Thursday, August 19, 2010

The friends you don't want to have.


Since I've had a nice vacation from school I've had plenty of time to peruse facebook. And I've realized...there are just some sorts of people you wish you weren't "friends with"...and that the genuis that is Mark Zuckerberg created the "hide" button for a reason....



Here are a few examples:


The Game Player:
   Farmville, Cafe Word...  I'm sure that these games are addicting. I'm also sure that you can opt NOT to have your every action broadcast on the news feed. I don't care if you need nails. Or chickens. Or if you are whipping me up some nice hot chocolate in your cafe. JUST STOP. You're going to get hidden from my newsfeed...and then you're going to cease to exist in my world at all- because if it isn't on facebook, it obviously isn't real. 


The Day Planner:
Look...we're "friends". While, in all fairness, it is a very loose definition of the term--- one thing I'm definitely not is your stalker. So I don't need to know your minute to minute plans for the day. How many errands you have, how many miles you plan to run, how much cheese you have to buy at the grocery store and when you are brushing your teeth- totally unnecessary information. Save yourself from carpel tunnel and stop constantly updating me from your blackberry or i-phone.


The "My kid will someday be an honor student at __________, once she eats these green beans for dinner and has a bath"
Listen, I love my kid and I whole-heartedly believe she is the most awesome person I know. However- I also believe that not everyone thinks she's quite as cool as I do. And I'm ok with that. Therefore- I don't feel the need to broadcast her every move for the world. And while she's pretty cool, her scope of interest and activities is fairly small, being that she's only a year old. Your kid is 4 months old? I can tell you exactly what they are doing. Crying...not sleeping when you want them to...pooping...and eating. You don't need to post about it...ALL the FREAKING time. (Providing an obnoxious amount of pictures is acceptable, however) And when posting about bodily functions? Imagine that your child may read this some day. Because I'm pretty sure if Grace had the vocabulary..she's ask me to not broadcast her bowel movements over the internet. Just sayin'. 


The Martha Stuart In-Training: 
Went to the gym. Made dinner. Cookies. Pasta salad for tomorrow's BBQ. Did 17 loads of laundry. Mowed the lawn. Taught their children spanish. Looked gorgeous for their husband. Solved world hunger. Posted at 7:18 am. CUT it OUT. You're making the rest of us look bad. 




The One Who was Absent A Lot in Middle School:
I'll admit-- I'm a stickler for grammar and spelling and I know that facebook is perhaps not the best place for me. And thanks to spell-check...virtually no one can spell by themselves anymore.  But when bored becomes board and angel becomes angle and you're constantly mixing up their and there and than and then-- it makes me CRAZY. These are generally the same people that add lots of extraneous vowels to their words ( "gooooiiiiiing tooooo wooooork aaaaall daaay is soooo laaameeee").  I mean...say that sentence out-loud like that. You sound ridiculous. They also type LiKe ThIs FoR eXtRa PiZaZz. I'm clearly not friends with you in real-life....so remind me again why you're polluting my newsfeed? 




The Eeyore:
Your car broke down. Your job sucks. You're sick, for the seventy-fifth million time. The song lyrics you just posted explain  how terrible your life is perfectly. Listen, I'm all for the occasional (if you ask Andrew and my Dad, they'll say I meant CONSTANT) whining & complaining. But if that's the only thing that's "on your mind" when you log-on-- LOG OUT. Go outside, soak up some sunshine, find something that will make you laugh. If all else fails...turn on Jersey Shore, Teen Mom or Hoarders- because it will either a) make you laugh hysterically or b) make you realize things aren't really all that bad. 


The Spoiler: 
The season finale of [enter the name of your favorite show here] just ended 32 seconds ago. This person races to their computer to tell the facebook universe how they felt about who the Bachelor chose, what Lost was actually all about or who died on Dexter. WE LIVE IN THE AGE OF  DVR & TIVO. I personally cannot stay up late enough for most prime-time television and rely on Hulu. Please don't ruin it for everybody else. Make your post a little cryptic. Or get creative. Or just don't say anything at all until a respectable amount of time has passed. Because while I really don't want to de-friend you...I will.


Moral of the story? I spend WAY too much of my precious free time on facebook.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Learning Curve...

In the time that I have spent with Grace on my mini-vacation from real life, I find myself constantly in awe of her & her growing skill set. I find myself staring at her often, transfixed as she determinedly toddles over to something she wants, or tries to put her father's shoes, twice the size of her entire body, onto her tiny feet.

I'm sure I have annoyed countless friends and relatives with my Oh my gosh did you just see how she tried to wipe off her own tray like she's seen me do a million times? I mean, she got soggy cheerios and bananas all over the floor I just washed but look at her! Wiping her own tray! She must be the smartest child in the entire universe! which tends to be followed on my part by overjoyed, bursting from the seams laughter or an explosion of tears.

Gracie girl is growing up. And everyday, she slips further and further away from being my baby. Her sense of independence is blossoming & she wants to do everything without my help. She pushes me away, tells me "no no no no" with a furious shake of her head. She gives high fives instead of sweet sloppy kisses. It is heart-breaking & awe-inspiring. I find myself constantly amazed by how smart she is, how much she understands. How her personality has erupted, often times catching me unaware with her stubborn nature (Andrew's) as well as her propensity for bursting into tears when anyone is disappointed in her (most definitely me).

But something struck me, recently, as I found my vision unexpectedly blurring at the edges & my cheeks feeling the splash of hot, fresh tears while I was watching Gracie push her "baby" in the stroller around the living room. Maybe the reason I find her growth so overwhelming is that it is a direct parallel of how I must now grow. And how unprepared I truly feel.

How will I teach her to sing at the top of her lungs but whisper in the library? How will I teach her to run with reckless abandon but take caution when crossing the street? How will I teach her to be kind on days when my patience is running thin? How to be open and accepting of all types of people but not talk to strangers? How to be bold and careful, thoughtful and carefree?

Infants...they mostly need you just to keep them alive. Toddlers? They need you to teach them HOW to LIVE.





There has never been a day when I have not been proud of you, I said to my daughter,
 though some days I'm louder about other stuff so it's easy to miss that.


Gracie girl, 
I promise to do my best
to keep you laughing
loving
and exploring. 
If you forgive me when I don't get it all the way right, I promise 
to always let you have extra whipped cream with your ice cream & to let you suck all the guacamole off my chips before I eat them (I'm not sure this promise will work when you're 15, but at the moment, that's one of the bigger sacrifices you ask of me).

I love you to the moon & back, 

Mama. 

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

I love(d) college....

On the last day of clinic, I decided to take one of my clients out for breakfast at The Bagelry. For those of you unfamiliar with the UNH campus, the walk from Hewitt Hall to The Bagelry is not a long one, maybe ten minutes at most. What I didn't anticipate however, was that not all people walk quite as quickly as I do- so this turned into a long, meandering, almost 35 minute walk.  I was left to contemplate the things as we slowly ( and I mean S L O W L Y) passed by them & before long, I felt memories flooding back to me of the years I spent at UNH. 


I never wanted to go to UNH. Ever.  Both of my best friends parents worked there and the one vow we made to each other? There would be NO UNH for us. 5 years later? We're still there together.  
The years I have spent there, the stupid choices, life-altering changes..all intertwined into that campus, and it almost seems if I listen hard enough, I can hear the whispers of my memories & history surrounding me. 


As we walked, I made mental notes. There is that building where I had that 9 am Friday morning Chemistry class sophomore year...boy was that a poor choice. Directly across the street, the coffee cart where I readily & frequently parted with my last few dollars to buy coffee to get me through said early morning chem class.  A little farther down, the social sciences building where I often found myself waiting for my roommate to get out of class, bleary eyed & exhausted. 


We walked by the dorm I lived in my freshman year. It was a forced triple, and Katie & I practically bullied our third roommate out. In our defense, she owned nun-chucks & was fully capable and willing to use them. She also often wore her headphones and pretended to be listening to music, but was really listening to every conversation we ever had. When she was gone, we started living a 24-7 sleepover. We'd stay up late, marveling over TLC specials  and promising not to let the other turn into the next 1/2 ton woman as we passed our custom trail-mix of cheez-its, m&m's and popcorn across the divide between our beds. We'd argue with our boyfriends, taking our cordless phone into the hallway "for privacy" and I still remember watching the red "in use" button on the stand flicker on and off as Katie hung up on her boyfriend repeatedly & I wished I had the guts to do the same. I remember sharing a box of wine with friends on a Wednesday and walking to Store 24 for snacks at 1 am, after pausing to make snow angels. I remember crying every Sunday night, at the beginning, because I missed home, 15 minutes away. And then crying, in May, because I would miss my "roomie". 


I walked by the spot where Andrew first called me from CT, after assuring me that we would probably never talk again and how my heart soared and my pulse raced and my cheeks flushed. 


The dorm we lived in sophomore year sits right on Main Street. This is the year of college I would live over again, for fun. This was the room where I laughed until I cried, and cried until Katie was able to make me laugh again. My heart was shattered, glue back together and crushed again. It was in this room I received the phone call that my Nana had died. This is the room where I earned the nickname "sky-diver" for my infamous tumble off the top bunk. This is the room where I sat up on the phone with Andrew for hours, until Katie threw something at me to shut me up. It was also the room where he told me he had found someone else. But my phone continued to ring. 
I had more fun, made more mistakes, and laughed harder than you could ever imagine. I grew into my own skin...I stopped worrying so much.  I loved life & hated it all in the same breath. 






Across from that dorm, separated by charming little courtyard, was a fancy new dorm, that is not so fancy or new anymore. I stormed through this building when a certain friend of ours disappeared with the claim he was going to walk home to Stratham, knocking on every door that bared the name of the only other friend he had on campus. This is also the dorm where I took Andrew to one of the only UNH parties he went to. He attempted to threaten a guy twice his size over a game of beirut  and the proceeded to lock himself in the bathroom for hours. 


Oh Main Street. There is D-HOP, which used to sell dollar slices of pizza and the drunk crowd that gathered Thursday through Saturday night was beyond entertaining. We crossed Main Street to get to the apartment we used to hang out at and I'm sure if I entered that building today I would be disgusted by it, as well as flooded with mixture of embarrassing and hilarious memories. I can still recall the smell of the hallway and the stairwell, and to this day, that smell is the embodiment of my college experience. 


There is a tangle of academic buildings on the way back to Hewitt & I've experienced all of these as well. I've spent a lot of time talking about the fun things I did while at UNH, but I also worked hard too. I value my education, love going to school (pretty sure I'd be a perpetual student if  I could get away with it) and feel blessed that I made the choice of going to a school that I will not be in debt from for the rest of my natural born life. But the magical thing about college? All of it makes you grow. Forces you to challenge yourself. The classes. The friends.  The papers. The roommates. The exams. The parties. 


As we approached Hewitt again, after our breakfast, I glanced in the direction of my apartment complex where I spent my junior year. Living with 5 other girls was probably the craziest decision I have ever made, but when we weren't at each other's throats-- we were having a ball. We were a true family, and still are. Some days we couldn't stand each other, we gossiped, fought and screamed- but at the end of the day, it was all about love. When my world falls apart, when life knocks me down a few pegs? These are the girls whose phone numbers my fingers automatically find. 







College has undoubtedly helped to define me. I am certainly no longer the carefree girl that I was for the majority of the time I roamed those streets. I can't help but feel a level of nostalgia for those years, for the growing up I had to do so fast, for the things I left behind. I know when I graduate (fingers crossed) next summer, there will be tears. Tears of joy, for surviving. Of pride, for succeeding. And a few, of sadness,  for the girl I will let go of & leave behind. 




But it only takes a moment to remember, all I have gained. And I am able to laugh at the silly girl that I was & marvel at the silliest girl that I now have. 








and I wouldn't change a single thing.
 I do it all again, exactly the way I have.