A field guide to growing up without growing apart
Man I love menfolk. It’s not that I don’t love women (female empowerment forever!), but I also just really (really) enjoy men, and as a result of spending the last few weekends in the company of more of the opposite sex than usual, I’m reminded […]
So a few months ago I moved house. My lease was ending and my house-mates were moving away, so I needed a new place. Luckily, my friend (read: monk 1), suggested that I could live at his house. I had been there a couple times […]
Not only is today Thanksgiving, but it is also Snow Whore’s birthday. In honor of our fair friend, here’s a surprise post to show her how much we love and appreciate her!
So today Snow is turning 25! I can’t believe it! I still have fun memories of many previous birthdays we shared together. One that sticks in my mind was in 7th grade. It was an epic middle-school-girls sleep over complete with many late night snack runs into the kitchen, and games of truth or dare (maybe my mind is making up crazy stories, but did someone go and sing a song about…. a banana to Snow’s older brother’s door? I think it happened). I also remember birthdays in our college days, with dorm-room parties and fun-fetti cake. I believe Booty still has one of the best ones on tape, when Cindy fulfilled Snow’s dream of being a princess by buying her the perfect, white, twirly dress.
We’ve had so many good times together, I have to say that I am sad to have missed this birthday… and the last one… and the one before that. England has some advantages (old books, holla!), but it has some real disadvantages- like the fact that I am never home to celebrate with you, Snow Whore! But I still love you and miss you and hope that your birthday is epic enough to rival even the best ones of those that came before!
–The Little Merskank
SW, you’re one of those people I know was placed in my life for a reason. From our first shared laughs in Spanish class to every crazy thing we’ve done since, I’ve always had a blast with you around. You are the life of the party and made mundane things like riding the bus and making breakfast into special moments. Now you’re turning 25! You’ve come so far since we met as 18 year old college freshmen, but the important things have stayed the same—your faith, your friendships, and your amazing zest for life. I’m really proud of how hard you’ve worked in the last few months, kicking booty at your job and persevering through the new challenge of having your husband out of town for weeks at a time. Our lives are more complicated than they were 7 years ago, but I’m sure we’ve got what it takes—don’t forget that. Your birthday falls on Thanksgiving this year, which reminds me more than ever how grateful I am to have you in my life, even if I can’t have you in my arms to give you your birthday hug. I hope you have an amazing birthday surrounded by family—and know that you have three sisters across the world missing you and loving you!
–Cinderslut
I’ve decided to show my birthday love via acrostic poem, mostly because I think they’re awesome but also because Snow has written so many beautiful poems I’ve appreciated in the past. So this one’s for you, the fairest one of all, Happy 25th Birthday.
SNOW WHORE
S is for STUPENDEOUS, because that is who she is.
N is for NATURAL TALENT, because that is what she lives.
O is for OUTGOING, there’s no one quite like her,
W is for WONDERFUL, she’s aware of that, I’m sure.
W is for WILD, her heart cannot be tamed,
H is for HONEST, her feelings cannot be feigned.
O is for ORIGIONAL, she’s always a surprise,
R is for RADIENT, she brings light to all our lives.
And E is for EXTRAORDINARY, my favorite girl it’s true,
Snow Whore you are one of a kind, I’ll love you till I’m blue.
–Sleeping Booty
Happy Birthday, girl! You’ll always be the fairest in our hearts.
I woke up this morning to an email from an old… flame, and I… I don’t really know how I want to process it. Really long story sort of short (read: remember that data project I was working on?), he and I became close during […]
Right now I am in a real life odd couple situation. My husband has been away from home for the last month working on a cruise ship. But right before he left, one of his best friends moved into our guest room to stay for […]
It’s my birthday! And Cindy’s birthday! And we’re turning 25. Holy. Crap.
This time last year Cindy wrote a beautiful ode to our twinship, explaining how learning of our shared birthday has become such an important part of our lives since. This year I wanted to return the love, taking a second to express my gratitude to the universe for allowing me to share a birthday with a friend, especially her.
When I was younger my birthday was the best event of the year. My creative parents allowed me to dream big, putting together epic pie baking events, dress up performances and jewelry box decorating bliss. One year we had a scavenger hunt at the airport, running from terminal to terminal to find a purple suitcase or a photograph of 4 or more people and another birthday we rode the light rail train in circles while we played games and got to know the big city. I even remember my dad making me a PVC pipe teepee for my Pocahontas-themed party one year, my mother helping us make our own fringe covered purses to tote around proudly. Back then birthdays were things to be celebrated, excuses for all your friends to come together to celebrate you (and the Spice Girls), but once you hit high school all that changes.
Suddenly it is no longer cool to plan birthday adventures, and even if you do, good luck getting all of your friends to agree to join in. Jessica can’t stand Brittany and Katie would never have fun doing that, besides, Sally doesn’t have any time anyway. In high school I’d be lucky if I got four or five people together to see a movie and go get ice cream, much less trap all my friends in one room to do something really awesome.
And let’s not forget the added pressure we feel as we’re taught to apologize for getting ‘older.’ All we want to do when we’re younger is grow up and become the people we’re meant to be, but with little warning that optimism is crushed, unexpectedly turned on its head as people remind you again and again that aging is bad. Sure you want your driver’s license and to be 21 so you can go to those cool concerts, but you also know that it’s all downhill from there – birthdays only bringing you closer and closer to the end of your youth ( i.e. the end of your happiness). In high school you learn your birthday is no longer an accomplishment; instead it becomes something to avoid, something you’ve done wrong.
I had low birthday expectations when I moved away for college since my birthday came around only a month in, leaving me with limited time to build my friend group or hope for any type of celebration. Had Cindy not taken me in and allowed me to crash her party my day would have gone something like, “Hey, I’m Booty, want to be my friend and celebrate my birthday even though we just met!?” Instead we ate funfetti and had our first twin competition (wii tennis is intense!), bonding over much more than a shared day of birth and our love of basketball. It was the day I knew I’d found friends I’d have for a while, a turning point in the way my life would go from there on out, a birthday I love to remember.
Ever since I’ve found myself looking forward to our shared birthday, excited to know that no matter how the year went I’d always have someone to celebrate with. And celebrate we did, taking groups of friends out to dinners and bars, exploring arcades and running through city fountains. We stayed up until midnight to buy our first bottle of alcohol together and even stayed in to paint our stomachs on our 22nd just because we’d always wanted to. With Cindy by my side we recreated those birthday adventures of my youth in even more wonderful ways, allowing ourselves to dream big because we had a guaranteed partner, a guaranteed reason to celebrate.
The year after we graduated, Cindy’s soon to be fiancé asked me to help him propose on our birthday, planning an elaborate scavenger hunt and flying in from out of town to surprise her with a ring. I agreed wholeheartedly of course, though admittedly there were moments I was worried that this new anniversary would infringe on our special day. We were already feeling the pressure of graduation and moving forward with out lives, would the loss of this connection make things even harder?
But everything turned out perfectly, because his elaborate proposal allowed me and Cindy (and Snow) to share a day of adventure that I’ll always cherish. When I think of that day, I think of all the fun we had running around Seattle following his clues and enjoying each other. I think of the beautiful photos I got to take of my friend on one of the happiest days of her life. I think of how much I love her and how grateful I am to be her twin.
This year I miss her more than ever, but without her I’ve realized how important it is to ask for what I want on my birthday. No longer do adventures just fall into place, and no longer can I settle for a lame high school get together full of drama. So instead I made the choice to turn 25 in style, spending last weekend in Seattle, visiting Snow and catching up with college friends. Last night I organized a birthday dinner with some old friends who I never get to see and I leave to visit my cousin in Denver tomorrow. It is definitely an overwhelming week, but if not on your birthday when else do you do the things you want?
So thank you world, for giving me a beautiful reason to look forward to my birthday. My twin is an easy reminder that I’ll always have someone to celebrate with, that getting older will always be an accomplishment and that birthdays are a great excuse to do the things you’ve always wanted. I’m so glad to know her. Love you Cindy.
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 […]
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 […]
It’s been two months since I left my job as a high school English teacher behind and moved so my husband could follow his coworkers to their new location. He’s thrown himself into his work, which hasn’t been as fulfilling as he expected, while I’ve been…holding down the home front. And that, quite frankly, is making me go a little cray-cray.
Rising each morning bright and early at 6 a.m., I stumble downstairs and make breakfast for the hubby and me while he showers and gets ready for work. At 6:50 I send him on his way with a kiss, and then…? I have 9 hours to kill, doing whatever I want. Does this sound like a dream come true? In some ways, it’s awesome not to have to be at work all day myself. I’ve caught up on my reading and have even been exercising regularly. I skype with friends and family, read the daily news, keep the house spic and span (ok, maybe just spic), and have been killing it as far as Pinterest recipes go. The other day I was talking to Sleeping Booty and she asked me what I was planning to do that day. Sadly, I knew the answer immediately: the big event of the day would be making my own applesauce! She laughed, and rightfully so. But that is my life right now! Relaxing, yet isolating and, when it comes down to it, dull.
I miss work. Of course, I miss my students and coworkers, but more than that, I miss having a purpose in life. Working full-time as a teacher was grueling last year, and often left me exhausted and drained, but the next day I was always excited to get back on the bus and try again. Every day was different, and I looked forward to doing what I was doing, every day, without fail. I’ve never had a job like that before, and now the absence of it absolutely aches.
But still, I think I could survive being unemployed if I had friends here. That’s the real problem, and the one I’m more frightened to face. See, I know I will work as a teacher again, even if it takes me a year or two to earn a position in this new place. In fact, I’ll likely be back in a school setting again within a few weeks, if only as a volunteer. But will I find true community? A circle of friends to enrich my life outside of work? That question is still unclear.
I picture myself back in Seattle, and I know things would be different. There, if I wasn’t working, I could fill my days with coffee dates, if nothing else. But so far here it’s been coffee for one. What’s a Seattle girl to do in a world without coffee dates? I mean, technically there are a few coffee shops on campus here, but that’s only half the battle. You need to have a friend to meet at the coffee shop. And all the people I’d truly call my friends right now live way, way outside my current coffee range. I’ve caught myself reminiscing about the good ol’ days of meeting a friend, a mentor, or a professor in one of Seattle’s bajillion million coffee shops. Back then it seemed like at least once a week I was darting off a bus in the pouring rain and ducking into a dimly lit, chai-smelling, indie music-playing safe haven of love. Now I have no rain, no chai, no indie music, and no one to share it with anyway. Okay, this is beginning to get a bit sappy, so I won’t tell you about that-one-amazing-time-I-holed-up-in-one-of-the-trendiest-coffee-shops-in-the-U-District-during-finals-week-just-because-I-happened-to-know-that-a-cute-guy-would-be-studying-there-too-which-was-also-the-night-I-first-saw-a-melodica-being-played-by-this-super-cute-duo-who-were-playing-live…See? Magic happens in coffee shops. And friendship and love and memories. I miss that, and this whole unemployed housewife thing just isn’t doing it for me. Something’s got to give—I’m getting desperate.
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 […]
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 […]
Cinderslut’s recent post on brothers has inspired us all to think more about our sibling relationships. And so I’m taking you on a journey into the depths of my relationships with my brothers.
I am the youngest of three, and the only girl in my family. Growing up, I went through the normal stages of irritation with my brothers, in which they teased me and made me do things because they were bigger and they could–and I retaliated by being as obnoxious as possible. However, I came to the conclusion about halfway through highschool that I was ready to be friends with my brothers. I wanted them to accept me as an equal and have chats in which we imparted wisdom to each other. I’ll admit, I was a bit idealistic. And let’s just say that my brothers were not quite ready to have that kind of relationship when I was.
But now, we are all adults, we are all married, and we all live within a three mile radius of each other. So, that means things are different now–right? Wrong. It’s funny how distant you can feel from someone who lives in the same city as you. I don’t want to say we have a bad relationship, because that’s not true. We have no problems with each other, and there has been no love lost between us. It’s more that we seem to not really have much of a relationship at all. Mainly, our relationship consists of one of them calling me with the pretense of just catching up, and then after two minutes they “subtly” slip in the fact that they are looking for a babysitter on Saturday. Now of course, I love to be with my niece and nephew and am totally willing to babysit, I just find it humorous the way they ask me. I’d rather they just be up front with it, because the second I see one of their names on my caller ID I know that they are calling to ask a favor of me. Just chatting on the phone with my brothers about life is never something that happens.
Sometimes I find myself asking why? Why can’t I just call up my brothers to chat? Why is the only time I see them when I’m babysitting their kid? Should it be different? Do I still want it to be different? When my brothers and I first ended up in the same town as adults, I did try a little bit to involve them more in my life. I had them and their wives over to my house for dinner and talked about how we should have family get togethers once a month. Of course they said, “yeah that could be fun,” but none of them ever made the effort to make it happen, and I decided I didn’t want to be the instigator every time, so I just let our relationship slide into nothingness. I have no problem accepting some of the blame for the way our relationship is. But at the time it just felt like too much work to be the only one constantly pushing to spend time together. And now it’s just the way it is. The scary thing is that part of me is ok with things the way they are. I’ve accepted the fact that they are a 15 minute drive from me and I only see them every few months. But then the other part of me feels guilty that I’ve become ok with things the way they are.
I guess you could say that when it comes to my brothers I’ve just become lazy. It’s kind of sad, because I am so much a people person, and I love working at my other friendships. So why have I stopped working on two of the relationships that should mean the most?