I've never really fancied myself a pretty writer. I don't delve too far into description or go off on a tangent of details. My phrases are more often short. I try to get straight to my point.
The structure in my head is like that typically. Staccato sentences. Quick. I have an extra special love for punctuation.
I often write of pretty things. Of love and memories, of thoughts and emotion. But I don't think I use too many pretty words. My writing is not precious. But I try to keep it eloquent.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
An ending
The African sun was hot and my arm burning from hanging it out the window. Earlier that day there had been elephants and zebra barely a foot away, a monkey had mischievously cracked the window down trying to find food the evening before and my seat was wet with morning dew. At sunrise a lion blocked our path as we pulled our rental car out of the campsite and into the animal reserve. It was now mid afternoon and the air sizzled. The wildlife had naturally hidden away in the shade so we had driven without a glimpse of anything for the past hour. My irritation with him was rising as quickly as the thermostat.
For years I was desperate to make this pilgrimage to South Africa. And convinced that the man I pined for on the other side of the ocean was my soul mate. Not having him, I had told myself as year after year went by apart, was the source of my unhappiness.
It had once been as simple as a glass marble found at a toyshop. Something strangers had touched and held before. Yet it was only meant for us. It had waited patiently amongst the others, drawing little attention to its self, lost in a cool sea of glass.
We were at Hamley's on Regent Street in London. We wandered from floor to floor; shooting laser guns, playing video games, testing our skills on the giant piano floor mat. Suddenly he stopped, transfixed. “Marbles!” he exclaimed with a childlike enthusiasm typically lost by the tender age of seven. He was nineteen and in many ways far more mature than the irresponsible college boys I knew back home. Yet, he still exuded an innocence that I clung to, desperate to feel what seemed to come so natural to him.
And now, he insisted on buying me a marble at a toy store.
There was a pureness to our love. A simplicity. And it was ours alone. It was as if no one in history had possibly experienced love before but rather it was a feeling we created, within a world that belonged to us alone. We could wrap ourselves in its elegant softness; caress the silk that engulfed our newly discovered existence. Over the years I carried the painful memory of its extinction tightly in my hand, my fingers wrapped around that marble as if it was the most precious artifact in the world.
Now here I was, five years later and halfway around the world hoping desperately to experience that sort of magic again. “Are you mad?” he asks. “You know I was just joking with you.” I stare out the window and straight into the blaring sun, silently holding back the impending tears. I don’t even have the strength to argue with him anymore. We fought constantly, a sign to me that our relationship was real. Only someone I really cared about could make me as angry as he did. But the fact that I could hardly muster the intensity to fight back clearly meant something.
“I’m not mad, baby.” I reply, forcing a smile. There was no need to ruin our last day together. Despite all the plans and promises over the years, I knew he was never going to move to America and I hardly saw a life in South Africa as my future. Clutching my marble in my fist, I relax into my seat and watch the vast African terrain stretching out for miles.
I felt the strange sensation of being a child and discovering my parents, not Santa Claus, were putting the Christmas gifts beneath the tree. Swept up with mourning, I finally admit to myself that there is nothing left of my love other than a scrapbook of beautiful memories and a person who simply does not exist anymore.
For years I was desperate to make this pilgrimage to South Africa. And convinced that the man I pined for on the other side of the ocean was my soul mate. Not having him, I had told myself as year after year went by apart, was the source of my unhappiness.
It had once been as simple as a glass marble found at a toyshop. Something strangers had touched and held before. Yet it was only meant for us. It had waited patiently amongst the others, drawing little attention to its self, lost in a cool sea of glass.
We were at Hamley's on Regent Street in London. We wandered from floor to floor; shooting laser guns, playing video games, testing our skills on the giant piano floor mat. Suddenly he stopped, transfixed. “Marbles!” he exclaimed with a childlike enthusiasm typically lost by the tender age of seven. He was nineteen and in many ways far more mature than the irresponsible college boys I knew back home. Yet, he still exuded an innocence that I clung to, desperate to feel what seemed to come so natural to him.
And now, he insisted on buying me a marble at a toy store.
There was a pureness to our love. A simplicity. And it was ours alone. It was as if no one in history had possibly experienced love before but rather it was a feeling we created, within a world that belonged to us alone. We could wrap ourselves in its elegant softness; caress the silk that engulfed our newly discovered existence. Over the years I carried the painful memory of its extinction tightly in my hand, my fingers wrapped around that marble as if it was the most precious artifact in the world.
Now here I was, five years later and halfway around the world hoping desperately to experience that sort of magic again. “Are you mad?” he asks. “You know I was just joking with you.” I stare out the window and straight into the blaring sun, silently holding back the impending tears. I don’t even have the strength to argue with him anymore. We fought constantly, a sign to me that our relationship was real. Only someone I really cared about could make me as angry as he did. But the fact that I could hardly muster the intensity to fight back clearly meant something.
“I’m not mad, baby.” I reply, forcing a smile. There was no need to ruin our last day together. Despite all the plans and promises over the years, I knew he was never going to move to America and I hardly saw a life in South Africa as my future. Clutching my marble in my fist, I relax into my seat and watch the vast African terrain stretching out for miles.
I felt the strange sensation of being a child and discovering my parents, not Santa Claus, were putting the Christmas gifts beneath the tree. Swept up with mourning, I finally admit to myself that there is nothing left of my love other than a scrapbook of beautiful memories and a person who simply does not exist anymore.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Excessive gene
My mother goes to the Salvation Army and comes home with two of the biggest, brightest cupcake wedding gowns I've ever seen. They're all lace and tulle, sequins and sparkles, and everything else any bride in the history of the world could possibly want in a gown. But all wrapped up in a single dress (or two matching dresses of varying degrees of whiteness).
She buys them for $15 each. "The girl definitely rang me up wrong, I know they weren't on sale," my mother confides. "Is it bad karma to not point out the error?" I tell her I doubt anyone would argue that these puffballs are worth all that much more.
What she wants is the netting from the skirt really, to make a decorative tablecloth without buying all the yardage and piecing it together. The idea is quite good and I wish I had thought of it.
We try on the dresses one night before the cutting begins. Two grown women dancing around in cupcake gowns (and army boots). My dad reluctantly takes pictures with a sigh. He's used to this behavior. Earlier in the week my mom and I cooked dinner dressed as 50s housewives complete with martinis and cigarettes. We entertain ourselves quite nicely.
"The dresses are so beautiful, it's a shame to cut them up," my mother later tells me with the greatest sincerity. "I think I'll only cut up the bright white one, I just can't see myself wearing it."
"Cause you'll get so much use from the off-white instead?" I ask her.
My mother laughs. She honestly hadn't considered this. "I suppose I won't really wear either of them. But isn't that a shame?"
When I was young my grandma would constantly remind my mom to "remember who is the adult and who are the children." My mother is my best friend. I hope she never grows up.
Friends for a Week
Ilaria misses her group of friends and I suppose there's something to that. I've never really been someone who has had groups of friends, nor do I think as an adult I ever really will.
I've always had a couple of close people in my life at a time and that's really it. I've had friends and acquaintances of course but I never really feel a closeness to many people at once.
In high school I had a constant in Kim, and later Julie. That was it. I had other friends that fluttered in and out of my everyday life but I never felt a particular bond with anyone. "We're all just best friends for a week!" Erica and I giggled on our third day in a row hanging out when we were 14. And it kinda summed up the way our friendships worked for the remainder of our school years. Some weeks Erica was my best friend, some weeks Rachel, then Jamie or Emily or Alex or Tammie or whoever we had a common thread with at the moment. But we were rarely a group of friends. We were too busy swapping our loyalties.
I suppose this high school pettiness was something that I should have left behind. And I suppose the petty part of it has been left. But I've always remained in the same basic mindset with my friendships. I only really ever feel I have a couple of real friends at a time, and the others all become interchangable parts of my life.
And it usually leaves me feeling like I don't have a lot of people I can really go to.
I'd love to have a group of friends for the first time. It would be lovely for the people I'm close with to have things in common with each other, to make plans all together. Like on the sitcoms, a few girls and guys, all close, a tight gang of people supporting everyone else. But how do you develop that kind of relationship as an adult when everyone has their own ties to bring to the table. Is it possible? Cause right now my group of friends pretty much consists of Ilaria but I think she's getting bored of just me.
I've always had a couple of close people in my life at a time and that's really it. I've had friends and acquaintances of course but I never really feel a closeness to many people at once.
In high school I had a constant in Kim, and later Julie. That was it. I had other friends that fluttered in and out of my everyday life but I never felt a particular bond with anyone. "We're all just best friends for a week!" Erica and I giggled on our third day in a row hanging out when we were 14. And it kinda summed up the way our friendships worked for the remainder of our school years. Some weeks Erica was my best friend, some weeks Rachel, then Jamie or Emily or Alex or Tammie or whoever we had a common thread with at the moment. But we were rarely a group of friends. We were too busy swapping our loyalties.
I suppose this high school pettiness was something that I should have left behind. And I suppose the petty part of it has been left. But I've always remained in the same basic mindset with my friendships. I only really ever feel I have a couple of real friends at a time, and the others all become interchangable parts of my life.
And it usually leaves me feeling like I don't have a lot of people I can really go to.
I'd love to have a group of friends for the first time. It would be lovely for the people I'm close with to have things in common with each other, to make plans all together. Like on the sitcoms, a few girls and guys, all close, a tight gang of people supporting everyone else. But how do you develop that kind of relationship as an adult when everyone has their own ties to bring to the table. Is it possible? Cause right now my group of friends pretty much consists of Ilaria but I think she's getting bored of just me.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Internal judgement
I spend a lot of time writing about how I used to write but now I don't write except to write about not writing as much as I used to write and so on.
And it confuses me. Am I no longer inspired? Have I lost my ability to form interesting sentences? Or am I frightened that what I write won't be as good as I want it to be and therefore by not putting it on paper (or my computer screen) I can continue to pretend that I'm full of fascinating world observations and stories that I just don't have time to sit down and put into words? I'm thinking it's mostly the latter.
I've never really been able to understand exactly why I'm so insecure because when it comes to rational thought I actually do think I'm pretty great. I've just never really understood how to convince myself that I have the ability to make others believe that as well.
I'm a good looking person, I've always been told that I'm intelligent, creative, interesting and talented. And yet I can't make myself internalize that. I second guess every decision. Panic when I have present any piece of work. Did I do it correctly? Will they judge me? Think to themselves how silly and stupid I must really be? I had a full on anxiety attack the other day in an attempt to make a birthday card. Why do I give in to fear this way?
I spend most of my waking hours creating prose in my head. I'm constantly rewriting every moment into fiction, reworking conversations, imagining the inner dialogue. But I'm petrified to write it down. Because what if it's just plain not good enough? What if I try things and try things and never become really good at anything?
Is it worse to fail at everything or succeed at nothing for lack of effort?
And it confuses me. Am I no longer inspired? Have I lost my ability to form interesting sentences? Or am I frightened that what I write won't be as good as I want it to be and therefore by not putting it on paper (or my computer screen) I can continue to pretend that I'm full of fascinating world observations and stories that I just don't have time to sit down and put into words? I'm thinking it's mostly the latter.
I've never really been able to understand exactly why I'm so insecure because when it comes to rational thought I actually do think I'm pretty great. I've just never really understood how to convince myself that I have the ability to make others believe that as well.
I'm a good looking person, I've always been told that I'm intelligent, creative, interesting and talented. And yet I can't make myself internalize that. I second guess every decision. Panic when I have present any piece of work. Did I do it correctly? Will they judge me? Think to themselves how silly and stupid I must really be? I had a full on anxiety attack the other day in an attempt to make a birthday card. Why do I give in to fear this way?
I spend most of my waking hours creating prose in my head. I'm constantly rewriting every moment into fiction, reworking conversations, imagining the inner dialogue. But I'm petrified to write it down. Because what if it's just plain not good enough? What if I try things and try things and never become really good at anything?
Is it worse to fail at everything or succeed at nothing for lack of effort?
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Lost time
I've been feeling really old lately... and a little unsure of the direction my life is headed. I guess I always assumed by my late 20s I'd have things figured out a bit more but really I'm just about as lost as I was fresh out of college.
My best friend growing up got married a few weeks ago and the experience really shook me up. Partially because I'm nowhere near getting married myself (not that I ever really thought I'd marry before 30 but I did always think I'd at least have some contenders by this time) and also because it pointed out just how many years have gone by without me really noticing. You move away and you start to lose touch with people, that's just how it is. But how did I manage to go years without being friends with the once closest friend I had? How had it been 3 years since I'd even seen her? How was it that our friendship, once such a solid and important part of who I was, become completely forgotten, as if it never even existed. Here I was at the wedding of someone I really didn't know wondering how I had allowed so many years to simply pass by.
Of course I'm totally to blame in many ways. I've never been good at keeping in touch with people so it was easy to let this friend slide off my radar unintentionally. But it was also more than that because the truth was I had spent most of these years of lost communication angry.
When I moved to New York I struggled for some time. I had a horrible job in film (which I thought was exciting but really was just demoralizing) that left me totally insecure and uncontrollably anxious. It was during this phase in my life that my once best friend decided to cut me off. "We have nothing in common anymore," she told me one day and just stopped speaking to me. Sometime later we became friendly again but it was never the same. I could never forgive her for dropping me when I needed the stable people in my life the most.
My resentment never really went away and when I showed up last month for her wedding I suddenly realized I'd been holding on to this grudge now for 5 years. Of course I wasn't part of the wedding (shocked as old friends and family members were, recalling the 10 years of inseparable friendship), I didn't even know the bride anymore. I knew who she was growing up, but everything I knew was ancient history. And that was a strange feeling.
I never felt so old.
Or lost.
My best friend growing up got married a few weeks ago and the experience really shook me up. Partially because I'm nowhere near getting married myself (not that I ever really thought I'd marry before 30 but I did always think I'd at least have some contenders by this time) and also because it pointed out just how many years have gone by without me really noticing. You move away and you start to lose touch with people, that's just how it is. But how did I manage to go years without being friends with the once closest friend I had? How had it been 3 years since I'd even seen her? How was it that our friendship, once such a solid and important part of who I was, become completely forgotten, as if it never even existed. Here I was at the wedding of someone I really didn't know wondering how I had allowed so many years to simply pass by.
Of course I'm totally to blame in many ways. I've never been good at keeping in touch with people so it was easy to let this friend slide off my radar unintentionally. But it was also more than that because the truth was I had spent most of these years of lost communication angry.
When I moved to New York I struggled for some time. I had a horrible job in film (which I thought was exciting but really was just demoralizing) that left me totally insecure and uncontrollably anxious. It was during this phase in my life that my once best friend decided to cut me off. "We have nothing in common anymore," she told me one day and just stopped speaking to me. Sometime later we became friendly again but it was never the same. I could never forgive her for dropping me when I needed the stable people in my life the most.
My resentment never really went away and when I showed up last month for her wedding I suddenly realized I'd been holding on to this grudge now for 5 years. Of course I wasn't part of the wedding (shocked as old friends and family members were, recalling the 10 years of inseparable friendship), I didn't even know the bride anymore. I knew who she was growing up, but everything I knew was ancient history. And that was a strange feeling.
I never felt so old.
Or lost.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
boundaries
I have this friend... who will hopefully never read this blog.
And let's try that again.
So, I have this friend. And I hopelessly want to be with him in a not just friend sorta way. But how does one even take that kinda step?
We met a few years ago, hit it off and he asked me to drinks. My friend who was with me when we met was already referring to him as my soulmate and I was pretty excited for the date. Except that apparently it wasn't really a date. While out on our non-date I was told that he actually had a girlfriend but he really wanted to hang out with me so he asked me out anyway. Ouch.
My first thought was how much I wanted to do the always popular in movies (and oh so fun looking) martini in the face move. My next was to suck it up and just be his friend.
Years later I am still just his friend, despite the fact that we're both currently single. And I'm having a really hard time figuring out whether I can ever cross that line.
Which sucks.
And let's try that again.
So, I have this friend. And I hopelessly want to be with him in a not just friend sorta way. But how does one even take that kinda step?
We met a few years ago, hit it off and he asked me to drinks. My friend who was with me when we met was already referring to him as my soulmate and I was pretty excited for the date. Except that apparently it wasn't really a date. While out on our non-date I was told that he actually had a girlfriend but he really wanted to hang out with me so he asked me out anyway. Ouch.
My first thought was how much I wanted to do the always popular in movies (and oh so fun looking) martini in the face move. My next was to suck it up and just be his friend.
Years later I am still just his friend, despite the fact that we're both currently single. And I'm having a really hard time figuring out whether I can ever cross that line.
Which sucks.
Sad...
And now I just realized that the last post was the first one I've written in 2010. Bad bad bad me!! I need to get back on track stat!
End of an Era
Once upon a time I was in love. That kind of naive, life can never be the same without each other, kind of love that you can only really have once and only really feel when you're too young to know better.
I was 20 when I fell in love for the first (and only) time in my life. And at 28 I'm finally trying to cut the ties of that moment and move on.
I've held on to Ryan as a back up for myself for a lot of years despite the fact that I knew perfectly well that I was no longer in love with him after I returned from my visit to South Africa. I just didn't want to let go, didn't want to admit that I had been waiting for a person that no longer existed.
When it comes to dating I'm hopeless. Either I am completely uninterested immediately or I am overly interested to the point where I build things up too quickly and ruin it all. I just can't figure out the transition from casual to relationship considering the one serious relationship I have ever been in happened pretty immediately. We met and that was it, love at first site kinda nonsense (ok, maybe we weren't really in love immediately but we were an insta-couple).
Anyway, despite the 7 years of being broken up and the already mentioned fact that I know I'm not in love with him, I've still let myself keep Ryan on this strange pedestal. Until recently.
He did something that I've never been able to do, found himself in love with someone new. Someone who is also long distance but he's willing to wait around. Someone who isn't me.
After feeling my heart speed up to panic mode everytime I signed onto my stupid Facebook account, terrified to have to face another stupid "i miss her so much" or "this is such a new feeling for me" or even "the best people are worth waiting for," I finally just unfriended him. No more contact, no more heartache.
I always thought it was amazing how Ryan and I could stay in touch across the world via the internet and even text messages. Things were so difficult when we had our long distance relationship, trying to keep up with the phone booths and phone cards, scheduling exact times to be available at a certain number. And now, we could chat anytime. Catch up whenever we wanted.
Which is exactly what was holding me back.
How did I expect to move on when my once love of my life was still very much in my life?
So I cut him off. And I'm really hoping this makes all the difference.
I was 20 when I fell in love for the first (and only) time in my life. And at 28 I'm finally trying to cut the ties of that moment and move on.
I've held on to Ryan as a back up for myself for a lot of years despite the fact that I knew perfectly well that I was no longer in love with him after I returned from my visit to South Africa. I just didn't want to let go, didn't want to admit that I had been waiting for a person that no longer existed.
When it comes to dating I'm hopeless. Either I am completely uninterested immediately or I am overly interested to the point where I build things up too quickly and ruin it all. I just can't figure out the transition from casual to relationship considering the one serious relationship I have ever been in happened pretty immediately. We met and that was it, love at first site kinda nonsense (ok, maybe we weren't really in love immediately but we were an insta-couple).
Anyway, despite the 7 years of being broken up and the already mentioned fact that I know I'm not in love with him, I've still let myself keep Ryan on this strange pedestal. Until recently.
He did something that I've never been able to do, found himself in love with someone new. Someone who is also long distance but he's willing to wait around. Someone who isn't me.
After feeling my heart speed up to panic mode everytime I signed onto my stupid Facebook account, terrified to have to face another stupid "i miss her so much" or "this is such a new feeling for me" or even "the best people are worth waiting for," I finally just unfriended him. No more contact, no more heartache.
I always thought it was amazing how Ryan and I could stay in touch across the world via the internet and even text messages. Things were so difficult when we had our long distance relationship, trying to keep up with the phone booths and phone cards, scheduling exact times to be available at a certain number. And now, we could chat anytime. Catch up whenever we wanted.
Which is exactly what was holding me back.
How did I expect to move on when my once love of my life was still very much in my life?
So I cut him off. And I'm really hoping this makes all the difference.
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