Love in the Time of Sprained Ankles

The last three weeks have been eventful ones, to say the least.  Big things have happened, things you'd think I'd want to write about.  But outside of my last post about P, I've been putting off writing.  Because I was waiting for a lesson of some kind to be learned.  Or a hint towards the future.  Or something that makes all of it (or even some of it) make sense.  But I have none of those things.  So I write without wisdom and hope for clarity.

***

Three weeks ago, I met a guy named P on Bourbon Street, and we spent thirteen hours together wandering the quarter and getting to know one another, and I couldn't believe my luck, meeting a guy like that.  We've managed to keep up texting since then, but real conversation has eluded us.  When he calls, the dialogue is short.  When I call, I get voicemail.  I heard a lot less from him this week.  He says it was the week from hell at work.  He still wants me to visit, he says, but I need to be able to walk without crutches first, and I don't know when that will be.  So, the visit keeps getting pushed back, and the messages get fewer and farther between.  This weekend, we almost haven't talked at all.  So who knows.

Two weeks ago, I sprained my ankle.  I jumped up to block a ball, and when I came down, the guy's foot was underneath mine.  My ankle rolled, and it felt like my leg had snapped in half.  There was a lot of shrieking and crying (all me), and there were a lot of people standing around uncomfortably, unsure of what to do with tears that loud, that pained.  The ER visit only took an hour in sum, but the two weeks since have been hard.  There has been a lot of frustration, and there have been a lot of tears, and I have fallen multiple times.  But people have been wonderful, and I'm becoming better at accepting help every day.  I hate the fact that I can't get around on my own, that I can't play sports or run or even get to another room without crutches, but I'm grateful that I can finally see some of the bones and veins in my foot again.  The swelling is finally going down, and I'm hoping and praying that means I'll be healed enough to walk soon.

A week ago, I rented a knee scooter from a medical supply company in Jefferson, and I scootered my way through the Mardi Gras weekend.  My right thigh was crazy sore on Monday and is now twice its original size, but my heart is a little fuller, too.  People are notorious at Mardi Gras for being territorial and unmoving, but crowds opened seamlessly when I needed to walk through, and everyone had a story for me about the time they got injured and had to use crutches or a knee scooter.  I was a "trooper," they said time and time again.  A police officer even let us follow the Thoth parade, so we could get to a friend's house more easily.  Students shouted hello to me from the sidewalk.  A teenage girl told me she liked my hair.  And throughout the weekend, I kept thinking to myself, What an amazing place this is.  Where else can you go to a jazz mass and then step outside and spent seven hours in the sun catching beads with friends and getting to know the strangers around you?

Four days ago, I gave up on talking exclusively to P, who'd been mostly unresponsive during the week, and set up two Tinder dates.  I had coffee with a bashful school psychologist in town for a conference.  I had sushi with a local engineer who made me laugh for two hours.  The psychologist was a one-time thing (he was into it, I wasn't), but the engineer called me the next day and we talked on the phone for thirty minutes about everything from potentially-explosive scented candles to sailboats.  I'm not sure when, but I think I'll see him again.  And while I'm slightly uncomfortable with "seeing" more than one person at a time, it might be good for me.  It might give me some perspective.

Yesterday, I finished the first draft of my novel.  I had been putting off writing the last chapter for more than a week, unsure of how the story should end, but after talking to my therapist on Wednesday and to the school psychologist about his grandparents on Thursday, and reading the perfect quote about love and death in a novel on Friday, I knew what needed to happen.  So, it's done.  I don't really know what to do now, but I know I have a lot of work ahead of me.

Today, I struggled up the steps to the choir loft. I struggled around the grocery store on a poorly-engineered electric scooter. I struggled with getting my bags into the house (one broke on the way up). I struggled with finding exercises that didn't put too much stress on my ankle but that would keep me in shape. I struggled with writing this post (this is start-from-scratch draft #3).

But tonight, I have dinner planned with my family who loves me, and I'll come home to lay in bed with a cat who loves me, and I'll get ready for another day of work with students who love me.  And as frustrating as the ankle is and as confusing as the long distance to California thing can be, I'll be alright.  Because every day is just another day.  And there are a whole lot of people who love me.

The Holiday

Honestly, it was like I stepped into the pages of a romantic comedy.  You know the kind, where the girl randomly meets the boy, and they instantly hit it off.  And neither one of them saw it coming.



This weekend was a fairly tame one.  Friday night, I went to dinner with friends stopping by on their cross-country move before I fell asleep with a book.  Half upright.  With the lights on.  With my dress, tights, and cardigan on.  Saturday night was much of the same.  I watched multiple hours of iZombie on Netflix before deciding I would be too freaked out to sleep if I watched even one more episode and fell asleep in bed with my book again.  But in pajamas this time, at least.

Only, Saturday night, as I was worrying that I would actually lose sleep over zombies (my imagination lacks rational thinking, ignore it), I thought to myself, You know what, this is stupid.  I could use a man in my life if for no other reason than that I sleep better knowing someone else will be there to help me fight off the zombies.  So, as any reasonable person would do to prepare for an (all in the head) zombie attack, I installed Tinder.  Again.

It makes me think about that quote about insanity.  You know, the one about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  (Oh?  You were thinking the zombie thing was crazy?  Yeah, that, too.)

Nonetheless, I waited for the app to download, put in a short blurb that represented my personality and interests to some degree, uploaded some old pictures, and started swiping.  I ended up matching with more than 20 people between Saturday and Sunday night.  I talked to several of them for a while, made a few dates, and hoped these dates wouldn't suck as much as the last round.  I matched with a couple of tourists, and most of the conversations didn't go anywhere.  I do sometimes see men from other parts of the country visiting and think, Damn, I need to move away to wherever they're from, but rarely do I bother right-swiping them.  Because what's the point?  They live somewhere else.

But there was this one guy.  We'll call him P.  (Because his name starts with a P.)

He went to one of the best tech schools in the country.  He has a really nice smile.  He has a really nice everything.  Smart and attractive?  How could I pass that up?

So I swiped right.  And we talked briefly.  And he invited me to come and hang out with him and his friends in the Quarter.

And I thought about my less-than-thrilling Friday and Saturday nights.  And I thought about the last time I'd done something spontaneous and a little risky.  And I thought about how I could use a little excitement in my life right now.  And I decided to go for it.

(Keep in mind, I also texted a friend of mine a screenshot of the guy's Tinder profile and told her to call the cops if she didn't hear from me again in the next 12 hours.  Because I'm a responsible risk taker.)

So, at five minutes to midnight on what would normally be a school night (after drinking a sleepy time tea because I'd had every intention of going to bed), I got dressed again, put on a little mascara, got into my car, and drove to the Quarter.  It took us almost half an hour to find each other.  He didn't know where I was.  He didn't know where he was.  Eventually, we settled on a location, and then we changed the location, and then he walked the opposite way of the location....all of which finally led to me running down Bourbon street in my boots and skinny jeans to find him.  (Technically, I spent the final block walking to catch my breath so he wouldn't know I'd run most of the way.  It's hard to explain to a stranger why you just ran down a crowded street to meet him.  For you, though, I will: cold + bourbon st + waiting + 12:30am = bleh.)

I found him, leaning against a pillar below a Bourbon street balcony, wearing a gray suit that was a little too thin for the temperature.  He was a little shorter than expected, a little taller than me, but what I noticed first were his eyes.  And then his smile.  And then the fact that I was super attracted to him, even though we'd barely exchanged a sentence in person.

This doesn't normally happen to me.  I'm not normally out meeting strangers in the Quarter at midnight, much less finding myself magnetized by one.

We went back and forth about where to go before I decided to take him the 8 blocks to Frenchmen Street, which actually turned out to be 16 blocks in forty-something degree weather.  My bad.  But I barely noticed.  It's funny how you can meet someone and just have stuff to talk about.

We spent all of maybe half an hour in Cafe Negril on Frenchmen before the not-so-good music and the not-so-subtle volume level drove us back out on the street with go cups.  It was probably 1:30am by this point.  Maybe 2.  The crowd was thin.  It was cold.  We'd already talked politics, music, school, family, hometown, you name it, but we kept talking.

A short walk brought us to Molly's, the closest bar with noticeable heat, and we sat for another hour or two, talking about anything and everything that came to mind and adding a couple more drinks to our total.  He held my hands in his to warm them.  We kissed.  A lot.  And we had a decision to make.

Now, I'm not that kind of girl, but I was tempted to hop in a cab with him and head straight to my house.  Thankfully, his brain was working better than mine, and we didn't.  We finished off our drinks and headed back out into the cold.  We made out in front of Jackson Square (to keep ourselves warm, of course) until a taxi brought us to Deja Vu Cafe, where I drank water and he drank Purple Haze, and we talked and kissed and talked and kissed, and he changed his flight to stay a few hours longer, to give us a few more hours.  But we couldn't feasibly stay out in the Quarter any longer.  It was at least 5am by this point.  It was already later than I'd stayed out in a long time.  Than I'd stayed out maybe ever.

I wasn't tired, though.  Dopamine is no joke.

We went back to the place he and his friends were staying to pick up his things, we sang two Disney songs with them (because why not), and then we left.

We got to my house after 6am.  We were in bed by 6:30.  We slept and talked, on and off, all morning and into the afternoon, until the alarm went off, and it was time to take him to the airport for his 4 o'clock flight.

Thirteen hours, and I didn't want him to go.  Thirteen hours, and he'd said I should move to California.  Thirteen hours, and we were both wishing it was more.

The car ride to the airport was awkward.  It felt weird to acknowledge my disappointment--I literally hadn't even known he'd existed the day before.  So I stayed quiet, for the most part.  He didn't talk much either.  When I pulled up to the departure hall, he kissed me and told me to visit.  To keep in touch.  He got his things out of the trunk.  We said goodbye through the back door before he closed it (literally, the word "bye"), and I drove off, wondering whether the thirteen hours of talking and kissing and realizing that the other person was pretty freaking awesome was worth the massive ache in my chest.  Wondering whether I'd actually keep in touch.  Whether I'd actually visit.  Whether he really wanted me to do either.  He'd been so affectionate all morning.  He'd been so quiet in the car.

I got home and went for a run.  I'd say to clear my head, but really, just to dull one kind of ache with another.  To mull over when I became the girl that ached after thirteen hours.  To try and figure out why this incredible guy--this smart and handsome and funny guy--had to live four states away.  Eighteen hundred miles away.

And just when I'd nearly decided that I'd cut my losses and leave it for the memory books, he texted me.  And sent me a picture of us from that morning outside of Deja Vu Cafe.  "First meeting memory captured," he wrote.

And hope springs eternal.

The morning--all of it--began to remind me of that Christmas movie, The Holiday.  The one where Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz switch houses and each fall in love with a guy who lives in a totally different country.  The movie ends with a New Year's scene.  You don't know what's going to happen to them.  You can't imagine they'll be able to overcome the country and ocean between them.  But they're enjoying their time together all the same.

The romantic in me loves it.  The pragmatic in me hates that they're putting off the inevitable.


I have no idea what to expect in the days and weeks and months to come.  I like him, but I don't have the funds to visit him regularly.  And it seems unlikely either one of us would move.  And on top of all of that, we've only just met.  Thirteen hours together.  That hardly gives us enough to go on.

Still, even if it bombs in a catastrophically emotional way, and I weep--majorly weep--like Jude Law's character in the movie, I'd drive down to the Quarter at midnight all over again.  In a heartbeat.  Because what's life, if you don't feel a little?

It's a New Year

You know when you're in transition and you're already missing all the old things you haven't even left yet and you're wary of all the new things you know very little about?  That's how I was feeling today at work, even though nothing is set in stone.  It's not even set in Jello.  It's a maybe transition.  There's a chance that I might be doomed or lucky enough to teach science to 4th and 5th graders forever in the same classroom and in mostly the same way for the rest of my days.  But there's also a chance that my principal will let me start this really cool new position doing math and science extension with high performing students, and I am totally psyched at the thought of it.  It's right up my alley, and it's exactly what the school needs right now.

I spend a lot of time thinking about all the things I'll miss about having the same class every day, and all the things I'll miss about hanging out with kids at recess duty, and all the things I'll miss about all the bullshit and the substance that makes most of my days end with a satisfied sigh.  There are some things I'd certainly love to leave behind (grades are pretty much the only thing I can think of right now, mostly because I'm yelping with joy at the prospect), and there's a ton of cool stuff that might lay ahead: teaching math again, using problem- and application-based learning, seeing high-performing kids challenged and excited and engaged.



I felt this way a little bit about my recent transition into becoming a 30-something, too.  There was plenty of anticipation leading up to the event, and I wasn't sure what I would miss about my twenties, but I felt like surely I would miss something.  Freedom?  Metabolism?  Elastic skin?  I created a scavenger hunt to distract me from my impending doom, but it worked out even better than that.  It reminded me of exactly why I should be excited, not worried, about getting older.  It was fun.  It was exciting.  It made me laugh.  It brought people together.  I didn't finish it, but I didn't even care.

My first twenty years weren't much to write home about.  It wasn't bad or traumatic or anything, but whenever I watch movies where people are longing for the glory days of high school, I just don't get it.  If you'd known me as a high schooler or even a college student, you would know there wasn't much to be nostalgic about:

1. My hair was blah.
2. I extremely skinny and flat-chested until I was fifteen, and when I finally got boobs, I also quickly gained more weight than looks good on my face/frame.
3. I was EXTREMELY shy.
4. I studied ALL the time.
5. I was way more stressed out than I should have been.
6. I had way less fun than I should have had.
7. I took way less risks than I wish I'd taken.

And then, after playing it safe through childhood and adolescence, I came into my twenties ready, desperate even, for something new.  I wanted to try new things! meet new people! discover a new, more exciting version of myself!  I tried salsa, kickball, improv, tango, singing, running, going to therapy, dating a lawyer, dating a shorter guy, dating a bartender, dating an ex-boyfriend, online dating, living in the riverbend, living uptown, living in mid city, buying a house, traveling to Europe, traveling to Canada, traveling to Morocco, traveling by myself, traveling with friends, becoming a badass aunt, becoming a (hopefully good) godmother, writing a blog, writing a novel, adopting a cat, playing volleyball, making out with strangers, dancing until the wee hours of the morning, drinking bourbon, saying what I need to say, standing up for myself, acting more like my mom than I'm sometimes comfortable with, and being more like the person I want to be every day.

And I am extremely proud of myself these last ten years.  I've become emboldened.  If you had told me ten years ago that I would feel this way about myself, I would have probably thanked you but inwardly scoffed, and then retreated to my room, where I'd have put on a movie but stared at the wall instead, wishing that I was like that.  Doing things.  Meeting people.  Taking risks.

In the last ten years, I've let myself have way more fun than I ever did in my first twenty on this Earth.  My teenage version of excitement was staying up an extra hour to watch Whose Line Is It Anyway.  Last week, I pointed to a guy in a crowd at a New Year's Eve party and proceeded to dance with him for a straight hour without ever catching his name (he kept saying it, but he was from Mexico, and between his accent and the general roar of the party, I could only figure out that his name ended in the letter o).  And when, at the end of the night, in an ill-executed attempt to get my friend and I go to home with him (never gonna happen), he asked me if he could give me "an extremely good kiss," and I let him.  And you know what?  It was an extremely good kiss.  And a long one, too.  And the first time I've ever been kissed on New Year's.  But definitely not the last.

A part of me worries that living this way as a 30 year old is a recipe for disaster.  I'm worried that while I'm out dancing with strangers, I'll miss all of the actual prospects (if they still exist) for a "normal" life: marital bliss/frustration, kids, the works.  But if that were the case, I think more people would be worried for me.  And they're not.  And I like kissing strangers after five straight hours of dancing in my favorite sparkly dress.  I don't want to do it forever, but until I find something better, it suits me just fine.

I don't know if the excitement will end when I finally find someone I click with.  I don't know if commitment and excitement are mutually exclusive.  But I've been teaching for eight years now, and if I've learned anything about committing to something you love, it's that it won't always be fun.  In fact, it will suck a lot, maybe even most of the time, but that's not what you'll remember--you'll remember that year where your favorite homeroom called themselves "O'merica" because they loved your class so much, that kid who thanked you for not giving up on him, that note a student left in your mailbox one random morning that complimented your "unique sences of humor" (sic) and "all of the burns you give."  Because you're funny in a multi-faceted way and you know how to stick it to a kid in just the right way that he'll love you even more for it.

So, happy new year everybody.  Here's to another year of being me: teacher, learner, fun-haver, risk-taker.  May you be even more like yourself this year, too.

Nearly Thirty

Sometimes you lay on the couch with your cat on your stomach on a Saturday night, and when he presses his nose against your mouth, you think, "This is the closest I've come to kissing someone in two months."  Because sometimes life is like that.

In fact, that very thing happened last Saturday.  So I guess, sometimes life is that.

Let me preface this story by saying that I have been exceptionally lucky over the course of my life in having had very few exceedingly bad dates.  There was that one time my aunt set me up with a lawyer who spent the entire date telling me all the things he was bad at.  There was that other time I got set up with a guy in the Air Force who was shorter than me and twice as wide and three times as heavy of a drinker and four times just not someone I would ever date ever.  Other than that, they've been bland, at worst.

Unfortunately, dinner Saturday night made the list of notably bad dates.  Fortunately, I can laugh about it.  Well, now I can.

About a month ago, I joined OkCupid in an attempt to force myself back into the dating scene (because God knows I don't meet eligible bachelors at my work in an elementary school, in my church choir filled with old, married, and/or gay men, or in my volleyball group where every man is either like my brother or like my dad).

It wasn't the first time I'd joined the site.  Years ago, I was on it for a total of 2 hours before three very questionable men had contacted me, and I was too freaked out to keep my picture up on the internet.  This time around, I hoped, would be different.  At the very least, I thought, I'll get some stories out of it.  (I was right about this, by the way.  You'll see.)

So, I created a profile for myself and let the algorithms do their work.  During my three weeks on the site, I received a total of probably 75 messages.  Heck, the website even told me I was "hot" because so many men had viewed my profile.  We're upgrading you to the more attractive pool of men, they said.  Great, I thought.  Maybe I'll finally find someone I'm attracted to.  The men never changed.

Most of the messages I got said things like "hi" and "hey there."  So many of them included a pet name (babe, honey, sweetheart, sexy) that I eventually included a note in my profile that told men not to contact me if they couldn't do it without including one of these inappropriately affectionate monikers.  I got noticeably less messages after that.  Unsurprisingly.

I tried to respond to all of the messages I received because I felt bad ignoring people who'd put themselves out there.  Eventually, though, the sheer quantity overtook me, and I was tired of being polite to men with whom I had nothing in common.  The few messages I did respond to usually devolved into long bouts of unimpressive fact sharing, but a few threw me for a loop.  There was the guy that told me he would meet all my needs (which the feminist in me hated him for) and then said some very dirty things (which the feminist in me blocked him for).  There was the twenty year old, who told me that age was just a number ("It's not like you're 40 or 50," he typed from his parents' house in Covington).  He couldn't accept that looking like a twelve year old and typing "lol" at the end of every sentence was a deal breaker.  There was the guy that I'd actually seen at a breakfast place uptown earlier that day who messaged me the words "very pretty," as though complimenting me on my looks with an incomplete sentence would somehow elicit a desirable response.  Worst of all, there was the guy who called me stupid and told me I was single because I called him out on soliciting sex.  (That shit got ugly fast.)

I'm telling you, if you want to lose hope in humanity, join OkCupid in New Orleans.

After multiple weeks on the site, though, I finally thought I'd found a prospect and agreed to meet  him for dinner.  He was 28, a transplant, an accountant, and a rock climber.  In fact, he'd spent Thanksgiving weekend climbing cliff faces near Vegas.  We knew very little about each other, and I hadn't seen a clear picture of his face, but I was okay with that.  I'm not one for google stalking.  I prefer face to face getting-to-know-you kind of stuff, anyway, and I was willing to put aside my shallow tendencies and give him a chance.

I usually suggest getting drinks on a first date (easier to duck out if it goes south), but he asked me to dinner, so I put caution to the wind and agreed.  As I walked into that restaurant full of hope, though, and then saw the one not-so-attractive guy alone at a table waiting for me, I immediately wished I had insisted on drinks instead.  Or that I was back home with the cat.  Because my cat doesn't have a completely hairless chest.  My cat doesn't think it's cool to wear an ugly paisley shirt with several buttons open at the top and the sleeves rolled up.  My cat doesn't ask me what the craziest thing I've ever done is.

"I don't know.  I don't really do that many crazy things.  I mean, I'm just not really a crazy kind of person."

"No?"

"No, I mean, I'm afraid of heights, and I went on the Eiffel Tower once.  That was pretty crazy to me.  One time I spent twelve hours roaming Paris with two twenty-something men I had just met along the Seine that afternoon.  It was unexpected, to say the least...  Umm... I used to do improv?"

"Improv is pretty cool.  I'd be scared to do it."

"What's the craziest thing you've ever done?"

He stopped to make a scene of thinking about it.  "Okay, how about this one?" (Terrible actor, this guy.  Guarantee he recounts this on every first date.)  "Once, my friends and I stayed out on the beach all night and did mushrooms."

"What beach?"

"Pensacola.  You ever done mushrooms?"

"No, I've never done any drugs.  Not my thing."

"I've done every kind of drug.  I've just never found one I liked."



Wait.

It gets better.



"So, what brought you down to New Orleans?"

"Work.  I'm an accountant for a petrochemical company down here."

"Oh, that's cool.  My sister's an accountant."

"Yeah, I'm trying to decide if I want to go back to school for my CPA.  My company got bought out, and I'm going to get laid off soon."

"Oh man, that sucks."

"Yeah.  I'm just staying on during the transition.  I don't know, Vegas was nice.  Maybe I'll go there."

"Cool.  You live in the city now?"

"Yeah.  My lease ended, though.  So I've been staying on people's couches for the last couple of months.  I don't really have access to a kitchen, but that just means I get to eat out at great New Orleans restaurants all the time."


In other words, if you missed it, I was on a date with a homeless, soon-to-be unemployed drug user.


He offered to pay for my meal (not necessary), said he was bummed when I announced that I was calling it a night (at 8:45pm after several long and awkward pauses), and then offered to walk me to my car twice (that's not necessary, and definitely not).

When I got home, I texted a friend of mine who's also single and has had her fair share of bad dates.  She died laughing--because what else can you do?--and then told me about the random guy outside Walmart who honked at her from his cheap convertible that day and asked for a date.  It looks like we're both doomed to a life of cuddling pets and bitterly unfollowing people on Facebook who post too many couple selfies (you know who you are).

It's gotten to the point where I almost took home a book this week from the library called Date-onomics: How Dating Became a Lopsided Numbers Game.  Kirkus Reviews said it was "informative and might be useful to single readers," but I eventually decided not to check it out because (a) I was embarrassed and (b) I didn't think I'd feel better knowing there's scientific proof that dating is nearly impossible.  So I checked out two young adult books instead.  Nothing like escaping into the life of a teenager to make you feel better about yourself.

I went home that night from the date and disabled OkCupid as soon as I got inside.  I'll admit, things felt pretty grim.  I was turning 30 in less than two weeks, and my best prospect at that moment was a 28 year old guy who had no home, a history of drug use, a looming layoff, and a desire to move to Las Vegas.  I laid on my unmade bed and cried along with a few episodes of a Netflix show where a young woman learns she has cancer before falling asleep in my clothes: sad for my dating life, sad for this fictional woman.

My alarm went off at 8:30 the next morning, and I woke up, still sad.  I putzed around the house.  I went to church without a smile, barely caring.  I sat at Panera with a half a sandwich and warm sweet tea and wracked my brain (and the internet) for a birthday party idea that would make it all better.

Every year, I plan something big and fun where all the different people in my life come together to celebrate me.  It is the one day of the year that I allow myself to be vocally self-centered, and the people in my life are kind enough to humor me.

Except this year isn't just any birthday.  It's a decennial birthday.  And not just any decennial birthday.  The one decennial birthday that American society has turned into a social/reproductive death sentence...for women, anyway.  I wanted this year's celebration to be the biggest of them all.  I wanted to remember it. I wanted it to make me feel alive.  I scoured pinterest for ideas.  I combed through event calendars.  I googled everything I could think of that might bring me to my perfect party.  Nothing stuck, though.  My thirtieth birthday--like my sad life as a 30-year-old--was going to suck.  For the first time since I'd been old enough to plan my own parties, I was going to have an average-to-mediocre birthday.  As so many women in their thirties are told to do, I was going to settle.

But then I had an idea.  A great, exciting, inspiring idea.  An idea that would get people I care about all over the world to participate in my birthday.  An idea that would force me to be a little goofy and maybe push my social boundaries.  An idea that would take me to various places in the city and motivate me to meet new people.  And I was excited.  Ecstatic.  This photo social media scavenger hunt was going to be epic.  Sadness, be gone!

Hunkered down in my Panera booth racing against my laptop's dying battery, I could feel the swell rising within me.  I was signing up for Instagram!  I wasn't getting old.  I was getting more fun!  This was going to be the birthday to top all birthdays!  Who cares if I can't see details in the distance anymore, or that my hearing is worse, or that I've got bags under my eyes all the time?  I'm alive!  I am an almost-thirty-year-old woman...Hear me roar!

Tonight, I went to a church holiday party alone, and then left early and went to a comedy show, also alone.  I was hesitant about going it solo, but I thought, Hey, maybe I'll finally meet some new people at church and Hey, I can just play on my phone like a social outcast until the show starts.  You don't need someone to talk to during a comedy show anyway.

The thing is, I was right, and I was really glad that I chose to go to both.  I met several new people at the church party, and most of the choir showed up, so I wasn't really that alone anyway.  At the comedy show, I forced myself not to spend all my time on my phone, but I also forced myself to take the opportunity to tackle a few of my scavenger hunt items.  I snuck a selfie in the bathroom.  I ran a few blocks to the Roosevelt to snap a picture during intermission.  Best of all, I got to see my talented friend CJ Hunt kill it on stage, and I got to laugh harder than I have in a long time.

As I ran down Canal Street in my little black dress and heels to find that Roosevelt picture, I thought to myself, "Rebekah, you're doing alright on your own.  Maybe it's not so bad being single at thirty after all."

And as I walked back to my car after the show with a smile on my face that wouldn't fade, I thought to myself, Hey, that guy in front of me is bald.  I wonder if it would be super weird to ask him for a selfie for my scavenger hunt.

I didn't muster up the courage to ask, but I did talk to him in the elevator.  Baby steps.


[Side note: This is not a cry for help.  Please do not feel the need to message me on Facebook with encouraging words about how the right guy will show up for me when I least expect it.  Just enjoy the humor in this self-deprecation.  I know I do.]

30th Birthday Scavenger Hunt

In less than two weeks, I’m turning 30, and as I ponder my segue into the fourth decade of my life, what strikes me most is how grateful I am for the experiences and people in my life thus far.  In that vein, I’d like to celebrate my thirtieth birthday this year with as many people and experiences as I can.  So, I’m creating a photo scavenger hunt, and I hope you'll join in.  It starts today and ends Jan 1st at midnight.

You don’t need to be in New Orleans (or even the US) to do it, and you don’t need to go out of your way to tackle a challenge--some of these things you may have already planned on doing.  All you need is this list, a phone, and the internet.  There are 30 challenges on the list, but don’t plan on doing all of them.  Since it's my birthday, I'm going to try to, and I would love your help in making some of these happen (for example, do you have a Christmas party and a guest invite? If so, hit me up). If you can do at least one and post it, awesome.  If you can’t, no worries.  You do you.

If you want to let others in on the fun, go for it.  The more, the merrier (merry birthday to me!).  Share this on your Facebook wall or instagram or email it to them or tell them about it while you're double-fisting cookies at the company party.

Post your photo to Facebook or Instagram (@rebekaholinde) with the tag #rebekahs30, the number, and challenge from the list that you’ve done.

Consider your participation your birthday gift to me.  You'll be thinking about me, and I'll be thinking about you. Love is all I need.

The Hunt

Each of these counts as one point.  Try one.  I bet we can get to 300 pts by the end of the month.

1. Take a picture at a Christmas party you were invited to
2. Take a picture at a Christmas party where you don’t know the host
3. Take a picture with the Loch Ness monster at Christmas in the Oaks
4. Visit the decorated Roosevelt Hotel hallway and take a picture
5. Take a picture with a horse
6. Take a picture with a champagne-based beverage
7. Take a picture with a bartender you don’t know (of the opposite gender)
8. Take a picture in a sparkly/sequined dress (or pants or shirt or jacket)
9. Take a picture of a sunset or sunrise
10. Buy a stranger a drink or get him/her to buy you a drink. Take a picture of/with the drink.
11. Take a picture of yourself or someone else drinking egg nog
12. Take a selfie in a public bathroom mirror
13. Take a picture of yourself wearing something red
14. Take a picture of yourself double-fisting cookies
15. Pet a stranger’s dog and take a picture
16. Take a picture with someone who’s bald (voluntarily or involuntarily)
17. Take a picture with someone who has a chain wallet
18. Go to a show.  Take a picture with one of the musicians/actors/comedians/dancers.
19. Do a handstand or a cartwheel.  Have someone else take a picture.
20. Plank in at least three different places.  Have someone else take the picture.
21. Take a picture with a shot of fireball
22. Write a message for the server on a receipt.  Take a picture.  (double points if you add your phone number)
23. Take a picture with a napkin from at least two different bars
24. Take a picture with a designated driver
25. Take a picture with someone in a uniform
26. Take a picture with an elf
27. Take a picture with a guy with a long beard (real or fake)
28. Take a picture with someone under 1 or over 80
29. Take a picture of someone dancing
30. Take a picture of a stranger who has a birthday in December (Jesus look-alikes count)

Becoming a Writer

For the last week or so, my fifth graders have been working on a project about animals and adaptations.  Based on research they've done and on the whims of their imaginations, they've been creating creatures with adaptations that would allow for survival in the animal's ecosystem.  Part of the task is to create a sketch of the animal, but the majority of the project is writing an article in the style of National Geographic (which is my potentially ingenious way to make their writing better and my grading less boring).  However, despite the style suggestion, I've found many of the rough drafts to be painful to read.  So today, before they started working again, I read off an example of an in-progress piece that a student had written the day before that I thought best exemplified descriptive writing in a way that other students could understand and emulate.  After reading it, I had them explain to me what made the writing interesting.  The first class was pretty on top of it.  "It's descriptive and really detailed," one said.  "It was like watching a movie," another chimed in.  The second class was less forthcoming with ideas (I think because the kid who wrote it was bragging loudly in the corner and nobody wanted to indulge his ego further).  In both cases, though, there were several kids in the class half-tuning me out.  I could see the look on their faces: You're a science teacher.  What do you know about writing?

So, I set them straight.

"You don't know this about me, but I'm a writer.  I spent three years at NOCCA studying creative writing, and I've been doing it ever since.  That's why I feel comfortable giving you writing advice."

I am not lying to you when I say that two kids gasped.  Like, out loud.  A few other exchanged surprised looks with their friends.

It made me think of that time in child development class in college when our professor explained schema during a lecture on brain development.  She told us that when a kid sees dog kibble, she might call it crackers and try to eat it, categorizing it as part of a group that she knows: things to put in my mouth.  When the mom freaks out and explains, no child, you can't eat dog food, it's meant for Fido and might make you sick, the kid learns that what a dog eats and what a person eats are different, and s/he creates a new category: things only dogs should put in their mouths.  Her understanding of the world, her schema, has changed.

Today, a few schemas were changed.  Including, I hope, mine.

Because today was probably the first time since high school that I actually said the words "I am a writer" out loud to another human being.  For over a year, I've been writing a blog on a mostly daily-to-weekly basis, and yet I've considered myself a person who writes and never A WRITER.  It's not my job, and I'm not yet convinced that I have enough experience with it to claim such a title in person (I prefer to hide behind a screen and do it like a good millenial).  I would feel the same way about calling myself a pianist.  Sure, I play the piano, but being a pianist requires a little more skill and experience than I've got.  Same would go for being a singer, a volleyball player, a blah-blah-blah.  In fact, whenever I tell people I play volleyball, I always make sure to add the disclaimer: "But I'm still not great yet."  I don't want anyone assuming I play Open and coming back later to say, "I thought you said you were a volleyball player!"

I have no problem with calling myself a teacher, though.  I'm well over my 10,000 hours, and there's a contract in my house that would beg to differ with anyone who chooses to argue otherwise.

"I'm a writer."  When I said those three magic words today, I actually felt different.  I know that sounds weird, but it was like when you get the shivers and you realize for the first time since you stepped outside that you're actually cold.  I'm actually a writer.  Yikes.

Something about participating in this National Novel Writing Month has helped me turn the corner from "someone who writes" to "a writer."  Sure, I'm not published.  Heck, I only have one chapter written.  But something about writing a book makes it seem more real.  Maybe it's the commitment.  Or the word count.  Or the format.  But it feels more...writer-y.

And I love it!  I always thought that writing a novel would be terrible, arduous and miserable, and that I would get lost in the aimless wandering of my main character.  But I haven't.  (I mean, I'm three days and a single chapter in...give me time.  I might regret this hasty statement later.)  In fact, I actually look forward to writing about my main character.  Even today, when I realized that I'd ended my first chapter and would have to come up with a whole new idea for a second chapter, I just opened up to a fresh page for a new mind map (my new favorite brainstorming tool) and pretty soon I had a foundation for Chapter Two: Eyebrows.  I decided (though it's requiring some self-discipline on my part) not to start writing that second chapter today in favor of focusing on this blog post, but when I start tomorrow, I know I'm going to get that rush all over again.  The words just flow out of my fingertips.  My character is coming to life, and I love her.  I love what she learns.  I love the world she lives in.

For those of you I haven't already shared this with, my novel is tentatively called Things My Grandfather Gave Me.  It's told from the perspective of a twelve year old girl, and it bounces around from scene to scene, story to story, character to character based on the various things that her grandfather has given her over the course of her life.  Beyond loving the writing process and what it's created, I really love the opportunity to honor one of the most important and incredible men I have ever known, my own grandfather who passed away in April.  I miss him in a big way, and writing this grandfather character (also called Papa) gives me a chance to relive some of our time together.  It makes me sad to remember that he's gone, but blessed to know that he was in my life for as long as he was.

As a present to myself for committing to this novel (slash a way to avoid zombie eyes when spending hours on the computer every day), I purchased a pair of glasses that are supposed to block blue light from electronics so that they doesn't interfere with your sleep.  As a present to you, I will share a photo of just how ridiculous they make me look.

You're welcome for that laugh.

Guest Post: Life’s Unfair, Enjoy It! (Max Roche)

Perceived near death experiences tend to put things into perspective, as much as the real ones, as long as the feeling of your approaching end is authentic.

Some three years ago, in the middle of the summer, I started to feel some numbness in my face.  It was strange, because it was exclusively on one side of my face and it was combined with a feeling of pins and needles in one arm and one leg, on the same side.

I was a bit worried and did not quite know what to make of it. So I did the only thing I could think of (even though I knew it was stupid): I googled the symptoms. The search result/diagnosis was bad: either brain tumor or multiple sclerosis. Under either scenario, life as knew it (and, in the short term, my life itself) would be over soon.

I started to consult a neurologist, she did not see anything obvious but took it seriously enough to prescribe a brain MRI. I was scheduled to take the MRI a week later. The way I saw it, this MRI would basically tell me whether or not I was dying. And there was a good chance I was actually dying, as this was the only way to make sense of these symptoms (at least according to search algorithms).

So it did a lot of thinking that particular week. I started by feeling sorry for myself and by resenting how unfair life was. After all, I had lived an honest and decent life so far… so much for karma. Why me? Why now? 33 years old is too young to die.  Everyone would agree on that, right? And what had I accomplished so far? Not much. I didn’t get a fair shot. It really sucked…

But, as days went by, my thinking started to evolve. I had the time to look back on my years on this Earth. After all, this decent life I had lived had been rather enjoyable and these 30 + years had all been good years. Of course I had felt frustration, aggravation, disappointment, regrets, even sadness from time to time. But, overall, it had been a great life so far. Then it got me thinking… how many human beings were lucky enough to have lived such an enjoyable, 33-year long life? Out of all the human experiences that I could have lived, what were the odds that I would end up living this one?

I mean, when you think about it, the possibilities are mind boggling: out of all the human being that have ever been born, I could have been much worse. First of all, I could have been a cave man fighting for my life every day against a hostile environment. That’s not an easy life. When you are trying to feed your family as a hunter-gatherer in the middle of winter… there is no app for that! I am no paleontologist, but I am pretty sure not many cave men or women reached the age of 33. Even without going back in for thousands of years, I could have been born in the Middle-Ages, at a time when 90% of the population were basically slaves in the fields. Or, even more recently, I could have lived some of these 33 years in a war torn Europe. Had I been born in the exact same place as I have (Paris, France), only 100 years before, I would have experienced the horrors of war, all the uncertainty and fear that goes with it. When I was a kid, my great-grandmother told me stories of her older brothers who died on the front in World War I. I was too young to imagine what it was like to be one of these people, even if they were my relatives. But, for some reason, it all came back to me that week, when I thought I might be dying. I realized how easy life had been on me. Even among contemporary human beings, I could have done so much worse. I can’t imagine how hard my life would have been had I been born in Syria, Afghanistan, or even rural India. The odds for me to live these 33 years as comfortably as I have were infinitesimal.

So let’s summarize: in my life, I have never been hungry or cold for too long. I have been uncomfortable, sad, and heartbroken sometimes, but it only helped me appreciate life better. I have never felt the weight of hopelessness. I have never been deprived of my freedom and was given reasonable opportunities to define and achieve my life objectives. Above all, I have been blessed with healthy kids with a bright future ahead of them.

So what if I have to die at 33… It would suck for my wife and kids, for my parents and brothers. But these 33 good years would not be taken away from me nor would it from them. They were in our memory bank. My death would be a bucket of sad experience in an ocean of incredible luck and blessing.

In a society where most people are either bashing or trying to join the famous “top 1%”, I realized that, whether I liked it or not, I belonged to the top 0.001% most fortunate of all the 100+ billions human beings to have ever been born.

My first reaction to this thought was that I should pass it on to my kids by writing it down or recording myself somehow. But, since I was still my lazy self, I decided to wait for the results of the MRI.

As it turned out, I was fine. There was no clear medical explanation to my symptoms. But after a series of tests over a few weeks, all the lethal conditions were pretty much excluded. I was relieved obviously. I could resume the course of my life having learned a valuable lesson: never use Google to diagnose yourself (next time, I’ll try Siri)!

Jokes aside, I felt indeed wiser after this episode. I was well aware that I could lose everything overnight. I was healthy and lucky, not immune to car crashes or domestic accidents. But ever since that moment, I’ve been feeling somewhat lighter about death (about my own at least). Life is unfair, but, overall, this unfairness has favored me considerably. I don’t even feel guilty about this unfairness, because there is little I could have done to correct it. I think I should simply be grateful, enjoy and try to give back as much as possible.

I never took the time to share this piece of wisdom with my children (they are too young to understand anyway). Life caught up with me and I always had something more urgent to do than create a record of these thoughts. When Rebekah gave me carte blanche to write a guest post, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to write about (I just like writing, she and I have this in common). Then I realized it was the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. So here it is. I hope you enjoyed reading this. If not, at least please send the link to my kids if I get hit by a bus someday (hopefully not before they are much older). The unfairness lives on with them. They need to know how lucky they are and how grateful they should be.