Page 55: “Who Do You Think You Are?”

January 4, 2016January 7, 2016 Libbyabout me, bucket list, doubts, full-time, real talk, self talk, the future7 Comments

I’ve made my bed and this is what sleeping in it looks like.

It looks like me sitting at my dining room table with a notebook to my right and a coffee to my left, a batch of dishes soaking in the kitchen and my hair up in a towel. And I’m at work.
Not pictured: my anxiety asking me, “Just who in the hell do you think you are?”

Last week I had my last day at my full-time job. My husband came by and spent the last hour with me and then he took me out to lunch where we ordered strong cocktails in celebration.
And on the way home from lunch, he grabbed my hand and told me that he was proud of me and reminded me (like I’ve been asking him to do every day for the past three weeks) that everything is going to be okay. And suddenly I was struck with this silent flash of the reality of this situation. I felt something deep inside of me come out and say the words, “I can’t… believe… I quit… my job.”
Well, I quit my job so that I could be a writer like I’ve always wanted to do. I was in college for five years (that first Freshman year was just a very expensive trial-run) and the whole time people would ask me, “What are you going to do with your English degree? Teach?” And I would recoil and say, “Ugh, no! I’m going to be a writer.” I said that for five years. Until I got my first, post-grad, to-pay-the-bills job and then I completely forgot about it. People would ask me about my writing and I’d wave it off saying that I had a hobby blog but that was it because I’m an adult now and people can’t live on words alone. And maybe they can, maybe they can’t, I can’t say whether or not it’s possible for me yet. But I have kind of learned that you can’t live very well by denying what your spirit needs either.
So here we are. We aren’t rich but it’s now or 30 years from now and I can’t wait that long. Our life is changing big because of this decision. But I don’t know if I can keep myself healthy and keep denying my creativity any longer.

One thing I know for sure is that I couldn’t do it without Ryan. I didn’t know how crucial it is to have a supportive partner until we started tossing around this idea. I want to take a little space here to publicly tell the world that I don’t know if there’s a better person in this world than this man who married me and loves to build me up.
I pray that one day I’ll be able to hold back the curtain so that he can explore his dreams, too. Thank you so much for loving me in this deep and tangible way.

Here are a list of my doubts, just so that I can get them out there and come face to face with them. I might not conquer them all right now but here they are:

1. Is this something that people are really allowed to do? How am I allowed to do this?
2. Is this horribly irresponsible? Aren’t we supposed to work hard and save all the money that we possibly can when we’re young so that we can make all of our dreams come true when we’re old?
3. What if I’m not even successful at it? And what does success even look like to me right now?
4. Other people aren’t allowed to do this so why me? Why do I get to be the one?

I don’t have answers for all of those questions but I don’t really need them. If you can put words to your anxiety you’ll quickly see that it’s pretty unreasonable and only serves as a distraction.

One thing that I know for sure is that when doubt looks at you and says, “Just who the hell do you think you are?” make sure you answer that question.

Thank you for coming on this journey with me. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for sharing my words. Thank you for your input. Keep it coming. You’re a crucial part of this, too.

XOXO, Lib

Page Six: Who We Are

March 17, 2013March 17, 2013 LibbyAmy Poehler, Bossypants, choice, cupcakes, real talk, responsibility, self talk, Smart Girls at the Party, Tina Fey2 Comments

The thing is that the love that I have for Amy Poehler and Tina Fey is so much more than just, “Oh, they make me laugh!” But, closer to, “Oh, I’m going to use you as my spirit guides.” Don’t get me wrong. There are other powerful, brave, strong and hilarious women in the world with whom I would love to hang. Mindy, Lena, Hillary: call me. But I feel like if I ever happened upon Tina or Amy, I would undoubtedly interrupt their day, crawl into their lap (because they share a lap) and thank them uncontrollably.

Ryan gave me a copy of Bossypants for my birthday a few years ago and I think reading that is what started this spirit in me that I can be whoever I want to be. And not in an after school special kind of way, either. Like, in a real, tangible way that I didn’t know was possible. It’s the kind of thing that you can hear over and over again but won’t really stick until it slaps you in the face at the right moment when you’re wearing comfortable shoes and are just hungry enough to pay attention but not so hungry that you’re distracted and ravenous. It’s a delicate balance and we’re, frankly, lucky that we ever learn anything at all.

For starters, for me, it was this section in Bossypants (page 143-144):

Amy Poehler was new to SNL and we were all crowded into the seventeenth-floor writers’ room, waiting for the Wednesday read-through to start. There were always a lot of noisy “comedy bits” going on in that room. Amy was in the middle of some such nonsense with Seth Meyers across the table, and she did something vulgar as a joke. I can’t remember what it was exactly, except that it was dirty and loud and “unladylike.”
Jimmy Fallon, who was arguably the star of the show at the time, turned to her and in a faux-squeamish voice said, “Stop that! It’s not cute! I don’t like it.”

Amy dropped what she was doing, went black in the eyes for a second, and wheeled around on him. “I don’t fucking care if you like it.” Jimmy was visibly startled. Amy went right back to enjoying her ridiculous bit.

With that exchange, a cosmic shift took place. Amy made it clear that she wasn’t there to be cute. She wasn’t there to play wives and girlfriends in the boys’ scenes. She was there to do what she wanted to do and she did not fucking care if you like it.

A few paragraphs later, Tina continues, “Ask yourself the following question: ‘Is this person in between me and what I want to do?’ If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way.”

I know a lot of Tina’s book is about being a successful working woman–because that’s what she is and it’s important to have a cohesive thesis throughout whatever you’re working on. But I think that in this situation, your “work” can be whatever you want it to be. Your work can be your job, sure. Your work can be an aggressive hobby. But I think what it boils down to is this: your work is becoming whatever kind of person it is that you want to become.

Okay, so I read that (and all the stuff before and after that and then opened it up to the first page and read it again. Yes.) and felt empowered to not settle for the life that I have just because it’s the one that I feel like happened to me. I imagined the woman that I want to be most in the world (surprise, it’s mostly a conglomeration of all of the beautiful qualities that I see in my friends). I want to be kind and patient. I want to be creative and I want to be a really good friend and I want to be honest. I want to see when I’m wrong and be confident when I am right. I want, to quote a line from Gillmore Girls, “to live my life so that when I read an in-depth biography of myself in later years, I will not puke.”

So I know who I want to be. And, surprise, surprise, it’s Amy Poehler that inspires me to know how to be that woman. When she helped to launch Smart Girls at the Party, she started a series called Ask Amy. This is undoubtedly aimed at much younger ladies than I but, admirably, it’s not dumbed down in any way whatsoever so a 29 year old me can watch it and not feel like I’m sneaking in kid stuff. And Amy dishes out legitimate advice that I wish I had when I was thirteen and advice that I know I’m going to continue needing to hear as I march through the rest of my life.

This one is my favorites. A girl writes in and explains to Amy that she has a really difficult time admitting when she’s wrong. She knows she’s wrong and everyone else does too, but she can’t bring herself to accept it and move past it. Amy’s technique is so kind and feeling–she’s a good example of what I want to be like. She explains that it can be so powerful to admit when you’re wrong because it’s “showing that you’re vulnerable and that you’re a supple person who can admit when they’ve made a mistake and can therefore be trusted.”

It seems to me that a lot of becoming the person that you want to be all boils down to two things. Honesty: being honest with yourself and with other people. And practice: practice being that woman. Practice being thoughtful and reliable and brave–recognize when you have not met the bar, administer some grace to yourself and practice again.

I’m working on me. I’m recognizing that my days are full to the brim with opportunities to choose. The choices that we make create us into the people that we will become and the good news is that we’re in charge.

I hope you have a really good day and if you’re in the mood for cupcakes, I’m just getting ready to frost them.

XOXO,
Lib

Page Two: The Golden Rule

February 24, 2013February 26, 2013 Libbyfriendship, kindness, self talk3 Comments

Towards the end of the first season of HBO’s Girls, there’s a scene where best friends Hannah and Marnie get into their most epic fight ever. It starts out over something small and escalates (as these things so often do) into some much deeper, silent issues. They’re going back and forth saying mean things about one another and finally Hannah says, “There’s nothing that you can say to me that hasn’t already been said to me, by me, probably in the last ten minutes.”

There is certainly an enormous part of friendship that implores that if you recognize flaws in the other person, you will accept them without question unless and until those things start to cause harm to someone or to the friendship. And then they will be tackled, if the friendship is worth it, or abandoned all together, if the friendship is not. This is just how basic friendship works ordinarily. You don’t say mean things about Friend A’s annoying laugh and she doesn’t talk about how you sometimes speak in hash-tags and then we all get on with life.

If someone else were to make disparaging comments about your friend’s laugh, you would probably not be thrilled about that, right? And then they’d go on to pick at little things about her that you didn’t even notice before. Like her muffin top or a bend in her nose or the way her boobs are two different sizes. I’d like to think that we would step in and say, “woah, woah, woah, uncalled for.” Right? We stand up for our friends but we don’t stand up for ourselves against ourselves. Well, I think we need to start doing that.

I mean, if we’re really going to employ the Golden Rule in our lives and treat others the way we would want to be treated, then the way we treat ourselves should be the precedent that is set, by which we decide to treat other people–right?? But that’s not what happens. We treat other people awesome and then we treat ourselves like garbage (constantly picking on the jiggle in our thighs or upper arms or lack of planning) and we find that we’re never really happy. And who would be? Who could possibly be happy when there’s someone following you around talking shit on you all day? “You’re not smart enough, you’re bad at dancing, you have a bulbous nose, you’re too bossy, everyone only puts up with you.”

Yesterday, I was experiencing severe cabin fever and restless brain syndrome so my boyfriend took me to the grocery store so that we could buy enough toilet paper to last us through the next rumored blizzard. I was happy to be out of the house but my attitude persisted. Silently, to myself, I was playing this tape of, “You’re not brave enough and you’re just never satisfied and nothing is ever good enough for you and your boyfriend is totally picking up on your bad attitude and just can not wait to take you home and be rid of you…” Finally I just couldn’t stand it anymore and I whined to Ryan, “I am in such a grouchy mood!!” I stomped my foot–in the produce section. It was a sliver of a tantrum–only the tiniest fraction of how I actually felt inside. He squeezed my shoulders and said, “but I still want to hang out with you.” And that went right to my heart. It made me feel warm in my spirit and it spread to my mind. He didn’t deny what was completely obvious to the both of us. He just got right to the point: there are things about you that are not entirely pleasant all of the time but they do not define you and I like you.

I’m not going to tell you to stop acknowledging the things you don’t like–because that’s just hard and a measure of self-awareness is nothing to sneeze at. It helps us to know what to change and what to embrace. But maybe if we appended those gripes with a kindness. And accept kindness as fully as we accept meanness. “My thighs have carried me miles and miles and miles without acknowledgement or complaint,” is just as true as, “my thighs appear pretty jiggly when I’m wearing these shorts.” So maybe let’s try to find some kindness.

XOXO, Lib.