Saturday, May 29, 2010

All You Need Is Love (and Sex and Cheetos), But Right Now, Mostly, Love


You guys cannot believe how it makes a girl feel to throw up a blog post after a year plus of not blogging and get hundreds of views, so many amazing comments and emails.

I feel like I stepped on a scale and lost ten pounds and you know how frickin' excited that gets me! I have so much to tell you guys, that I'm not just overwhelmed by all the love but all I have to fill you in on.

Today, I'm going to make it simple. I just want to talk about the intention of this blog and what got me back to blogging again. Um... my life sucks. In a way I thought it would never suck again after sucking so bad a few years ago.

It I might have let it continue to suck because in this case it was sucking to a less degree than last time that I did not realize the accumulative suckiness until I took stock in my life.

It was 4 weeks ago when my Mom told me my cousin had brain cancer. One week later, she was in the hospital and really sick herself.

I could add to that that I am currently jobless, boyfriendless, a bit of fat-ass-ness but that all seems to pale in comparison to these new set of circumstances.

When my Mom told me about my cousin, I started crying. That heaving crying that is really ugly, that starts with tears streaming and pretty soon you are making noises that most resemble a braying donkey but you are so lost in the words that you just heard that you have no room for self-consciousness or even sense to protect the person that is watching you be consumed with sadness.

I would like to say that I thought about my cousin, would he live or die? How was the surgery? When will we know the pathology?

But instead, I cried out, "I don't want to live in L.A. anymore."

If you think that is selfish, don't worry, being Catholic meant that I relentlessly flagrated myself for having such "all about me thoughts."

But later, when I really thought about it, say sitting on the floor of my Mother's hospital room floor for days on end, I realized there was some deeper meaning to my outburst.

What I really meant was, "I don't want to live this way anymore." Maybe there's a way you don't want to live - in a relationship that no longer makes you happy, in a job that doesn't appreciate you, scared about finances, upset that life doesn't seem to be as sparkly and fun anymore.

Because I am always looking in, hashing and rehashing, what was said, what does it mean, like I am some kind of CSI investigator of my own words and thoughts and intentions, I dissected it even more. I knew, had I been told, as my cousin had, "You have a brain tumor the size of an apple in your head and you could die" (which is probably not what the doctor said or he has a really bad bedside manner that he needs to work on, but that is kind if the gist)...

If I had been told - I would be very unhappy with what I had done with my life so far.

And let me tell you, that a realization like that, is a kick in the balls, even though I have no balls, but I have had many boyfriends that have balls say there is no feeling like it and that's what I had - a feeling that hurt so bad it could not be ignored.

It's like - you find out your boyfriend/husband/girlfriend/wife is cheating with your best friend and NOW here is the kicker - YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT and that "doing something about it," is going to CHANGE YOUR WHOLE LIFE.

Like for me, I will either ignore this new found information and change my life because I can or I will bury my head in the sand and just move forward and hate myself, years down the line, because when I was young and able I could have changed my life but didn't and now there is this girl that comes from hospice care to feed me through a tube and during the commercials for my favorite soap opera, I think back to how with just a few FEARLESS changes, my life could have been AWESOME.

You feel me? So what I am saying is: I gotta fix my life. And the last time I needed to fix my life, doing those adventures once a week - whether it was pool crashing a five star hotel or indoor sky diving made me feel so SUPER STRONG that I could take on ANYTHING IN LIFE.

And I did and life was awesome. And that's what I want back. But not just for me but for anyone feeling this way.

In fact, I'd love to hear some ideas, for you and for me! They don't have to be huge. Just something that, if you did it, when you lay your head on the bed that night you might feel giggly and proud of yourself. So far mine are: get in the car and start driving until you can't drive anymore and then stay the night in that town, get pink hair (haven't pulled that one yet), redecorate your apartment in one day (this is something I have been dithering about on for years and BAM! I'm going to do it like I'm on some HGTV show), jump out of an air plane, go water skiing, over come fear of water before jet skiing...

Got some more adventures for me???? Write them in the comments section and I will add them to the bowl!
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Thursday, May 27, 2010

Introducing the Most Selfish Person in the World or "How I Was Told My Cousin Has Brain Cancer & All I Could Think About Was Me"


I'm back you guys. Remember me? The girl who within six months, lost her job, broke up with her boyfriend, lost a cousin in an accident and Mom went bat shit crazy bananas.

Yeah, that's me.

The one who got under the covers of her cozy bed and did not get out for a looooooooooong time. Who, once she did and decided to face the holy mess of her life and SWORE, once she was out of the many months... okay, year, funk she was in, would never, ever, never, never go back?

Still me?

So why does my life suck so bad?

And why am I talking about myself in third person?

The regular readers know I started this blog because I swore I would not meet another year anniversary of the death of my cousin without doing something about it. The "it" was getting out of bed. I was so down - as a lot of women get after a break-up, a divorce, losing a job - that I had succumed to the covers, laying here, stairing down the abyss that was my life.

It became so overwhelming, all those bad things - happening at once - that I didn't know what to do.

So I did nothing.

If you're new, you can read the posts here that document how I got out of that. Once I couldn't take it anymore, once I had grown hair on my legs that I could braid, and grew a second ass (getting out of bed to pee is not exercise), and many months of roots were showing, and I missed the sunshine and I missed the old me and I knew if my cousin, mother, ex, anyone, saw me this way that I would be even more deeply ashamed...

I came up with a plan.

One day a week, do something totally fun. Completely exciting. That would make me giggle and feel reckless, and get me out of my comfort zone and get back to the me that was the me before everything came crashing down.

I would pool crash, I would steal from the dessert station from the Four Seasons, I would test drive a Porsche, I would sky dive, I would rock repel, I would crowd surf at a concert.

Week after week, I pulled one thing out of my "Adventure Bowl" and I did it - no turning back, no being to scared, no "I'll just pick something else."

It changed my life.

I got out of bed.

I came back to myself. My life massively improved.

Massively.

Everything was chugging along great. But it was so great that I didn't have to possibly do these adventures anymore. Right? My life was full now. Great job, friends, great everything.

The Bowl gathered dust.

I got cocky.

Like when you lose ten pounds because you exercised and ate five servings of vegetables everyday just like a good American following that food pyramid and all of a sudden, you start to slip and slide and soon, you are not packing lunch anymore and "I guess I could have a few fries" and why have a diet soda when you could have beer and pretty soon a sensible breakfast isn't egg whites but a cheese and onion bagel with cream cheese.

(Which is currently what I am eating right now. And even the server didn't get it. Why would I want cream cheese when I'm already eating a cheese bagel? Skinny people don't understand me.)

Anyway, I slipped and then I slided.

And then one day, I found myself at the bottom of a hill, bloodied and unconscious, after a fall. Being lifted out by fire men. And after being bedridden for over a month, I wondered, maybe if I didn't give up those adventures and maybe if I had stayed connected to myself, maybe I would know how to deal with a life blow like this.

Only I didn't.


To Be Continued in the Next Post...

I promise to update this story tomorrow - with full details about how I fell down a hill, broke my shoulder, found out my cousin has brain cancer and my Mom got sick again and how I am going to rededicate myself to the big ol' Bowl of Adventure and get my life back on track again.
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