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From Fourth Grade to Future: Learning to Love the Ladies

posted 2nd September 2010    Written by: Marian    CATEGORY: All Posts, Love/Relationships, Marian, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 3, Travel

When I was in fourth grade my group of friends cornered me in Mr. Aiken’s classroom closet to tell me that they didn’t want to be friends anymore. I can’t for the life of me remember why but somewhere in my pile of childhood journals is a transcript of the conversation.

I’m a deflector. Meaning if I get caught in a deep and meaningful conversation I’ll usually crack a joke to lighten the mood. I rarely cry. So when my elementary school friends ganged up on me I busted out my notebook and wrote down every word. It was “research” apparently. It also helped me forget that my only friends decided they didn’t like me.

It’s been a very long time since I’ve read over my childhood journals, but now that I’m writing this post I realize I probably should. Too bad it’s 3,000 miles away or else I’d give you a sneak peek into the mind of 9-year-old Marian.

Because I don’t have the journal I can’t tell you exactly what they said or what happened afterwards. I remember having friends in elementary school, but I don’t know how I made the transition from big group of girls (who later turned into the popular kids in high school) to one of three. I can tell you, however, that it was over ten years before I belonged to another group of girls.

My friendships after fourth grade fell into one of two categories:

The first was a threesome that would ebb and flow. Chelsea, Thana and I did everything together. We even formed a band and wrote some kick ass songs (if I do say so myself). Thana eventually moved to Croatia. She is still one of my closest friends.

Chelsea and I also bonded with Giulia, a gorgeous Italian who eventually left us for Paris. Giulia now lives in London and am crazy lucky to still have her in my life.

Chelsea and I were ditched for far-away places, but we stayed friends. Sometimes we spoke on the phone every day. Sometimes we wouldn’t speak for a year. To be perfectly honest though, in our little threesomes I always felt like the odd one out. I’ve decided that three is not a good number for friendships.

The second category revolved around guys. Maybe it was because I have three brothers, maybe it was because of my new found hatred for girl groups, but I always got along better with guys. They said what they meant, were easy to be around, and always had interesting things to do.

I obviously got over the whole fourth-grade-friends-ditching-me-thing – kids can be cruel sometimes – but I do think it’s affected the friends I’ve had over the years.

My jealous boyfriend and severe lack of confidence prevented being anywhere even remotely popular in high school. I’ve never been comfortable in groups so always had one or two very close friends who had their own groups but I never really had my own place at lunch. Let’s just say I was bit of a loner.

Then came college. Davidson has the most amazing roommate system and I was paired with a girl who within a week would become my soul mate. Because of psycho-jealous-boyfriend I was pretty much only friends with her, but it didn’t matter. We were attached at the hip and it was okay.

Then I broke up with psycho-jealous-boyfriend and moved to England. I didn’t know a soul when entering the study abroad program, but here were people who didn’t know about my completely anti-social past, didn’t know me as the girl who had no friends, didn’t have any preconceptions about who I was. That was the first time since fourth grade I ever let myself have a group of girlfriends.

And it was fucking wonderful. In my entire life I will never forget those girls. They were adventurous, fun, full of life and stories and open minds. I felt awesome around them.

That November I took a weekend trip to Paris to meet up with some Davidson friends. Girls I was close with at school, but never considered “my group”. Maybe it was because of the new friends I had made in London or the fact that I was free of Asshole Boyfriend, but I connected with them in a way we never had back at school. A weekend full of lingerie shopping, cooking, Rodin and girl chat in the one bed we all shared solidified the closest friends I’ve ever had.

The friendships I made and the friendships I strengthened while living in London changed my views towards groups of women. I learned to trust them. I learned to trust myself.

I thought the fourth-grade drama meant I was a difficult person to get along with. I worried that one event meant disaster for the rest of my friendships. Turns out fourth-grade girls just aren’t very nice and that one experience held no bearing on my future friendships.

In terms of how my friends have affected my Quarterlife Crisis, let’s just say I couldn’t have a better group of girls rallying for me.

So dear Desi, Kelsey and Alea: You are the reason I am capable of doing anything. You are the best cheerleaders, the most beautiful women, the most incredible friends. You remind me every day that I’m awesome. You remind me every day that you’re awesome. Because of this, I love you more than you will ever know.

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The Satisfied Artist

posted 1st September 2010    Written by: Nikki    CATEGORY: Creativity, Money, Nikki, Season 3

We have this romantic notion of the “starving artist.”  As though somehow it’s noble to lose everything in pursuit of an art.  In fact, an artist that makes money is often labeled as a sellout.  Do we ever call a doctor a sellout for working in a private practice instead of traveling with Doctors Without Borders?  Do we ever expect an accountant to give his services for free until he’s established himself with a CPA firm?  No.  But every day actors, musicians and visual artists are asked to work for free, or looked down on for “selling out” and doing a commercial or signing with a major label or even teaching.

But artists need the same creature comforts and securities everyone else does.  How do we reconcile our need and drive to create with our basic needs of food, shelter, healthcare and retirement plans?  And how do we maintain our sense of artistic self in the toxic money-making machine of the arts industries?  Even when we’re working & selling our art, it’s a struggle.  A friend of mine was in an audition waiting room with a very famous older actress, and as she went into the room, she turned to him and said, “60 fucking years in this industry & I’m still auditioning; I’m sick of this shit.”  There is no level of security.

I, as an artist, have conflicting views towards money.  I vary between denying that it’s important (“I can live frugally and just be a nomad selling art and doing theatre – I don’t need stuff – money is made to be spent!”) and freaking out when I realize it IS important (“Oh my God what do you mean I have to pay $800 to fix my car??!  And rent is, ahem, HOW much!!??”).

I’m a nester.  I’m a Taurus.  I need a home space and some level of comfort and stability to balance my adventurous streak.  In other words, when my tour around Europe (hee hee we’re talking dreams now) ends, I need a lovely little home waiting for me with down pillows and my things.  I need walls on which to hang the pictures I took on my world trip.

I don’t want money to rule my life.  I see so many people my parents age (and recently, a lot my age too – scary) who feel trapped in jobs they hate because they’ve over-mortgaged their lives.  They choose the big house and nice car over a career they love or a life they actually get out and live.  I’m not judging, those are their choices, but they’re not the choices I want to make.  Unfortunately, I think sometimes I’m so afraid of ending up that way that I shut myself off to a lot of options.

And then there’s the lure of Hollywood money… Let me just tell you, the movie I was just in paid as much in 2 days as I used to make in one month at my full-time day job.  And I was a dirt cheap hire.  But the gap between those that work steadily at that rate or more, and those that have to empty their purses for the chance to book one of those jobs a year is the size of the Grand Canyon.

All this said, though, I actually am pretty good with my finances.  I never used a credit card until after college, and I really only use it when I’m traveling or for emergencies (which has actually proved to be a BAD thing because our society’s backwards in that if you have no debt, no one will loan you money).  I am queen of bargain shopping; I even buy my groceries at the 99cent store (don’t knock it til you try it!).  I always have a savings account which, though it doesn’t have much in it normally, is easily forgotten and therefore left alone to it’s direct deposits and interest accrual.  And somehow, in 2009 on a net income of somewhere around $20,000, I managed to live in one of the most expensive cities in the world, travel to Grand Cayman, fly cross country twice, and travel through Australia for 4 months.  Don’t ask me how.  I might be magic.

I guess, ultimately, I’d like a job that is creative (not passively creative like, “I have to think outside the box so solve problems” but actively, imaginatively creative) that is always changing so I don’t get bored, and which provides me with the financial security to be a crazy, stuff-shunning nomad and then come back to my home like a little nesting bird.  I respect money’s importance in our society, but I don’t like it.  I want to love my job, but I want to work to LIVE.

[photo source]

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Life Lessons Learned While Traveling

posted 22nd August 2010    Written by: Lindsey    CATEGORY: All Posts, Life Lesson, Lindsey, Season 3, Travel

The lessons I’ve learned, and the experiences I’ve had in places I’ve lived are absorbed into my soul. Rather than living to travel, I travel to live. I  had a “permanent” life in college until I had my first extended travel-living experience in Istanbul. There I defined my personal travel style: I prefer to integrate into a place, for a month or longer, to gain the full experience, and really just vibe with the culture.

For someone who lived in the same house until age 18, I have called quite a few places “home” in the last 6 years. Currently, I have a California driver’s license but I live at home in Michigan. Even I have a hard time explaining this!

Since each locale is a chapter in the humor-adventure-drama-saga that is my life, it’s only proper to tell my story in sequence.

South Haven, Michigan. How to Feel Disconnected.

I am a big dreamer from a small rural tourist town. A beautiful place, but at 17 it is my prison.

Ann Arbor, Michigan. How to Build a Resume While Bonging a Beer.

(It really is quite a skill. Especially when you have a shot of tequila in the other hand.)

I learn a lot in college, especially about the trajectory of my life towards a cubicle. The true value is in the friends I meet. My heart isn’t fully in the whole Engineering thing, but I am determined to prove myself, and also, to be done with the responsibility of school that has dominated my life thus far. I find hope in an internship, and discover Green Building and Sustainable Development are what I really care about out of this whole engineering game.

In this same summer, I compile my life list and realize I have a lot to do besides work.

Istanbul, Turkey. How to Use “Ditzy American Girl” as an Advantage.

You want a crazy experience? Travel alone. You may be ditzy, and you may be so white than a random Turkish person on the bus will look you straight in the face and say “YOU are one hundred percent American.” But you will still learn a lot of things. Do not take my advice if you are afraid of insane shenanigans, random people with guns busting in your hotel room, police officers stalking you, or figuring out how to get an abortion in the Middle East (NOT mine, FYI).

Life gets real when you really displace yourself. I get addicted to the adrenaline of displacement.

Big Sky, Montana. How to Not Be In School.

After graduation, I get a waitressing job at Big Sky Resort and an apartment with an old friend. I ski, snowboard, party, and finally catch up on all the sleep lost in the past four and half years of engineering school all-nighters. I am running from a job offer in my field: managing an oil rig, making insane amounts of money and probably dying in an explosion on April 20, 2010.

I think I made the right choice. I know I made the right choice.

Hawaii. How to Live Consciously.

While browsing the internet over the most amazing vegetarian biscuits and gravy in Big Sky, I found a plane ticket from San Francisco to Hawaii for a reasonable price. Since I had no clue what else I was going to do with myself after the snow stopped falling, and had told myself that in 2009 I was not allowed to think about engineering or jobs, I went to Hawaii to WWOOF.

I wanted to learn about yoga. And hang out in Hawaii. And eat some pineapples. What I got was so much more. It is not even possible to summarize Hawaii in a short space. Just know that when I went to Hawaii, I lived in a fog of disconnect between who I was and who I wanted to be. And by the time I landed on the mainland 5 months later, I was conscious.

Oklahoma. How to Be a Yogini.

I meet a boy in Hawaii and fall head over heels for his world experience, yogic nature and French-Canadian accent. So I bail on Hawaii, fly to his home in Montreal to begin a road trip without a destination.

End up in Oklahoma with his yoga friends, practicing Ashtanga yoga every day, eating a vegan, gluten-free, soy-free, peanut-free diet and living the healthiest life ever. Spent all remaining money on quinoa and vegetables. Went into credit card debt over health food. (I laugh hysterically – at myself! – when people say they’d like to eat healthier but simply ‘can’t afford it.’)

Plan to go to Montana to pick up Everything-I-Own (which was left behind when I left for Hawaii with a backpack) with intentions to sell it to temporarily finance my life. One crazy long drive later, find out that all my possessions evaporated when the person storing my boxes went to prison and her daughter turned the house into a meth lab. (Seriously, I could NOT make this shit up.)

Lake Tahoe, California. How to Be Independent.

End up here completely on accident. End up nearly marrying the boyfriend on a whim. Freak out, send him off to Canada with promises to follow soon. Question everything. Stay in Tahoe instead of moving to Canada.

Start thinking about how to live free for real. Snowboard every day. Meet amazing new friends. Start setting real goals that don’t involve boring engineering jobs ever, but making good things happen on my own terms. Consider staying for good in California. Settling down. Having a home. Starting a business.

Meet another boy. (Sigh… boys!) Make dinners. And plans.

But then I wake up in the middle of the night this May, realizing that home is anywhere and everywhere I want it to be. But also realizing, despite all the amazing friends I have and know, everyone in my Tahoe life at this point has only known me for 2 months. No one knows me. Freak out that South Haven is the only place where I have any semblance of home but I am completely resistant to going back. I love my freedom.

Recognize the resistance as something I need to be brave about and deal with. I have to love where I come from. I have to make peace with the only place I have ever left on bad terms. I can’t hold these negative emotions towards my home, or I will never be truly free. Also, I need to figure out how to not live in complete waitress poverty. (Mental stability wanes dealing with people who treat you like a slave.)

Decide to cancel life in Tahoe. Back out of living situations, life plans, shitty jobs, etc to come home to small town Michigan for the first time in 6 years.

South Haven, Michigan. How to Love What Matters.

Freak out. Question everything. Lie on the floor of my childhood bedroom crying in the agony that I’d left everything to move to a place where no one “gets it.” Break down when I have to do my grocery shopping in WalMart. Break down multiple times in WalMart because it represents everything I can’t stand about the rural midwest. Break down completely and emotionally drive away friends who are already physically distant.

Finally, completely, totally alone but with South Haven. Forced to face it. Embrace the place for what it is, and embrace how I fit into it with what I have become. Become “that girl on a skateboard” and “that girl with a camera” and start to jive with the fact that I am me, and I will always be, and this is good.

Suddenly, find friends in the strangest places. Get multiple opportunities that fit my missions in life – working with green initiatives online, entrepreneurship and sustainable community building. Blogging for Stratejoy. Blogging for myself.

Feel hope.

{photo credit : me :) }

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Confessions of a Hollywood Dropout (pt.2)

posted 18th August 2010    Written by: Nikki    CATEGORY: All Posts, Job/Career/Work, Love/Relationships, Nikki, Season 3, Travel, Travel/Adventure

Last spring, I was burned out.  I was a frustrated actor who felt like a zombie, going from uninspiring day job to hours in traffic to uninspiring auditions.  LA had me convinced that it was the only place that mattered & if I couldn’t make it here, well, I’d failed.  I was majorly unhappy and just going through the motions, bottling it up so I wouldn’t have to admit my unhappiness and therefore make a change.

Then, one day, I cracked.  And that crack let so much light in, it was stunning.

Except I didn’t notice it at first.  I was tightly blindfolded by feelings of failure and fear.  But light has a way of seeping through the dark and finding you, even when you’ve got a hangover headache & have buried yourself beneath the sheets.  Especially then.

So, I declared myself done with acting.  DONE.  Its success was too out of my control, too intangible, too taunting.  I came to a standstill.  And I was angry.  I was mad at the industry for being so fickle, I was mad at my teachers for telling me I was talented, I was mad at myself for even trying; I’d become the Hollywood stereotype, one of the locusts swarming off the bus seeking fame & fortune, and leaving without a penny or a credit to their name.

I couldn’t even stand to listen to people talk about movies.

At the height of this pessimism-party I was throwing myself, some friends convinced me to join an artists collective that was creating an original play.  I was skeptical and creatively barren, but attending the meetings started to shift something inside me.  These people were seriously inspiring.  After a few months of contributing nothing and feeling useless, suddenly all my frustrations and fears and passions poured out of me, uncontrollable and raw, in the form of a monologue.  It was sad and funny, and when I tentatively read it for the group, they insisted it be the opening piece of the show.  It had been born not in spite of my crisis, but because of it, and reminded me I am still an artist, no matter what. I contributed two original pieces to the show, which ended up being one of the most amazing projects I’ve ever worked on, with one of the most inspiring groups of people I know.

And I was back!  …Somewhat.

I still was crisis-ing, still boycotting the film industry, still single, and I still had no clue what I wanted to do with my life, but at least I was creating again.  The light crept in and I started to feel alive.

During all of this, I was planning & saving for a trip to Australia.  For years I’d talked about going and this seemed like the perfect time; I wanted to run away, where better than the other side of the world?  Everything fell into place – I got a temporary job working an arts festival there, got my visa, ticket, and couldn’t wait to see my old college roommate who’d gone to London with me years ago & had been living in Australia since.

I needed this change, I was ready to go & not look back – and then The Ex re-entered the picture.  He’d been around, after 5 years together we had a lot of the same friends, and we’d done the whole messy “hook-back” thing, but this time was different.  This time we were honest.  We talked about why we broke up, what we needed in a relationship and who we were now, after 4 years apart.  It was intense.  He wanted us to try again after my trip; I left feeling confused.  I’d had such a hard time letting go of him and I still cared about him so much, but… but…

I got on the plane with a head full of the past and a heart fighting to understand the present.  I needed to get away.

I could write an entire blog solely about Australia.  (In fact, I did.) How being alone in a strange city, in a strange country, on a strange continent helped me find the freedom in lonely.  How making friends comes easily when everyone’s the new kid, and how conversations with strangers can be oh so fulfilling.  How much easier it is without the burden of things, of history, of expectations.  How much stronger I am than I knew or remembered.

And I met an Aussie boy; while it wasn’t quite love, it taught me more in 2 months than my 4 years being single.  He showed me what I was worth, after years of not valuing myself much.

Little by little, I let go of all the anger, fear, and “what ifs” that had been shadowing me for years.  Little by little, I let the hot Australian sunshine in.  Between the bright red earth and the stunning blue sky, I realized my life was so much bigger than I’d imagined, and I let go.

After four months (twice as long as I’d originally planned to be gone), I wasn’t ready to come back home.  It felt like I had just experienced a whole other life in the short time I was away.  But in that life I’d grown & achieved some clarity; I’d realized no career or idea of success was worth giving up all the other things in my life that make me happy.  And nothing was worth sacrificing my own self-worth.

I decided to move to DC and live with my Mom for a year to bring some balance into my life, save money, and figure out my next step.  I sold my furniture, got out of my apartment lease, and threw myself a goodbye party… and then got the call that I’d been cast in a feature film.

It terrifyingly changed all my plans, but I took the part.  It was one of the best things I’ve ever done.

Now I’m still crisis-ing, still single, still in LA, and still have no clue what I want to do with my life, BUT I’m trusting.  I’ve pulled off the blindfold, woken up blinking in the bright morning of this new chapter of my life, and I’m letting the light pour in.  I honestly have no idea what will happen in the next week or month – I don’t even know where I’ll be living in October – but I’m OK with it.  For once in my life, I’m not trying to plan or control anything.  I’m letting life happen and I’m trusting that I am exactly where I need to be, right now and always.

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Life Is Not a Lottery, Winning and Happiness are a Choice

posted 15th August 2010    Written by: Lindsey    CATEGORY: All Posts, Life Lesson, Lindsey, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 3, What I've Learned

Ever since I grew into the moody little sparkplug of twelve or so, I’d always have the same wish when I blew out the candles on my birthday cake: “To be happy.”

Vague, right? But, I figured, if I were just happy, everything else in my life would magically fall into place. Woo hoo! Happiness fairy! Thank you for finally granting my wish! Now I am truly alive!

Yep. Not how life works, much to the chagrin of my naïve young self.

I wouldn’t say I lived an unhappy life, just unconscious. Unaware of who I was or what I wanted, and therefore, unable to even begin to understand my happiness. I didn’t have my priorities worked out, because that required introspection. To just exist, glide along, and fill the societal-defined mold of “success” as I had done, doesn’t really require any inner work.

The ability to Do-What-I-Want and Live-My-Best-Life didn’t exist in my mind, when obligations to grades or career responsibilities were more valued than taking time to explore the concept of passion and authentic happiness.

Happiness, for me, is a choice to be passionate rather than stoically blindly driven towards someone else’s vision of success.

Last year, I left on a post-college freedom fighting tour of the country, seeking to do only things that made me happy. It was amazing. I had time to breathe, and be introspective, and get the butterflies you can only get from fully immersing yourself within your passions and experiencing complete happiness.

But I hit a wall. Enter: Quarterlife Crisis.

Or, several months of optimistically flipping from “ah, I’m a snowboarder and a traveler and I’ll start a business and be free to do whatever I want!” and “life is awesome and full of happiness. I can just keep on livin’ on the fringe and do what I love.” to “holy shit I am a complete failure!” and “If one more jackass drinks 8 diet cokes with their Applebee’s Fiesta Lime Chicken dinner I will bring a samurai sword to work!”

(Oh, hi, by the way, I am kind of crazy. In an endearing way.)

I was successful in defining my happiness and dreams, but achieving them with a minimum wage job sucks. Turning towards a responsible life: well… but… I DID that already…and it definitely didn’t feel authentic. Yet something was still missing from my life.

There is a part of me that loves to dance like crazy, jump off cliffs, laugh far too loud than any situation will demand. That feeling I get snowboarding deep powder or lifting off in a trans-continental jet or (well, there is a lot, I will spare you). These things make me happy. They are my passions; they make me feel alive.

On the flip-side, I have deep sense of responsibility. Not the lame “oh, I must make money to put in my 401K” but a sense that I have something to contribute to the world (other than awesomely-bad dance moves). And just thinking about following through on this, makes me feel even more alive.

I know what makes me happy, and I now know how to have it. But my mission has evolved to more than be happy but rather to define, create, and live out loud, a completely authentic life.

I’m a person of extremes. Driven, passionate, and hopelessly dramatic. Since I don’t actually plan on living in Crazytown forever, finding balance is super important. Actually, I am working on my Joy Equation this month and have declared BALANCE one of my Core Values!

This Quarterlife Crisis revolves around finding balance in the far edge of extremes. In creating a life where it’s okay to live completely, authentically as yourself. Sometimes that means cliff jumping and hiding out on a secluded beach for weeks on end. But other times it’s about contribution, of the mind and heart, to something greater, evening if that something greater is simply being the best person you can be, and sharing that with your world.


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