Baby, Career or Both?

April 22, 2015 By in Career, Relationships Tags: , , 4 Comments

The “Ask Polly” column on NY Mag.com is one of my (and Laura’s) favorite places to find advice. The writer behind the beautiful, insightful words of “Ask Polly” is Heather Havrilesky. She writes truthfully and warmly and she reminds me a bit of Cheryl Strayed (Author of Tiny, Beautiful Things and Wild). The most recent “Ask Polly” column was especially resonant for me as a 33 year old woman in a relationship who feels behind in her career yet also feels the pressure to have children in the next few years.

The letter (email?) writer was stuck in a dilemma. She wants children but she also wants a fulfilling career (and the job she’s in is not satisfying, so she wants to start over and find a job that satisfies her). She feels it impossible to do both. I can relate! I desperately want to find success as a screenwriter (or some semblance of success) before I have kids. But time keeps ticking away and  while my writing is getting better, the paychecks and job offers aren’t rolling in.

Heather ‘s (Polly’s!) advice was beautiful, per always. She advocated for the life of “All.” The life of everything even though it will be damn challenging.

This was my favorite part of her reply:

Bottom line: I was so fearful. But throwing my energy into both my kids and my career turned out so much better than I ever thought it could. And I became much more focused and ambitious after I had kids. I valued my time more. I used my time more wisely. All of the time I used to spend questioning myself and worrying about the big picture is now spent doing dishes and folding little dresses. A lot of the working mothers I know feel the same way.

…Imagine a full life and be true to that vision. Defend it. And put fear aside. You have one person with a steady job in the house. Don’t panic.

You can have it all. You may have to adjust the particulars of “IT” but trust me, “ALL” is what you want. It’s exhausting and it’s a balancing act and it’s way too much for anyone to handle, ever. That’s also what’s so gratifying about it.

This was a refreshing advice column to read, because I think it addresses the “perfectionist” trap we can get into as women. That we must excel in our careers and excel as mothers and homemakers living from Instagram worthy moment to Instagram worthy moment. So we end up feeling the need to choose one or the other.

But it seems the best option is this: if you want it all, you should aim for it all,  and not pre-emptively  cut yourself off from options. And yes, your life of “ALL” will probably be imperfect and messy.

Playing Dress-Up In Your Thirties

April 21, 2015 By in Friendships, Relationships Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 10 Comments

My good friend and coworker, Natasha, is checking on the status of her new dresses as I type. But these aren’t just any pretty  dresses- they are Lolita. And, at 32 years old, Natasha rocks out Lolita fashion.

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This is Natasha as a Lolita.

Playing dress up isn’t just for kids. It never has been. But I never understood just how much dressing up is for adults too… until now.

Natasha is in her thirties and works tradeshows and autoshows with me. She’s always been great with makeup. She puts on false eyelashes perfectly before work in barely a minute- I’ve watched her in awe. She’s an amazing make-up artist- brilliant with shadows and all sorts of contouring.

Natasha sans special makeup:

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Natasha travels to a tradeshow

Natasha’s makeup masterpieces:

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Halloween

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Way too real latex makeup work…

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Natasha is top right

I knew Natasha had recently gotten into Lolita dresses, but I never understood what that meant until very recently.

Lolita is a Japanese street fashion–  an alternative fashion subculture that originated in Japan and is now all over the world. The original Lolita shaped dress is knee length or slightly above the knee and is A-Line, cupcake or bell shaped with petticoats. These dresses are usually worn with OTKS (Over The Knee Socks) or tights. The dresses are extremely modest and the whole Lolita culture is actually based around femininity and modesty.

Since Natasha has always enjoyed playing with really fun make-up, I just thought she’d gotten into playing with fun dresses as well. I didn’t understand that there’s a whole Lolita culture actually based around rebellion. Yes, these cute little dresses are actually a Japanese fashion trend that says ‘screw the way I’m expected to dress. I wear what I want.’ It’s about wearing a pretty dress because you feel like it. Lolita culture doesn’t care what other people think.

Natasha says that sometimes she wears the dresses out to Lolita meetups and on the way people ask her what the special occasion is. Her sweet reply is basically that she felt like wearing a really pretty dress. Because why not? It’s awesome! And she’s awesome!

Lolita fashion says you don’t have to dress to attract anyone. So many times I’ve felt I need to dress the way I feel a man will like…whether I’m single or in a relationship. A lot of my women friends agree- we end up feeling the need to dress for men all the time. With Lolita, you dress to impress yourself. It’s freeing and powerful. One Lolita said:

“We certainly do not do this for the attention of men. Frequently, female sexuality is portrayed in a way that is palatable and accessible to men, and anything outside of that is intimidating. Something so unabashedly female is ultimately kind of scary – in fact, I consider it to be pretty confrontational. Dressing this way takes a certain kind of ownership of one’s own sexuality that wearing expected or regular things just does not.”

Lolita is about having fun and feeling pretty – not for others, but for you.

Lolita is creative and wild and it gives zero fucks. Kind of like the thirties, right? 🙂

So thanks, Natasha, for introducing me to the fascinating world of Lolita. And for being amazing, bold, passionate and just so very YOU!

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1669808_890319297656593_6854195036141353387_oYou’re awesome!

Spinster: The Pre-Having-Read-This Book “Review”

April 20, 2015 By in Grab Bag Tags: Leave a comment

True Confession: I find great pleasure in watching the Today Show on NBC in the morning. Watching Al, Matt, Tamron, and Savannah chat and deliver the ‘news ‘ is on my list of personal self-soothing remedies, a list which also includes wine drinking while reading Real Simple magazine and taking long baths while listening to the sound of the tub filling up.

So, this morning, I am watching the Today Show, trying to get my butt out the door to make it to class on time, and I see a very pretty woman in her 30s talking about her new book, Spinster. The Today Show has hooked me; I had to sit down and listen to her interview. It turns out this woman is the  39 year old author of the book, Kate Bolick. (Just a note: did I have to mention she’s very pretty? No. But it definitely helps her argument, as she’s a single, not married, but has a boyfriend, beauty in her late 30s which we don’t often seen portrayed.)

The book explores the question “Can I spend my life alone and be happy?” from a woman’s perspective. Bolick got a reported high six-figure deal for the book. Aside from the fact that I’m a teeny weensy bit jealous and also have a bit of a platonic girl crush on her…I’m desperately excited to read this book. Mainly because I’m so sick of this idea that women can’t have fully, complete and satisfied lives on their own.

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Image by Willy Somma

Bolick’s book explores the lives of five female writers in the past century who’ve actively chosen to live their lives on their own terms and not marry. As I haven’t read it, I can’t really give a 100% recommendation but my hunch is, it’s going to be a fascinating read, if for no other reason than this line about her eating a Big Mac on her sidewalk after a drunken night out:

“I chomped and strolled as slowly as I could, prolonging the delectable realization that waiting for me at home was nothing but an empty bed into which I’d crawl naked and drunk and stinking of fast food, disgusting nobody but myself.”

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Can’t wait to read this.

Would You Live In A Cave Far Away From Everyone?

April 18, 2015 By in Grab Bag Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

A lot of people have asked me if I would ever leave New York. My answer is usually ‘no’ but that’s a lie.

My family is here. My friends are here. My stories are here. I travel away from the city all the time, and I only truly feel at home once I’m back in NYC. Because New York City is and has always been my home.

And yet…what if…

I feel like I could possibly be happy living somewhere else. Who knows? Perhaps I just don’t know yet because I haven’t experienced it. Not once in my thirty years have I ever moved anywhere but New York permanently. I’ve studied abroad, and travel more than half of the year, but it’s not the same as truly living in another location.

My really good friend is going through a breakup right now. We’ve been talking about it a lot. We’ve also been talking about being single and all types of challenging experiences that have happened recently. Yesterday, he texted me saying: ” The biggest takeaway for me from this week is that we should go live in a cave far away from everyone.”

It’s a humorous thing to say, and somewhat melancholy, but I think the best humor has both truth and melancholy in it.

“A place to call home” has been a recurring conversation topic for me in the past few weeks. Jane, my amazing co-blogger, has been debating leaving LA for months (years?) and only now has decided that she’s likely going to return to New York this summer. Another one of my friends just moved to San Diego, and is quickly moving back to New York again. I wrote an article on this blog a few months back about my coworker who paid off her whole condo by the time she turned 30! And I recently read an article about a woman in China who has lived in a cave for 3 years surviving on rainwater and rice! (That last article is very strange and also quite melancholy- just a warning.)

And then there’s the just as bizarre tiny home… Have you heard of these? Lately they’ve come up a lot in conversations I’ve had. And I recently read an article about Dee Williams, who lives in a tiny gingerbread house on wheels  (really!) and pays only $8 a month for a single propane heater. She only paid $10,000 for the initial construction of the place. Her mini home is 84 square feet and no larger than a parking spot!

Are you guys happy with where you live? Have you lived in the same city/state/country your whole life or have you moved a lot? Do you feel like the thirties are more of a time to settle down …or is this perhaps a time to spice it up and try somewhere new?

Strangely enough, both Dee Williams with her tiny house and the cave dwelling woman in China say that even with their bizarre living situations, they actually rely on their communities more than ever. Finding a home that’s not in a big city truly doesn’t necessarily equate to being isolated. The cave dweller’s neighbors from local villages frequently bring her offerings to help her out- such as rice to eat, as well as their used coats. Dee Williams said about her tiny home, “”I thought I would be so contained in this little house with no running water. The big surprise, of course, is the smaller you go, the more you absolutely have to lean into your community. It gets smaller and bigger. It gets to be this big, tiny thing, you know?”

tiny house

It’s Like Riding a Bike…In Your Thirties

April 16, 2015 By in Grab Bag Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

I read this article the other day about an Irish journalist in Cork, Ireland, who’s learning to drive a car for the first time at age 32. 

I can relate.

Actually, I got my Driver’s License at age 17 and passed the test on the first try. So I’ve been a licensed driver for 13 years… however, I live in New York City so I almost never drive. It’s weird that there’s this major skill that other people find so easy but I find so rusty.

It was the same with biking. I never really got around to taking the training wheels off my bike as a kid. So as an adult, whenever friends of mine proposed going biking, I turned them down. Then, when I was 19 and studying abroad in Italy, there came a biking experience I couldn’t turn down. We were going to bike around the gorgeous, ancient city walls of Siena, Italy.

I seriously had no idea how to get the bike going, and my friends practically left without me. But after lots of trial and error and time, I was able to get the bike going…though I had no idea how to stop it.

“Coming through!” I screamed, “I don’t know how to brake!!!!” The confused Italians didn’t always understand what I was saying and would dart out of my path completely in fear. As I got the bike to go even faster, I sometimes screamed out “Attenzione!” which translates loosely from Italian to “watch out!”

After Siena, I didn’t attempt to bike ride again until I was 27. I whimsically rented a bike in South Beach, Miami, and painstakingly spent hours doing figure eights and teaching myself how to ride once again. I fell off the bike numerous times, cut up my legs, but actually got the hang of it by the end of the day.

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Attempt at a bike selfie in Miami

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Okay, we can actually see the bike here..

After the painstaking learning experience in Miami, I never forgot how to ride a bike again. Rumors are true…it really did come back. I started renting bikes in all the warm cities I visited for work… Miami again, then Houston, then San Diego…

San Diego biking for hours

San Diego biking… for hours. I was actually pretty good.

Today I was listening to the Dave Ramsey podcast. It’s a finance podcast, but he happened to be talking about running a marathon. He was saying how anyone can do it- if it’s a goal you really want to achieve you can just go online and grab a training schedule and follow it. Once you finish the schedule, you’ll be able to run a marathon. It’s just that simple. Other people are doing it and you can too.

I wonder how many easily achievable tasks are out there that seem impossible. It seems some “super difficult” goals are actually right within our grasp. We just have to decide that we want to achieve them.

Start right now. It’s never too late.

Signs You Need to Look at Signs In Your Thirties

April 15, 2015 By in Grab Bag Tags: , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Two days ago, my friend’s car went missing. This was a major problem for two reasons:

  1. It’s pretty awful to lose a whole car.
  2. We needed the car to get to work.

We were both working in Chicago at a tradeshow, and the car went missing on the first day of work. My friend lives in Chicago but she had just come back from working in Denver and didn’t realize her car was gone until the morning we needed to drive.

That morning, we stared at the empty space where she swore her car had been. And we looked for ‘No Parking’ signs, or street cleaning signs, but we didn’t see any. We wandered the neighborhood helplessly until finally, near tears, we had to leave and ended up calling an Uber.

Later, my friend found her car- it had been towed. Turns out the whole city of Chicago is known to have ‘tow bait’ blocks, where cars will be parked and then towed without much notice for some reason or another. Signs would be posted at the last minute in order to trap unsuspecting out of town drivers and tow their cars away.

The car and sign issues kept happening.

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Tonight I was running to catch the train to Chicago Midway airport right after work. My aforementioned friend was driving me to the train station, but we couldn’t find her car once again. We’d just gotten the car out of the tow pound the night before and parked it at the Chicago convention center. But we couldn’t remember where we parked it. We realized we weren’t seeing the signs right in front of us.

Lot A

Parking Spot N3

We followed those signs to Lot A and tracked down parking spot N3. We found her car, and she drove me to the train station, where I saw a sign for my train to midway.

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The sign for the train to midway was mixed in with a bunch of other train signs. I had to know where to look. And I remembered from other times I’d been to Chicago how annoying and hard to understand the Chicago train signs were. I remembered the signs from experience so I was able to find what I needed.

And then I started thinking about all the simple signs everywhere but are sometimes hard to see and recognize. I feel really silly when I pull a door that says ‘push’ or when I go down the subway stairs that say ‘uptown’ when I really want to go downtown. Similar problems arise when I don’t see stop signs and breeze through them or ask where the restroom is while the big ‘Restroom this way’ sign is right in front of me.

In my thirties, I’ve experienced this lack of seeing over and over. I’ve made the lack-of-reading-signs mistake so often that I should know to look up- the world is giving directions. The directions are so simple as to be laughable- I’ve seen them before. The signs are right in front of my face.

Do you find this to be true sometimes? We’re so distracted by our thoughts and our worries and our iPhones and our preconceived notions. We end up in our heads trying to figure life out, but blind to the clues around us.

Are you truly seeing the signs in your thirties? Are you used to them by now? Or are you still stuck in your own head, buried in thought and missing all the simple notifications that can tell you exactly what to do?

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A Base Salary of $70,000 a Year for Every Employee?

April 14, 2015 By in Career, Money Tags: , 1 Comment

Have you heard about how Gravity Payments, a start-up company based in Seattle, is implementing a plan to give every employee a base salary of at least $70,000 a year? I just read about it today in this article, One Company’s New Minimum Wage: $70,000 a Year, and it made my heart do a little dance of joy. It’s a pretty incredible leap from the “Fight for 15” movement which is pushing for minimum wage bumps to $15 an hour at fast food companies.

Citing happiness research as his impetus for this new salary minimum, Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, said that the idea came to him after reading a study that said that for people who make less than $70,000 a year, extra money makes a huge difference in their lives.

Patricia Cohen, the author of the article, succinctly states the research here:

“The happiness research behind Mr. Price’s announcement on Monday came from Angus Deaton and Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist. They found that what they called emotional well-being — defined as “the emotional quality of an individual’s everyday experience, the frequency and intensity of experiences of joy, stress, sadness, anger, and affection that make one’s life pleasant or unpleasant” — rises with income, but only to a point. And that point turns out to be about $75,000 a year.”

So I guess we should all aim to make at least $75,000 a year? Easier said than done, I know. Because, if you’re like me, in a less traditional, perhaps more artistic or non-profit type job, that’s not all too easy to attain. And sometimes, if a job offer that pays that much comes your way, you may have to choose between salary or higher personal satisfaction? For me, I’ve often chosen the latter – which is why…true money confession…I’ve never made $70,000 a year. Not yet, at least. When I do make that amount, it will nice to not stress about going out to nice dinners with friends, or being able to buy nice gifts for people, or treating myself to something randomly without thinking too much about the financial consequences. Since my tastes are pretty minimal, I think I could do that on a salary of $70,000 a year.

Currently, the average salary of an employee at Gravity Payments is $48,000. So that’s a pretty sweet bump for those employees whose salaries are in the average range. One of the other reasons Dan Price instituted this change was because he felt the discrepancy between CEO/top leadership pay and regular employees salaries was absurd.

I hope the company continues to stay profitable and that the employees end up being more invested and productive in their jobs, so that perhaps one day this can be a model for other companies.

Simple Thoughts to Remember If You’re Pursuing Something Challenging

April 10, 2015 By in Grab Bag Leave a comment

Lately I’ve been bumming out over how little progress I feel I’ve made with my writing. While I’m writing more than ever, I’m not getting the meetings or the feedback I would like. It can feel disheartening. So, I was buoyed a little reading this article about Louie CK, comedian extraordinaire. He has some wise words for those of us struggling to pursue something artistic, or something just plain challenging.

Here are some encouraging quotes from his article in The Hollywood Reporter:

“I didn’t start doing really well until I was about 42 years old; I’m 47 now, so I got 42 years against five good ones. I still have a lot to draw from, and life doesn’t get easier. It’s still cold when I’m outside like it is for everybody else.”

“I definitely have huge benefits to how well I’m doing, but you do find yourself missing the climb. It’s a little like Mount Everest. When you summit, you spend about 20 minutes up there, and you do a little dance, but if the 20-minute dance was really it, would you really risk your life for the amount of work it takes to get up and down? So every time I feel like I’ve found a clearing, I try to find something else that I don’t know how to do yet. That’s just much more interesting to me.”

Remember to enjoy the journey, because that’s half the fun.

louis_ck_660Love you, Louie.

Rereading Your Twenties

April 10, 2015 By in Grab Bag Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments

Today, a friend of mine posted on Facebook about how he reread the work of a writer he used to think was brilliant. However, while rereading her work this time, he realized that she was actually quite insane and likely a sociopath in need of heavy medication.

He was rereading the complete works of Sarah Kane– a playwright that me and all my drama major friends had been completely obsessed with in college and afterwards. We worked on novel ways to stage her plays and bring her genius to life.

Her writing is littered with violent, heart-stopping moments such as the gouging out of eyeballs, urinating on beds, rape, and dead baby eating. My friends and I all loved her and thought she was misunderstood and amazing. She had committed suicide at the age of 28.

When I saw the Facebook post about rereading Kane’s work, I realized that there are a ton of things I used to love that feel different to me now. It’s almost like I have to go back and rewatch my favorite movies (which used to include Moulin Rouge but I’m pretty sure that needs updating) and reread my favorite novels (which used to include A Prayer For Owen Meany, but I haven’t read that in years).

When I used to love Sarah Kane plays in college, I was surrounded by people who wanted to ‘push the limits of theater’ and do ‘groundbreaking work’ which seemed to mandate plays that were shocking and possibly offensive. Nowadays I have different standards for groundbreaking work. And from my twenties to my thirties, I also have different standards for my relationships, friends, and work environments. A lot has changed.

Have you checked on what you’re still holding onto from your twenties that might not represent who you are anymore?

sarah kane

Letting Go of the “Achievement Demons”

April 8, 2015 By in Grab Bag 2 Comments

Do you feel this gnawing need to achieve something great? Do you feel like you’re constantly striving? I have and I do. Throughout high school, I strove to get into the best college I could, make Dean’s List in college, and after college, my dreams were always huge and perhaps unrealistic, “make my own feature film,” “sell a screenplay,” “have a play reviewed in the NY Times.” Now I understand that these goals can take years comprised of steady work that builds over time. But when I was 24, I assumed I could accomplish them in a year, and when I didn’t, I felt woefully inadequate that I had “failed.”

That’s why this article by Andrew Yang, CEO of Venture for America, resonated  so much with me:  The dark side of American’s achievement culture. Yang talks about this drive to succeed, saying:

I jokingly call the hang-ups associated with a drive to achieve as “the Achievement Demons.” When I was growing up, I’d study for days trying to get good grades. When I’d get an “A,” I’d feel elation for about 30 seconds, and then a feeling of emptiness. Rinse and repeat.

Man, I can totally relate to that. His article is fascinating, and he gives some tips and tricks to avoid letting the achievement demons get you down. My favorite quote in the article is this one:

“FOMO (fear of missing out) is the enemy of valuing your own time.”

I’ve never thought about FOMO that way, but that’s exactly what it is. When your really think about it, FOMO is the biggest self-insult there is. You’re basically devaluing and insulting whatever you’re doing at that moment. It’s kind of like when you have a guest at a party who leaves early to go to another party that will seemingly be more fun. But  in this case, you’re the guest at your own party who wants to leave!

Anyhow, I highly recommend reading this article if you ever feel like you’re constantly striving.

Portrait of a Thirtysomething- Kari Bentley-Quinn

April 7, 2015 By in Career, Friendships, Grab Bag Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

We’re so happy to have Kari Bentley-Quinn as our next featured guest in our new Portrait of a Thirtysomething series! Portrait of a Thirtysomething asks our invited guests (in their 30s) questions about their lives and what this decade means to them.

Kari Bentley Quinn is an absolutely amazing playwright and we co-founded the theater company, Mission to (dit)Mars together along with two other wonderful cofounders. Kari and I met a few years ago through another theater group, Packawallop Productions, and have been friends ever since! Jane and I are thrilled to have her here!

Enjoy her beautiful interview below, and be sure to check out her website and say hi!  http://www.karibentleyquinn.com/

Kari Bentley Quinn

“The challenge is “how do I live as happy and fulfilled a life as possible?” At the end of the day, the person I most have to answer to is myself. I can’t live for anyone else – my husband, my family, my friends – I have to be a whole person. And I think that’s hard sometimes, but it becomes more necessary.”

Name/Age/Location:
 
Kari Bentley-Quinn/ 33/ Astoria/Woodside border, in the amazing borough of Queens (Woodstoria?)
 
Occupation: 
Playwright/Executive Assistant (proud hybrid for ten years strong!)
 
What’s the accomplishment you’re most proud of in your 30s so far? 
It has to be the fact that I went back to grad school after nearly ten years out of undergrad. I am getting my MFA in Playwriting from Hunter College, and I graduate in May, which I can hardly believe. It was an absolutely terrifying thing to do, but I did it! Well, almost. Still have a few things left to do. But I am 90% of the way there. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done – mentally, physically, emotionally, creatively. I did it while working a full time job. I don’t know if I would have been able to do this in my 20s when I was less sure of myself. I also got an agent last year, so that was really nice. And I’ve had two productions!
What do you NOT miss about your 20s? 
I think just the crushing uncertainty and working so hard to have people take you seriously. The 20s are the time you’re supposed to be making a lot of mistakes, but is also the time when you become a full blown adult. Trying to reconcile the fact that you’re still young and inexperienced with making good enough decisions that your future won’t be a wreck is tough. There were a lot of wonderful things about my 20s. But there were a lot of scary and bad things, too. I would say that my early 20s were actually quite awful. My mid to late 20s, less so.
 
Looking back, what shouldn’t you haven’t been afraid of in your 20s? 
Being a failure. Not making everyone happy. Money stuff. What people thought of me. Being fat. Not working hard enough. Getting older in general. What my future was going to be like. I spent a lot of my 20s freaking out about stuff that 1. was impossible to know the end result of and 2. didn’t matter one bit. I am a huge Type A perfectionist and I think it held me back more than it moved me forward!
Any surprises about what your 30s are like? 
Yes – which is that I kind of love being in my 30s! I feel much more confident and assured in professional situations. I think I’m a way better writer and just more capable in basically every aspect of my life. I have a strong marriage and absolutely amazing friends. I also like that its totally okay to stay home on Friday night when you’re in your thirties. I have learned to value my downtime, to fiercely protect it, and to say no. Learning to say no has been super important.
 
What do you find most challenging about this decade? 
While in some ways I am much better than my 20s, I find that I have less stamina and way less bullshit tolerance. I also found a WHITE hair on my head (thanks grad school!), and while I don’t like to think of myself as a vain person, seeing the fine lines start to appear is a little humbling. I also think its tough for women to age. Youth and attractiveness are so overemphasized for young women, and as much as we all like to think we’re above it, the messaging we have received is really damaging. I really hope that we stop that in future generations.
I also am just more aware of my mortality in general. I don’t know if that’s bad – but the challenge is “how do I live as happy and fulfilled a life as possible?” At the end of the day, the person I most have to answer to is myself. I can’t live for anyone else – my husband, my family, my friends – I have to be a whole person. And I think that’s hard sometimes, but it becomes more necessary.
 
What are you most looking forward to? Be it tonight, next month or ten years from now.
 
More travel, more love, more laughter, more time off, less giving of fucks about dumb stuff. I think I’ve made good choices. At least I hope I have!
 
What would you like to hear more about regarding the thirties. What articles would you like to read?
 
I’d love to read more about the challenges women face professionally as they get older. I think these struggles change and continue as we age and as our lives change.

Capstone or Cornerstone Marriage?

April 6, 2015 By in Relationships 1 Comment

How do you view marriage? What does it mean to you? I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what marriage means to me. When you’ve been engaged for almost two years and haven’t started planning a wedding, you’re obviously going to do a little soul searching as to why you’re waiting and what it all means. To really wrap my head around it, I’ve tried to distance myself from the entire industrial marriage complex and the opinions of friends and family with the hopes of understanding the institution for myself.

I recently came across a fascinating distinction between two types of marriage, Capstone and Cornerstone, coined by a study put together by the National Marriage Project.

Here’s a loose definition:

Capstone marriage: Where marriage is seen as a kind of reward after you’ve accomplished a certain number of goals in your life, whether they are professional, personal, etc.

Cornerstone marriage: It’s where your marriage is your starting point, something from which you build a life.

To me, I’d have to say I view marriage more in the capstone way. It’s like an icing on the cake sort of deal. So, perhaps the reason I’ve delayed marriage is because I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished my career goals. But the scary thing is – considering how challenging my career choice is, I could be waiting FOREVER to get married if I’m waiting to be a professional success.

When I initially read about these definitions, I assumed that capstone and cornerstone marriages are simply a matter of age: if you marry young, that’s probably a cornerstone marriage. And marrying older is probably a capstone marriage. But, since I may marry before I’m professionally successful, is that a cornerstone marriage?

Semantics aside: I have reached one conclusion. I do think it’s important to mark transitions. Even if it’s a very personal marker between you and your partner. Marking the beginning of a new, committed journey. And to back that up, there was a statistic on the National Marriage Project that those people who “slide” into life transitions – i.e., those who don’t consciously decide to mark a transition by an official wedding and simply start co-habitating together,  are less likely to enjoy happy marriages.

Food for thought.

I’m Easily Distant…Even Now

April 5, 2015 By in Relationships Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Now that I’m thirty, I feel more comfortable with myself than I’ve ever felt in the past.

I’m eerily familiar with that weird vocal quirk in my voice I’ve had since third grade that people occasionally remind me I still have.

I know exactly what I should eat for breakfast in the morning to keep me going for at least 3 hours and not make me groggy (right now it’s bananas and peanuts butter, and/or a green smoothie plus coffee. It used to be oatmeal). Boring, but necessary for me to know.

Vegetarianism is part of my soul. I can’t imagine eating meat ever again. For now, anyway.

I’ve gone almost platinum blonde kinda by accident since the summer (I suddenly decided to dye my hair myself for the first time, and after much trial error and purple hair it just kinda happened). And I love it. Right now, anyway 😉

When I feel good, I feel really, really good. Overall my life seems to get better and better as I get older- I’ve always felt that way. I’m very much still working at feeling my best more often (I know it’s all waves), and tracking down major life goals that can help me move forward. I really want to master the subtle art of Not Giving A Fuck about unimportant things, which we’ve talked about a lot on this blog….more than once.  However, one of the things I’m really always working on, especially now that I know myself better, is being able to tell others what I need and want…after figuring out what I need and want.

It’s very easy for me to let friends, family, and significant others take the lead and pull me down their path without much resistance from me. I’m very good at going with the flow (something I really know about myself)- and that combined with a dislike of confrontation, an intense empathy for other people’s feelings, and a deep curiosity for other people’s habits and points of view can occasionally leave me feeling swept up in lives that are not my own. I can let others sweep me so far into their lives that I don’t even realize how distant I suddenly feel from myself.

I don’t know if that makes sense exactly or if it feels familiar to any of you. Or if you’ve outgrown this now that you’re in your thirties. But sometimes I’m the polar opposite of the ideal cool and collected thirty-something who doesn’t give a fuck. I used to give so many fucks about what other people thought that my life became a guessing game and I thought I was the ultimate winner of knowing what people wanted. All I cared about was making my favorite people happy and figuring out how to play their game correctly.

I doing so, I would sometimes lose what exactly I wanted and who I wanted to be. With my best friends, this didn’t really happen. But with acquaintances and romantic relationships, I would become distant from myself which would also lead to a certain distance from others. I couldn’t honestly communicate who I was and what I wanted because I myself wasn’t aware of what exactly I wanted. And once I figured it out, it felt scary to tell.

Sometimes that distance returns, even in my thirties. I find myself getting swept up in other people’s lives and dispositions once again, and I lose what I want and start to forget who I am. If I don’t stay in touch with myself by meditating, re-centering, talking to good friends, and expressing what I need, this old habit from the past seems to return.

It’s interesting that even though we can come so far by the time we’re in our thirties, those old traits from our younger days can still seem to be lurking around the corner, waiting for a time to reappear and scare the crap out of us. For now, anyway.

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While We’re Young – Movie

April 3, 2015 By in Grab Bag 3 Comments

I recently saw the new Noah Baumbach movie, While We’re Young. He’s the same filmmaker behind Frances Ha, which was an absolute gem of a movie about female friendship and if you haven’t seen it, SEE IT NOW. Anyway, the premise of While We’re Young is basically that a childless couple in their 40s form a friendship with a young, free-spirited artistic couple in their 20s who force them to re-evaluate their lives.

I loved the film because it explores topics I’m interested in, including: what success means, choosing whether or not to have children, how age affects our expectations, friendships over time, etc.

Even though I’m in my thirties, I related to the older couple and how they had fallen into more comfortable day-to-day existence that their 20-something selves would probably scoff at. I think a lot of thirty-somethings can relate to the movie, especially because our paths oftentimes start to diverge from our friends causing distance and sometimes, resentment.

Check out the trailer below:

It’s Our 6 Month Anniversary!

April 2, 2015 By in Grab Bag 7 Comments

It’s April 2nd and we started this blog on October 2nd!

We’re now officially 6 months old- woohoo! And we’ve been continuing to write 6 posts a week about the thirties every single week! 🙂

We want to officially thank our awesome readers and friends! So much love and shoutouts to our fantastic wordpress and email readers! Thank you so, so much!

And thank you so much Karen from Confetti and Curves for being so inspirational to us right from the the beginning and for being one of our top commenters! Also, thank you Rico, from Smart Money, for always having such insightful comments and suggestions for our finance posts. Thanks so much to Katie from Plus +Beauty for always having positive and helpful things to say, and always brightening our day!  Also, you’re awesome Nadine from Ladies and Lace– we always love what you have to say! Also, thanks to Eljon Wardally for being our first Portrait of a Thirtysomething interviewee! (Also, if anyone wants to be a part of Portrait of a Thirtysomething in the future, we’d love to have you- just click here!)

And special hugs to Jane’s awesome mom Elaine, and Sayuri, Seth, Aaron, Colleen, Janna, Gabby, Ryan, Christina, and Kari!

We’re so grateful! Thank you all again!

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Your Marriage is More Important Than Your Wedding

April 1, 2015 By in Relationships Tags: , Leave a comment

This recent New York Times article , How to Avoid a Post-Wedding Letdown, is worth a read if you’re getting married or thinking of getting married at some point in the future. This article talks about the “post-wedding blues” that can sometimes occur after the wedding and how you can avoid that by going to pre-martial counseling to set expectations.

My boyfriend and I got engaged about two years ago. And no, we haven’t started wedding planning. It’s not that we don’t want to get married, but we’ve got a lot of other things on our plates – figuring out where to settle down, our careers, etc. that have taken precedence in our lives.

Sometimes I worry – is something wrong with me because I’m not foaming at the mouth with excitement about my wedding plans? But that worry quickly fades, because I know myself, and I know that I naturally don’t enjoy being the center of attention and that spending large sums of money gets me anxiety. I also know that when the time is right, we will marry. It also feels like there’s no reason to rush – nothing will fundamentally change after we marry – we’ve already been together for 6 years  and have lived together for more than half of that time. I’d rather wait until we have a little more money and life security so we can really show our friends and family a beautiful time together.

This was my favorite quote from the article.

“If the couple’s primary focus is on the wedding day itself rather than the marriage, then a crash is inevitable,” Dr. Charnas said. “However, if the emotional investment can be shifted from the wedding to the marriage and the couple’s partnership, then the perspective changes and the wedding is cast in a new light.”

Good words to take to heart. And to the altar.