The Best is Yet to Come

A belated happy holidays to everyone! I hope time was well spent with good company and great food.

As I am adjusting back to the cold, midwest climate, it is comforting to be surrounded by my family and good friends.  It's funny to think that a year ago today I was meeting my future roommates, and was spending the new year's eve holiday with a guy I was truly enamored with.  It has been a journey of laughter and tears over the course of the last year, and while I feel like I have taken a huge step backward by returning home and am once again finding myself wrapped up in old relationship drama, I have a lot of hope and faith that this coming decade will serve to be a wonderful ten years, a decade when I finally achieve my life goals.

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I have decided that this new year's eve will not be spent in a new party dress, spilled booze, and a frantic search for a guy to kiss at the stroke of midnight.  Rather, I have opted to spend the night working- and hopefully a night of sobriety and generous tippers.  Although, I will admit that I plan on partaking in the champagne toast (I love the bubbly!)

A few resolutions I have made: 

1. Commit to eating healthy and working out-- the midwest way of life is slowly creeping back into my habits and I don't like it!
2. Pay off all non-student loan debt by the end of the year.
3. Become more engaged in the blogging community.
4. Be whoever I want to be, with no apologies!

Any resolutions you have made for 2010?

Best of 2009- Person

New person. She came into your life and turned it upside down. He went out of his way to provide incredible customer service. Who is your unsung hero of 2009?

I have been so blessed this year to have crossed paths with the women pictured above.  It seems that through the years the one thing I was always lacking was a close network of girlfriends, my very own Sex and the City gang.  Needless to say, they were waiting for me in California.

Most midwesterners were incredulous when I told them I found my LA roommates via Craigslist, but it is quite the norm on the west coast.  I wouldn't have done it any other way because these girls are amazing.  I never had the bonding college roommate experience, and the dalliances I had with roommates in Ohio were everything short of a soap opera episode, can you say drama?? It was a breath of fresh air to finally live in harmony with two other girls.

While our backgrounds and lifestyles diverged, our friendships blossomed.  Even though we are now spread out, from the east coast, to the midwest, and back to the west coast, I know that my life has been positively changed in the short time I called them my roommates, and the lifetime I get to call them my friends.

On Who I Am (Right Now)

I've tinkered around a little bit with the blog today, so jump out of the Google Reader and let me know what you think.  Still trying to figure out how to change the font for the side-bar headers and blog titles-- but it's giving me something to do with my time.

I can't believe that it's already been three weeks since I've moved home.  To be completely honest, I definitely think that my doubts and hesitations about leaving California behind were a serious bout of homesickness, something that could have been easily cured with a trip home for the holidays.  But in the spirit of seeing the glass half full, I keep reminding myself that everything happens for a reason.  I'm definitely using this time wisely to save up some money for my next big adventure-- wherever it takes me.

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Don't get me wrong, it has been great being home and visiting with family and friends... but I know that something is missing in Ohio. With this new found perspective I know that if given a little more time to make friends, and a little more financial security, I would have been content in California.   Yes, my conservative upbringing made me feel a little out of place in the crazy world of Los Angeles, but my liberal lifestyle is too much to bear for settling down in this small, conservative town.  Maybe I'm destined for a perpetual state of awkwardness, a constant search for a sense of belonging?

In reality, I know that I'm a commitment-phobic, independent soul, with a serious case of wanderlust.  I know this journey will eventually expire, when I achieve my dreams of traveling the world and publishing a book.  My path is unconventional to many- but I'm accustomed to being the outsider looking in.  My emotions are muted, until manifested in written form.  I can't be smothered by conventions, corporations, or what most people may expect from me.

I'm hardwired to always be leaving. And I'm okay with that.

Best of 2009- Place

The best place. A coffee shop? A pub? A retreat center? A cubicle? A nook?

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Driving along the coast every morning is the place I miss most about Los Angeles. Sometimes the smog was so thick you couldn't even see the Palisades, but those were the mornings when the scenery matched my caffeine-deprived haze into work.

Other days it was sunny and blue, and you couldn't help but to smile and pinch yourself that yes, this is your life. This is your daily commute. Most often those were the mornings riddled with laughter and dance parties in the VW with my roommate, coworker- but most of all my friend.

Clear or smog-laced, there's nothing I wouldn't do for another morning drive down Vista del Mar.

Best of 2009- Album

Album of the year. What’s rocking your world?

They hail from Paris-- well, Versailles actually. You may have heard them on the catchy Cadillac commercial, or a bevy of hit television shows including Entourage, Melrose Place, and Cougar Town. Maybe you saw them on their late-night talk show circuit when they performed on SNL, Jimmy Fallon, and Conan.

And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, stop everything you're doing and march your little cyber butt over to iTunes and purchase their latest album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix.

Oh, yeah... the band is Phoenix.

I can't remember exactly when I first one of their songs, but it's been a love affair ever since. While they still aren't considered mainstream, they are starting to gain national exposure, earning their first Grammy nomination for alternative album of the year.

Why are you still here, reading this? And not downloading their music (legally, of course?)

Well, since you stayed I went to Youtube so I could post a video to begin everyone else's love affair, and I found this gem. Love. Love. Love. I may watch it everyday-- my favorite song from the album and the brat pack? Oh my.

Best of 2009-- Challenge

Challenge. Something that really made you grow this year. That made you go to your edge and then some. What made it the best challenge of the year for you?

Moving to California. Making new friends. Getting over heart ache. Unemployment. Returning home. Leaving behind new friends. I think the better question is, what wasn't a challenge this year?

In all my life, I have never been stripped of every comfort and sense of security. I have never felt so vulnerable and intimidated, and even at times hopeless. Following on the heels of a bitter depression, this year has been transformative in so many positive ways that I could spend the rest of the year rehashing it all.

Each and every day this year has been a gift, offering a new challenge and learning experience. The days may not have always ended on a good note, but even though my vision may have been blurred by tears, I could see just how much my landscape was changing.

With that, I challenge myself to continue this path into the next year, and the ones that follow. Even though I find myself physically back where I was a year ago, I've never felt more emotionally healthy and optimistic that my current position is never the ultimate destination.

Best of 2009- Moment of Peace

Moment of peace. An hour or a day or a week of solitude. What was the quality of your breath? The state of your mind? How did you get there?

I'm reposting an entry taken from my previous blog, dated May 22, 2009. After re-reading this post, I think it truly marks my 'moment of peace,' this year. A turning point in my life where I realized that the most important thing is to be true to yourself.

Seven months have passed since I first wrote these words and so much has happened. Never did I imagine that my life would be what it is in this moment. But through these words I know that where I am today does not necessitate where I will be in another seven months. With that, I have hope- I'm still on this journey, it doesn't end because California is over. California was just the beginning, and Ohio is another pit-stop along the way.

Today has been one of those days where if I was still seven years old I would have stomped down the hallway, slammed my door, opened it back up thrown out a stuffed animal, and then slammed the door again. Should anyone come looking for me I’d undoubtedly be slumped on my bed, arms tightly crossed against my body.

Luckily, I’m not seven years old anymore. Unluckily, I’m very passive aggressive, and my temper tantrum involved one exasperated sigh, some nonsense rambling to my roommate, and Oreos.

So what if I self-medicate with cookies. I never said I didn’t have the appetite of a seven year old.

The source of all this pent-up anger? I’m at one giant crossroads in my life, where two freight trains are approaching from different directions, and they’re about to collide. I am frustrated with myself, annoyed with people around me, and just want to tie up all my loose ends and get on with my life. I hate being dictated by “well it’s a job, and it pays bills,” and “everyone is feeling the crunch,” and “do you want a pint or a tall?”

That last one was thrown in there for good measure, and yeah- pun intended.

Five months ago I had a full-time job and was a college professor. On paper, I had it together. But I was falling apart at the seams. Now it seems that I have nothing.

Except a lot of debt.

Debt that was created by getting my Masters degree, an objective I set to get me away from home. But I preceeded to make mistake after mistake after mistake. Drink after drink, wrong friend after wrong friend. The only good to come of anything was my internship, an opportunity to make good for myself. Mere weeks later I was making mistakes that inevitably led to a lingering depression that began the slippery slope to many more mistakes.

I’ve been in a downward spiral since college graduation. Come to think of it, it began spring semester, senior year– with a sip (more like gulp) of booze, attention from boys, and a side of baseball. A recipe for disaster.

For the most part, I’ve been a late developer of sorts. Most of my monumental life experiences have come years after my peers have gone through the same experiences. Usually, I have such high expectations for these experiences that they generally become catastrophic. My high school life was spent doing homework, playing sports, volunteering, and having a part-time job. In college I had two jobs, an internship, and a full course load. My first dabble with alcohol started at a frat party and ended at the hospital, and I didn’t touch the sauce again until my 21st birthday. Needless to say, I grew up very sheltered, I was always on the outskirts looking in.

Life after college for me should have been career, career, career- as it is for most post-grad 22 year-olds. Instead, my thought process was life after college meant having a life. Student loan debt should have been solely an investment in a Masters degree, but instead the debt symbolized freedom to live the life I felt I’d been deprived of in college and high school.

Roommates. Boyfriends. Parties. Irresponsibility. Something my peers had been educated in for the past four years while my nose had been stuck in books.

Where am I now? College has been over for three years. I have nothing to show for it. I’m competing for jobs with kids, kids, that graduated three weeks ago.

Peers my age are in lasting relationships, some are married, and some are even having children. I haven’t had a guy take me serious enough to want a relationship. I generally force it on them until they call me crazy, and say “but I thought you were the I-just-want-to-have-fun-type,” and move on- only to begin a serious relationship with the very next girl. (Apparently there’s a fine-line between not wanting anything serious, but still wanting a committed relationship- whatever happened to taking things slow?)

Told you I’m years behind my peers.

What happened to me? I like to believe that I’m a very old-fashioned, well mannered, well-educated person. I say please and thank you, I don’t swear, and I treat everyone exactly how I would like to be treated (even if it’s not reciprocated).

The truth is, I worked so hard to create a life that I thought I should be having, that I took away the life I wanted. I became what people wanted me to be, and stripped myself of the person I was. Now, I run in circles of friends that I detest because of their insidious lifestyles, yet I can’t seem to find the escape route from these negative influences. I have fallen victim to “you are the friends you keep,” and have a reputation for being the type of person I am not. California was supposed to be my escape route, and here I am. With the same crowd. With the same platinum blonde hair. The same routine Friday nights at the same bars with the same drinks.

I fell victim to the grass is always greener syndrome. I was the loner that wanted the popularity. Now I have the popularity, and I want the obscurity.

I am such a disappointment to myself.

Those two freight trains I mentioned earlier are going to collide, and hopefully soon. With one comes what I’m searching for in my career– success: a culmination of hard-work, networking, and recognition. With the other comes a social network: a culmination of educated, cultured, passionate individuals. I am a Yuppie at heart.

I am finished thinking I’m being deprived of life experiences just because my life doesn’t follow the same path of my peers or every television plot line. I am no longer going to contort my values to be a part of a crowd that outwardly “has it all.” Especially when I know firsthand that they generally don’t have it all, unless all is a smorgasbord of issues. I am no longer going to be a disappointment to myself- to the girl who shouldn’t hide the fact that she prefers Candide to Lipstick Jungle, to the girl that prefers a day of beach volleyball to two hours on a treadmill, to the girl that prefers a diet coke to a vodka soda, to the girl who prefers Target to , and to the girl that prefers a double-double from In-N-Out to tofu stirfry.

My life will not be dictated by how many pounds I weigh, how many grams of sugar I consume, or how much money I can spend. And when I do something– whether its splurge on a pair of shoes, read Bitter is the New Black, treat myself to a sushi dinner, or complete the 30-day Shred- I’m doing so because I want to, because I want a reprieve from the norm, not because it’s going to earn me brownie points with the cool crowd. For that matter, the cool crowd wouldn’t even eat a brownie. Whereas I eat the whole pan.

Maybe California is the escape route, after all. My clean slate. I have no friends, just roommates. I have no career, just a bartending gig. I have (a lot of) lessons learned.

“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” ~Carl Bard, Scottish Theologian

Best of 2009- Blog

Blog find of the year. That gem of a blog you can’t believe you didn’t know about until this year.

I've had several blogs through the years, hosted at Live Journal and Xanga through my angsty, woe is me teenage years, a short stint on MySpace, and most recently on Wordpress, and now Blogger.

So, in the blog world, I've been around.

But in all those years I've never shared my writing with anyone- anonymity was key, but mostly, I had set all my privacy settings accordingly. Likewise, I wasn't much of a blog-reader. Over the course of this year, I discovered several social networking sights like BlogHer and 20sb, not to mention Twitter. Through these outlets I have found so many wonderful bloggers and women who are following their hearts and dreams. Their shared stories have gotten me through so many rough days, whether they know it or not. I'm still not sure whether anyone really reads my blog, but I will continue keeping up with my newfound blogging treasures.

One such blogger that I have come to adore is Kerri, at Your Wishcake. She writes without abandon, whether its showcasing her latest etsy purchase (loved the chartreuse tea table), sharing her innermost thoughts on religion, or writing about your typical twenty-something 'day-in-the-life' shenanigans. Whatever the post may be, I always find myself nodding in agreement. She puts thoughts to words so eloqently that she's become a daily read.

And she also has her own Etsy shop, go check her out!

Best of 2009- Night Out

Night out. Did you have a night out with friends or a loved one that rocked your world? Who was there? What was the highlight of the night?


It's hard to pin-point a singular night out, because most nights out with these girls were one in the same... fun! There have been plenty of Sunday Fundays, karoake nights, random B-list celebrity sightings, and even a three-am jaunt down Hollywood Blvd. in search of a lost roommate and a slice of pizza.

The photo above is from my very first night out in Hollywood- at Les Deux night club.

To be honest, the night is a blur after we "befriended" some guys who had their very own VIP table, but what I do know was that there was a lot of dancing, our personal driver who we named Abdul, and a Hollywood-Dog nightcap.

There were definitely more memorable nights after this, but it certainly was the beginning of many good memories made in Hollywood.

Best of 2009- Book

Book. What book – fiction or non – touched you? Where were you when you read it? Have you bought and given away multiple copies?

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"People tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will descend like fine weather if you're fortunate. But happiness is the result of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly." Elizabeth Gilbert

This was a year where I was reunited with the public library, rediscovered my passion for reading and writing, and even fell victim to the Twilight series. But without a doubt, the best book I read in 2009 was Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.

Gilbert's memoir spent over a year at the top spot on the NY Times Bestseller's List, and with good reason. She chronicles her year-long journey of self-discovery and healing that took her from Italy to Indonesia to Bali, where she learned to love herself again, and most importantly, to love again.

Although I am at an entirely differently place in my life, Gilbert's words spoke volumes and my copy of her book is dog-eared and underlined all over. It is truly a book that I will continue to read over and over, and without doubt gain something new from each experience. While my eleven months in California pale in comparison to her more worldly travels, I whole-heartedly agree that depression can be fought without anti-depressants, that a little vulnerability and writing can go a long way.

Since finishing her book last spring, I have been itching to travel abroad and continue my journey in learning more about the world, and most importantly, more about myself. By appearances it may seem that I have taken a backwards step by abandoning California, but it is all a part of a bigger vision I have that sees me purchasing a one-way ticket to Europe and seeing where life takes me- whether it's a trip of a few weeks or several months, is yet to be seen. But I do know that it is imminent, and hopefully, life-altering.

Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love is set to hit the big screen in 2011, with Julia Roberts at the helm, and her follow up book Committed is due for a January 2010 publication. In the meantime, I've been admiring Jamie Varon's journey on A Life in Translation.

The Worst 'Best Of' Participation Award Goes To...

So much is going on that I'm terrible at keeping up with my poor little blog. I stripped it over a month ago when I started on the re-design. As you can tell by the boring white-ness, I didn't get very far.

Then I began 20sb "Best of 2009" Challenge, where I write 31 posts in 31 days. And I can't even keep up with that two days in a row. Blog fail!

Yesterday's "best of" was: Restaurant moment. Share the best restaurant experience you had this year. Who was there? What made it amazing? What taste stands out in your mind?

It's a safe assumption that most everything is going to be LA-centric. I already really miss California, and am left wondering if I made the right decision. I'm sure time will tell. So, my favorite restaurant moment was eating at The Bazaar at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills. I originally wrote about it here.

Today's "best of" is: Article. What’s an article that you read that blew you away? That you shared with all your friends. That you Delicious’d and reference throughout the year.

What's really surprising is that I more or less stalk CNN, LATimes, and the Cincinnati Enquirer websites all day reading countless articles ranging from local to world news, with a bunch of other random articles thrown in-- take, for example, an article I recently read about athlete's wives in light of the recent Tiger Woods' scandal. Yet despite my apparent news-obsessive behavior, nothing has really resonated with me this year. Perhaps its my Twitter-induced ADD, after all I see the majority of my news there first, in 140 characters or less.

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

I'm going to get better at this blogging business-- this is my third attempt, third time's a charm?

Best of 2009 Challenge

What a whirlwind 2009 has been for me, beginning with a cross country road trip into the virtually unknown, followed by eleven months of soul searching and defining my life and goals, and ending with a very tortured decision to move back home.

Despite everything- the good and the bad, and everything in between, I have no doubt that I would do it all again if given a chance. There is nothing in the world that money can buy that can replace all the learning experiences I have had the last year.

So, that being said, I decided to participate in 20sb (2o-something-blogger) Best of 2009 Challenge, where each day I'm prompted to reflect on something that happened in my life this year. I think this is a great opportunity to document one of the most life-changing years I've had in this quintessential 20-something mid-life crisis.

Today's prompt: What was your best trip in 2009?

My biggest trip, most definitely, was the drive to California--and due to budgetary limitations, there weren't too many other trips. San Diego a few times, Anaheim for a baseball game, and a camping adventure to Sequoia.

But the best trip? Hands down, Vegas, baby!!! Of course, it's probably cliche to claim Vegas as the cream of the crop, after all it's Sin City, but my trip was an offhand comment at dinner turned into a random weeknight road trip.So, let's explain.

My roommate and I have a running joke that our favorite sushi restaurant, fondly referred to as "Boats," always leads to the most entertaining evenings- ranging from pub crawls, to sold out rock shows, to frozen yogurt binges. Partly because it was our favorite place, partly because they have an awesome deal during the week, and mostly because I was moving back to Ohio and am convinced the sushi here is rotten- the roommates and I decided to eat there one last time.

As with most conversations during my last few days in California, there was a lot of incredulous discussions about how I could possibly leave such a beautiful place, which in turn led to how I was planning my grand return and crashing a work conference in San Francisco next year. (And by crashing, I mean being a tourist all day and partying at night, clearly). This particular conference also is held in Vegas.

I can't believe you've lived in LA all this time, and have never been to Vegas, says one of my roommates.

Pause. An exchange of looks.

Let's go to Vegas!!!!!

And that is how I ended up on a random road trip to Vegas on a Monday night, three days before I was scheduled to fly back to Ohio. The road trip was complete with chugged cans of Red Bulls, plenty of car dance parties, and tons of laughter. The four hours spent in a fog of chain smokers and alcoholics, was the funnest four hours I had had in a really long time.

Sometimes, a little spontaneity is all you need to make lasting memories.