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  • There’s No Such Thing As Bad Timing

    Hate To Break It To You is a recurring feature wherein we dispense succinct home truths that everyone could benefit from facing up to, unpleasant as they may be.

    Before the eyebrows start raising, let me clarify. I don’t meant that there’s no such thing as bad luck, misfortune, or ill-timed dramas that might befall us. Having your sewer pipe break on New Year’s Eve and start spewing raw sewage into your basement and not being able to find a plumber in the whole town who’ll take the call (true story, heard it myself)? Well, that just flat out sucks. Ditto spilling a caramel macchiato down the front of your shirt 15 minutes before a job interview. But this isn’t the bad timing I’m talking about.

    1357769679_a185a4975cPhoto by Brittany G

    There’s absolutely no such thing as bad timing when it comes to making a decision or taking an action to improve the quality of your life or increase your happiness. Simply does not exist in this context. Sure, there might circumstances under which it would be more/less convenient or would require more/less effort to execute or  under which you have fluctuating level of resources to support your decision, but those things aren’t dealbreakers. If you want something enough, if you are rational and reasoned about the work or sacrifices required to achieve it (and many people aren’t, let’s be honest) then the timing becomes immaterial. Your commitment supersedes it. Deciding to have a baby, start your own business, move from Bangor to Austin, or to quit your job to go back to school to become a plumber (preferably one who works holidays) will always be a big flippin’ deal. There is no point at which big-ticket decisions like these will seem easy and there will always be drawbacks, hurdles, and cons to implementing your choices. This isn’t a case of bad timing standing in your way, it’s just life. And you’re fooling yourself if you think you can outwait these circumstantial downsides. As soon as one resolves itself, another will pop up to take its place. And really, once you’ve  identified what would improve your life, isn’t going years without it (whatever/whoever it may be) as you mark the days until the perfect time*  to make your move  more of a sacrifice and a hardship than any uphill battle you might face if you simply took that leap of faith right now? Besides, who knows when your metaphorical sewer pipe might burst and damn all your best-laid plans, anyway.

    If there’s no wrong or right time, that means that the best we get is being able to develop the ability to honestly appraise our lives, to decide what would make us happier and what we’re willing to offer up or do without to achieve this happiness. Short-term hardship vs. longer-term emotional deprivation; you’re the only one who makes the call. Leave timing (for better or worse) out of it.

    * Doesn’t exist either, kiddos.

  • Immediate Availability: 3 Apartment Hunting Tips To Apply to Your Love Life

    I spent the weekend apartment hunting. Or rather, I spent 16 hours on Saturday apartment hunting and those 16 hours included the six hours of air and land travel time to get to my destination city and back.  It was an exhausting goose chase (wild or not still to be determined), especially since I consider moving just about the most torturous activity ever. The loooong commute back home did give me a chance to think, though. And I decided that looking for a place to live has a lot in common with looking for love. Yes, I’m serious.

    404118049_b3f7affb28Photo by *ASAP*

    3 Apartment Hunting Tips to Apply to Your Love Life

    Know your dealbreakers, but keep an open mind about everything else
    Instead of approaching the endeavor with a checklist of characteristics your ideal living space (or mate) possesses, figure out what you absolutely won’t tolerate and be flexible about the rest. In my case, I refuse to live in a basement apartment and I don’t want a roommate or roommates, but I’m pretty apathetic about a balcony and could take or leave hardwood floors. By ruling out a few key dealbreakers, you rule everything else in by default. This gives you a much wider pool of options to choose from and increases the likelihood of finding a space or a person who fits your needs well, even if it/they wouldn’t have initially been on your radar if you used the checklist of criteria approach.

    Be realistic
    Your odds of finding a spacious, bright one-bedroom condo with all utilities included, close to public transit, night life and green space with huge closets, a fireplace and an en suite washer and dryer for $600/month in the city of your choice hover between slim and none. You can have a some of these things, but it will mean giving up others. Or maybe you can  have all of them if you choose to relocate to the suburbs of Butte, Montana or are willing to pay $1500/month in Chicago. And just like there isn’t a perfect apartment, there isn’t a perfect partner. Every space and every person has  flaws – noisy neighbours, a tiny kitchen, a profoundly messy streak, a strange attachment to collecting vintage porcelain dolls, etc, etc. Holding out for the ideal is just a way of avoiding having to fully commit to the real and the current. If this is temporary, why bother investing? Better to wait for when the real, the permanent, the one comes along. Then you can finally put down roots, finally open up, stop holding your breath and start feeling. Well, enjoy your bare walls in the meantime, because with fantasyland standards, it’s gonna be a long wait.

    Understand the whole different strokes for different folks thing
    In addition to all the research and legwork I’ve done on my own, quite a few kind friends have offered me apartment hunting advice, tips and leads. And believe it or not, there’s been very little overlap when it comes to neighhborhoods they’ve suggested checking out or amenities they prize as must-haves. I find the divergent ideas of what to look for to be a fascinating peek at the offering parties’ own preferences and priorities. Ditto for the dating world. Not everyone is looking for the same thing, so when you receive well-meaning advice on finding Ms. or Mr. Right, you need to consider the context in which it was offered (What type of individuals does this person typically have relationships with? Are these generally healthy relationships? Do you share common values with this person?) and reconcile it with your own self-identified needs. Don’t be afraid to discard wisdom (whether from friends or “experts”) that doesn’t reflect your life or resonate with your gut. You should know you better than anyone else.

  • Back To The Future

    Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of Ingrid Michaelson. One of my favorite tracks happens to be Maybe (Go listen. I’ll wait).  Something about its poppy cheerfulness just makes me smile like crazy, not to mention the uber whimsical video (and I’m not just saying that because I would wear the heck out of that dress, sans leather belt-ish thing, natch). Last week, I happened to have been told two stories that reminded me of this song. Two contrasting stories from individuals who had people boomerang back into their lives after prolonged absences – eight and 30 years, respectively. One holds the promise of a new beginning and the other represents the tying up of loose strings inherent in indisputable endings.

    3352906240_43b7dd173cPhoto by Luis Beltran

    Both stories have started my mental wheels turning (but really, what doesn’t?), namely thinking about the impressions we make and the impressions others leave on us.  How many thousands of people pass through our lives – friends, family, lovers, colleagues, classmates, teachers, doctors, cab drivers, waiters, team mates, fellow commuters – and how very few of them imprint themselves indelibly on us?

    We can have a lifetime of fulfilling relationships and interactions with caring, supportive, interesting people. Folks who we’ll ask to be in our wedding parties, who we’ll invite over to watch the Super Bowl, or wish a happy birthday to on Facebook or offer to grab coffee with should they happen to be in town for a conference. We like them, we get along with them, think or speak of them in a positive light if their name comes up, but we wouldn’t reach out to them with our one phone call from lock-up, wouldn’t move heaven and earth to track them down if we learned we had six months to live, don’t earmark certain thoughts and feelings as something we know only they would understand 100%. And yet, for a select few others (if we’re lucky), we would do these things. What separates these individuals from the rest? Think of it as slowly sweeping a metal detector over your emotional history. Nothing, nothing, nothing and then you just hit a spot where it starts beeping like crazy and you know there’s something there. You might not know exactly what (and it’s your choice whether to dig down to find out), but man, it’s something.

    I submit that it has to do with believing that someone is seeing/responding to the person you truly believe yourself to be. There is something terrifying, exhilarating, elementally comforting and unforgettably compelling about feeling known, about feeling seen and heard and understood. You realize that this, this is what it’s all about. Even if it’s just a brief flash in time, it leaves its mark. One that can last eight years, 30 years, a lifetime*. One that will always cause the teeniest tiniest part of you to wonder if maybe, in the future, it’s gonna come back around**.

    *If you can pinpoint these people and these experiences, I emphatically urge you not to wait decades (or until the sky is falling) to reach out to reconnect with these folks.

    ** Again, quit with the wondering and make it happen. Now.

  • Pay Your Dollar And Place Your Bet

    Hate To Break It To You is a recurring feature wherein we dispense succinct home truths that everyone could benefit from facing up to, unpleasant as they may be.

    80125882_3347a3ab46Photo by John Wardell

    Every big life decision comes with risk and there’s no way to know if the decision is the right one before you make it and proceed to live the results. You can do your homework, research the hell out of your options, consult experts, pray for divine intervention and/or consult Madame Cleo, but there are still no guarantees. Perfect information is a lie.  Eventually, it comes down to your gut, your intuition and your willingness to sack up and accept that this might not play out as you expected/hoped. Don’t let the ambiguity paralyze you and don’t fall victim to believing that if this truly was the right course of action that you’d already know that 100%. There’d a sign from the heavens, a sense of inner peace. I knew as soon as we locked eyes, as soon as I saw the job ad, as soon as I stepped off the plane at JFK. That’s simply hindsight romanticizing. Those decisions may have panned out, but don’t let anyone convince you that their heart wasn’t in their throat as they touched down on the runway and that they weren’t already thinking about when the next flight back to Des Moines was (you know, just in case).

    You take all of the input you have, you take the feeling in the pit of your stomach and in your chest, you take your laudable logic and the crazy beating of your heart and you do whatever it is you think will make you happy/happier and improve your life. And you accept that you, just like any of the rest of us on any given day, might be utterly wrong. You accept it because that’s the way it is and always will be and because the possible pay-off of having chosen rightly trumps your risk aversion. It simply has to.

  • 3 Tips For Dealing With Stress Constructively

    ‘Tis the season for a lot of things, not the least of which is stress.  And stress begets articles by “experts” on how to cope with said stress. While most of this advice is well-intentioned, the practicality and applicability of it to the life of the average Gen Meh-er is dubious at best.  Put another way, taking a soothing bath with aromatherapy oil ain’t gonna do jack about fixing your credit card debt, is it?

    2498430427_777a6d5e43Photo by kelvin255

    I’m not a threats/bribery/meditative kinda girl, so the following are the only tried-and-true stress mitigating approaches that I’ve found work for me. Take a deep breath and read on.

    3 Tips For Dealing With Stress Constructively

    Think about a point in the future when this will be behind you. This is advice my mother used to give and I still use it. Think about how you’ll feel on Tuesday at 4:31 PM when your organic chemistry  final has been handed in.  Think about a week from tomorrow when you’ll be moved into your new apartment and waiting for the cable company to come by to hook you up. Or Jan 13 when that damn gallbladder will be out of your life for good. The point is to put the stressor in perspective and fix your mind on a (calmer) point in the future when it will be over and to focus on the sense of relief you’ll feel at that point.

    Think about the worst case scenario and determine your mitigation strategy. Your mind is going to go there anyway, right? So once you’ve determined all of the things that the fates could throw your way, plot out a concrete response for how you would deal should this come to pass. For example,  if I don’t find an apartment in city X before my lease in city Y expires, I can always sell/donate my furniture and move back in with my parents temporarily. If I lose my job in the next round of lay-offs,  my resume is up-to-date and this is a list of six temp agencies I will call the next day. The point of this strategy isn’t to encourage pessimism, but to put your mind at ease that even if everything goes utterly wrong, you still have a battle plan. You can stop obsessing over the worst case scenario because you know how you’re going to respond to it. I call this sewing your own safety net (and yeah, it’s copyrighted, so back off, ‘kay?).

    Do something, anything productive. Paralysis amplifies and exacerbates stress. Take some sort of concrete action, no matter how small and indirectly related to the looming task at hand. This doesn’t mean watching a Supernatural marathon on your laptop when you have 75 invitations to address for your sister-in-law’s baby shower, but it might mean going to the gym or grocery shopping before settling in for a Saturday of cleaning out your closets or easing into working on that 30-page research paper by warming up your brain with a blog post or by highlighting relevant passages in a minimum of 10 journal articles.

  • Expiration Dated: Of Lost Luggage and Missed Connections

    Hate To Break It To You is a recurring feature wherein we dispense succinct home truths that everyone could benefit from facing up to, unpleasant as they may be.

    Picking up where we left off…

    In my previous post I mentioned the connection between “mistakes” and opportunities, namely that we shouldn’t fear making the former, but rather missing out on the latter. While we can change our minds and revise our decisions, we don’t get the same grace when it comes to opportunities. They’re fleeting and perishable. Supplies are limited, while quantities last, call now, operators are standing by. You know the drill. Yeah, there’s always a catch and this one is a bit of a bitch, kiddos.

    2263830857_e7e6fd80e3Photo by markhillary

    As I remember telling someone once upon a time*, opportunity doesn’t operate like the luggage carousel at the airport. It doesn’t just come around on a conveyor belt that’s content to keep looping until you’re ready to elbow your way in there and grab your bag. And if you live according to that model, you assume that you have plenty of time to sort things out and deal with distractions (where did I put my passport? should text my mother that I arrived safely?) before buckling down and finally turning your attention to the opportunity in question. When you finally do so, that’s when you find out that you’ve missed your shot and there’s nothing left there to grab. Whether your suitcase has been shuttled off to the unclaimed baggage desk (where lost opportunities go to die, if I really want to milk this analogy) or snatched up (wittingly or otherwise) by another traveler, you end up standing there empty handed.

    Opportunity comes when it comes and it comes with the caveat that it’s more ephemeral than you would imagine. The timing might suck, the circumstances might be all wrong, you might have a dozen other plates in the air, but there’s opportunity, standing on your doorstep, cap in hand, FRAGILE stamped on its forehead and it’s only gonna knock once, ya dig?  And the perfect storm of readiness that you’re waiting for? It’s never going to come. There will never be a right time. Life is lived out of alignment. You can either accept that and modify your approach accordingly, or you can put your carpe diem off indefinitely and be left with nothing but whatever was stashed in your carry-on to show for it.

    *This little analogy fell on deaf ears, but it was also given before I had a website devoted to prescriptivist encouragement for the masses, so I’m not holding that against myself.

  • You Can’t Erase, But You Can Still Revise

    Sometimes, I will outline or partially write pieces and then just let them sit for a while until I feel the timing is appropriate to post them. Such is the case with this one. It’s been in the queue for ages, but has recently been on my mind again, as I’ve been reminding both myself and others of the idea that there is precious little in this life that is truly permanent. Sure, we might not get to rewind, but we can most certainly mitigate/retrace our steps and/or course correct as needed.

    This is a distillation of the perspective of a very good friend of mine, T. She’s one of the most interpersonally insightful and grounded people I have the pleasure of knowing.  During one of our afternoon-long lunches, I vividly remember her declaring that, according to her personal philosophy, there are no “mistakes” or off-track decisions that one can make (save for murder and ridiculously-expensive-to-remove tattoos, I suppose) that can’t be undone. You can always quit your job and find another, go back to school or drop out, sell the house, break up or reunite, move across the country (and back if you don’t like it) for the price of a moving van. And she’s not wrong.

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    Photo by sunflower_gal

    There are two  keys to mastering this outlook:

    Look at these course-correcting decisions within the context of your life’s big picture. In the course of an 80+ year-long life, does a four-month period of unemployment after you quit the job from hell really even merit a second though? It’s a blip on the radar. If you need fortification, hearken to the late John Maynard Keynes, “In the long run, we’re all dead.” So true. And from an economist no less.

    Be willing to humble yourself. How often do we doggedly stick to a method that isn’t working for us, a job that drains us, a relationship that doesn’t fulfill us because we’re too prideful to admit that things aren’t working? Heaven forbid that we admit that we made a less than ideal choice, that we’re not 100% content, that we’re fallible. But you know what? Clinging to something dysfunctional speaks volumes more about our lack of judgment than does cutting our losses and moving on. Failure (even public failure) is not the enemy. Myopia and masochism are. Are you really so beholden to what others think of your life that you’d suffer in quiet unhappiness and discomfort instead of risking the possibility of confounding their expectation or their back-of-a-cocktail napkin character sketch of who you are and who you should be. Really? Really? Good luck with that.

    I’m not championing commitment phobia or the notions that personal relationships are disposable or decisions consequence-free, but rather encouraging you to realize that what we often see as make or break moments aren’t really so monumental at all. Save the resignation for your deathbed, ‘kay?

    Majors are made to be switched. Pride is made to be swallowed and amends tentatively offered and even more tentatively accepted. Hearts are made to be duct-taped back together and to spontaneously regenerate their damaged parts. Jobs get lost and opportunities get found. Give it time, a good cry or a stiff drink and brace yourself for the next wave that will feel equally tidal.

    And keep kicking that can as many damn times as you want. Screw that one turn per customer edict.

    This post was originally twice as long, but I thought it worked better as two individual posts. The other half focuses on seizing our chances as they come. Don’t fear mistakes, fear missing out on opportunities. Stay tuned for that one later this week.

  • Je Veux

    I want everything too much.
    -Rachel Berry, Glee

    Just yesterday, I wrote an email in which I used the phrase I want. Not I hope, I would like, I plan to. No, I want. It felt strange. Wanting is bold. It’s loaded with meaning. I want you. She wanted it. Wanting is not for the commitment-phobic. Wanting is putting your cards on the table. It’s unequivocal.

    2182316_5dfc0e42f7Photo by gwen

    Maybe that’s why we don’t use it so much, unless we’re talking about the purely material  Dear Santa wishlist instinct, of course. It’s too transparent, too raw. Being vocal and purposeful in our wanting, we believe, is fairly challenging the universe or someone else to do their damnedest to deny us. And it’s setting ourselves up for failure. What if your want goes unsatisfied? What if you’ve announced to the whole world that you want to move to LA and shop your screenplay around and six years later you’re still in Topeka working as the assistant manager of a hardware store? Well, see where wanting got you?

    Wanting means admitting that you don’t have it all. That everything as it is isn’t enough. Wanting means lacking and well, lacking clearly means (or so we tell ourselves) deprivation or misfortune or a slew of failings (laziness, ingratitude a dearth of talent, etc.) that got you to the point where you must publicly declare that you are not full and yes, you are indeed going to go back for another piece of pumpkin pie, okay? Anybody got a problem with that?

    Wanting means admitting that we have desires, that we have secret dreams and diligently-researched plans. We’re not simply going with the flow, hedging our bets. I’d really like to open my own bakery someday. I’ve been thinking about maybe going back to school. There are things that matter to us, they hold meaning and value. Sometimes, it’s difficult to face that about yourself – that longing, desiring, coveting, aspiring, lusting part of you. Passion isn’t about being prim and antiseptic and satisfied with (or at least willing to humbly endure)  whatever hand you’ve been cosmically dealt. It’s about craving, obsessing, fighting, bleeding, sweating and wanting it (whatever it is) until you hurt.

    Stop denying your wants. Stop playing it cool and pretending that c’est la vie and/or que sera sera is where it’s at. Getting whatever it is you have your heart and mind secretly set on is less important than the act of setting them on something in the first place and acknowledging this want.  Give yourself permission to believe that you have the right to aspire to anything and everything and that the defining, constructing and pursuit of your life is worth as much desire and passion and raw undefined aching as you have inside you. Because it is. Trust me on this.

    The next step is channeling the I want into I will, but we’ll leave that for another day.

  • Scrapbook In Prose

    The stomach is for fear and panic, excitement, too. The heart isn’t immediate enough. It takes things a while to filter through to it. And it’s too imprecise, too messy, too amorphous a spot to locate such sharp feelings. No, it’s the lungs, I’ve decided. That quick stab when you’re standing in line at Starbucks and glance up only to realize that the barista looks exactly like someone you haven’t thought of in a million years and Joni Mitchell is whispering about “moons and Junes and ferris wheels” over the PA and you stand there wondering exactly how long you’ve been holding your breath and whether or not  it will come out as an audible sigh if you dare to exhale? That’s the lungs. Or when you’re kicking past the oak leaves as you wander through Harvard Yard and you convince yourself that around the next corner you might actually catch a glimpse of the alternate universe version of yourself and the thought of maybe coming face-to-face with her/you sort of makes every sharp fall breath of air burn just a little? That’s the lungs, too. When time stops, you feel it in your lungs. When suddenly it’s the past again or another future, your lungs let you know this. When you feel as if you’ve been running or screaming or crying forever, but you haven’t actually moved or made a sound, that’s your lungs.

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    Boston – August 2009

    You’ve either felt it or you haven’t. Maybe that’s one of my hallmarks of getting older; I will tell you clearly, plainly, passionately and you will either instinctively know what it means and how it all fits together or you will shrug it off. But I will no longer stop to explain or diagram. I will just keep moving. If you can keep up, you can keep me company.

    Highlights of November in Boston:

    Rushing up behind me and tapping me on the arm as I’m exiting the Park St. T station.

    “Can I trouble you for a moment?”

    Oh, God. Too well-dressed and groomed to be homeless, not particularly crazy-eyed, but maybe that’s how they make subway proselytizers these days? In need of directions to the Commons, perhaps? I turn with a hesitant smile. I’m in good shape. I can outsprint him for sure.

    “I just wanted to tell you that you have a great Louise Brooks look. I don’t mean to pigeonhole you or anything, but you really do. It’s great.”

    I thank him sincerely and mentally applaud his gumption in approaching a stranger in the subway just to tell her she looks like a silent film ingenue and being completely genuine and non-creepy about it. The compliment made my night. For the record, I appreciate specificity in my flattery, accuracy be damned.

    Waiting for the Red Line to MIT. There’s a blind man on the other side of the platform with a guitar. I don’t recognize the first song he sings, but then he launches into Elton John’s Your Song and I notice how everyone around me starts to smile. Even after the train comes, I can still hear someone a few seats behind me humming it under their breath.

    Two girls, both  conventionally beautiful types. Dark brown hair and strawberry blonde. Dark brown’s mother is recovering from liposuction.

    “She shows me the progress on gchat. It’s gross. Like I want to see that.”

    “Your mother has had a lot of stuff done, hasn’t she?”

    “Well, the nose job was years ago.”

    “I want to get my nose done. My grandma tells me I should. She’d even pay for part of  it.”


    “I like your nose! It’s cute! No, I’m the one who needs a nose job. I hate how it’s round at the bottom. I hate looking, like, obviously Hispanic, ya know?”     The last part delivered in a whisper.


    “You’re crazy! Yours is fine. Mine is pure Jew. Like, ugh. I’m definitely getting it fixed. How much do you think it costs? Can’t be that expensive.”

    Ethnic self-loathing or just bigots? I can’t decide which is the lesser of the two evils.  I wonder if the majority of people think of themselves as fixer-uppers? It makes me sad to even consider the possibility.

    Trying on dresses at Macy’s. I do that whenever I visit a city that has one. Forget that I don’t have anywhere to wear these dresses and that I always talk myself out of them.  The best was Burlington a couple of years ago. All layers of shredded lace and a plunging neckline. Lady Gaga crashes a purity ball.  You’ll have to take my word for it. But life is not a music video and I should be shopping for Christmas presents instead. I was born practical.

    Ruddy-skinned older men with excellent posture in khaki pants and navy blazers. Not so much a look as a code for a separate species. I pretend that this is how former New England prep school students recognize each other decades later. Groton? Exeter? Deerfield? Would necks snap around if I whispered the right alma mater? I think I overuse the word patrician, but it applies in this case. So would hale, but I think that one’s long fallen out of vogue.

    I wish I could just keep walking and never get tired. Just walking and collecting snippets of conversations. “I wanted something a little different for the mirrors. Like 40s glam.” “Yeah, I saw him push you. It was self defense.” “Isn’t this your floor, Hildegard?” “Heading down to the hymn sing?” But collect them and do what with them? Transcribe them? Replay them in an endless loop in an empty gallery space as performance art? Hang onto them as dialogue for stories that never make it to paper? I am what Harriet the Spy would have grown up to become.

    The Junior League of Boston at the Sackler Museum. All pearl earrings, matching tees (tucked in, of course)  and impossibly glossy ponytails. They hardly looked old enough to even form such a league. They’re with little “sisters” – navy sweatshirted tweens with more haphazard ponytails and dirty sneakers. The JL president poses the group for a picture outside of the Museum before they leave for the next stop on their morning itinerary. “Say ‘ Haahvahd’ everyone!” All squinting in the November sun, giggling and pushing to be in the front row. Funny how you only notice certain windows of opportunity after they’ve shut, but then you realize they were probably never open in the first place. There go your lungs again, kiddo.

  • This Life Is Your Life, This Life Is My Life

    Apologies to Woody Guthrie for bastardizing his iconic song title. I came across the link to this definition in the course of unrelated internet reading the other day and while I certainly don’t want to make light of or belittle a medical condition, I couldn’t help but think of how many people are suffering from a non-clinical form of this very phenomenon. Just drifting through the days, waiting for passion to strike (it has to eventually, right?) or for the axe to fall.

    105709828_3b6bcf6fd0Photo by pyrator

    The experience of feeling like an impostor or a fraud trapped in someone else’s shoes cuts both ways. For those who have achieved some measure of career, personal or financial success, there’s the doubt that it’s truly deserved and the fear that it will eventually be snatched back without warning. You can never truly feel secure/content in what you’ve built or attained because there’s always the sneaking suspicion that the universe is eventually gonna send the repo man after your slice of the pie. Better not get too attached, too invested, because it’s all going to crash down around you sooner or later. So you keep pushing yourself harder, running faster and looking over your shoulder all the while.

    For those still struggling and still striving, there’s the desire to believe that this really isn’t the way it was supposed to turn out. Eventually, the alarm clock is going to go off, you’ll wake up and Mom will be yelling from the bottom of the stairs that if you don’t get a move on, you’ll be late for first period. All this time can’t possibly have passed with so little to show for the years. So you play mind games with yourself. You too hold off investing, because buying matching dishware is an adult thing to do and if you do this one adult thing, it means facing up to all of the other adult things you “should” have mastered already, but haven’t. You fight the slippery slope and wait for some sort of it was all a dream reprieve while you do your best to block out stories of other people’s successes.

    And of course, no one talks openly about either scenario. Owning your “success” is simply daring it to be taken away and admitting that you feel inadequate is tantamount to tattooing Underachiever on your forehead. If we convince ourselves that we’re borrowing someone else’s life, maybe it won’t hurt so much to live it or to lose it.

    P.S. I’m off to spend my birthday weekend in Boston and won’t be back until late on Monday. If you’re a last-minute type, there’s still time to win my heart with an appropriate birthday present.  I love penguins, wiener dogs, winter hats, detailed bullet lists and the color black. A pony would also be well received.