A year ago tonight we were dining with my folks at the little Mom-and-Pop Italian restaurant near my childhood home.  I remember that you, naturally, ordered chicken parmesan over capellini – I’ll never forget how the first time you ever took me out to dinenr, you told me that dish was the way to your heart. On my birthday weekend, you picked up the check, completely winning over my father. You said it was to say ‘Thank you’ for allowing the two of us to stay with them for a couple of nights. We had been to my hometown twice before, but this third trip was the first we’d stayed with my parents in lieu of a hotel. It didn’t occur to me then that it would also be the last trip we’d take together.

The next morning we brunched; after years of my picturing a future with you, you were finally meeting my closest friends, and I was thrilled. Nervous, because their opinion of you meant so much to me, but confident enough that you’d charm them. And you did – it wasn’t more than a couple of hours before they were texting me how much they liked you and how comfortable we seemed to be around each other.

We spent the afternoon in the city that I adore, walking, treasure hunting, enjoying the weather and the sights and each other. That evening, it was you who suggested that we stay in my with parents. We played Phase 10 around the dining room table – my mother’s favorite – and ate and laughed and it felt easy and joyous and I was home and you belonged there with me. You told me later that you were really pleased with our decision to stay in – not only because we enjoyed ourselves so much, but because of something my father had said earlier that weekend: he had made some off-handed comment about never seeing my younger brother, who lived only 30 minutes away, and you thought that my dad would likely prefer to have me home, on this rare visit to southwestern Pennsylvania. Your thoughtfulness made me swoon.

After your Phase 10 winning streak, we retired to our separate rooms – you don’t share a room with a member of the opposite sex in my parents’ house if you’re not married – but it wasn’t long before you were unconvincingly insisting that you didn’t want to disrespect my parents by touching me in their house, while simultaneously physically encouraging me as we started to fool around. We spent the next several hours talking in hushed tones, giggling, cuddling, kissing…it was the most intimate and vulnerable I had ever felt with you. Somewhere between midnight and 1:00 am you pulled me close, kissed my forehead, and wished me a happy birthday. We had sex so memorable it was borderline love-making, and you still bring it up, even now.

That weekend, as low-key and unassuming as it was, was by far my best and favorite birthday in 35 years. It was better than the big “garage party” I threw for myself in the 6th grade, when my boyfriend Cory Horvath gave me gold stud earrings, marking the second and last time in my life a guy has gifted me jewelry. It was better than the birthday in my mid-20s, when the Red Lobster waitstaff went to Madison’s house after our shifts, and we all drank way too much and passed out on the trampoline in his back yard. It was even better than my 30th birthday, when I fulfilled a lifelong dream and treated myself to a week in Paris, where I ate almond croissants and duck confit and macarons and unabashedly played Tourist in the City of Lights. The way I felt with you, this weekend last year, was the best I’d ever felt about myself, about us, about our future. It was the happiest I ever remember being.

Today likely would have passed like any other Saturday had you not called. Though we’d chatted casually, we haven’t seen each other in a month, and when chunks of time like this pass, I forget about you long enough to forget why I need to in the first place. But you call, unexpectedly, and try to makes plans to take me out for my birthday…and then I spend the rest of the day in my head, feeling sorry for myself that the ONLY person that has attempted to make plans with me was the one person that I can’t bear the thought of being with on my birthday.

The day was off to a promising start: I had an 11:15 spa appointment booked for five different services. I was going to be there a good chunk of the day, and my toes were in embarrassing shape and not at all too excited for the pedi. I left the room early enough to have breakfast, stop at the lobby, and engage in the “Hydrotherapy Ritual” available to me before my tequila massage.

I walked to the hotel lobby, loving the sunshine through the foliage and listening to Ed Sheeran in my headphones, with hopes of booking an excursion to Tulum and Coba, where I could climb the ancient Mayan pyramids in the region. There’s no line in the lobby to chat with the Senor behind the counter regarding an off-resort excursion, so within 30 seconds of my approach, he’s rattled off 148 different options for outings. I mean…there are a LOT. When he starts describing the high adventure ones, namely the zip line, I realize that my girlfriend might have an interest in this, and I should not book anything until I’ve giver her all her options…

…I must have had a look on my face though, because Senor Viaje interrupts my train of thought with “300 pounds!”. I blink myself back to consciousness and look at him blankly, and he explains “300 pounds is the weight limit for zip lining”.

MOTHER. FUCKER.

1. You’re Mexican, so I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you’re trying to be helpful and NOT a jackass
2. Even if that question HAD crossed my mind (which it may or may not have done) you blurting it out like that to a fat chick makes you look like a jackass
3. Even if the person with whom you are speaking is CLEARLY over the weight limit (which, btw, I am NOT) – under no circumstances should you ever answer that question unless it is verbally posed to you, or you risk looking like a jackass

Needless to say, I hightailed it out of there before I could think about it too much and get so pissed/upset that I #causeascene (this one’s for you, Kat!).

Wherever – I have my breakfast and make my way to the spa. I have a little over an hour for the hydrotherapy and I’m a little giddy about some time in the steam room. I love me a good steam room.

Checking in takes some time, but I get to the locker room where the first question I’m asked is “do you have your swimsuit?”. You idiot – of COURSE you need your swimsuit for a Hydrotherapy Ritual!!! Sadly, I did not have this mental clarity prior to that moment…as I did not have my suit. “We have a disposable one, if you’re interested Miss…?” Sure. I’ll give it a go. Besides, now I need to know what a disposable swimsuit looks like.

Turns out it’s a very unforgiving mesh set of “shorts” (that did not fit over my ass) and what appeared to be a surgical mask, but meant for my boobs. Like, the straps that fit around a surgeon’s ears were meant for me to slip over my arms and hang around my shoulders. As if that’s going to protect my girls in any imaginable way. I’d have been better off with Eve’s fig leaf. Let it suffice that I did not wear the disposable swimsuit, which in turn meant that I did not participate in half of the Ritual*, which in turn led to tears in the locker room over what a fat ass I am.

Jump ahead to another ritual, which I felt a little strange, yet I immensely enjoyed. Bless young Fernanda, my massage therapist, who I can only assume was acting as she had been directed by her employer, as she knelt before my feet and talked to me about the four elements: Fire (waving a candle over my feet), Wind (gesturing to the air around us?), Water (pouring warm water over my feet in the basin on the floor), and Earth (placing a handful of pebbles into my cupped hands). She had a whole monologue, which I’m sure she worked very hard to memorize, and she invited me to close my hands together, close my eyes, and make a wish while she rang a few notes on a mini xylophone on the floor next to her. I closed my eyes, and the first thing I could think to wish for: please let me find the strength to make the changes in my life that I need to make. She invited me to open my eyes when I was ready, and when I did they were full of tears. She had me empty the pebbles from my hands into a little sack, which she tied closed with a string, and told me that if I threw it into the ocean, my wish would come true. 

When she left me to disrobe, I took an extra minute or two to think about the unexpected emotional reaction I just had, and the motivational thought shared with my by my girlfriend the night before floated into my mind: It’s hard to eat right and exercise. It’s hard to be overweight and uncomfortable in you own skin. Pick your hard.

I don’t have any answers, and I don’t have a plan, but I know that I’m unhappy. I’ve had several miserable moments over the past three days, and this is one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen in the world. If nothing else, I can deduce that my environment will not bring me happiness, no matter how serene or breathtaking. So….I guess I have no choice but to try to find it elsewhere.

*The staff did kindly allow me use the sauna and steam room, in just a towel, which I was very grateful for. I love me a good steam room.

I booked this vacation 8 months ago, though it wasn’t until about a week ago that I started to really think about it. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to come, more that I had so much else going on each day that I didn’t have time to think about it. I kept telling myself that I had to focus on the next deliverable, the next shift at my second job, the next time commitment I had made. I do this, keep myself overly busy, and I always have. Although when I was younger I was busy because there were so many different things I wanted to be doing: cheerleading, drama club, ska shows, watching Clerks and playing UNO with Ross, softball, bowling team, shifts at the Treat ‘n Eat. Now, though, I pack my iCal mostly in an attempt – and I swear I’ll never have a more honest moment in my life when I say this – to keep my thoughts away from how unhappy I am. And to avoid thinking of him. 

I arrived in Mexico yesterday, and the weather was everything I love: sunny and blue-skied and warm. Within a couple of hours, though, the clouds rolled in and by the time I reached my resort the area was drenched with rainfall. It didn’t last too long, luckily, and it had cleared up by the time I had checked in to my hotel. Then I got to my room – maybe around 8:30? it was already dark outside – and I settled a little and looked around the one bedroom suite…and I burst into tears. 

I felt a choking loneliness wash over me and I almost crawled right into bed despite the early evening hour. I stood there thinking about how earlier that day I told my older brother that I was “done with Maryland” and that my next plan is to move to London. How could I be so naive as to think that I can pick up and move to a foreign country, when I can’t even seem to handle the prospect of a night alone in one?! Yeah, I’ve done it before, (twice actually), but I suppose I was young enough to still have hope that things would be better in the new place. Perhaps then I didn’t even know I was running from something instead of to something. 

Dredging up enough self-shame at the thought of going to bed right away, I changed my clothes and grabbed my resort map and I was off. (If nothing else, fat chicks do not skip dinner, and this one hadn’t eaten since she was on the plane.) I walked along the wooden path towards the pool, not passing anyone, occasionally slipping on the still-wet trail under my $1 Old Navy flip flops, letting my tears fall freely. It wasn’t until I came to the nearly-deserted pool and the music notes from my past reached my ears that I stopped wallowing and began to notice what was around me. The lit pool – rather, pools, and a labyrinth of them at that – were beautiful against the surrounding night. And Celia Cruz’s voice singing “no hay que llorar, que la vida en un carnaval y es mas bello vivir cantando” pulled me back to a time that will forever hold a place in my heart.

I didn’t make it to the self-proclaimed “MiniClub” (yes, that’s what the sign said. Adorable, these Mexicans.) until long after Celia stopped her raspy belting (see above comment about the labyrinth), but I was in time to hear the announcement that this was the last song of the evening; the ongoing salsa lessons were about to end. I joined in immediately – having learned to dance in the streets of Maracaibo, and later having taken about a year’s worth of ballroom dance lessons, I was not too self-conscious to dance alone.

I was euphoric for about two minutes. By the end of the song, the balls of my bare feet were torn up from the concrete and the muscles from my lower back down to my outer ankles were screaming for me to remember why I gave up the ballroom dancing to begin with. It’s a miracle I was able to hear over the scolding in my mind to pick up the sound of crashing waves nearby. I found the Caribbean…and I cried again.

…it’s been almost 24 hours, and waiting for my girlfriends to arrive has been rough. I feel guilty that I’ve been unable to ignore the loneliness and just ENJOY this place, while also knowing that in a few days I’ll be seeking a little solitude, as introverts tend to do, and I’m also feeling guilty about that. Something’s got to change in my life – maybe a boatload of somethings – but I don’t know where to begin. Running off to London is not the answer, and if I’m frank, it’s not in my budget these days either. Regardless, first things first: my girls will be walking through the door any minute now, and the fat chick’s hungry.

Courtesy of Winter Storm Jonas, we received 29.2″ of snowfall in a span of 36 hours last weekend. Everything completely shut down for about two days, and late in the afternoon the day after the storm passed, I knocked on four of my neighbor’s doors before getting my hands on a loaner shovel. (C’mon…it was the first time I’d needed one since I moved to Maryland – and that was four years ago!) I spent about two hours digging my Nissan out of its parking spot, along with several of the other tenants from my building digging out their own cars, in anticipation of having to get my ass to work the next morning. Then another hour later, when my roommate got home from her weekend out of town, we knocked on more doors, acquired more loaner shovels, and spent another half an hour clearing a spot for her. Space was limited, the snow was heavy, everyone was stir crazy, and even the plow (that only successfully cleared enough room for one lane to drive through the complex) got itself stuck in a snow bank. It was, in short, a mess. 

Fast forward a couple of days, and the parking lot still hasn’t been cleared all that well. MOST of us received the office’s email about driving counter-clockwise around the complex to avoid unnecessary issues while limited to one lane of traffic (…sigh), and several of us were placing chairs and hampers and ironing boards in the spots we had cleared for our cars as a way of informally reserving them for when we returned. We were all dealing with the weather the best we could, and since we were all in it together, it was fine.

…or so I thought. 

I came home last night around 9pm to discover that the lot had had some work done on it (maybe more by the unexpected 50F weather?)….aaaaaaaaaaaaand that my “reserved” spot was occupied, but no longer by my folding chair. That, actually, was sitting atop a pile of snow on the sidewalk. I was pretty pissed. I texted two friends to bitch about it, one of whom suggested I egg the car, and the other that I dump a pile of snow behind it, but in the end I just drove around until I found a place to park, went inside, and had some dinner. (And bitched some more. Naturally.) But whatever – I went to bed, annoyed that someone would actually get OUT of their vehicle to move my chair and take my space, yet resigned that it wasn’t all that big of a deal. 

According to the note that was left on my windshield this morning, though, it apparently was a VERY big deal.

  
I was so upset, I cried on my way to work. I wasn’t lazy! I dug out not one but TWO spots after Jonas! I didn’t touch your property – there wasn’t anything in the spot reserving it! Somebody moved MY chair and took MY spot! I didn’t so much as  leave a note on that car, and you’re threatening to SLASH MY TIRES?! …SERIOUSLY?! I’M the classless piece of shit? …Really? You didn’t even have the balls to sign your name! Or leave your apartment number!

These are the kinds of thoughts that ran though my mind all day. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I told all my co-workers and together we brainstormed what I should do. (My front-runner was taping the note to the main exit and calling out the bitch that made me cry. Totes a bitch’s handwriting, right?) It was consuming me, and I couldn’t decide what bothered me more, the fact that NOTHING in that note was true….or the fact that I was forced to admit that the most probable explanation to the whole thing was that whomever was hired by management to clear the lot had to move our chairs and hampers and ironing boards to do their job, and didn’t put them back when they finished. And that the night before I had gotten so pissed over the same thing. 

I left work and went straight to a yoga class – I hadn’t been in over a week (thanks, Jonas) and I was so looking forward to the opportunity to stretch my hips and lower back and clear my mind. I enjoyed a solid hour and a half of deep breathing, stretching, the meditation to which I’ve essentially become addicted, and not thinking about the damn note. I left the studio feeling lighter, and much less concerned with what I was going to do. As I drove home, I engaged myself in conversation, as I’m apt to do (that’s not weird, is it?) and as is often the case, when words came out of my mouth, I questioned whether they were true:

I don’t want to be the type of person that makes another feel badly about themselves – for any reason. I am grateful that in my own anger and frustration last night, I did not act upon it, and I did not make someone else feel like I felt when I read that note on my windshield.

I don’t want to be someone that others associate with negativity. 

I don’t want to feel the need to validate myself or my actions, especially when I know I did nothing wrong, or had no mal-intent. My clear conscious should be enough.

I want to honestly put this behind me, and the first step is to stop talking about it.

Turns out that yes, all of those things that came out of my mouth were true. Unfortunately, I’m not quite as mature as I’d like to think I am (I can hardly argue that blogging about it is in harmony with not talking about it, can I?) but I have decided that this is it. I’m burning the note (or engaging in a less dramatic version of disposing of it) and not talking about it anymore. I’m not taping it to the exit or writing a faux-apology that drips with passive-aggressive sarcasm or defends my actions while tooting my own horn. I’m not writing to the community management and demanding that they assign us parking spaces or plan better for the next blizzard that won’t hit us for another four to six years. I’m not even going to buy a shovel, dammit! – no, I’m just going to move on and go to bed. Because ultimately…it’s just a parking spot. And frankly, the two-hour snow-shoveling workout that my biceps still haven’t forgotten (or forgiven) was good for me. 

And because I want to be a person that doesn’t sweat or dwell on the small stuff, and this is a decent place to start.

I have had a favorite Aunt for as long as I can remember. When I was a little girl, I remember spending a weekend with my Aunt, and she bought me a little stuffed lamb. Her name is Telullah. She’s not the typical stuffed lamb you’d picture, rather she’s kind of…artsy. In my early thirties, Tellulah sits in my office at home, and I always think of my Aunt. I digress.

However, this is not about Telullah, rather about my Aunt and her three best friends. Over the past couple of years, I’ve somehow become an unlikely tag-a-long to this foursome. I believe it began when I was living in NYC, and my dear Aunt was in town with her friends on their annual schlep to the city, and she invited me to join them for lunch at Le Bonne Soupe. We ate well, drank too much, laughed hard….and I remember thinking “this is going to be ME in thirty years – and I love it”. Invitations to hang out with the girls became regular after that, taking me to the beach with them in the middle of August, to random dinner and movie dates, and now on the annual NYC trip.

I. Have. Arrived. And I’m still in my 30’s!!

(Unfortunately, my invitation this weekend came because my Aunt couldn’t make it, despite having planned for months. She’s instead sitting at my Uncle’s hospital bedside, and she graciously donated her Broadway tickets to me for filling in for her. Thank you!)

We caught a train into Penn Station around 8am, and spent the day eating AMAZING Mexican food and window shopping. Then, before our 7pm showing of Fun Home, we decided to relax in our room, snack on chocolate and cookies, and get off of our feet. It was then that I heard the best thing I’ve heard all day. We somehow found ourselves talking about the community pool where my mother, Aunt, and two other AARP members spent their adolescent summers when RM piped up:

“You know, Julie, that’s where I saw my first penis.”

The room, which a moment before had been full of chatter, fell silent. 

me: “Oh, PLEASE tell me that story!”

RM: “Well, I was 7 years old, and we were taking swimming lessons. We had all laid our towels on the concrete, and we laid down on the concrete on our sides on our towels so we could practice our scissor kicks. The line of girls faced the line of boys, and as Norman P. lifted his leg to practice his scissor kick, there it was, just hanging out of his little bathingsuit. I had never seen one before – but I knew what it was! – and I was so interested that I just stared at it, between scissor kicks.”

The best part of our early-evening break was not the regaling of RM’s first penis sighting, rather the conversation that stemmed from it. One memory led to another shared memory, which led to another story, and so on. We laughed until we coughed and snorted and I can’t wait for the rest of this weekend to play out…

…is that I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing. And I mean that to be as all-encompassing as it can be: life, love, career, religion, finances… I struggle even to decide what hangers to use in my closet. (Seriously, I went through three different styles before I settled on what I now have. And I’m still not in love with them.) I’m on the cusp of 30, and I simply don’t know what I’m doing with myself.

I fill my days with empty activities that don’t bring me any real satisfaction. I date…but so rarely do I meet a guy that I’d like to see twice. I’m bored with my job, and even though I know that higher education would help, I can’t quite bring myself to go back to school just yet. (I mean, I feel like I just graduated for chrissake.) I go to church on Sundays, and even teach a Sunday school class – but I can’t buy in to all the Mormon Culture bullshit enough to consider myself “practicing”. I make plenty of money, yet maintain a sizable credit card balance, despite the fact that (according to my older sister) I’m “perpetually on vacation”. In short: I’m a hot fucking mess, and I’m bored with everything.

The thing is, I don’t really have any excuses for being such a mess. There are tons of things that I’m interested in, and I’m good at just about everything I do (or try once.) I have a great personality: a knack for making people feel comfortable in my presence, and an enviable sense of humor. I’m also pretty damn cute – albeit a good 80lbs overweight. (But hey – no guy has EVER complained about my DD’s, or my thick thighs, or my firm, round ass.) I was raised in a stable, not-overbearingly-religious home, so I don’t have any sob stories about not being loved as a child or anything even half as tragic.

And I’m really. fucking. smart.

…it just happens to be coupled with really. fucking. lazy.

So. What am I doing with my life? Who the hell knows, because I sure don’t. Today, though… I’ll probably pop over to Dunkin’ Donuts for an iced caramel coconut coffee, and lay by the pool listening to One Direction (ahem, guilty pleasure) for a few hours before I pull my shift at the restaurant this evening. (I know that it’s the end of the summer, and it’s expected that my tan will fade….but I’m holding on as long as I can.) …did i mention my affinity for empty activities?