It’s 1:17am, and nobody should be awake right now.
But a year ago today, I was, and I remember almost everything about it.
How You Do, What You Do
How you do
what you do
is who you are.
How you do
what you do
is who you are.
Our improv sub said this to us today, and I was down with it. It’s simple, right? And so scary, for people like me — I often live in the Candyland that is my mind and it confuses and alarms me when things don’t abide by my Candyland law. But this is the stark truth that I’ve learned through improv:
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What’s in your head isn’t s*@t.
It literally counts for nothing;
in fact, it probably weighs you down & makes you suck more.
It’s what you physically do, and how you do it, that counts for anything.
(And let’s be real; I do almost all my living in my head these days,
save for these blogs & my sporadic spurts of whateverthehell.)
Growing Pains, Taco Bell & You
How can anyone stand me right now?
I mean, like, in a loving way. The way you love your new puppy that just shat upon your Manolo’s.
What I mean is, what the hell kind of human being am I shaping out to be?
I mean, look — let’s start over.
Insomniachiever (as illustrated via Photo Booth)
I sleep awesomely.
I fall asleep like a champ.
I stay asleep like I am getting paychecks for it.
But getting myself to the physical action of sleep — body horizontal, mind still — has always been such a damn struggle.
Let me lay out for you my nocturnal timeline as it’s been since working full time (but really since, like, puberty) — if I’m not out for happy hour/dinner/upstairs with my neighbors drinking wine product and playing Cranium…
a typical night, in faces:
6:45pm:
As the final hours eke by at work, so does my consciousness. Ability to form coherent sentences wanes. Sometimes I will resort to Cheez-Itz just to keep up human interaction.
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7:46pm:
Trying-dying-failing to not fall asleep on the D and end up in the Bronx (again.)
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9:42pm:
“A WHOLE NIGHT TO MYSELF! A perfect time to… get fetal in mah bed and wring out the remainder of my consciousness by wasting away on the internet, bringing any and all productive action to a slow, slutty drip.”
,
Then. Something. Scary happens.
*11:42pm:
Jesus H. Christ on a cracker.
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*Second wind. Second tornado.
I get in a very scary place where I convince myself the night is still young enough to:
- Spend 4 hours on a blog
- Spend 4 hours scripting, filming and I-mean-I’m-on-a-roll editing video
- Spend 4 hours with my uke, learning & singing every acoustic version of every song I’ve ever liked (and forgetting them immediately)
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I’m suddenly Eyes Wide Cracked Out and the thought of sleeping, instead of accomplishing all there is to accomplish in this buffet called Life, scares the crap out of me the way middle-aged women are probably frightened by young, hot women. It threatens my swag.
It gnaws at my deepest first-world-problems.
What about that thing you wanted to start?
You’re always saying you don’t have time to be creative.
If not now, when?
It taps at my skull like the Telltale Heart.
YO-LO.
YO-LO.
YO-LO.
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And finally, eventually, when this new, scary creature in my brain feels it has done “enough,”
2:36am:
I’m down for the count because I physically can’t take it anymore, but what you can’t see is me staring into the darkness for the first 12 minutes, unwinding myself, feeling both martyr-y for fighting creation’s fight, and like a goddamn idiot for staying up AGAIN.
Then I’m out like a light.
& Back At One like Brian McKnight.
It starts all over again the next day, only the tiredness snowballs through the week, as it will.
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It’s this terrible seed that I know I plant in my own mind; that if I don’t do this thing — this blog, this video, knit this 30-Rock-Inspired wristband — I’ll have wasted a day, schlumped through the motions half-brained, created nothing, accomplished nothing. Granted, I’ve birthed some of my favorite videos and posts in these wee hours.
But there has to be a healthier way.
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Because what’s happening is, the best of me happens in the dead of the night, and what’s left of me is what I present, bleary-eyed, to actual Human Beings of Planet Earth in the daylight.
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It’s the me I bring to work, to friends, to roommates… It’s not actually me at all.
Insert hypotheses about our generations’ need for perfection, overachieving, narcissism, feeling “fulfilled,” “having” “everything” “”, “”, “”"”.
Insert every acronym, your YOLOs and your FOMOs.
But then someone insert an actual solution, per favore.
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Girl needs sleep.
What can I do?
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A Tale of Two Strangers
Yesterday, I was in Chinatown checking out a friend’s mind-pwning art show. I knew that craving dimsum in that moment was a holy and natural feeling that God intended, and somehow my feet remembered every sketchy alleyway turn to my fave place in the city.
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So it’s just gonna be me, my Kindle and some beef shu mai, I thought.
I commended myself on fully shedding that pseudo-empowered filmy texture I first felt on Dates With My Damn Self. Now it just sounded, truly, nice.
I held up a pointer finger to the lady at the counter, she craned her neck towards all the empty 2-seaters across the restaurant — then, as if she was being generous, opened her palm towards a tiny table crammed into a corner window.
Right next to the one other guy having a dim sum date with his Kindle.
Open Your Golden Gates
I’m transcribing this from my journal; I wrote the original rant on the plane coming home from my very first the-working-girl-is-home-for-the-holidays Thanksgiving.
I just had a lot of feelings.
—
San Francisco, you obnoxious piece of spectacular.
I look at the seals at Pier 39, who sleep for 13 hours a day, and I think, "I get you, man. I get you."
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Don’t get me wrong — I love New York, though I haven’t been able to breathe much in it; I haven’t given it a lot of time. New York is a hot pair of pumps, maybe, or a new leather jacket. Smells as fresh as it looks more expensive than you haggled it for. But San Francisco, you golden-ass retriever — you’re so easy to love already. You come pre-lovable. Aside from the fact that you hold 80% of the people I care about, the way you just let me freakin’ be, as opposed to making me feel grimy and subordinate in LA,
or rushed and over-caffeinated in New York.
With you, I’m always enough.
What It’s Like To Grow Up (as illustrated by my Blackberry)
So, listen, shut up for a minute.
It’s my 6th month-aversary in the “real world.” And I feel I’m in a good place to tell you one unwavering truth I’ve learned about becoming an adult.
Ready?
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They
make
you…
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…Get naked.
Like so; In which my roommate had to cut my Santacon dress off of me. Adulthood knows no integrity.
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Well, okay, seriously. In every way possible, you are peeled like a banana.
You know how you never realize how cold it is in the morning until you take off your blanket? It’s like that. For the first time, you’re let out of that cocoon of don’t-have-to-think-about-it-yet, of structured deadlines and structured social gatherings and structured communities, of everything you’ve known your whole life essentially being just a little stretch of the arm away. Like that constant 2.5-foot radius you keep between you and your Blackberry, at all times, ever? Just about that far.
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Hark, ye post red-eye flight straight-to-work sunrise. You're like coming home to the world's ugliest, most affectionate puppy.
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Out in Adult Land, it is truly every man for herself. You hit the ground running amongst people who’ve been sprinting for miles, people who’ve slowed to a mosey with their arms held out, helmeted douchebros on Segways, hipsters splayed out on the floor taking Instagrams of themselves… No signs, no orientation advisers, no freshmen, no brakes.
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And very little to no mommies.
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However, a mother's love knows no bounds. Especially when she knows your work address.
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You feel really, really stupid.
You get really, really humble.
You’re stripped of all of your false co-ed confidence, flakin’ off of you like rusty paint. You’re a baby again..
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Much like this baby. This is Over-it Baby. She's our office signal for when we've reached that critical editors' point when you "just can't."
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And then, like a baby, first a little and then all at once,
You get to start over.
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As soul-sucking as it can get, on the best days, it’s incredibly liberating. Feeling the wind in your hair bun beast is never bad. I know, everyday, that these are the days I’m going to look back on and say, “I’m so glad I did that for myself. All by myself. I’m so happy I allowed myself to grow that way.” I’m feeling okay with falling on my face, and I know the difference now between saying that and meaning it. I’m growing a real thick skin, the kind that only comes with facing discomfort, movement, failure, challenge, every day. And while it doesn’t always feel like it, I know I’m adopting the kind of common sense and confidence I would’ve never learned if I hadn’t flown the coop.
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I’m exhausted, scatterbrained and a baby-bit homesick.
But to tell you the truth, I’ve never been more proud of myself.
And I should tell myself that more often.
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It's autumn time in my happy place. The fact that I found a happy place -- I'm proud of that, too.
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And y’know best part? No one person, not one, skips these ugly years. I’ve asked many an adult specimen. Hell, some people never shake them off.
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It’s hard, you guys. Harder than we were ever warned. But the big secret is that all of those who are brave enough to face it are knee-deep in it. We’re all overwhelmed. In the “real world,” you can’t hide behind Facebook-fake happiness — everything is not okay.
But we grit our teeth. We go on rooftops. We live for happy hour. And one day, I think we’re gonna miss being this young, messy, stupid and at the core, happy.
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Turns out successful growing up is not ever growing up: Hence, endless childhood clapping games with some brewskies and some rooftop.
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After all, striking out and attacking the world face-first — it’s the way my mommy did it.
It’s the way a lot of our mommies did it.
And if my story makes my kids half as proud as hers makes me,
Bring on another day.
I’ll be good.
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