balance

when i was growing up, i was constantly walking into things or, even worse, people. i would be lost in my own thoughts, absent-midedly pondering how it was that radios actually worked or if there were little men in the traffic lights who changed the colors from red to green. then, THWAP--there is a tree branch or BAM--into the back of my mom's legs. i was that cat you who is always under your feet when you needed to get somewhere quickly. more than once, my mom would sigh and say, in only the way that single mother carrying four bags of groceries who was just hit from behind by her daughter walking into her could say, "you are not the only person in this world!"

but, like the cat under your feet that you always let back on your lap, a minute later my mom would be listening to my latest revelation on the fact that there had to be some reason radios worked other than magic, or the fact that it was definitely little men in the traffic lights who changed the colors. all was forgiven because there was nothing malicious about my oblivion.

as i have grown up, i've gone to the other side of the spectrum. one of my friends once said that i would rather make myself uncomfortable than knowingly impose that on someone else. the other day a woman next to me on the train was talking loudly on her cell phone. i was more worried that she would think that i was annoyed at her than i was actually annoyed at her.

i imagine the best way to solve this dilemma is to find some sort of balance. of course i should never be so into myself that i tune out the rest of the world. that could be potentially unsafe, and just not something i would want to do. what if everyone was so self-absorbed that no one cared about what was going on in haiti? at the same time, though, i have to make myself a priority at some point.

unknowingly, starting this blog was a major step to finding that balance. it's here that i can get lost in my own head without accidentally walking into a moving car. maybe being in my twenties isn't really about finding myself, but figuring out how to be myself. it's about figuring out how to balance the different parts of my personality. maybe it's about knowing that there are other people in the world, but also knowing when to ignore them all. or maybe that's not what my twenties are about. maybe that is what life is about.

civil rights

when i was in elementary school, i asked my mom what she remembered from the civil rights movement. i know there was some sort of school assignment involved--i didn't just come up with this topic of conversation myself--but the details of exactly why this conversation happened are in the blurred area of the fish eye lens through which i tend to focus on memories. the focused part of my memories are usually dominated by my emotions toward the situation, with a few key details thrown in there.

the details i remember are of what my mom was telling me she remembered. she lived in the south in the 1950s. one day, she went to a water fountain to get a drink. i don't remember where she was or why she was there. there were two water fountains. one said white and the other said colored. she drank out of the colored water fountain because she thought that colored water was going to come out of it. needless to say, she was a bit disappointed when it was just regular water.

at the time she was telling me this, i was probably about as old as she was in her memory. i remember being dumbfounded by her innocence. (perhaps i wouldn't have used those words at the time, i might have described it best as "whoa.") my mom, who didn't seem to be ancient in years, had a point in her life where she didn't know what segregation was and didn't understand why there were two different water fountains. there was a time in her life when the word "colored" did not have the stigma associated with it today. there was a time in her life where she was expected to use a different water fountain that black people.

at the time, i also began to form small sense of awareness about my mother as a person. there was so much that i did not know about her life. of course i knew she had a life before having children, but at that moment i started to understand just what that meant. having a life means she was living, and living means that she had many moments and experiences that had nothing to do with me as a child.

in college, i developed an affinity for studying recent history. i took about 6 classes that covered america in 1900, many of which specialized in 1968 to the present. i wonder if my interest in the recent history might have stemmed from this conversation with my mom. the history of the '60s seems far more personal to me because of how it could shape one little girl's life.

for me, martin luther king, jr. day is not necessarily about the man. he was a great man, an inspiring man, and a man who died because of that. but i was not shaped by him. i was shaped by the people he affected--the people whose lives he changed. the holiday is not really to honor the man, but rather the movement that he represented. it's to honor a movement that completely changed the the social structure of my mom's life. it's about the fact that i have only ever known water fountains that anyone can use.

resolutions

at the beginning of the month i joined a gym. the fact that the beginning of the month was the beginning of january, and in turn, the beginning of the new year, had little to do with my decision. the gym, being the gym of my alma mater, offers discounted membership to alumni. in order to receive a greater discount, you need to join for either six months or a year. in order to join for six months or a year, you have to join in one of two specific time periods. one of those is january.

as i began telling people about my new membership, i was constantly asked if the reason i joined was because of a new year's resolution. i would calmly explain that no, in fact, i joined in january because i wanted the discounted rate and to be able to exercise during the winter. as more and more people began to question my motives, i got more and more defensive. IT'S NOT A RESOLUTION, i wanted to shout at anyone who would listen. but no one seemed to care.

so, to make myself feel better, i started thinking of all the reasons why resolutions are silly. first and foremost, there is the stigma. i felt this even though i didn't have a resolution. everyone asked me what my resolution was. then they skeptically asked me if i was really going to stick to it. it wasn't even a resolution and the whole world seemed to think i was going to fail already.

next, i thought, who needs new year's anyways? if i wanted to make a change in my life, i could do it anytime during the year. the change of the calendar was a silly reason to think about what in my life needed sweeping change.

then, i continued, there is the fear. what if my life does need sweeping change? and what if i actually fail at it? what if people remember this was my resolution and ask me about it? making a resolution usually means broadcasting it to the world. if i don't make a resolution, i don't have to tell anyone, so no one will know if i succeed or not.

and finally, i surmised, there is the whole theory of it. making a resolution for the year means that i am not happy with something in my life. by focusing on the negative, i am just reinforcing what is wrong with my life instead of appreciating what is good. then if, and when, i do fail at the resolution, it will not only make me realize that there is one thing that i want to change about my life, but i will feel even worse because i can't even change it!

so i had myself convinced. resolutions were not for me. i want to be happy, so that means keeping any hint of a resolution to myself. but something about that conclusion just didn't sit right with me, because when it comes down to it a resolution is no more than a goal. am i really saying that having goals is bad? do i really believe that i am destined to fail at my goals? is it really so bad to be held accountable for that which i strive to accomplish?

i realize now it is not so much that resolutions are wrong, it is that my attitude toward them is wrong. a successful resolution-ist should be able to see goals not as something that means life now is bad, but rather that life in the future could be different. not drastically different, just different enough to put a new spin on next year's existence. resolutions are goals and goals lead to change. so in fact, i do have a resolution this year. i want to accept enough change to be able to create some goals so that next year i can proudly share my resolution to anyone who asks.

cards

as the holiday season built up through december, i found myself experiencing many obvious firsts. i got my own first christmas tree. i decorated our apartment for christmas for the first time. it wasn't until a week before christmas that i realized one of the most telling firsts, though. i was getting christmas cards. from my friends.

when i was growing up, there was a noticable increase in the mail my mom recieved around christmas. cards started to arrive in the middle of december and she would hang them around the house. there were a fair amount of cards where i knew the sender. the friends she saw every week sent her a note, as well as the family we were going to see for a christmas celebration. it seemed the majority of the cards came from the friends she had known for most of her life.

i had met or heard of some of these people, but there were plenty i had never known of other than christmas card. these cards would have letters or pictures detailing the latest in their lives. as a teenager, i couldn't quite understand these relationships because i couldn't relate to the kind of friendship that meant getting a christmas card once a year. yet seeing those cards was a part of one of those standard stages of coming of age -- realizing my parents had lives before children.

and now, getting my own christmas cards from my own friends who i see once or twice a year seems to be another step in my coming of age. while i can't start to imagine what it is like to be 40 years old and catch up with a friend i had in my twenties, i understand that the friends i have now have been incedibly important to me and even if it is just a card once a year, i still want to hear from them.

as i read a card from one of my friends, it dawned on me the gravity of having christmas card friends. not only does it mean that i will keep in touch with these people via the christmas card for a long time, it means that in 20 years i will be updating these people on my life. what will my christmas cards in 20 years even say?

respect

this weekend, i went to a minor league hockey game in portland with my dad. i am actually a big hockey fan--especially college and minor league, so i was excited to be at the game. as often happens, though, i became distracted by watching a few different groups of people around me.

first, i focused on a group of about seven twenty-something kids we were sharing the row of seats with. most people attending the game were with family, so these people immediately stuck out. then, they started to get up about every ten minutes in pairs and leave to go to the concourse, always going past my dad and me on their way out. often times, they would come back with beers. the other times i imagine the left to relieve themselves from all of that beer.

the other group of people that caught my eye was in the section next to us. when i first noticed them, there were about six kids and one dad to watch them all. as the game went on, it seemed like more kids showed up and the parents took turns watching the kids, who all wanted to sit together close to the ice, while the off-duty parents sat a bit higher up. i see groups like this all the time at BU games. I figure the majority of the kids are on a hockey team together, perhaps one or two are friends or little brothers who have tagged along for the ride. the parents know each other from the kids games. one or two are probably the coaches who think seeing a professional hockey team will be great for their team.

as the hockey game was winding down, i realized that these two groups i had been watching had a very similar situation happen to them, and each had dealt with it very differently. one of the girls in the same row as us accidentally spilled her beer. i didn't get on any of our things, but it was all over the floor, sending an odor of beer to waft around us. her reaction? get another beer.

a few minutes later, i saw one of the young kids in the section next to us spill his soda. when i checked in on him later, he was cleaning up the mess with some napkins. there wasn't much time left in the game, but i did see that he never did get a new soda. unlike the girl who spilled her beer next to us, the kid had to take responsibility for what he did, and deal with the consequences.

while the two (soda kid and beer girl) were drinking different liquids, i think the main difference in their reaction to the situation is the presence of the authority figure. soda kid had to answer to his parents (or whatever adults were watching him). he still believed that adults could punish him and enforce certain rules. beer girl didn't have that--and not just because she was not at the game with her parents. as a twenty-something, your parents can't control you anymore. they can give you advice, but they can't tell you what you should and shouldn't do. they have to hope that you will choose to clean up messes on your own, even when there is no one there to tell you to.

i can't tell you how many times people have told me that my twenties are the time when i will find myself and discover who i truly am. they say it is a time to push limits and think about myself. they say that being a teenager is when you defy authority. that must mean that in your twenties you just ignore it. i do think being in your twenties is a good time to do some soul searching, i just hope i can take time to clean up my beer spills along the way.

friendship

today, i submitted a vacation form at work. i am taking a the first three days of christmas week off (the company gave us the other two) so that i can be home in maine for an entire week. this will be the first time in about six years that i will be spending that much time at home. in the past, i would choose to be away as long as i could. this year, i am choosing to be home for as long as i can.

growing up, i couldn't wait to move away. i had fun in middle school and high school, but i never felt quite like i belonged. i was taller than everyone else, so i always had to slouch to hear people. i could never find pants that were long enough. i once wore and eeyore sweatshirt everyday for a week.

college came like a breath of fresh air. the independence of city living combined with the largeness of the school gave me more confidence than ever. i was able to live on my own and find a group of friends who were totally fun and enjoyed my awkwardness. on top of that, there was none of the pressures of high school. the size of boston university meant that there had to be different groups of friends, but it also meant that my group of friends was really no more or less cool than other groups. they were just...different.

while my confidence soared in boston, when i would go back to maine i still saw myself as the person that i was there, not the person that i had become. since i much preferred the more confident version of myself, i chose to stay in boston more and more. i lost touch with most of the people i hung out with in high school and continued with my boston life.

a year or so ago, i started to realize that there were friends i had growing up that i was starting to miss. there were certain people who were friends with me when i was at my most awkward. all of a sudden, i wanted to share my adult life with them. instead of being afraid that seeing these people would revert me back into my shell, i wanted to hang out with them as myself five years later.

though the beauty of facebook, i was able to get back in touch with some of these people and i will be able to see some of them when i am at home for seven straight days. part of me regrets that i didn't keep in closer contact with some of my friends from maine, but the other part knows that i am happier today because i left. it was only by leaving that i am able to recognize and value the friendships that are still with me today.

one of my favorite quotes growing up was "we do not change as we grow older, we only become more truly ourselves." in constantly peeling away layers of my self, or adding them on depending on how i look at it, i am also able to get a truer sense of what, and who, in my life is important. when i go home for christmas, it will be utterly satisfying to show a truer version of myself to those who have always accepted me, no matter how short my pants were.

christmastime

christmastime is my favorite time of year. it isn't really christmas day that gets me excited, it is the spirit that comes with the weeks between thanksgiving and the new year. i am the person who gets excited for the first holiday display of the year; i am the person who listens to christmas music on thanksgiving day (and many times before that); i am the person who enjoys shopping on a saturday afternoon in december; and i am the person who is constantly lectured to by cynics preaching about how the season comes too early each year, how the spirit of the season has been lost in commercialization, and how it is really a holiday only for children.

this time of year fosters a spirit of collective giving. it doesn't matter why. we give for religious reasons, we give to make others happy, we give to get something in return, and we give because it's just what you do. we give presents to family and friends, we give money and donations to those who are less fortunate, and we give our time to local charities. it's at no other point in the year that we think so much about others and what they need or want. for a few weeks out of the year, it brings on a greater understanding of what we have in common, making differences seem less important.

even with all this giving to others, i am happier with myself than at any other time of year. i love finding the perfect gift for someone. no matter what the cost, a thoughtful gift is one of the best ways to show someone how much i appreciate them. in turn, it makes me appreciate the great people i have in my life. i like donating money to charity around the holidays so that others can have it a little easier. it also gives me time to reflect on how lucky i am in my life. all of the decorations, music and shopping remind me of these things. so when it comes down to it, christmastime just makes me happy.

that is why i love when christmas seems to come earlier and earlier every year. it's great getting into the spirit of giving a little earlier. in a way, it is silly that this coming together of human empathy only happens for a few weeks out of the year. every year, i think i should try to take the feeling of the season throughout the new year and every year it fades away. but then, a little bit sooner than the year before, holiday decorations go up again.

i also cannot understand those who say that the christmas spirit has become commercialized, because it is not something that is dictated by the major retailers of america. i control my own christmas spirit. i choose to enjoy finding gifts for people, i choose to enjoy hearing the salvation army bells on the street corners, and i choose to keep "yes, virginia there is a santa claus" as my favorite news article of all time. they say that chirstmas is for children when in reality, it is for those who never stopped believing in santa claus.