I Won't Grow Up!

Sunday, Sept. 5, 2010
9:51 AM  'Cause growing up is awfuller than all the awful things there ever were!

I'm messing up the lyrics to some 'Peter Pan' song because THIS is how I feel right now.  Not unlike a wave that almost killed me that one time in Hawaii, I feel like Adulthood has knocked me over, dunked me underwater, tossed me around and left me crawling on the ground and gasping for air.

As I sit here typing this post in my big sunny kitchen in G while sipping on a glass of orange juice I did not pay for, I realize this may be an exaggeration, but seriously... I feel like I've been struck with/surrounded by a lot of "Adult" problems lately.  I gots issues.

First of all, Kaitlyn is in college now.  Not really my issue; more of a "my baby sister is growing up" sort of thing, but I'm having a surprisingly hard time watching her go through it all.  I worry about her ALL THE TIME.  She was at a party last night, and I had to resist the urge to text her to make sure she had her hand over her drink and that she wasn't going to walk home alone.  During the week, I text her constantly to make sure she's eaten or that she got to class on time or just to make sure she's okay.  Her first week of college has brought back all these traumatic freshman year memories for me and as a result I'm becoming a HELICOPTER PARENT. The whole family went to visit her yesterday, and as we were going to leave I wanted to yell, "Okay, I think we've all gone along with 'playing college' long enough.  It's time to take her home for her nap." I have half a mind to go to grad school at UCONN just so I can be close by if she needs me.  I'm not kidding.

So, basically I've decided I'm suffering from empty-nest syndrome, which is a very Adult (albeit CRAZY) problem to have.  That's issue number one.  The rest of the issues don't require a whole lot of explanation, so I'm just going to lay them out there: my electricity may be shut off September 10, I have a collection agency leaving voicemails on my cell phone, one of my friends just found out she's pregnant and another friend just found out a close family member has cancer.

...

Okay, maybe some of those require some explanation.  The electricity being shut off is related to a meter issue that involves my landlord and the electricity company, but nonetheless, we (me and my roommate) somehow owe money we didn't know we owed and are now delinquent, blah, blah blah, they're threatening to shut off our power.  Fantastic.

The calls from the collection agency I ignored for days because I thought it was some kind of scam until I looked up the phone number and realized it was, in fact, a collection agency.  I went to the emergency room back in January and never received a bill.  My guess is that's what they're calling about, but it's super annoying because, once again, I NEVER RECEIVED A BILL and I wasn't asked to pay at the time and I'm afraid this is screwing up my credit.  I don't even KNOW what credit IS, but I KNOW it needs to be GOOD.  FML.

And the other two issues I'm not going to explain because they're pretty terrifyingly obvious.

All of this is really starting to stress me out so, for the rest of this holiday weekend, I'm taking a break from Adulthood.  And now I'm going to go shower in my childhood bathroom and get dressed in my childhood bedroom and let my mom take me and Steph shopping.  And later, I'm going to go have dinner at my grandma's and then go see some of my old, high school friends.

I want a break!

Clearly, I'm too young to grow up.

Love,
Tara

Conversations with My Sister

Wednesday, August 25, 2010
11:34 PM  Home is wherever I'm with you.

via BBM (that's Blackberry Messenger for the slow and/or old):

T: I want to love that Edward Sharpe song. I almost put it on the mix I made you. But I hate the part in the middle when they talk about her jumping out the window and bleeding everywhere. It ruins it for me.

T: Maybe I'm not hipster enough

K: Hahahah I think it's cute when he says he was falling in love with her! It's okay though. Being hipster isn't that fun. You have to act like you don't care all the time.

K: And ya know what?! Sometimes I do!

T: Hahaha you are wise beyond your years Little Gman

K: Thank you...Big Gman.

Love,
Tara

What is it about us?

Monday, August 23, 2010
9:33 PM  Must read.

In case you haven't seen it yet, there was a really interesting piece on "twenty-somethings" in the New York Times' Magazine last weekend.  It's pretty long, but I gotta say... I feel like it explained a lot.  It made me feel better!

Let me know what you think...

Love,
Tara

Enough Said.

Sunday, August 22, 2010
8:19 PM  Whoa.

"I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of a man, rather than with the man himself, and I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism." - Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

Love,
Tara

"Happiness hit her like a train on a track."

Friday, August 13, 2010
11:58 AM  Oh, I am inspired!

You MUST listen to this song (below).  My friend Eliz sent it to me, and it's literally all I have listened to for the past two days.  Coincidentally (or maybe not so coincidentally) it is featured in the trailer for "Eat, Pray, Love," which came out today.  I'm still not finished with the book, but I cannot wait to see it.

Anyway, the first time I listened to the song was yesterday morning as I was getting ready for work.  I was only half paying attention to it as I had overslept and was busy rushing around, but I liked it well enough.  It wasn't until later that morning that I loved it.  I was walking to work, listening to the song on my Ipod and trying to shift all of the gear I was carrying (purse, gym bag, phone, Ipod), when my hand accidentally hit the volume on my Ipod.  Suddenly the song was absolutely blasting in my ears.  It was so loud it actually took my breath away.  But as I stood there, fumbling with my Ipod to bring the volume back to a normal level, I actually listened to the lyrics.

Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father
Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind
You can't carry it with you if you want to survive

I got chills.  I love the idea of running as fast as you can for happiness and the life that you want and I love the idea that you should do it for the people in your life who want you to be happy.  Yes, you should strive for happiness for you, but I think sometimes it's easy for us to push our own pursuit for happiness aside, like it's not important.  Here, the singer is reminding us that if you can't do it for yourself, do it for all the people in the world who want you to be happy.  What's that saying?  The greatest gift you can give another person is your happiness.  I love that.  And don't walk.  Run.

And I never wanted anything from you
Except everything you had and what was left after that too

Here, I imagine she's speaking to the universe or her life.  She's not asking for anything, but she wants everything.  I relate this back to my whole "demanding more from the universe" thing.  She doesn't have to demand anything -- I think it's all right there for her to take.

And the drums! Oh, I love the drums. I play this song in my room and I dance around and I bang on the walls and my desk and my dresser. Towards the end the drums have this whole tribal, earthly sound to them that I love.  I can't even explain how great it feels to listen to this song and just bang on things.

And when you think the song is over, it's not!  I know I sound like a lunatic, but I just love this song on all its levels because it's exactly how I feel right now.  Sometimes these days I'm so happy, it's all I can do not to burst out laughing in the middle of the street.  For a long time I lived my life waiting for the next thing to happen.  I would think, Okay, well I'm going to be happy after this really stressful week is over.  Or, I'll finally be happy when I get a job...I'll finally be happy when I have a day off...I'll finally be happy when I make more money.  And I realized a while ago that you can't keep waiting for that thing to happen because A.) when you focus all your attention on the one thing you don't have, it's a sure way to be unhappy and B.) THERE'S ALWAYS GOING TO BE ANOTHER THING.  The key, I think, is to make this moment as good as you possibly can.  You have to live in the now.  Napoleon Hill said, "Don't wait. The time will never be just right."  Can I get an amen?

Now, like most things, this is all easier said than done, but once it clicks it just clicks.  In the past, when I would get really happy over something, I would panic and kind of cling to it.  I didn't want that wonderful feeling to go away.  But, I realized, that clinging and panicking is a great way to ruin your happiness.  I realize this is a completely hippie-dippy thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway -- I am my own happiness.  The happier I get, the more happiness comes.  Beauty attracts beauty and all that.  It's never-ending... kind of like this song seems.  Just when you think it might be over, it's not.

Somebody bring me a drum.

Love,
Tara

Untitled

Sunday, August 8, 2010
8:50 PM  Eat, Pray, Love... Write

I'm reading 'Eat, Pray, Love" and it's making me want to write again.  Not that I haven't wanted to write these past few months, it's just that I haven't been doing it.  I'm not sure what happened, but all of a sudden I got super self-conscious about my writing.  I would feel inspired to write about something, and almost immediately my inner-critic would say, No, that's dumb. So I stopped. But I still wanted to write. 

Desperate for an idea my inner-critic wouldn't automatically reject, I read back over things I'd already written, something I often do when I'm in need of inspiration.  What I found were the mundane - often whiny - self-concerned tales of a 20-something-year-old girl. 

God, you sound so annoying.  Who would want to read this? the inner critic asked.

So, I stopped.  And I was lying, to you and myself, when I said I had writer's block because I didn't.  I've been inspired every single day.  It's just that I stopped, and I didn't know how to start again.

I think part of growing up is accepting , no, embracing your insecurities.  A fairly frequent complaint I've heard from friends who have read "Eat, Pray, Love" is that, while they enjoyed her conversational way of writing, she came across as a little self-centered.  It was all a bit self-indulgent.  Sometimes I wonder if I come across the same way when I write.

But, you see, I don't think she comes across as self-centered or selfish or self-indulgent at all.  It's a book about a time in her life -- how could she not talk about herself the whole time?  She tells you it's about a personal journey of hers from the very beginning.  As readers, we knew what we were getting into when we picked it up.

Anyway, this is a blog about a time in my life.  And while I publish what I write to the Internet, I don't write for other people.  I write for myself and I publish it because I like to communicate - I think it's nice when other people can relate.  And so I'm embracing the fact that it all may come across as a little self-indulgent.

I was reading "Eat" on the train back to New York today and was inspired to write a poem about my non-writer's block... yes, I wanted to write about not writing.  It does not rhyme.  There is no rhythm to it.  I'm not even sure it qualifies as a poem.  And I was going to apologize for all of this when I realized I have to stop apologizing for things that I haven't done wrong.

My inner-critic can suck it.

Untitled
It seems the only thing I remember how to write
are to-do lists.
Ordered, numbered, never complete -
A reminder of all the things I have failed to accomplish,
so I never get too pleased with myself...
or at all.
Instead, I have dreams that I'm throwing up
but nothing will come out.
It gets stuck.
I wish I'd give myself a break.

Love,
Tara

Conversations with Men

Sunday, August 1, 2010
4:59 PM  Hilarious.

Saturday night in a random bar in NYC.

Guy:  You know, you look like the girl from 'House.'

Tara:  Oh, I don't watch 'House.'  Who is she?

Guy:  I forget the name of the actress, but they call her 'Thirteen' on the show.

Tara:  Well, is she pretty?  Is this a compliment?

Guy:  Oh, yeah, she's really pretty.

The Guy is about to turn away when he pauses, looking at Tara thoughtfully.

Guy:  She's also a lesbian.


Love,
Tara