Category Archives: That’s Life

Evolution

By nopasanada | Published: June 22, 2011

“You cannot help but learn more as you take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is an old piece of clay, with millions of thumbprints on it.” ~John Updike

Thanks be to other outside forces, I popped a klonopin prior to opening this document. Klonopin being a drug in the benzodiazepene family used most commonly for treating anxiety and panic disorders and as a secondary treatment to epilepsy. Then again, there is nothing like the look on your pharmacists face when you get your monthly refill of psychotropic drugs. They speak to you in hushed tones as if I fell on the “psychosis” side of things, ready to burn this mother fucker (a CVS in a tiny town in Upstate NY) down. In turn I speak in normal tones to say, “dude, it’s ok. I promise not to lose my shit up in here. Drugs please”. And so goes life when you’re felled by severe anxiety over any and everything.

I bring this up because long-time readers of the site know that I am fearful of change. If I could preserve the status quo, forever and ever, I’d be ok with that. I’m sure ‘stagnation’ was the first thing Thomas More thought of when he came up with Utopia. Change brings out a shock to my system and on top of change is it’s evil twin Different and their cousin New. No. No. And another emphatic no. It brings out the worst in my rather frail mental state. It’s the reason for why I attend events and spend the first hour(s) standing behind a fake tree pretending to be super important while scrolling. I now have a blackberry and an iPhone. I look like the world’s most pretentious douchebag but at least I won’t have to form sentences in front of strangers.

Do I wish that I wasn’t like this? Of course. My job and my livliehood both depend on my ability to interact successfully with people in a variety of situations. This career path that I have chosen for myself means facing these fears each and everyday. Hence the medication and need to sit out at times just to regroup. I take deep breaths and as if I’m participating in a game of double-dutch, I jump back in. Following the rhythm though cautiously, I’m still in there until the movements come to me and I’m able to move a little bit more freely.

In the next two weeks I’m headed to Chicago and then Utah for conferences that are completely different but depict the two very different sides of my life. Though I still refer to one side as “real life” as if the social media/blogging/writing/non-stop tweeting side of my life is fake. Alas when either side pinches I feel it. I am thrilled to be headed to Utah. It will be my first trip there even though I’ve been dying and promising to go for years. My first concern being that there are no black people there. I mean the last black person there might have been Karl Malone circa the early 1990′s. And one friend acknowledged that quite honestly. “We’re not really diverse. But you’ll like it”. So there’s that also given that I recently survived two weeks in New Hampshire, I think I can handle Utah. Other friends and varied cohorts will be at the EVO conference as well. Despite knowing that I’ll know people there I am still a little on the nervous side because of The New. What if these women hate me? Or find me uninteresting and boring and oh my God, they fell asleep mid-conversation. What if?

Then again new is what I am currently craving. Isn’t that odd? I want a change and different and smaller and to see what other smart people are up to. I’m looking forward to this adventure where I have no agenda other than being able to experience the unfamiliar. Sometimes you need to push yourself towards what makes you uncomfortable. That’s where I have always been able to find myself at my best.

If you’re headed to EVO ’11 please feel free to say hello.

The Epitome of Perfection

By nopasanada | Published: June 6, 2011

“Babies are such a nice way to start people.” ~Don Herrold

On the day Ike was born I went for a brief visit with his mama. Upon my arrival she and Jason were sitting there all nonchalant like “No big deal. I just had a human being come forth from my stomach and now we’re just chillin’” My natural reaction to such an event, the birth of another person and having that person COME OUT OF ME would be somewhere on the Look at what has been brought to me/Circle of Life/Mammals are amazing/look at his tiny toes! spectrum. But there they were ensconced in a genuine love for someone who was all of 10 hours old. Predicting his personality and his poops and hospital food as if it were an everyday occurrence. Why yes, having a baby has been happening since the dawn of mankind and so really, it’s not that big of a deal and yet I was overcome by the hugeness of it all. Often I read mocking of women on the Internet by other women of course – but that’s a totally different story on Women: Why do we hate each other so much? – because they (she who just gave birth) is behaving as if it (giving birth) is the most amazing experience ever and treats the event like she’s the only person to ever do it.

That’s because in that moment, looking at this new person is the most amazing experience ever. Parent or not.

I was afraid to touch him. I peeked inside his bassinet at this little baby burrito. Amy said “Get in there! Get you some!” I picked him up as gently as humanly possible and then refused to move for the next 15 minutes. I just stood there admiring his features. When the crook of my arm started to hurt I still just stood there statuesque. What if something happened as I switched him to my other arm. “You can sit down!” she and Jason said. I could sit down but what if I tripped and fell and I broke your baby? I thought. So I gingerly sat myself on the seat of a chair once again frozen in the awesomeness of having this tiny person in my arms and gripped by the fear that I could do something wrong. I am the woman who has not removed her iPhone from it’s protective case since it’s purchase. My $300 dollar phone. I worry that it might break. That worry and anxiety passed right along to holding Isaac. A fear that I could be doing it wrong.

But they trusted me with their child and they always have since week five of their parenting almost six years ago. So I sat there with Ike in my arms staring at him. Just staring. They spoke around me and I looked at his nose and his eyes. He was perfect. I mean absolute perfection. I’m not saying this because I love him (they are my little DC family and I love those boys) but because he is perfect. He has his own personality that is unscathed by the bullshit of the world. He knows nothing of cruelty and life to him is that last week he was swimming in water and now he’s out and about. Everything is so new to him. I could only sit there and absorb and have these very life affirming, this is what it’s all about thoughts.

Amy was happy that he was so chill with me. I’m the baby whisperer, I said. What? I’m good with wee ones. “You should tell your job that. You need to be with me because you’re the baby whisperer and I need you.” Well…if I must.

Also posted in That's Life, The District Of Columbia | 7 Comments

It came with the grays

By nopasanada | Published: May 18, 2011

“Grow old with me! The best is yet to be.” ~Robert Browning

Just above my left temple I have a little patch of these wiry gray hairs. They’re short and do not conform to the curl pattern of their surrounding brethren but instead decide to stand out on their own not only in color but, man, it’s like they’re trying to get my attention. I look at them each morning and say “I see you! You can stand down now!” but they don’t listen. They’re just there mocking me responding with a curt, “We’re here to stay, lady. Get used to it”. So I have. I part my hair in certain parts and what used to be well hidden and a surprise, I now see more silver spots that stick out like a sore thumb – at least to me – only slightly covered from a long ago dye job.

In reality, they don’t bother me. They’re just there and I have no clue whether to (re)dye or not to dye nor is something that consumes me each day. I’m too busy focusing on my mid-section to worry about the state of my hair. There’s only so much vanity to go around, you know.

People say that with grays comes wisdom. Usually women who boast that they’ve earned their silver stripes and it proves something. I usually eye roll to that one but now I sorta get it. There are things that come with quickly approaching 30 that I didn’t have at quickly approaching 20. Things like knowing that when things are bad, they could be worse. Or why sometimes flats are the best decision. Or why instead of screaming and crying you just have to sigh and move on.

Before I found my approach to adulthood to be nothing more than a royal pain in the ass. An endless cycle of bills and guilt for not doing it right. Oh, there are still bills and guilt that ends with just sucking it up and heading to work even though your throat might close up on itself but then there’s the other stuff wherein you realize how fascinating this entire growing up process is. Sometimes I feel like I’m on the outside looking in at someone else’s life. There’s some other woman traipsing the north east and fretting over organizing campaigns and shaking hands with that member of congress. Someone else is being mature and realizes that hating takes up too much time and that falling in like is the best feeling ever. I still don’t feel like an adult, but who actually does?

I just finished a brief text conversation with an ex. The Ex to be exact. The one who left me heartbroken and sitting at Coldstone Creamery each afternoon shoving my face into a giant milkshake. We were discussing a conference that we’d both be attending and instead of leaving that conversation feeling hatred and that continued hurt. I told him that I looked forward to seeing him then and there. I cannot wait to catch up and I mean that. With those gray hairs comes the realization that things keep moving, feelings keep evolving, I keep growing. With the age and the grays I finally see me as a better version of myself. I like it here.

Also posted in That's Life | 2 Comments

The Things

By nopasanada | Published: May 5, 2011

“Anxiety and distress, interrupted occasionally by pleasure, is the normal course of man’s existence.” ~Joseph Wood Krutch

Over the last six years I have gone from a person who believed that the Internet should share in every mundane detail of my life to holding back; preferring to hold the mundane details that are my life, close to the vest. I’ve learned that a) not everyone needs to know everything and b) what everyone knows, someone will be happy to use against you. A possible jaded outlook on people in general based on several bad experiences but ‘rather safe than sorry’ are words to live by. So there’s that along with the ever present under current of anxiety. To which….gosh, I know. I know. While having a conversation with a friend of mine about my anxiety disorder that requires actual medication, a bartender blurted out “You know! You’re too young to have all that worry! And I know because I have all of this white hair which makes me wise…” etc., etc., oh my hell, do I tell you how to make a margarita? No. So don’t tell me how to manage my meds. Thanks. Bitchy, yes, but that’s what I was thinking. I digress. The point is that Dear Internet, I have some shit going on that I have decided not to tell you because I don’t need the judgement and sideways glances. And here’s where I stumble and mumble and want to apologize because I’m not telling you about The Things. I’m…uh…sorry for not telling you about something that you knew nothing about until I sat here flummoxed for a bit about what to write about and wondered what others find to be off limits. I’m sure I’ve asked this before but humor me.

Also posted in Blogology, That's Life | 4 Comments

My best friend’s wedding

By nopasanada | Published: April 19, 2011

“My beloved speaks and says to me: ‘Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise my love, my fair one and come away.” – Song of Solomon 2: 10-13

Liz and I have had two fights in the last seven years. The first was due to my disappearance for an entire weekend with nary a phone call to check in. Upon my return she was furious. She looked at me, shook her head and said sternly, “We’ll talk about this later” then walked away. Later in the evening after I was shunned from our usual dinner group she approached me in the quad to say, “I don’t know what kind of friends you have at home but here? You can’t just do that…you can’t just leave without telling anyone.” It was in that moment of genuine concern and fear for my safety when I knew that she was a real friend. I mean that last statement not to be so cliched but it came on the heels of high school; a time in which you have spent almost almost 13 years forced into friendship with people. In the event that you do not get along with said hormonal teenagers, you are then forced to see them everyday for the next several years until graduation when you are free. I spent a good portion of middle and high school dodging people I disliked not because they actually disliked me but because at 14 pretty much everyone hates each other. Then again, I could be wrong.

So there was that time and the second time was joyful (she says with sarcasm) and something I brought up to the bride during her rehearsal dinner and her face turned beet red. “I’d forgotten all about that….” her voice trailed off as she slowly backed away and put her head down, embarrassed by something that occurred six years prior. I smiled. A perfect example of how funny something will be in the future.

I had let Liz and her then boyfriend borrow my car for a week while I was in Las Vegas. I returned to a broken hood and a non-functioning transmission. And where was Elizabeth? She was packing and heading off to South Africa. I chased her down on campus and it wasn’t that I was furious it was more like “What the fucking fuck happened?” To this day I don’t remember her response but she left and enjoyed Africa. I enjoyed spending $3,000 on a transmission.

We were even.

*******

One summer I decided to have the girls up to my mother’s house on Martha’s Vineyard. Three of us drove up while Liz stayed behind and flew up the next morning. As we drove across the Bourne bridge she phoned to tell us about a boy. A boy named Michael. As she sat at her kitchen table eating her cheerios, she wanted to detail her previous evening. Her conversation with Michael, how great and charming and cute he was. “That’s nice, Liz. Get to the airport! We’ll discuss this later!”

We discussed Michael while sitting on the beach in the Inkwell. She gushed. Five minutes later she was stung by a bee. She teared up because it hurt. We went back to the house.

*******

Michael was hipster before there was hipster. He had a handkerchief in his pocket. We met on $10 bucket of beer night (Thursdays for those not in the know) at Front Page. He was there with his girlfriend who Liz coyly pointed out. I stared. “Don’t STARE!” she hissed. Michael had a beard and crazy hair. He was serious. But she was right, he was charming.

******

A few weeks ago I lost my wallet. With no cards or cash or identification I had nothing. It’s funny how much less hopeless you feel when you have a best friend to call. Liz was on her way to work. “Call Michael”, she said “He’ll take care of you”. I called him and he said “Sure! How much?” I gave him an amount and because Michael is Michael he dug into me. “Are you sure?…I mean, doesn’t it cost that much just in tolls?” He fretted. I, the one without money or a license, shushed him. “I’ll be fine”. I made it from DC to Albany with $26 dollars to spare.

He’s a good man.

******

Saturday was the perfect day. Insert your version of picteresque landscape and sunlight here.

It was late in the afternoon on the way to the cathedral that I could feel this knot in my stomach as if something wasn’t right and my body was gearing up for panic. I swallowed to make a lump in my throat disappear. Was I on my way to a panic attack on the front lawn of a church? In front of JESUS? Each time I tried to swallow harder to get the lump to go away it wouldn’t budge.

I sat at the end of my pew waving hello to friends I hadn’t seen in months but still with this odd feeling. That feeling of uneasiness like something was about to happen. As the families were ushered down the aisle I thought about things that had to be done on Monday and how open of an open bar there would be that night. Slowly my mind wandered to the first night that Liz and I met, on her 21st birthday at a bar in Bethesda. In Da Club was played and it snowed, those heavy, fat flakes well into the night.

Then the day after I returned from Spain just one day before graduation. Our parents met for the first time and we had dinner at Zola.

The day she got back from Brussels and we met her at BWI.

I had a key to her first apartment.

She let me share her bed in the days before my departure abroad.

My 21st birthday. I threw up on our friend Brad’s car after leaving McFadden’s. She thought I was going to die.

The evening I lost my shit and called her the following morning from the mall, sitting outside of an Old Navy before it opened.

The day she got her appendectomy and called me from the hospital.

The shooting.

It was a deluge of memories. A movie montage of sorts. All of these things that had happened and composed this thread of our friendship. Which, at first glance, probably seems tumultuous but I have always had the most fun with her. And Michael always folded right in. Her parents adored me and mine her. I’m tearing up while writing this because it is the type of relationship that many of us crave. The kind where weeks can go by and we pick up right where we left off. We look for companionship and those who would help us move a body.

Then she walked down the aisle and that lump? The one that would not and could not go away pushed up and broke the dam. I cried. I have never understood people who cry at weddings. Ladies who keep hankies neatly folded in their pocketbook only to wind up crumpled from being gripped in a hand. Smudged with black mascara. You never remember to purchase the waterproof kind until it’s too late.

******

There are these moments where everything comes together. The light hits at the perfect angle, you make all of your flights, there’s the perfect amount of vodka in your Bloody Mary, your manicure doesn’t chip, your empire waist dress doesn’t make you look pregnant, your hair doesn’t eat your face, your best friend cries while saying her vows, two people who are meant to be walk down the aisle hand-in-hand. These are the moments that give me hope. Things can go horribly awry, we get wary of this whole life thing. But if you can look back at the specks of good amidst the messiness? Well…I don’t know about you but that, right there, is what keeps me going. Knowing that somewhere, out there, it is possible for something so wonderful to exist.