What’s the Word for How it Feels to End Something That Never Even Started?

There’s a particular brand of heartache that comes at the end of something too new to have been anything at all. It’s nothing and yet, despite its nothingness, it’s still something enough that you notice it when it’s gone.

There should be a word for that. I’ll bet the Germans have a word for it. Or perhaps the Inuit languages would have me covered. Nothing in English feels quite right.

I’m not heartbroken. My heart was not totally wrapped up in this other person yet, but it did hope to be. My heart did naively allow itself to picture introducing this person to my friends. Imagine a birthday dinner with one extra person at the table. Fantasize about Sunday afternoons on the couch, my legs over his.

I’m not heartbroken. But my heart doesn’t exactly feel great because mixed up in the cheek-flushing hurt and disappointment is the cheek-flushing shame that I’m even this upset to begin with. How embarrassing to get your hopes up so quickly. How silly to have thought something could be different this time. How mortifying to have taken him at his word. How ridiculous to cry when he takes it back.

I’m not heartbroken. I haven’t lost a great love of my life. We never got to the love part. We had only just barely arrived at the like part. This feels different than the bittersweet loss of a friendship or the all-consuming grief of losing a loved one or the disorienting way you feel for a few months like you’ve lost a limb when the person you shared a bed with for years no longer sleeps on their side.

I’m not heartbroken so it’s probably a little melodramatic to be feeling all these feelings at all. But when your hopes float up and then crash down, what are we supposed to call that?

I’m not heartbroken. Maybe a little heartbruised. We need a word for that.

Being Unemployed Feels A Lot Like Being Single

As 2020 continues to cement itself globally as just the friggin’ worst, I find myself unemployed for the first time since 2009, when I packed up a hundred pound purple suitcase and moved to New York City. The company where I was lucky to spend the last nine years fell victim to the financial impact of the COVID-19 closures and so, alongside tens of millions of others, I’ve found myself looking for a new role and I can’t stop thinking about how being unemployed feels an awful lot like being single.

I may be new to the life of a job hunter, but I am quite familiar with being single thankyouverymuch, and let me tell you…the parallels are eerie. Let us read the ways:

When you’re single: It always starts with a breakup. Of course there are a million and one ways to process the end of a relationship, but clichés are clichés for a reason, and I’d be surprised if your processing doesn’t involve some combination of a night with your friends and many margaritas, crying, ice cream, and therapy.
When you’re unemployed: I mean. See above.

When you’re single: After the initial shock and/or grief wears off, the freedom sets in. Literally everyone on the apps (and just like…walking down the street) seems like a bright, shiny, very attractive promise when you’ve been with the same (wrong) person for too many years.
When you’re unemployed: Ask me to check my work email! LOL I CAN’T! I. AM. FREE. Goodbye to my alarm clock and hello to weekday trips to the beach. If you’ve ever felt underpaid or overworked or underappreciated, even a cursory glance at job boards and career pages will make you believe in the limitless possibility of what’s just ahead on your horizon.

When you’re single: Crafting your bio on a dating app is a delicate balance of seeming attractive and available, but not desperate. I’m definitely not single because there’s something wrong with me. I’m still single because I have high standards!
When you’re unemployed: Crafting your cover letters and LinkedIn profile is a delicate balance of seeming valuable and available, but not desperate. I’m definitely not unemployed because there’s something wrong with me. I’m still unemployed because I respect myself enough to hold out for the right opportunity with a company who recognizes my worth!

When you’re single: These days, a breakup is usually followed by scrubbing most signs of your ex from social media, save for a few scattered pics so you don’t seem too chronically alone.
When you’re unemployed: Welcome to tailoring your resume to each and every job description and removing past experience that is no longer relevant. Proud you may be of your stint as a server at the Olive Garden during college (#breadsticksforlife), it sadly no longer warrants real estate on your resume over a decade later.

When you’re single: Oh no no no SIR, you are not going to ghost me. I didn’t even like you! You can’t reject me! I REJECT YOU.
When you’re unemployed: Ever had a recruiter tell you they were declining to move forward with your candidacy for a job you felt you were overqualified for and applied to as a kind of throwaway “safe” option? Yeah. It’s a fun feeling.

When you’re single: You will forever find yourself staying up too late swiping on Tinder and Bumble. You will be unable to account for the last two to three hours.
When you’re unemployed: Anyone up for a midnight scroll on LinkedIn?

When you’re single: Especially in the current online dating climate, even if you actually want a relationship, it’s easy to fear “settling” when there appears to be a bottomless supply of singles just a swipe away. What if your next date is your soulmate?
When you’re unemployed: You may dream of receiving an offer, ANY offer, but perhaps the offer you finally receive leaves a lot to be desired. Do you take it because another may never come along? But what if another does and it’s better? Pays better? Has better opportunities for growth? Has a kitchen with snacks and cold brew on tap?

When you’re single: Have you ever gone on a first date that was so amazing, so in flow, so full of sparkly chemistry that you texted all your friends on the train ride home that he kissed you good night and he wants to see you again and you’ve finally met The One? And all your friends sent “OMG YESSSSSS!!!” and “OF COURSE HE WANTS TO SEE YOU AGAIN, QUEEN!!!” and body roll GIFs and emotional crying emojis? And then you never heard from him again?
When you’re unemployed: You know you aced that interview and the hiring manager asked how soon you could start and said they’d reach out with the offer details later that afternoon, so you call your mom and text your best friend telling them you’re pretty sure you’re starting a new job on Monday. But then Monday rolls around and instead of an offer letter, all you’ve received is a rejection email and so you’re forced to drown your silly optimism in a 4:00 glass of wine.

When you’re single: Okay so generally, I don’t believe in competing with other women, but when you finally meet an emotionally available, employed, handsome man, you can be your most confident, charming self, and it’ll still be hard to not dwell on the hoards of accomplished, stylish, smart, gorgeous, single women right at his fingertips.
When you’re unemployed: Why is everyone else younger and smarter with years of Zendesk and Salesforce experience? WHEN DID YOU ALL GET MBA’s?!

When you’re single: You haven’t had “the talk” yet, but you’ve somehow deluded yourself into operating under the assumption that you’re exclusive anyway until it becomes clear there are others vying for his attention.
When you’re unemployed: I’m sorry, did you say “other candidate”? Cool cool cool. No, right, totally, that makes sense.

At the end of the day, as callous as it sounds, it’s just a numbers game. The many dates and many applications are all in pursuit of just one (or more than one…you do you!) ideal match. And whether “ideal” means a long term commitment or just having your more immediate needs met, may the universe bring you everything you’ve ever wished AND worked your ass off for.

How I Paid Off $30,000 in Credit Card Debt in Two Years

Having recently finished paying off nearly $30,000 in credit card debt, I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of myself.

I also can’t help but think how strange it is to be SO proud of something that I only even had the chance to accomplish because I was SO VERY DUMB in the first place, but proud I am and I’m going to share with you exactly how I fell face first into and then climbed my way out of debt.

Step 1: Over the course of about four years, make a swift journey from debt-free to drowning by pretending you make at least double your salary. Consistently tell yourself you obviously can’t afford to spend $500 on vacation but spend that money instead on ordering in cheese fries that give you gas.

Step 2: Accept every credit increase offered to you on all three credit cards by reasoning that a higher limit will mean a lower utilization rate and therefore only help your credit score and overall financial health.

Step 3: Use all your new credit. All of it.

Step 4: Ignore your credit card statements. Pay just over the minimum due every month because your mom once told you to always pay more than the minimum due and let that convince you that you’re super fiscally responsible.

Step 5: After too many nights of tossing and turning with a racing heart and overwhelming sense of doom, decide that enough is enough. Remember that you’re capable and independent. Remind yourself that you’re the only one taking care of you and you’re doing a shit job of it.

Step 6: Pay off your first small credit card balance. Feel momentarily jubilant until you notice how much higher your other balances have risen. Realize you haven’t been spending less…you’ve just been spending on different cards.

Step 7: Start talking about your debt. A lot. Throw out lots of flares to your loved ones that things are about to be a lot different around here. (After your upcoming family trip. And after that wedding you’re going to. And probably after you stock up your shelves and buy a new pair of shoes. Basically things will get different after you prepare for a financial apocalypse BUT JUST BE READY OKAY.)

Step 8: Consider whether or not to apply for a personal loan. Wildly impress yourself by teaching yourself how to make formulas in a Google Sheet and discover that you’d actually be better off paying it off the good ol’ fashioned way if you can manage to stick to a budget.

Step 9: Give your credit cards to a trusted friend. THIS IS IMPORTANT. Read it again. You cannot be in possession of your credit cards. You have already proven yourself to be VERY UNTRUSTWORTHY and very very financially foolish. You may one day earn back the privilege, but you’re now in time out. Think about what you’ve done. For almost two years.

Step 10: Try to not pass out when a very close friend offers you a very large and nearly interest-free loan. Puff out your chest with pride masking embarrassment and say, “But I could never!” Then consult your trusted Google Sheet with all the formulas and realize that accepting the loan would shave off thousands of dollars in interest and about a year off your projected timeline. Sheepishly accept the loan with a “Yes, that would be quite nice and helpful, please, thank you, I won’t let you down.” Think about how this might actually be a key to staying on track because you care way more about your friend’s continued trust in you than American Express’s.

Step 11: Create a budget and then proceed to say the word “budget” incessantly over and over again for the next two years. If your friends were to word cloud your conversations, “budget” would be the whole damn cloud. Start grocery shopping with a calculator and stop ordering in several nights a week. Delete the “We Miss You!” promotional emails from Seamless without opening them.

Step 12: Continue talking about your journey to debt-free to anyone who will listen. Ignore the sneaking feelings of shame and do your best to push past the stigma of talking about money and debt and financial health. Not only will the people around you be incredibly encouraging and helpful and supportive, but friends will already be prepared for the possibility that you may not be able to join for events or meals out. REALLY good friends will just invite you over to hang out when you say you can’t afford brunch that week.

Step 13: Obsessively check your bank apps every day. Look it all right in the eye. Get into a staring contest with it and win. You cannot confront what you hide from.

Step 14: Organize your life and your priorities. Upcoming annual membership fee? Better budget for it! Want to go out for your friend’s birthday? You guessed it! Budget, baby.

Step 15: Consider if you have any control over increasing your income in some way, big or small. If you’re very lucky, your side gig could be as a date night babysitter for a rotation of about five or six families with criminally cute children and you could make an average of $100 a pop to cuddle some kiddos for an hour or so before spending the rest of the night reading and watching Netflix on the couch. Use that money to either make extra payments on your debt or to give yourself some breathing room in your restrictive budget. Either choice is valid and absolutely okay.

Step 16: Don’t give up. It will get hard and you will get bored and the journey will feel endless. Celebrate your mini milestones and successes (hellooooo skyrocketing credit score!) and distract yourself with a wish list of things you can’t wait to pay cash for when all is said and done. Because while you might be surviving the winter with just one pair of boots to wear every single day, you’re allowed to want two pairs of boots.

Step 17: When it finally happens, when the day finally comes and you make your final credit card payment, CELEBRATE. Mark the occasion. This is a BIG DEAL. Take a selfie, shout it from the rooftops, pop a bottle of champagne, and maybe treat your friends who treated you over and over again to a meal or a round of drinks on you. Make yourself a solemn promise to avoid making the same mistake ever again.

Americans are in debt to the tune of over $14 trillion (trillion!) and $413 billion of that is solely credit card debt. If you are carrying debt, you are clearly not alone and it does not define you. Your journey will likely look different than mine. I lost my job due to the pandemic the very same month I paid off my debt, but prior to that I was privileged to have income security many do not see in their lifetimes. If you’re struggling to make ends meet, a push to pay down debt may not be realistic or possible for you.

But if you can, you must. You and your one singular life deserve it. The boots can wait.

Tinder Aims to Capitalize on My Desperation

Online dating is unpleasant. This is news to no one. It feels superficial, noncommittal, and filled to the brim with flaky, insincere characters. But alas, even before the world locked up and we were all forced indoors to keep ourselves and each other safe, it was often the only realistic way for many of us to connect with potential dates. The IRL meet cute seems like a dating urban legend at this point, a story we tell each other over margaritas to distract from our loneliness with the fantasy that as soon as we stop thinking about it so much we’ll definitely bump into our perfect match while we stock up on cotton balls and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos at Duane Reade.

Until then, we swipe. Personally, I don’t employ a lot of strategy when I swipe — sometimes I’m slow and deliberate and take time to read bios; sometimes I move so fast it feels like some animal part of my brain has taken over and I’m not even really aware of which direction I’m swiping — but on occasion I do like to take advantage of the app’s paid upgrade. I usually do this when I want to grab hold of the reins a bit and when I’m feeling really on my game — really open to dating, really open to actually meeting people, really open to someone please god anyone kissing me at some point in 2020. Bumble has Bumble Boost, Hinge has Preferred, and Tinder has Tinder Gold.

My roommate and I were lounging on the couch recently, complaining about men on dating apps (I feel obligated to note here that sometimes we talk about other things) and it somehow came up that she rarely upgrades on Bumble because it costs much more than Tinder.

“Oh, I’m the opposite,” I said. “I know it’s actually more money in the long run, but $12.99 for a week of Bumble just feels like an easier pill to swallow than $29.99 for a month of Tinder.”

“But Tinder’s only $14.99 for the month!” she replied. “It’s so much cheaper!”

Phones out, subscription options held up side by side, we discovered that as a 33 year old woman, I am being charged double what my 26 year old roommate pays. DOUBLE. 

I’ve apparently been living under a blissfully ignorant rock, because a quick Google search confirmed that many users have been aware of this for years, and that Tinder, despite having settled a massive lawsuit in California and agreeing to stop differentiating pricing by age in that state only, stands by the practice on the whole. A Tinder spokesperson has stated, “We’ve found that these price points were adopted very well by certain age demographics. During our testing we’ve learned, not surprisingly, that younger users…are more budget constrained and need a lower price to pull the trigger.” Translation: older users have the money and are willing to spend the money, so we’re going to charge the money.

And okay, maybe now that I’m in my thirties I should have plenty of excess disposable income to throw at remedying my nonexistent love life, but we’re in the middle of a PANDEMIC here, folks, and I’m UNEMPLOYED, okay? I’ve never had more time to date in my life yet felt less desirable or safe doing so.

I already feel like I’m at a disadvantage dating in my thirties. There was a noticeable decrease in matches after my 30th birthday, so much so that I wish I was a more analytical and data-driven person with the stats to back it up, but you’ll just have to trust me here. I’m getting the sneaking suspicion that I’m now outside of a lot of guys’ set age ranges, either because they’re just conditioned to think younger equals prettier or more fun, or because they assume (rightfully, at least in my case) women in their thirties are interested in a little more commitment and a little less “not looking for anything serious right now.”

So why must I also be at a financial disadvantage?! We’re all on the same miserable (mindset shift, Megan…okay “winding”) journey together, so why are we not paying the same price for the same service? 

And if that’s not going to happen, then I’d like to make a formal request of Tinder: any chance you could hook this 33 year old up with a senior citizen discount?

I Can’t Buy a Boyfriend, But I Can Buy Sperm!

Last weekend I found myself on the website for California Cryobank, the largest sperm bank in the US. I managed to get there after ever so casually perusing the websites of some fertility centers in the city, centers I found to have resources conveniently devoted specifically to single women wanting to start a family. It wasn’t until I was viewing donors 6′ or taller with a Bachelor’s degree or higher before I froze mid-click, slammed my laptop shut, and revoked my own internet privileges for the rest of the afternoon.

When I spiral, I spiral long and hard. Did you know that there’s only one public school with a pre-k option that’s rated 10/10 in Brooklyn? And did you know that a one bedroom apartment in that neighborhood is currently renting for somewhere in the range of $1900 to $2400? I know this now. I also know there are a ton of superbly rated public schools in Manhattan, but that same price range would put me in the market for a only studio or maybe a junior one bedroom if I’m lucky. I never used to picture myself co-sleeping with my child, but I picture that now.

I know that with my current salary, I’d be able to afford maybe 15ish hours of childcare a week at the NYC minimum wage OR I could continue saving for retirement OR I could start saving for my child’s education. I don’t really know how much daycare costs because none of the websites for the centers that don’t look utterly terrifying have clearly displayed pricing and I feel like calling for info at this stage of total non-pregnancy would maybe be a touch too much. I also feel like the fact that pricing isn’t easily accessible means I won’t be able to afford it, like the time I was in a fancy jewelry store in the Bellagio with my mom and she whispered, “Places like this don’t use price tags because if you have to ask how much it is, you can’t afford it.”

I’ve worked out a potential fantasy work schedule that involves a delicate balance of part-time childcare, working remotely, and a pack & play underneath my desk. Alternatively, I could also move home and take advantage of cheaper rent and family childcare, but then I’d need a car and a new job. And when should I make that move? Despite the legal ramifications of hiring discrimination, it’s been well documented that employers aren’t really champing at the bit to bring pregnant women on board, so it would very much need to be a Before or After sort of thing. Before would mean finding a new gynecologist and establishing a new career, hopefully one that comes with paid maternity leave. After would mean the risk of being unemployed for a while for the whole moving across the country and giving birth to a human thing.

This sounds like a lot, right? Like I maybe need to slow my roll a bit? You’re not wrong, I guess. I was asked recently why I don’t put this kind of effort into finding a partner and I’ll admit the question took me by surprise. But I mean, isn’t the idea that you’re NOT supposed to put effort into it? If you’re single, you’ve heard it before, too…”It’ll happen when you least expect it. You’ll find someone when you stop looking.” Blah blah blah.

But honestly, I think it boils down to me not feeling like finding a partner is at all within my control. I can literally buy sperm on a website and make an appointment and pay to have this sperm put inside of me. It’s clinical. It’s science. As much as I’d rather get pregnant for free the fun old fashioned way, love is decidedly less clinical than an appointment with my gynecologist. I have yet to work out a scientific approach to avoid getting ghosted.

Over the past several years of being single and dating, I do feel like I’ve at least put in some work to narrow the pool. I’ve made an effort to be clearer about what I’m looking for and I’ve decided to waste less time on what are very clearly casual encounters. So like…what else is there to do?

While I’m sharply aware that I am the only common denominator in my unsuccessful romantic exploits and I believe there is always room for ongoing personal development, I don’t really think I have any glaring personality flaws I should be focusing on course correcting. (I realize this sounds a bit like an open invitation to tell me otherwise, and please, if you’re keeping a list, don’t be shy. Send it over! Let’s fix me.) And okay, I GUESS if I want to claim I’m making the bare minimum effort to avoid the getting pregnant solo thing, I’ll have to re-download the dating apps I’ve been living without for the past couple of months. But dude. They suck so hard. Everyone knows the apps suck so hard.

No one who tells me it’s all going to work out is single. People in love usually forget all about what it was like before they found someone who wasn’t afraid of their morning breath. Not all of us are comfortable sitting in empty possibility. I like a list. I like a plan. I’m going to download the apps again. I’m going to go on more dates with strangers. I’m going to be warm and open and I promise to not bring up getting pregnant on the first date.

I’m just also going to keep saving up to buy some premium, high quality sperm. Super tall, super smart sperm.

Bubbaloo

When I was little, I wanted a baby brother or sister even more than I wanted a puppy.

I was nine years old by the time my sister finally barreled into our lives, all squishy cheeks and pink rage, and it seemed I was too old to have any friends share in my anticipation. Most of my peers already had siblings, younger or older, and my proud pronouncements of “My mom is going to have a baby!” were mostly met with shrugs and lazy “cools.”

She made her debut in the very early morning hours of Valentine’s Day. From the couch in the corner of the hospital room, I watched her enter this world and cried tears of joy so hard that when I went with my dad to alert the rest of the family in the waiting room, my grandmother thought something had gone terribly wrong.

A Valentine’s baby was sure to be sweet, but she was a Sour Patch Kid. A Warhead. A SweeTart punch to the ear drum who flopped herself around in her crib if things didn’t go exactly her way. She was the cutest baby anyone had ever seen but she had fire behind her twinkly eyes. She looked like a mischievous pixie, an impossibly cute Pixar cartoon character come to life. She was so mercurial, my parents joked they would have never had me if she’d come first. She wore us out.

I wanted a baby sister all the way up until she arrived, I guess. But then she did and she was her own person and not just a pliable doll for me to play with. The years between us were so unfortunately timed that she was a newly verbal toddler while I entered my fragile preteen years. She’d loudly ask about the pimples on my face until I cried, certain she was bullying me on purpose, complaining to my parents who sighed and told me to be the bigger (literally) person.

There were moments of sweet togetherness, like our tradition of watching Disney channel movies and having breakfast for dinner when I babysat, but our relationship was mostly stormy while I lived at home. In December 1999, when she was just shy of four years old, I wrote in the gratitude section of my journal, “She was a total brat today, so I need to write her in here to remind myself how much she means to me.”

When I left for college, she was eight years old and she sobbed hysterically outside my dorm. During the four years I was away, I’d periodically send her books, hoping she’d share my love of young adult novels. She’d send me sweet cards, telling me I was her favorite sister and begging me not to forget about her, but we’d grow further apart before we started getting closer. I felt overprotective of her and also strangely motivated to hold her to high standards. I always knew she was capable of more than she let on, knew that she was smarter than she insisted, and in pushing her to push herself, I pushed her away.

When she got her drivers license, she began to pick me up at the airport when I’d come home, and we’d spend my first hours back in Colorado alone together, window shopping and drinking smoothies. Though in my mind I often thought of her as the same eight year old little girl I’d left at home when I went away to school, she had apparently become a fledgling adult overnight. She had opinions and specific tastes and so many questions. I felt pride blossom deep in my chest that she would come to me with these questions, because while they sometimes made me cringe throughout my whole body, she knew as well as I did that I would always always always be honest with her.

And so we learned, car ride after car ride, that we enjoyed each other’s company.

I made trips home and she made trips to see me and over the years we tried to build something more meaningful, to dig into what it means and will mean to be sisters to each other for all our lives. We shared our disappointments and victories and heartaches, but often irregularly, still sharply aware of the near decade between us.

When she told me she wanted to move to New York for a year, I encouraged her wholeheartedly but hid hesitation behind my excitement. We hadn’t lived in the same home for 13 years. We hadn’t even lived in the same state for nine years. She would need me, need my help and my support and my guidance and my knowledge of the subway system. Did we even really like each other?

As it turns out, we do. We really really like each other.

And she did need me. She faced rejection and I hugged her tight and wiped her tears and helped her craft new cover letters. She got terribly homesick and we tracked down a bar playing the Broncos game. She got lost over and over again and I helped her find her way. She needed time to get on her feet and we shared a bed for nearly three months.

What I didn’t anticipate was how I’d grow to need her. I wasn’t prepared for the comfort I’d feel in coming home to her wide open face and arms when I was sick. I’d forgotten how good it felt to be near someone who knew so much of you and your history, who knew who you were and why you were and loved you without judgment because or in spite of it all. I couldn’t have known the full body bliss I’d experience napping with her in the grass in our favorite park, bellies full of pizza and lemonade.

And now she’s gone away on her next adventure and we again have too many miles between us. 900 miles might be fewer than 1800 but it’s a hell of a lot more than three and the subway won’t take me to Nashville.

So I miss her, send her memes that make me think of her, and thank the universe for the sweet opportunity we had to fall deeply in love as sisters.

A Menagerie of Men

I come from a family of collectors.

My mom collects I Love Lucy memorabilia and Madame Alexander dolls and moose decor for our mountain home and basically anything even remotely related to Bruce Springsteen.

My dad collects NASCAR toys for grown men and Hot Wheels cars and antique lanterns and retro tin signs adorned with pinup girls.

My sister collects anything with pineapples, but mostly she collects clothes from Lululemon.

I followed suit when I was young. I used to have boxes and boxes of Barbies and Polly Pockets. I collected stuffed animals and Hot Wheels (until my dad stole them) and anything Winnie the Pooh for a while. I even vaguely recall going through a brief bald eagle phase? And, of course, there was my decidedly not brief *NSYNC phase, complete with a shrine of posters and marionettes. (I still have a beach towel with their cute baby faces all over it.)

These days I’m not much of a collector, aside from the books I hope will one day fill a library if I ever manage to not live in a New York City apartment.

What I can’t seem to stop collecting, however, are first dates. My shelves are full of them.

Over here is the guy who grew up in a Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish household. He described his community as “the Mormons of the Hasidic people” and said he grew up proselytizing around the world with his family. He left the religion with the help of a support group and hasn’t spoken to his dad in a decade. He wishes he’d had a chance to play the field and have more “casual” sexual experiences. My favorite part of the date was the slice of cake we shared.

Next to him is the firefighter from Far Rockaway who admirably joined the FDNY in the wake of 9/11. He fed me well, but he was a smoker and he referred to women at the Women’s March as “a bunch of angry people yelling about nothing.” He asked me to explain feminism to him as if he were an alien. He missed his pre-FDNY days when he could just smoke some weed and drive around all day.

On the shelf below those guys is the first date I joined for a nighttime walk in Central Park until the raccoons got a little too close, and this other first date who suddenly moved to Long Island the week after I beat him at our games of Scrabble and pool. And that first date over there was a Broadway musician and music director who took me out for margaritas. We had so much sexy chemistry at the bar, but our time together at his place was not exactly deserving of a standing ovation at curtain call, ifyouknowwhatImean.

Direct your eyes to this shelf and you’ll see the beardy, bearish guy who owned a bar in Brooklyn. We played darts and made friends with another couple who assumed we’d been together for a long time. He pulled me in tight, gave me a wink, agreed we looked good together, and then never texted me again. Next to him is the very tall sports journalist with a booming voice who took tiny nibbles of some kind of pill several times throughout our date. He said they were because he’d suffered three major concussions from various bizarre injuries having nothing to do with sports.

A few of my first dates turned into something blurry that was ongoing despite never leading to a real second date, so they get their own shelf. There was the guy who was deeply invested in personal finance but not very invested in me, and the guy who texted me every time his on-again-off-again girlfriend was off again. He didn’t really treat me very well, but I have to give him credit for at least being self aware enough to admit to me that he just liked the attention. Also on this shelf was a guy I felt was probably too cute for me, who hugged so tight he felt like one of those weighted blankets that could cure my anxiety. The last time I saw him he checked in to make sure I still knew he wasn’t looking for anything serious. Soon after, I saw him on instagram vacationing with his new girlfriend somewhere tropical.

And if you look over here, children, you’ll see my most rare collectors items: two third dates.

The third date wearing a college football tee owned his apartment in Brooklyn and sent me pictures of his nieces and nephews and always had a nice bottle of wine at home. He introduced me to his friends on our third date. One friend got inappropriate when the date wasn’t looking and tried to kiss me, and even as I pushed him away I tried to be polite because he was supposed to be a friend of my date’s. Third Date acted as if I was the one being inappropriate and left me on a street corner without a word or another explanation. He had been acting erratically and had spent a significant amount of time in the bathroom. He could have been experiencing some intense intestinal distress (one can only hope), but he was probably just on something.

Next to him, you’ll see a third date in a plaid button down. He had an unfortunate looking chihuahua pug mix he called a chug. He loved the chug fiercely and was very easy to talk to and made me laugh often. On our third date, he took me to the Meatball Shop and we opened up about our exes and he kissed me (really well) by the subway stairs. Instead of coming to my new neighborhood for a fourth date like we planned, he texted me that he’d been seeing someone else and it was getting serious.

Every time I shove another date up on these shelves, I think they couldn’t possibly hold any more and yet they’re proving themselves to be annoyingly limitless. Magic shelves and seemingly poor taste aside, I remain relentlessly optimistic and anxiously await adding my last first date to the collection and dumping the rest at Goodwill.

Planning Parenthood

A couple of weeks ago, a Humans of New York post made me cry. This isn’t altogether unusual, but its caption felt directed toward me in the way that absolutely everything does when you’re feeling selfishly preoccupied with a specific aspect of your life.

The image was of a pair of pale, soft looking hands holding a pair of reading glasses. The subject spoke in the caption of finally giving up hope of ever having a child after exploring her options one final time at 48 years old. She said she sobbed for weeks as she grappled with the loss and the hole she felt and the knowledge that the hole would remain empty. “I wish I’d done it on my own when I was younger,” she said. “I wish I’d stopped complaining about the past, and hoping for the future, and just said: ‘Fuck it. This is where I am now, and this is what I can do about it.'”

Earlier this year, I opened up in this space about beginning a journey to become debt-free. I’ve now paid off two of my credit cards with smaller balances and am left staring down my own financial Everest: my American Express card.

I’m proud of the progress I’ve made. Just a couple weeks ago, in deciding whether or not to take out a personal loan to manage the rest, I made a google sheet complete with formulas (FORMULAS!!!) calculating the interest I’d pay and how quickly I’d be finished if I did it on my own and stuck to a specific payment. That alone is some serious growth. Excel and I are not friends. When it’s all good and gone, I have a goal to celebrate in Costa Rica (somewhere I’ve been saying I want to visit for years, but never have because #debt). After that, I’ll immediately continue the same monthly debt payments – only this time they’d be to myself, to build up a cash nest egg for the first time in my life.

I feel energized by the data, focused in a way I’ve not felt in ages. And simmering underneath it all is my real motivation, the real reason I’m feeling so driven: if I’m still single when my balance hits zero, I’m going to try to have a baby on my own.

If there’s one thing in this life of which I’m certain, it’s that I should be a mother.

No one here is surprised, I’m sure. Motherhood has felt like an inevitability since before I can remember. Like most of my friends, I had a constantly rotating roster of names for my would-be offspring (and still do). I’ve made a career out of working with children for nearly a decade, and spent the decade prior to that honing natural caregiving instincts as a babysitter, like so many young girls (and so few young boys…we really should have more boys babysit, but that’s another blog post, I suppose).

I refuse to wait until it’s too late. Already I’m constantly hushing the voice in my head when it starts worrying too loudly about the state of my eggs at age 36 or so.

I refuse to be blindsided or unprepared. There’s a particular feeling of empowerment you feel when you are handling your own shit. It’s a little cocky and a little euphoric and it propels you forward.

There’s just one small problem.

You see…all that preparing? The pragmatism and the data-driven decisions? Well…it’s all been making me feel really sad.

I’ve been battling a sharp loneliness in planning for the possibility of single parenthood, because that possibility comes hand in hand with the possibility of still being alone in three or four more years.

And I’ve noticed a quiet superstition take hold, a tingling fear that if I spend too much time in preparation for this life alone, I’ll conjure that life into existence.

I’m left struggling with how to set myself up to enjoy a piece of the life I always imagined for myself, while not treating that particular future as a certainty and not closing myself off to the people or opportunities that could bring about the full technicolor picture I’ve been hoping for.

Maybe everything will look entirely different by this time next year, let alone four years from now. But in the words of the anonymous woman in the photograph: Fuck it. This is where I am now, and this is what I can do about it.

 

A Quilt Or the Way I See My Body

The perceptions we have of ourselves are ever-changing and built over time. The moments big and small that form the way we see ourselves begin before we’re even conscious of them and so often come by way of outside forces.

The perception I have of my body feels to me like a patchwork quilt, each square a different memory, sewed together as I age, accumulating rows as I do years. Some squares I remember more vividly than others. Some squares bring back happy memories of my body and others make my chest tighten.

I want to share some squares with you.

I am seven years old. I’m at recess with my best friend. We hear an older girl has started a club in the corner of the playground and we go to check it out. She tells us it’s a Skinny Club, and glares at me as she says that my friend can stay but I cannot. My best friend grabs my hand and storms away.

I am nine years old. I’m wearing a black and neon two piece bathing suit that I love, but for the first time, I take in how my body looks different from other girls in their suits. I decide to stop wearing two piece bathing suits.

I am ten years old. I am shopping with my mom and all her tags say small, but mine say large and none of the clothes fit on my body like I think they’re supposed to.

I am 12 years old. We are visiting family and something happens involving me and food. I don’t remember if I was caught eating something I shouldn’t or if I was whining about being hungry, but I do remember that, in his frustration, my dad snaps, “Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately?!” We tour a chocolate factory later that day and I won’t allow myself to taste the free samples at the end.

I am 13 years old. I’m a freshman in a brand new school. A boy yells “MASSIVE!” after me in the hallways for weeks.

I am 14 years old. I grow a few inches and lose a little baby fat. Tanned from a summer in California, I secretly think I look good in the pictures from my trip, but I don’t think I’m supposed to admit that out loud.

I am 17 years old. I listen to one of my best friends turn down compliments over and over again and it bothers me. I decide to accept every compliment that is paid to me and say thank you, even if I don’t believe it myself, and in doing so I slowly start believing.

I am 18 years old. Immersing myself in theater makes me feel accepted, inside and out.

I am 20 years old. I pose nude for a friend to paint me and am shocked to find that I love the finished product. Seeing myself through her artistry gives me new appreciation for the softness of my body.

I am 21 years old. I’m asked to lose weight for a role, but it doesn’t hurt me the way I always anticipated it would. My parents help me buy groceries because I can’t afford to eat well on my own. I eat whole foods and take yoga classes and lose a small amount of weight in a healthy, well-paced way. My director is pleased.

I am 23 years old. I’m in my first relationship and I feel sexy and powerful. I am walking taller and wearing tighter clothes. I feel so good in my body.

I am 25 years old. My boyfriend asks me to lose weight. He doesn’t even get the full sentence out, but I know what’s coming. I can hear the words before he’s even said them because they’re my worst fear and I’ve whispered them to myself a thousand times before. He’s talking about taking up body building again and says, “I’d like to be bigger, and well…I’d like for you to be sma…“ I cut him off before he can finish and sob in disbelief.

I am 25 years old. I’ve told no one what my boyfriend’s said, because I’m afraid they’ll tell me to leave him. Friends and family watch me develop an addiction to exercise and highly disordered eating habits. I run a 5K race while on a diet that has me consuming 900 calories a day. I fall in love with sweating and getting stronger, but very quickly lose 40 pounds in six months and am unable to sustain it.

I am 27 years old. I complete my first Whole30 and I feel a subtle but certain shift in myself. I don’t realize that the food I eat has my stomach in a near constant state of discomfort until I’m on the Whole30 and everything feels…comfortable. For the first time in so long, I start to consider how food can be a tool to nourish my body rather than punish it.

I am 28 years old. I cross the finish line of two Spartan races in a summer and I feel strong and accomplished. My focus in fitness shifts for the first time from trying to lose weight to trying to acquire new skills.

I am 29 years old. I am having a particularly good day, feeling centered and confident after a yoga class, when I’m blindsided by a text from an old trainer that reads, “You looking a little soft.”

I am 30 years old. I still think about what my ex said to me all the time. I think about it every time I’m about to go on a first date, fearful that the man will look disgusted by the large body walking toward him. I think about it when I overeat, actively hoping to grow bigger to spite him.

I am 31 years old now. I wish I wasn’t so preoccupied by this quilt, but I know I’ll take it with me throughout my life, to every new apartment, to every bed. I hope at least to have a larger part in its creation moving forward, ignoring squares that others try to give me and covering myself instead with appreciation for my body and its gifts.

Not All Bad Boys Have Tattoos

Everyone has heard the old cliché about how much women love and lust after “bad boys,” but I’ve always claimed to be an exception to that rule.

I think I’ve always thought of bad boys sort of like Danny Zuko from Grease, before he tried to be the male version of Sandy. And since I’ve never felt a particular longing for tattooed men in leather jackets racing cars or straddling a motorcycle, I just assumed I was too evolved or something to fall prey to their wily, heartbreaking ways.

I mean, do I find all the men in Sons of Anarchy ridiculously attractive? Yes, of course. But in real life, I have far too much disdain for physical violence and way too great a fear of our criminal justice system to ever make it with Jax, no matter how sexy he is. Or Juice, no matter how much I want to cradle his little angel face. Or Opie, no matter how much I want him to cradle me.

Sorry. Got a little sidetracked.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I truly never thought I liked a bad boy. It wasn’t until literally a few days ago that I was hit (mid-sentence while talking to a friend) with the realization that bad boys actually just look different for everyone and mine are simply excellent at masquerading as good guys.

I am apparently magnetically drawn to jerks who think they’re super nice.

That guy who I slept with off and on for over a year who never let me get a word in edgewise, who condescended to me at every turn, whose neurotic quirks looked an awful lot like rudeness no matter how hard I tried to describe them as “endearing?” Not a good guy.

That guy who texted me every time he was lonely and/or newly split from his ex (yet again), who called me “man” and “dude,” who was relentless in his attempts to see me whenever I was unavailable and non-responsive every time I was free? Not a good guy.

That guy who told me he was seeking someone brilliant and dynamic and the fact that he was impressed I correctly wrote “piqued my interest” instead of the more common and incorrect “peaked my interest” only proved that the bar was laughably low? Most definitely not a good guy.

But in each of these cases, I kept the bad boys in question around for far longer than they deserved, trying to prove to them or myself that I could be what they wanted. And I’m not really sure why. I thought at first that it might have a great deal to do with my ex and the years I spent desperately fighting to find any sign of life within him and our relationship. But truthfully, he was who he was from day one. Something in me was already willing to accept less than I deserved, or at the very least, less than what I know I want out of a partnership.

When I realized, many many months into our relationship, that he’d never complimented me physically, never once said he thought I was beautiful, I confessed to him that this was important to me, though doing so made my cheeks hot with embarrassment. When there was no change, I began fishing for compliments in a way I despised rather than think he might not be the one for me. When after two years of dating, I begged to meet his parents and he countered by asking me to lose weight, I lost 40 pounds in six months rather than walk away. When he told me he’d prefer to just live his life day by day instead of discussing building a future together, I gave him two more years.

So now comes the hard part. Now that I’ve recognized this pattern in myself, I should try to break it, right? I need to make some kind of attempt at seeking companionship without latching onto the unworthy out of fear or desperation. I need to stop giving so many passes to guys who show me time and again who they truly are. I REALLY have to say boy BYE next time that one guy texts me “hey. long time. we should catch up?”

The trouble is…what if it sometimes feels like being treated poorly is better than not being treated any way at all?

Feeling frustrated or annoyed often feels better than feeling lonely. I’m not, like, PROUD of this admission. I’d rather be perfectly secure in my singleness, but I’m just not there yet. Because if I banish every guy who doesn’t treat me with kindness or, at the very least, a little common courtesy, I don’t think there will be anyone left. And yes of course I know that isn’t actually a bad thing and isn’t the end of the world but IT FEELS LIKE IT OKAY.

(Which means I will definitely need someone to hack my phone and tell that guy to go away please and thank you because I probably won’t because I am human and deeply flawed and I have needs and I’m sorry don’t be mad.)