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The Fine Line Between Bending and Breaking

posted 18th May 2010    Written by: Nicole Antoinette    CATEGORY: Love/Relationships, Nicole Antoinette, Season 2, What I've Learned

I’ve been thinking a lot about boundaries lately, about the point where I end and everything else begins, and about how to let people in in a way that’s far enough but not too far.

I bring this up in conversation one afternoon, during hour three of a six hour road trip, and he tells me that I’m better at setting boundaries than I think I am.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

He tells me.

While he talks, I drive. I drive, and he reminds me that our entire weekend was a web of boundaries. Emotional boundaries, like deciding to date exclusively. Geographic boundaries, like driving from San Francisco to Oregon to cross another state off my list. Physical boundaries, like trying things in bed that we had never tried before.

As he talks, I realize that he’s right. I also realize that with him, I’ve been able to set warm and comfortable boundaries that inch along as time passes and as we change. I realize that our boundaries are soft enough to be malleable as we outgrow them, but hard enough not to let us grow too quickly.

And I decide that this is the most important part of any relationship: setting boundaries that are tight enough to contain you, but not so tight that you suffocate within them.

Our conversation slips to silence and I think.

I think about the ways in which I am stubborn and the ways in which I am flexible. I notice that I am stubborn about how information is shared; I like to tell the other person things on my own terms. I notice, though, that I am flexible on how I absorb information. Communication is communication when I’m on the receiving end.

We keep driving. City to city, little boundary after little boundary, and I think about which parts of myself I’m willing to bend for other people and about which people I’m willing to bend them for. Then, I wonder where the fine line is between bending and breaking. I ask myself, “When are we holding two sides of the same wishbone, pulling on it gently, and when have we snapped it, leaving each person with only one uneven half?”

He stirs the silence. We talk about the learning curve that comes with removing a previous boundary and establishing a new one. I tell myself that you have to break in new boundaries like you’d break in new shoes, and that the key to making any relationship work is to honor the learning curve and let yourself become naturally accustomed to the new framework.

I nod quietly to myself about all of the times I’ve jumped too soon, all of the times when I went from boundary A to boundary F without touching all the letters in between, and I see that each time, I wound up dizzy and covered in learning curve blisters on the other side.

I realize, though, that I’m stubborn about loving these blisters, the ones that have since turned to scars, because they remind me that we can cross boundaries too quickly and yet still always manage to find our way back.

photo credit: woodleywonderworks

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Two Month Countdown

posted 20th April 2010    Written by: Nicole Antoinette    CATEGORY: Job/Career/Work, Love/Relationships, Nicole Antoinette, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 2

In less than two months, I’m going to be 25.

Um, WHAT?

That’s not a rhetorical question. Seriously, what? Can someone please come over and sit me down and explain how I went from high school to college to being four years out of college to being in my two month countdown to turning 25 years old? Because I sure as hell can’t seem to figure that one out.

When people bring up my birthday and my eyes go all dinner-plate-big, they remind me that “age is just a number” and that “25 isn’t any different than 24.” To which I say, “flkjgflkghj,” because 25 sounds like a much more serious adult age than any age I’ve ever been, and let’s not forget that at 25 I can much more inexpensively rent a car. Let’s not forget that.

Truthfully, I have no idea what will be going on the day I turn 25. I know it’s only two months away, but in my current roller coaster life, two months is two eternities. It was only four months ago that I signed on to write for Stratejoy, and I did so from my parents’ couch in Arizona, surrounded by no job, no place to live, no life plan, and a crush on a boy in San Francisco. In the four months that have screeched by between then and now, I got off their couch, got in my car, and drove my no job, no place to live, no life plan, and big crush from Arizona to San Francisco to see how things played out. Here’s how they played out:

I arrived in San Francisco on a Sunday night and checked into a hostel in a questionable area in the pouring rain. It took three minutes for me to question my sanity, three hours for me to call my mom hysterically crying, and three days for things to unravel with that boy.

And so, less than a week into my “Nicole is so brave and moved to San Francisco!” plan, I had lost the only real connection I had to an entirely unknown city and was staring down an overwhelming case of “What now?”

I needed to regroup.

I needed a friend and a bubbly drink and a plate of cheese and I needed them now. Jamie agreed to come out with me, to take our we-met-through-Twitter friendship offline and finally squeal and jump around together in person. A drink later, we realized we were best friend soulmates. A day later we signed a lease together. A week later we decided to join creative forces to relaunch Shatterboxx Media, her kickass awesome graphic and web design company. And four months later we’re really doing it, working from home, expanding the business, pursuing our writing, exploring the city, and drinking a damn impressive amount of wine along the way.

Which makes me wonder, if four months can give me an entirely new life, top to bottom, can something equally as soul changing come about in the next two?

I don’t see why not. Stay tuned.

photo credit

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Are You There Bigger Picture? It’s Me, Nicole

posted 9th March 2010    Written by: Nicole Antoinette    CATEGORY: All Posts, Inspiration, Nicole Antoinette, Quarterlife Crisis, Season 2

I’ve been living in San Francisco and managing business operations for Shatterboxx Media for a little over two months now, and do you know what I’ve learned from our clients? That while it’s overwhelmingly hard to describe what you’re looking for, you sure as hell know it when you see it.

Jamie and I work through this process over and over, taking the verbal and turning it into the graphic, and it’s been fascinating for me to watch her transform a bullet pointed Word document into something vibrantly alive, because my mind just doesn’t work that way.

My mind likes two things, details and fantasies, and I have a hard time seeing through the fog that clouds my bigger picture. I’m confident in the small parts of my day, the minute-to-minute wants that are easily defined, the sentences that are short and declarative like “I’m craving French onion soup,” “I want sex,” or “I need 30 minutes to read and take a bath.”

But on any given day, it’s almost impossible for me to articulate my long-term goals.

I’m aware that my overarching dream is most frequently described by saying that “I want to, well, you know, live a sweet life and write and travel and stuff,” but I hit a wall when I push myself to get more specific than that. I loosely understand (and am passionately excited about) the things I want to achieve, like checking every item off my Life List, but the biggest challenge I’m facing right now is how to build a solid foundation that supports my wild and crazy dreams, a foundation that starts with flushing out exactly what those dreams really are in the first place.

Like a graphic design client who is all, “I have no idea, but I like purple! And bold typography! And kittens!” I’m vaguely familiar with what I want, but I feel like I’m running in frenzied circles trying to clarify everything enough to cattle-prod The Universe into making it happen, which leaves me feeling that in regard to my goals, I want everything and know nothing all at once.

Is there an easy button here? Can I buy a dream mapping vowel?

I don’t know, maybe I spend too much time focusing on what I don’t know when I should be focusing on what I do know, and for now, here’s what that is:

I know I want to be a writer with a big giant capital W, thoughtfully telling my stories and living my life out loud. I know I want to be a citizen of the world, traveling wherever I can, saying yes to newness while learning how to let it in without blurring my boundaries and losing myself.

I know I want to be a perpetual student, an open listener, and an unconditional support system for everyone who has gently reached down and pulled me out when I’ve gone tumbling down the rabbit hole. I know I want laughter and hilarity in unlimited quantities, because I know that’s the best way for me to leave each day better than I found it.

I know I want to inspire people to live up to the best possible version of themselves by being spontaneous and creative, honest and positive, confident and kind, hardworking and spiritually alive.

I know I want to learn to spend time in the silence more often, to listen without judgment, love as hard as I can, and then a little harder still, and I know that I want to shape my days around the overwhelming truth that what I put out there is what I’ll get back.

And maybe knowing all of that is enough for now.

photo credit: lululemon athletica

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