A Moment of Celebration.

Some of you might remember when I bought my car. I never gave it its own post, but I did mention that I’d bought my first car in this update about my life back in July of 2015. It was a big deal at the time. And really, it still is. I had to navigate that whole process by myself and it was scary and overwhelming and I made a mechanic tell me whether or not I should buy the car. He said I should- thanks for that advice, dude!

In the intervening two and a half years my car has served me well. I’ve driven it all over the country and it successfully brought me to work when I had to drive a half hour on the highway to get there. Now I mostly just drive within five miles of my house with it, but that’s cool too. It gets great gas mileage- my $25 tank fill up usually lasts me a week or more.

Anyway, the point of this post is to say that as of today

 I’ve got my car fully paid off! 

It is a good feeling. It took me two years and eight months (which is still two years and four months early, so that’s solid) but it is finally over.

Here's a picture of the receipt I got from my credit union after the teller transferred money onto my loan. (She circled the 0.00 balance for me haha)

I did all the math on my student loans earlier this month, too, and determined that I might be able to pay off all of my debt by the time I’m 29, which is kind of exciting. A few years ago I made a five year plan to pay off my car and my student loans and since I was 25 at the time, I figured I’d get it all paid off by 30 and was fairly excited about that. And now it seems I might actually get it done a year ahead of schedule.

Although things happen. The way I plan my life isn’t always how it goes and any number of things could derail my financial plans. Like if I want to move away to the California sunshine (which I DO), my living expenses will go up considerably. And then maybe I won’t be debt free by 29. But that’s okay. Also, I’m pretty sure that (barring long-term unemployment) I’ll definitely be able to pay it all off by the time I’m 30 even if I do move. And that’s a nice thought.

In other news, if you hadn’t already noticed: I am completely OCD about money and paying bills. COOL!

The District Sleeps Alone Tonight.

A couple months ago Facebook told me that one of my absolute favorite books from high school (and of all time, let's be real here) was being turned into a play and performed by high schoolers. Obviously I thought that was really cool, but assumed that it would be something that happened far away from my life in Maine and thus not really something I would get to see. But I looked it up anyway. The theatre where it was being produced was in Maryland. And wouldn’t you know, it was only like 15 minutes away from where my friend Natasha lives right now! AND she loved the book in high school too. So pretty much immediately after checking that Natasha would actually be around then, I bought us tickets to the show and planned a trip down to DC for last weekend.

It was really really fun. When I got in, we met up and got dinner in the city at a restaurant that I’d seen good things about in some list of DC restaurants published recently on the the internet called Royal. After dinner, we headed to a different bar and got boozy milkshakes with french fries because of course we did. They were delicious and completely worth it. By the time we got in for the night, it was nearly 12 and I was soooooo tired. Working all day and then flying take a lot out of a girl. Also, I’m getting old. So there’s that. 

On Saturday we had a nice little sleep in and late start to the day, which was fine with me because staying in bed after I wake up is my favorite part of weekends usually and also we still did a TON of stuff that day.

We started off making a trip to the Library of Congress. In case any of you somehow missed this, I love books and I really love libraries. But we didn’t really know what we were doing, and it turns out there are many different Library of Congress buildings and the one we went in wasn’t the primary building where people usually go and apparently has some sort of a viewing gallery and displays and stuff. No, instead we went to the manuscript archives reading room. Which is awesome, but there were about seven hoops we had to jump through starting with metal detectors and explaining to security guards what we were doing there.

We should have realized at that point that what we were trying to do, while technically open to the public, isn’t really something that random people off the streets try to do. For instance, the back of the reader cards we got says “The Reader Identification Card is issued only to researchers who plan to use the Library’s reading rooms and collections. Note: Additional entry criteria may be in force in various reading rooms.” Yeah. We should probably have just given up. But we didn’t! Instead we submitted like six forms (both electronic and handwritten) got our photos taken, and were issued photo-ID reader cards that are valid for two years! Then we had to lock our purses in a locker, get a 20 minute spiel on how the reading room functions, and write out a request to view documents. And finally, after interacting with 6 people, filling out approximately four forms, and showing ID at least three times, we went to a table and waited for them to bring us the documents we requested. Which were original Emily Dickinson poems. We literally only chose that because she is the first American that I thought of who might have some documents in the Library of Congress. And there were! Though they only had six items, which I gathered was a very small file for what they usually bring out. But again, we weren’t really researching anything so we didn’t care. It was seriously so cool to be holding pieces of paper that Emily Dickinson composed a poem on! Granted, we didn’t take them out of the protective plastic, but it was seriously mind blowing all the same. 

After that whole ordeal, we made our way toward the National Portrait Gallery. But on the way, we were passing the Botanic Garden, so we decided to stop in there and warm up our freezing bodies amid the tropical flowers. It was lovely. 

In the National Portrait Gallery we viewed the new Obama portraits- Barack’s is way more beautiful in real life than pictures do justice to. Michelle’s was kind of disappointing in real life. But I guess she hasn’t been the president. Yet. So there’s that. We also stopped next to a portrait of the ladies of the Supreme Court and I posed for this picture next to the Notorious RBG. (That’s Ruth Bader Ginsburg, if you’ve been living under a rock.)

Next we made our way to one of the restaurants I’d put on my list of places to check out and got fancy drinks at the bar. This was mid-afternoon on St. Patrick’s day and despite it not being even remotely an Irish restaurant, we made semi-friends with some nice drunk girls who were leaving a table and welcomed us to take their spots. Nice drunk girls are so nice.

After that we made our way back to Bethesda for dinner at Jaleo (yet another restaurant I’d put on my list- yes, within 24 hours we made it to three of the six I’d found that seemed interesting. Pretty impressive, I’d say!) before going to see the play.

While it wasn’t exactly the same as the book, the Sloppy First play was pretty good overall. Interestingly, there were only four male characters and only one of the four had any real substance at all. One of the guys (who has a pretty significant role in the books) only says “Balls!” the whole play. Which was...interesting. I think in the transformation from book to stage and also in the shift of the 17 years between when the book was published and when the play staged, the author/playwright tried to find a balance of culture. While the main character was an edgy and assertive teenaged girl when the book was published in 2001, much of the judgement she passes on the other girl characters isn’t really kosher in 2018 amidst the big push for gender neutrality and equal rights etc. It is my theory that to balance out some of the girl on girl shaming that happens, the author removed any guy on girl shaming by making all but one of the guy characters basically just props. The play was extremely female driven. Anyway, you all maybe don’t care that much about the transition of my favorite book onto the stage, so I guess I’ll just say it was good and I’m glad I got to see it and move on.

After the play was over, I took out the copy of the book I brought and waited near the author for her to finish talking to some other people so I could have her sign it. Because of course I did. While I was waiting, a woman noticed me holding it and asked if I wanted to get it signed and I said “Yeah!” but attempted to be non-aggressive about it because I wasn’t in a hurry and didn’t need to interrupt. But the woman interrupted for me and told the author, Megan McCafferty, that I was waiting for her to sign my book. Megan was like, “Yep, okay!” and I was kinda like “Eeek, no rush!” But it turned out the woman was her mom. And moms will be moms.

Anyway, I talked to Megan for a little while and told her about how Natasha and I are best friends from like middle school, which is when we fell in love with her books. She thought it was great that we came to the play together as childhood friends. And she immediately noticed my “You Yes You” shirt (which is a reference from her second book) which was conveniently green for St. Patrick’s Day (but really was a shirt that I made FOURTEEEEEEEN years ago for my freshman year of high school. Because I am officially old. Yikes.) and was surprised and (I think?) flattered/pleased when I told her how I’d worn it in high school. She signed my book and then we took this picture together and it was all very fun and I made a fool of myself being a dork, but that’s okay.

Despite the fact that Natasha kept telling me it wasn’t too late to go out for St.Patty’s drinks, we did in fact go home after that and go to bed before midnight. It was a solid day despite never drinking any green beer.

On Sunday, we headed into the district early for brunch at Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe. Which, if you can’t tell from the name, is a bookstore with a restaurant inside. We had blood orange mimosas and I had pumpkin spice johnny cakes and they were delish. 

After eating, we browsed the shelves for a while (as one does) and eventually made our way to the National Mall to try to see some cherry blossoms. It was originally supposed to be cherry blossom peak while I was there, but a cold snap pushed it back by a week or so, and only a few trees had opened blooms on them. There were lots of pretty Magnolia trees in bloom already though, so that was nice. And we did see exactly ONE fully blooming cherry tree; I am quite confused about that freak of nature, but whatever.

We popped in a few stores while we were out walking around, but mostly I just wanted to be enjoying the spring-like weather. (Speaking of Spring-- that starts today!!!!! HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SPRING, FRIENDS!) We found an outdoor seating area at a cafe and just enjoyed the sunshine and perused our new books for the remaining hour or so before I had to make my way to the airport. It was sunny and a bit breezy but mostly warm and mild. Fifty-five degrees was plenty warm enough to be sitting outside and I enjoyed it immensely.

Overall a very successful weekend.

On Shame.

A couple of weeks ago I started thinking about shame and how it informs the decisions I make and the way I interact with and present myself to the world.

(Okay, full disclosure, I started drafting this post a reallllly long time ago. Like two months ago. So when I said “a couple of weeks ago” that was really probably in December or something. But then I kind of stopped writing it because I wasn’t sure I’d ever post it. But then at the poetry reading I went to last weekend, Olivia Gatwood started talking about shame and it reminded me about this and I came back to it. So here we go.)

Shame never used to be something that I thought about. It seems like a really harsh concept to me, much stronger than just embarrassment. But a few years ago- when I started seeing a really wonderful therapist in Minnesota- I started connecting some dots about what shame is and how it appears in our lives in different ways. It’s not just about the conscious things we do to avoid awkward situations; shame is, in many cases, the driving factor behind how we act and react.

So anyway, I recently started specifically thinking about shame. And I decided I would check to see if Brené  Brown had any videos about it because she often has videos about things like shame and vulnerability and she’s a really cool and highly intelligent lady who usually has valuable insights to offer. I know I talk about Brené  Brown a lot- if you’re wondering why, maybe read that last sentence again and/or read some of her books and/or watch her TED talks. She’s great.

And wouldn’t you know, she did have a video about shame! (I thought I remembered something about this, so I wasn’t really that surprised, but I also hadn’t ever watched it before.) You can watch that video here- and you should because it’s really good. But the part that stuck out the most to me is when she says “Shame, for women, is this web of unobtainable, conflicting, competing expectations about who we’re supposed to be. And it’s a straight jacket.”

And man, oh man, do I relate to that. I cannot begin to explain how often I have unobtainable, conflicting desires for myself and my life. I want to be a mom. I want to travel the world and have adventures. I want to work somewhere that makes a difference in an area I care about, but I also want to be able to pay off my student loans and...eat...and stuff. I want to write a book, but I also want a job where I can talk to people every day because I like having coworkers to chat with. I want to move somewhere without winters, but I want to be near my family and especially my niece.

It’s complicated. And you can’t have it all. And those are just the things that I want on a personal level; the shame component plays into our culture on a societal level. I’m sure you’re all aware of the fact that stay at home mothers get shamed for not being independent while working mothers get shamed for not devoting enough time to their families, and god forbid a woman choose work instead of starting a family- how could she be so selfish!?!? There’s no beating the shame wagon.

Last weekend (like, ACTAULLY last weekend from right now. As in March 10th), when I went to Olivia Gatwood’s poetry reading, she talked about shame a little bit, too. I wish I’d recorded what she was saying so I could reproduce it here, but I’ll do my best to summarize her: shame is what happens when we are doing whatever we want and think nothing of it, and then some outside force,- some other person- gives us a new perspective on it that gives us new, negative feelings about it. Maybe you were fine with your body until someone else told you that this other type of body is better and now you feel inadequate with what you have. Maybe you had a certain interest or hobby that you really enjoyed and then someone demeaned it in some way and now you are embarrassed about it. That is shame. As women, the world is constantly shaming us for existing. Our menstrual cycles are gross, our sexual desires are inappropriate, if we’re too friendly we’re asking for harassment, if we’re not friendly enough we’re standoffish bitches. We are never good enough for the world.

There is inherent shame in being female.

And that really sucks.

Another component of shame that’s been on my mind are when people say things like “She’s shameless!” or “Have you no shame?!?!” meaning both in a distinctly negative and shaming way. Or even the way we throw around the term “No shame” which implies that there should be shame but we are refusing to bow to it. Shame is, it turns out, a really really big part of our culture and how we interact with the world around us. Imagine for a moment, a world where shame didn’t weigh into our decisions. I think not being as attuned to shame is something that happens naturally a little bit as we get older; our parents used to embarrass us, but now we have no problem laughing at ourselves etc. But shame is a lot more deeply ingrained than just adolescent embarrassment. It’s a whole defining part of how we’ve learned to exist and present ourselves. We feel shame about not making “enough” money, about not getting a promotion that we wanted, about not having travelled extensively or read enough books (okay, I’ve pretty much never had those specific problems, but I’m sure I’ve made other people feel ashamed of themselves in comparison with me in those areas before. Which sucks and is stupid.), about having a crappy car or an old phone or not being able to pay all of our bills all of the time. Shame makes people who are doing their best feel like they aren’t doing enough. And it really sucks.

In case you thought I was going somewhere with all of this, I just want to clarify that this is another one of those times where I’m writing about something without having anything conclusive to say. It’s just something that’s been swirling around in my brain’s spin cycle lately (and for a while now, clearly) and I thought I’d let it out here.

I challenge all of you to take a look at your lives and try to figure out what decisions you’re making based on shame. Think about how shame is informing your actions and your life and see if there’s any way to minimize that. Because, as I’ve said a couple times, shame really sucks.