks.

Yes, I'm reading a self help book to self help myself.  Yes, I have Gilmore girls on marathon mode. No I'm not eating much. Yes, I cry in the shower. And in bed. And on the subway, and the on the sofa, and at my desk at work, and in the library with Mr. Mustard and the Wrench.  Yes, I loved him. No, he did not love me back. Ever, as it turns out. Yes, I feel wasted - learning experience or not, unrequited love sucks a giant rock. Yes, I feel awful about my self and self worth. Yes, I feel completely unloveable and rejected. Yes, getting out of bed is consistently difficult when all I want to do is hibernate, and come out when everything is better. And yes, having your heart broken is not a fun experience, especially when it is the same person duplicating the dumping.

It's hard for me to look at this objectively right now, as I am in the midst of some pretty serious sadness(which, for the record, is the absolute worst feeling in the world, as far as I'm concerned).  I don't necessarily regret things overall, because every experience is important and teaches you something about yourself, but I can't help but kick myself a little bit.  Maybe, the only reason you should ever take someone back is for love. Perhaps that was my big mistake - falling prey to the crawling back without a drop of the L word (no, not lesbian). I fell for the promise and maybe lines. The "I don't know if I'm going to fall in love with you, but I know that if I don't at least try, I will regret it for the rest of my life". That may be some serious bull shit, folks. I understand that some things take time, but if you are with someone for a year and a half and you don't know if you love them? Spoiler alert, you probably don't.  Is there a nicer way to say "shit or get off the pot"?  It's that, but prettier.  

I suppose I can look at this as wisdom to my future wiser self.  Next time, I will not wait for someone to come around. They probably will not. And even if they do, why would I want someone who is settling for me? I know on some level that I deserve to be loved. Do I feel that way right now? Of course not.  But I may soon.  The worst part about all this is that it takes time, and I am unbelievably extremely impatient.  Therefore, I am dealing with this as best as I can, for now.  I'm talking about it, writing about it, working out about it - exponging it from my system as best and as quickly as is humanly possible.  I feel like it just has to get out.  And the worst part is that in order to move on, I have to feel all the things I don't want to - and even worse than that, I have to do it while missing him.  Because doesnt that blow?  Missing someone you can't even have?  Or perhaps it is mourning the death of the relationship like the death of a family member, and knowing that you can't push it down to get past it - you have to mourn it to move on.  Now, if only I could figure out how to turn this mourning into a movie montage, complete with the part where I get it all together and have an amazing life and amazing body and run up the steps in Philly while punching my fist through the air.  Ah, goals.

The main thing that is really getting me through this right now?  My friends, and my family.  I honestly don't know what I would do without them.  Most of them are not near me, but it is the abundance of phone calls, text messages, Facebook messages, movie watching, bed talking, and hang-out time that is keeping me sane and helping me get through the heart break.  And it's incredibly hard to re-learn how to be okay with being alone.  Not alone in the single sense, but alone in the no-one-else-is-home sense.  It's frighteningly hard to be alone with your thoughts, especially when they can overwhelm and consume you, and this is probably the absolute toughest thing for me right now.  But I'm working on it.  I am also throwing myself into work - trying to pick up whatever projects and responsibilities I can (which is insanely tough since I'm still pretty new here).  I have signed up with my step mom to run a 5K in October to fight childhood obesity.  I'm signing up for a Volleyball league for the fall.  I'm making plans, keeping busy, and trying to find time in between to feel the things I'm supposed to without losing my mind.

So, that's that.  Welcome to the inner workings of a woman's mind during a break up, or as I like to call it, "Dancing the tightrope".  Because that is what I'm doing - walking a fine line between okay and not, riding emotional rollercoasters and trying to make sense of myself again.  Journey on.

Tooth Manifesto

I know it's irrational and ridiculous and only slightly unfounded, but I am completely and totally deathly afraid of the dentist. 

There is pretty much nothing I fear more.  The sounds, the smells, the tension you feel the moment you walk in; The cold, sterile air that fills your lungs; The shaking legs in the waiting room, anxiously anticipating a cleaning or cavity filling; I hate every single aspect.

Perhaps it stems from years of dentistry in my childhood - though looking back, my childhood dentist was actually pretty awesome.  His name was Dr. Meadow, and I used to love going to his office.  His waiting room was filled with toys and a gigantic fish tank.  His actual exam areas had video games and board games.  He used to give you a Game Boy or a Magna Doodle (which I always picked for some reason) to play with while you would sit for fifteen minutes with whatever flavor fluoride you chose (bubblegum!) on your teeth (in those weird Styrofoam mouth things, so uncomfortable), and at the end of the visit, you got to pick a prize!  These were just tons of items to completely distract a child from the fact that they were actually in the devils lair.  Well played, Dr. Meadow.  Well played.

At one point, Dr. Meadow brought my mom back to the exam room, and told her that my baby teeth just didn't want to fall out, and that I needed to get some pulled in order to fit me for a retainer.  I was far too distracted by the awesome power of the Magna Doodle and didn't register what this meant at the time.  However, a few weeks later, my mom brought me back to Dr. Meadow and explained exactly what would be happening.  I didn't think it sounded so terrible - I mean, I used to love having loose teeth, so this was sort of like that, right?  Wrong.  Dr. Meadow may have been an excellent dentist, but a good needle-giver he was not.  To this day I can feel the horrible pain of him jamming a needle filled with novocaine into my gums.  Tears streamed down my face in full force as I felt him twist and pull four of my itty bitty teeth out of my mouth.  At the end of the visit, he shoved gauze into my mouth and handed me one of those paddles with the ball attached with a string.  "She did great!" he told my mom as I sobbed into her leg.  I went home and my mom gave me matza ball soup which I tried to eat while playing nintendo in the basement.  A spider crawled across the table.  I officially hated the dentist.

Over the next few years I endured what many little kids do - countless visits to the dentist and orthodontist, retainer fittings, braces tightening, and, in order to make the braces work better, getting 4 permament molars removed because "her jaw is just too small for such big teeth!".  Thanks for giving me a complex, Doc.  My mom tried to take me back to Dr. Meadow to get the molars pulled but I refused, claiming he wanted to kill me with the needles.  To ease my nerves, my mom made an appointment with a wonderful oral surgeon, Dr. Levine.  He did a wonderful job removing my 4 teeth all at once while I had a mild panic attack, and that was that.  Great.  I was then tooth-pulling free for about 9 years.  Score!

Then my wisdom teeth started to come in.  I was on my own insurance so I went to a new dentist, who told me they all had to come out because "you have gigantic teeth!".  Seriously, enough with that.  I said "okay", and decided the best course of action would be to ignore the problem because, as we all know, avoidance makes things go away.  A few years and a few cleanings passed.  Dr. Boylen kept urging me to "get 'em pulled already", but I knew better than to allow that tricky dentist to decieve me.  One night, I was sitting on my friends bed eating stuffed shells when I felt something in the back of my mouth crack.  I then bit down on something hard.  My wisdom tooth had just broken.

The next day, I called Dr. Levine and begged him to fit me in to remove my tooth.  He said okay, and got me an appointment for the next morning.  Knowing how anxious I usually got before hand, I had my mom drive me to the appointment (for the record, I am 23 years old at this point).  I went in, and Dr. Levine gave me 4 shots of novocaine, but for whatever reason, I was not getting numb.  Finally, he gave me a giant shot in the roof of my mouth (which hurt like total crazy cakes), and pulled the tooth.  Upon getting out of the chair, I immediately felt light headed and fell to the floor, almost passing out.  The nurses helped me up and brought me into the recovery room to give me oxygen.  I spent 2 hours almost passing out from the rogue novacaine floating through my head.  My mom was finally able to drive me home, and I spent the next 6 days too dizzy to even drive.  I decided then that I was done with this whole "tooth pulling" thing.

Of course, I couldn't actually be done, because I still had 3 wisdom teeth.  After avoiding it for another 2 years, the other top wisdom  tooth broke.  I was now living in Brooklyn and had to find a new dentist.  Luckily, I found someone amazing (Dr. Kessler!), who, even as I basically hyperventilated and had a massive panic attack in the chair, held my hand and talked me through the entire thing.  He then sent me on my way, saying "We really need to get those last two out - but you're a mess, so we're going to put you out for it, end of story".  Fair enough.

This brings us now to this coming Friday, when I have an appointment to get the final 2 wisdom teeth (and, for the love of everything chocolate, my last two teeth to ever be) pulled.  They are both on the bottom, and they are both impacted.  One of them is coming in sideways and has pushed so hard into the tooth next to it, that it broke itself and it's neighbor.  I have been having massive anxiety for weeks about this, but if I don't get it done now, my mouth is going to fall apart.  Plus there is the whole issue of my being in pain for weeks from it.  Do I feel like I am going to die at the dentist?  Yes.  Am I aware that this is irrational?  Also yes.  Am I also aware that I have helped to instigate this massive fear by avoiding it for so long, thus creating an even bigger problem than I had initially?  Again, yes.  But here I am, at the end of this long journey of tooth fear.  At this point, I am almost looking forward to getting this over with.  It's been years since I haven't been in some sort of tooth pain or had some sort of jaw tension.  I wish I was getting this done today so that I could stop anticipating it already.  I can only hope for as little pain and soreness as possible and a speedy healing process (and please, please, please no dry socket).

Those Moments When

Moments are funny things. They can be as fleeting as a passing thought, or as long as the ten seconds that felt like an eternity when you forgot your words on stage. They can be light and fluffy and nonsensical, or heavy realizations you never thought you’d actually stumble across – those cliché moments you’ve heard about, seen illustrated, but never lived; Moments that can make life worth living, while simultaneously making things undeniably real and present.

Those moments when you realize your parents aren’t your perfect superhero’s; When a plastic ball pit becomes a germ-invested booger-fest rather than an endless sea of bottomless fun; When your dream job becomes something that will help you live first, and make you happy second; When saving money isn’t easy because you need to pay bills and eat and live; When you can no longer eat whatever you want without actually focusing on exercising because metabolism is a real thing, and it does catch up with you; When you don’t marry your first love; When you realize you can’t actually have an apartment like Rachel and Monica did, because in New York City, it would cost over $10,000 a month– and not a lot of people make that; When you start thinking about having to take care of your parents, and how on earth you are going to be able to do that when you can just take care of yourself; When the Naked Cowboy in Times Square doesn’t seem like a fun tourist attraction, but a million health violations waiting to happen (no, I will not touch him); When you hope your grandmother will be around long enough to see you walk down the aisle and dance at your wedding; When you walk through Forever 21 and feel old because most of the dresses don’t really fit on your hips correctly; When you have hips; When you move past your first job, feeling jaded by an experience and hoping it doesn’t effect you going forward; When it absolutely effects you going forward; When a productive weekend means you cleaned your entire apartment, did laundry, and went food shopping; When you realize you are growing up.

I have made the startling realization that I am doing just that - growing up.  It's not that I'm unhappy about it.  On the contrary, I'm actually enjoying it all.  This isn't to say that I'm not going to run barefoot through an open fire hydrant, or do cartwheels down the beach and run into the ocean.  It's just that now, these moments count more.  I recognize how fortunate I am to have opportunities to play and leap, take off for a weekend here and there, adopt a cat or get a piercing.  Perhaps they are just more meaningful now.  Or maybe, I'm just appreciating the little things.  I like appreciating the little things.

What Kind Of Dino Would I Be?