4 Scenarios I Imagine When You Don't Text Back

When you don’t text me back right away, I play it cool like I don’t even care. I’m all, whatever, he really likes me, it doesn’t mean anything. A little later and still no text, I’m like, ugh I have better people to be texting anywayyy. But when a few hours go by and I still don’t get a reply, four very specific scenarios go through my mind.

1. You discovered your soul mate in that weird java coding class you take on Wednesdays and you’ve swept her away to Las Vegas to consummate your love. Your phone is, of course, turned off on the airplane and reception in casino chapels is always patchy – thus creating low odds I’ll get a text back.

2. You took a shortcut through an alley on your way home from the office only to be roughed up by thugs, robbed, shanked, and left for dead. Crimson blood pours from your eyes and ears and your mangled, broken arms make it impossible to reach into your pocket for your phone. As you slip in and out of consciousness, you can only murmur Kaaa... Kaaa... in the hopes that Siri might hear your grief and place your call sans touch.

3. You have been personally invited to lead the President of the United States on a midnight Segway tour through the pentagon. Your swanky department of defense job paired with your talent for tour-giving makes you the perfect guide for POTUS to become reacquainted with the building and its slippery hallways. You’d reply, but you don’t want to offend the prezzie or anything. Plus, it’s kind of hard to text from a Segway. They have a delicate equilibrium you wouldn’t want to disrupt with frenzied thumb-tapping.

 4. I stole your charger last night to plug in my phone so yours died at work today. You make it home safe and sound with every intention of charging your mobile device, but the beer in the fridge is calling your name and the lean cuisine in your freezer isn’t going to microwave itself, so you toss your phone on the bed and go about your evening like a normal person. You heat up dinner, open an IPA, turn on ESPN, and forget about the fact that there’s a girl 2.2 miles away who maybe wants reassurance that you’re not dead in an alley or exchanging vows in an Elvis chapel.

The Times They Are A-changin'

I get bored easily. Really, really easily.

Like, if I paint my nails gold in the morning, I’m picking it off by 3 pm, and re-painting them charcoal gray before bed. And it’s not because I want my nails to reflect my mood and mornings feel sunny and sparkly and bright, it’s just that I like switching up the little things.

So, it strikes me as odd that I’m so slow to make big life changes.

Once I settle into a routine, I feel compelled to make it work. I have overwhelming patience for flaky friends, dead end jobs, and miserable living situations. In college, I paid $1000 a month for a grimy, possibly asbestos-ridden, mouse-infested unit for THREE years because it was kind of sort of near my boyfriend’s apartment… And we had an awesome beer pong set-up... And moving’s such a pain… And Chicago’s really cold… And wah wah wah.

So is my impatience for the little things caused by my unending tolerance for the big stuff? Or, does my general steadiness lead to these sporadic bursts of mini-change?

It's GO Time!

Today is the last day of my first job. So, it’s the end of an era, really.

I feel like there should be some sort of graduation ceremony with speeches, buckets of bubbly, and a wild party to cap off my accomplishments and carry me through to the next phase of my professional life.

Everything comes to an end (duh). And I tend to like the idea of endings because they are expected and inevitable. But change is scary. It seems like everything I know about my life right now is falling apart like some doomed relationship in an Adele ballad, and I’m just moronically forging ahead hoping to find something different, better, best.

I am quick to fall into a stable routine and I’ve never been the type to disrupt the status quo. But I've gone and done it.

As huge as this feels, I have to keep reminding myself that leaving your first job is expected and normal and frankly pretty mundane in the grand scheme of things. I’m happy, and healthy, and employed. I have wonderful friends, and great coworkers, and family members who support me no matter what.

This transition is a bit daunting now because I’m right in the thick of it all, but as things mellow out, I know I’ll be happy with my decision. Life is pretty simple, after all. Just do what you love.

Making Things Happen in the Kitchen

Would you say your pesto is the besto?

Today I used my food processor.

I’ve had it since Christmas but always found the thought of unearthing it from its deep dark corner of the cupboard a bit disconcerting.

A work event this morning took me to a nearby suburb (at 5 am thank you very much) but when the health fair wrapped up and we stumbled into the sunlight, I had a chance to catch my breath and look around. We were standing next to a Korean Costco. Best. Day. Ever.

I’m terrible at decision making, so despite the abundance of exotic foods, I hastily grabbed a few things I recognized (Kiwis! Jicama! Basil!) and tried my best not to embarrass myself or offend anybody (it was like sooo many jokes waiting to happen).

I’d been craving pesto which I knew belonged in food processor land. So I went for it.

Turns out my Kermit-green chopping machine is pretty much the least threatening appliance in my kitchen (um, hello terrifying electric kettle that hisses at me when I just want to enjoy a nice cup of tea). The pesto was 100% delicious, easy to make, and the machine's blade stayed a reasonably safe distance from my fingers.

I wonder what else I’ve missed out on because it seemed too daunting to attempt on my own…

Right now I’m feeling immensely proud of this admittedly not-so-impressive pesto endeavor. But whatevs. Go ME!

Dunzo.

Some say the opposite of love is indifference, but what about pure, unadulterated hate? What about a blinding desire to literally dismember the person you once might have loved even if you never said it out loud?

What if you want to slap the smarmy, smirking smile off his face with a smack so hard his cheek turns scarlet and your hand sears with heat but it doesn’t matter because the pain is entirely worth it? And he mostly deserves it.

What if you finally (kind of, maybe) understand where Chris Brown was coming from. It’s not his abusive behavior you condone by any means, but rather, you finally recognize the level of bubbling, aching hatred we can feel for other human beings.

And then it turns off like a switch. Just gone. You don’t love, you don’t hate, you don’t care. You’re released from something you didn’t even realize you were still connected to.

It’s over, it’s over, it’s over. Not even this mantra can convey your relief. It sure took a while - certainly longer than you’d like to admit - but all good things must come to an end.

Now She's Gone in the Blink of an Eye

I'm feeling very restless.

Stability is great. I normally love stability, but right now I'm twitchy, I'm anxious, I'm jonesing for a trip, a journey, a way out. I know I want a traditional picket-fence life eventually, but not now. Not yet. I want to throw all my stuff in storage and hit the road. I'm not much of a car person but a bike would do nicely.

I want to see Amurrica. Really see it. I want to know more than my bubble. I want to see factories and ghettos and farmland. I want to see landmarks and rivers and woods. I want to see endless stormy skies and braided cornfields and untouched trails and I want to hike them and touch trees and explore towns and not sit at my desk like a girl in decay.

But I can't do this alone. I don't want to get raped or stabbed or killed or lost. I don't need to risk my life to appreciate it. I already do. I mean, odds are, the worst won't happen but ya never know... So then that brings me back to why I want to run in the first place. Am I trying to escape being alone or am I looking to justify my alone-ness. If you're on your own on purpose then at least you're not lonely. Accidental solitude is the worst.

Too Much Time On My Hands

Since he left, I’ve devoured eleven books. I’m insatiable, looking everywhere for ways to satisfy my mind, occupy my time.

I’ve perfected the art of the grilled cheese sandwich. This might not sound very impressive, but I assure you, it’s a feat nonetheless. I’ve experimented with four types of bread, six kinds of cheese, varying butter/margarine combos, and three different pans in my kitchen. I’ve also figured out the perfect mustard to honey ratio to whip up a great little dipping sauce. This is my comfort food, warm gooey goodness enveloped in buttery, flakey crust.

When I’m lonely or sad or just a little blue, I’ve found that reverting to childhood comforts is the best way to perk up. When I was a kid, there was nothing a good book couldn’t cure. Lose yourself in someone else’s world for an hour or two and you’ll forget your own problems in no time. It’s a little harder now, but at least reading is a constructive time waster. At least I’m not drinking my sorrows away.

I feel so much pressure to fill my free time with a hundred thousand activities like the rest of the people in this city. Trivia! Spin class! Happy hour! Yoga! It’s like I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts for a single second, so I plan my days down to the last minute.

But when life is life and plans get cancelled, I come unmoored. I’m distraction-less. My roommate walks in to find me weeping over a sandwich in the kitchen.

Seeing an Ex

When you break up with me, I like to think you cease to exist. It’s not like I want you to die or anything (I swear, I don’t) but it would be nice if we didn’t have to share the planet let alone this tiny city.

I was tipsy when I passed you on the street last night, and you caught me completely off guard. You were smiling, relaxed, enjoying the company of the girl you were obviously on a date with and it felt offensive and unfair and insulting.

I get that we weren’t really a couple. I get that we had virtually nothing in common. And I certainly understand that I am belaboring a point here and clearly have spent far more time analyzing our non-relationship than is appropriate for the quantity and quality of time we spent together but aghhhh.

Without you, I’m so bored I’ve resurrected all of my drawsomething games. I’m cooking elaborate four course dinners for myself. I’m making one-woman acoustic music videos personalized for each of my non-DC friends.

I have TOO much time on my hands and it’s pathetic. I mean, I guess I’m doing things I like to do, and I’m obviously improving my skills in the kitchen, but it seems like I’m just biding my time until I can fill it with someone else. You might have found ways to occupy yourself – as you made evident on your annoyingly adorable dinner date – but I don’t want to witness how you spend your time now that it’s not being spent with me.

I’d really like you to move so I don’t ever have to think about you again. K, thanks, bye.

Good News - Rock Bottom Isn't Bad At All

There’s a me-shaped dent in my couch cushions right where I flop down to watch tv at the end of every workday. I’m half proud, half disgusted with this discovery.

Tonight I bailed on getting drinks with a friend because a Ryan Reynolds movie was starting on Comedy Central when I walked in the door. Despite my normally social instincts, I refused to deny myself the treat that is RyRey's beautiful onscreen bod to walk down a big hill, pretend to care about chit chat for an hour, and pay upwards of $30 for bitter liquid calories. So, I settled deep into the pillows... and didn’t get up for four hours.

Is this some sort of rock bottom? I always pictured it as a gray, shadowy place with jutting cliffs and flames and crusty syringes scattered about, but maybe since I’m not a drug addict, or a villain in a Disney movie, my rock bottom can only be as low as binging on breyers mint chocolate chip ice cream and eschewing happy hour for endless, commercial-filled, cable movies. Yes, I know. #Whitegirlproblems.

And wasn’t some girl recently attacked for confessing her white girl problems in the Huffington Post? This normal college grad accepted a stable job that appealed to her and paid the rent. She got a car and an apartment and health insurance and yet, felt totally disconnected from her peers. It was like the world expected her to be angsty and suffering because she's a member of a generally jobless and hopeless generation, but it was difficult for her to muster any real outrage because life was going pretty well.

I suppose I can relate. I am luckyluckylucky. Gainfully employed. Affordable apartment. Fully-owned vehicle. Check check check. When things are going fine in most areas of your life, it's like rock bottom is compartmentalized. You only experience low points in one chunk of the total package but that makes it feel all the more extreme. Eventually, that segment of my life will work itself out too and then I'll wonder what I was even whining about.

So today, right now, I’m going to psych myself up for my weekend and its 48 solid hours of freedom. I can essentially do whatever I want, whenever I want, wherever I want, and ya know what? That’s a luxury most people would kill for.

Relax, This is Fiction

If I actually wrote an accurate depiction of my life, you would be bored. And you wouldn’t read this blog.

But, just to hammer home how totally uneventful my life is 99.9% of the time, let me walk you through my super awesome Sunday.

The other day I spent more than five hours watching three Anna Faris movies back to back. Do you know who that is? Did you even know she was in 41 movies? I did not. Until I IMDB’ed her and discovered she was not just in the whole scary movie series but also "what’s your number", "house bunny", and "just friends", all of which I enjoyed tremendously, thank you very much.

What else did I do? I went grocery shopping. At the little market down the street. I bought butter and an onion and some sparkling water. Oh and avocados were on sale so I grabbed a few of those too. How freaking expensive are avocados these days? It's an outrage. Really. Are you totally loving this scintillating chit chat about my food choices of late?

This is my actual life. I read books on my kindle, and shamefully peruse US Weekly (Stars! They're just like us!), and illegally stream movies from projectfreetv (um yeah, it’s awesome – maybe I’m late to the game with this one but after megavideo vanished, I was really lost for a while). Anyways, I run and play guitar and it’s all very nice and typical but then I get antsy and need…something!

I can’t pick up and take spontaneous vacations. I can’t go on adventures in the middle of the day with friends. I can’t day drink on a rooftop with a pool.

Tonight I ran home from dinner in a torrential downpour, barefoot. My first thought was shit, did I get my tetanus booster? But once the initial panic of bloodborne pathogens gave way, I felt exhilarated and invincible and in love with my city. This is my life. Sometimes it's painfully boring. Sometimes hopelessly pathetic. Sometimes completely enviable.

Today was an excellent Tuesday.

Three Life Lessons

My grandparents are all pretty old and they’ve done a lot of living. When I make time to fit in a visit or a quickie phone call, these are the three simple life lessons they preach.

Live clean work hard. 
One day at a time. 
It’s not over ‘til it’s over.

My grandparents have a great deal of combined wisdom so I know I should pay attention to what they say because what do I know? Life is still very much without meaning to me, so if octogenarians want to offer tips, I’m all ears.

My grandparents have experienced more love and loss in their lifetimes than I can ever begin to imagine. My DC-grandpa fought in wars and watched close friends die in combat. He suffered from his soulmate’s tragic demise. He remarried only to lose again.  But on Sunday afternoons when I stop by his nursing home with Comet pizza and a slice of chocolate cake, he reminisces joyfully, lingering on only the happy memories.

My grandparents tell me I look like my grandma. They’re not the only ones. Those who see photos remark on the eerily similar countenance and tell me I’m lucky to resemble such a classic beauty. She was too pretty for words so my grandpa says none at all.

My grandparents remind me to live clean and work hard because they know karma will always balance things out.
My grandparents remind me I should take one day at a time because they know, better than I do, that sometimes you don’t get another day.
My grandparents remind me it’s not over ‘til it’s over because they’ve seen endings and beginnings and they know sometimes the end doesn’t look how you expected.

I Just Want to Know What I Want

Today, I feel kind of guilty for writing these pensive-bordering-on-morose entries because I know my life is great and I shouldn’t whine and lots of people would kill for what I’ve got.

To those people who feel the need to remind me how lucky I am, I hear ya. I really do.

I’m just trying to articulate how despite having seemingly everything going for me, I still have plenty of disappointments and concerns and a scarily intangible life plan. My problems might be #whitegirlproblems but that doesn’t make them any less significant to me. I’m not actually comparing my difficulties to serious issues - I recognize that a rough day at work is not on par with global strife, it just hits closer to home.

I get to angst about meaningless issues because I have no real ones to stress about. It's a privilege.

I’m not hungry or homeless or in debt. I’m not unemployed or friendless. I’m not addicted to drugs or dying of diseases. I have a lovely life. And I’m grateful. I am. I just know that there’s more than this and I’m not sure if I can wait for whatever that is or if I have to actively seek it out. And where does one start looking...?

I’m acutely aware of time passing me by and I want – I really, really want – to slow it down so I can focus on what makes me over-the-moon-happy and then pursue that. I spend so much time worrying about what’s less-than-perfect in my life that I don’t have time to sit down and figure out how to maximize the goods and minimize the bads.

Before I can get what I want, I need to figure out exactly what that is. And for some reason, no matter how many lists I start and then abandon in the notes section of my iphone, it continues to elude me.

Today, my only want is to know what I want.

It's Really, Really Hard to Live in the Moment

Two years out of college and 24 months of real world living have done little to change my core way of being. I thought without a rigid academic curriculum, I’d have the freedom to do so much more but it turns out that we just shift away from the ivy-laced walls of campus to the red-brick walls of work.

Routines feel stale but I still suffer from an intense fear of missing out. The thought of leaving DC for even a weekend feels both refreshing and irritating. I want to escape life here but as soon as I’m away, it seems like everything great happens. I'm always looking ahead, away, over there.

I’m terrible at living in the present.

Either I’m combing through old pictures on facebook conjuring up that buzzed pre-party excitement, or I’m thinking about my next weekend, my next day off, my next trip. Even when I’m having fun, surrounded by friends, I’m looking around for the better option.

Where’s the “more fun”? What’s better than this?

Ties that Bind...

I watched you pack up your apartment in a matter of hours it seemed. You posted and re-posted on craigslist offering up the last of your freecycled furniture and managed to turn a profit off the pieces you’d accumulated over the months. I was impressed. And jealous. And sad.

Your ability to take flight, literally, made me feel all the more stifled and tied down. I’m grateful for the life I’ve made but I have too many things.

I have an apartment and it’s pretty and I love it.
I have furniture and it’s heavy and hard to move.
I have clothes that overflow from every dresser and closet and plastic bin.
I love this and I hate this.

The life I’ve made for myself here is valuable and valid. It’s evidence of my existence, of my efforts to create a home.

And yet, watching you climb out of my car that morning, all limbs and luggage, it seemed so unfair.

You are quick to make friends, quick to build experiences, and quick to create stories, but you never knotted yourself to me. You made it easy to pick up and take off and start anew.

You left me behind. Saddled now with not just my life, but pieces of yours; your boxes and our memories and a check to cash when your bank account was full again.

Expiration Dating

It’s easy to offer sound, rational advice to love-struck peers, but as soon as your own heart is hit with a meat mallet, it’s impossible to see things clearly. Leaving Chicago was one of the most traumatizing events of my life. I left behind the college version of myself I’d grown to know so well but I also forced myself to turn my back on a relationship that I thought was The Relationship. Looking back, I chuckle to think I could have ended up with a tattooed college athlete with diamonds in his ears, but when you’re in it, it’s so easy to get wrapped up in what you have. I was so overwhelmed by the good stuff and so blind to the obviously bad.

Once in DC, I made a life for me. A Kat life. I tried so hard not to be a pushover and to do the things that made ME happy, but even living just for me, it was hard not to want someone to be with. I like when guys dote on me. I like having a built-in friend, companion, and travel buddy. Everything is more fun when a boyfriend comes along. Social situations are less stressful, life feels safer, and I’m happy waking up next to someone I care about.

So with G leaving DC for good, I’ve had to adjust to “expiration dating”. We are still a couple in the truest sense of the word (we go out, hang out, don’t date other people, etc) but there is a finality to it that I haven’t experienced before. I know with absolute clarity I want to get married and be a mom, so what am I doing with him? Why am I wasting these weeks hanging out with G when I could be breaking up, moving on, and meeting someone new? Why am I emotionally torturing myself? I tend to cling to the status quo, happy and complacent with things just the way they are, so maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s why I’m willing to hold on to something that will never be more than what it is now.

Or maybe, sadly, pathetically, I’m clinging because I feel like I might change his mind in the next 10 days. I know it’s hopeless (I’ve spoken to him about it) but I don’t WANT it to be hopeless.

The craziest part is I know on some level we aren’t even right for each other. True, we are compatible in seemingly obvious ways, and bring out good sides of each other in certain situations, but I’m outdoorsy and active in a way he never will be and his love of fantasy sports and late nights is something I’ll never entirely understand.

So, as the expiration date on my expiration dating comes closer, I guess I’ll just have to focus on what makes ME happy. A friend recently told me, do what you love and you’ll find it.

So simple. So perfect.

The grass is always greener...

Do we always want what we can't have? Is it just a symptom of selfish twenty-somethings, or is everyone like this?

I have a great job and I'm thankful for the paycheck that's miraculously deposited into my bank account every other Friday, but when my unemployed friends flit from city to city sleeping on futons, visiting friends, and barhopping, it's hard not to feel jealous. I want the spontaneity of their lives. I want the flexibility. I want the freedom and the epic stories that come with crashing on a college friend's couch.

My unemployed friends tell me I'm crazy. "You think we want this? Roaming from place to place?" They tell me their parents harass them daily to find work, their savings are dwindling miserably, their rent feels scarily high. "The grass is always greener," they say as they hop on the bus to NY for the weekend...

But it's more than just the job thing. Not to pull a Carrie Bradshaw, but it's relationships too. As a young person, I spent months looking for a guy. The bar scene in DC is hectic and exhausting and I'm not the online dating type. But when you finally find someone who makes you happy, you second guess things. You're vulnerable again. A part of you longs for the independence and sense of self that comes from not catering to another person's needs.

A part of me feels like I should cut all ties. Remove the bindings that hold me to my current life (job, apartment, boyfriend) and see what I'm left with.

I feel antsy and in need of some serious self reflection. I want to visit Chile, San Francisco, Australia. I want to walk and run and canoe? Sitting at my desk day in and day out, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week,  351 days per year feels stifling.

I'm 23 and not getting any younger.  Now is my time.

But maybe, the grass is always greener?

Sometimes Even the Best Laid Plans Backfire...

My first plan in life was simple. When I grew up, I wanted to be an actress.

Ok...

So, I took some acting classes, did a ton of children's theater, got some head shots taken and then realized: I was not cut out to be an actress. In order to succeed in Hollywood, you need to be pushy, assertive, and ballsy. You need to act like a prima donna before you're really entitled to, and that was just never me. Even at age 7 I knew I couldn't stand up in front of a roomful of people without turning beet red. So, my next plan was to be a gymnast.

My parents signed me up for gymnastics classes and ballet classes and it turned out, I was pretty good. I was extremely flexible and actually had the perfect gymnast build (which came back to haunt me years later at Midway airport when a creepy guy looked me up and down and used the line "are you in the Olympics because you look like some sort of gymnast to me". Ick.) But the time comes in a young gymnast's life when she is forced to choose between the sport and her social life, and I just couldn't prioritize sweaty gym workouts over school and parties and being a teenager.

So, what was the next plan? Go to a great school, graduate with job offers left and right, and make enough money to get off my parent's cellphone plan.

I guess I got the first part right. Uchicago is currently somewhere in the top 10 colleges in the U.S. but somehow I failed to receive the dozens of job offers from companies begging for me to come "join their team!" and... my dad still pays my blackberry bill.

So does anybody get it right? Are there girls who say, "I'm going to be an actress" and they make it happen? My friends C and N knew as early as the first week of freshman year that they wanted to work in finance. They excelled in their majors and graduated with top honors. Both girls are currently employed by the largest investment bank in the world, making close to $100k starting salary, and living in luxury apartments in buildings equipped with doormen and fitness facilities. Were they somehow better at sticking to their plans? Were they more motivated than I was?

Or, did they just get lucky?

If you have a plan set in place early on, does it make any deviation feel like a mistake? Should I look at my inability to follow a plan as some kind of wonderful spontaneity on my part or as a result of my undiagnosed ADHD? How different would my life be today if I had just stuck with the original plan?