Fear Factor

I'm watching a potential love unfold. One person is clearly the aggressor; they are expressive with their feelings, affectionate and paying close attention to their date. The other is reticent and has a side-eye, their expression clearly conveying their suspicions that this is not fa true and cannot be trusted. My heart breaks for the reticent one, because as their friend, I only want happiness and unicorns for them. I cross my fingers and hope that they let their heart open just a little bit. But I know what's going on; I understand the reticence and the disbelief. It's like watching a scary movie on a dark and stormy night and the lights go off right as Freddie/Jason/Big Bird is about to slash someone's throat. 

It's our old friend fear.

Good old fear. It follows us everywhere. When we're moving to a new city, starting a new job, getting a different haircut...it's there. What if...what if I hate living there? What if everyone at my new job finds out that I don't know what I'm doing? What if my hair looks a hot mess? What if...? What we don't ask ourselves as often is what if I freaking love it here? What if they immediately get that I'm a genius at my new job and they'd be lost without me? What if I start a new hair cut trend (even if I got the picture off of Pinterest)? We seldom ask ourselves the questions about things turning out well. It's most often the questions that are tinged (or drenched) in fear.

I blame Kim Kardashian. She makes everything scary.

As we get older and more set in our ways, we especially become more fearful when it comes to matters of the heart. If at this point (this point being our thirties, especially after 33 and a half) we haven't found the love of our lives, we are more likely to run away from even contemplating the possibility of being open to considering letting our hearts jump back into the fray. So when we meet someone amazing, instead of being all excited, we do our very best to sabotage it. Although my heart has already been broken approximately 23,935 times, I'll be damned if I let it get broken a 23,936th time! That's just too many times. 

F*ck. That.

It makes total sense, in a totally illogical, nonsensical way. Even though most of us are either overtly or surreptitiously looking for love, who really wants to go through the difficulty of changing their Facebook status from "single" to "it's complicated"? Then you'd have to explain in the comments section about why it's complicated and how y'all are working it out with a life coach and what you're doing on Tuesday. It's too much! And...can you really believe this person? Are they really not going to break your heart for the 23,936th time (too many times!)? You believed the last person and they totally broke your heart (for the 23,935th time); can you afford to be a sucker yet again?

I say yes! Well, maybe no. Or, yes on Tuesdays, but a no on Thursdays and a definite maybe on Fridays. 

I want to trust in love again some more, but as I get older, it's getting a little harder. I've seen and heard (and maybe done) some things that make me believe that this love thing is a trip. And despite what you've heard about therapists being emotionally well-rounded and able to communicate their feelings and express themselves clearly...well, okay, that's all true, but still, it doesn't make it less difficult to keep an open mind and an open heart. The struggle is real. And we're all a little jaded and baggage-full at this stage in our lives.

However, despite the struggle, I've decided that because it's a Saturday, I'm going to try my best to be a sucker again. I'm not going to lie; it's difficult to let go of the fear. I haven't released it all the way yet, but I'm willing to try. Hopefully, if my heart gets broken for a 23,936th time, I'll be able to survive it. 

Comfortably Miserable

Do you have that one friend/cousin/coworker that is perpetually miserable? The one where no matter how great things are for them, they manage to suck all the joy out of the experience? Yeah, you know who I'm talking about. They're probably sitting next to you, reading this over your shoulder right now, heavily sighing since they can't see it clearly because they need new glasses and they hate shopping for new glasses because they cost so much money for new frames and what if they don't pick the right pair for their face? Your conversations may go a little something like this:

You: You look great! Have you lost weight?
Whiney Complainerson: Yeah...but  none of my clothes fit and I have to buy a whole new wardrobe. Clothes cost money. 

You: Congrats on the promotion!
Whiney Complainerson: You know what they say - mo' money, mo' problems. Not to mention more responsibilities and higher expectations. I already feel stressed out just talking about it.

You: I like your new car!
Whiney Complainerson: It's great and all, but now I have a higher car note and the insurance has gone up.

You: I heard you have a new boo. Good for you!
Whiney Complainerson: Well, they have bad credit so I don't know how good they are for me really.

Clearly, they are a pleasure and a joy to be around. While some people are really good at finding the silver lining in most situations, this person only has eyes for the black clouds on the horizon, so much so, that they make sure they conjure some up when it's almost impossible to find any.

This may come as a shock but...once upon a time, I was this person. (If I am still like this, please send me a private message to screwyou@gmail.com.)

Here's my story: After finishing my master's degree, I decided to stay in New York (I hadn't hit quite all the bars yet and I still had some student loan money burning a hole in my pocket) and get a job. Although my intention was to work as a therapist, there were limited job opportunities available and I wound up taking a job as a program coordinator for an after-school program. It was a terrible job for me; it was nothing close to what I wanted to do and I quickly learned that working directly with behaviorally challenged children is not my forte. However, I kept a very positive attitude about it and complained minimally....so I believed. Color me shocked when my supervisor scoffed and actually said out loud "Ha! You?" when I shared with her my highly self-aware self-assessment of my nearly downright Pollyanna-ish demeanor in the work place!*

Was my misery that apparent? Why yes, yes it was.

Unbeknownst to me, I had become quite the Debbie Downer. Due to the sincere and deeply felt hateration for my job, nothing but complaints came out of my mouth. There was no way I could see out of my misery, making it incredibly difficult for me to put a positive spin on things. It was obvious that I had learned nothing in social work school (and an 80K refund was due to me immediately) about reframing and being strengths-based and blah, blah, blah, social work school mumbo jumbo words. Thankfully, I was eventually laid off and got to collect unemployment while I looked for and found the job I really wanted.

Despite the Disney ending to that story, my supervisor's words stuck with me. Since then, I've been working (sometimes hard, sometimes not so hard) at really trying to find the upside to some of the less happy-making situations in my life. As humans, it's very easy for us to focus on the negative. It takes a little more effort to find the positive side of things, especially when it seems like there are none. I challenge you (and myself) to start finding all the little silver linings in your life. Let's try:

Parking ticket? At least your $29,048 are going to improving the city.
Low on money? Now you'll have more time at home to work on those little projects you've been putting off! Or stop drinking....for real this time...no you really mean it because you can't afford to do it anymore.
Boss is a jerk? It could be worse...you could live next door to them or be related to them.

See? If we try hard enough, we can find an upside somehow. It takes practice and sometimes A LOT of creativity and imagination, but it is possible. It also makes life a little more pleasant when we focus on the brighter side of things. And if we can't find a brighter side, maybe that will motivate us to change our situation.



*Good thing we were on our way to happy hour because I could have been really offended by that and not having a drink to help me process those feelings could have made things awkward.

Poached Eggs

 

I ate poached eggs yesterday. The dish was a pork belly hash (mmmm, pork meat) with potatoes, onions and poached eggs. Although I hate to admit it, I'm that chick who wants everything on the side and can you please substitute this for that and hold the mayo on all of it (because reasons)? (We can talk all day about how if I'm paying for food, I should be able to have it the way I want, but that's another conversation at a different bar.) Yesterday, I left the dish as is. I did not ask if the eggs could be scrambled in organic butter or the potatoes to be gently salted with sea salt (preferably Mediterranean), with smoked ketchup (on the side, of course). The dish called for poached eggs and I ate it with poached eggs.

What does this mean? Do I now love my eggs to be runny?

Um, no. And ew. (I think scramble eggs would have been better. It would have also been better if the potatoes were cooked just a little bit longer - I ate them anyway. Minus the Mediterranean sea salt and smoked ketchup.) However, this small step was significant in that I am actively participating in trying to step out of my comfort zone. Lest you believe this a brand new phenomenon, you'd be wrong. Over the past few years, I've been gently encouraged (thanks Gastronami) to try other strange foods; I've tasted bone marrow, eaten sea urchin and became an avid lover of red wine by deciding to try something different. Now, I'm taking the next step - doing it by myself. It's easy to rely on others to push you, but to push yourself is the true challenge. Of course, this is not only about food; it's the other little things that we do all the time that keep us stagnant and cause us to plateau. I am making a commitment to not committing to the same old sh*t I've committed to for forever.

Could it be that I'm inspired by the new year? Am I making a resolution? Yikes.

Despite being resolution-averse, I do believe in the refresh button. It's a new year and why not try to incorporate some behaviors of the person I'm working on being? The trick is not to depend on it being January 1st (or Monday or the first of the month or the day after your Bar Mitzvah) to work on changing those behaviors or adapting  new ones. Every day when we wake up, it's a refresh button and we have the opportunity to do something completely different than the day before. So what are you going to do differently today?

I don't know that I'll always get poached eggs (and I'm going to refrain from ordering sea urchin again). But if the dish calls for it, I'm ordering it as is...unless it has dairy, gluten, non-organic butter, non-Mediterranean sea salt....dang, this is going to be quite the challenge!