Wedding Season and Philadelphia

I'm going home to Philly next weekend. Friday night, for a wedding shower. Saturday afternoon, for trying on bridesmaid dresses. Sunday for coming back to New York and not thinking about weddings again for as long as humanly possible.

It isn't to say that I don't like weddings altogether. Free drinks, an excuse to spend a weekend out of town and pretty dresses. Some of my favorite things! What I tend not to love, however, is the cost and hassle assosciated with the months long process. For girls especially, these things can be tiresome. Showers, engagement parties, fittings, shopping (dresses, accessories, gifts, shoes...)

Thankfully, this time around, TT has decided not to have bridesmaids (hooray!) which gets me financially little off the hook for her May 13 wedding at the shore. (To be compensated for by the cost of getting down there.) Tree, has opted for bridesmaids, of which I am one. I have to admit, I'm a little surprised to have been asked. It's the first wedding I've been in that I didn't see coming. When Danielle got married, I started talking about bridesmaid things an hour after the engagement, and completely ruined the traditional "will you be in my wedding" question, by offering before she asked me. I'm honored to be in Tree's wedding...excited even...despite my usual distaste for all things bridesmaid related.

Plus- the dresses are slammin :)

I love going home to Philadelphia, for wedding season or otherwise. And having been in a post-new-year-trauma-induced funk for the past four weeks, all of the celebrating next weekend is sure to do me some good. Also, I feel compelled during wedding time to act a little more like a girl, and a little less like an angry New Yorker.

The added bonus of a weekend in Philly allows me to focus on some of the memories from there that I tend to keep @ bay most of the time. Probably the reason that I so enjoy going back. It seems, sometimes, as though I'm traveling back to the time that I lived there. Nothing seems to have changed. The friendships I have kept from Cabrini are so few (albeit some of the best friends in my life) that I find myself compartmentalizing them into the past, and focusing primarily on the way they exist in the present.

Whatever they were then, and whatever they have become now...I know that I am lucky. TT and I see each other frequently, Trees and I talk often, and I get to spend time with Jeffers on a pretty consistent basis. (In addition to our Tuesday night dates, which are still going...four years strong!) Speaking of Jeffers, I'm taking bets that he is the next to make that long trip down the aisle.

The weekend is going to be fun, despite its wedding theme, which I could take or leave. I'll get to see four of my best friends, (Dandrea counts as one, although they are currently 2.5) possibly meet the love of Jeffer's life, try on some bridesmaid stuff, shower TT with presents and drag my broke and tired self home at the end of it all. Be assured that I'll let you know how it goes!

Role With the Changes

In life, we are obligated to play a certain number of roles. Daughter, friend, brother, girlfriend, husband, employee, parent...

Some are unwillingly bestowed upon us, while others we choose for ourselves. In either case, the longer you exist in this role, the more its conditions become you. As with anything: do it for long enough, and you become good at what you're doing. If not good, then, at the very least, comfortable.

Consider the phenomenon of type-casting. An actor or actress plays a part effectively, and they run the risk of never being perceived as anything other than this character. By their fans, by their colleagues, and even, in some cases...by themselves. Have you ever heard an actor refer to the phrase, "the role I was born to play"? Type-casting can be a dangerous thing. In Hollywood, it can veritably ruin a career. In life, there's a little more at stake.

I believe the scariest thing about being in our twenties, is the sudden and intense altering of our roles in relation to our world. Those who were just adolescents, are now adults. Those who were dating are now married. Those who were married are now parents. Friends become family or become enemies. Parents become friends, or in some cases a hindrance. Roles which you've played your entire life, and become quite good at, are falling away. And you are forced to become something altogether different.

It seems that some of our truest moments as adults, come in the times when we are suddenly forced to reevaluate what we thought to be true about our roles in this world. My friend Stephanie was a mother just four weeks ago. Now she is not. Her daughter is gone. Another good friend of mine was a husband very recently. Now he is not. His wife is gone. Two more of my good friends are about to become wives. Two more about to become parents. And with the onset of the new conditions and responsibilities these people are bound to be facing, they have to simultaneously try to remain the same as they were, in relation to the world as they have always known it. How do you do that?

How don't you screw it up?

I recently tried on a new role for size, and it turns out that I may not be as adaptable as I'd like to believe. It seems that whether they meant to or not, my parents created a person quite protective of her space and time. Quite protective of herself. And quite unwilling to adapt to a new part. It's a challenge in all of us to take the uncomfortable role and abandon the one that we know and have grown accustom to.

I don't know the resolution of this trial. It's hard to understand how people adapt, sometimes so seemingly flawlessly. But it must be somewhere in the nature of us all. To adapt to the roles we are given. The trick is to realize, that what you think you know about yourself definitively... what you are sure to be the real you... the "you" you know and love... may very soon not be you at all. As life changes, sometimes without warning, we do too. And so do the roles that we play.

Superbowl 40 Baby!!

PITTSBURGH'S GOIN TO THE SUPERBOWL!!!

:)

Fun Times

I've been told four times in the last week or two that my blog is uber-emotional. This was NOT my intention.

Look-- I write this thing as a method of story-telling in an effort to keep you people posted on my life and times. (Since mostly you know that I'm not forthcoming with my emotions on a conversational basis, there may be some of that included in here too.) But my intention is not to depress or to reduce my life to a series of emotionally draining stories or impressions. If that is how you perceive this to be, my sincerest apologies. On that note, here is a GENERIC and somewhat boring account of my day. I don't want you to think I can't "blog" the way a blog should be. So here is a funny story. And by funny I mean expensive and painful. Fuck you guys.

My alarm went off at the usual time, and I let it ring, because I was exhausted. The boy stayed here the night before last, and you all know that I can't sleep next to someone. I just CAN'T. I try. I have, in the last year, been able to stop the throwing up in the morning thing that I used to do when I slept next to someone. Two people (who recently have taken to comparing themselves to Obiwan and Anakin) managed to break me of the AM sickness thing...but still it's a challenge.

Anyway, needless to say I was exhausted yesterday. I haven't gotten much sleep at all since the baby died. Nightmares and all that. And then the 430am dance parties in Charlotte, and then the boy....

So there I lay, listening to the alarm. Begging the day not to begin. Couldn't there be a nuclear war or something at this very moment, thus allowing me to just stay in bed and die, rather than have to face consciousness? Fine. I turn my head to look at the clock, (a seemingly harmless gesture) when suddenly, a CRUNCHING sound resounds through my head behind my left ear. I am paralyzed. The pain in my neck shoots directly from my spine into my brain where it bounces around for a few seconds before I realize what has happened. That crunching was me. Something in me crunched.

The pain was excruciating.

I managed to get ready for work (straightening my hair and all..) and by the time I got there, it was obvious this crunchy injury was not going away. I immediately found the number for a chiropractor that my coworkers use and scheduled an appointment. By the time I made it there @ 530 this evening, my neck was in a complete spasm. I couldn't move it left or right, barely up, and not at all down. The MD on staff injected me with 10shots of cortisone (TEN shots. In my neck and back, mind you.) And sent me to Physical Therapy. I have to attend PT now three times a week for the next two weeks. Apparently I fucked myself up bigtime. So thankfully when I got out of there, mostly numb and $150 in the hole to start...Valerie took me out for cocktails on the company expense account and I felt much better. But now the booze and injections are wearing off, and I'm hoping once again for that nuclear holocaust to prevent me from having to face another handicapped work day. Ouch.

On a COMPLETELY different note...this is the first day in a few days (lots of days) that I haven't talked to the boy. And mock that if you will...but I kind of miss him.

Silly, huh?

OK-- sleep now. I'll write another emotionally devoid entry tomorrow if I can stand the pain of sitting at a computer again.

Love you all :)

Home Again

I have been trying since I got back to New York on Monday, to blog something heartfelt and coherent about my trip to Charlotte. But I kept plagiarizing my own journal entry which was composed on the airplane Monday night. So I've decided to just share a few excerpts from that piece, as it seems to be the best I'm going to do. I've removed a section at the beginning pertaining to MGM as it has recently come to my attention that he has access to this website, and I don't feel particularly compelled to share any more of my feelings on or with him at this time. Call me hypocritical...I know I said I'd never censor.

Ahem....

"....The weather was beautiful and the time was kind. It crept along rather than racing to leave me. There were lots of friends, very long walks in the sunshine. My gym. My coffee shops. The places I remember as though I never left them.

I can't shake the feeling that Missie and I are meant to be together. I feel connected to her in a way that closely mirrors the connection I have with my own family. She understands my sadness over the loss of [MGM] and of Charlotte, and also my inability to tolerate either. She understands my insecurities and also my extreme arrogance. She's compelled to be honest with me when other people are not. She is fair to me, and amidst prevalent selfishness, she gives to me without question. I believe, and I hope that this is true, that I am these things for her as well. I believe that we are friends because we are the same in the ways in which it is important for friends to be the same. I am confident now, that our friendship is unconditional.

It worries me a little how sad I felt to leave today. I am, as I always am, excited to go home. New York, and my life there, are above all else, what make me happy. And never a day goes by that I imagine being able to leave. Still, I longed today for only a moment, for Charlotte to have been enough. For my life there to have made any sense. For a chance to have been happy the first time around. Missie says that New York has done well for me. She says how much she has seen me grow. She says I seem prettier. She says I seem older. I am all of these things. And I know that I did the right things. I realize now that what was wrong then wasn't only Charlotte. I faced so many things for which I wasn't prepared, that perhaps no city could have supported me then. And no boy. And now I am able to see that. Now I understand.

I would like, sometimes, to be the girl who showed up in Charlotte the first time around. The girl whose friends surpassed all other priority, who would never be in love. The girl who thought that everything was easy, that who you become is nothing but a series of decisions. That positive results were a product of smart choices. But I'm not her anymore. And I know that this version of me has far more to offer-- and is capable of accomplishing far greater things. But as with any city, any time, or any person, it is hard to say goodbye to myself as I once was.

The trip was perfect. The Bobcats game, the coffee, the walks, the bars, and the Dance Party @ Chateau Johnson. And whatever the result of it all-- lessons learned, stories told, feelings reignited or bridges burnt-- it was well worth the cost." -1/16/06

Worlds Collide

I'm supposed to be packing for Charlotte. But I have a terrible cold, and thus, medicine head. And I don't feel like it.

My plane takes off in ten hours...and I'd really like to get some sleep between now and then. This doesn't seem likely @ this point. Also, as always, there is too much on my mind to be able to focus on menial tasks like packing.

I spoke with MGM today-- the first time in five months. Nothing to report. But it is strange, the way that speaking with or thinking about someone from my past can change my mood entirely. I'm not sure if it's a product of having lived so many places in such a short amount of time, or if it's just a matter of lacking any sense of semblance in my life, but I can't manage to properly relate my current life with the aspects of "lives past." This could go hand in hand with the not being able to let go thing. I keep everyone and everything in their own separate compartment in my brain. Charlotte has its own, Philly has its own, Gannon has its own, and Pittsburgh, New York and so on. Places aren't supposed to spill over. Friends from different places aren't supposed to intermingle. (Though I sometimes long for friendships to develop between my compartmentalized friends, I'm not sure how I'd go about that.)

Anyway, it seems usually to be the times that one of my worlds is sailing along beautifully that I choose to revisit another. This, of course, drudges up memories of days gone by, songs I used to listen to there, things I did, people I knew. And it hurts. That's when my missing happens. Not right after I leave someplace, but much later. When life is rolling along comfortably and I get smacked in the face with a life from my past. And usually, I've brought it upon myself.

I was very excited to go back to Charlotte. It took me a year to want to do it, but I was feeling comfortable and excited about the trip, when with the death of Alayna, everything in Pittsburgh changed. I was ripped out of my life here for six days, and when thrust back into it, my mood had notably changed. I thought coming back would be terrible. But it wasn't. I'm sad, yes. But my coworkers have been supportive, my friends are understanding and fantastic, and I have someone here who despite my constantly challenging this in him...actually seems to like me. And now I can't remember ever wanting to go to Charlotte again.

I'll be back in four days. I assume with stories of both how it has changed and how everything is as it always has been. I'll have to readjust once more to my life in New York as I now know it, and leave the people behind in North Carolina that remain there with my memories.

Gone But Not Forgotten

I am happy to report that I have verified the conspicuous absence of MGM in my up and coming visit to NC. Thank God.

I don't mean to dramatize him. He isn't much of an issue in my life anymore, and hasn't been for some time. The problem is me, really. I am terrible at letting go. Mostly of people, also of places and things. The fact that I'm even going back to Charlotte is kind of funny, especially to the people I left there. I complained constantly. And now I miss it terribly.

I think that my unwillingness to abandon people, places and things from my past is a great hindrance. It prohibits me from moving forward without longing for what's behind. It can complicate present relationships and misconstrue feelings that would otherwise be quite simple. However... as is usually the case, I also find this weakness to be one of my greatest attributes. Isn't this always the way?

It's important, maybe, to not let go. Place things in their proper perspective, yes. But by keeping them with you, their lessons are not forgotten, their gifts are not abandoned in the past.

Back to present day, The Boy was telling me this weekend that he remains friends with everyone he has ever dated. "Why wouldn't I?" he asked, when I looked surprised. I cited potentially broken hearts, damaged egos, etc. His response, as usual- quite rational, was that he liked this person for a reason, and whatever the circumstances of the breakup, this reason probably hasn't changed. "Fair enough," I said. And it turns out to be true. MGM is one of the only "ex" whatever's that I hadn't been able to communicate with in a positive manner. Too much hostility, no presence of mind. So we stopped communicating altogether. It turns out, despite the broken heart AND damaged ego, I still miss his friendship.

So we spoke today- briefly- in an email. Which is a cop-out, I know it. But it removed some of his power as a ghost from my past. There might not be a relationship anymore, but there doesn't have to be nothing, either. I think it's alright to want to hold on. After all... your past is part of your present, and lends itself to your future. Why let it go?

For me, Charlotte is gone, so is MGM (again, thank God.) But that doesn't mean they have to be forgotten.

Dating Lies

Recently, by some of the boys I have dated, I've been accused of convincing myself that I am things, which apparently I am not. On the question of my poor self-image, I have been told that I do not see myself in a realistic light. On the topic of having everyone fooled at all times in regard to my feelings and intentions, it has come to my attention that I am terribly transparent. And most recently relayed to me, is that despite my thinking that I am not emotional... quite the contrary.

After hearing all of these (apparently obvious) observations from people I respect, I was thrust into a sense of self-doubt. Am I really lying to myself nearly all of the time? How do I manage having myself convinced of these things? Why aren't other people fooled? Friends, family...these guys who I try to date. Over a post-workout rendezvous @ Dive Bar tonight, my roommate and I discussed, briefly, the complications of dating, and lying.

"It's a hassle," he said. "And I do just wind up lying a lot, which is more trouble than it's worth."
Phew. At least it isn't just me?

Dating and lying seem to go hand-in-hand. I have always enjoyed the idea of aligning the principles of dating to a job interview. The dater is constantly trying to express only the most positive sides of themselves. They are sure to put their best face forward, careful about how they look, sound and react at all times. Thinking about what to say before it is said, etc. This, to me, seems like an awful lot of work. Also, if we spend all of our time coloring our responses and censoring ourselves, how are we ever expected to actually get to know one another? Do we even want to get to know one another? Who are we lying to then... them, or ourselves?

I tried to use this analogy on someone this weekend, and he didn't like it. "Dating is nothing like a job interview," he said. And then he said, "dating is fun."

Fun?

One of the plagues of being me, is the constant over-thinking of even the most trivial things. I spend an abundance of time analyzing problems that most people don't even know they have. They probably aren't problems at all, in fact. Just like dating, they are probably things which most people find to be fun. For me, somehow, they become a challenge. (i.e. Take on Me, by Aha. What does that mean? Great song. Love it. Can't enjoy it because I'm tormented by the meaning behind the strange phrase. Is it a figure of speech in GB? What?)

Well anyway, herein lies the problem. Right or wrong, I find challenge in the most trivial of life's pleasures. Having a boyfriend included. I am told that this is a useless characteristic. People mistakenly take it for self-pity, perhaps. Or a product of the poor self-esteem thing. Really it's just one more example of over thinking the obvious. If you're dating someone you really like, chances are good they are a better person than you. Thus, the inclination would be to not lie to them. And therefore continue being yourself and having "fun." (Except that you may be desperate to impress them, much like that potential boss at the proverbial "dream job," which could lend itself to lying.) However, if you're dating someone you don't like, which I used to do a lot... then who cares if you lie, and you probably will, just because you can. Therefore the risk of progression is nada and you're safe from complication. The problem with that, is having to be around someone you don't like all of the time. That invariably ends in disaster.

I would like to believe that this line of thinking is more prevalent than people are willing to let on. But maybe not. At any rate, I'm going to try to stop lying about my qualities and flaws to potential boyfriends, and maybe even potential employers. (For the meantime.) Eventually, these people will get to know me anyway (were I ever to allow for that) and the truth may come back to haunt me. Besides, the lying has served to fool no one apparently, with the possible exception of me.

***********SIDEBAR***********

I am, as stated in my first entry, unapologetic about the content of this blog. If you have a problem with it, may I happily redirect you to a little "squidvsunicorn." It's much funnier.

Alayna Gail Bromley (9/15/05-12/31/05)

As I try to conceive of the words to describe the last four days of my life, I can't help but feel that at any moment I will wake up and realize that the last four days of my life were in fact just a terrible, terrible dream. If we possibly lost Alayna, the way that I think we did, the way my swollen eyes and broken heart tell me we did...surely the world would had to have stopped turning.

But still, I find myself in Pittsburgh. Having spent two days in Intensive Care at Children's. In silenced rooms. Surrounded by the constant influx of sobs. Quieted. For Stephanie's sake. I find myself having my black dress dry-cleaned for the baby's funeral. I find myself talking constantly about IVs, and doctors, ventilators, sodium levels and dying. I find myself at Stephanie and Shane's house, folding laundry, and separating the baby's clothes to place out of sight on the bed behind her closed door. I find myself carrying the stroller into the basement. And mostly I find myself crying. More than I have ever cried. Which leads to more uncomfortable moments, confused sentences, pounding headaches and lack of sleep than I'm used to as well. I had no idea that grief took such a physical form.

I've referred to Stephanie and her daughter, Alayna, in previous entries. Usually I was saying how they blew my mind. Their little family came together so naturally, so quickly, that at times I would look at the baby and say, "where did that come from?" Steph would laugh. In part because this life, this family, though shocking to me, for her was completely natural. In her heart, she has been a mommy her entire life. Alayna is gone now. And although her life ended, and mine did not, I feel a lot like it should have. It's irrational thoughts like that, which sneak up on you without warning. Like when the man at the store wished me a happy new year, and I wanted to choke him for even suggesting such a thing.

I am angry at the world for continuing to spin without our punkin in it. I realize, of course, that anyone who has suffered a loss must understand this phenomenon. It is unreasonable to expect everyone to stop going to work, and to the store, and the mall. To stop what they are doing and aknowledge the fact that nothing will ever be the same again. But in fact, it will not. And after Wednesday evening, I'm going to have to re-enter the world, which is still spinning while I am with my friends and our families in a grief-stricken standstill, and I will have to find out just how different I have become.

When I said goodbye, and left her hospital room for the last time, I decided that the memory of Alayna there would not be the one I would keep. I would choose to remember her Calvin Klein sweatsuit and baby-Uggz. I would choose to remember her striped tights, and the day that Stephanie called to tell me that she was crying real tears. I would remember the chubby cheeks which were made specially for the purposes of kissing. I would remember the way she smelled. I would remember the sound of her laughter. I would remember how she smiled at her mommy. And I do remember these things. I will never forget my *niece* Alayna Gail Bromley. The most beautiful baby I have ever known.


I love you punkin...