You’re young until you’re not

We get older.

Some years we get fatter, some years we get skinnier.

Our bank accounts go up, or down.

We buy less beer, more wine.

Pay less rent, sign more contracts.

But always, we get older.

I’m perplexed by the idea that in one day I can be both “m’am” and “girl.” That I look both older and younger.

In between. Guess that’s why they call it mid-twenties.

If I were to sum up what I wanted for this year and all others to come, it would simply be “more.”

More sunsets. More laughter. More friends. More chances. More mistakes. More life.

Because we get older. And if this year has taught me anything, it’s that you never know how much more you have.

We looked like giants

When I was little, I lived in a world of unicorns and fields of giant marshmallows. In every shady wood or sunny meadow, I swore I would see a unicorn. Once, I made up a story and told enough people that I’d almost convinced myself.

Almost.

But there really were giant marshmallows in the field.

The first time I saw them, I remember blinking, checking my eyes, saying incredulously: “What’s that?!“
“Oh, just a field of giant marshmallows,” my dad replied.
“Really…?”
“Where did you think marshmallows came from?”
“They grow in fields?!” And they did. Giant white cylinders against the horizon. I craned my neck to watch them as we drove past.

Of course, at some point I learned that they weren’t really marshmallows, though I’m sure I believed in soundly for at least a few weeks. They were just white plastic wrapped bails of hay.

I’m starting my first grown up job on Monday. Today, I bought a suit.

But when I was driving through the stretch of fields this morning, I swear for a second they were still full of marshmallows. But don’t worry, I kept my eyes on the road to avoid hitting unicorns.

When it pours

Ten months after finishing my MA, I finally have a job worthy of my two degrees.

After almost six months of unemployment, four months at a nowhere job, nearly a hundred job applications and several interviews, my throw away year is over.

Next Monday I start a job that will be, hopefully, the first step in my career in museums.

The funny thing is that the day before I found out, I got an interview for the government job I’ve been waiting for since September. When it rains, it pours.

It’s like the world decided that I was ready to move on. Ready to move forward. That I served my dues, that I had gained sufficient humility and insight from the experience and finally they would let me move on with my life.

But I have learned many things in the last 10 months.

I have learned what I want and what I don’t want. I have learned how to find worth in your life outside of your job. Because not having a job doesn’t make you worthless, though it certainly makes you feel that way. I have learned so much about myself from working a job just for the pay cheque - a job I never anticipated, with people that I never would have met otherwise, for better or worse.

I’m terrified to start on Monday. This job is so big. I know that I can do it, but I know it will be so hard. But I’m ready for a challenge.

Maybe I wasn’t ready in September, fresh out of a 160 page dissertation.

It’s 5:52 am and I can’t sleep. But it’s from the excitement of it all, I swear.

I don’t care about your band

Some of you, those who don’t know me personally, may not know this, but I have the worst track record when it comes to relationships. Or, more aptly, non-relationships.

I often wonder where this failure comes from, since I grew up surrounded by loving relationships and I’m quite good at friendships. But I suck at relationships.

In my defense, some of the objects of these relationships have been less than deserving.

Of course, I chose them, right?

I don’t care about your band by Julie Klausner is one of the most surprisingly good books I’ve read in a long time. I read the first few pages standing in a bookstore in Toronto waiting for a friend to meet me, and I was hooked. Julie Klausner is a hilarious writer. The surprising part, however, is that I don’t normally like non-fiction. And especially not self help… which, to be honest, this book is bordering on. Technically it’s the autobiography of Julie Klausner’s romantic attempts.. and failures. But it’s presented in a very “self help” type way.

But that might just be because I identified so much with it. Honestly, it might as well have been the biography of my own love life. Just a switch of a few names and she might as well have been talking about my life.

It was refreshing.

Refreshing to see that other intelligent, capable women make similarly awful choices when it comes to men. Refreshing to see that one can survive a series of bad non-relationships and still emerge as a relatively functional person.

Because I am largely surrounded by people who are good at being in relationships. Good girlfriends and good boyfriends, people who are always in relationships. Or people who have even less experience with relationships than I, largely because they make better decisions than I when it comes to getting involved with someone who, logically, is just not worth their time.

“There are two kinds of girls who drift toward the more unsavory characters in the dating pool. There are, first of all, the kind of girls who’ve been ignored, abandoned, or otherwise treated ambivalently by their dads, and look to creeps as a means or replicating the treatment to which they’ve grown accustomed…. The other kind of girls who wallow in the Valley of the Dipsticks are the ones who know they deserve better. These are the girls with the great dads; the ones who had their decks stacked from the outset, who knew it couldn’t get any better in the guy department than the one who taught her how to ride her bike… This category of girls, in which I include myself, has a tendency to exceed her allotted bullshit quota for boys she likes, if only because her stubborn mind will not reconcile the notion of wonderful things ever coming to an end.”

“And there are so many guys. I remember the first time a friend referred to a guy I liked as a ‘man’ and I made a face like I was asking Willis what he was talkin’ ’bout. A man is hard to find, good or otherwise, but guys are everywhere now. That’s why women go nuts for Don Draper on Mad Men. If that show was called Mad Guys, it might star Joe Pesci, and nobody wants to see that. Meanwhile, I know way more women than girls. There’s a whole generation of us who rode on the wings of feminism’s entitlement like it was a Pegasus with cornrows, knowing how smart we were and how we could be anything. The problem is that we ended up at the mercy of a generation of guys who don’t quite seem to know what’s expected of them, whether it’s earning a double income or texting someone after she blows you. There are no more traditions or standards, and manners are like cleft chins or curly hair  - they only run in some families.”

The book made me laugh. It made me cringe. It also made me think a lot about the kind of behaviour that I accept from “guys” that I like. Behaviour I would never accept from a friend or even a colleague.

Anyway, it’s a great book. Read it! Well… if you’re a girl.

My baby

Yesterday, I spent the day napping and cuddling with my cat, Harley. In the last couple of days she had been having trouble walking and moving around. We decided to put her down last night. She was 19 years old, and we had her since I was 6. I grew up with her. I used to dress her in doll clothes and drag her around the house. When I was older, she had a knack of knowing when I was upset. She would always appear and I would bury my face in her fur and cry. An animal’s love in so heartbreakingly unconditional. In truth, I like animals more than I like the majority of people in the world.

It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I love you, Harley!