A field guide to growing up without growing apart
OUR QUARTER LIFE CRISIS IS HERE! In the spirit of me and Cindy turning 25 in a few days, I’ve asked the girls to discuss their Quarter Life Crisis for November’s Condition of The Month. Maybe it has to do with Thanksgiving gratefulness, or maybe […]
So this one time I spent 21 days with 10 other people river rafting the Grand Canyon and it was epic. Long story shortish: Due to the 17 day government shutdown all the National Parks were closed and all hikers, visitor center people, bikers and […]
Hey there Princesses, I’m alive! And hello there to all you readers of our little blog that helps us 20-somethings stay in touch! It feels like our audience has doubled in the last few weeks I’ve been off the grid and though we get little to no comments from you kids, I’m glad to see you’re reading anyway. And really, that is the beauty of blogs isn’t it? That we are writing whether or not anyone is reading. At the core of this I’m writing for myself, but by extension I get to keep in touch with three of my favorite friends and also maybe possibly make a connection or share a thought with someone else out there. Even if it’s only one of you. It is nice to imagine (and see!) that you’re there.
I can’t believe it’s been over a year and we haven’t properly addressed you folks yet, though I suppose I call you Kids sometimes, but I call everyone kid. I think it is high time we set a name for you guys (and gals. probably mostly gals). So if we’re Naughty Princesses then you can be our… Saucy Subjects? Flirty Followers? Raunchy Readers?
The thing is none of us Princesses are really that naughty and our blog is really more about being 20-something than some sort of Disney distortion. The naughty names are kind of an afterthought, a fun thing we did one time that has more to do with the bond the four of us share than the complicated connotations the words elicit. The only reason we even used them in the first place was to make sure we could keep this space safe from judgement and filters. If I thought my mother could find this I wouldn’t have written half the things I did, if Snow or Cindy’s husband was reading this, I wonder how much less honest they’d have been about their relationships. This is a unique space to voice our 20-something thoughts to a few people we trust and a few strangers we hope to share some connection with. What do we call people that we’d love to find common ground with but also hope to keep our identities secret from?
I’m glad we’ve kept this blog from the other people we love, but now that we’re hitting the one year mark I’m definitely starting to feel the cost that brings. I’m proud of many of the posts we’ve written and it is difficult not to share them, difficult not to tell the people in my life what I spend much of my time on. Is it possible to keep this going in the same way it’s been? What would it mean to open this up to people we love, to people we know? Is that the only way to really continue this blog long term?
I’m mostly good for now, and to be honest I recently started a less anonymous blog of my own that I’m sure will help curb my desires to share this blogging part of my life with people besides my Princess loves and you 20-Something Conditioners. TSCers. Condition Readers. Ah this name things is hard!
So don’t worry, nothing is changing yet, but time goes quickly and as much as we’d like them to, things can’t stay the same. Just look how much I missed in the 21 days I was gone. Cindy got two new jobs, Snow’s hubby moved across the nation for a new career and Red over there is kicking British Airways’ booty (If you’d been in the USA I’m sure you would have fixed the government shutdown much sooner). My life is in overdrive as well; we’ll see if I even manage a post to tell you guys about my trip down the Grand Canyon (yeah right, of course I’ll make time to tell you kids).
Things are changing fast, and I want to take a second to appreciate that this blog exists and to share how incredibly happy I am to be a part of it. Thanks for reading Friends (Conditioners, Super Strangers, Magnificent Members(dirty!), Party People?), I can’t wait to see what happens next.
I leave to raft the Grand Canyon in less than 14 hours. I’m excited. I’m lucky. I’m overwhelmed. I’m all things all at once. But mostly, mostly I’m disappointed. If the Senate and the House don’t come to a decision by tomorrow night the National […]
I don’t know if you’ve gotten the picture by now but I’m kind of busy lately. My Grand Canyon trip is only TWO WEEKS away and preparations have kicked into high gear. On the way home from work yesterday alone we stopped at Costco, Walmart, […]
Oh brothers. But this time I’m not talking about the kind you think.
This post is about the non-kin kind, the kind of brothers that felt so alien when you were younger but now seem like your friend’s twin, the kind of brothers you’ve never really had a conversation with and yet you know more about them than their Facebook page could ever say, the kind of bothers that are so attractive that when they stop by to pick your friend up for Thanksgiving you’re not sure how long it took you to stop staring at the door after they left. I’m talking about the kind of brothers that are way more complicated than your own, because how on earth are you supposed to interact with a human who your friend both adores, hates, looks up to and is entirely disgusted by – especially when said brother happens to be flirting back.
Chances are you’ve come upon many a brotherly flirtation over the years, awkward interactions at sleepovers, passing the platter at dinner, bonding over your friend’s hysterical quirk. These are the boys you’re supposed to ignore, tease or despise and yet I can’t be the only one who has trouble ignoring my favorite qualities in my friends that also happen to come in a nicely packaged xy-chromosome exterior. Doesn’t falling for your best friend’s brother make perfect sense?!
We all know I’m a crusher by nature, so really it is undeniable that the siblings of my friends would end up on my radar. It is no secret that I can’t wait for Cindy’s youngest brother to grow into a stud and that I think my friend’s brother Simon is the most attractive thing to ever happen. The only brother I think I’ve managed to avoid crushing on is Charlie, the one whose twin is my oldest friend. The three of us grew up together, and I’ve been told I should end up with him so many times that just this weekend when a family friend asked me when we were going to get to together I knew just what to say to change the subject. I love Charlie and I can’t deny that whenever he seeks me out to catch up I’m thrilled, but it’s not fun to crush on people you’re told to, especially when every other one of your friends has fallen for him at one point or another.
On the whole I can usually keep my emotions in check when it comes to brothers, keeping my crush in the realm of a joke or the unreal because they’re usually just that, attractions that I have no intention of genuinely pursuing. But interacting with brothers is a delicate balance and it’s really too bad that the one person you want to discuss it with is your one friend who really doesn’t want to hear it.
So this weekend when I hung out with one of said brothers, it was pretty much a given I’d have all sorts of conflicting emotions.
I’ve gone camping with him and his sister hundreds of times and though it has been a year since I’ve seen either of them, we are used to picking right up where we left off. He’s grown up a ton in the last few years, jumping from angsty teen to active, optimistic, 20-something in what feels like a matter of seconds. So it was nice to get to know this older, awesome version of a kid whose homemade fireworks I used to run from, especially when he made it clear how highly he thought of me and my family (he called us the salt of the earth) and how undeniably awesome he was when it came to doing the things around camp that needed to be done. Out of all of us this weekend he was the rock, the one that never complained and always put a smile on our faces. His attitude and energy level just blew me away and he went out of his way to make me and everyone feel appreciated. I am so proud of him and how far he‘s come.
So at first it was great that he and the awesome friend I brought along hit it off. They bonded over everything, looking at the world in many of the same ways and sharing an affinity for hiking and skiing. I was glad that she’d settled in well to our group, and even impressed at how easily they flirted. But as the hours turned to days I found myself incredibly and uselessly jealous. Jealous of the time he kept her away from me, jealous of the attention she kept him from giving me, jealous of the way they looked at each other while I was sitting alone.
I think that was the biggest problem; I was watching an all too familiar adventure from the sidelines. River trips are magical weekends, throwing together people for days on end without technology or real life to distract us from what makes us happy. When I was 17 the older (much older) cousin of my friend came along on one of our trips and he and I became inseparable. He’d seek me out when I was sitting alone and throw me over his shoulder when we were playing touch football. Over campfires he told me I had my whole life ahead of me and under the stars he was the first guy to tell me I was beautiful. That trip was a pivotal moment in my life, showing me how I could be and giving me many of the tools to make it so.
That same magic happened again when just last summer I got to the river and my friend’s younger brother was suddenly 20-something and taller than me. He was mine all weekend, flirting and teasing in ways that were way more fun than the sibling-like teasing we used to do. Every time I’ve seen him since that same tension is still there and while I know we won’t actually work out, I can’t deny that the dream of our merged families is fun sometimes.
This time around as I watched my friend flirt with the guy I know is wonderful, it was odd feeling torn between two jealousies. In many ways I wanted another experience like the ones I’d had before; he’s a great guy and there is no reason we wouldn’t work. But in other ways I was on the other side of it, watching my friend make a move on a guy I think of as my brother, feeling slightly betrayed and not altogether okay. I watched as she drew him in, and suddenly I didn’t trust my friend with my almost brother’s emotions. I know it’s all good, both of them are going to be in my life forever whether or not they end up dating and they’re both grown ups – I know they can take care of themselves, but is that how all my friends feel when I flirt with their brothers? Why did it hurt so much to watch two people I love share their happiness? Why do I want to have not only all his attention but also hers? Isn’t knowing we’re all friends enough? Does this come back to the best friend problem?
I shouldn’t be surprised, there have been plenty of moments when my actual brother has sought out one of my friends over me, leaving me thoroughly heartbroken in the process. It’s always something useless, like sharing a link on Facebook, but it still hurts when two people I love share a moment without me. I don’t get that way with his other friends, or even his girlfriends, but people who were ‘mine’ first definitely come with a different set of boundaries. Any idea why?
Mostly everything is fine, we all had a great weekend and I had plenty of beautiful time alone with everyone. I know this particular brother thinks well of me (his sister told me that on their way to the tent one night he said, if there were more people like [Sleeping Booty] in the world it would be a better place). He even got my number from his sister and texted me the next day to make sure we’d promise to hangout more.
I just wish I could figure out how to deal with this mystery that is the brothers of my friends (hug or no hug upon greeting?!) and why it is so difficult for sisters to really be totally okay with their friends and brothers becoming more.
Well hello there blog world! I don’t have much time this week since I’m packing for a rafting trip this weekend (heading down to Cataract Canyon in Moab for four days of river bliss) but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten about you! The last few […]
I wasn’t sure I was going to write this. Part of me doesn’t want to acknowledge that it happened at all. But… not talking about it makes me feel like it was somehow my fault, like I should be ashamed for how a stranger made […]
So I went to Las Vegas for a friend of a friend’s birthday this weekend and if there is only one thing you ever learn from me it’s that you are the ONLY person who can make your expectations a reality.
My expectations were low going in; I’m not a gambler, smoker, pool person or much of a clubber (club person? Clubette?), and while I love Vegas for the adventure (and of course talking to strangers), spending money on souvenir drink cups and redirecting wandering hands isn’t my favorite way to spend a weekend. Besides, I’d been to Vegas before (with Cinderslut for a spring break in college) and we’d seen how easy it was for our usually carefree friend to crumble under the pressure of making her 21st birthday live up to everything she’d hoped it would be. Back then we’d tried to do it all the first night, getting stuck with two days of a grumpy, hung-over birthday girl and crew. Luckily, we can laugh about it now, and even with all that drama I still have some incredibly fond memories from that weekend. Vegas is unpredictable, and I like to think its unconventional and uncooperative parts are what’s best about it.
So heading into this weekend with six other girls who knew each other much better than I did, I wasn’t too worried about making it the best weekend of my life. I was just going to go with the flow, head off by myself when I wanted to and meet up with them when it seemed appropriate. It was going to be great.
Our four-passenger, broken-down car got there Friday night after three extra hours of sitting on the side of the 109 degree Nevada highway waiting for a tow truck. At the hotel we showered off the sweat and crankiness as best we could but as we wandered the strip that night it was difficult to shake the memory of car insurance negotiations and the state trooper’s long winded stories.
I made the best of it, offering to take photos of strangers and making conversation where I could, but most of the girls I was with weren’t as enthusiastic – opting to head in early (while I stayed out with one of them and had a blast), promising themselves tomorrow would be better. On any other weekend, a move like that would have little consequence, but when you come to Vegas with high expectations, counting on all of them to come true in one night is a lot of pressure for a city that is anything but conventional.
The next day was quiet, filled with naps, pool time and one of the most awkward lunches I’ve ever been to – if they wanted to play games on their phones instead of talk to each other that was their choice (I can entertain myself anywhere). But their hours in Vegas were ticking away and I knew better than to rely on the promise of later, leaving them to nap while I explored the city and introduced myself to people who told me interesting things about travel and tattoos.
Because they were bored, the girls started getting ready for dinner hours beforehand, so it made sense that once we got to dinner (at the never worthwhile Hard Rock Café) our anticipation was at a breaking point. We’d waited all day (all week? All month?) for the appropriate time for the fun to begin, and when it didn’t, things got worse. The shy birthday girl was forced to take a shot in front of the entire restaurant and never really recovered, her mood going from neutral to straight up pissed in a matter of minutes. We caught a cab to Fremont Street because a few of us had never been, but it was long and expensive, leading us further and further from the exhilarating night we’d imagined.
A crowded, high-ceilinged, casino-mall place that hosted 90’s cover bands and an unimpressive laser light show, The Fremont Street Experience was nothing more than a scaled down strip, a more manageable social scene for overweight tourists and overprotective mothers. I felt like a sheep packed into a pen as we all wandered in circles looking for adventure and finding only off-putting capitalism. I may sound a bit harsh but this place felt like our group extrapolated to a 1000x scale, an entire street of people all making the effort to be available to new experiences but not willing to create anything themselves. It was like Vegas for uninteresting people.
We waited in line for a few cheap drinks and even wandered our way into a club for some dancing, but we were over dressed and underwhelmed. It just wasn’t quite right, and pretty soon we’d noticed silent tears falling from the birthday girls cheeks. Attention only made it worse and when we finally admitted that none of us wanted to be there we packed into a cab and hoped the strip would turn our night around.
Our mood definitely lightened the closer we got to the main drag, but now the fatigue set in – our feet attempting to call us to bed even though it was barely 11pm. We mostly ignored the pain, wandering casinos until we ended up in a club by default (no one took the lead for fear of being responsible for even more disappointment). At that point I broke away from the group, dancing alone and with a few guys (one of which pretended to be decent until he made me feel the most violated I’ve ever felt). There was only so much I could do to make this night fun for these girls, and when I was feeling down on the world and none of them attempted to take the lead and bring me or anyone else back up- I knew the night was a bust.
After that the night was mostly over, the girls crawling back into bed with drunken disappointment on their lips. A few of us went back out for an hour or so to watch the street performers and I even went up and told a beautiful guitarist that his music was the best part of my night. I meant it.
The next morning we packed up and wandered a bit more, finally taking the time to enjoy each other and appreciate where we were now that we had nothing left to lose. I could tell they were all trying to make the best of it, trying to salvage something from the disaster they’d created by not creating anything at all.
When the birthday girl pulled me aside and asked if I’d had a good trip, clearly feeling insecure about how she’d acted the day before, I looked her in the eyes and told her I had – explaining that the same thing had happened at my friend’s birthday a few years before. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d had a wonderful weekend, I just didn’t mention that the best parts were the ones I’d deliberately gone out of my way to create.
Vegas isn’t all bark and no bite, but you have to go out and find your joy – you have to contribute to the world to get something great out of it.
I will never have another best friend. When I was little I used to manipulate other people into doing things I wanted by promising to be their best friend. You’d be surprised how often it worked, most people needing little more than an “I’ll be […]
Come January I’m getting on a plane and crossing the Atlantic. I have no idea where I’ll end up, how long I’ll stay or really why I’m going. I know I have/need/want to go but I’m having trouble explaining WHY to myself and others. In […]
This weekend I was asked THE DREADED QUESTION (What are you doing with your life) and didn’t really come out alive.
By now you’d think I’d be good at deflecting this one, making up some sort of flowery answer that is somehow both satisfactory and yet and entirely noncommittal. We’re 20-something after all, it’s practically our job to talk about our future – never mind what you’re up to now, in a few years your real life will begin! But this weekend I was caught off guard, standing by as I heard myself surrender entirely to my own insecurities. How can I justify my 2014 adventure abroad to a family friend if I can’t even justify it to myself?
We were sitting around the campfire drinking a bottle of scotch when my dad’s friend (basically my uncle) asked about my future. My answer came out a little something like this:
“Well… I’m going to keep working with my dad until our Grand Canyon river trip in October… but after that I’m… done. (My dad was next to me at the time) It isn’t that it isn’t a great job! It’s just not for me… forever. It just isn’t a great fit. You know?” I looked at my dad for his reaction, afraid he’d judge me like I was judging myself. He shook his head and smiled saying, “you don’t have to justify it to me!” My almost uncle wasn’t so understanding. I made a weak attempt to distract him, hoping he’d take my non-answer. He didn’t.
“But what happens after the river trip?” He asked. “You’ll have been living at home for a year by then. You can’t stay forever!” (Side note: I could stay forever. It makes me sad that there is such a stigma for living at home. Living with your parents shouldn’t have to mean failure and unhappiness. The three of us have had a great year getting to know our present versions of ourselves. It sucks that anyone gives me a reason to devalue that).
I reluctantly continued, feeling less secure by the second. I couldn’t think of one legitimate justification for quitting my job other than because I wanted to and because I’d saved up enough so I could. Accepting my defeat, I didn’t bother to sugar coat my answer.
“Well after that my plan is to stay with my parents through the holidays and then quit my job and adventure around the world until I run out of money or figure out a way to make some.”
Needless to say it didn’t go over well. His response was nothing I hadn’t heard before; “never quit a job without another waiting in the wings, you may never find another one as good,” “suck it up and pay your dues, everyone has to work,” “find yourself a career because that is the only way to be happy” and “save your money while you can, you’ll have real bills soon.”
I attempted a few weak justifications; “I could use the time to figure out a career!” or “I have a lot of friends I can stay with,” but it was no use – if I couldn’t manage to convince myself this trip would be worth my while there was no way I’d be able to explain it to him.
Traveling until I run out of money isn’t really my plan. I don’t have any plan really; all I know is that come January I’m going somewhere new for a decent amount of time. What I don’t know is everything else, and the more I try to plan and make this trip a reality the more I realize how necessary finding meaning within it is. I need a focus, a reason, a goal, a justification or a purpose for this adventure. Wandering aimlessly because I can isn’t something that will make me happy then or later and I know that before I can fully invest myself in this trip I need to figure out a way to justify it. I need to be able to confidently look my almost uncle in the eye and say I’m leaving for three months to do something important. I need to be able to tell his daughter, my friend, that I’m putting our friendship on hold for a good reason. I need to explain to my cousin that it will be worthwhile even though I could be paying off her student loans instead. There is an endless list of people I need to justify this to: to my parents, future employers, people I meet on the road. But most importantly I need to figure out a way to justify this to myself, because right now I’m not convinced.
I know I have to go. It is the perfect time; I have the money, the need, the ability, even the will. I won’t be leaving anything behind (like a lease or a boyfriend or debt) that I’ll have to worry about while I’m gone and after 24 years of doing everything right (decent grades, graduating college, making it through a full year at a real person job) it’s about time I take a risk and see what kind of trouble I can get into.
This is my time. Time to see the places I’ve wanted to see, visit the friends that won’t be abroad much longer, make the new ones I know I can, go on the adventure I’ve told myself about for as long as I can remember. This is happening. I am going. But. Something is missing. I have plenty of reasons why I SHOULD GO. But I can’t think of one reason why I AM going. What will I do once I’m gone?
I don’t have my answer right now. For the last 7 months my goal has been to save money and not put my head through the computer screen at my desk job. Come January my future is wide open, no plan or purpose in sight. In the meantime all I can do is try my best to figure out what that purpose will be. In Part 2 of this post I’ll share a few of my ideas and while all of them are legitimate options, so far none of them are the thing I can look everyone I’ve ever known or will know in the eye and confidently say I went on this adventure to do. None of them quiet my internal voice of self doubt. Maybe I’m asking too much, trying to find the perfect thread to carry me through this trip, but I hope not. I hope I can make this adventure everything I’ve needed it to be, that I can remember the strength it takes to go after something I want and let go of the guilt I feel for having the opportunity. I hope I find more than just myself on this trip, I hope I find something to reach for in the years of my life after it. I hope I figure out my answer to the question I dread most; I hope I figure out what I’m doing with my life.