The best thing I’ve learned in my 30’s…

Is how to bounce back like a mother f*cking champ!!  From heartbreak to hangovers; I have my shape shifting down to a science.  Almost.  Until I do it all over again, snarf.  Never-the-less, I bounce back because after the ride of life we MUST learn how to care for ourselves and be gentle.

So here are two things I’ve found myself in a LOT this year: hangovers and heartbreak.

From hangovers:

1. First, you must teach your drunk self to start leaving 40 oz of water and two ibuprofen on your night stand.  This, somehow, regardless of what I’ve been drinking, has become a habit.  I will usually drink that much water before my feet hit the floor regardless of how much wine I’ve had.  Or tequila if we’re being totally honest.  Thank you, drunk self.
2. You MUST remember that this rabbit hole of self loath and shame is only a few hours away from being over.  It will end.  Alcohol after all is a depressant.  But first, you must know that this too shall pass.  As soon as you kick it in the balls.
3. Drink some juice, real natural juice from the vegetable itself.  Your body is dying for some enzymes and vitamins.  Feed it.
4. Also feed it breakfast tacos.  You really want to appease everything even if it’s your bad decision-making.
5. Meditate.  Meditation has been my gateway out of most horrible situations in life.  Or just out of the mundane and into the peace.  Meditate your way to victory (high fives self)!
6. And always, always, always do something that makes you smile.  Besides the breakfast tacos.  Like a movie, or another glass of wine with someone you love (hair of the dog, anyone).  Unless you have a drinking problem then maybe don’t have more alcohol.  Instead drink a super white person coffee from Starbucks.  (And do all of this outside if you can!!)

From heartbreak:

(How I’ve managed to fall in love so many times this year is beyond me yet somehow, the hangover/heartbreak always go hand in hand, funny ain’t it?)

1. Oh boy, the morning after all the impending doom of letting down your defenses.  On the one hand, yay, you’re capable of having great feelings and have determined that you are not, in fact, a robot.  Remember that.  On the other hand, “this” is probably not going to work for x y and z so you might as well go ahead and be sad about it NOW.  This is something I do often.  I also know that my feelings aren’t facts and who really knows what’s going to happen tomorrow?!  But today, let’s just cry about it because today is really all that matters.  Let yourself cry about it.  Then laugh because you suddenly realize how ridiculous it all is.  There is a such a fine line between laughter and tears, find it.
2. Remove the shame of being vulnerable.  Vulnerability = honey badgers.  Honey badges don’t give a f*ck.  So you’re in love, whoopee do, who isn’t.  Being in love isn’t unique.  We’ve all been in love and we’ve all been heartbroken.  Trust me, when you’ve been hurt or left or kicked in the shins, 9 out of 10 people will sympathize with you.  The one that doesn’t is the one who’ll end up on the news someday with a warrant out for his arrest.  Own all your feelings, even the big scary ones.
3. Meditate.  FOR REALS.  You’ll probably spend 20 minutes in a guided meditation thinking about the one person you shouldn’t be but just start.  And breathe.  Always always breathe.  I like to think you’re always three deep breaths away from solving just about anything.
4. If you happen to say, send a drunk text to the one person you shouldn’t be texting on a Saturday night, well girl, you gotta own it.  Again, no shame.  So you put yourself out there and felt the feelings and they weren’t reciprocated, oh well.  At least you know and can put that little nugget to bed.  And knowing is always half the battle.
5. Immediately go on a date with someone else.  And flirt.  But still, stay off Tinder.  You’re better than that.
6. Write it out, talk it out, dance it, run it out, get it out.  I write, obviously hello this is me getting over a broken heart!  I also have great friends and a therapist.  You need to get that stuff onto paper or in the universe and get it out of your body.  Things manifest in your head into warped little creatures waiting to take you down.  And they will.  But you’re also a honey badger and better than that.

And remember, every day is a new day for new beginnings and favors from your drunk and/or highly emotional self.

In a conversation with Sam Shepard…

(Yes that one, is there any other?)  I was lamenting on the fact that Austin might not, in fact, be my home.  He laughed at me in that way only a wise man can and said “April, men (women?) live to be 105 and never find their home.”  I’m not sure if that was meant to be comforting or unsettling.  Depends which day you ask.

I had one of those weeks where you a) meet one of your heroes and b) have the worst most vulnerable times at your “job.”  One of those “what the hell am I doing” weeks.  Things don’t happen for me in waves, they have happen in hurricanes within the same few days.  It makes waking up entirely unpredictable.  Almost anything can happen.  At least you know that “this too shall pass” is a rather quick rip off the old bandaid.  If I was on a ship, I’d be going down in the most spectacular way (by fire obviously) and then an angel would appear, blow out the flames and tuck us in safely on a deserted beach. Only to be met by carnivores natives waiting by the fire.  One of which I’d immediately fall in love.  Okay okay, I’m being dramatic but still… I’m clearly not on a ship.

And for some reason, I am reminded of this song by the Muppets:

Why are there so many songs about rainbows
And what’s on the other side
Rainbows are visions
But only illusions
And rainbows have nothing to hide

So we’ve been told
And some choose to believe it
I know they’re wrong, wait and see
Some day we’ll find it
The rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers, and me

Who said that every wish
Would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that
And someone believed it
And look what it’s done so far

What’s so amazing
That keeps us stargazing
And what do we think we might see
Some day we’ll find it
The rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers, and me

All of us under its spell, we know that it’s probably magic

Have you been half asleep?
And have you heard voices?
I’ve heard them calling my name;
Is this the sweet sound
That called the young sailors?
The voice might be one and the same

I’ve heard it too many times to ignore it
It’s something that I’m supposed to be
Some day we’ll find it
The rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers, and me

I guess all we’re searching for is that connection that grounds us to our purpose.  I’ve fought long and hard about “purpose” because truthfully purpose gives far too much weight to what exactly it is we’re doing or meant to be doing here.  Purpose is evolution yet it gives the indication of a very specific road and set of events we should be following which ineviatbly leads us away from what’s in front of us right now.  And that is life.  The rainbow connection, to me, is that magical illusive cousin of purpose.  That connection though is the desire for something bigger, something greater than what we have now.  But all we have is what is now.  We feel it, we hear it, we strive for it and we hope, at the end of the day, to find it.  But if we don’t, we’re still in the same company as the lovers and the dreamers.  And that is the best company to be in, that is the company of those I love.

What Sam Shepard was telling me (You guys, I’m totally going to speak for Mr. Shepard right now omgimdying) is that life happens and you’re only job is to keep searching and discovering and documenting it all.  But most importantly, being OKAY with how it all turns out because even at 105, you still might not know.  But at the end of the day, does it really matter?  “The voice might be one and the same.”

 

 

The rabbit hole of OMGIMGONNADIEALONE!!

So… you know how when you get a virus or a lump and you start searching online for any and all medical advice and somehow fall down the WedMD rabbit hole and suddenly realize that you have stage 4 brain cancer and have 2 weeks left to live?  Well!!  The same thing happens when you start researching “dating” in your mid 30’s.  These are a few of the headlines I found:

1. After 35, you don’t get to be picky.
2. Why I’m okay being single.
3. Do men really want to date women in their 40’s?
4. The dating pool at 30:  (insert photo of mostly empty pool with green sludge floating in the bottom).
5. 9 mistakes you make in your 30’s
6. Larger dating pool means less thoughtful mate choices
7. Dating in  your 30’s: The Ticking Clock

The struggle is real.  I’ve been dating for less than 2 months.  Specifically I’ve gone on exactly 6 dates which was enough for me to realize that it’s excruciating!!   I would gladly throw in the towel but I paid $150 to fall in love and therefore feel this extraordinary sense of obligation to “see it through” because it worked for so and so.

Every one couples up in their 20’s, I did, and is mostly still happily married in their 30’s (SPOILER ALERT: I never got married, I got single).  Essentially I have to wait until my 40’s to start meeting age appropriate divorcees who are recently single again.  “Oh you’ll die when you see how dating has evolved from 2o years ago” says me in 10 years while explaining the now forgotten Tinder app.  The 30’s dating pool is Moses wandering through the desert for 40 days and 40 nights chasing one mirage after another.  When you get up close you realize he’s 25.  Or unavailable.  Or married.  Or crazy.  Which has me wondering, what the hell do people think about me and why I’m single??

LOL!!  Just kidding.  I don’t care. I’m sure most people either think, 1) gah dating most be horrible, how sad to be all alone, or 2) SHIT, I’d give anything to be single again and do whatever I want and sleep in for once and eat in quiet.  This is the greener grass theory.

Truthfully, I try NOT to drive my friends crazy with this, this, this…I don’t know, lack of attachment mostly because they’re all either planning their nurseries or their weddings and if they aren’t planning that, they’re changing diapers and going to bed pretending to have a headache.  Or they’re out doing the same things I’m doing: online dating or waking up after a night of too many whiskies and not enough food.

Why do we do it?   Why do we drive ourselves crazy trying to fit into any box, be it the single box or the married box?  Each, depending on the day and the person, have their ups and downs.  But we put this countless pressure on ourselves to be taken (not in the Liam Neeson sense…or maybe in the Liam Neeson sense??) or loved and at the end of the day there are many people waking up next to someone still feeling lonely.  Attachment doesn’t always mean love.

I decided to online date because, in truth, I want to have babies.  All the babies!!  And of course I want to find my lobster. But dating, I have discovered, does not make me happy.  It does not fill any “void” or sense of loneliness or sense of togetherness or accomplishment.  I do not feel power or strength from being a single person who dates.  SO… I guess with that said, I’m going to do me.  You do you, girl!!

Dear friends,

I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.  You, the family I’ve chosen.  Like most of my friends, we found each other because we were the outsiders, the misfits.  We were the artistic ones, the free-spirited ones, the gay ones, the adventurous ones, the crazed ones.  We eventually made our way to each other in camaraderie; a likeness of souls and a familiarity of heart.  We aligned on human value, artistic achievement, and cultural ideals while moving in open-mindedness with an open heart.

But we didn’t stop at similarities.  Like any individual you allow into your life there must be conditions of expansiveness and growth.  We locate those who will motivate us in our endeavors and dreams, those who will challenge us and tear down our walls, fight with us, stay with us and share with us.  Even if it means walking away and falling apart, the friends we allow in our lives are far more instrumental to our development as human beings that we ever give them credit for.  The person I became during my 12 years of solitude (in NYC) and the challenges we went through, the things we experienced, overcame and witnessed standing alongside 15 other black sheep ultimately made us the people we are today.  Thank you.  Often times I don’t know where exactly I belong in this world, or with whom do I belong.  But I take a look around at the lovers and dreamers who make up my world and it suddenly comes into focus:  you are the individuals who connect me to earth upon which I stand.

This is a love letter to you: the ones standing, the ones who’ve fallen away, and the ones on the periphery.  I am endlessly grateful to have found you.  Thank you for being a friend.

Match.con

Ah a new year, a new opportunity to practice vulnerability, a time to put yourself out into the dregs of online dating and wait.  And wait.  And wait.  Here’s a quick run down of what 90% of match profiles will tell you about humans in Austin:

1. They love to run.
2. They love their dogs.
3. They are very healthy.
4. They love live music.  And tacos.  And running.  And biking.  And travel.  And snowboarding.
5. They are ALL outgoing and up for an adventure.
6. They are all funny and romantic and enjoy long walks in nature.
7. They all mostly love their careers, work hard, feel successful, I digress.

Here’s my rebuttal to your boring perfection:

1. I hate to run.  Like HATE to run.  Unless its for my life.  Or chocolate.
2. I’m only so so healthy.  I eat good.  I’ll order a salad.  And a side of fries.
3. I am totally up for an adventure, especially one outside of downtown Austin.  Rebel.
4. I don’t have a career.  I have passions I work hard at daily and a school schedule in which I prepare for but I currently work at a bar.  That is not my career. That is the vehicle which affords me the opportunity to pursue the things I love.  So please don’t ask me what my real job is.  I had a “real job” for 12 years and decided it wasn’t for me.  I’m flexible.
5. My dream job on the other hand, pool shark.  Or poker shark.  Fuck it, SHARK!
6. I legitimately am spontaneous but not at the risk of my job or learning or art or Game of Thrones.
7. I am also somewhat of a perfectionist who probably has unhealthy expectations of people.
8. I enjoy being alone ALOT and often think that if had I unlimited wine, jazz and a scribe, I could be alone forever.
9. Fact:  if I ever learn your first and last name, I will google you.
10. My room isn’t always clean.  I’m so carefree and spontaneous there are clothes on my chair, so wild I left a glass of water on my night stand for an entire day.

Because all those are truths too.

How to get over an American man (Sorry American men):

1. Date a foreigner specifically one of the latin persuasion who speaks more than one sexy language.  Then make him talk to you in said languages.
2. Buy a floppy 70’s hat or something equally fabulous and pointless.  (I’m trying to justify strange purchases)
3. Remember that there are thousands of Italian men who would LOVE to date you and chances are they”ll be dressed WAY better anyhow.
4. Have a cup of tea with an American women in her 60’s who has an American son.  She’ll get it.
5. Re-design your feng sui love corner.  Switch that stupid nondescript Hallmark card out for a postcard from Paris.  The lovers bridge.
6. GET OFF TINDER!  FOR REAL NOW ILL WAIT WHILE YOU DELETE YOUR STUPID PROFILE!
7. Go to a sports bar during a college football game.  And just wait.  Until you crack.
8. Then go listen to jazz and drink wine.
9. Read this article, How To Fall In Love In 5 Minutes.
10. Remember that if he’s white, attractive, well spoken, charming, and American he could also be Ted Bundy.  You’re welcome, ladies!

*you’re welcome for the most amazing American gif EVER!

So… what are you doing with your life???

I’m asked that a lot.  Like a lot a lot.  From friends, from co-workers, from friends’ co-workers, from siblings, like everyone.  I get it.  I’m a 35-year-old waitress.  And I have a spiel to go with it.  I’m an actress, improviser, writer, blogger, beauty consultant, volunteer and I’m going back to school in January.  I must justify.  JUSTIFY it almost weekly.

In fact, in all honesty, in heaps of shame, I would not date myself.  If I saw me on Tinder, I’d swipe left because who at my age (my ripe old age) is a waitress (I’m working on this)?  On paper, I’m the Dallas Cowboys.  The worst bet in history.  But paper, from what I’ve discovered first hand, it’s the best illusion created.  I dated paper.  In fact, if you asked me two years ago what I was doing with my life… actually you wouldn’t ask me.  You’d know given my amazing job, my location, my relationship status, my creative endeavors you’d know that I was doing just fine.  But tonight, at 2am, I’m drinking a whiskey and writing about the night that lead up to now.  And I don’t have to get up until 3pm.  Truth is, I’ll wake up in 6 hours and work all day long.  But I’m drinking whiskey and listing to Ed Sheeran.  Life.  Fuck it.

But life… life is tricky.  We’ve all seen The Family Man starring Nic Cage.  “A fast-lane investment broker, offered the opportunity to see how the other half lives, wakes up to find that his sports car and girlfriend have become a mini-van and wife.”  THE HORROR!!!  Gah, what would happen if we didn’t have all the comforts of … money, security?  I don’t know… this?  You’d do what I’m doing now.  You’d start over from the beginning and try again.  Often the best bets are made when we don’t pass Go.  When we don’t get to to collect $200.  We must try again because sometimes Baltic Avenue is the BEST place to park a hotel.

What I’m planting, what I’m aspiring to do, I don’t know if or what will pan out.  Sure I could have gotten a job, a normal job and sat behind a desk to have the illusion of security or establishment.  I could date that guy and pretended to make sense to you but truth is, Id’ go crazy trying to fit into your idea.   I’ve planted thousand of seeds and see them sprouting at different rates and some not at all.  But I’d rather risk and fail than to have not risked at all. So basically I’m betting it all on black.  Or the Dallas Cowboys.  Because even if it doesn’t pay off, OR GOD WILLING IT DOES, i’ll either be a master genius or I’ll be right where I am right now, trying to figure it all out.

I’m absolutely humbled to be where I am in life but am endlessly grateful to be here at all.  I am blessed with any opportunity I’m given.  It’s not the best life, but it’s my life and I will make it fantastic because if you’ve met me you know fantastic is all I do!!  Drops mic, walks out.

 

A honey badgers meeting of the minds… or how not to give a fuck!

Dear honey badgers,

Let’s all stop giving a fuck, shall we???

HOW TO NOT GIVE A FUCK IS THE PROBLEM-FREE PHILOSOPHY THAT ADVOCATES FOR REPLACING UNPRODUCTIVE EMOTIONS WITH ACQUIRED SELF-KNOWLEDGE, AND FEARLESS PURSUIT OF RATIONALLY DERIVED AMBITIONS AND VIRTUES AS ONE’S PRIMARY OBJECTIVE.

1. Meditate.  Seriously.  Do it at home, do it in public.  Just do it.  Stop thinking.  Pretend you’re Elizabeth Gilbert and this is your Eat, Pray, Love.  NOW PRAY!
2. Someone is always judging you.  Even right now.  Someone wiser than me said some variation of this one time:  What people think of you isn’t your flaw, it’s theirs.
3. Say yes.  Just say yes to whatever and be spontaneous especially if you’re tired and have work to do.   Say yes to one more glass, to dessert, to that date, to that vacation.  Say yes!
4. Remember you’re just one person on a huge planet in a galaxy with many other planets in a universe with many many galaxies in a solar system with many many universes.  PANIC ATTACK, WE’RE TINY!      
5. Do something that scares you.  Share your feelings, take that trip, sign up for that class, swim with sharks.  Scare yourself.
6. If you are reading this, it means you have internet which means you’re doing better than most of the world.  You’re grateful.
7. Expectations are the right hand of disappointment.  Stop having them and just let the moment be extraordinary!
8. Remember that you’re going to die.  TRUTH.  Sorry not sorry!
9. Stop playing games with yourself and others.  (unless they are fun ones like Cards Against Humanity)
10. Remember what is important.  And what isn’t.  And maybe ask yourself, will this matter is 5 days, 5 months, 5 years?  Pretty sure we can just not give a fuck about that.

 

Oh girl….

Sometimes you have no idea what is going on with your life and you’re broke and trying to find your footing in a new town and your ex starts haunting you and you have panic attacks and lose your value and meet someone who challenges you and scares you and now you’re confused and frustrated because your ex and what-am-I-doing-with-my-life and you want to runaway because it’s too much and then you get drunk again and again and again and your patio door shatters all over your living room floor and it feels like your heart and your landlord tries to evict you and you’re like “omg, hey rock bottom” and then you just laugh because WHAT THE F*CK ELSE CAN YOU DO!!?!?!?

Later that day, your extremely wise best friend just says “oh girl, you just need to go buy a pair of shoes.  I mean, I don’t even know what else to tell you at this point.”  Ladies, I bought shoes.

Robert Frost, welcome to the forest of the 21st Century!

Almost 8 years ago I read a Robert Frost poem at the funeral of my best friend slash soul mate slash disgusting human being Wendy Brantley.  Trust, if you ever met her, you know that disgusting human being is just about as real as it gets.  Drugs, cancer, constipated poo, it’s not pretty and at some point you just get pass the prettiness of being a lady and get right to the point.  She was beautiful and disgusting it the most wonderful way imaginable.

So this poem goes like this, then we’ll pick all of Robert Frost’s bones.  Er… you know what I mean.

The Road Not Taken

BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Ok, moment of truth, how many “roads” are there?  Sure, there’s the one most of my friends have taken that goes something like this: get a good degree, find Mr. Right (ish), get the job, the house, the car, the kids and bingo.  Set for life, fun stuff, Disney, shoes, sports, teeth, laundry, graduation, etc etc.  That’s the road we’re suppose to take.  The road of “shoulds” as I recently heard it referred to in this amazing article!  But the road less traveled by is literally LITERALLY anything you want it to be.  It could be teaching in Seoul for a few years, taking the slow boat through China, traveling down the coast of Africa and deciding to stay in Mozambique.  It could be moving to NYC to become and actor and while never actually becoming successful, you still had a great time making decisions on various degrees of dumbness.  Maybe your road was going to grad school, then doing your residency and becoming a doctor and STILL listening to people wonder why you aren’t married yet.  Or maybe MAYBE you saved every penny you made since making pizzas at 16 and decided to just travel around the world alone for 10 years meeting like-minded souls along

And pray tell, what do all these fearless wanderers have in common?  The majority of Americans will look upon them with a sigh, a shake of the head and proclaim “we always knew she was different.”  Or something like “marching to her own drum.”  My forest, in the wild conundrum of my life, is littered with hundreds of trails less traveled by and it’s now my responsibility to choose which less traveled road I want to take.  As an American with x amount of privilege and education and funds to continue my education, the responsibility to choose to next road less traveled that will mean something to me and make a difference in this world is a responsibility I’m struggling to unravel daily.  I just made myself laugh out loud because I actually just wrote how I’m struggling with all the amazing choices I have.  HASHTAG MUSTBENICE.  I just guess that at 35, my ripe old age, my next road MUST mean something to me, to those I’m going to meet along the way, to the those I’m leaving behind.  My next road will be the next book in my trilogy, my second life. But discovering the forest full of options is like swimming in an ocean full of gratitude.

I read this quote today and it struck me, “We have two lives and the second starts when we realize we only have one.”  HOLY &*)@!  We all know we only have one life but we don’t really know we have one life until something extraordinary happens.  Otherwise, you’ve realized it too late.  Truthfully, there’s no real secret to determining what it is that you are meant to be doing.  It’s taken me the better part of 20 years to arrive where I am today and if you asked me a year ago, I never would have imagined that this is where I would be.  I recently told my therapist that I’m an optimist often to the point of delusion.  It’s true.  I have the highest of hopes and feel the lowest of lows.  However, after spending a good deal of a few years with a man who felt everything in the middle, I’m beyond thankful for all my ups and downs because I recognize them to a fault.  I embrace them all.