Category: Nikki

Cheers to the New Beginnings in our Endings

posted 26th January 2011    Written by: Nikki    CATEGORY: Creativity, Events, Life Lesson, Nikki, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 3, What I've Learned

I can NOT believe this is my last Stratejoy post.  I seriously might cry, y’all.

The adventure I’ve been on these last six months with Marian, Lindsey, Alisha, Renee, Doniree, Molly, and all of you has been indescribably life-changing.  I didn’t know I had it in me to write like this, to be so honest and transparent with strangers (a lot of you aren’t really strangers anymore!); I didn’t know I was capable of inspiring other people.  I was a girl who felt lost and misunderstood, even to herself.

You, by reading and through your comments, have shown me I’m not alone, crazy, or lame.  You have made me buzz with joy, knowing I’ve helped you see your QLC differently and knowing you relate to what I’m going through.  Your comments have made me laugh, cheer, think and cry, and your friendship and love has given me the strength to be honest and strive for better.

YOU are Stratejoy.

This community has been an incredibly important part of my life these last six months and, though I’m SO sad to not be writing here anymore, I know I’m not leaving.  I can’t wait to see what brilliant wisdom the Season 4 bloggers have to impart, and I’m sure I’ll be continually inspired, by them and by you, for a long time to come.

Since my first post went up in August, I’ve grown from having no idea what I want to having clear vision of my future.  I’ve become more confident and balanced, more self-aware and honest, more excited and proactive.  I’ve faced my fears, learned to love being single, and proclaimed “Quarterlife Fuck Yeah!!!“  It’s been a terrifyingly awesome journey.

Thank you for sticking with me through it all; thank you for helping me grow into the woman I now am.

Because Stratejoy inspired me to make this next step, I have an announcement to make here.  Y’all are hearing it first.  Today – right this minute – I’m launching my new website, The Grateful Sparrow (if you were following me before, it’s different!) and I want to invite all of you to be a part of it.

I’m committing to talk about joy.  Your experience of it, lack of it, the process of finding it, growing with it, keeping aware of it.  I want to inspire you to live a life you love and love the life you live, every day.  I want it to be your go-to source for a jolt of inspiration and to jump-start your daily gratitude.  It’s the anti-kumbayah; your happiness is serious business, and it’s totally within your control.

Molly & I agreed Stratejoy and The Grateful Sparrow are totally BFFs; let’s keep building this community of amazing, inspiring people and keep the love flowing!

CHEERS to everything you’ve taught me and everything we’ve shared, t0 changing the way we look at the QLC, to being fucking amazing strong women, and to who we are and who we’ll become…

All my love,

Nikki

[Note from the Coach:  Nikki- Damn straight! The Grateful Sparrow and Stratejoy are totally BFF's!  I know these last 6 months have been full of twists and turns and challenges and surprises, but through it all- you have remained utterly open and present.  To life.  To the possibility of joy in the moment.  And it's been a gorgeous, gorgeous thing to witness.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing it with us.  Your authentic voice and soul sister stories will be missed.

But... As we all know- you've got a new "home" from which to keep inspiring us.  And a big wide world to explore.   And bunches to love to share and receive.  From one joy-embracer to another-- all my wishes for success in any path you choose to skip down, Nikki.  It's yours for the taking.  And yes, we still have an outstanding date to play on lawns, drink wine together, and dissolve into multiple bouts of laughter. Soon, I promise.  Nothing but love, Molly]

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Storytime

posted 19th January 2011    Written by: Nikki    CATEGORY: All Posts, Creativity, Events, Inspiration, Nikki, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 3, What I've Learned

This week, we all came up with questions for each other; here are my answers:

1.    What do you miss most about being a child?

The freedom of long summer days, running barefoot in the grass, creating universes out of my backyard, jumping and splashing and tumbling and swimming, un-selfconciously, entertaining myself easily and, when the stars came out, collapsing into an unworried sleep in the comforting arms of my mom or dad.  Simple, loved, joyful.

2.   What’s on your bedside table?

A glass of water (always), my phone, a holiday scented candle, a cute tile coaster from a set my cousin bought me, and two books: “The Highly Sensitive Person” and “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” – yes I’m reading both.  Also, sometimes my keys, deoderant & purfume live there for a bit when I’m too lazy to put them away.

3.    When was the last time you were giddy with happiness, lost in one of those can’t-hold-back-a-smile kinda moments?

A cute guy I met sought me out & showed up unexpectedly a week later to ask for my number.  I couldn’t stop smiling for at least an hour.

4.    What are you most looking forward to in the next 6 months? (Besides reading awesome Season IV Bloggers!)

My movie coming out, my new & improved website launching, and whatever awesome adventures come my way this year!

5.       What’s your hell like?

Hell is sitting in creeeeeeeping traffic on the 405 freeway, on a 100+ degree summer day, behind a stinky, brakes-squealing semi, no A/C, no water or food, the only radio stations I get are smooth jazz elevator music and Mexican mariachi bands, I’m dressed up for a big audition, which I’m seriously late for, I’m sweating like a whore in church, my phone’s dead, and I have to pee – bad.   (Anyone else been there?)

6.       What’s your heaven like?

Heaven is waking up to the person I most love in the world, laying in bed laughing for what feels like hours (but no time has passed),  then wandering like a backpacker, with the wonder and in-the-moment awareness I feel most often when traveling, all the while constantly running into people I love & sitting and talking with them over unimaginably good food and drink.  There’s a soundtrack of Jon Brion/Sigur Ros/Animal Collective -inspired-type music, it’s a sunny 80 degrees with no humidity, I’m 20s/30s young in a sundress, and I feel light and happy.

7.    What’s the biggest lesson you’re taking away from the past 6 months with Stratejoy / how has the experience changed you?

I learned that there’s a community of women out there, incredible, strong, intelligent women, who I inspire as much as they inspire me.  It’s given me confidence in my writing & made me feel like I really DO have things to say, and ways of saying them, that are important and relatable and that people besides my parents actually read!

8.    What song lyrics fit your life, right now, at the beginning of this brand new year?

“The dog days are over / the dog days are done”  – Florence and the Machine.  Because things are only getting better from here on out.

9.     If you had a time machine, what place and time would you travel to and why?

Assuming this machine was mine & I could use it as much as I wanted, I would go all over the place – the Original Woodstock, the Old Wild West, 1800s London, ancient Greece; I’d watch Stonehedge and the Pyramids get built.  There are so many times in history I’d love to be a part of, or at least a fly on the wall, to see how life was really lived.

10.  What is something that not a lot of people know about you that you wish more people could know?

Honestly, I’ve been thinking about this for 2 days & can’t think of anything.  I wear my heart on my sleeve, y’all; if I need you to know it, I’ll tell you.  :)

11. What surprised you the most about 2010?

Getting cast in a movie.  It was completely out of the blue and a-freaking-mazing.  As were all of the big adventures of 2010, and there were lots!

12. What’s the best present you’ve ever received?

This is tough… I guess my last computer (my first Mac & first laptop); not a very exciting answer but the truth.  :)

13. Dream Job?  Dream Home?  Dream Vacation?

Dream job:  Actor/Writer – steadily acting in interesting films and writing not only articles, but novels.  Making a living creating, but still feeling balanced in every aspect of my life.

Dream home:  A little old craftsman-style bungalow with a thriving garden in a residential area of a city.  It’s within walking distance to a main street with shops & restaurants, in a safe area.  I’ve updated it to use solar energy & be green; it’s small enough to feel cozy but large enough to have lots of parties.  I have a studio in the backyard behind an old tree.  There’s lavender planted in front of most of the windows so on a warm day with windows and doors open, the whole house smells amazing.

Dream vacation:  Around the world.  I want to go everywhere & see everything; it’d be so amazing to travel for a year or two & city, country, continent hop.  If I have to choose one place, for right now, I’ll say Bali/Thailand; I want to expore the jungles & sit on the beach & see monkeys like stray cats everywhere.

14.  Imagine your life was being made into a movie. What would the title be? Who would you pick to play you? What would the theme song be? How about the little trailer blurb for the advertisement?

Voiceover:  “Just when she thought she had it all figured out, life stepped in with a plan of its own…”  Montage set to “Swim Until You Can’t See Land” by Frightened Rabbit:  Nikki Klecha (wait, what? I can’t play myself?  Oh, ok.) Rachel McAdams bored at a desk, hiking a mountain, crying on a plane, laughing with friends, freaking out in anxiety, freaking out in joy, on a film set, grieving, celebrating, unsure, ending with a romantic moment cliffhanger then… fade to black and on the screen:  Learning to Float.

[photo sources: book, Me on the red carpet in '09, dream house]

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Just a Quarter of My Awesome Life

posted 12th January 2011    Written by: Nikki    CATEGORY: All Posts, Events, Inspiration, Life Lesson, Nikki, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 3, What I've Learned

I have a really good friend who went through a typical Quarter Life Crisis and yet still maintains the QLC doesn’t exist.  He was in grad school for and making money in his chosen profession when he realized it just wasn’t for him, quit school, quit his job, moved across the country and started over.  He’s now a professional musician and lives one of the most enviable, inspiring lives of anyone I know.

I remember when he was going through his QLC, partially because I was on the cusp of my own.  We used to call each other, frustrated and unsure, comparing the messes of our love lives, the unfulfillment of our career lives, and the fears that were plauging us.  We bonded over a shared ickiness.  Classic QLC, right?

The difference between him and most people I know who’ve gone through a QLC (including myself) is that he refuses to call it a crisis.  Even when he felt icky and frustrated and was not making enough money to live on, he saw his life as an adventure and this unknown stage of it as just one somewhat frightening, giant decision between many thrilling options.

To quote him (thanks, Facebook!):

We have this amazing opportunity (unlike previous generations) to do whatever we want with our lives but we tend to spend so much time and energy talking about how hard it is and getting angsty because we “don’t know what to do with our lives.”  …These are opportunities! Amazing, wonderful opportunities!  …I wish more people our age perceived it in such a manner.

Wise words, no?  It makes me want to take action, any action, try and fail and try again.  It’s all ok.  It’s all part of really living life.  So inspiring!

I get it, though, we all know logically that this is a time of exciting possibilities, but it’s hard to keep that in mind in the middle of it, while it feels like the life you know is crumbling around you and everyone you look up to is looking down on you disapprovingly.

We have so many more options and comforts and safety nets than the generations before us, and the freedom they give us is both exhilarating and overwhelming.  But add to that the fact that we’re bucking the norm in a society that has always expected people our age to put our nose to the grindstone, get a job, start a family, stop “goofing off” and grow up already, makes it a lot harder to see that freedom as a good thing.  We’re swimming against the current, and that can be exhausting.

I think that’s really where the “crisis” comes in.  It’s a crisis of understanding and communication.  It’s the difference between generations, and it’s always existed, ever since the first teenager argued with the first parent.  With each generation we’re evolving as a race, and we have the luxury to find our happiness, which our grandparents, and parents, didn’t have to the same extent.

It can be difficult feeling like you’re not living up to expectations, you’re letting the people you respect down, you’re “behind” on the timeline of normal life.  It can be frightening feeling like you have no role models and you’re forging your own path through the uncharted wilderness of creating the life you want, a life you’re scared to think is even possible.  I used to feel that way ALL. THE. TIME.  …until Stratejoy.

You ladies are my role models.  Molly especially.  All my fellow writers and all the commenters and all the blogs I’ve found of women making it happen on their own terms show me that I may be forging my own path, but I’m doing it right alongside other amazing people, and it’s not so scary.

It’s time for a paradigm shift.  Forget what other people think, forget societal “norms” (we’re changing them this very minute anyway!), forget what you thought you wanted or where you thought you’d be; take stock of the incredible freedom you have right now, and all the opportunities you can take advantage of in your life.  This is no crisis!!  This is the BEST THING EVER!!

So I’m with Lindsey, I think we need to come up with a new name for the QLC.  Quarter Life Celebration, Quarter Life Exploration, Quarter Life Speedbump, Quarter Life Fuck Yeah!

What do y’all think?

Meanwhile, I’m going to follow the example of my inspiring friend and take action.  I’m just gonna go for it and drink up what life has to offer, say yes to all opportunities, and find exuberant joy in the unknown.  Life isn’t a race to the finish line of “adult benchmark goals,” life is meant to be explored and enjoyed.  This time of my life is amazing, not a crisis.  And if I make a few mistakes, well, that still won’t make it a crisis.

We’re strong, we’re smart, we’re free, we’re young — let’s do this shit.

[photo credit]

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Managing My Melancholy

posted 5th January 2011    Written by: Nikki    CATEGORY: Inspiration, Life Lesson, Nikki, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 3, Tips & Tools, What I've Learned

Bad days.  Icky, craptastic, sucky, vomit, I-just-wanna-lay-in-bed-and-cry, shit days.  We all have them.

Sometimes I know what’s bothering me, and sometimes I just wake up feeling indeterminably down.  It’s like a stormy raincloud is following me around and with each soggy step, thunder rumbles in my head; there’s just no cheering me up.

I don’t have any ways of yanking myself out of a funk like that.  Usually when they happen, I just trudge through them, fighting back tears at my desk or letting myself scream it out, alone in my car, waiting til I can pull the covers over my head and hopefully feel better tomorrow.

It’s a deep hole, and when I’m in it, it’s hard to see the sunlight and there’s no use trying to convince myself I can scale the steep walls to get out.

BUT these funks are never permanent, and although I haven’t been able to find sure-fire methods of ending them, I have learned how to deal when I’m in them, and how to keep them from growing longer or more frequent.

I channel John Lennon and LET IT BE. Denying how I feel, playing Pollyanna (“I’m great!” just comes out sounding sarcastic), or getting upset and frustrated with myself for feeling bad just makes me feel worse.  When I’m having a bad day, I’m not allowed to say, “what’s wrong with me” or “get over it” – I am allowed to say, “I feel rotten” and “I am in a terrible bitchy-ass mood” and “I just want to punch everyone.”  Of course, I mostly say these things to myself; I try not to splash people with my rainy day as much as I can help it.

When I can admit to myself I feel horrible and just allow myself to feel it, I’m not fighting against myself.  There’s nothing less productive than fighting yourself; struggling to deny or change how you feel is like punching yourself in the face, and no one wants to look like Ed Norton in Fight Club.  And, since I’m aware of how I feel & not fighting it, every once in a while I actually end up laughing at myself because I’m being so ridiculously grumpy.

I stop and ask myself WHY. What brought on this mood?  Even on days where I feel like I just woke up possessed by Oscar the Grouch, there’s always something underneath it, and usually it’s something seemingly small that can be easily dealt with once I recognize it.  The worst feeling is “I don’t know why I’m so upset!!”  It carries with it feelings of powerlessness, desperation and futility that are not only completely unhealthy, but untrue.  We DO have the power to change how we feel, always, even if it’s just tiny bit by tiny bit.

It’s easy to say, well I feel this way because my life is a mess (sniffle sniffle sob self-pity), but really dig in there – why are these feelings coming up so strongly now, today?

Sure, there are a lot of things in my life that could use some improvement, but usually when I really take an honest look at how I’m feeling on a bad day, I find it’s stemmed from a remark someone made or some small experience I had recently that struck me the wrong way & has lodged in my mind like a poison arrow.

If I can pinpoint the wound, I can dig out the arrow & start to heal.  Usually, when I discover the why, I find it doesn’t merit all the dramatic attention I’m giving it, and it almost immediately improves my mood.

I TALK and/or write about it. I have an overactive brain; I over-think everything and have a hyper-active imagination.  So letting bad feelings build up inside me and run away with my thoughts is the easiest and worst thing I can do to myself.  I call it “tornado brain” when my thoughts get so out of control that I’m just going around & around in a cyclone of bad feelings and negative thoughts, and it’s swirling so fast I can’t grasp the why & I can’t let it be.  When this happens, the only way to combat the storm is to let it out.

Sometimes it’s sufficient to write in my journal; sometimes I need to talk it out with my mom or my therapist.  Whatever it takes, I have to get it OUT of my brain, because often, when my thoughts hit the harsh light on the page or are breathed and formed into words, they sound plain idiotic.

I’ve laughed through tears innumerable times at how problems that seemed unresolvable in my head, once spoken, become so simple and even absurd.  We are amazing creatures; deep down, we always know why we are feeling what we’re feeling, and what we need to change it.  When I allow myself to delve deep down and purge, I usually hit that core knowledge and always feel a lot better.

Bad days are part of being human; I don’t expect to ever not have them at all, but as long as I know how to deal with them, I know I can always get through them.  In fact, now that I think about it, I’d probably be a much less self-aware person without them, so there’s even something in our bad days to be grateful for.

[photo source]

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I am WonderWoman

posted 29th December 2010    Written by: Nikki    CATEGORY: Events, Inspiration, Job/Career/Work, Love/Relationships, Money, Nikki, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 3, What I've Learned

It’s about to be a new year, y’all, and I’m ready.  I have loved this last year, loved every frightening thrilling minute of it and I haven’t forgotten the lessons it taught me: trust, be patient, plans may change & get busted up & that’s ok.  But I feel a calmness & an energy that I haven’t felt in a long time; I know some of the major things I want in life, and I’m ready to take steps toward them.  Some may be missteps; I might fumble; I might fail.  I’m ok with that.  I’m taking action this year.

I am a superhero in 2011.  I am action-girl, Nikki of new ideas, make-it-happen-momma.

I am going to put myself out there & trust that good things come of it.  I am going to tell people what I want, even if I have no idea how to get it or what form it will take.  So here goes:  I want a creative job; it might be a career, it might just be a job, but I want to make money doing something I enjoy.  I want a serious relationship; it’s been a long time & I’m ready.  I want a home that feels like mine; it’ll be a while before I can own one, but I want a place that feels like my own.  I want financial stability; I want adventures and a savings account to be equal priorities.  These may sound like little things, but they’re big things to me.  After a long time wandering & wondering, I’m feeling clarity.

I feel like I’m on the cusp of an explosion of awesomeness in my life.  Bring it, baby.

I’ve already told you my intentions for 2011, now here are some of the seemingly-innocent-but-totally-superhero actions I’m gonna take:

I’m making it a habit to write every day.  POW!

I’m launching and developing my new, improved personal website, The Grateful Sparrow (follow me!).  ZOOM!

I’m paying off all my credit card debt by my 30th birthday (May).  BLAM!

I’m learning to edit video on my computer.  SMACK!

I’m honest in all my relationships and not letting fear of vulnerability get to me.  BOOM!

I’m finding a living situation that better suits me.  ZIP!

I’m saying yes to opportunities for new adventures that come my way.  CRUNCH!

I’m expressing my authentic self, everyday, and following my joy.  BAM!

I’m making a profit from my art & creativity – writing, acting, blogging, sculpture, design, etc.  ZAP!

I’m taking time for myself, treating myself with respect, but NOT accepting excuses.  I’m better than laziness & ambivalence.  CRASH!

I’m living to the full extent of my fabulousness this year, and I’m not letting fear get in my way; in 2011, I’m trying.  I’m giving myself a fighting chance.  It can’t be harder than what I’ve already been through, in fact, I know things are only getting better.  2011 is going to be amazing; a year from now, I’ll hardly be able to believe how far I’ve come.

Cheers to a new year.  Let’s do this.

[WonderWoman photo source]

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