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Do you ever get the feeling lately that you are on a sinking ship? That no matter how hard you hold on, you are destined for an uncertain and very cold and wet future? No, I’m not talking about the dreaded upcoming winter months, I’m talking about a general feeling of uncertainty that is mudding the waters of our not-so-distant future. Everyday it seems like there is more bad news…people being laid off, deals falling through, companies going bankrupt, not to mention that capsizing stock market. It seems all we can do is offer some watered down version of self help babble like…”Well it’s time to tighten your belt,” or  ”At least you’re not so-and-so.” Blah Blah Blah. It’s all such a pathetic attempt to “be positive” with these silly cliches and one liners that are supposed to make oursleves and each other feel better but somehow totally miss the mark. What we need is a godamn Crystal Ball. The kind you can gaze into and see the future. What will happen in the next three months, three years, tomorrow? Do I jump ship or keep sailing? Should I stay in or cash out? If only we knew what lies ahead we could make better decisions today or at least be more appreciative of what we have now. I wish I had the answers. I wish that I could see ahead a bright skyline of hope awaiting our tortured and starving souls. But right now all I see is a messed-up economy, a sketchy cast of characters running the show and a price tag that’s way out of line. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

As I sit and face an entire weekend alone, with my boyfriend happily tucked away at is parents country retreat in Canada, I slowly begin to realize how un-alone I’ve been for the last three and half years. When you are in a committed relationship, and especially when you actually live with someone, the time you used to have all to yourself is now compressed into the day-after-day and the ins-and-outs of another human being. Not only do you have your own worries, concerns and heart racing panics, you have another soul’s karmic destiny weighing heavily on your slowly sloping shoulders. Yes, it’s true the days of living on cereal for dinner and empty weekends filled with void-filling drinking and debauchery are typically over when you are in a relationship, but so too are the days of never having to tell someone what you are doing every second of the day. Not to mention being able to sleep sideways on the bed (just because you feel like it) and the added bonus of actually spending time trying to look your best, because you just never know when you’re going to meet “The One.” I wonder, if you balance out all the good and bad about being in a relationship vs. being single…do you come up even? They say that balance is the key to life so why can’t we balance out our relationship status to make sure we get all of the good parts and leave out all of the messy ones. Maybe we should institute a law that says you have to spend equal parts with and without your mate. That way it prevents us from turning into little marshmellow-like drones wearing matching outfits who can’t separate their interlocked hands when walking down the street for their fellow passerbys, and yet its gives us just enough bonding time to feel connected to another human, which is obviously something we humans need. (why else would we put up with those annoying morning grunts and sounds, and those all too human acts of non-essential grooming.) I think if we can learn to balance out our relationships we can balance out our lives. So I propose to NOT propose and you might just have a shot at living happily ever after…or at least until your next relationship.

I suffer from chronic, abusive mental anguish that infiltrates my most precious moments of the day, my sleep. I wake up in a panic at times trembling with what goes on when I’m underneath the covers (and no I’m not a pubescent teenage boy). I am a grown woman who is still convinced there might just be monsters under the bed, and if I dangle my foot off the edge there will be, for sure, a giant eel-like, snake eating creature that will tear it off and pull me under. Whatever happened to lullabyes and “Good Night Moon”. Instead its like “Oh shit, here we go.” I hope I survive another round of sleep. There is no real rhyme or reason to my nightmares. For instance, last night I dreamed that I had to throw a bunch of tiny black squirmy fish with giant teeth into a tank of water without being bitten. When I finally did get them in, they turned into little miniature Broadway dancers, so I guess there was a happy ending. Weird yes, but at least there was dancing involved. The recurring Shark dreams are always a treat for me. It never fails that there is some kind of pool or lake I have to swim across while dodging enormous great white sharks that make Jaws look like a goldfish. I don’t know why I am so nocturnally tortured, everyone else I talk to has great dreams…they’re flying high above the world, they’re making out with Brad Pitt. So why am I stuck with these horrible visions that leave me feeling exhausted and downright freaked out? Maybe it’s like nighttime paranoid  schizophrenia. At least people don’t have to know that I am crazy (until now). I keep it nice and hidden, right beneath my sheets.

We’ve been told since we were kids that the “Truth Shall Set You Free.” Right? We know about the white lies, the black lies and all the colorful lies in between that build up a sticky residue on our good clean souls and contaminate our lives with bad karma and guilt induced depression. So I’ve decided I’m going to come clean. Lay it all out on the line and rid myself of the shame and angst that comes with storing embarrassing information inside my head and my seven stressed out chakras. Here it is, my top ten most embarrasing and hurtful lies I’m afraid to admit to myself and the rest of the world. Here goes…

1. I pick my nose when I think no one is looking.

2. I secretly want to punch my boyfriend in the face when he makes those annoying sounds in the morning.

3. I pretend to give a shit about what other people are saying when really I’m running my grocery list through my head.

4. I steal peoples “cute little catch phrases” and act as though I made them up.

5. I pretend to be happy for people when they tell me something fabulous has happened to them when I secretly want to go home and ball my eyes out because its just not happening for me (that was a tough one)

6. I love, love, love old weepy love songs from the 80′s …Lionel Richie, Al Jarreau etc.

7. I turn my workouts into revenge fantasy sessions where I run into all my ex-boyfriends looking hot and skinny!

8. I stopped getting bikini waxes because they hurt like hell and I freakin hate them.

9. I walk by fabulous outdoor restaurants where there is always a celebrity sighting and pretend not to give a shit who’s sitting out there.

10. I have about a million more secret lies but I’m too humiliated right now to continue and its cocktail hour …somewhere!

I wish I could say I’m feeling better after getting that off my chest but something inside me is saying that is just the beginning of a long and sordid list of painful untruths that I’ve been telling myself all these years. After all I’ve had 20 something years (ok 30 something years) of lies built up inside my aching little heart and sometimes a girls just gotta do what a girls gotta do…honestly.

I hate to admit it but I loved Chemistry in high school. All those wonderful elements organized so beautifully in the periodic table. The models of atomic structures, the protons, neutrons and those crazy electrons spinning around everything in a dizzying array of sub-atomic wonder. And don’t forget the lab coats, the safety googles and the glass beakers that allowed us to create chemical reactions that just might have blown up the back of the classroom. When you stop to think about it, all we are as humans is a combination of all those particles, bumping in and colliding with each other to make matter (for better or worse.) We are just a bunch of energy, billions of molecules that somehow create connections in ourselves and with each other. It makes sense then that the law of attraction between humans is really just a chemical reaction causing some people to attract or repel each other. We group ourselves together according to those other particles that fit best with our chemical make-up. So what’s all the fuss? Why do we bother spending so much time and money on trying to find the right guy, girl or group of friends that we feel will complete us, when all we have to do is just be ourselves and let nature do its thing. It’s called Chemistry for a reason. Even when we are sitting still we are still moving, naturally attracting similar types of energy to our own without any effort on our part. I guess that’s why we tend to spend time with people who are like us on that very basic scientific level. The more highly charged you are the more you attract those that respond to your energy field and vice versa. Well, now that I got all that figured out I have to go meet my “crazy friend Marcia” She’s a little nuts but I love her. So I’m out the door, I just have to triple check that I turned off my bunsen burner.

I have a pain in my ass. Literally. My tailbone hurts. Ok yes, so I spend countless hours sitting on a hardwood floor playing with my new puppy, even more countless hours slinging clothes and furniture around photo studios across Manhattan, and my pilates matt hasn’t seen the light of day since J Lo was in style. Basically the economy is in better shape than me right now. I wonder, why is it so hard to take care of ourselves? I buy shoes that are too small for my size 11 feet because I just can’t resist, I walk hundreds of blocks in flip flops (which have less support than President Bush) and I wonder why I have severe lower back pain. Then there’s the rest of my body. I consistently choose carbs over veggies, drink way more than one glass of red wine a night and occasionally smoke unmentionables with my friends as a way to “relieve stress.” This is definitely not what the doctor ordered. Oh sure every now and then I get on a “health kick” and start working out or eating more salads which lasts until my next hangover, then it’s back to greasy food and milkshakes. I must have some faith that I’ll get in shape again because I still have my gym membership. A $100 a month reminder that fitness is always just around the corner. But every time I think of hitting the gym I remember that I’ve got to push through all the crowds to get there and I think…”that’s a real pain in the ass.”

Control. Janet Jackson used the word best but do we have to always be “in control?” There are so many “conditions” these days that all involve the idea of control, whether it be our environments, our thoughts, our bodies, or the people in our lives. We are taught that if you want it done right “you gotta do it yourself.” This puts enormous pressure on our psyches because then if something goes wrong (which it inevitably does) its all our fault. The self blame starts and the “tightening our grip on life” develops…it’s a nasty cycle. But how do we as individuals, (not to mention creative, professional New Yorkers) let go of the one thing that we feel we have no control over, control itself. It’s painful to see a project turned in that’s “less than perfect.” Its frustrating when our partner doesn’t put the cap back on the toothpaste and it certainly sucks when someone doesn’t show up on time and you’re forced to sit in a restaurant with nothing to do except pretend to check your voicemail. It’s exhausting and self defeating the way we treat our selves, our lives and our bodies (God forbid we don’t turn down that carrot cake!) My boyfriend told me to “lighten up” the other day. I took that to mean “lose a few pounds.” I guess our minds just won’t give us a break. After all we have work to do.

They say dog is man’s best friend…but is a puppy a woman’s best friend? As I struggle to make connections with female friends in New York I find myself giving up. Who has the time or the patience to write 15 emails just to set up one evening of drinks. Whatever happened to those spontaneous last minute calls to meet up for brunch or coffee? Now everything is about scheduling, making plans and cancelling (always at the last minute.)  And then when the impossible, actual meeting occurs you spend the next three to four hours talking about HER problems without getting a word in edgewise. There’s always some “drama” to help them figure out or some “condition” they can’t deal with so they dump all their anger and frustrations out on you and you walk away feeling drained (not to mention broke from the $50 bottle of wine that they just “had to have.”) It’s exhausting, really. No wonder women get labeled “high maintainance”. They take a lot of work! I think I’d rather hang out with my puppy. He doesn’t talk back, won’t cancel on me and even though he’s takes some work, he loves me back, unconditionally.

With so much going on in the world today, I wonder about what everyone is after but when they get it they seem to still be unsatisfied. Stability. As a struggling young stylist trying to make in the big city I spent months and years in a financial panic wondering if I will ever have what I didn’t know I wanted. Financial, emotional and mental stability. To be able to pay the rent, to be in a loving, care-free relationship. To wake up not worried or stressed out about anything. That was my dream for so long. Now I feel like I kinda finally have it, but where is the happiness? Where is the feeling of joy and peace and contentment that is supposed to come with stability? Instead, I’m feeling bored, restless and slightly annoyed with myself and the world. Is that all there is? Is this what my life has become? Will I be sitting with this man watching TV for the next 50 years? And there it is again, my old friend… panic.