ONE YEAR OLDER (AND WISER TOO)

Last week my friend Justin Hackworth came to the city to photograph a few families. When one of his shoots was cancelled last minute + he found himself in the area with some free time, he asked to come by + do a bit of a stylized shoot with me. He even chose my outfit! You should have seen it, it was like a real-life Sex in The City-type montage of Justin reviewing then rejecting practically all of my wardrobe options. All we were missing was an upbeat pop song in the background, it was fantastic. :) I love the way the photos turned out, but even better than that it was a really dear time spent with a really dear friend. I'll be sharing a few of the photos along with my now-traditional birthday essay below if ya please, cheese. It's horribly gratuitous and self-indulgent of me, which is the point, obviously.

So I've been thinking a lot about trains lately.

Since moving to Brooklyn I spend a lot of time on trains. All these trains, on all these different lines from what I was used to taking on the west side of things, which has had the pleasant side effect of making me feel like I am making all these new friends. Because I rather think the subways are a lot like people.

Take the R, for example. The R is silly. The R takes her sweet ever-loving time. I feel like I age a decade every time I have to wait on an R train. Just... she takes forever. When she finally does arrive it's only v-e-r-r-r-r-y s-l-o-w-w-w-w-l-y. It's quite the ordeal, she sort of reminds me of my grandmother. First you see her headlights, softly blinking in the tunnels far off in the distance. Is that a train? you ask yourself. Is that... MY train?? You catch yourself holding your breath. And then you see her glowing yellow sign, and you pray she's not an N, because the last thing you need is an N, and then it's not an N! And it's an R! And oh glory hallelujah! That sort of thing. But it's not over yet. It's a huge grand process, not at all rushed, as she practically sashays on up to the platform. And then, finally, five minutes later, she stops. She's here. And then she waits an extra second or two before finally opening her doors for you. Because she's classy like that. She plays hard to get, like some difficult southern lady or whatever, and anyway I don't know what her deal is but you wouldn't dare ask her, you're just grateful she decided to show up.

Then there's the F train. I love the F train. The F train comes blaring into the station at you full speed ahead, this whole big rush of BAM, YOU'VE BEEN F TRAINED! And I kind of like it. It makes me feel a little bit giddy, she's just so exuberant about getting here. With an F train you hear her + see her + feel her all at the same time--the frenetic noise of the clanging tracks, the bright lights and her gleaming silver front, that big whoosh of tunnel air as she whisks on in. She's there and stopped before you even thought to notice you'd been waiting. In my imagination she hollers "HERE I AAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMM" as she blasts into the station like hells bells to the bullies. It's all very sudden and exciting. When she opens her doors it's rather cheerily, too, all, "HI I'M THE F TRAIN! HOP ON, WE'RE GOING SOMEWHERE! HEY HURRY HURRY! SO HOW'VE YA BEEN? OMG YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO BELIEVE THIS!--" and then off we go.

(The G train, on the other hand, is a total asshole.)

Me, I am probably not an R train.

In fact, I sometimes suspect I could be an F train.

But this is a post about my birthday.



So I think the lesson of 31 was: Always, You Have To Love Yourself First.

31 will go in the books as a good one. It started out really hard, maybe the worst it's ever been. Anxiety. Family issues. More family issues (followed by ex-family issues). Hormone problems. Woohoo! Hormone problems! Doctors and drugs and diets to try and level out the hormonal imbalances; writing and counseling and meditating to try and level out the emotional. Somehow, the precise way in which it all added up made it very easy for me to finally stop in my tracks all together, and look at things real closely, and really and truly decide what in the hell I wanted out of my life for once, and how exactly I wanted to go about doing it. It's when things feel really wrong that one gets the best sense of what feels really right, you know? I decided it was time to quit dicking around already and start to take my intuitions seriously. It was trial by fire at times but by the end of it I felt like I had gotten through all these unnecessary layers of life and living and heartache that had piled on over the years, and found the person underneath that I'd completely forgotten I was. And then just like that it was as easy as could be to just be, without apology or explanation or pressure. And why hadn't I made these decisions sooner? Did it have to happen this way, maybe? Or maybe not? I don't know. All I know is it's an odd sensation when you suddenly find yourself, all the way under there, and realize how much easier it is to be that than it was to be whatever else you'd become without really meaning to. It sort of feels like being 9 again. I feel really comfortable in my skin these days. It's reminded me of a line from Anne of Green Gables that I always come back to:

"And isn't it jolly when you discard furs and winter garments for the first time and sally forth, like this, in spring attire?"

At 31 I finally did all the things + made all the choices that I'd always wanted to make but hadn't ever found the courage for. I set some much-needed boundaries. I made some way over-due decisions. I removed negative influences that had no business touching me.  

And I did some things just for me, too. Silly things I'd always wanted to do. You know. I'm a girl who's always worn her emotions on her sleeve. And now I also wear them on my skin. ;) I also decided that, rather than continue to resent my nose another dang day, I would give her a bit of jewelry, and try and make peace with her. This is flipping personal growth, people. Anyway, I do have a great sense of smell, these things aren't worth nothing.

I did this part of it all rather quickly, which is half the fun of course. Even though the actual deciding process beforehand was like unto molasses; very sticky and incredibly slow. Like the bit at the end of When Harry Met Sally. Yes, that's it, the part right before the coconut cake:

"Three months later, we were married. It only took three months! . . . Twelve years and three months."

And obviously I kind of like that a lot, too.

(So does Brandon. Inked chicks, I don't know.)

I was talking to my sister the other day about all this, she who's known me best of all and who has been there with me through every bizarre moment of this last year. Growing pains and all that. At one point or another she stopped and told me, kind of out of the blue:

"You know, you finally look like you to me. Maybe for the first time I can remember."

So, does that make me an R train then? Running on the F tracks for just a hot minute?

Anyway, it feels good to be me these days.

If 31 was an exercise of pulling back the layers, then I hope 32 will be an exercise of learning to be proud of what's underneath. All of what's underneath (especially the more embarrassing bits). I figure this will take a lot of work, because--well, isn't it always a lot of work? But it's the kind of work I'm excited to do. It seems like more than ever, especially as a mother, I feel this need to set a strong example of confidence. I want to show Huck that goodness and love are stronger when they come from a feeling of freedom, rather than a sense of obligation. I want Huck to know that outside of himself he is all free expression, but that more importantly, inside of himself he is nothing but love.

Hopefully by the end of 32, I will be nothing but love, as well.

(I also want a baby.)

So yo. Happy Birthday to me and things. Go give somebody a hug for me, will you!? And then tell them something nice about themselves. Give someone the benefit of the doubt when you don't think they deserve it. Stand up for yourself with grace and confidence. Think a kind thought the next time you want to roll your eyes (but then roll your eyes anyway, because sometimes you just have to, you know?). This world has gotten pretty nasty lately, doesn't it seem like? On the Internet especially. I think we have it in us to turn all that around.



And thus concludes the NJH portion of the HBS. Nat the Rat over and out.