dailymidlifecrisis-blog

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How to not suck at relationships

Let me just start by saying that I’ve had my fair share of shite relationships. I’ve been cheated on, I’ve cheated on someone, and I’ve been left completely blindsided by someone I thought I was in love with. But the best part about it all: the world keeps fluffin’ spinnin’. Life went on, and now I’m in probably the relationship I’ll be in for the rest of my life. After seeing the good, the bad, and the bottom of a few pints of ice cream, I figured I give my two cents on what I think can make or break relationships. 

TIP #1: YOUR S.O. CANT READ MINDS 

And if they can, then sign em up for xmen real quick. Cash in on the next xmen movie fow show. But if they can’t (like most people), then be real and communicate. I actually had this epiphany when I was playing charades with my boyfriend. I was trying to act out ‘creme fraiche’ but he just wasn’t getting it. And when time was up, I was fuming sitting there like “WHAT THE F!CK. ARE U SERIOUS. CREME FRAICHE. IT WAS CREME FRAICHE.” But then I realized that I was just whipping my hands in a circular motion, and pretending to stroke my luxurious french mustache. THE POINT IS: he could not read my mind. And even though I thought it was super obvious, it wasn’t for him. And that has carried through our relationship. But what makes our relationship strong is that when either of us wants something or is feeling a certain way, we don’t rely on non-verbal cues (aka charades). We’ve agreed upfront to just let each other know what’s up. 

TIP #2: CHALLENGE EACH OTHER 

And I don’t mean like to a duel (unless your into that ?).  Relationships are ~*so fun*~ in the first month or so, but then you get that panicky moment where the walls start to feel like they’re closing in, and all you can’t help but think that you never got the chance to run away to Europe to meet Paulo and fall in love as you sail off into the Mediterranean sunset. There comes a point when relationships start to feel stale. You’ve run out of ‘fun date ideas’ from your Pinterest board, and you start to question if you want to dedicate more time to this one person. I get it. The riskiness and draw of being single, out on the prowl, in the unknown is a challenge, and its a fun challenge. But what’s even more fun, is having someone challenge you to move towards your goals in life. Now I don’t mean in a drill sergeant way- it’s actually more of a nudge. My boyfriend and I get up together at 5:15am every morning to go workout (disgusting- I know), and if you had told me 2 years ago, I’d be doing that, I would’ve lol’d right in your precious face. He didn’t pull me out of bed in the morning, or call me a chunk every day; he simply listened to what I said were my fitness goals, and helped to encourage me by joining me at the ass crack of dawn to get our sweat on. And I challenge him by helping nudge him in the right direction when he wants to watch Anthony Bourdain stuff his face instead of studying for his Series 7 test. We recognize each others goals, and we encourage each other to move towards success. A relationship can never get stale if you both feel like you are constantly becoming better because of it. 

TIP #3: BE YOU. ALL OF YOU. 

The best part about relationships, is that inevitably the other person WILL find out that you’re a huge crazy weirdo. You can either pretend not to be that person, wait until they find out, and hope that they stay ORRRRR you can do you, and throw those birds up if they don’t like it. Being someone you’re not is exhausting for you, and unfair for the other person involved. My flaw: I burp like a 200 pound adult male who just chugged 5 beers, about 6-7 times a day. And I enjoy my title as burp queen. I think its hilarious. Now this isn’t to say that during my first two dates with my boyfriend I was burping left and right between courses. Nay. That would be unlady like.  But by our 5th date I burped an earth rattling burp, and I just looked at him and said “squeeze me” and threw my head back for a long hearty chuckle. To be honest, being fully comfortable with yourself, helps the other person to open up too. Luckily for me, he turned out to be just as weird, and together, we are two little psychos. If he wasn’t as weird, then it probably wouldn’t have worked out. But at least we would have known at date 5 instead of year 5. 

TIP #4: GET WHAT YOU DESERVE 

For those people saying “I don’t deserve love”, I say, “oh Eeyore, yes you do”. But aint no’body gunna come walking over to you sulking in the corner to convince you. Find your worth. No one else can do it for you. The most important relationship you’ll ever be in, is with your self. All those Birthdays you’ve had? Just you saying “Happy Anniversary, me”. IMHO, you come first in a relationship. Doesn’t mean you love the other person any less. It just means that you have your own goals, aspirations, and values that should always come first. If that person compliments them, that’s awesome. But if they don’t, then reevaluate. I met my boyfriend right before I went to live in Milan. I knew I pictured a future with him, but I also knew that I wanted some dank pasta and wine in Italy (and maybe something about an internship of my dreams... but I digress..). SO I went to Italy, and we broke up, and I cried my way through a 1 euro bottle of wine. But when I came back, and he wanted to be friends-with-benefits, I said “Boi nah, you either date me or you don’t get me”. And we’ve been together for 3+ years. If he had said that 2 years earlier, when I had mad low self esteem and a very poor image of myself, I probably would have said “sure”. Don’t let someone else dictate who you are. Know what you want, what your values are, and go out there and find someone who will respect that. 

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Head in the Clouds

The children poured out of the classroom, some barely able to contain their excitement, screeching in delight as the big red doors opened out to the playground. After the hoard had dispersed, only one lone child remained in the classroom. He looked to be no older than 6, with dusty brown hair and wild curls covering his head that appeared to be twice the size of his frail body. He calmly filed out of the classroom, and surveyed the scene before him, as he struggled to keep the red door open using only his body weight. Recess was his favorite time of the day.

He spotted a small patch in the corner of the playground, away from the slides, away from the baseball field, and most importantly, away from the swingset. He had learned the hard way that the swingers would not stop their momentum for mere passerbys. He walked over to the small patch, and scanned the ground, dusting off an area to lay.

He laid down, and looked up at the sky, following the puffy clouds overhead. He lay there entranced by his own imagination of mystical cloud creatures dancing and dueling in the skies above.

As he watched the fluffy scenes unfold before him and disappear onto the horizon, he wondered what it would be like to go ‘outside’. He recalled the time when he had snuck into his parents room, and uncovered books that depicted scenes of adventure and places that surpassed that of his imagination. People diving off of cliffs into crystal clear blue waters, with tiny creatures lurking about. People on top of mountains, without any masks or protective gear, gliding on top of a substance that most closely resembled the clouds that passed above his head. “They had on maybe only 3 more layers of cloth than I”, he thought as he lay in that small patch in the corner of the playground. “That was the ‘old Earth’”, his parents told him when he asked them if he could ever have such great adventures as the people he saw in the books.

The sound of the bell ringing jolted him out of his deep thought. The children climbed down from the monkey bars, soared off of the swingset, and squeezed in one last slide before they congregated in front of the big red door in neat single file lines.

He slowly sat up, and walked over to the edge of the playground. He put his small hand up to the protective dome that encased the area, and closed his eyes. He imagined himself being transported through the wall, and out into the unknown. He’d look back to see the rest of the children cheering him on as his legs propelled him across the field and into a world of great adventure.

He felt a tap on his shoulder, and gazed up to see one of the teachers standing beside him. “Time to go inside, honey”.

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Sweet, Sweet, Failure.

People always make failure sound glamorous. You fail, but through your failure you rise up like a phoenix from your ashes, to defeat all odds. You find inspiration, purpose, dedication, and the power to succeed. But no one really talks about how frustrating, annoying, demoralizing, and exasperating failure really is. Failure isn’t fun. And for most people, failure leads to more failure. The only reason important people are telling us to go out and fail in order to be great, is because they became great. And statistically speaking, great people have had to fail at some point in their lives. Failure isn’t glamorous, or just another buzzword that gets thrown around in the startup world. Failure sucks.

No one ever clarifies how much failure you need to go through before you’re great. Are we counting the time we ran out of staples? Or the time we tried to give a presentation to interns and forgot to breathe? Or are we talking about an over budget project we can’t complete and the client wants to kill us kind of failure? People talk about failure, but no one give us an accurate representation of what it really is because it always varies. You could say ‘Failure is in the eye of the beholder’.

The important people who talk about failure are in, what I like to call, ‘bliss mode’. They’ve already passed their state of failure, and now they are in their state of success. They can’t fully acknowledge the negative aspects of their failure because they look back at the memory fondly, like one looks back at the first time they learned to ride a bike. They don’t think “Ah, I remember how much it hurt to hit that pavement, my skin scraping against the sharp rocks, and the blood coming from my elbows”. They think back and remember how it felt to ride the bike, and how they had fallen a few times before being successful, but the excruciating pain of each and every one of those falls isn’t recalled.

For someone in their current ‘failure state’, I’d like to acknowledge for all of those out there feeling the same way, that failure fucking blows. It sucks to be failing. There are days where I want to just quit everything, and go live in the mountains of New Hampshire with 5 cats and a pet raccoon named Larry. I’ve been failing for so long, that it doesn’t ever feel like I will be successful. And it hurts my self-esteem. It hurts my motivation. And it most definitely is not good for my figure.

Important people always talk about how glamorous failure is, but they never talk about how it feels like someone lit a fire under your ass and you don’t have the means to move from your seat. You know you want to move, you know you have to move, but you can’t figure out how. So you sit with your ass on fire. Waiting for the day when you figure out how to get out of that damn seat. I have respect for those that got out of the seat, but please, let’s all agree to acknowledge how much of a pain in the ass it was to get there.

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TIPs for my Sis, the college Freshman:

TIP 1: The Freshman 15 is REAL

But good part is, it’s pretty easy to avoid. The biggest enemy in the fight against freshman 15 is alcohol calories and drunchies. And on top of that, usually the go-to for freshman hangouts are “Omg lets go to chipotle”. Now, you’ll meet those inhuman-like weirdos that can eat a pint of ice cream every night and still have the body of a goddess. But as long as you’re going to the gym and eating healthy- don’t stress about it. Have fun and just be conscious of what’s best for you.

TIP 2: Don’t go crazy with the clubs (no- not the clubz)!

I signed up for approximately 15 clubs during the club fair, and then actually went to about 2 of them. Think about how much time you’re going to have, and what you’re going to actually want to devote your extra time to. Your hommie might be like ‘Oh man, I love knitting.. bro lets join the knitting club’, but sometimes it’s more about finding clubs that you like and finding different people outside your friend network that share something in common with you..rather than joining something just because friends are doing it.

TIP 3: GO TO CLASSSS

Ok- fine- maybe there were a few times I didn’t go to class because I was too ‘busy’ binge watching Family Guy… but it was rare. You literally have  3 or 4 classes a day- and unless you have a dingus professor, it usually helps a lot to go to class and actually learn stuff. That’s what you’re there for.

TIP 4: Go to office hours- get to know your professors

This one, I’d save for classes that you really like or classes that correlate to what you want to do after school. Professors are usually pretty nice, and welcoming to people wanting to spend time with them outside of class (I’ve only had one old raisin professor who was a giant d!ck and was *too busy for students*). They can offer great connections to opportunities outside of class, and even can help boost your grades in class (I kid you not one of my profs definitely graded my tests easier after I met with him in office hours).

TIP 5: Have fun- but be cautious

90% of the people you meet at school will be dope people like you, but then there’s going to be 10% of people that are selfish aholes (girls and guys). Be aware of your surroundings, and always make sure to have at least 1 hommie by your side. This may seem like a pretty basic tip-- but if you ever find yourself in a situation you don’t like, just leave. And the other side, watch out for your hommies as well. If you see your hommie way too drunk trying to leave with someone, don’t be afraid to be the person that gets in the way and says ‘nope- not today Satan’.

TIP 6: Don’t feel pressured to join a sorority

They are expensive af-- not just in the fees you have to pay, but in the stupid ass outfits they make you wear.

If you want to join one- then, as Shia Labeouf says, just do it. But if you don’t that’s ok too. I was in one for a while, and quit after about 4 months because of things I already knew I didn’t like about sororities. Did i make a few more friends? Yeah. Was it worth the money and time I spent doing things I didn’t want to do? Maybe. Who knows.

TIP 7: Frat boys are a different creature-- understand them and be wary

Ah frat boys. Such strange creatures. It may be the constant drinking that blurs their sense of judgement and morals, or the weird manly man group mentality. Either way they are definitely to be cautious of. Deep down,i think most frat boys are good people. But be aware of the fact that their judgement is usually clouded by a strange frat culture that usually doesn’t highlight the best treatment of women or people in general. This isn’t to say there aren’t diamonds in the rough- but be wary of these strange beings.

TIP 8: Partayyy and have fun- but watch yo self

No one wants to be that person that gets transported (aka taken to the hospital for drinking too much) but everyone wants to have fun. Know your limits, and especially the first week when you are just meeting people be cautious. The first couple nights I went out in college, I only had about 4 drinks a night in total,  because you’re in a new place, with new people, so you want to have your wits about ya. But also have fun! And if you feel pressured to drink more because of awkward newness- just remember that being absolutely wasted runnin around like a fool creates 10x more awkwardness the next day.

TIP 9: CREATE THE DANG ROOMMATE AGREEMENT

Your CF or RA or dorm manager will usually give you a form for you and your roommates to complete. This is where you all fill out expectations for each other and rules that you want to abide by while you live together. Fill it out ASAP, so you have everything upfront and in writing before any issues arise.

TIP 10: Have a dope time

College is so much fun, everyone looks back (especially dad) and thinks, “ah those were the best 4 years of my life and they went by so fast”, and they do. But just because they are the best 4 years, doesn’t mean they are going to be the best times all the time. Don’t feel weird if you’re not having the best time sometimes, whether it’s because you’re missing home, or you’re tired and want to stay in one night and just watch movies. Don’t feel this sense of ‘these are the best times of my life i have to have fun all the time’ looming over you. Just do you- and it will be awesome.

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When I haven’t gone to the gym in a while..

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When I spend too much $ on something I know I shouldn’t have...

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San Francisco

Its grey. Not the dark grey of a wolf’s coat, but a subtle grey. One that makes you still squint your eyes when you break out into the daylight. One that makes you not really sure what to wear. “Should I expect rain? Maybe it’ll clear up. Does it look windy?”

No, its just grey. Not the kind of grey that requires a large jacket, but something to keep you warm. Preferably one that has pockets, to stuff your hands in as you try to maneuver past the tiny old ladies that sway back and forth, taking up the entirety of the sidewalk despite their small frame. Preferably one that is a little dirty, so it's ok that you graze the trash can as you try to squeeze by.

Its grey every day. “No winter”. That’s why I moved out here. Just grey every day.  

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Fuel or Foe?

BEFORE: “I’m so full”, I said, as I stuffed another spoonful of clam chowder into my mouth. After gulping down the last of my clam chowder, I waddled out of the restaurant feeling shame and disappointment in the lack of willpower I had to cease eating once I knew I was full.

Quite possibly the longest relationship you’ll have in your lifetime is your relationship with food. For some when they hear the word ‘food’ they think ‘fuel’, ‘energy’, ‘nourishment’. And for others they think ‘vice’, ‘addiction’, ‘fat’.  The difference lies in where their relationship stands with food.

I’ve learned to look at my relationship with food, as I would look at any sort of relationship. There are always challenges, but maintaining a good relationship has its rewards. To manage my relationship with food, I’ve come up with 3 main tips. Although not the kind of relationship tips suited for the cover of Cosmo, these 3 tips were extremely helpful as I began to look at food in a different light.

Tip 1. Listen and understand each other

By this, I don’t mean start talking to your food. Unless you are ok with everyone thinking you are nuts in the grocery store. What I mean is understand what food your body is asking for and what food can provide you. The great interweb holds mass amounts of information on healthy recipes (I even have a few of my favorites here).

Another huge part of understanding your food might come as a shock... but *dramatic pause*…read the label. The food industry continues to get away with adding disgusting chemicals into your food because they assume you won’t read or do the research. And most people don’t. And if you think the FDA is protecting you from harmful additives- as your friend- I have to tell you that you are being extremely naive. Ignorance is bliss- until you find yourself with stomach ulcers and couldn’t figure out why no one told you BHA in your favorite brand of crackers was linked to causing cancer.

Tip 2. Let go of grudges, or past mishaps

You ate too much last night? That’s ok. Forgive yourself. Forgive food for being so delicious. And move on. Too many times have I found myself trying to do a ‘juice cleanse’ to counteract a major binge from the night before. It doesn’t work like that. Your body still needs nourishment the day after a binge, so don’t punish yourself- forgive yourself. As Elsa would say “Let it go”.

Tip 3. Don’t be afraid to try new things

How good does cauliflower pizza sound? Awful. That’s how it sounds. But truth be told it actually tastes pretty good. The great thing about food is that there are endless possibilities. Are you a weirdo that likes to eat fish eggs? Make some sushi. If you are getting bored with a recipe, don’t suffer through it and say “oh woe is me- eating healthy is so hard”. Mix it up! Healthy does not equal bland. You make your diet as bland as you want to. The internet gods graced us with Pinterest- a world of healthy people who test recipes all day every day. Use it to your advantage.

AFTER: “I’m so full”, I said, as I stuffed another spoonful of clam chowder into my mouth. “But it’s my 23rd Birthday, I’m on vacation, and this is the best chowder I’ve had a in a while”, I said as raised another spoonful to my mouth. After gulping down the last of my clam chowder, I waddled out of the restaurant feeling content.