The Writer

My soon-to-be-husband is a writer. A published novelist, actually. I'm a writer too, but my works haven't gone anywhere (yet). Him being a writer and me being one too scares me. A lot. But it also gives me confidence, and it is one of the things I love best about him. We click on so many levels because he understands "the process" of writing, the highs and lows of it, and we have a firm agreement not to bother each other when we are writing. That is a gift I really cherish, having a partner that understands my passion AND my job. 

But when you marry anyone, you marry their profession as well. There are times that we will be sitting together and I will turn to talk to him, and he will be writing. Or vice versa. And I will turn back to my own work, or him to his, as neither of us are eager to disturb the other's writing. That means that, yes, sometimes we will spend hours in silence and other activities must be put on hold so that the writing process may continue unhindered. Even now he sits at the table with headphones in and I am on the couch watching a movie, trying to be quiet and unobtrusive. 

Along with these bouts of intense work and concentration, we are also muddling through what to do about such things as book tours and promotions. My fiancé's newest novel will be coming out in May and we have just found out that he will be participating in a 40-city book tour, all through the months of May and June. And he will be returning, and subsequently cutting the tour short, five days before our wedding. Which means that the entire month before our reception, I will be alone, packing up our apartment, snuggling the cat, and preparing not only for our wedding day, but for our honeymoon and the move back to Missoula. 

I was not pleased to hear this news. In fact, it was the root of our biggest fight to date. One of such magnitude as I hope we will never have to repeat. I felt betrayed; I didn't know this would be happening when we set our date, and while he has no control over it either, I blamed my fiancé and hated myself for that.

I felt left behind. I didn't want him to get caught up in the excitement and work of the tour and forget all about our own exciting news and events. The writer in me got jealous of his success, and the soon-to-be-wife got jealous of the time he would be spending with other people in other places while I was stuck at home. 

But when you marry anyone, you marry their profession as well. And I understood how hard it was for him, too, to leave. No one said it would be easy to be a writer, or to be two married writers, and this was just a taste of hardships to come. No one said it would be easy, but as any writer out there can sympathize, no one picks this profession for its easiness. Luckily, writers are some of the more resilient of those out there, my fiancé and I in particular. 

A Queery

I have a question for you. It is one that I have been asking myself for years. As of yet, I haven't been able to voice it. To anyone. It's a hard question. It's hard to ask, and it's hard to answer. But these kinds of questions, the hard ones, are the ones that need to be asked. So here's my question: why is it easier to tell a stranger than your own family that you are gay? 

I think I've found the answer to that. Like I said, it's a hard one. The answer: because your family actually matters. 

That's it, really. That's how it goes. It's hardest to come out to your family, and often friends, because they are the ones who really matter to you and you just can't stand the thought that they will think less of you. That somehow you will stop mattering to them. That they will hate you for who you love. That's what makes it so hard. And that's why I never told. 

I never really came out to my family. If anything, blog posts like these are where I am most honest to them, and about them. I think they will understand why that is, though. For me, they'll know, a lot of things are easier to write down than say aloud. At least with writing you don't have to be there when they read it. No matter if you think, or even know, as I do, that they won't care and that nothing will have changed but that they will have gained a better understanding of you, that they still, always have, and always will love you just for you are, it's still easier to press click, or lick the envelope, or hand in the note and walk away, than it is to be there when they read it. 

But then, after that, you have to let them tell you what they think. Because they matter and their thoughts matter and they deserve and need this chance just as much as you. I know what my family thinks. They've told me. And I've let them. It's hard to be there when they read these personal notes and thoughts and confessions, but it's also hard to wonder what they're thinking  and never let them say it. 

So you have to let your family tell you that they've read it. You have to let them talk, too. Because this is hard for them also, knowing you've kept this big thing from them. But they are so proud of you for knowing that it is okay to tell them. Because they still love you. If anything, they love you more. And they need to get to tell you that.

Maybe they'll write it, too. Maybe they'll post on your Facebook and say, you were brave to say this but I'm so glad you did. Maybe you'll sit and talk in a parking lot for a while, because it's easier to talk sideby-side rather than face-on. Your family might even say, as mine did, thank you for saying what I couldn't find the words for. Thank you for knowing that we care. Thank you for caring enough to tell any way you could. We love you, that hasn't changed. 

Resolve

The year has come to a close, and this is the time where everyone starts making lists of all the great things that happened in 2014 and another of all the brilliant things they will do in 2015. Most of us enjoy this time as a chance to start over and do things "better" this year. 

Some of us will promise to start eating healthier, to go to the gym more, to spend less time at work and more time with our families, to drink less, to volunteer more, etc etc etc. Some of us stick to these resolutions; most of us don't. 

It's hard to fulfill all these great ideas all at once. Unfortunately, that is the nature of most of these promises. We want to accomplish things, but quickly. We want to look better, feel better, be better, but we want it now, not in two months. That is the life expectancy of many of these resolutions and vows—two to three months. After that, the gyms clear out and our diets stray and  our willpower fades. 

But it doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to wait for a specified time and event to persuade you that now is the time for change. It is always the time for change if things are not as you want them to be and you are able to do something about that. Resolutions to do better, for yourself or others, don't have to be made just once a year. Rather, if that is all you think of them, then your perception is very skewed. 

You need to have resolve, not be resolved. You have to commit to change, and that commitment cannot wear out as quickly as you do on the Stairmaster after not going to the gym for too many months. Commitment needs to be renewed and strengthened, and not just once a year. 

But don't try to do this quickly. Don't rush change. If you try to do too much at once you will drown under the weight of it all and then nothing will be done. It's okay to make resolutions right now, but you have to continue to renew them all year long. Turn those resolutions into commitments, and those commitments into actions and rewards. Get something done this year. Don't wait, do it now. There is no designated time to start, but now. Get going, you have work to do. 

All Made Up

This morning I embarked on a grand new adventure: I tried eyeliner for the first time. I was all ready. I pulled the diagram up on my phone, positioned the pen in my hand, squinted in the brightness of the bathroom, promptly un-squinted to not mess this up, and began. 

First, I drew a long, thin line all the way across my lid, careful to stay close to the lashes. Then, I slowly thickened the line at the corner of my lid, redrawing the line over and over to create the perfect cat-eye swoop. I did the same to the other eye. I drew back, pouted my lips a little, mussed my hair to get that sexy-but-not-trying-too-hard look, and took stock. 

I looked like a train wreck. The lines weren't close enough to my lashes, you could see skin in between. One swoop swooped more than the other swoop and it was much higher and longer on the left side. My mascara was black-brown but the liner was midnight-black, and the difference was noticeable. The liner didn't make my eyes look bigger, sexier, or brighter. I just looked like a raccoon. Mirror-me looked like she wanted to cry, but I knew we couldn't do that or we'd just end up looking like drowned raccoons. 

I stared down at the pen,and thought, what did I do wrong? I followed the frakking diagram and it turned out like shit!!!!! I dropped it into the sink in disgust and it proceeded to trace a long, thick, smudgy line of black black black down the sides and into the bottom where it leaked chalky ink into the water trapped around the stopper. Another mess for me to clean up. 

It took me three times longer to remove the eyeliner than it took me to put it on. At first I used cotton balls, delicately patting at the make-up, but then when I filled the bathroom trash can with little wet gray balls of mush, I turned to the toilet paper and practically scrubbed the rest off. 

While scrubbing, something dawned on me. I knew why I didn't look a million times sexier all made-up. That's just what it was: made up. Pretend. Not real. Why was I putting on makeup I didn't need, to achieve a look I was told was sexy. This wasn't me; I never wore much makeup. Mascara and some eyeshadow was about all I could handle—for time-management and because I didn't feel I needed anything more. 

The whole reason I had even tried eyeliner in the past was that I had liked this look on other women and I thought it would work for me too. Maybe it would, if I took the time to learn it properly, if I had the right shade, if I did this or that or the other thing. If only I had more makeup, took more time to use it, had higher quality stuff, maybe that would do it. Or maybe that was just what I was told to think. 

This eyeliner, or any other makeup I acquired, would not instantly transform me to someone prettier or thinner or more successful or better. I'm pretty sure even Cleopatra herself didn't look as good as Elizabeth Taylor made her out to be (sanitary conditions just weren't what they are today back in Ancient Egypt). Sure, makeup could enhance what was naturally there, but so could confidence. Self-assurance might not hide that blemish on my chin or the laugh-lines around my mouth, but it would take me a lot further than makeup could.

With enough confidence, people would not even notice the blemish or the lines. They would look me in the eye, and I bet you that most of them wouldn't even notice I wasn't wearing eyeliner. 

Backlash

There will always be people who don't like your writing. If you have something to say, someone out there will decide they disagree with you. But that's normal. You don't have to let that get you down, or convince you that what you have to say, and what you think, isn't somehow still worthy of being said and thought. 

Don't fight it, but don't fight back either. That is not the way to handle criticism. You have to learn from it, not lash out against it. Keep calm, criticism can be constructive too. In fact, that's all it should be. If what someone says against you does not help you in some way, disregard it completely. There is no point in carrying around someone else's baggage. You have enough on your plate.

After all, here you are, trying to write a blog, trying to post a video, trying to get your works and your voice and your thoughts out to the universe in any way you can. That can be scary. If it isn't, either you are way too confident for your own good, or you aren't doing it right. Take risks. Get scared. But don't back down, and don't lash back. 

A Girl and Her Cat

Two years ago I adopted a cat and my roommates and I named him Oliver. Our inspiration: Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist (one of my other roommates was also an English major and we persuaded the others into submission). Adopting Oliver has, and probably will continue to be, one of the best decisions of my life. As many other pet owners and lovers will agree, there is a niche in my heart that only Ollie, as with all other pets, can fill. 

Pets love with a certain kind of love unlike any other, and that's why my fiancé and I are so lucky to have him. He may be here for only a short time in comparison to our own lifespans, but we will be present for most of his. All but six months, in my case. And that is sometimes a hard thing to think about. I know everything dies, all things come to an end, etc, etc. But that doesn't make it easier to imagine a world without Ollie, and losing him won't be easy. I've accepted that. I relish the knowledge and hope that I will still get another twelve years with him, and that I can do everything imaginable to make each of those years the best, just like he deserves. 

Pets give us love, unconditionally in most cases, though cats sometimes do hold grudges. What we give them in return is a promise; a promise that we will love them, care for them, feed them, hold them, treat them like the best friends that they are, and protect them against an otherwise cruel world. That is my promise and I work everyday to keep it. When I falter, Ollie reminds me and he returns my love tenfold. He is more than I could ask for, so I do my best to give him more than he asks for as well. 

But What Is This Really All About?

It hasn't been that long since I started this blog and already I am asking myself, what is this blog about? What am I trying to say with this? What should I be saying? What do people want to hear? 

Well, to tell the truth, I do not know the answers to any of those questions. I am not sure what readers want, or what hot-topic issues I should be discussing here. Mostly, I am using this blog as a venue for my own thoughts. I am expressing my thoughts and feelings as a post-graduate, a writer, and a woman.  I am talking out my ideas and hoping that someone out there talks back. I don't have a direction, but I have passions and questions and only a few answers, but I think more will come, especially with other people's opinions and ideas bouncing back to me. 

I want people to comment on what I have to say, if they will, and for readers to think about my words after they've read them. I am not looking for a million followers to find me overnight, I just want a couple people to maybe give a shout out once in a while, to tell me they are listening and to share what they are thinking, too. 

This is my first attempt at blogging, as you know if you've read my other post "Blog" (and yes, that is the title, and yes I did do that on purpose. I didn't just forget to title it.) So bear with me, reader. With any luck I will get better at this blogging thing and it'll find a direction and a focus and it will result in brilliant things. Or maybe not. Let's just wait and see what we can come up with, together. 

The Envelope

This is a story I wrote last year and that I have been working on since. It's very short, and the first time I've tried this style. 

The Envelope

Do you want to play dolls, she said. She laughed and something in her hair winked at me in the sun. A butterfly clip catching the light, purple, metal, glittery. You can be the teddy, she said. She handed me a bear, stained and fraying. Its left eye was a button. 

What do we do now, I asked. 

 Clink clink, we’re drinking tea, she said. We drank away the afternoon, sun and lemon in our tea. 

*****

Won’t you kiss me, now, she said. I know you want to. 

I’m too old for you, I said. Have you gotten your shots yet? 

I’m fifteen, she said. I’m old enough. She leaned in close. I started to fade. 

Please, just get your shots, I said. It really isn’t safe. I could bring something back. 

I know you want to kiss me, she said. 

It really isn’t safe, I said. But she was gone and so was I and the man on the corner eyed me as I walked past. I dug around in my pocket for change and the edge of the envelope cut my finger.  

*****

What’s this, she asked. Her eyes glinted like that clip in the sun. I can’t take this. What did you do. 

You need it, I said, just take it. Please. 

I can’t take this, she said, I don’t want to know how you got it. I’m not a charity case. I have a job, you know. I’m not a silly young girl anymore. You can’t keep trying to take care of me. She paused. I have a husband now. 

I watched her twirl the metal band around her skinny finger. I put my hand in my pocket and worried at the softening envelope.  

You should probably go, she said. 

You didn’t move out, I said. You’re still in this same house. I was starting to fade. She looked down. The gray threads were barely visible in her light hair. 

I didn’t want to leave and have you not find me again, she said. It was hard enough the first time. I kept waiting and waiting and you never came back. 

I tried, I said. I tried to come back to you. I reached out but she wasn’t there anymore and my hand brushed brick instead. Around me, bombs crashed and dust filled the air and it stuck in my throat and choked me. 

*****

It’s you. You do exist. I can’t believe it, he said. 

Who are you, I said. I stepped back off the stoop. 

    She’s gone. They moved, the whole family, he said. Wait right there, she left something for you. He turned around and went deep into the house. Wait right there. 

    He came running back and his shoes squeaked on the hardwood and I was almost to the gate and he came tripping out over the thin lip on the uneven sidewalk.  Damn, he muttered, I’m still not used to that.  Here, he said. 

    My name was scrawled in crayon on the front of the envelope and it was sealed with fuzzy scented stickers. Her address was inside, neatly written in her mother’s hand and then signed clumsily at the bottom in the same crayon as on the front. 

    She said you’d come back for it, he said. I gotta admit, I thought you weren’t real, like an imaginary friend or something, you know, when she talked about “the pretty lady” who would pop up out of nowhere. 

    Thank you, I said, I have to go. 

*****

    I got my vaccines, she said. The university paid for them. She rolled up her shirtsleeves and poked at the tiny Band-Aids. 

    That’s all you have to say, I said. She stopped and blinked at me. 

    What do you mean, she said. 

    I found you, I said. It took me years, but I found you. I followed your address here. I pulled the yellow, wrinkled envelope from my pocket. The stickers weren’t fuzzy anymore and they’d lost their smell and the creases in the paper were white and soft. She took it from me and traced the tattered edges. 

    I can’t believe you still have this. I mean, it’s been years for me, so how long has it been for you, she said. 

    Sometimes it’s been decades, sometimes just yesterday, sometimes it hasn’t even happened yet. I paused. You had a husband, I said. 

    She looked up at me. Her eyes glinted and  blue spilled over and trickled down her cheek. 

    You never kissed me, she said. I have my vaccines now, won’t you kiss me.

    You had a husband and a family and a life, I said.  You could still have all of that. She shook her head.

    No, she said, I wouldn’t do that. I’ve only ever wanted you. You’re the only one, she said, don’t you want me too. 

    Yes, I said. Yes. 

    Then stay with me, she said. Stay with me.  

    I can’t, I said. I was fading away. But she grabbed my hand and pulled me back and I stayed. 

    You can, she said. For me, you can. 

    I never felt lips so soft. 

Blushing Bride

I recently became engaged to a man. While this in itself is no unique thing, engagements being quite common however exciting they are, my engagement still caused a bit of a ripple among my friends and family. It wasn't a matter of scandal or ill will or disapproval towards me or my fiancé. No, it was a matter quite different altogether. As I went around boasting the news, I was met with many congratulations and well wishes, as I expected. But underneath the happy tidings I also heard other murmurs along the lines of "but wait, I thought she was gay?"

I expected this, too. For the past three years I've identified as a lesbian. Thus, when my chosen life partner ended up being a man, people began to wonder. And question. And comment. 

Never to my face, out loud, of course. But that wasn't malice on their parts, it was just basic human curiosity and respect and confusion and propriety. People were surprised by my 180° change, and I knew it. But that didn't mean it was easy to hear when people were shocked by the news. 

I experienced a moment of panic regarding my impending nuptials.My friends' reactions to my engagement left me no longer feeling like the blushing bride in the usual sense. After being so buoyed on a cloud of excitement and elation, I felt grounded by insecurity and doubt and a little bit of anger, irrational that it was, whenever I told people about my engagement. I began to doubt the whole thing. And that doubt was only bolstered when a few friends of mine called, texted, or wrote to me in attempt to persuade me out of my marriage. They felt I had made a hasty decision and I started to feel the same. 

The root of the matter was, though, that I was starting to  question not my engagement, but my sexuality. Again. And I hated it. I hated being in between sexualities. I knew my own wants and desires and I accepted them. Not an easy feat by any means. However, my own security did not guarantee anyone else's and indeed I ran into more than one person whose concept of sexuality was limited to labels, stereotypes, boxes. 

In high school, I identified as bisexual, which had its own benefits and downfalls too. Some people, in both the heterosexual and homosexual communities, say that bisexual isn't even a real sexuality. That those who identify as such are wishy-washy and can't make up their mind. I never felt that way. 

For the three years  I was in college, I identified as gay. But only to some people. I never really "came out" to my parents or family, officially anyway. Most of my friends and colleagues knew, but then again since I did not "look the part," per say, many people did not know I identified as gay. 

Now, I was engaged to a man. It may have seemed confusing to some, but to me it was just the natural progression of not just my sexuality, but of my life. I met someone, got to know him, fell in love, moved in with him, and then decided to marry him. It was not some radical decision but the one I felt was right. Who I was at the core did not change in any way. I was still myself, still held the same beliefs and values, and had happened to be lucky enough to find someone who shared those beliefs. That person happened to be a man, but that didn't matter either.

I didn't fall in love with him because he was a man, and couldn't not love him because of his gender either. I fell in love with a person, not a sex. 

Sexuality is a sliding scale, and I traversed the whole spectrum. As was my right, my choice, and my freedom, as it is for everyone. I got bogged down a few times by my own insecurities and others', but then I stopped blushing. I didn't have to explain myself to anyone. It was only normal for people to wonder, to question. But that would pass. I fell in love with a person, not a sex. It's just that simple. 

Blog

We live in a media-rich world and it is becoming ever more important for writers, musicians, and artists to reach out to followers online. Anyone who denies the importance of technology and social media today is deluding themselves, and unfortunately I was guilty of just this. I never posted, tweeted, blogged, or friended. I didn't have any social media accounts besides Facebook, and even that I barely used except to highlight the newest recipes or cute dresses I'd found on Pinterest. I preferred spending time with those around me rather than people I had never met who lived 5,000 miles away, even though we shared similar interests.

But, I realized, I was looking at this all the wrong way; these were people who did the same things I did, who liked the same books, movies and recipes. I should make more time to reach out to them, to connect with them, not to push them away by hiding out in my own dark little corner and never sharing my own ideas with the world but just re-pinning others'.  So this is my first attempt at blogging--thinking out loud to the internet and hoping others will read, respond, share, and start thinking too. So here's to broadened horizons and new followers and friends.