Things I Learned After Moving Away

Posted by Madison Vain

Going to college, as ripe an opportunity for growth as it was, pales in comparison to moving to New York. No team, no coaches, no built-in friend group…

Wait, no orientations, classes, tutors [what? not me!], or school-sanctioned social functions either.

Nope, just me, the city, and roughly eight-to-ten million people I had never met, still haven’t met, and will never meet.

New York is an inherently humbling beast. You think things are going your way — you can finally give nagging tourists directions, you’ve stopped smiling at strangers when you make eye contact on the subway [because that really fahhreaks people out up here], you know all the Jewish holidays and their traditions by heart, you’ve even taken part in all the Jewish holidays and their traditions…

And then New York comes calling. It knocks you down. Way down. Further than you thought possible. It reminds you that you’re hundreds of miles from your family. Oh, and most of your friends. It tells you all about how expensive life can be and how competitive and ruthless some people are.

Along the way, basking in the glory of those highs and bitching and moaning through those lows, I’ve learned a thing or two [let's be real, I was never going to stop this list at 'two'].

1. How to budget. Budget like WHOA.

2. How to get a bartender to totally forget I have a cash tab [see #1].

3. How to get other patrons to pick up said tab without infringing on my sexual/moral/personal integrity [or theirs].

4. That knowing your limit does not necessarily make you weak.

5. And obeying that limit does not necessarily make you smart.

6. The less you want to ask a question, the more important it probably is.

7. If someone ever asks your permission to date, court, or sleep with the man you love, tell them no.

8. They will probably do so anyway.

9. They probably already have.

10. Loyalty is important.

11. But when you get down to it — down to that golden nugget of truth hiding at the center of the universe — very few people are loyal.

12. This does not negate #10.

13. But, still, not everyone deserves yours. Keep an eye out.

14. There are very, very few reasons to ever hurt someone. Ironically enough, these times are also when you want to the least.

15. People grow apart.

16. People leave.

17. In both scenarios, it’s okay to miss them.

18. Sometimes, it’s okay to tell them so.

19. They are not obligated to care, or reciprocate.

20. Holding on to something that no longer works, be it a relationship, partnership, friendship, or job is unfair to everyone involved.

21. Being sorry usually means more to you than to the one you’ve hurt.

22. Be honest.

23. Life goes on.

24. But really, it does. Whether or not you want it to.

25. Everyone has something to say.

26. It’s best to let them say it.

27. Being sensitive doesn’t mean you’re desperate. It’s not a flaw, no matter how many times people may try to convince you it is.

28. Sometimes people you really love — really, really love — will end up hating you.

29. It hurts.

30. After a crisis, it might feel as if you lost part of your soul.

31. Don’t worry, you’ll get it back.

32. Theme parties still exist. They’re still fun.

33. The city is beautiful at night.

34. Also, during the day.

35. And from a distance.

36. If you buy earrings from a sidewalk vendor, wash before wearing.

36. Be yourself. Be your weird self as hard as you can.

37. Becoming jaded as you get older is something people have said and written about forever. Know this is optional. Bad things happen; things you never wanted to happen, to you and/or to those you love. You’re going to like things you shouldn’t, love people who don’t deserve you, and miss opportunities you should’ve valued. Rather than cast those experience aside, chalking them up as stupid mistakes, feel them. The pain, the stupidity, the loss. Feel them as passionately as you feel the good and great things. Then, move on, and work to make happy the person you were before things got all twisted and torn inside.

38. Have fun.

39. Lots of it.

And We Couldn’t Wait

Posted by Madison Vain

Juice boxes become sodas. Sodas become vodkas. Strollers become bikes, which become cars. Bashful smiles quickly become kisses and kisses become…well, anyway. Point is, everything changes. Evolves. Grows. Blossoms. Breaks. Withers.

But remember?

Remember when dad’s shoulders was the highest place in the whole world and mom was your hero?

When race issues were about who ran the fastest, war was a card game, and good-byes were only until tomorrow?

When mom still wrapped your towel around you as you jumped out of the pool and packed your lunch, always scribbling that little heart next to your name?

When kissing a boo-boo was all it took to feel better and an afternoon spent climbing trees was nothing short of ordinary?

Remember how we couldn’t wait? Couldn’t wait to grow up?

To get our licenses and buy our own booze? Make our own friends and set our own curfews?

To be on our own, charting our courses and mastering our destinies?

I marvel: we couldn’t wait to grow up.

If only we knew, knew how much less time there was for lying under sunny skies. For fighting with your sisters about nothing. For building forts. And decorating the inside of your closet with collages of your favorite boy bands. And tickling people until someone starts crying and it’s not fun anymore.

If only we knew.

But we didn’t, and we couldn’t, and we couldn’t wait.

How To Grow Up When You Really Don’t Want To

Posted by Madison Vain

- Find a job, or jobs, that keeps you working 70% of all waking hours. Oscillate between resenting it and seeing it as your one true saving grace; your salvation in a wasteland of unemployment. Kiss up. Look sharp. Master the keurig. Learn to make copies and send faxes. Memorize every ctrl+ shortcut to impress co-workers and eliminate any unnecessary keystrokes. When Monday morning arrives and every inch of your soul is clinging to your down comforter, resisting another day of tedium…imagine your childhood home. Imagine your mother and the way she would breeze in and out of your room, unannounced, without knocking, insisting that your door stay open when your boyfriend was over. Get up and go to work.

- Put on a few pounds at Thanksgiving and wait for them to magically melt off the way they always do. Keep waiting. Slowly arrive at the terrifying conclusion that they are not melting off and that your body now requires maintenance. Curse this reality. Begrudgingly accept your weight loss challenge. Confront your problem areas with a few choice moves. Go to the gym. Go to yoga. Go for a run. When given the option between the elevator and stairs, take the stairs. Convince yourself that you’ll get stuck between floors in the elevator with someone who whistles or pretend there’s a fire. There’s definitely a fire — stairs it is.

- Buy a plant or two. Desperately try to keep them alive. Give them names, like Harold or Honey. Give them pep talks, sunny windowsill spots, and play them classical music to stimulate their growth — the way you’re certain your mother should have while you were in the womb. Play Bach. Play Chopin. Play the Marie Antoinette soundtrack…it was pretty good, right? When you come home from work and see that your plant has died, think of your friends who have already committed to raising a child and cut your losses.

- Date the wrong people, in hopes that you’ll be better suited to recognize the right one[s], later on. Offer to pay even when you’re three days shy of depositing rent or going broke. Split the bill. Consult Groupon for activities. Cancel dates at the last-minute because your boss needs you. Google “Stockholm Syndrome.” Take a selfie. Instagram it (filter, filter again, hashtag). Sleep next to your laptop and kiss it good morning when the sun peeks through your window. And on days when your love life looks eerily similar to a film student’s final project, call the youngest divorced person you know and let them vent. Express your deepest sympathies.

- Invest in gold. Invest in silverware. Invest in various pots and pans of various shapes and sizes and a mop that doesn’t spray soap-water at the touch of a button. Have a dinner party and let your friends restock your liquor cabinet with affordable red wine. Be bold in the kitchen. Cook something you’re pretty sure you saw your mom do once [keep her on the phone throughout the entire process]. Bake something from an instructional YouTube video. Replicate something from Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives and when it’s raw in the middle or burnt around the edges, spit it out and resolve to try again.

Always, try again.

Let It Linger

Posted by Madison Vain

Remember that one time I got overly soppy, wept into my keyboard, and wrote this ode to college?

Well, a few months shy of a year later…much of the sentiment persists.

Life now, despite its feverish excitement, has an entirely different feel than life then.

College had the air of an endless conversation, no real beginning or end in sight.

Sort of like the way you dance with your roommate in your dorm [lookin' at you Miss Salmon].

How did it start? Did it actually end, or are you just waiting for the next song to strike the right nerve?

Or its like one big, overwhelming sensory buffet.

Or whole-body-shaking laughter.

Or the notebooks and journals and diaries littering my shelves.

You see, it’s because you’re happy, even when you’re not, because you’re always in love.

In love with the comfort, the calm, the constants.

With girlfriends and boyfriends and, undoubtedly, best friends.

With parties–dancing in bars, singing in bars, and all the clatter that comes along with.

With everything burgeoning, bustling, and meaningful.

In love with the time when you’re still capable of loving in that way–with a stupid, lopsided grin, arms and legs cast open-heartedly around life.

We often forget the facts of a particular moment, but rarely, if ever, its feeling–packing up my car, going to my first class, meeting my teammates…the feel of each lingers.

Maybe perspective, being more years removed, will make it harder to romanticize. But for now, I’m happy to mythologize those four years.

My body woke up in college. How I hurled it through every semester, often with reckless abandon; feasting on its various abilities to intoxicate and be intoxicated.

Of course there is much that pains, moments that embarrass, and memories that make me cringe…but that’s part of the beauty, too, I suppose.

My mind, as well, woke up in college. Exercised, constantly, by teachers and classrooms; on bar stools and benches and flat on our backs, sunbathing in the university lawn.

By thoughts, a constant stream of new thoughts. Like when I sat on our stoop, drinking beer and staring at the stars with Eleanor, thinking this is exactly how I hoped college would be. College is where I learned to be a woman. I schlepped the objects of womanhood in tote bags and gold clutches; in pink satchels and team backpacks.

A vial of Gucci perfume, a lip gloss or two, a pen or seven, a book, headphones, house keys, bobby pins, and hand lotion.

Every day it got carted around, checked compulsively–what did I forget? Like a security blanket, wrapped around a bunch of security items.

And I kept journals…their entries abominably self-indulgent. Their wallowings, wonderings, and yearnings. Really just blips and fragments of actual living.

But at their end, after marveling that I survived at all, with a profound awareness of what friends and lovers and teachers I’d take with me, into this next life…as well as those that remain behind, strewn about the sides of my journey…I realized: I grew up.

And it hurt, and it still hurts…but in the most glorious, vibrant way.

Off to (or from) College

Posted by Madison Vain

Prepping for my last finals week has me feeling nostalgic. Remembering freshman year, all the eager anticipation I showed up with, and all the crazy things that led to today, four-years the wiser, is what prompts this post.

So for some, this is an open letter of what to expect when you ship off to college in the fall. For others, I hope it is a welcome look back.

Dear Freshie,

First, congratulations on graduating high-school. For some of you it may have been a struggle, for others it was a breeze. Accordingly, your parents are either very proud or sincerely relieved.

As hard as it is to pack up and say good-bye to your family and friends-since-forever, remember to be excited. The most important chapter of your life is about to start; going in with your chin raised high and your cheeks dry from tears is important.

College has a way of laughing at your idea of who you thought you should be and showing you just who you really are. Don’t worry, you’ll like this person more.

Don’t take yourself too seriously. You’re young exactly once; growing up is nothing to rush into. Stay out a little too late. Laugh just a bit too loud. Do something embarrassing every now and then. It’s okay.

Don’t be surprised that the first year is hard. This is normal. So while being far from home hurts your heart in unique ways, be mindful that everyone on your hall feels similarly.

Bond over this.

Don’t wallow. Go out, help each other get ready, share clothes, be generous with compliments, take lots of photos. Someone wants to throw a theme party? Get into it.

The only way to look stupid at a theme party is to act too cool for the theme.

Time will scoot by faster than you can imagine.

By October, you’ll have the famous freshman flu (hot tea, lemon, and a big squirt of honey cures all).

By November, you’ll have run out of money and Ramen noodles will be your new best friend…especially when they’re eaten with your other new best friends.

By the time Christmas rolls around, you’ll throw on some antlers (please no sexy Mrs. Claus outfits), organize a secret Santa (with a strict price limit), and stay up all night before heading home to a mom sure to gasp at how thin/fat you have gotten.

Take this with a grain of salt, whether you gain or lose weight its temporary.

And that’s it. You survived your first semester. The rest of them will pass far too quickly. But I don’t want to ruin all the surprises so instead, I’ll leave you with a few final survival tips.

1. Choose your friends wisely. You need them now more than you ever have before.

2. As exciting as these new friends are, remember the ones you left behind. Call frequently.

3. That goes for siblings as well. If you’re like me and all of you are close in age, there’s a chance your locations now dot various far-flung cities. Stay close, have group texts, send pictures, visit as often as possible.

4. It’s okay to miss class. Skip a couple, sleep in, stay in bed, go for a walk, take a long weekend, go to that concert even though its two hours away. And please, if the cute boy from the party last night asks you to breakfast, say yes.

5. Have a wonderful, wonderful time.

told.in.vain

Tag Archives: growing up

Things I Learned After Moving Away

And We Couldn’t Wait

How To Grow Up When You Really Don’t Want To

Let It Linger

Off to (or from) College

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