Category Archives: Katie Girl

BFF(N): Best Friends…For Now

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Anyone who’s really picked my brain (or read my blog posts) knows I’m an avid Thought Catalog reader. There’s just something about that site that often (and sometimes simultaneously) makes me laugh, cry, reevaluate, regroup, and contemplate certain aspects of my … Continue reading →

Insight

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The universe is trying to tell me something.

Or, perhaps more accurately, my subconscious is trying to tell me something. Actually, I’m not sure if it’s exactly my subconscious that’s speaking to me. Maybe it’s just the more rational side of me. But for whatever reason, I think the emotional side is somewhere in there, too. So, in short, I guess I just had a good talk with myself that involved no words, just feelings and intuitions and impulses, and somehow it all came out in something coherent. Go figure.

Strange occurrence #1: I had the most invigorating workout of my life. (Sex is not included in this assessment, for the record. But I digress.) This is strange for me because anyone who knows me well knows I hate working out–but for whatever reason, today was one of those few times after class that I felt I needed it. After about five minutes on the elliptical, my iPod–on shuffle, as always–presented me with Natasha Bedingfield’s “Single,” which, like many songs before and after it, celebrates female independence, empowerment, and fun. (Because of course, we need constant reminders that we don’t need guys to complete us. That may come off as sarcastic, but it’s not meant to be–you never realize how much you really need to hear that until a breakup leaves you, literally, broken.) Hearing this song sparked something in me and kicked my workout into overdrive–fueled by songs along the same line of thought, of course (Beyonce, Kelly Clarkson, Pink). I left with the biggest smile on my face I’ve had in a while. Just the endorphins? Something tells me no.

Strange occurrence #2: As I’m walking back to my room from this amazing workout (Pink’s “So What” playing on repeat), the sun comes out. Now, under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be unusual; this is L.A., after all. But today was a rainy torrential downpour, and I hadn’t seen the sun all day. Yes, it may very well have just been the rain letting up, i.e. a natural weather pattern. But it’s almost as if that moment was symbolic of my current change in mood/attitude. Interesting.

Strange occurrence #3: I haven’t been on GoogleReader in a while, and I guess something made me remember that I hadn’t checked up on my friends’ blogs lately. Call it intuition or whatever, but I decided to see what GoogleReader had in store for me today. After catching up on what’s going on in my friends’ lives (Lily and Jessica are out of the country, so catching up with a convo is rare), I decided to read the Thought Catalog. Lo and behold, the most recent post is titled “Make Yourself Cry.” It was one of those WTF-how-do-you-know-my-life moments. Essentially, the post is about giving in to your emotions, especially when you just want to break down and let it all out–because doing otherwise is exhausting, especially if you’re pretending you’re ok but never dealing with what’s bothering you. An excerpt will come later in this post.

What do all of these strange occurrences mean? Individually, nothing really. They’re just interesting tidbits of my day. Taken together, though, I’ve interpreted them to mean one thing: forget about what happened on Friday because you can’t change it; the only thing you can do is let it go and move past it FOR YOU, not for him. And people make mistakes. You can only hope they won’t make them again. But you can’t do anything to prevent that. All you can do is forgive and live your life, because holding on to the anger and resentment is more destructive and toxic for you than it is for him. CLARITY.

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Stephanie Georgopulos’ “Make Yourself Cry” explains my reality for the past five days. Here it is, only semi-abridged (because so much of it is true that I need to keep it here so I can refer to it when I feel I have to pretend to be ok):

Make Yourself Cry

By Stephanie Georgopulos

Life is woven with these tiny disappointments that we toss aside in light of our responsibilities – we can’t take time away from work to nurse a letdown; careers are not concerned with whether or not we’ve been rejected by a person, place, or thing. We feel obligated to deal with our problems in a flippant manner to preserve our pride. We need to be strong, because, you know. What would other people think? We ignore the things that upset us because it happens that there’s not enough time in the day to properly address each setback individually.

Occasionally though, our resolve takes a much deeper hit; we find ourselves in a state less like disappointment and more like desperation. The things we’re carrying aren’t just heavy; they’re soggy – dense with invisible weight. What do you do when a burden becomes too much to bear? Well, you leave it where it lies. You tiptoe around it, you get back to the scripted version of your life…But the baggage doesn’t go away. It multiplies. After all, it’s not a backpack that you can slip off and leave by the front door. It’s a tumor, metastasizing until it’s properly addressed. Friends will notice how you’re ballooning with grey-colored gloom, how you’ve got this mass of melancholy hanging off of you like a wet tuxedo. They’ll try making suggestions. Drink some tea. Have some sex. Quit drinking. Eat ten almonds a day. Do those things, do all of them. But most importantly, make yourself cry…

Think about the things you can’t change, the things that are beyond your control…Apologize to your body for the things you’ve ruined it with. Think about the lies you took for truths, and get angry with yourself for being so stupid. Know that your mistakes have matured you but resent making them anyway. Cry about it…

Cry the way you cry when you’re sick and pathetic, the way you cry when you can barely move a limb. Curl up in the corner of your bed and cry the way you did when you were five. Eight. Thirteen. Sixteen. Twenty-one. Twenty-five. Cry like you did after a fight with your parents, after a breakup. Mourn the death of something important. Cry the way you cry when you realize you’re alone, or the way you cry when you realize you’re not.

Think of your eye secretions like they’re every word you’ve held back, every sliver of disappointment you’ve devoured without complaining. Each one of them, spilling out into a mess of tears and snot and makeup on your pillowcase. Dispel of it all, because if you hold on to it, every minor and major disappointment will become a mass of misery so unmovable and opaque that it’ll become a part of you indefinitely, a mutated body part for which modern medicine has no answers.

Eventually, you’ll have to pull it together. Put things in perspective. Understand that there are situations you can’t manipulate anymore but that you’re ultimately the…captain of your own ship, or whatever. Other people’s decisions will affect you, but they don’t have the power to crush you the way your own frame of mind does. Tomorrow can be the start of a new chapter, c’est la vie, all that jazz. But right now, before you succumb to rational thinking, make yourself cry. There’s nothing like it.

***

I could have used this post five days ago. But something inside me knew I needed to take the weekend, the entire weekend, to make myself cry. To deal with all my feelings, of frustration, of livid anger, of heartbreaking sadness, of disappointment, of betrayal. So that’s what I did. I did virtually no work all weekend, and even though I believed I would regret it later this week (I didn’t, by the way; it turned out fine), I neglected my responsibilities anyway. I put my life on hold to give myself the time I needed. I talked, cried, to my best friends. And I received so many assurances, confirmations, showings of love and support that I knew everything would be fine, even though it didn’t seem like it at the time.

Today gave me the confirmation that I needed, that everything really will be ok. Over the last few days, I sincerely doubted that I would get past this. It seems like a small thing, but to me it was one of the most devastating. And finally today, it’s as if the universe, or maybe just my head and heart, told me, showed me, I could move past it. That I could be happy again, as melodramatic as that sounds. That I have so many things to love and enjoy and appreciate and be thankful for, not the least of which is my ability to forgive. It may get me in trouble sometimes–make me care too much, make me give people a billion second chances when they don’t deserve it, make me break my own heart at times–but it’s one of the qualities that helps me move through life and put things in perspective. And it teaches me everyday how much I really value people. Something tells me this is generally a good thing, despite how much pain it can sometimes bring.

Maybe. Check back with me in six months.

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No regrets. Because every experience leaves you more armed, more ready, more able to face life–if you know how to handle the experience.

So what? I’m still a rockstar; I got my rock moves, and I don’t need you–and guess what? I’m having more fun, and now that we’re done, I’m gonna show you tonight I’m all right, I’m just fine, and you’re a tool, so…so what? I am a rockstar; I got my rock moves, and I don’t want you tonight!

😉

Too Much?

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From One Tree Hill:

Peyton: “I don’t think it’s the right time.”
Derek: “It never is. That’s why it’s called a risk.”

#realtalk

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Maybe all those people who say we care too much, forgive too much, say too much, love too much were just too afraid to risk doing more than the minimum. Because it’s much more frightening to do everything humanly possible and to still lose than it is to do only what’s expected and to fall short.

Present Tense

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I think the reason why twentysomethings are so fixated on age is because we feel a pressure to be a certain way at 23, at 25, at 29. There are all of these invisible deadlines with our careers and with love and drinking and drugs. I can’t do coke at 25. I need to be in a LTR at 27. I can’t vomit from drinking at 26. I just can’t! We feel so much guilt for essentially acting our age and making mistakes. We’re obsessed with this idea of being domesticated and having our shit together. It’s kind of sad actually because I don’t think we ever fully get a chance to enjoy our youth. We’re so concerned about doing things “the right way” that we lose any sense of pleasure in doing things the wrong way. Youth may be truly wasted on the young.

~Why Do Twentysomethings Always Feel So Old | Ryan O’Connell (via infra-redactivity)

One of my friends posted this quote on her Tumblr today and it wound up on my Facebook news feed. I blogged about a similar idea in a previous post several weeks ago, but I think this quote really gets to the heart of the matter. The message may be about young twentysomethings, but the core idea applies to virtually everyone: sometimes, we’re so focused on planning for the future, setting goals for ourselves, and making sure we stay on the right path that we forget to enjoy what’s in front of us.

I suppose when you’re out of college, in that strange limbo between carefree undergrad and established adult, this is especially true. Society, our friends, our parents, our own expectations tell us we should be at a certain predetermined point in our lives by the time we reach a certain age. Having all those deadlines hanging over our heads is hardly ideal, but it’s a catch-22–we need deadlines to keep us on track, but they place a lot of unnecessary, even arbitrary pressure on us. Does turning 25 automatically mean we need to kiss the fun goodbye? The rest of the world seems to think so. And what’s going to happen if we’re not married by the time we’re 27? Is there something wrong with us? Romantic comedies seem to answer that in the affirmative–and suggest we fix that, fast.

I really have just one thing to say to all that: WHAT THE HELL. Seriously, what the hell. Where did these deadlines even come from? Yes, one could argue that we brought many of them on ourselves, but there’s something that’s got to be influencing our decisions about what chapter we should be starting when we turn a certain age. How is it that many of us have the same idea about where we should be when we’re 22, 25, 27, 29? I guess our views reflect those of our friends and the people around us, but I’m sure societal and familial expectations have something to do with it also. Taken together, all these factors encourage us to set these deadlines–sure, you could go with the arguably more logical, my-biological-clock-is-ticking explanation, but really, is that the thrust (no pun intended) of the issue? Or is it that if we don’t meet those deadlines, something inside us tells us we’ve failed, that we’re not good enough, that there’s something wrong with us, and we’d do anything to avoid feeling that way?

All of this really gets me thinking about priorities in my life. Yes, my career is important–I’m extremely proud of the fact that I’ll be a licensed attorney by the time I’m 25. But in the meantime, as I work hard and stay focused, shouldn’t I be enjoying my twenties? This is probably the last time in my life that I’ll be able to be selfish, to do what I want and to put myself first, so shouldn’t I take advantage of it instead of worrying about meeting my own arbitrary deadlines?

As cliché as it sounds, you’re only young once. I think it’s easy for us to forget that because others expect so much of us, and we expect so much of ourselves. Sometimes, it’s ok to just be young–to take a risk and discover it was more of a mistake than a benefit, to have casual flings (safely, of course), to party hard and fall over drunk, to take spontaneous road trips without a destination in mind, to do something just for the hell of it.

If we don’t do all the crazy, mixed up, stupid, outrageously fun things you’re supposed to do when you’re young, the outcome may be worse than missing our deadlines–we’ll look back at this time in our lives and end up saying, “I wish I had.” Wouldn’t it be better to say, “Damn, I’m glad I did”?

In Re Relationships

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No matter which box you happen to check when people ask you about your love life, there are certain undeniable truths that must be stated. Whether you’re crazy in love or crazy having fun, it’s important to stay grounded, to remember what you want, and to act on it when it feels right. So for myself and for all the beautiful girls in my life, some great advice is below–whether you’re single or taken.

Things to Remember When You’re Single

By Stephanie Georgopulos

Via Thought Catalog

Remember to take advantage. Accept invitations, talk to strangers, go to sleep at 7 p.m. if that’s what makes you happy. Do everything you have time to do and when you’ve finished, do it all over again.

Believe in yourself. Don’t feel like you’re not good enough to be loved. Self-pity is a good way to stay single. Self-respect is a good way to stay grounded. Remember that people who are in relationships were once single.

Remember that people in relationships have problems, too. Don’t feel jealous or wish them ill or think they have it easier than you do. Sometimes a coupled person, miles away from where you rest your head, will cry himself to sleep because of the loneliness that can exist in a relationship. Remember that.

Treat your dates kindly. Remember that they are people who want to believe in something as much as you do. They might not be right for you, but that doesn’t render them worthless. Respect them: you’re fighting the same fight. Don’t make dating more terrifying and lonely than it already is. If it doesn’t work out, wish them well and mean it.

Remember that sex will not trick someone into falling in love with you. Do not use it as a tool. Do not use it as a weapon. Do not use it as a means to an end. Have it and enjoy it, but do not abuse it or mistake it for love.

Don’t dwell on the things you can’t change about yourself: your height or your age or your past. Change the way you think about the those things and be done with them. Remember that everyone struggles with the hand they’ve been dealt; in that way you are very much not alone.

Don’t blame everyone for the actions of one person. Give people a fair chance. You shouldn’t have to pay for someone else’s mistakes, and neither should anyone else. We’re all burdened with collateral damage, but blaming other people won’t help repair it. Relearning to trust people will.

Remember to use a condom.

Remember to have fun. Spend time with your family and friends. Read more. Create something you’re proud of. Make your own rules and then break them. Swap spit. Take trips alone. Love yourself. Be selfish without being malevolent. Flirt. Treat yourself to an expensive dinner because you deserve it, you deserve it all.

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Things to Remember When You’re in a Relationship

By Stephanie Georgopulos

Via Thought Catalog

Remember your friends. Friendship is not a vase you can stick in a corner and dust off when you’re ready to use it—it’s a live thing that must be cared for, nourished. Whether you’re in a relationship for the next few months or the rest of your life, your friendships are important and necessary. They will keep you from spinning out of control in ways that your relationship can’t. Don’t neglect them or take advantage of them.

Don’t neglect or take advantage of your partner, either. Remember that they are a person with a family, a dream, a past. Let them be human and make the mistakes you’re both bound to repeat over and over again. Pick your battles. Let them have a bad day at work. Let them call you when they’re drunk. Let them pursue what’s important to them, even when it doesn’t include you.

Pursue what’s important to you. Remember that you’re an individual; that your personal success matters. Have something other than ‘Really awesome girlfriend! :D’ on your resume. Take pride in something. Keep tucked away in the back of your mind that, should there be a breakup, your partner will not be able to take custody of the things you’ve accomplished.

Remember to keep your balance. Remember that your friendships and your family and your job and your alone-time predate your relationship. Consider the ebb and flow of your life: sometimes one thing may need to take precedence for a stretch of time, but it’s up to you to maintain equilibrium when possible. Be fair when divvying up your time—to others, and definitely to yourself.

Take care of your body. Biology doesn’t brake for monogamous relationships. Go to the doctor. Protect yourself. Proceed with caution.

Take care of your mind. If you’re hoping the relationship will fix your broken parts, look forward to being disappointed. No matter how many years you spend with someone, you’re still the sole proprietor of your happiness. Don’t sit around waiting for someone to change how you feel about yourself or your situation.

Notice the way your partner treats people: friends, colleagues, waitstaff. You’re probably getting them at their best, but if you’re appalled by their worst, remember that you might one day find yourself getting the brunt of it. Remember that you are not immune to anything.

You can’t control the course of your relationship or the actions of your partner, but remember that you’re welcome to exercise free will and make the changes you find necessary. If you’re not happy, leave. Someone loved you once and someone will love you again.

Remember that someone loves you. Maybe it’s one or both of your parents, maybe it’s your friends, maybe it’s your partner. If it’s all three, consider yourself lucky. Remember to love back.

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