life lesson

respecting yourself is protecting yourself…

coming off of the bacchanal that is midsommar, the indicator that we are full swing in the lusty summer season, i thought it was worth a little PSA-themed life lesson…

always protect yourself.

unprotected sex is ill-mannered, inconsiderate and perilous. respect yourself and the health of your partner and always use a condom!

having sex with someone without protection is like having sex with all your combined partners at once. it is disrespectful to your health and well-being and that of your partner. it may not be as instantly gratifying … so what?  insisting on protection is simply decent and prudent.

i know, no duh, right? but getting swept up in the moment, we may have a lapse in our good judgment; we act on impulse and throw caution to the wind. well, i just want to repeat something my mormor told me: pregnancy is curable; other things are not.

out on the battlefield of love, protect yourself, respect yourself and put a helmet on that soldier!

lament

so far away but still so near

the lights go on, the music dies

but you don't see me standing here

i just came to say good-bye...

can you tell me how to get, how to get to...

like most gen-x’ers, Sesame Street was my street. i learned a lot of truisms from Sesame Street and the characters that lived there.

i learned lessons about how things work (beet, beet, sugar beet), about emotions (i get mad, i get mad, i get mad…everybody gets maaaaad) and i learned about friendship and accepting people as they are, even if they are different from you.

most of all i loved ernie and bert. i loved the glimpses into their daily life; their squabbles, their mundane undertaking of sandwich making or trying to fall asleep when one snored and the other was a light sleeper.

maybe those wing-nuts on fox news are right—maybe ernie and bert even taught me never to raise so much as an eyebrow to same-sex relationships. who the hell knows? thanks for that added lesson if it is true.

as much as i loved watching two guys that looked like they were just kids like me, living a regular adult life, i have suddenly realized, my life is looking oddly close to theirs. 

sometimes i feel like i am still a kid and the adults have left me home alone to fend for myself. i do a pretty good job at managing…i can go shopping, make meals, keep tidy and get to appointments on time and appropriately dressed…but i fear i am missing the substance that makes up adulthood.

i can do whatever i want whenever i want with whomever i want…hear that mom? i can (and often do) even eat raw cookie dough straight from the bowl! but is that the signifier of being an adult? how do you know you have really grown up? it isn’t turning 21, that’s for sure. is it having a child? well, by that definition i may never be an adult…

lately i feel this ennui growing…unlike the indolence i felt occasionally in my twenties, this feels more settled, more ingrained than a phase or a stage. is this adulthood- the persistence of a not quite defined discontent and a nagging melancholy? i don’t know…Sesame Street never mentioned ennui…

let go...

what does it mean exactly to “let go”? 

all too often it is a complicated process attached to an overly simple sounding command.

letting go means shifting our attention, our thoughts and our efforts away from the past and bringing ourselves to the here and now.

letting go is releasing ourselves from dwelling on what has happened and moving toward experiencing what is happening.

letting go is also about not trying to control what will happen and allowing life to unfold without resistance.

we can let go gently. we can untether ourselves from the past by truly understanding that it cannot be changed. we can let go calmly by embracing where we are today. we can let go freely by working toward our goals but accepting there will be peaks and valleys in our journey.

holding on clouds our vision and blurs our ability to see today clearly; if we miss today we may be lost tomorrow. holding on poisons our palate to enjoy the ripeness of what is ready for us now.

make room for tomorrow by leaving yesterday behind and relishing what we have today. 

*photo: elvira madigan

the still of the night

growing up i always wanted a balcony off my bedroom. i never really got a balcony exactly, but i did get access to an overhang that was a bay window below my room. it came in very handy when i was in high school and took to sneaking out at night.

these gorgeous early summer nights are reminding me of that time…before heading off to family overseas, desperate to spend every single second with my friends…quietly climbing out my window and leaping into the yard below…the grass cool and tickly on my legs as i would land and sprint down the street to where my friends were waiting in a running car…i loved the still of my neighborhood in the late hours, the padding of my feet on the sidewalk and how loud my breath sounded in the quiet.

we were never up to anything very naughty but the act of sneaking out made me feel deliciously wicked. how i long to feel so bad doing something so innocent again…

be true

“I am not an angel, 

and I will not be one till I die: 

I will be myself.”

                                                                                                                       charlotte brontë

plastic

saturday night i was having dinner with my friends and one of them pointed out a woman at a table near us, “look at that horrific surgery!” he stage-whispered. we all immediately glanced over to see her pulled skin and plumped lips staring back at us, amused almost.

when another friend lamented this woman's seemingly poor choice of doctor, i countered that i have noticed more and more obvious “work” recently and i am beginning to suspect that “bad work” is actually becoming desired and prized. i am wondering if “bad work” is the new Birkin. 

much like a status handbag, with "bad work" everyone can see that you obviously have the means to throw at something elective, indulgent and frankly, exorbitant in this time of economic strain. it is, maybe, a new and aggressive status symbol.

back in high school my mother suggested i get my nose “fixed” and that my chin could be “dealt with” at the same time. i refused. i must confess, i was tempted and while deliberating the option, i spent a lot of time staring at myself in the mirror. straight on, i noticed only my eyes, but my profile was another story. politely, i could call my nose “prominent” or maybe even “distinct” but i have an unusual profile by any account.

once in a while i still consider what it would’ve been like to live with a more conforming face. would i have been prettier? would I have grown into my looks with the same wit and edge? would my personality have changed with my face? in the end, that was what scared me away. even at fifteen, i wondered, where would i go if my face was no longer mine?

refusing to change my face was the first step in embracing my quirks. slowly i learned to emphasize what made me unique and enjoy the attention of standing apart from the herd.

many of my friends have started dabbling in minor work, injectables, peels etc. i have yet to cross the line. i can’t say that i will never go that route, but i also can’t imagine losing what i have grown into either. the lines and crinkles on my face show not just my age, but my story, erasing them seems too close to losing something of myself.