NaNoWriMo, Yer Breakin' My Heart: A Self-Indulgent Look at My 2013

In November, I was lamenting not "being able" to participate in NaNoWriMo, having had such an awesome experience last year.  I was unknowingly still subscribed to the weekly emails and still following NaNo groups on tumblr, so I kept getting blasted right in the feels with memories of how much fun it was and how much I wanted to do it again.  Naturally, this sent me on a nostalgic spiral, which made me reflect on the past year, which made me think of this ridiculous blog post title, which made me gigglesnort to myself, which made me want to write up a real reflection.  But I try to save my yearly reflections until after Christmas.

It's after Christmas now, and I'm kind of running out of time for a year-end reflection at the end of the year.

I could look back on a year filled with so many intense world-events and reflect on humanity as a whole... but I'm lazy and narcissistic.  So join me, if you will, on a selfish and self-entitled look back on my past year, in a post that has next to nothing to do with the stupid title.  Seriously, though, all of the next bullet points are about me and my life and my problems and my feelings, so put on your stalker cap if you wanna join me on this ride.

• In December of last year, I graduated from UL with a cumulative 4.0 GPA and a big girl job offer waiting at my feet.  Livin' the dream.

• Just a few short weeks later, in January, I confessed to the people nearest and dearest to me how unhappy I was at my job, and how what I had suspected for a couple of years was a reality: I had grown to dislike the field I graduated in and no longer wanted to work in advertising.  This was an agonizing realization to accept about myself.  There were a lot of things I had to come to peace with in order to make a decision and move forward.  I dealt with it the way I deal with most problems: a complete rejection of sleep and a lot of crying to myself.  I was miserable, confused, angsty, scared, and honestly, upset with myself for not following the beautiful, shiny path that I felt had been laid out for me.

• Very soon after coming to a decision about my job and how to move forward, Michael and I got engaged.  Became betrothed.  Sold my soul?  But really, I was ecstatic, which just doesn't seem like a strong enough word to describe how truly happy and ready I was.

• And then I officially quit my job.  

• I spent the next couple of months tackling the initial hurdles of wedding planning, as well as starting a job search, and then deciding to end that job search.  I also felt like I could actually feel everyone's image of me crumbling and deteriorating before their eyes.  But I'm excellent at projecting.  I just felt like I failed so many people, whether that was true or not, which is most likely my own sense of failure in and of myself.  People don't just graduate from college with their dream job and then leave it all behind for... nothing.  Or what wasn't nothing, but sure felt like it.

• I was also hard at work writing and editing the first draft of my "novel."  This is where the "nothing" comes into play.  How do you talk about doing something you love when you have so little to show for it?  "Hi, I'm Erica.  I quit my job to write a book that I'm just sure is going to be published.  No other aspiring author has ever had these hopes and dreams like mine before, so I just know I'm going to be the one who makes it!"  Right?  Right...?

• People assumed I was "taking the year off" or "resting" or otherwise just being lazy.  In reality, I was working from home at two different part-time jobs, attempting to write that novel, and planning a wedding.  But it still felt like my life was on hold.  I was also on Accutane, a medication for acne with the most insane side effects, which made the crazy cogs in my head turn even faster than usual.  It was a long, tough journey that finally ended in October.

• Between April and August, Michael and I house hunted so intensely, it was like we were actually trying to hunt something (except neither of us brought any guns or spears to open houses... though maybe we should have).  Finally, finally, FINALLY, by August, we (and by we, I mean Michael) purchased our new-to-us house.

• We spent the next several months renovating and buying a couple of pieces of furniture, but it wasn't until December that the house was in good enough shape for Michael to finally move in.  The house was in perfectly livable condition and was truly move-in ready when we bought it, but our renovations to really make it *our* house took a lot longer than we expected.

• Somewhere in that time, I turned 23, I think.  I'm not sure of my own age anymore.

• And there was still a wedding being planned!  And lots of ridiculous wedding-related issues to deal with to make sure everything was working out for everyone involved.

Towards the end of the year, I was so busy, I realized I hadn't touched my novel in a couple of months. Then the NaNoWriMo reminders and emails started their attack, and I felt so unconnected from the 2012 Erica.  However, this wasn't necessarily a bad thing.  2013 Erica had (has) a lot more on her plate.  Writing remains just as important, but there are other things in the mix now.  

For all the negative bullet points, 2013 was actually great.  Every year is actually great.  We get 365 days full of greatness and sadness that all total up to a year, and as easy as it is to remember the tough parts (see aforementioned bullet points), there are still so many incredible things.  The thing is that the tiny good parts are so many and so small that they're more difficult to remember than the bigger, more noticeable damaging parts of the year.  But just the knowledge that there were so many good but small parts to the year, so many that I can't remember them all, assures me that 2013 was, in fact, a great year.

Thanks for reading all about my life, you stalker.  Now, go make some more little, fantastic moments to really wrap up* your year in style.

*I actually really struggle with the concept of the end of the year as being a "fresh start" because I strongly believe fresh starts can begin whenever and don't have to wait for the end of the year.  I do not like getting all reflect-y because the planet doesn't know that it's made a full revolution around the sun; there is no stop/start line in space to mark a year; it's all made up by us and is time even linear or is it really cyclical I DON'T KNOW OKAY there's just a lot of pressure to get reflect-y on this particular day and lo this post shows how I have succumbed.

Walking Home

Before I can truly begin this blog post, I need to remind everyone that I am a quote snob.  I'm a quote elitist.  I am very selective about the quotes I choose to admire, and I am very quick to rip apart a widely accepted or beloved quote.  I'm just cynical that way.

However, I'd also like to acknowledge that I am a big fan of collecting quotes on my Pinterest quote board (despite my shame in even having a Pinterest board).  The majority of the quotes I pin involve some sort of advice about finding or making peace, being kind, appreciating life, and the like.  I see my quote board as a sort of virtual sanctuary.  I relish these quotes; I bask in them and let the words settle gently in my being.  I am eternally searching for a way to be nicer, gentler, better.  I repeat these quotes to myself as an ongoing mantra; I have to remind myself to "always be kinder than you feel."  I wake up and tell myself to "start each day with a grateful heart."  I talk to someone out loud and think all the while, "Be humble; you could be wrong."  I'm not going to just get out of bed and suddenly, magically, become a better person.  I have to constantly remember to actively BE better.

Anyway, now that that's out of the way, I can move on to the real point of this blog post.  Whilst whittling my precious life away by staring semi-catatonically at the dull glow of my computer screen and exercising only my scrolling fingers, I came across this quote on good old Pinterest:

"We're all just walking each other home."

-Ram Dass

I've never had such a strong reaction to something so simple.  I got chills.  My eyes immediately filled with tears.  Something just sort of-- clicked.

This is how I want to live my life.  I want to walk everyone home.

I don't know who Ram Dass is, and I don't know the context of this quote.  (I did a quick Google search but didn't actually click any links... because I'm a bad blogger who doesn't do her research beforehand and would easily fail out of journalism school.)  All I know is that those seven words mean everything to me.

Okay, so this blog post could get very religious, very fast (very QUICKLY, I know).  I could make the argument that "home" is the "kingdom of heaven."  There's an easy writing route to take, especially with a certain big event coming up in my life in just two months, in which I could rehash and reexplain the whole concept of marriage as being the singular goal of getting one's significant other to heaven.  Marriage should be two people walking each other home.  Y'all follow, right?

But I don't want to limit this just to married people.  This quote applies to everyone, every minute of every day.  We know that this life is a journey; we've heard endless metaphors about roads less traveled and choosing the right path and symbolic forks in symbolic roads and so on and so forth.  Emerson reminds us that life is a journey, not a destination.  And I feel like we've been so conditioned to swallow these sentiments, to enjoy ourselves on this ride, to not worry about where we're going, that we forget there is a destination.  Somewhere, there's a home.

Home.  What a beautiful word, with such a peaceful connotation.  No matter how messy or crazy (or under constructiony) your HOUSE is, somewhere is home for you.  And I like to think that after our life's journey is over, there is a home waiting for us.  ("But Erica, I don't believe in heaven or hell!"  "Erica, when you said this post COULD get religious, you were kind of implying that it WOULDN'T!"  Just hold on a second and hear me out, okay?)

This life is a long walk.  I don't care if you do or do not believe there's a home waiting for you at the end of it.  I hope you do, but if you don't, I think we can all agree on the long walk detail.  

So let's keep each other company.  Let's carry each other's books on this walk.  Let's hold hands and look both ways when we cross streets.  Let's warn someone if they don't see a pothole or a tree root.  Let's take the scenic route.  Let's run through neighbors' sprinklers on hot days.

Don't let anyone walk home alone.  Buddy system, you know?  Nod at strangers and give them a friendly greeting on this long walk home.  Push the crosswalk button for somebody and let them go ahead of you.  Look at the flowers in nearby gardens; study the grass pushing through the cracks in the sidewalk.  Walk.  Amble.  Stroll.  

Can you imagine a literal walk home where you see someone walking faster than you, or better than you, so you run as quickly as you can to catch up and push him or her down from behind?  Now this person crumpled at your feet, and you step over without looking down and continue on your long walk home.  Can you imagine a walk home where someone's walking too slowly, blocking your path, and instead of politely walking around him or her or excusing yourself, or even offering to walk with him or her and chat a little, you just shove this person out of the way?  I worry about the people I may have pushed down in my life.  I worry that I have shoved too many people because they were too slow for my pace.

Alright, have I tortured this poor metaphor enough?  Has it been properly extended?  I just had such a strong reaction to this quote that I wanted to share it.  And I can't share anything without extensively rambling about it.

Allow me to leave you with this last thought:  If I get the chance to walk home with you, I hope that I am good company.  I hope that I get to learn something from you on our walk, and I hope that I have something to offer.  I hope to make the walk as enjoyable as possible.  It would be an honor for me to walk with you.  

10 Things Wedding Planning is Teaching Me

1.  That feeling you're supposed to get when you try on the perfect wedding dress?  The one where you just know?  The rush of elation from having found your dress?  It's real.  From the mouth of the biggest I-don't-want-to-be-a-princess cynic... it's real.

2.  At the end of the day, you're still going to be marrying your best friend.  I get this.  But I want to make sure that all of my guests are having a great time, which is why I still allow myself to get stressed over details and things that "don't matter" to the wedding itself.  I'm the luckiest girl ever; I get to walk away from the evening with the greatest prize, despite what goes right or wrong for everyone else.  And that's why I want to make sure things go as right as possible for everyone else.  No one else is walking away with that prize, so I want them to at least have cool photo booth props and delicious cake.  You should not have to feel guilty about worrying over what music to play, but it's probably important to remember that all you really have to do is provide an open bar.  Most likely, the other details won't be noticed as much.  As my mom says, "No one's going to remember what kind of food you served or what the bridesmaids' dresses looked like."  But if it makes you feel productive to stress and worry over the details, then by all means, stress and worry over the details.

3.  It's not really the bride's day.  It's the parents of the bride's day, the grandparents of the bride's day, the people who have watched the bride grow up for years's day... and then maybe it's the bride's day.  But everyone will say it's the bride's day, so just take it, and let people believe what they want.

4.  If you're not a glitzy girl, it's okay to not be glitzy on your wedding day.  Don't let anyone tell you that you HAVE to be on this one big special day.  If you're not a glitzy girl, it's okay to actually be glitzy on your wedding day.  Don't let anyone tell you that you're not being "true to yourself" or that you don't look like you.  If you're not a glitzy girl, it's okay to be glitzy on any damn day of the year.  It's okay to be whatever you want whenever you want, as long as it makes you happy, and as long as you're not actually hurting anyone else in that good old pursuit of happiness.

5.  There is so much free stuff to be had in the wedding industry.  I've got tote bags, magazines, samples, and more.  You can keep it if you want.  Make a big old wedding box and stuff it all in there.  Organize it in a scrapbook.  But you don't have to keep it.  You can throw it away without even opening it and without feeling guilty.

6.  The groom (or whomever you are marrying) should really get some sort of say in *almost* every decision.  But if he says he really doesn't care, then let it go, and make the decision yourself.  He will voice his opinion when he has one, and it's up to you to actually listen to him.  It's easy to forget that this dude is actually a whopping 50% of the marriage thing.

7.  MARRIAGE and WEDDING are two distinct terms.  I don't think I should have to explain this any further.

8.  Be polite and respectful to your vendors; there is a very fine line in this particular industry between "boss" and "client."  You are not a bad person if you don't like a vendor's work or product; thank them for their time, and move on until you find something that you do like.  This is the way business works.  Interview as many as you can, ask as many questions as you can possibly conceive, and create a dialogue that works both ways.  They will have questions for you as well.  They have other clients/bosses.  They have a life outside of their career.  Function as two people in a symbiotic relationship, show them respect, and appreciate their work-- after all, you selected them.

9.  Be gracious and thankful to everyone involved in the wedding planning process.  Your friends have suffered through hours of you blathering about chair ties and invitations.  (Sorry, everyone.  Y'all really are the best.)  Your friends should always be patient with you in life (that's why they're your friends!), but they've probably adapted a dosage of extra patience with you during the wedding planning, and you need to be respectful of that and know when to dial it back.  Your family is doing their best with you as well.  Smile, answer the same questions you always get asked, and be grateful that they care enough to ask.  (Please let me take this opportunity to apologize to everyone in my life for when I haven't followed my own rule here.)

10.  Refer back to Item #2: at the end of the day, you're still going to be marrying your best friend.  Stop every now and then and appreciate the love that is flowing in from all around you to make this vision of yours something of a reality.  There is so much love.  Revel in it.

Secret Competitions

This is not an insightful post or a deep-thinker post or a soul-searching post.  This is a gloating post.

Fess up, y'all.  You are currently entered in a couple of secret competitions with others, except they don't know that they're in these competitions with you.  Don't lie.  You know what I'm talking about.

These competitions can cover a wide range of events.  Perhaps you are secretly racing the car next to you (until they turn at a street prior to your destination, in which case you win by default).  Maybe someone's reading the same book as you, and lo, you finish first.  Or maybe you are secretly battling to get better test scores than that one student in your class.  Maybe there's a new intern at work, which bumps you out of the "new employee" position, so you secretly compare your first few days to the intern's first few days to see who would win a "best new employee" competition.  (For the record, I also competed in a secret "best new employee" competition, and I SO WON.)

I am competing in dozens of secret competitions at any given moment.  I lose, a lot, but luckily for me, since the other person is unaware of these tournaments, I usually save face.  And I don't have to congratulate them on their victory, because they don't know about it.  It's kind of a win-lose situation for me (lose-win?).

Anyway, this blog post is brought to you by a recent victory of mine.  I have been competing against "Person X" (for the sake of anonymity and to keep this secret competition secret) for a couple of years. The thing about this competition is that we are very similar people, with very similar hopes and dreams, with very similar thought processes.  Person X has beaten me in this ongoing competition at nearly every turn.  Curse you, Person X.  But finally, for what I believe to be the first time, I BEAT PERSON X.  I examined something created by Person X as objectively as I could, and then it hit me: Person X did not deliver at Person X's usual standard.  And I compared my own work to Person X's work and to me, it was clear: I was the winner.  To my knowledge, I was growing and stretching and trying, and Person X was stagnant.  After years of just trying to measure up to Person X, I ultimately surpassed.  

Is Person X aware?  No.  Would I ever tell this to Person X or try in any way to make Person X feel bad?  Never.  Is this really healthy for me to do be doing all the time?  Er, probably not.  But all these secret competitions make me push myself.  We could argue that comparison is a really dangerous thing to do, but I like to think that I've got my competitive side somewhat under control, to a somewhat healthy degree.  Sadly, it's difficult to celebrate these triumphs because no one really knows what I'm talking about, but knowing in my mind that I "won" makes me happy.  And that's why it's good that these victories are secret.

I would never, ever put someone down or be so vain as to inform someone that I'm better than them, because Lord knows how often I actually lose these secret competitions.  I just try to use them to better myself in my personal life and use it as the push I need to strive to be the best I can be.  And this little victory march that I've been doing for the last day or so sure feels nice, like a little reward to remind myself that I don't need to be so hard on myself all the time.

This is not meant to be a mean post, or a nanny-nanny-boo-boo post.  This is meant to share with you all the sigh of relief I finally felt I earned after striving for so long.  I feel like I put myself down so often in my own head, like I try to hide any talent I might have in fear of hurting others, that it might be nice for a change to just-- you know?

Apologies for the rambling.  Looks like I wound up doing a bit of insightful soul searching without meaning to.  I win!

23:22

it smells not like coffee
but cappuccino
and tastes like goosebumps
erupting over cold flesh
raindrops fat and heavy
streaking over glass looking
like cracks waiting to deepen
little earthquakes, little fault lines
on the windshield

it's somewhere in the nasal cavity
where scent converts to taste
and taste runs down throats
to pits of stomachs to tips of fingers
thumbprints raised on edge
with anxiety at what they will
be forced to touch next
sinking their ridges in malleable metal
and leaving their marks

it sits heavy weighing down the cranium
and counterbalanced at the end of
the spinal cord, vertebrae waiting
to fall like dominos so they no longer
have to hold up the guilt of
bearing a human body that
sits purposeless and unfulfilled
throughout the day

waiting to crumble, waiting
to collapse, waiting to sink back
into the dust
from whence it all came


January 30, 2013

February & March Titles

Yeah, I know.  Oops.  I knew in the middle of February that the poor month wasn't going to get its time to shine on this blog.  I could give you the blah-blah-blah excuses of how busy I was, or how little time I've had to read, or so on and so forth, but quite frankly, it really doesn't matter.  I am a bit ashamed of how little I read in the past two months (only three books, which is, to me, depressing), but for what it's worth, here's my brief take on them:

Go Ask Alice by Anonymous: The infamous "diary" written/copied/fabricated/what have you by a young teenager in the 70s detailing her ordinary life's descent into the living nightmares of a drug addict after she unwittingly drinks from a soda laced with LSD.  This is an extremely famous book with something like a gazillion copies sold (I checked; that's a real fact), and I've been wanting to read this book for years, so I did what one should never do about a book: I built it up in my head before reading it.  Hm.  I had a couple of problems accepting that this book could fully and completely be taken from someone's diary.  For a journal, there sure was an awful lot of scene setting and character describing.  Some entries were more believable than others.  I just don't know.  I even would have appreciated/been more accepting if the editor had admitted that parts had been added or fabricated for the sake of the story, but I just can't buy that the whole book is an untouched, unedited journal.  Anyway, for a short book, it was a long read, and I got very tired of the whole thing and only finished it to finish it.  I was hoping the book would give me a gritty insight into a world with which I am fairly unfamiliar, but I was just annoyed by the diarist.  I also think it deserves mentioning that this book was written/copied/fabricated in the late 60s or early 70s, so the writing and dialogue is immensely different from what we're used to reading and hearing, and that threw me off-- though it's equally important to mention that that's no fault of the book.  It was simply disconcerting for me, and distracted me from an already tired story.

Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger: Nine unrelated (or are they?) stories depicting scenes from the lives of nine people/groups/families, all taking place after WWII.  This is the third time I've read it; I have been meaning to pick it up again, and a question about it from my high school English teacher prompted me to move it up my reading list (I'm still working out in my head what you asked, Mrs. Jaunet).  I love this book very much.  How could I ever choose a favorite story?  I absolutely love "A Perfect Day for Bananafish", "For Esmé-- with Love and Squalor", "Pretty Mouth and Green my Eyes", and "De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period" (and that's nearly half of the entire book).  It's an old and familiar friend, but every time I read it, it drives me insane.  I'm always so desperate to find a solid connection between the stories, as if a hidden thread that I just can't see is woven between the pages, and it's got to be more than the war, and it can't possibly be as simple as human consciousness or lost innocence or something, can it?  This book simply begs you for a deeper analysis that is actually a bit frightening to me, as if the more I analyze it, the closer I am to finding out a huge secret about humanity, and I don't know if I could handle that.  But then again, it could be, for all we know, just nine stories.

I highly recommend Nine Stories if you don't mind stretching those brain muscles of yours for nothing more than the sake of literary analysis and an appreciation for abrupt endings.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan: Yes, it's a book.  No, I haven't seen the movie... but from the infinite font of knowledge, Wikipedia, it looks to be immensely different from the book.  The book details one long night that Nick and Norah spend together running around by themselves in Manhattan, both trying to get over previous heartbreaks, wavering back and forth (and back and forth and back and forth, and good Lord, BACK AND FORTH) over whether or not they can find an answer to all of life and love's teenage mysteries in the other.  The authors seemed to be playing a delightful little game of "how many F-bombs can we fit on one page?"  (Spoiler alert: page 95 wins with a total of 25 variations of the word.)  Now, I picked up this book not because I'm into Michael Cera or because I'm known for my taste in punk music or anything, but because I'd previously read a book cowritten by David Levithan and John Green, and though my admiration for John Green is strong and true, I found that Levithan upstaged him in character writing, and really kept the book going.  The problem I have with coauthors, though, is that I feel it's difficult for one to write the other author's character within their chapters.  So instead of Nick and Norah, I felt like I was reading two Nicks and two Norahs who just didn't quite jive.  And I kind of hated Norah.  Once again, Levithan kept the book readable for me, and I may go watch the movie just to compare it (Wikipedia's description makes it seem like the film took the basic characters, a bit of the plot, put it in a blender, and came up with a mixed-up concoction that's sort of backwards from the original storyline...?), but I have no desire to reread or really even recommend this book.  A night alone in Manhattan with two angsty teens who are desperately seeking ~true love~ despite their individual mental blocks and hang ups?  Meh.

Dear 16 Year Old Erica,

It's totally worth it.

Do you have that figured out yet?  I mean, you're pretty insightful already, but have you fully grasped the total, complete, full-circle concept of how everything happens for a reason?  Have you yet fallen in love with the idea that whatever suffering you're experiencing only exists to lead you to a greater lesson, to grow you into a better person?  I admit, it's hard to remember in the moment, but it's how you'll learn to get through a lot of stuff.  It's how things will start to make sense.

You/I/we know how headachey time travel, its implications, and its consequences, are.  This is not a "What I Would Tell my 16 Year Old Self if I Could" letter.  This is a "What I Would Tell my 16 Year Old Self if I Could With the Knowledge That This Information Will Never Actually Reach Past Erica and Besides That Would Change How I Acted in Situations and Thus Change the Reasons Things Happened Which Would Make Me a Very Different Person Who Wouldn't Need to Write This Letter" letter.  I know you; you understand what I'm getting at.

So, some thoughts: You will really appreciate all those pictures you take and all that stuff you save.  You may feel silly about it now, but the smiles, tears, and memories they'll bring you later will be worth it (see, there it is again).

Good news: You'll stop biting your nails.  Mostly.  Sometimes.  More good news: You're awesome at folding paper cranes.  Yeah, thought you forgot how to do that, huh?  Someone will teach you again.  Oh, and you're going to need glasses!  Crazy, right?

But in all seriousness, I know that while, for the most part, life is good, sometimes, you're not in a happy place.  And I wish I could give you some specific advice about how to handle the problems of the day, but I can't.  Because I don't remember those problems.  And that is such a beautiful thing.  You will realize how minuscule your problems are.  You will realize that the world extends beyond your lunch table.  There will be serious problems, yes, and for those, I'm sorry.  Those are the ones that stick with you, that I do remember, that I don't blame you for crying over.  But those are the ones that happen for a reason.  Those are the ones that teach you something.  If it's any comfort, you overcome them all beautifully.  Maybe not in the moment, but in the long run, and that's when it counts.

So sit up straight, not only for your posture, but for your self-confidence.  I've noticed you do this thing where you seem to fold in on yourself when you sit, and I know why.  Smile more.  Laugh at yourself. And for the love of God, BREATHE every once in a while, will ya?  There is so much more to life than the things over which you worry.  Some examples:

In about two years, you're going to move out and go to college and watch your protective high school bubble burst.  In about three years, you're going to start on an active journey to become a better person. In about four years, you're going to have the most gorgeous little godson.  In about five years, you're going to start writing a book.  In about six years, you're going to be engaged.

To Michael.  Yeah, you know the guy.  Right now, you're uncertain but giddy and hopeful, and for a while, you'll wonder if it's foolish to think this could last at such a young age.  It is my absolute joy to report-- to confirm-- that it does.  He's going to take you on so many amazing journeys.  You are going to be such a different, braver, kinder, bigger-hearted person because of him.  There will be rough patches and arguments, like all relationships, but ultimately, there will be unshakeable, undeniable, unfailing love.

It's going to be amazing.  Your whole life is going to be such a fantastic ride, and I hope you keep your eyes open where it counts.  I guess in another five, ten, twenty years, I'll be writing more letters to myself, completely oblivious to whatever was keeping me awake tonight and driving me to write this letter.

I'm proud of you.  Believe it.  You will come to find out how much weight those words hold with you. To quote our favorite leading lady, Julie Andrews: "Dear little girl, you are terribly blessed."  I hope you realize and appreciate that.

Love,

22 Year Old Erica

P.S. That thing you do, where you hide money from yourself now in order to find later?  Yeah, keep doing that.  It's working out really awesome for me.  Thanks.

January Titles

I've decided to catalogue what books I read this year, starting, of course, with January.  This month's titles include The Alchemist; Thirteen Reasons Why; The Bell Jar; and A Year of Writing Dangerously: 365 Days of Inspiration & Encouragement.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho: A short tale of a boy on a mission to achieve his life's dream.  I had heard that this book was supposed to be life-changing, revealing secrets of the world and life unto its readers.  Not to be snobby or uppity, but I only sort of enjoyed it.  I felt like I had already been introduced to the life secrets and ways of living that the book discussed.  That was disappointing, but all in all, it was a good read.  Very easy, fast-paced, to the point.  I don't regret having read it-- it just wasn't the life-changer I was expecting and maybe even hoping for.  However, the introduction hit home for me, in a very powerful way, and that made the whole book completely worth it.

Thireteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher: A girl records thirteen tapes of herself explaining her reason for suicide, then mails them to those thirteen people whom she considers semi-responsible for her death.  The sense of guilt was overwhelming within the pages.  What I took away most from it, though, was the sense of how we're all interconnected, a topic very close to my own heart.  The smallest actions can have the biggest effects on people.  Probably should have read this book in high school, as that seemed to be the reading level, but I still appreciated that it made me stop and think.

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath:  Ooooooh.  OOOOH.  I wasn't sure what to expect from this book-- a nearly autobiographical description of the main character's slow descent into madness-- but I LOVED it.  This book had me trying to figure out if maybe I weren't just as crazy.  Sylvia Plath's writing describes the descent in such a subtle, sensible way that you can barely tell the difference between Esther "normal" and Esther "crazy."  I practically ate this text right off the page, it was such a delicious story of madness and healing and slipping and finding yourself and losing yourself.  I highly recommend this one, if you're not afraid to get down and dirty with what it meant to be a woman in the 50s who wasn't quite right-- or was she?

A Year of Writing Dangerously by Barbara Abercrombie:  FAVORITE.  365 short "entries" about writing, encouragement, inspiration,  blunt acknowledgement of difficulties, stress, joy-- and a quote from an author tied in to each entry.  I am so in love with this book.  If you are a writer, consider yourself a writer, want to be a writer, or have any affiliation with writing, stop what you're doing, get in your car, and go find a copy of this book.  This book came at the perfect time in my life.

I have always felt different, abnormal, and weird for the things that go on in my headspace.  But this book reassured me in the most peaceful way.  It confirmed that the things I think, do, love, cry over, enjoy, stress about, etc.-- it's normal, because I see things through the eyes of a writer.  It confirmed in my mind for me that this is TRULY what I want to do with my life, and it gave me the courage and strength I needed to move forward.  It made me excited about coming home, exhausted after work, and squeezing in even just minutes of writing before bed.  I read this book greedily, in a week, instead of an entry a day for a year.  I needed the inspiration and comfort in large gulps, not doses.

I wanted to share some of my favorite quotes from it, but honestly, 90% of them resonated so strongly with me that all I can say is to just go out and read the book for yourself.  It calmed me in a way that brought tears of joy to my eyes-- that's how happy and relieved I was to have the author tell me that not only is living this way normal, it's wonderful.  It's scary and exciting and dangerous and bizarre and looked down upon and praised and lonesome and fulfilling-- it's part of being a writer.

Looking forward to whatever titles pass under my eyes in February.  Read on!

Nola

I hear you easy in the morning

when your notes slip gold from your trumpet
and slide down the empty underbelly
of the interstate on-ramp,
floating fresh and clean and pure
above the dirty wet pavement

You are the grit beneath
my bitten fingernails
that I can’t ever scrub away,
while the homeless wilt beneath
that great big boiling sun,
under the unseeing glazed eyes
of dead men forever immortalized in stone,
the statues high above on sturdy columns

And it’s all so sad and beautiful,
just desolate enough to completely break my heart,
but enough shades of beauty
to keep me under this paperweight,
and you and I both know
that there are countless tiny reasons,
both beautiful and sad,
that hold me down, against my will,
but completely my own choice. 

Starting new chapters... literally.

I haven't made a New Year's resolution in... years.  I don't like them at all.

I think it's an enormous amount of unreasonable, and often vague, pressure to put on a person.  I know myself well enough to understand that I cannot stick to a goal for an entire year unless it is something concrete that I can take day by day, like my One Good Thing a Day journal.  Perhaps other people can handle year-long resolutions better than I, but I am fully aware of my own inability and am not ashamed of it.  It's just how I function as a person.

However, I am a firm believer in setting goals to help one's self down the road of self-improvement.  I try to set smaller goals (which I've talked about in this blog before), even daily goals just to test myself and push myself out of my comfort zone.  The longest my goals have ever been set for were semester-long goals, but now that I've graduated, those semesterly goals are over.  I need a new version of my semi-long-term goals to move myself forward.

That being said, I am, in fact, challenging myself to a vague, year-long goal, though not quite a resolution.  My NaNoWriMo project has been sitting practically untouched since November 30.  I got my 50k+ words, successfully completing the challenge (and accomplishing a personal goal, score!), but I did not finish the actual novel.  I gave myself December "off" with the intention of working on it not when I could, but when I felt like it, which turned out to be less than I expected, for various reasons.  December was an extremely difficult month for me, and I do not feel bad about having let my project sit without my attention.

But I do want to move forward with it.  I just don't know how to break it up into bite-sized goals because I'm not familiar with this type of thing.  So I'm giving myself the entire year to come up with an edited first draft of my NaNo novel.  That's right-- I hope to have a first draft of a novel in my hot little hands by December 2013!  That's such a big thing for me... a tangible product of a life-long dream.  I've been thinking of it for years, and now, it's time to act upon it and make it a reality.

Is a year too little?  Too long?  I guess I'll find out!  Starting a new chapter in my life!  Or rather... starting several new chapters.  A whole novel's worth.