Growing Up

I am hours away from hosting my first Thanksgiving.  This is the first Thanksgiving in my memory that I will not be celebrating with my mother's family or at my mother's house (Luckily for me she and my step dad made the trek down here for my first solo Thanksgiving). It is a break in a 20 year tradition and it got me realizing that it really is a sign of the end of my childhood.  It is something I've been thinking of since the last Harry Potter opened this weekend. I know I'm closer to 30 then 15 and I have long been an adult, but there are certain things that make you realize just how far from childhood you really are, and for me Thanksgiving is one of them.

Wednesday Pie Night 2008

Thanksgiving more then any other holiday for me is steeped with tradition.  It was always a holiday I spent with my mother and there was never any special things done because my parents were no longer together.  It was just about people who loved each other getting together and being thankful for each other.  As I grew older things changed but only slightly.  There was always one or two aunts that came up on Wednesday to make pie.  I always watched the parade and then the dog show with my sister.  My grandmother has always teased us that she use to be a Rocket and my sister always believed her.  I have never missed a Thanksgiving in Maine and this year it was really hard for me to even say the words.

After Thanksgiving dinner walk... Yes I grew up here

However, things have been changing.  Slowly as my families small families grow up we separate into our smaller units that are also getting bigger.  My cousins are starting to go off to college.  My sisters are married and at in laws and quite frankly all those wonderful traditions that remind me of my youth and comfort me are dying away. I'll miss my cousins and the after dinner walk on the beach.  Elmhurst, Queens is just not as beautiful as York, Maine.


None the less, this year I decided to just go it alone.  I didn't think my mother would come down here (I'm thrilled she did). I wasn't sure if anyone would want to come to my place, but as I look at the RSVPs and see 10 yeses with guest I feel blessed that I can provide a home for people to celebrate in. As the stress of preparing a dinner for 15 people starts to set in  I realize that I really am a grown up now.  I just hope the turkey cooks all the way through! ;)

 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Single is just a Status not a Way of Life

Recently I have been reading all my favorite dating blogs and it seems to me that their has been a call to defend the fact that we are single and happy.  I have loved all these post.  I love hearing the I am single and happy and this is why.  The thing that really bothers me is that why does it even mater? Why is my relationship status always at the forefront of everything.  I am single and I am happy, but unlike some of the post I have read I think I would be just as happy if I was in a relationship. I am not here to say I choose to be single.  I don't choose to be single.  I just am single.  I guess I will choose to be in a relationship, but from my experience the relationships that work are with those people that don't really have to work on being in a couple.... Well that isn't true we always have to work at being in a relationship with anyone.  I guess what I mean is that the people that I see as happy couples are the people who didn't ever define themselves as single.  They are who they are regardless of their relationship status.


I don't know why I'm having such a problem with this idea that I have to defend being single.  I feel that when we go around doing this it almost is like we are trying to prove to ourselves that being single is ok. I was reading a magazine or a blog or something that was listing all the great things about being single.  While I was reading this list I was thinking, "Well all those things make me sound really selfish." All those great things make me sound like I hate all my friends that are in relationships. All of these articles basically were attacking the idea of being with someone.  Let's be honest if we really are happy about being single we wouldn't be on Match and OKc and going on dates.  We would just be living our lives.  When we list all these great things about being single we are just trying to make our single selves happy saying see being single is great.  It is, but so is being in a relationship.  One isn't better then the other.  We need to get over proving that being one is better then being the other.  There is nothing wrong with me being single and there is nothing wrong with my sister because she chose to get married.  She found someone and it works.  I haven't found someone and it works.  I'm happy regardless of the fact that I haven't found someone.  It isn't because there is a list of things I can do because I'm not in a relationship.  When I finally meet someone I'm going to be happy too. There are days that I will hate being in a relationship.  Just like there are days that I hate being single.

I have been working on the issue of defining ourselves.  What labels we have put on other people and what labels we accept.  I think for the most part that it makes us unhappy. For the longest time I was living a life that was all about the labels that I thought I needed to fit into.  This is how a 20 something in NYC should be.  This is what a single girl is like.  This is what a nanny looks/acts like.  I should be like this because I'm single.  If I do this I won't be single. All these things made me miserable.  Trying to fit into the definition that people impose on you is exhausting.  I've tried to stop this.  I took my status off of Facebook, I stooped using dating sites. I started acting how like myself again. I started living despite of the labels not because of the labels. You see I never cared that I was single until I move to NYC.  I never used it as a label until I hit 25.  I never saw it as something good or bad until my friends started getting married.  The past few months I have come to a realization that I am single and that doesn't matter.  It isn't because of all the things I can and can't do, but because honestly it is the smallest part of who I am.  It is the least important part of my life.  Someday I wont be single anymore and that will be great, but just like being single didn't define me neither will being in a relationship.

I Give Up... Um Well Kind Of

It's funny I said I gave up on dating and then I reopened an OK Cupid account.  That seems counter productive, right? I don't know.  I have no desire to date, but yet something in me wants to, but I'm full of contradictions so it makes sense honestly.

I have much to fill you in on in matters of the heart blog readers.  There have been a couple guys and a few missed dates as well as some poorly place emails and phone calls. Where to start and what to share is always the complicated part.  All the stories lead up to why I am giving up yet again on the whole meeting someone thing.

The first story begins at a friends party and it ends at the same place a week later.  I'm not sure what happened.  The first night I didn't even like the guy.  However, he was a player and I was up for a game that night.  The next week the game continued, but it was played out rather quickly.  Unlike most guys that I have meet in the past year or so I had no desire to see this guy after our second meeting.  This is rare for me, but let's just say he is just not worth my time.

The second story is the Halloween story.  Saturday night I had a ticket to a party in the Meat Packing District.  You should all know I never go out in the Meat Packing District.  This is not my usual scene and even worst that this I was very sick.  I had spent the whole day sleeping.  I set my alarm so that I could go out.  I paid money and bought a Big Bird costume do you think I was going to waste either of those things? Of course not. My friend and I arrived at a super packed bar and met up with her non boyfriend/ex boyfriend who had a good hour and half start on us on the open bar.  I had taken medicine and was trying not to drink.  I succeeded in this almost.  I also learned that even one drink on cold medicine is not such a good idea.  At this point my friend's non boyfriend was not happy and decided that he needed to leave.  Making my friend not so happy, but being the good non girlfriend she took him home and took care of him.

Check out that eye makeup. How could I not go out?

This left me all alone in the Meat Packing with all my other friends all the way across town.  Here I was all alone feeling ok and not wanting to go home, but there was nary a cab in site, so I wandered alone by myself dressed as Big Bird.  If you have read any of my post you know that it is in these moments that I am weak and if there is a phone around well... Yes, that is right I called the guy from this summer and texted the boy I don't want to waste my time on.  One of them responded. Guess which one? The most recent guy but he was in Las Vegas so I was off to find a...

Cab to the East Side, but there was no cab to be seen.  I almost got a Pedi cab to bike me over 30 blocks for $5. This is where Halloween Boy enters.  He was dressed as David the Gnome and was also in search of a cab. You could call him my Halloween hero because we got a cab and he decided that we should go on a date.  Dear readers if you remember Halloween is the only night of the year I get dates randomly at bars.  I never say no to a date.  Dates are rare in NYC.  However, this guy wanted to come to my place and cook for me. Yes, for the first date he wanted to come to my place.  After a Monday of really thinking this over I tried to change it to drinks.  I didn't have a date and I haven't heard from him since. Again I'm not all that torn up about it.

So, to summarize I almost had a date. I meet a guy flirted with him for 2 weeks and moved on and am still semi hung up on the guy from the summer.  Yet, I really don't care all that much.  I'm apathetic, but as a friend pointed out not apathetic enough to get a boyfriend.  I'm not sure what that means. The whole they will come when you aren't looking thing, but she says I'm never not looking.  I don't get it.  I am not looking.  I don't care one way or another, but I do have a dating profile up.  Yes, I go on to it occasionally, but I don't really do anything about it.  I'm busy I'm not sure when I would have time to date.  I barely have time for my friends. That's it really I give up.  There is nothing I can do or not do or pretend to not be doing that I am doing.  There is a guy out there for me he probably will show up sooner or later.

Well It's Been A While

Start of my 2nd marathon. Yes that's a Lobster on my head

Hello interweb I've missed you... um well kind of. As most of you who read this know I kind of went MIA.  I have no idea what happened.  I meant to post weekly if not bi weekly post but you know what they say about the best intentions.  Life I guess got the better of me and my writing habit went that way.  I also felt I had nothing much to write about here.

That is changing I'm going to sweep the cobwebs out of my head and start writing again.  Even if what I have to say really has nothing to do with anything. There are a few things that have happened since last I wrote.  I ran my second marathon and had an eventful Halloween dressed as Big Bird.  I will write about all these fun events this week, but just needed to jot down a quick hello.  I missed you blog.  I'm looking forward to writing about the next few months.