Simple Kind of Life

I've been doing a lot of analyzing of my life recently as far as what I want for myself and what I want for the future. There are just so many options, so many alternatives, that sometimes, I wish I was just a simple girl.

"I think your either born simple or you're not. I want to be the person who gets happy over finding the perfect dress. I want to be simple because no one holds a gun to the head of a simple girl." - Dr. Christina Yang, Grey's Anatomy

I know it's kind of immature or un-PC to think of people as being "simple", but there really is a difference when it comes to the way people choose to live their lives. There are the over achievers, the perfectionists, the want to get ahead-ers, the need to control situations, be the best, be the most successful - and then, there are simple people; people perfectly content with where they are in life. With never climbing any higher up the ladder, never leaving the towns they grew up in, no interest in furthering their careers or wanting more for themselves than what they already have, no desire to see the world. People who see the world through rose colored glasses, with blinders on, who live a pre-prescribed life that has been set before them. Who live a blissful life in a world of naivety.

I saw Blue Valentine last weekend. There was a pivotal scene in which Ryan Gosling & Michelle Williams, while trying to have a weekend getaway to save their marriage, have a conversation over dinner. Michelle Williams' character asks Ryan's why, since he has such potential - he can sing, dance, play the ukelele, draw, etc. - he doesn't try to do more, to live up to that potential. His response to her is that all he wants to be is her husband and their daughter's father and why isn't that good enough? And I sat there with tears in my eyes thinking, why is she pushing him? She was right, but he was right too. Her character was in college when they met, on track to one day go to medical school until she got pregnant. Ryan's character didn't graduate high school and was working as a mover in Queens and came from a broken home. To him, to be a husband and a father, something he had never envisioned for himself - to him, that wasn't simple - that was him overachieving.

I know plenty of people in my own life who have the potential to be better, do better/be more, do more and yet, don't bother to live up to that potential. My father is an excellent example of this. I saw so much of him in Ryan Gosling's character - from the pack of Marlboro Reds to his aviator sunglasses to his dashing, full mustache to the way Ryan interacted with their daughter, Frankie; it was completely reminiscent of the interactions me and my father had when I was that age. (Especially the way Frankie favors her father over the cold, distance mother character that is Michelle Williams.) My father grew up poor in the Bronx, was the only male in his family to graduate from high school, he went into the Navy and sailed all over the world yet didn't get a passport until he was 45 and doesn't really want to travel overseas now; he became a husband and a father at 23 - and that's always been 100% completely satisfying for him. He has his little projects that he does around the house, his own hobbies and interests, but he has no real desire to do more than be completely content with where he is in his life right now. That works for him and I can't blame him for that. And if that makes him simple, at least he's happy doing it.

Sometimes, I think it might be easier. To not have to worry about getting a good job or paying my bills on time or finding a nice apartment in a good area that I can afford and still live comfortably. To be happy just being someone's wife and having kids and taking care of the house, doing the laundry, driving the car pool. To raise my family in the same town I grew up in and go to all the same stores, eat at all the comfortable, familiar chain restaurants and the occasional local Italian place. To take our vacations in tourist trap places while toting strollers and diaper bags and screaming toddlers who we neglect to yell at when they're clearly irritating everyone within a 5 foot radius. To not watch my weight constantly and wear sweatpants everywhere and let my roots show.  To just be a simple girl and smile.

Epilogue

A friend of mine told me today that my blog has run out of "scandeelous" stories to keep him entertained and that my blog has gotten "too serious". But alas, we can't all be young and reckless forever.

This first book of my life is coming to an end. My Scandeelous Life was a beautiful disaster - something that a quiet, straight-edge girl in High School could never have dreamed of in a million years. I have been half way around the world and back twice and seen and done some crazy things, felt amazing highs and horrifying lows, and gotten in and out of all kinds of trouble. I had my hay-day throughout college and my 20s of all night partying, drug experimentation, casual sex, girl-on-girl encounters, rollercoaster relationships. And as much as I would love to go back and relive all those amazing adventures, road trips, weekends staying out from Friday night until Sunday afternoon, going to work on 3 hours of sleep or still drunk, mornings-after nursing horrendous hangovers and trying to piece together parts of drunken, blacked out nights, I just have one thing to say:

You have to grow up sometime.

When I Grow Up

When you're a kid and Adults ask you what you wanna be when you grow up, it's so easy to have a quick answer: Astronaut, Teacher, Model, Doctor, Lawyer, Basketball Player. But when you finally get to be an Adult, sometimes you find yourself struggling to find the answer to that same question. Now that you're finally "grown up", aren't you supposed to be something already? If you're lucky, you went to College and got a (potentially useful) Bachelor's degree. If you're even luckier, you got a Master's degree too. And if you're like me and you have both, you're trying to figure out what you do with them instead of mounting them on your wall to collect dust.

In Elementary school, I said I wanted to be Veterinarian.

In Middle School, Fashion Designer.

In High School, a Writer.

I always knew I liked to write. My dad encouraged me; He praised stories I showed him and told me I was going to be a great writer one day. (To my Dad, the sun shines out of my ass, so he's gonna love anything I show him.) My mom "encouraged" me by shoving Reader's Digest and other magazine essay contest clip outs at me and told me to submit my work. (Even though she could never pry herself away from the TV long enough to read anything I wrote and/or even give me half-way decent feed back on any of my writing.) I applied to English/Creative Writing programs at 3 schools in Boston. I wasn't interested in going anywhere else and do anything else: I started my senior year dead set on becoming a writer in Boston one day.

Half way through the school year, however, I was taking a Forensic Science course. (And no, I didn't jump on the CSI: bandwagon; CSI: actually just came out that year and my teacher was so excited to be able to incorporate episodes of the show into our lesson plans.) I became really fascinated by Forensics and thought maybe I would like to try and go to College to do all the crime scene investigation stuff too. There were very few colleges offering the program at the time though and my options were between Pace University and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. But since I'd already applied and been accepted to schools in Boston, I'd have to wait it out. I did eventually transfer after 2 years (to John Jay instead of Pace which I am still kind of mad at my parents over) and it turned out, there was just too much science and math involved for me to succeed in it as I had hoped. Science & Math had never been my strong suits. (They say those that are good at Writing and other Liberal Arts disciplines are usually weak in the other 2 areas, and vice versa.)

So it was back to English for me. I had too many credits to transfer to my new/third/final college's Creative Writing program (now even more pissed, Mom and Dad!) so I completed my studies as a Literature major. Great. A Bachelor of Arts in Literature. There's something thats sure to put a roof over my head one day! Well, that degree combined with the amazing internship at my first college's (which I chose because of their superb Co-op education program that was supposed to help people find internships in their fields) Registrar's Office, helped me land a job in..... another Registrar's Office! And that was useful enough to help me get my Masters degree for free. So now I had a Master of Science in... Communication Arts?... which consisted of some Communications, Marketing, PR and Advertising courses - but certainly not enough experience to go out and get a job in any of those fields. I suppose I could have just tried to fake it until I made it, but with the economy in the Shitter and the fact that most Marketing jobs either wanted 5+ years of experience or straight Interns, I was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Which brings me to where I am now: Working in my third Registrar's Office, a safety net in an economy where jobs are harder to get than Crocodile Birkin bags, with absolutely no solid plans for my future. I had tossed out all kinds of potential possibilities for myself: Get some kind of marketing job that allows for great advancement and a six figure paycheck, become a Celebrity publicist (Lindsay Lohan, when you get out of jail, call me!), start a blog that's going to make me rich and famous (hint hint!), write a Great American Chick Lit Novel, earn an MA in TESOL and go teach English overseas, go back to school and get a PhD in Social Psychology where I research the behavioral patterns of Boys & Men and one day write a book to help Women figure out the male species once and for all and hence, make lots of money.

What I actually am doing: Sitting in my pajamas on a Monday night writing a blog post about how I don't know what I want to do, where I want to go, who I want to be, or what the fuck I'm doing with my life,.

..........

In the infamous words of Meredith Grey, "We're Adults - When did that happen? And how do we make it stop?" 

Growing Pains

At some point in our lives, we're supposed to reach adulthood. You know, the moment that the perfect job, house and family that you dreamt about as a kid eventually starts to become a reality. Yeah, that hasn't happened for me yet. I get this suspiciously nauseated feeling anytime someone calls me ma'am or implies that I have responsibilities of any sort. The thought of being someone's wife makes me want to throw myself off a cliff. And having babies? Forget it - you might as well be burning me at the stake. But at 26, what can the world really expect of you? You're basically just a few years out of college, getting your bearings like a freshly birthed calf. I barely have a job that can be considered more than a glorified receptionist position and can almost pay rent on time if I eat ramen noodles 6 days a week. Now you want to add getting married and bearing children on top of that? I don't think I like the sound of this growing up thing. Nope, not one bit.

Of course, continuing to live it up as though you're still in college on the weekends tends to give more straitlaced people a biased opinion of your life. They give you the side eye when you talk about blacking out and not remembering your Saturday night or how you woke up naked in bed clutching your sandal. Hey, just because I like to party a little doesn't mean I'm not serious about my future. I have life goals just like anyone else. Of course, these tend to involve finding a divorcee going through a midlife crisis who has managed to avoid having his ex wife bleed him dry & being my sugar daddy for a bit while he enjoys the hot young arm candy and blowjobs his wife has withheld from him for the last 15 years. I don't think this makes me a whore, I think this makes me smart. A wise old man I used to work with told me once: "Find an old guy with a house, a car and a lot of money. Then marry him and give him a heart attack. Then you can marry whoever you want after that because you already have a house and money." Truer words were never spoken.