under/overachiever

I had so much promise.

What happened to me? (Kidding, but not kidding.) I'm clearly the way-tragic product of too many interests, too much enthusiasm, and a desperate need to be good at everything. 

It was so much pressure (self-applied), too little focus on any one thing. I was a cat, leaping from one shiny thing to another. I still am.

Hypothesis: the internet ruined me. Or boys. BOYS ON THE INTERNET. Damn. 

 
yeah, "head of social" - there's my problem. 

During this week's excavation of my past life (in the Cave - err, Rubbermaid bin - of Treasures), I'm feeling intimidated by my own achievements. What? In the 8th grade I was on the volleyball team, softball team, yearbook committee, drama club and still managed to score top honours in my classes? French immersion, by the way. Also, I had a pretty profitable little babysitting enterprise on the side. Oh, and you know, just a HIGH SCHOOL BOYFRIEND.

Alright, so I stink at volleyball (and most other sports) and I always did.

Kindergarten gym-class evaluation: 

Apparently I needed improvement in "manipulation". Ha! I wonder if Ms. Chesney would be proud of my manipulation skills now? Boys, not baseballs, natch. (WINKY FACE!)

Though my "body awareness" was satisfactory from a young age. Not. Surprising. At. All. 

(whore)

Good grief. Winky face...?

Evaluation and recognition were my drugs of choice. I still need a fix now and then. Example: I will continue to endure the ribbing of my desk-neighbour ("NO ONE uses Foursquare") as long as I am still the mayor of Big Fat Burrito and the app continues to award me things like the "Bento Badge". Not since Girl Guides have I been awarded such clear measurements of "success" (success in "checking into" the poutine joint, but still). 

"Grade me! Look at me! Evaluate and rank me! I’m good, good, good and oh so smart! GRADE ME!" 

Lisa Simpson for life. 

Oh, y'know, just 1st place.

What do I really expect from myself now? What does all of this STUFF amount to? I've had a pretty amazing and full life so far. I can't say that any of it was "wasted" even though the best thing to come of a $20K art school education was my friend Liz. She's pretty worth it, though. 

(I haven't painted in years.)

I guess I just thought that a kid like me would be doing something huge and super meaningful as an adult (*gulp* I can't live up to that word). I love my life and my job, yeah, but where am I in 5 years? What do I really have to show for the last 10? I've been a tumbleweed. I'm pretty much in love with change (always a military kid...), so maybe I was meant to be a wanderer. Maybe this is how I have to find my niche. Maybe I never will.

Born-too-late flower-child.

But if I can ever find a cure for restlessness, it would be nice to figure out what I'm really meant to do. (WALL-EEEEEE!) Eventually. Maybe I'll be 45 before that happens. 

Oh gosh, by then I'll be a mom. A MOM!!!

That's coming soonish. I just really wanted to have my shit together first. I don't know. Maybe this is as "together" as I get. Maybe I just have to accept that I can be a little (or a LOT) bonkers and still a responsible adult and awesome mom. I can. 

Living proof: my mom is a wicked-(suck-it-June-Cleaver)-awesome mom and she was craaaaazy. While most moms stored pot roast and popsicles in the deep-freezer, mine stored garbage bags full of snow in the winter so we could have snow ball fights at our summer birthday parties. (!!!!!)

 See? winter gloves AND bathing suits.  ALSO: my mother should be apprehended by Family Services for allowing that haircut to happen.

Luckily, too, Alex isn't perma-stuck with me in Neverland, so at least one of us will be a reasonable facsimile of an adult/parent.

...well that got a little dark. Life-excavation went from LOL to OMFG pretty fast.

It's a good slap in the face, though. I'm over Death Cold 2000 and it's time to put Epic 2012 to paper. Sure, my tattoo is booked for September and I'm transforming into a redhead next week but that's just scratching the surface. Necessary but superficial. (AND AWESOME!) I can't just keep expecting new hair to fix things (EVEN THOUGH IT WILL BE AWESOME).

I will have a plan. It will be good. It will make me an adult. Sort of.

(p.s During the writing of this post last night, my Mom called to ensure I wasn't having an early mid-life crisis. This coming from the woman CALLING FROM A HOT TUB - literally, they have a waterproof house-phone. I told her I had to call her later, but she discouraged me because they're watching their "shows". Oh I see. American Idol trumps YOUR OWN CHILDREN. That's OK. I'll just have a beer instead. Then end up on Intervention in 6 years. Totally cool, ma.)

leaving las vegas... but not entirely

I popped my Vegas cherry this month.

And this wasn't a deflowering of the goin'-steady-promise-ring-back-of-your-Dad's-station-wagon variety. This was a hardcore-group-orgy-girl-on-girl-on-pizza-guy-porn de-virgination (not literally, mom, not literally). In my mind, I'm a jump-in-the-deep-end kinda girl. But, truthfully, these days, age and bruise-memory typically steer me towards wading in gradually. There was no room for wading. We went all-the-way Vegas (it was consensual).

Sure, yes, it was a work trip. CES, in fact. And we worked hard. Full days on our feet, smiling through the hangovers, shaking hands with shaky hands.

 

Proof.

I lost weight from replacing sleep and food with Red Bull (who AM I!?). Something I couldn't  manage to accomplish by eating salads and practicing yoga FOR A WHOLE YEAR. Is being healthy overrated?

(Full disclosure: my yoga/salad routine was intermittent and littered with burrito break-downs and way too much curry. Plus, I don't even like Red Bull.)

And... I gained back every pound in Utah a week later (next blog, peoples!). Back on salads.

So, well, here's the problem: this other facet of me was born (or better yet, re-born, born-again) in this strange, sleepless city. The dormant can't-stop-dancing party girl of my early 20s came alive again. Was I happy to see her? I'm still not sure. She's complicating my life back in the real world. She saw a poster on Pinterest this week that said "DO EPIC SHIT". She liked it. She adopted it as her mantra for 2012. Hubby reacted with a Marge Simpson-esque grunt. He is not amused. He prefers the adult me better, maybe. But will he ever understand unless he experiences it for himself? It's not really his bag. Yet, i didn't think it was mine either.

My overactive imagination has me wondering: was that the REAL me? Is the rest of this just pretending? Panic attack! It's true that I feel like an overgrown child most days. That I'm playing dress-up. I shared these concerns with Alex and he said, exasperatingly,  that I'm having a quarter-life crisis. That perked me up 'cause it means I'm living FOREVER!!! (Or, until I'm 132, to be precise.)

OK, so, it's like this dude I saw on Dr. Phil last week (I was at the gym, OK? Don't judge.). He had infantilism or a "baby fetish", as in he liked to wear diapers and be spoon fed and sleep in an over-sized crib (all "non-sexual" of course. riiiight...). But when the good Doctor asked him if it was hard to keep up the baby act, he said that sitting there in adult clothes sans diaper was the acting part. That the real him was the baby. OK, a severe comparison, maybe. But what if Vegas-me IS me??? Or at least a tiny part of me?

Melodrama. Obvi.

Really, maybe I just need more dancing in my life. And maybe "DO EPIC SHIT" doesn't have to mean base-jumping or quitting my job to pursue a career as an R&B back-up dancer (I WANT TO SOOOO BAD) or moving to Morocco or getting Nicki Minaj bum implants. Maybe it just means being that jump-in-the-deep-end girl that I imagine myself to be. Maybe it's just going out-out more. And wearing my purple sequined hat or my "fashion turban" no matter how many new nicknames I might acquire at work. And drinking extra dirty martinis past midnight on a Thursday. Check, check and check. "Epic 2012" is off to a good start. Getting the Mister on board is my next feat.

I'm committing a big Vegas no-no. I'm not leaving it all behind. What happens in Vegas... follows you home and moves into your house and stays a while? Epic.

Clearly my experience can't quite be explained in words or photos, but I'll give it the good Vegas try. Enjoy.

 

[ Gah. I need to go home. ]