Raw
I had grand plans for today. I was going to spend the majority of the day putting some profound emotional baggage behind me. This is known in A.A. speak as Step Five. Then I was going to write an amazing story and post it here. Then I was going to make a delicious, moderately nutritious dinner for myself and my husband. Because I am super-woman. Or at least, I try to be like her. – – – Instead, I got home late after a draining day. Good progress made on the healing front, but repairing the soul is uncomfortable, to say the least. Digging at wounds and flaws, rooting out…
Ring-Around-the-Collar
“What’s the view like from up there?” I stiffened. “I bet you’re already taller than your parents, huh?” He laughed, and the others echoed him. They reminded me of hyenas. I was taller than my parents. At least, I was taller than my mom, and had been for the last year-and-a-half. I was taller than the teacher. I was the tallest girl in the whole school. The only person taller than me was Andy*, but he was weird. He wore tucked in t-shirts to school and was kind of a know-it-all in class. No one teased him for being tall. I didn’t know why they teased me so much, just…
How to Plan a Camping Trip, Natalie-Style
Schedule your trip to immediately follow a major holiday. This way, you ensure the maximum amount of stress while you’re preparing for both the holiday and the trip. Make sure you over-commit during the week prior to your trip. Volunteer to lead neighborhood activities such as, oh, Easter egg dying, purchasing food for said activities and commit to several hours right before you’re supposed to leave. Forget items on your shopping list so you have to go to the store/library multiple times throughout the week, including on rushed lunch breaks. Also make sure you no longer fit in any of your camping clothes. This ensures that you will have to…
The Knots Taking Over
“Natalie?” I got up from the spa waiting room and introduced myself to the woman who would be my masseuse for the next 50 minutes. The spa in question was an oasis of citrus smells and calming sounds stuck in the middle of the suburban sprawl, a necessity for ladies who lunch, wealthy housewives, and overworked office drones with clipped coupons and stockpiled gift cards. As I followed the masseuse through the obscenely serene spa, she chatted with me. “So when was the last time you had a massage?” she asked, as if she were a doctor inquiring about my last menstrual cycle. “Um, I think it was about a…
How I Talk Myself into Good Things
For the last few weeks, I’ve been struggling with a decision. I’m a wrestler, in that I spend a lot of time in my head arguing with myself. Wrestling. I had planned to go to a blogging conference pretty much since the day I started this blog. I have always known I wanted to be a writer, and this blog was the vehicle by which I would finally make that happen. There was no question about me not succeeding – I had to be a writer, because my “safe” career choice already didn’t pan out. That’s right, I worked on the “safe” choice first to avoid the pain and rejection involved in selecting…
Play the Tape Through
I wiped a dribble of sweat from my brow, and as I pulled my hand away, I noticed that I had just smudged flour on my face. “Shit,” I muttered. Not that I really cared at this point, I just wanted to get the damn bread in the oven. Company would be over any minute now, and I had just set it out to rise, which it needed to do for at least another forty minutes. It had started with one of my “brilliant ideas,” the ones that come to me when I’m way too busy and I suddenly get the urge to rip out a patch of lawn and…
Am I Giving Up?
I never thought of myself as a vain person until I turned thirty. Well, okay, maybe I was a little vain in my twenties. In my defense, women in their twenties are supposed to be at their peak of physical beauty, which as contemporary Southern California society dictates, is all that a woman is good for until she bears children. My Master’s Degree had already decreased my value as a human being significantly (don’t believe me? Ask me how many potential employers turned me down because of my over-education. You’d be disillusioned by the answer), so I had to make sure I at least looked decent so I would not fail at…
I am a Rock, I am an Island
My lovely sponsor (yes, I do have one of those) has pointed out to me that I do not reach out to people nearly enough. Apparently, this is a key characteristic of the alcoholic as a species. And I thought it was just me (another quality of the alcoholic). I have always been a loner, and I do not reach out for help, ever. NEVER-EVER. That’s part of what got me into trouble in the first place with my drinking; when I couldn’t handle anymore pressure, I did not reach out. I internalized. I didn’t want to bother you. It was me and a bottle of whatever was handy. Taking…
My Life is Not a Movie, My Life is Not a Novel
Do you remember when I told you I would have something funny for you yesterday? Well, by yesterday, I meant today. Sorry about the confusion. I don’t even know how funny this is going to be, either. Am I even funny? Wait, don’t answer that – this is spiraling out of control. Let’s just say it will be irreverent. I can commit to irreverent. That said… My life is not a movie. It is not a novel, either. I have to remind myself of that far less frequently as I age, but yes, at thirty years old, I still have a tendency to live in la-la land. I like it there. It’s cozy and…
Star-Crossed Lovers – My Dramatic Reunion with the Oscars
I have a strange, emotionally fraught relationship with the Academy Awards. Believe me, I am aware of how weird that sounds. When I was a little girl, I used to design gowns for women to wear on that magical night, confident in the knowledge that one day I would wear the shimmery pearl sheath down the red carpet (this was the nineties – shimmery sheaths were in). At eleven years old, I had no reason not to believe I wouldn’t one day strut onto that stage and accept one of the gold statues. After all, I was the most dramatic person I knew (at the time), and I had been practicing my English…