Turns out I did learn a few things this year..... while only 40% sober.

Before I get drunk in my sweatpants, let's reflect.... apparently, I did learn a couple things this year.

I endured; a heartbreak. I explored; new dreams, new opportunities. I moved. I started a new job. I experienced the support of all of you, when I needed love the most. I defined and redefined my standard of happiness. I was reminded of things I already knew...but apparently didn't trust enough. I tore down my vision board. I embraced my sexuality, proudly. I tried, and tried again.... and I learned:

No amount of crying will ever make you ACTUALLY CRUMBLE, and sometimes that's the worst part. If someone offers, let them. It's okay to let people "carry your weight" when you can't- it feels good to let someone show up for you- they'll appreciate it just as much as you do. Be mindful in those moments right after you scream so loud you think your windows will shatter, just before you burst a vein or your vocal chords start bleeding, right after you've poured buckets of heavy aching- for it's in the pool of silence that hangs in the air afterwards that your spirit lets out a roar too and despite the screaming, despite the pain, you are a motherfucking Lion and from the depths of your being you will remain a capable, warrior and prove your strength and resilience.

Sometimes alcohol is the answer. So are; endless hours of yoga, fake eyelashes, sharing inordinate amounts of food with friends and strip clubs. You are not a weapon, even when you feel like your emotions are the most dangerous thing to hold onto, remember that you are a human being and regardless of how volatile you are now, you are, at your core much more dynamic than an explosive adjective. It's okay if you didn't meet Jay-Z this year- (fuck yea, I have goals) instead of getting boggled down in "time," give yourself a break- trust that you'll have enough of it to do what you're really meant to do.

Call a spade a spade. It'll save you a lot of time. When someone tells you who they are hear them and respond accordingly. There isn't a bucket for everything; life isn't black and white- learn to be comfortable with shades of gray, or else you may end up disappointed. Do what you do best, the best you possibly can- let other people shine in the respective areas; we all have our strengths. Just because you blog doesn't mean you have to wear all the hats- not all of us are consultants, or brand enthusiasts, we aren't all "social sages" or networkers. DO YOU. I'm a writer. I blog because I love to write, because I love the community, because I love making people feel some sort of emotion- I'll keep doing that...and I'll ask for a little assistance with all that other stuff and you know what? That's OKAY.

Be okay with asking, don't get discouraged by the first "no." Or the fifth. And so on.

When you're having a hard time figuring out the solution, take your ego out of the equation and revisit it. If you don't remember what your dreams are, read your journal from when you were eleven, you'll probably get a nice reminder. If you're following your passion, expect the road ahead to be a little less than traditional and sit comfortably with that, when you start to question; maybe I should have roots? Maybe I shouldn't move across the country? Maybe I should have a backup plan? Maybe I should be content with predictable? Instead of trying to justify why you should stay unhappy, honor your desires and stop delaying your bliss.

Ultimately, if something is meant to be, there isn't any "right" or "wrong" thing you can or can't do, so stop fucking yourself in the head over it.

If you aren't ready, you aren't. ready. Checking the cake every 10 minutes doesn't make it bake any faster. Trust, trust, trust your intuition- if that means you take a couple extra right turns before you get out of the car, or you finally ask that uncomfortable question you know needs asking- trust yourself, your heart will thank you for it.

Have a tryst. Initiate. Make last minute travel plans. Keep it playful. SPOON. Order in. Ask for help. Eat four desserts for lunch. Take the Double Decker bus, if you're a tourist be a fucking tourist. Meet someone new. Look for the story, wherever you are.

Explore boundaries, respect them- try, even when it's difficult to articulate how you feel. Communicating and listening compassionately is the only way you'll truly understand one another. Ask for them to meet you in the middle, if you run the whole distance for them, they won't know if they can do it without you. Open, open, open your heart.... it's the bravest thing you can possibly do.

I'm not going to say go out there and "set goals!" instead I'm going to say appreciate what you have, who you have, right fucking now, because everything inevitably changes... kiss him a little bit harder, listen to your friend when she's curled up next to you on your couch, be present, be nicer to your parents, and if you know, KNOW in your heart that you deserve to live bigger, greater, BRIGHTER this year- just keeping TRUSTING that you will and start doing it. LOVE deeply, SHARE, connect and create...stand up for yourself, confront your dark bits and transform them, give yourself a goddamn break for once, don't compare, tryyyyy and grow little grasshopper, GROW.

Leave your mark in 2011....now go put on something slutty and start day drinking.

xo.

The Smack Talking Holiday Post... Where's the spiked eggnog?

Oh hello little sugarplums.

...Ah, take a sip of that eggnog and just soak it in, eh?

I know some of you are caught up in a frenzy of travel plans, ribbon curling and Figgy Pudding concocting- while #reverbing and 2011 planning- perhaps you've even created an E-card and Elfed yourself and your family members doing a kickline to La Cucaracha. Oh yes, I'm aware that all of this is occurring... I've sipped that Kool-Aid. Spiked with a little glee.

But fear not, while there's a large number of you last-minute Christmas shopping and over-nighting that "perfect personalized Etsy" find for your best friend, there are others...there are "thee others" so to speak, the ones who are eating a tube of raw cookie dough and watching reruns of Snapped instead of actually baking and mouthing along to every line in The Christmas Story. Don't worry, "others" I gotchu.

With the end of the year always comes transition; some of you are celebrating the accomplishments of 2010, while others are lamenting it and hoping for a better "redo." Some of you are falling in love, forging new relationships and pouring foundations together, while others are not-so-patiently twiddling your thumbs and hoping that perhaps under that mighty Evergreen there's indeed a special present for you....someones heart and attention, with a bow on top, instead of a cherry.

Perhaps Mom's Christmas Village seems smaller this year and the sound of the automated 'Ho Ho Ho' from the toy Santa in your entry way is more irritating than it is jolly. Maybe this year those thick wool socks that you've pulled over your frostbitten toes are really looking for their woolly "better half" to find their way to each other under the anticipation of a throw blanket, a new romance and a hot toddy. The mistletoe may hang haphazardly in your doorway, while the 20pack of Christmas cards you intended to fill out remain unopened....but somewhere, somewhere in there that little Grinch has a heart that is more than two sizes too small.

....Why yes, in fact, the reason all this expectant merriment is really busting your chops is simply because; you KNOW that JOY is what you SHOULD feel, you're just heinously "off center" from actually feeling it.

You aren't Bitter Christmas Barbie the Millennial Edition because misery is a "fun" past time. You aren't sneering at children clutching onto candy canes with their sweaty childreny hands because you hate children and candy canes- no, no, you fucking LOVE candy canes- but you've been too caught up worrying about what brand of eco-friendly disinfectant wipes to buy, that you forgot that the delicious seasonal candy was even present at the damn party.

You aren't looking for ways to squash joy- joy is what you crave, what you DESIRE- what you NEED, it's the Pimp Juice of life- you aren't boycotting JOY, you've simply gotten too caught up in the Ghosts of Christmas Past and life's little Scrooges.

While you may be knee-deep in wrapping paper and slushy snow, or perhaps you're wading through a puddle of confusion, anticipation, fear and regret- here's my little holiday present to you;

This holiday I hope that every gift you open brings that extra glimmer across your face that only the best of gifts can bring- and while you may be opening a "thing," I hope that the gift you open with the most gusto is your HEART. I hope that while you're filling yourself with savory morsels and sweet treats that you're also feasting on the things that nourish and sustain your "most perfect life." While you sing along to carols in your toasty car and you draw hearts with your mitten hands on the foggy window- I hope you also whistle to your own little tune- pa rum pa pum. pum. For every old tradition, I wish you a new one. For every Dasher and Dancer, Prancer and Vixen- I wish you that spirit that shines like a light bulb, and for every Reindeer game you can't figure out how to play....I wish you a game that's all your own. For the "Elf's" and the Ernests', The Land of Misfits and the little rebels who are Home Alone, I wish you radical acceptance, even if it's only YOU who "gets it." For every Miracle on 34th Street, I wish you a miracle on whatever street, ocean, aircraft, spaceship you happen to be on.

...And for every lesson learned in 2010, every disappointment, every accomplishment- I wish you a new year full of just as many, "oh shit" moments, happy tears, sad tears, "FUCK YEAHS!" and visits to the drawing board- I wish you colorful lives, where they all may "even say you glow."



Like a light bulb.

Turn that rubbish into GOLD sister (mister.)

This morning I spent 25 minutes going through unopened mail looking for my new debit card-I was rudely awakened to the fact that my current debit card expired in November when I went to pay for my already consumed Thai food....

...while looking for my debit card I realized I also have a toll bill to pay, a car to clean out, a computer to get fixed, Thank You cards to write, groceries to buy, a hair appointment to schedule, gym dates, real dates, CREATIVE ENDEAVORS to make time for too.

So how does this all ties in with today's prompt:
December 2 Writing.
"What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?"

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that a lot of people would say; spend less time on Facebook,
less procrastinating, chill out on the drinking perhaps (this is not one of my examples, obvs), watch less TV, or perhaps you'd say something more like; doubt.
Maybe "eliminate" the array of annoyances that my day began with......

Well, I'm not going to say any of those things, in fact- I'm going to go with;
Everything you do contributes to your writing.

There isn't a formula that says, "spend less time Facebooking and VOILA! you're a better writer." I'm calling bullshit on that. Everyone that says, "write from 8-9, schedule time for it" I'm calling bullshit on that too.

All of the things that we're "too busy" doing are just more moments that will inevitably weave themselves into your stories- maybe you spent three whole weeks hating everything you wrote, but during that time you were out living, observing- you were watching the way the woman across from you at the coffee shop kept tugging at her hair while she nervously peeled the sticker off of her latte and gazed at that sweet boy who got up to buy her a slice of quiche she'd been eyeing and maybe all you did those three weeks was sit and maybe all it did was remind you what it's like to have butterflies again.... maybe, you need to write about that.

Maybe while you were Facebooking, instead of writing someone said the "just right word" that proved to be a springboard to the greatest blog you've ever written....Perhaps that "procrastination" was really just giving you permission to marinate a bit more, so that your writing would have more FLAVOR. Oh yeah...that text you sent when you had a little too much Miller High Life (class act) in your system, yeaaaa....that text gave you the ending chapter that you wouldn't have found otherwise.

....perhaps while you weren't writing, you were "COLLECTING." As writers it's our jobs to collect valuable trinkets; the gift of observing a perfect moments, an awkward exchange, an interaction with a character... when you aren't writing you are a sponge submerged underwater in the intricacies that give your story a heart.

Look, I love a happy ending just as much as the next girl. I'm all cupcakes and sunshine and roses- but if we were always all cupcakes and sunshine, perfectly crisp, buttoned up and checking things off the spreadsheet, constantly our stories would become one dimensional. Or delusional. Your call.

If you aren't using the things you do everyday as inspiration, even the annoying, messy or inconvenient parts, then you're letting valuable resources go untapped.

It isn't how busy you are, it isn't the doubt, it isn't the fact that your spending too much time making out with your boyfriend....those things are the layers that add to the depth of who you are, who your blog is, what your story MEANS.... if anything is going to be eliminated it should be the real killers; trying to write like someone else, spending too much time on the computer when you could be out creating stories worth telling, worrying too much about the syntax (that's what editors are for), and the biggest killer of them all: Worrying about what the fuck everyone else is going to think. That one? Yeah, buy-bye.

Life gives us unexpected "gifts" and as a writer, its our job to take the things we think need eliminating and to USE it; that thorn in your side causes pain, so write about that. That thing that takes up too much time causes friction, use it. That itch that you're trying to scratch causes urgency, so fucking hop to it. Eliminating gives the "thing" too much power- turn that rubbish into gold....before you think about throwing something out of your life, try looking at it from another angle....maybe it has more value than you've considered.

Clearly, I'm not a minimalist.

What do you think you should "Eliminate?" and why???

You only felt sorry for yourself for 5 minutes today? VICTORY.

Oh helloooo little blog, I've missed you.

The last few weeks have been an amalgamation of bittersweet nostalgia, newness, celebrations, a birthday (yes, mine) holiday "cheer" and overall a journey of figuring out what I need and don't need in my life right now. I've been reintroducing myself to well, myself. Hi Self, remember how much you like Taco Bell and dancing? Yeah?! Do that. (I don't know what the point of the Taco Bell comment is other than I think it's delicious and I don't care what anyone says about it. Take that Boulder.)

You can only make excuses for why you're the human version of a wet mop (juxtaposed by the moments where you're a straight up frenetic, manic person who needs Valium) for so long.
I scrolled through old blog posts and thought. "EW. EW. EW. Hate her. (me) put on your fucking cutest outfit and some sparkly lipstick with a dumb name like frosted sugarplum (which seems redundant), brush your goddamn hair and stop weeping all over the Internet for Christ sake, you're a bad ass bitch- start acting like it. Love always, Self."

I need to start speaking to my "Self" with the same intent as a bucket of cold water to the face. Snap out of it.

Considering my blog is in dire need of attention and needs to "get it together"- I decided that I'd put myself in bootcamp and participate in #reverb10- a month of daily prompts.

December 1 One Word.
"Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?"

My word: VICTORIOUS.

Ah Yes.... it has a nice ring of eminence, power, strength, bravery even....doesn't it?

If you've followed the blog the last 5 months you know that I basically felt like my life was set on fire and has been smoking, gigantic, dark, billowing clouds of hell smoke since then- but you know what? The ashes are settling and standing atop the rubble I feel proud and even though everything was burned to the ground, there's wide open land for miles....perfect for rebuilding. And we all know that I have an affinity for castles.

When you've been through the darkest moments every little thing feels like a victory;

For packing your bags and pulling your heels out of the mud, you have defeated the comfort of standing still, or staying stuck and you have been victorious.

For choosing love first and always, from the beginning, you have defeated the fear that you are; unlovable, undesirable, emotionally unavailable and you have come out....victorious, despite the ending.

The moment you started No Contact with the person who can imagine his life without you, you enforced the belief that SOMEONE out there won't be able to fathom a life that doesn't have you in it...you conquered the irrational fear of "alone forever"...you are victorious.

When you rolled into the center of the bed, erasing the outline of a body that isn't in bed with you....you conquered the ghost of him, you are victorious.
When you opened up a blank page and started writing a screenplay that's saving your life, you conquered the daunting task of making a dream come true and you BEGAN
- you are victorious.
When you stepped foot into dance class, when you spoke up, when you said what you MEANT, when you surrounded yourself with new people, when you stood by what you KNOW you want and need in your life, despite where that "fits" in society/your family/or your current lifestyle....you conquered the fear that you wouldn't be accepted perfectly as you are-
.... you my dear, are victorious.

For each time that little voice inside wanted to stop cheer leading your way to the finish line, or telling you "you can do this brave one..." for each time she cheered you on despite her enthusiasm- you conquered the little monsters that prefer you all dark and twisty. You are victorious, you fiery little thing.


My word for 2011...... Accomplished.

What's your "WORD" for 2010?