If a Tree Falls in the Woods...

“So many young [people] treat life as a constant status update. It’s as if they’re more concerned with how their lives look than how their lives feel.” – Jane Buckingham

Okay, friends.  We need to have a serious conversation about cell phones.  And selfies.  And social media.  And how it’s making us vain.  And self absorbed.  And probably depressed.  And, I’m going to warn you, this post may make me seem like a grumpy, old man who can’t keep up with the times, but I assure you – I share because I care.  Truly.  There seems to be this collective mindset anymore that unless you post about it, or share it, or snap it, it didn’t happen.  Once in a lifetime experiences are no longer limited to that one lucky individual.  Anyone with a wifi connection can get in on the thrill right alongside him.  Facebook has this frightening “live” feature now where a map of the entire world glows with blue dots, each one a person with a cell phone recording themselves at that exact moment – in real time – sharing it with the world.  All it takes is a hover of your mouse to peek in on their drolling monologue or lit rave or epic hookah cloud.  It’s crazy and weird and annoying, really.  The more things this like pop up the more I roll my eyes.  Why must we share every waking moment of our lives?  With complete strangers!  Why do we think people care?  Are we that attention deprived?  Have we nothing better to do?  We are saturated in an age of cell phones and GoPros and other like devices that can go everywhere with us and capture our adventures that hit every mark on the spectrum from exciting to mundane, but here’s the thing…

We need to stop.  For real. 

So, I’ll be honest.  I started this blog post a couple weeks ago and just picked it back up today.  I more than likely had some thought out, well adjective’d tangent to supplement that last bit, but – as a modest handful of things have happened in these past few days away from this half-composed Word document – I don’t remember exactly how it went anymore.  Lucky for you, though I still remember the gist.

I was at a concert on my birthday – first week of August, a Thursday night – and there was this idiotic girl in front of my friends and I with her cell phone out recording a video of her and the crowd and the guy on stage singing.  She would spin around in slow circles, panning the event from all angles and – this was the most grating part – she would periodically turn the phone so that it was recording her and she would make this moronically exaggerated face of staged excitement that would instantly fade the minute she went back to panning the crowd.  I watched for a couple of passes, rolled my eyes internally, pointed her out to my friends and we shared a mutual look of judgment.  Instead of actually enjoying the show in real life, this twat (to quote my friend Jess) was creating the perfect snap to send out to her “friends” (I use that term loosely, as many of our “friends” on social platforms are nothing more than distant acquaintances we keep around to keep tabs on and live vicariously through.) to elicit likes and shares and likely a bit of jealousy from those who weren’t in attendance.

This whole “staging-of-moments” thing and “highlight-reel” posting business is killing us.  We’ve decided that our lives aren’t exciting enough as they are, they need to be filtered and posed and viewed from just the right angle, which would be harmless if…if…we didn’t mistake these moments for real life.  Discernment is key.  How many times have you scrolled through your news feeds and read post after post and looked at picture after picture from your friends and followers and decided that their lives were exponentially more exciting than your own?  You think, ‘My life is boring,’ or ‘My life’s a mess’ when in reality you’re perfectly normal.  By the same token, how many times have you been the one doing the posting?  Knowing full well you’re dressing up a situation to seem like more than it is?  I’ve been guilty of both, as I’m sure we all have.  It’s only natural when the whole basis of social media is to share and get reactions.  I think it’s okay to indulge every once in a while, but when we get wrapped up it becomes quite detrimental.  We can’t just go somewhere and be there, we have to let others know about it.  It’s our modern day “If a Tree Falls in the Woods” scenario: If a person goes to a coffee shop and doesn’t share a picture of their latte, were they ever really there?  

There's no quick fix for this attention-seeking hole we've dug for ourselves, but I think if we just slowly make more of an effort to be "present" rather than being concerned with how we "present" the situation for our followers to envy, we can slowly detach ourselves and instead of worrying if anyone hears our tree falling, we can just focus on the falling itself so we don't land on our face. 

But, it Literally IS Different for Girls...

“When the going gets tough, yeah, the guys they can just act tough.  It’s different for girls.”  – Dierks Bentley

I don’t remember if it was before we were engaged or after that I finally caved.  I think it was after.  Doug had been asking – nay, relentlessly pestering – me to let him see my old scrapbooks.  Not talking baby books.  He’d seen those many times.  He was championing for a glance at my “Off Limits” collection – 4th Grade through High School.  Adolescent and Teenage Becci were much different from Little Shit and Present Day Becci I had told him.  I did my best to glaze over those years, and for good reason.  My “awkward years” were more awkward than most.  For four of those eight years I sported a glorified bowl cut that I actually consistently requested when mom would take me to get a haircut.  I picked out tennis shoes from the boys section at the store and wore boy-length shorts in the summer.  I never really got into make up.  I hated wearing dresses.  When I decided to start growing my hair out in 8th grade I had no idea what to do with it, so it kind of just hung there like a shaggy, shorter version of a mullet.  Honestly, the fact that I was even able to get boyfriends is an enigma to this day.  In high school I woke up late, washed my hair under the faucet in the tub and sported a wet pony because I was too lazy to blow it out.  It wasn’t until my junior year that I discovered the joys of straightening my hair, and by my senior year I mostly had my look together, but even still I didn’t discover eyeliner until my second year of college.  To put it into modern terms the kids will understand – I was a hot mess.  For quite a while.

I was also a huge tomboy.  Huge.  I suppose given the above self-description, it goes without saying.  However, I feel as though I must state it for the record.  I always had more friends who were guys than friends who were girls because I felt more comfortable around guys.  I guess the girls intimidated me for some reason.  They went shopping for “cute clothes” and wore lip gloss and rushed off to the bathroom together and linked arms when they walked around.  Guys didn’t do that.  They just hung out.  They didn’t want to sit on the swings at recess and dish about their newest crush.  They wanted to play kickball.  They didn’t care if they got their clothes dirty or if they got tackled in two hand touch.  They didn’t brood around in cliques and gossip about the class “losers,” they told dirty jokes and gave each other shit.  The guys were just always more fun.

 Now, let me clarify.  I never actually wanted to be a guy.  I just didn’t really embrace or claim my feminine side for some reason.  I still crushed on guys and kept a diary and stuff, but to me girls were lame.  They never wanted to do anything fun.  They didn’t want to mess up their hair or break a nail and they were never wearing the right shoes.  They were the worst.  It wasn’t until college that my views started to change.  I always say that college is essentially a really expensive “life class.”  I mean, you take different courses and write papers and do projects and all that, but you are also exposed to a whole different culture.  Especially for me.  I came from a town of 1,300 people pretty much exactly like me – white kids from average income families with a mom and a dad who were happily married.  My view of the world was limited.  At college I met so many different kinds of people with so many different stories.  And – just like with any friendship – the more time you spend together, the more involved you become in each other’s lives.  The more you learn.  The more you experience.  You go through some shit.  When that happens, you confide in each other sharing stories of your past – upbringing, relationships, phases of life, etc. 

I mean – it’s pretty hilarious, but – imagine the stereotypical drunk girl at a house party.  She’s probably slumped over somewhere on the porch steps or on the edge of the bathtub, plastic keg cup/Bicardi Raz bottle in one hand, cell phone in the other, tears running down her face.  Probably just having had some life altering realization like she has no idea what she’s doing with her life, or her current relationship is going nowhere, or she’ll never measure up to her parents’ impossible standards, and right next to her there’s this other chick calmly rationalizing her hysterical outpouring.  Reassuring her that she’s going to be fine and she’s right where she needs to be and who needs that guy?!  She’s way too good for him anyway, and her parents?  I’m sure they’re just happy that they’ve raised an independent daughter who’s taking all the right steps to get what she wants.  If I had a dollar for every one of those nights, I’d probably be able to take a few of said girls out for a couple rounds of drinks to reminisce.  But, here’s the thing…

That dramatic situation sums up one of the great things about being a woman.  I mean, I realize that statement in and of itself sounds a little ridiculous, but think about it.  Women can be very emotional, but they also have this seemingly built-in ability to calm and comfort people.  From their facial expressions to their body language to the tone of their voice even down to their word choice.  Tie that all up with a nice little bow and it just works.  Now, that’s not to say that guys can’t do either of those things, I just feel it comes more naturally to women.  We are generally more emotional – or, should I say outwardly emotional (especially when copious amounts of alcohol are involved *wink*) – which I think lends to our ability to relate better in those types of situations.  Once I was able to get out in the world and experience more meaningful female relationships, something clicked and I realized that girls aren’t the worst.  They’re actually quite amazing.  They bring this powerful yet vulnerable dynamic to the world around them.  It’s beautiful.  We may be a little dramatic and extreme at times, but we don’t just care – we become invested.  We don’t just love – we cherish.  We don’t just support – we advocate.   I’m kind of bummed out that I spent so much of my youth trying to avoid all that.  Playing down my girl-ness and muting my emotions to be “one of the guys.”

 I don’t know.  I realize that this post is more random than many of my previous ones.  I’m kind of all over the map.  It’s more or less just me thinking out loud.  The motivation to type this up came out of nowhere, really.  One day I watched the music video for that new Dierks Bentley song “Different for Girls” and I thought, ‘You know what?  We do handle things differently than guys,’ and I just thought that was such a testament to the dynamic that women bring to the world.  Kind of a random realization, but for some reason I was just really fixated on that and thought back to my own experience and how I thought being a girl was so dumb and – as a result – tried to pick up more masculine tendencies to overcompensate for my female “weaknesses” that I eventually came to realize in my formative years as the strengths that made my gender unique.  So, I guess the moral of this rambling is simply a shout out to all the chicks out there who get shit for having all the qualities of the “stereotypical female.”  It’s not a flaw, it’s fantastic.  We soften the edges.  We please the eyes.  We bring a lightness and pleasantness.  And – let’s be real – when we use our feminine wiles for good, great things can happen.

She Wore an XL, Double D, Target, Halter, Black Bikini...

“She was afraid to come out of the locker.  She was as nervous as she could be.  She was afraid to come out of the locker.  She was afraid that somebody would see.”  -Brian Hyland

I bought a bikini.  Friday afternoon.  I walked into Target to buy cat litter and walked out with an honest-to-God, skin-bearing, body-revealing bikini.  Well, that and a cart full of half necessary, half non-necessary items (including the cat litter) because, you know – Target.  Leaving that place with a cart full of shit isn’t optional.  It’s a requirement.  Anyway, back to the bikini.  I can’t even tell you why it happened.  The last time I purchased a swim suit it had full coverage and boy shorts for the bottom.  I bought it for a trip to Florida a couple years ago and fifty percent of the time I had it on I had a v neck tee over it.  I don’t show a lot of skin.  I only just recently – over the past maybe five years – started wearing shorts on a regular basis when it’s hot out and even less recently started wearing tank tops on purpose out in public on sunny days.  It’s not that I’m trying to be modest, I’m just trying to hide my “softer” features.  For some reason though, as I stood there contemplating all the mismatched tops and bottoms, a wave of confidence and empowerment washed over me and I grabbed five tops and three bottoms, holed up in a dressing room and prepared for the worst.  But, here’s the thing…

I wasn’t grossed out.  There I was staring at myself in a mirror under harsh, fluorescent, department store light wearing glorified underwear and instead of slapping my face and screaming in horror Kevin McAllister style, I tilted my head to the side and thought, “Huh.”  Now, I’m not toned by any stretch of the imagination.  I’m what I like to refer to as a “Fit Fat” person.  I work out, but I also enjoy alcohol and cheese and carbs and ice cream and all things fried way too much to maintain a body of chiseled perfection.  For instance, I actually have working abdominal muscles that – when flexed – can be felt.  They’re there.  They’re just covered by a nice layer of “adipose” – to quote my high school biology teacher.  A bubble wrap layer if you will, to protect them from harm.  I am forever bound to wear low-rise pants to accommodate, which – sidebar – can I rant for a quick sec?

What is with stores not carrying low-rise pants anymore???  It’s like all of the pants-makers in the world got together and were like, “You know what?  Low-rise pants:  They’re comfortable.  They fit great.  They accommodate bulging midsections that seem to be trending right now.  Let’s quit making them.”  Seriously.  It’s the only explanation.  One year (I’m pretty sure it was 2013) my New Year’s resolution was to wear skinny jeans.  I stocked up on Old Navy Rockstars because they were a low-rise DREAM and fit me like a boss, which – sidebar within a sidebar – is a double dream because most Old Navy jeans fit horribly.  Well, just this past year my two most favorite pairs sprung a leak - #thighproblems – and I went to buy some new ones.  Guess what?  Now they’re all mid-rise and high-rise.  You know what those do?  They give your spare tire a nice lateral squeeze, leaving you with this lovely little “gut shelf” that not even the flowy-est of tops can hide.  I seriously looked through easily fifteen stacks of Rockstar jeans at the Old Navy by my work and found one – ONE – pair of low-rise.  It’s like they’re slowly going extinct and no one told me before it was too late.  I understand that fashion is this kind of revolving door of trends that circle in and out and back in again only to be pushed out after a while, so I get why all this high-waitsted-“body-shaping”-Taylor-Swift bullshit is back in style, but come ON.  Throw a beer-lovin’ gal a bone, would ya?  Alas.  I begrudgingly digress.

So, this bikini – I end up buying it, right?  After much consideration, mind you.  I checked just about every angle in that full-length mirror – standing up, sitting down, bending over, squatting, jogging (You wonder why chicks always take so long in there?).  I gave my reflection a smile, then a neutral glance, then a raised eyebrow look.  Put my hands on my hips, hung my arms at my side, turned and did a nice over-the-shoulder.  ‘This could work,’ I thought to myself.  ‘This could be a thing, Bec.  We can work with this.’  However – like most decisions I make with no one but myself present – the moment I got to the car I thought, ‘What the hell did I actually just do?’  Why do we do that?  Did you ever wonder?  Why do we confidently make a decision and then regret it almost immediately?  It drives me nuts.  I do it all the time. 

So, anyway.  I’m driving home replaying all of these over exaggerated scenarios in my mind like, I’m at the pool and the minute I take my tank top off all of the music and splashing and chatter stops and everyone does this horrified, collective gasp and I’m chased out by a bunch of offended 20-somethings wielding pool noodles or I casually walk past a row of deck chairs and all the people reading their books drop them and dramatically shield their sunglasses-covered eyes screaming “Cover up, you albino loser!” and push me into the pool.  (Welcome to my world, people.)  I tell myself that – worst case scenario – I’ll keep it as my back up suit should the need arise.  Do you guys ever do that?  You buy something knowing full well that you’ll never wear it?  Maybe it’s just me.  I remember one time in college I swung by a Victoria’s Secret to stock up on cute underwear and there was this green striped pair that I wanted really bad and the biggest size they had was two sizes too small, so naturally I bought them telling myself that I was going to try really hard to lose twenty pounds and then reward myself with finally being able to slip into green striped, cotton victory.  Guess what?  I still own them.  $7.50 price tag and all.

I got a second (probably somewhat biased) opinion from my husband once he got home from work who confessed that he’d never seen me in a bikini before to which I replied, “That’s because I’ve never owned one before.”  He gave me the thumbs up and I ended up taking it out for it’s maiden voyage Sunday afternoon at the pool at a friend’s apartment complex.  We walked through the gate, I sat my bag and towels down on one of the deck chairs, lost my shorts, pulled off my tank and guess what?  No one gave a shit.  My husband sprayed my inordinately white torso with SPF 30 and I jumped in.  It was a good afternoon.

I’ve never been super confident with my body.  I don’t know many that are.  We all have features we dislike, and I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older and I just don’t care as much or what, but I will say this – pulling something off that you convinced yourself you couldn’t is a pretty great feeling.  Let’s be real.  Most of the time – though we may think it – we aren’t the stars of the show.  And, thank God for that.  We can get away with more.  So, to all my self-conscious readers – embrace your ensemble status.  Wear that blue eye shadow or those patterned leggings or those chunky frames.  Be confident.  Buy the bikini and you my friend, you just do you.

All You Need is Love?

“Having a great marriage isn’t rocket science.  It’s simply a choice.”  -Kristine Carlson

Sometimes do you ever look back on certain moments in your life and think, “How did that even happen?”  Every once in a while Doug and I will be sitting around reminiscing about a certain date that we went on or something funny that happened once and we’ll stop and wonder how crazy it is that we’ve come as far as we have and how we manage to still appreciate each other’s company.  I don’t know.  Maybe it’s just me, but to this day, I don’t understand how Doug and I stayed together.  We met in college – his first year, my second – and two months after we started dating Doug transferred schools.  Nothing drastic like out of state or anything, but where we used to be just down the hall from each other there was now a three hour drive in between us.  Not to mention a good handful of gas money and the added fun of two class schedules and three jobs to work around.  It was a pretty big commitment at the time, especially since we dropped the “L” word the weekend before his departure.  We were also in pretty different places, personally.  I was an avid binge drinker who spent her mornings oversleeping, afternoons at class, nights serving and afterhours at various house parties testing the limits of my liver.  Doug?  He had a full time job working for a military contractor, so he was a bit more straight-laced.  I tell him all the time that he was essentially a fully functioning adult at age 18.  His course load and work load kept him pretty busy and since he was paying for his own apartment as opposed to living on campus like I was, he was more in the market of saving his money while I was more in the market of blowing it.  We were so different.  How on earth did we make it?  For real.

Our relationship for the longest time was essentially just a series of phone calls and emails (Yes, emails.  I think my cell phone plan at the time allotted me 10 text messages – including incoming – a month.  No joke.  Hard times I grew up in.) and a weekend trip once a month if we could find the time off.  We were young!  We were only at the tip of our independence icebergs!  Why did we tie ourselves down so early with such commitment?  Such work?  There were plenty of candidates of the opposite sex at our respective schools tempting us with their readiness to fill the void, yet we chose distance over convenience.  Pretty mature and disciplined, when you think about it.  Two things I wouldn’t have classified myself as back then, but here’s the thing…

When I sit around and think about all the drama we’ve been through – some out of our control, some self created – and how many miles our conversations have spanned and how many nights our emotions got the best of us and how many times we thought the universe was against us and things just weren’t meant to be, I think about the things that kept us together.  The things that – ultimately – got us to the altar.  Those same things are still present in our relationship and it’s those same things that help our marriage thrive to this day.

We’ve always been very good at what I like to call “independent play,” which I think makes us value our “together time” a lot more.  When we were doing the long distance thing back in those early dating days, we were able to focus on the things that made us independently happy.  You have to love yourself before you can love someone else, right?  Well, by having that time to pursue our hobbies and happiness – to be trite – we were able to bring our best selves when we were together.  We experienced a lot of things apart, but we also made sure to save some experiences for when we were together.  Even if it meant waiting weeks.  I remember getting our engagement photos back and how hard it was to fight the urge to pop the CD in my computer and click through all of them with a sappy smile on my face.  The anticipation was killing me!  But, Doug and I had discussed it months earlier that we would look at them together, so I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Our schedules proved annoyingly difficult and one night after my impatience and his irritation with my impatience had reached a culmination point, we decided to drive to York (an interstate town halfway between his campus and mine) and meet at the Applebee’s hooked onto the hotel right next to the travel plaza and look at the photos.  I remember my mom calling about a half hour into my drive – we left around nine at night – and telling me how ridiculous it was to waste my gas for a late night, down and back trip when I had to work early in the morning, and I agree.  It was ridiculous.  But, going through those pictures in that window booth while eating french fries dipped in ranch was one of the best times and I still smile thinking about it.  Warm fuzzies – I’ve found – are warmer and fuzzier when shared with another.

Communication is another big one.  We talk about a lot of stuff.  Sometimes heavy, some times light.  Sometimes interesting, sometimes mundane.  Sometimes we say too much at the wrong time.  Just ask Doug.  One time we were picnicking at Yanney Park to celebrate our one year dating anniversary (yes, yes – roll your eyes if you must, but it was a big deal back then) and as we were holding up our plastic glasses of champagne that I bullied Doug into taking with us – he doesn’t like breaking the rules – to make an underage toast to our partnered success, I decided to bring up the topic of my serious consideration of studying abroad the following semester.  “What if I meet someone while I’m over there and cheat on you?”  I actually said that.  Out loud.  Well, something like that.  I suppose I shouldn’t put that in quotes.  It may not be verbatim.  Essentially though, I said those words.  To my boyfriend.  Mid toast.  During a milestone celebration.  No one said I was a master of timing.  However, being able to tell each other anything – even when the timing is awful and the delivery indelicate – is important and, think about this:  Once the conversational ice is broken – however awkwardly – no topic is off limits.  Some of the best conversations are had when the playing field is wide open. 

We’ve also developed a “friends first, lovers second” mentality.  Doug’s actual words.  Which makes sense.  I mean, think about it.  Before you developed a serious relationship you most likely had built a solid friendship, yes?  If you can’t maintain the engine, the car is useless.  It’s a challenge sometimes.  People in relationships are just that.  They’re just people.  We’re all weird.  We’re all flawed.  We’re all selfish.  One of the hardest things to accept is that – more often than not – the person you met is the person they will continue to be.  Doug will always leave clothes on the floor and stuff on the counter and never tighten the lids on containers or put the new roll of toilet paper on the holder.  By the same token, I will never remember passwords or care about learning how to do taxes and always panic and over react when we’re running late and act psychotic when the house isn’t clean.  We are who we are and the best you can do is accept each other’s crazy.  Friends fight sometimes, too.  There’ve been nights where I’ve yelled at Doug until I’ve lost my voice and others where he’s reality checked me so hard all I can do it sit in silence and feel terrible.  Disagreements are inevitable, but – with the right mindset – resolvable.  Friends also forgive.  Not always instantly and not always easily, but eventually and sincerely.  I’ve always felt this was one of the things that lie at the heart of a solid, committed relationship and I learned it in the most humbling way.

Somewhere in between our second and third year of dating I had went out to the bar with my roommate at the time.  After a decent amount of drinks, terrible decisions were made and – long story short – I ended up making out with a random guy in the parking lot.  Doug wasn’t 21 yet, so when I went out he was stuck at his apartment.  Well, once we had gotten back to our place I was a hysterical, inconsolable mess.  I’m talking instant realization and regret.  The next day at work I couldn’t focus.  All I could think about was kissing that guy and how stupid it was and how – even if it ended terribly – I had to tell Doug.  Well, that night after work I did.  I told him that a guy kissed me outside of the bar – “That’s all we did!” – and when he asked if I kissed him back I felt this weight just drop on me – dead weight – and I responded – “Yes.”  He stormed out of his apartment, slamming the door and took off down the street.  I followed him.  He walked for what seemed like forever.  I continued at a distance and eventually came to this giant, flooded area of the sidewalk.  Doug had plowed right through it, but I stopped just before and as I stood there contemplating how I was going to get around it or over it, Doug stopped walking.  I froze.  He turned around, looked at me for a while and then came walking back towards me.  He picked me up, carried me across the water, sat me down on the other side and said that what I had done wasn’t okay and that trust had clearly been broken and as I started to apologize for the thousandth time he stopped me and said, “…but what’s a relationship without forgiveness?”  I lost my shit right there and then, people.  He wrapped me up in a hug and I bawled my eyes out.  Forgiveness – while not always deserved – is essential.

I hardly have all the answers to a long and happy marriage, but I will say this:  I know I've got a good husband and Doug knows he's got a good wife.  And, tomorrow we celebrate five successful years of marriage (hopefully I didn't just jinx myself *knocks on wood*).  Wedding vows are no joke and promising to love someone through good and bad - to be completely generic - is a daily decision.  One that you sometimes come to with ease and one that you sometimes have to force.  They say all you need is love?  I say love is the starting point.  It takes a lot of different things to make it to the end of forever.  Encourage each other.  Support each other.  Be kind to each other.  Choose to give the best of yourself daily and some day down the road you can look at each other - hand in hand - and say with a smile, "How did this even happen?"

To Do, or Not to Do? ...Why is that even a question?

“Infuse your life with action.  Don’t wait for it to happen.  Make it happen.  Make your own future.  Make your own hope.  …right now, right down here on Earth.”  – Bradley Whitford

You ever find yourself wondering why you can only find inspiration in certain places?  Or only around certain people?  Or only at certain times of the day?  It’s a curious thing, and since I’ve started this blog I’ve come to find that the one place in the entire city – Wait.  That’s a bit dramatic.  Let’s say the one place in what I suppose you could generalize as my relative city “neighborhood” – is Thou Mayest, this cool, little hipster-y coffee house in the artsy district of downtown KC.  I think it’s because it gives off this “cabin vibe.”  Like, you rented this lodge out in the Colorado wilderness with five of your best friends (I suppose the actual number of friends is irrelevant.) and you wake up really early the morning after you all had this warm and fuzzy night around the fire pit where feelings were shared and souls were bared and you just find yourself with a smile in your heart and an aura of happiness that slips over you like a broke in, weathered cotton tee.  It’s got that kind of vibe.  It’s comfortable.  I like it.

So anyway, here I sit in one of my favorite inspirational hubs on a big, green couch with an insta-worthy mocha.  The doors and windows are open and this soft, fresh breeze is floating around the room and the sound of grinding coffee beans and milk being steamed and the conversations of the patrons are all blending together creating this beautiful, background hum and I – in all of my comfortable, coffee house glory – cannot think of a thing to write about, and here’s the thing…

It’s been like this for weeks.  When I started this thing, I set a goal for myself to publish one post each month, which if you think about it, isn’t that strenuous.  That’s twelve posts.  That’s nothing.  That’s less than the amount of papers I had to turn in to various professors during my first semester of college.  Back in December I thought, ‘Bec.  Surely your life is exciting enough and your story telling vivid enough to conquer at least twelve posts.’  But, sometimes you just don’t have anything to write about, ya know?  I’ve been in this weird funk lately.  I’ve been having a lot of – what I’ve decided just now to call – ideatic motivation (I totally just made up that word.) but lack horrifically in physical motivation.  I suppose it’s something similar to what Gen X and Y generalize as the typical Millenial.  We sit around and think of ways we could be doing things to change our situation, but when it comes to actually doing said things we would rather not expend the energy.  Why, though?

Weekday mornings, I bartend at a brewery.  I enjoy bartending and I enjoy having a regular 9-5 schedule, but as I approach my third year at said gig I find myself getting less and less fulfillment out of it.  I can’t decide though, if it’s all in my head or if it’s warranted.  I consider the service industry one of my forte’s, but it’s mentally exhausting sometimes and for what I end up taking home in tips most days, it’s not equivalent to the actual work put in, what with prep and cleaning and all that.  I think I’m about over it.  I’m ready for something new.  I think there comes a point in every 20-something’s life where they realize – mid-routine – that they’re meant for something more than where they’re currently at.  I’ve had lots of conversations about this with my husband and with friends and a few family members and I found out that I like a lot of stuff. 

I like bartending, I like baking, I like video editing, I like organizing, I like talking, I like story telling.  From there I narrowed my likes down to loves and my loves down to what I consider my core passion – voice acting.  Ads, cartoon characters, hold music, answering machines, anything.  My ideatic motivation runs amok with plans of building a professional portfolio.  Seeking out gigs and trying out for projects to give me credibility so that one day – when I audition to narrate an audio book – I’ll be taken seriously and not overlooked in the oversaturated pool of other first time hopefuls.  Audiobook narration is my end game.  Over the years I’ve gotten enough comments and sincere compliments on how conversational and versatile my voice is that it finally made me realize I’ve got a legitimate talent and I’ve not been taking full advantage of it.  Why?  I’ve asked myself that many times.  The only answer that I can come up with – that actually depresses me to type out to you all – is that I’m lazy.  Admitting that is the worst, because I can’t stand people who sit around and bitch about how much their life sucks and then take no actual steps to improve their situation.  If you’re unhappy with something deal with it, drop it or do something about it.  Right?

For example, when the night bartender comes on to take over, I clock out and head to job number two – Hosting the weekday evening show at a local radio station.  Now when I moved here two and a half years ago, I was pissed off that I had to quit my full time radio gig in Nebraska and was bound and determined to get my foot in the door at one of the stations here.  I sent my resume, air check, and out-of-my-control-relocation sob story to every station Google results came up with.  Every.  Single.  One.  I was outrageously motivated.  Only one of the thirty-something stations got back to me and boom.  Worked my way from weekend fill in to recurring weekday cast member.  I was thrilled to be back in radio at a station with fantastic ratings and a professional, yet chill boss who treats his employees fairly and bears no large market ego whatsoever (a truly, rare find in the radio business). 

Now, if you’re thinking this sounds wildly contradictory to my present situation you’d be spot on, friend.  Here I am with an entire building full of working professionals from all different cities and market sizes and backgrounds with all kinds of ins and connections and strings waiting to be pulled an I’m off in the corner with my head down and my mouth shut carrying out the duties my job requires and then unplugging my headphones and heading out the door.  I literally walk into a two-story building brimming with networking opportunities and instead of taking advantage I shrug my shoulders and think, ‘Eh….’  Why?  Why?  Why on earth would I squander that opportunity daily?  Networking is probably one of the most coveted and sought after valuable in the world of young professionals.  It gets laid at my feet daily and I just step over it and keep walking.  I’m comfortable.  I’m complacent.  I’ve got no fire lit under my ass to go out and get what I truly want.  Isn’t that sad?

In the past year, I’ve slowly slipped into that person I can’t stand.  I’ve tried rationalizing with myself that I’m just patient or happy where I am, but I’m not.  I’m lazy and searching for something more – Two things that don’t go hand in hand.  A couple of weeks ago I had to force myself to update my resume.  A friend essentially nagged me into getting a LinkedIn account.  I’ve been given email addresses of agents to contact to find auditions.  I’ve been given names of friends of friends to reach out to and instead I continue the same cattle trail routine that is my life and sit around in my free time and sigh and think, ‘Why is life so hard?’  I can’t roll my eyes hard enough at myself.  Something has to change.  It has to.  And it has to start from within and work it’s way out.  I don’t know if I need to start going to yoga classes or going to bed earlier or eating more salads or what, but it has to start somewhere.

So, I guess – in conclusion – I have no conclusion.  I have a statement:  I am a lazy 20-something who has worked her way deep into career complacency and needs very badly to dig herself out.  How to accomplish that?  Well.  I suppose we start with actually acting on all those lovely thoughts.  Get a demo put together, actually reach out to the connections I’ve been given, get myself an agent and get to auditioning.  Over time auditions will hopefully lead to recognition, recognition to interest, and interest to a reply email that goes something like, “We loved your audition for the latest, best selling novel!  When can you start recording?!”  However.  I’ve been saying all of this to myself for a while now.  All of the pieces are there – right in front of me.  All I need to do is start putting shit together.

All I really need to do is “do.”