I had a date in my mind.  A specific date for a very specific purpose.  1.3.14

It seemed like a triumphant tale of love.  A fairytale.  Sometimes in life, we wish so hard and hope for so long about the dream of a fairytale that we forget to look at reality.  The reality is that all fairytales are just beautiful dreams and that all it takes is the pain of a pinch to rouse in the delicate slumber that is a dream.

I was pinched and awaken from my dream.  And I guess I feel ashamed because I really believed in the potential of such a beautiful tale.  I believed in those silly numbers and most of all I believed in my heart.  I believed in love this time.  I believed that this time was different.  I believed in the wonderful possibility of wearing a crown and being a princess, if just for one day.

Sometimes in life, our hearts let us down, our dreams shake us back to reality and love pinches our hearts.  And sometimes, as painful as it is and as much as it kills our souls, a number is just a number and the meaning is gone.

Many blog posts are dedicated to my love affair with having a career.  And sure, maybe that’s liberating to me, maybe it’s even a little sexy, but maybe it’s not the perfect path for everyone.  I know that.  I also speak often about making my own money and the independence of relying on myself.  Again, my opinion comes from my very personal experience.  In this case, it was the experience with a former friend.

We were very close, so close in fact, I had no doubt she would stand beside me in my wedding.  A little over one year ago, we met and soon we were inseparable.  But things changed and in spending time with this person, I began to form my own beliefs and in doing so, realize how different our set of opinions were. 

I speak so much about my six year relationship, not only because it spanned nearly one-third of my life, but also because it changed me.  After that relationship ended, I realized I didn’t like who I had become.  I was needy, I was dependant and to me, that was unacceptable.  The downfall of the relationship became a mirror in which I was forced to stand and look at myself, really look at myself for the first time in a long time.  Since facing the portrait in the mirror, a spark has been lit in me, a spark that refuses to ever be diminished. 

I began to overcompensate in a way, and soon the thought of making my own money and providing for myself became an aphrodisiac and the driving force in my college career.  I already have one degree, I already work hard, but for me that wasn’t good enough.  I needed more for myself and back to college I went.

My friend, much like me, was obsessed with money but for very different reasons.  It became clear that we weren’t going to be lifelong friends once I understood our differences.  I am a label-whore, I love the beauty of high-fashion things, but I am obsessed with getting those things for myself and that’s where we differed.  I don’t believe in using a man or any other person in order to obtain a sense of worth.  I’m not going to say I don’t enjoy the surprise of a gift from my boyfriend, but the moments I truly feel his love are those when we’re laughing so hard together we cry or when he grabs my hand during a car ride.  Gifts are wonderful but to be demanding of them isn’t so beautiful to me.  The relationship ended.

Recently we spoke again, and in that conversation I hoped for a change and for reconciliation.  I loved her.  I have a huge heart and always hope for the best in people.  I have good intentions, but for some reason things seemed the same and the “click” we had the once brought us so close was gone.  I was devastated, so I turned to my blog for support and to share that my glitter comes from my dreams, not from material bling.

I stand firm in my beliefs, not to hurt anyone, but to respect those around me.  I feel that to be accepting of individuals who wish to live off others would be to disrespect those who work so hard around me. 

My beautiful best friend left Cleveland a few months ago. Everyday she works hard and dedicates her time to raising her two amazing boys.  To me, that’s beautiful.  A long-time friend and soon-to-be family member stays at home with her precious one-year old daughter and works hard to ensure her daughter’s well-being.  She keeps a spotless home and in doing so, has taken the role as the backbone of a wonderful family.  To me, that’s beautiful.  My other best friend works at a thankless restaurant job and both of my parents live by each paycheck.  They’re all beautiful to me.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t have moments of envy when the former friend would show off her latest gift.  She openly admitted that she didn’t want to work, and maybe that’s OK for her and fits her own life and I have no right to judge her.  But my opinion differs.  I think working hard for your dreams, whether they are about having a family or creating a career, is the most beautiful thing you can do in life. 

Whether you’re a stay-at-home mommy, or a blue-collar worker bringing home a paycheck, we’re all working stiffs in one form or another.  If working means bringing beauty into your own life and bettering yourself or your family, then I’m proud to be a working stiff.  At the end of the day, I know I’ll be doing what I love soon and that passion inside of me is relentless.  The quote “do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” is so true.  Some people love waking up to those smiling little faces, others  love creating something wonderful.  I love to write.  And I’m proud to be independent, even if that means my sparkle comes from my heart and not from my empty wallet.

Comparison is how I gauge my own success in this crazy world.  I’m starting to realize, however, just how poisonous and damaging the process of comparison is to my life.

I’ve never been privileged, led a life of ease or have had things handed to me.  I have possibly the worst luck of anyone I know and I work hard and keep my nose on the grindstone in an effort to create a diversion for my mind.  Should I sit too long or let my mind wonder, the crippling fear swims to the surface:  What if I fail? 

As I sit here now, I think of all the friends and acquaintances I have that lead wonderful lives.  Many of them want for nothing and have beautiful things handed to them for no reason at all.  Some don’t work and others don’t have to and I wonder why am I trying so hard and working myself ragged when others receive rewards for the price of nothing?

Maybe my own priorities need adjusting and maybe an outsider can never see things for how they truly are, but some days I wonder why my path feels a little more difficult and trying than the paths intersecting my own.

The only answer to the impossible riddle is learning to focus on my own values.  Those girls can have their pricey sequin Louboutins and their sparkly baubles because in the end, I don’t need that glitter.  In the end, I’m a girl who has glitter running through her veins.  I’m the girl who will never place my own happiness on the shoulders of others.  I’m the girl who thinks independence is oh-so-sexy and a career is oh-so-amazing.  Sure, maybe I’ll always be the girl struggling in some form or another.  I’ll never be perfect.  Beautiful rings and priceless trinkets will never be handed to me.  But succeeding alone, without depending on the helping hand of another, will taste that much sweeter and can never compare to a pricey gift.  And in the end, I’ll have one hell of a story to tell.

Leave it to Facebook to shake things up a bit.  It was on the social media monster that I encountered a post from an old college friend that went something like this:

I hate when people ask if I’m dating anyone and when I tell them no they give me that sympathetic held tilt and smile followed by the “don’t worry it will happen. He’s out there somewhere.”

Instantly, I was thrown back into the last two years of my life and the sometimes miserable feeling that walks hand-in-hand with being single.  Sure, you’re out there dating, putting yourself on the scene, but let’s face it: you’re attached to no one.  No ring, no half as in someone’s better half, or half, as in the half of the perfect, pretty little couple.  Nope, you’re you, a whole being.  And yet, when you add “whole” with “alone” you get somehow get less than enough… and sometimes, you even get the empathetic, painfully pathetic head tilt.

Sure, you’re spared the drama that goes along with being a party-of-two, but no one else seems to see it that way.  Two is always less than one and in this equation, sometimes it feels like you’ll never win.  I started to wonder: Did we never really leave elementary school?  Is life just another gym class in which everyone lines up to get picked, yet inevitably one person is always shunned and forced out of the game because of her solo status?  In order to grow up, do we regress to a game of recess?

When you’re in love – really, truly in love, you’re in a beautiful dream.  When that dream ends, you scramble to discern reality once again.  Two years ago, I was newly single and I hated every second of it.  I loathed the singles scene, hated the fix-ups and rallied against the pick-ups.  It took me a long time to realize that it wasn’t the single life I hated so much.  It was the missing him that left my heart feeling a little broken and a little more empty.

It wasn’t for nearly a year that I realized that I was opting out of the dodgeball game that others wanted me to join.  I didn’t understand why a set agenda existed to fall in love and why this agenda was followed by a cloud of pressure.  It’s the expectations of the path that infuriated me.  Who said you have to get married when you’re in your twenties, and who said your life has to follow this cookie-cutter outline of college, then marriage, followed by a baby carriage?  Who made these rules, anyway?  And why do we always leave someone out, to dance alone?

It was then I realized that being single was something so simply beautiful and so incredibly powerful.  Single status isn’t a syndrome, or some silly game during recess.  It’s a choice of love.  It’s a choice to love yourself enough to give life the time to find you the person who gives you butterflies.  Being single is about not settling and not giving up on love.  Being single is about spending time with yourself and learning how amazing you are, alone, as one whole being… because let’s face it, if you don’t like spending time with yourself, who will?

Five months ago, we found love again.  During those two years, I was convinced that when I found, or stumbled upon a relationship, I would feel a sense of gratification in proving to the head-tilters that I was capable of playing the game.  But, that feeling never came.  Instead, I felt a subtle sense of pride in myself.  I made it on my own for two years.  I was the administrator of my own rescue during the collapse of my life and I was the sole person responsible for re-building my life.  I was independent.  Sure, I played the role of the third-wheel and even fifth-wheel at times, but I didn’t care.  In fact, I reveled in it.  I did it on my own and I was set to never settle, even if that meant being single-party-of-one through the better part of my twenties.  I found love in a hopeless place… love for myself.

And I’m in love now.  But that love would never be as beautiful or as strong had I not found myself first.  Sure, I may secretly enjoy asking him for help and feeling his strength of support, but I know I don’t need it.  I don’t place my happiness or well-being on his shoulders.  No one is responsible for my happiness but me, and that’s perhaps one of the most empowering feelings of all.

For all the solo-sisters out there, dance along your own path and leave the head-tilts and dodgeballs back on the black pavement of the recess ground, where they belong.  One whole will always outweigh a half.  One whole beautiful person will always shine, even, and especially when she’s dancing alone.

“What do you hope to accomplish as a journalist?”  What if I don’t really have an answer to that?  “Who or what inspired you to become a journalist?”  What if no one did?  What if it’s the first thing I’ve found in my life that just fit, like the perfect puzzle piece?

I can’t pinpoint the day I fell in love with writing but what I believe in leaps and bounds is that writing tumbled into my life and found me.  I have no specific person for whom I can credit my love of writing, nor can I say a particular event pushed me to put pen to paper and face the emptiness of the faint blue lines.  All I know is I love it.

I’ve never thought about particular goals or accomplishments I want to reach in the field of journalism.  I always believed I would feel accomplished in simply saying I found a journalism job, that I was part of the beautiful field of prose.

In my eyes, that blank paper parallels the possibilities of journalism.  The possibilitiy for accomplishments is endless and limitless.  When you love something with such fierce passion, you believe in the possibility of every beautiful scenario.  To limit oneself by hoping for one accomplishment takes away the beauty of living out one’s dreams and the hope for shooting for every star.

All I know is that the expression of words gives me light and hope in the darkest of times.  All I know is that writing fits me so perfectly and provides me with the most calming hand to hold in the shakiest of times. 

All I know is that a blank piece of paper, or computer screen, is limitless and my only hope is to fill it with the beauty of my own thoughts.

– Sex and the City

I started this blog on Christmas day 2010.  A little over one year ago, I was struggling.  I was searching like a mad woman for answers that could never be uncovered by simply picking up a rock or pebble on my path.  I was hunting, desperately at times, for my word: a single word to paint a comprehensive, beautiful picture of who I was and the stage of life I was in. 

I lost myself following a devastating break-up.  Rather than waiting for life to show me who I was, I put out my own missing person’s report and began my word search.  In my heart, these words were the map.  They were the legend.  They were the key to finding myself again.  Only, my heart was wrong.  After a while of aimlessly seeking such a tiny description to encompass a larger-than-life portrayal of who I was, I stopped in realization.  I wrote:

Maybe, as Elizabeth Gilbert said, I am ‘a woman in search of her word,’ and maybe a small part of me hopes to never find that definition.  To be restrained by a single word takes away from the beauty of change life has to offer.”

I would like to think that each growth stage we experience can be defined by a solitary word and like a mosaic, we can piece those descriptions into a beautiful, comprehensive image of who we are.

During my recent trip to New York City, I stumbled upon the word to define my current stage of life.  In the heart of Central Park, I stood breathless in awe of the “Alice  in Wonderland” sculpture.  As I posed for pictures and sat in wonder of my bronze childhood friends, I recalled Lewis Carroll’s words. Alice said:

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn’t be, and what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?”

The fantasy, wonder and playfulness of these words have stayed with me since childhood.  If I had my own world, I would live in wonder, in breathless awe of possibilities.  If I had my own world, I would dream with love and would understand that seeing isn’t always believing.  I would believe in the magic of today and the hope of tomorrow.

As my mosaic continues to be pieced together, I find myself adding new, precious tiles to its beauty.  I’m not where I want to be just yet but I’m realizing how amazing that in-between stage can be. 

Until recently, I only saw the horror of being stuck in the middle.  It’s the horrors of frustration that truly had me down.  I haven’t been able to touch my career just yet, but I can feel it, taste it and even see it.  I’m stuck in-between becoming the woman I have always felt inside of my heart, and being the little girl I once was.  As I remind my heart to carry patience and attempt to live in the moment of now, I find myself faltering when I witness those around me relish in opportunity and life stages I haven’t been able to reach just yet.  It’s as Carrie Bradshaw said, “Let’s be honest. Sometimes there is nothing harder in life than being happy for somebody else.”

But I’m finding the beauty of standing in the grey area of the middle.  I’ve realized that this is my chance to dream.  To experience life is beautiful, but to be able to simply sit back and imagine the possibilities of life is an opportunity of wonder.  The days ahead of me are marked by living out my aspirations, but today I stand on the mosaic tile of “dreams” and I am in love with being a “dreamer.”

As the days of 2012 roll ahead, I am playing to the beat of my dreams.  Like Alice, I am creating my own world of wonder and when the time comes, I know I’ll be ready to dance along my own path.  Like the years that came before, 2012 will surely offer roads, detours, choices and mistakes.  Roads offer a path, detours give an unforeseen chance, choices thrive on imagination and mistakes make our fate.  But my 2012 will also offer the possibility of dreams, and that’s one beautiful tile to include in the mosaic of my life.

–Kelly Cutrone

He’s lost you once, he’s felt the pain without you, he’s made mistakes and in all of the pain he’s caused, you’ve found love for him again.  You don’t need the show or façade he puts on for everyone in the room, you want the him you go to bed with, the him who talks to you as if you’re so important to him or the him who laughs with you – really laughs until you both cry.  But in a room full of strangers, you’re the least important no matter how hard you try.  Those laughs you share are non-existent, those great conversations are lost with yesterday. 

You know the real him, with all his flaws and imperfections.  And he knows the real you with your own set of faults.  And you forgive each other for the unsightly blemishes because love overcomes you both.  And you wish for tomorrows together and enjoy the love of today because it’s beautiful.  Yet, no matter how social you are, or how much you attempt to make the best impressions, you’re lost with the wallpaper when it comes to the crowd.  Your attention doesn’t count anymore.  The team you’ve created suddenly turns into she versus him and enemies are formed.  You’re not looking to be the center of attention or steal the precious spotlight from him, you just want to share in the fun and happiness and catch those amazing laughs with him.  You want to enjoy him.  You want to create a doorway between both of your lives — a passage that allows you both to feel included and wanted in the separate lives you lead in your day-to-day. You want him to know that as the day settles and the room empties, you know him better than most and love him more than any could.  You want him to remember your amazing friendship and that he used to enjoy sharing the happiness of the crowd, and the memories made, with you.

But that doesn’t happen, and as you face the cold night air and drive home with the thumps of the rain in the background, you wonder, “When did I become invisible?”

And then the pain hits.

I have so much to celebrate during the close of the year, but why do I feel as if I’m celebrating alone?  Sure, I didn’t have a child or hit the lotto, but I’ve rekindled something that was always so magical to me.  So, why do I feel as if I’m celebrating this love as a party-of-one?

“There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming.”

 – Shauna Niequist

Part of my disillusionment stems from the feeling of being stuck.  The old adage, “things get worse before they get better” carries a hard truth to it.  I’m in between two great stages of life and sometimes that middle is the most difficult to overcome.  I’ve been the student for a long time now.  I’ve worked hard during both of my degrees, fought for my 4.0 average and at the end day, I’m over it.  I’m sick of this stage of my life.  I’ve done it, I’ve lived it and now I’m ready to move on to those dreams I long for, to those goals I can already taste.

I was born to become someone.  My dreams are often bigger than me, but they’re all I’ve ever known and without pursuing them I will never be fulfilled.  Without those images of hope for myself, I will never make anyone a good mother or wife.  The suburban life of the picket-white fence and 2.5 kids seems like a settled Hell to me at this point in my life.  So many friends dream of throwing down roots to purchase a house and start a family.  While they’re picking out baby booties, I’m looking at travel brochures.  I want to spend the upcoming years traveling, living in different places and experiencing life.  I want the world and I cannot settle for anything less than my dreams.  But right now, with one year left of my college career, I remain stuck in that season of becoming. 

I dream of the days in which I can use the profits of my personal career to give my family and the person I love the things they need, but right now that’s not my reality.  I long for the day in which I can support myself and buy meaningful holiday gifts with the money that I’ve made as an independent woman, but I’m still not there yet.  Right now, I remain in the season of becoming.  While I am nothing but anxious to get to my destination, I am learning to appreciate the beauty of who I am, in this moment.  I am also learning to find security in the strength of my dreams because I know they will never allow me to stay in one place, or season, for too long.  And that person I am becoming will be beautiful.