SLW: Single Lady Thurdsay II

To the Late Bloomers: a letter.

To those who still had teeth falling out in 4th grade, to the ones who could look down at their chest and see straight to the floor & didn't get leg hair til 8th grade, and the very last one in your middle school to get their period? I'm one of you.

For the ones playing with American Girl dolls til 16, the ones without a solidified sense of style til after college, the one who didn't actually understand what a crush was til 24... welcome to my life.

We are the late bloomers. The slow developers. The cautious ones that wait, but had no idea they were doing so. We're comfortable with who we are. Comfortable with wearing hoodies and pajama pants through high school. Comfortable with being really late to the eyebrow waxing train. Comfortable with wearing the same hoodie and scarf day in and day out in college and finding yourself stylish within that boundary.

We're the ones that never pay attention to what dance is coming up or whether or not you're going because... there was a dance last weekend?! The ones who don't realize that boys are cute and you like them until someone points it out to you. And you just finally... FINALLY realized that you ENJOY feeling like a woman and all the spa treatments that are at your very finger tips. What seems to be late in life is normal - maybe discovering you really like to write or bake or design and that one of those might actually be your career finally. It takes a bit to find a niche.

When we do catch on, catch up, arrive, watch out. Nothing can stop a late bloomer. We're wise, having seen the early developers stumble through weird awkward phases, while we carefully side step and walk on. It makes us decisive and confident and comfortable in our own skin. Definitely still movers and shakers - just takes us a bit to warm up to moving mountains.

Introduction to a Monday Morning

Approach it slowly and cautiously, Mondays don't like to be surprised. Wake up and reflect on how Monday's sunlight filters through your curtains. Rise earlier than normal so you can stretch each limb while still in bed, try to wiggle each toe in succession, blink the sleep out of your eyes good and well before resting your feet on the floor. Stand in a hot shower on Monday. Lean your head this way... and then that way letting the hot water coax your muscles awake. Let the room fill with steam, fostering those good shower ideas before you head off to work. 

Monday loves breakfast and a proper start to the week. It wants brain food - warm oatmeal with brown sugar, a bowl of rice and eggs, a pot of brewed coffee and cream. Cereal is for Tuesday, when you're in a rush. Save a quiet moment for Monday morning before you shrug on your coat and out into the world. You'll thank yourself later.

Once you hit the pavement, don't look back. Run headlong into the week armed with renewed energy. Make the rest of the day count, having properly introduced yourself to the beginning of the week. 

growing up

I didn't intend to write this... I thought of going with a funny one today for you guys. Then I got jury duty and my whole day changed. Barf.

We'll start with a tiny bit of history.

I stay pretty surface with almost everyone I know except my family. I've never really known how to navigate emotions and hard conversations with anything but bursting into tears and advanced avoidance skills. I complain a lot about not having friends and that comes from under developed social skills paired with being overly eager in the beginning stages of friendship.

I remember in being 8th grade and sitting with who I thought were my best friends in the world and the teacher asked each of us if our best friends were here. I was the only one who responded yes. The other two responded no pretty quickly. Inwardly I FLIPPED out. How did I know them so little all of a sudden? It was like I was talking to strangers. The friendship never made it to high school. This happened over and over and over again until I realized I could stop talking to people. Oh happy day! When things got a little too real I cut it off expertly. Granted, I hung out with the STUPIDEST people sometimes (probably to not have to delve and find quality people) but when I was done, I was done. They were idiots. I was pretty adamant about telling others about their stupidity.

How incredibly childish of me. Did I mention I was in college when a lot of this happened?? In reality I didn't know how to navigate relationships very well. I didn't realize this until TODAY.

I'm stubborn and opinionated and eager to please and still scared by my own emotions sometimes. Friends that I know are good people are becoming annoying and petty to me because while THEY are evolving and growing I am not. I haven't recognized growth in myself enough to navigate the evolution of relationships. I've never even had a close friend longer than a few years - it's usually after a couple years when the relationship changes and that's when I cut it off. How... have I not seen this?! It took me complaining to a friend to break the news to me that... hey we're growing up and maybe it's time to face the fact that this isn't an area of expertise for you (though I claim it is... WOMP), lay it bare and go from there. Instead of retreating, like I'm currently doing in one friendship, I should probably communicate more.

Pretty sure I thought friendship was sunshine and roses and sharing and secrets and hair braiding and hugs. A friendship IS a relationship - I've been holding the two apart for as long as I can remember. Having real conversations is admitting things aren't 100% rosy and that is a weird thing for me to face.

So I'm gonna try to... be a normal person and communicate even when it's uncomfortable. A lot of my life lessons lately have been surrounding communication and action. It. is. the. pits.

SLW: giving love

This is the first Single Lady Wednesday post where I get actually share my thoughts on single people and Valentine's Day. Oh man... the air is CRACKLING with energy right now, there's too many possibilities. I always have a good rant built up inside of me reserved for the over sharers, the desperate, the PDA-ers... but this month in general has been a contemplative one. I'm forgoing lists for a while as they get too predictable and I want to get back to sharing thoughts with you guys for both randomness and posterity's sake.

How about we do something this Valentine's Day... first let's stop calling it V-Day. *scrunches nose* I just... please stop? There's too many variations on what that could mean besides v... and my brain will immediately travel simultaneously to "vasectomy", "virgin", and "VD day." There. I said it. VD.

Let's also make sure the people in our lives get love. Doesn't matter who it is, if you're with someone or not - if you love someone you should show that you do.

Everyone gets all panty scrunched when Valentine's Day comes around because it's MASSIVELY commercialized into the one day that you get a chance to redeem yourself for being a butt hole the OTHER 364 days. And it is! It's so real. But why not use it to your advantage to show a little EXTRA love on this day.

For the single people you should shower love on your mom. She is AMAZING. And puts up with all your (my) whining and deserves some roses and a massage. Don't wait til May for that! Shower love on your kids with a special treat. Married folks can do the same... there's more than just you 2 in the world on Valentine's Day.

I was prepared to rant - but I did that REAL well last week. There's gotta be a balance. I plan on spending my Valentine's Day working for 13 hours... but I'll be wearing red lipgloss for it. Maybe I'll buy MYSELF some roses.

Happy Valentine's Day my loves!!

and as always,

HAPPY WEDNESDAY

SLW: Things We Can Stop Doing

Inspired by social media and thought catalog. CAN EVERYONE LIKE THIS WEBSITE WITH ME ALREADY?! geeeeze.

1. Degrading ourselves while also fishing for compliments (see: humble brag, which can also die)

No one wants you to see you jokingly say stuff like that. It's not cute... there wasn't ever a time where it WAS cute. Frankly, it's making me hate you. If you can't muster up a genuine like about yourself then for goodness sake KEEP IT OFF THE TWITTERS.

2. Leggings.

Guys it's time. It's been time. They need to be banned and burned in effigy. Somehow it's trickled past normal use to be exclusively used by all of the big girls of the world and ALL of the extremely under aged. I'm thinking about holding a relief concert for it... ya know... to support my fund to RELIEVE THE WORLD OF LEGGINGS. Everyone just thinks they're pants. Everyone is still wrong.

3. Saying things we don't mean

Feel free to stop here and ponder all possible meanings of this. Grab some mid afternoon tea while you ponder this and come back... I've got a couple more.

4. Thinking about YOU.

Listen to me here. You matter, you're not insignificant, you are an integral part of life and I'm so glad you're in it, BUT it's not about you all the time. So stop tweeting about you. And thinking about JUST you. And how all roads and what she said and that one time ALL PERTAINED TO YOU. Maybe, instead, try genuinely listening without adding a story about how that ALSO happened to you one time except it was woooorse? and funnier? It'll suck but be beneficial for your character in the future.

...was that last one too real? Sometime's a girl needs to just SAY some stuff. Don't worry... My love for you is real, too, and I plan on hugging you at the end of this. Let's continue.

5. Vine. I'm really over the Vine app. and for that matter all of Facebook. It just needed to be added for good measure

6. Hollow optimism

You know how things suck sometimes but you don't want to wallow in it so you say, "Yeah, but it'll be okay." or "It'll work out... no yeah it's fine." but even you don't believe the words that just came out of your mouth? Just stop doing that. Take action instead. Open up and tell someone what's going on in your life - I bet they genuinely want to help you. Reintroduce yourself to good music, reacquaint yourself with God and just decide to BE happy instead of saying an empty cliche to get people off your back.

I don't even have a lead out for this one haha... I'm just gonna have to-- *drops the mic, walks out*

SLW: Single Lady Thursday

Yesterday's usual day off found me working til 4 this morning (yipes) so I decided to move SLW to today... to the chagrin of some readers. But I'm here! I had the full intention of adventuring it up downtown to get a few LUSH products that I really can't live without (who thought I would be that girl) and some loose leaf tea from Argo. But it was not to be borne. The credit card machines were down, which meant skipping this train, getting cash, catching the next train and wasting my entire day. The long short of it means I'll be heading to Oakbrook after work. The things I do for LUSH. They keep me smelling like... incense according to my dude coworkers. I'll take it.

It's a 2:30 cups of coffee, cheesecake brownie eating, no pants wearing kind of day today instead of traipsing around my favorite city but I'll take this chance for my body to rest. and a chance to eat too many cheesecake brownies on purpose. It's also my cousins birthday today... he would have been 24. I'm still dealing with the grief daily. I miss you, Kaleb. I'm appreciating the slow down to thank God for my life and miss one that left too soon.

Back to my coffee and cooking shows - it's almost Ina Garten hour. And Ina Garten hour is SACRED and MANDATORY. Just like a Liz Lemon party. Is it bad that I already miss 30Rock?! *moment of silence*

If you were here with me I'd air kiss you on both cheeks and send you off with a brownie but for now I'll just wish you a happy Thursday.

{about} real love...

There is always the expectation that with that perfect person, perfect job, perfect city there is going to be a feeling of completion...

They encourage us to ignore the more beautiful, subtle, continually filling things around us because they don't provide all the excitement and danger that we believe we should be looking for.

-Chelsea Fagan

I really do read too much thought catalog.