www.justatitch.com

So, I posted a story of an experience I had at the gas station on Tuesday morning.  For the sake of brevity, the story is this: I went in to get coffee, and on my way out, a man who I am presuming is homeless offered me some of his Red Bull, a piece of beef jerky and a cigarette.  The story was—I thought—light-hearted and a little bit silly.

Perhaps I didn’t tell the story well enough.  Maybe I should have emphasized the practical factors: that I was in a safe place, that this man was in no way threatening or harmful and not for an instant was I afraid.  But when the comments started rolling in that I should have run away, that I was mocking the homeless, that I am basically stupid, and I received an email calling me foolish, saying that I need to be more careful because I am going to be raped or murdered because I am not careful…well, I just didn’t know what to do.

I pulled the post.

Here’s the thing: OKAY, I get it.  Sure, I know I need to be careful.  But the thing is: I am the most paranoid person of all time.  I look under my car as I approach.  I check my trunk and my backseats when I get in.  I lock my doors and triple check that I’ve done so.  I am ridiculously paranoid, just ask anyone who has spent 10 minutes with me.  I understand completely the value of following my instincts, and the thing is: I did.  I don’t mean to insult or hurt anyone who left comments showing worry.  I UNDERSTAND that you were genuinely trying to show me concern.

I guess the whole thing made me sad, if that makes any sense.  It makes me sad that we immediately assume the worst in people.  That we assume that because one’s station in life is different than ours, that they are dangerous and scary and different.  If I had thought that this person was in any way dangerous, I would have had a different reaction.  But this man was kind.  We were surrounded by people, in a well-lit place.  And sure, freak accidents can happen and he could have pulled a gun and a million other bad situations that we can concoct in our mind COULD have happened.  But thank god they didn’t.

My point is this: I don’t want to live my life afraid of everything and every person.  Maybe that’s why the reactions via comment and email made me so sad…because I see that fear in myself sometimes.  Because I spend so much of my life afraid of what might happen, afraid that the next person around the corner is going to DO SOMETHING.  I don’t want to run away from people and opportunities that might have nothing but benevolence attached.

I do it too often.  Maybe not at this gas station, with this man.  But I do it.  I’m not saying I want to run into oncoming traffic and wander the streets at 3 AM and get into vans with men promising candy.  But, I don’t want to live in fear.   I want to smile with grace and basic human kindness at those around me.  I want to take risks and say what I mean and do cool things, even when I’m scared.

There are some moments that change your game, your view, your life.  They start out normally, but well, they never quite end that way, do they?  This is one of mine.

The past year and a half had crushed me.  In a span of twelve months, I watched as everything came crashing down: my marriage, my job, my financial stability, my newest relationship which absolutely blindsided me with it’s rapid highs and lows.  I was fragile.

In that year, there had been moments where I’d questioned whether or not I wanted to live at all. 

Sure, things were looking up, I guess. I had started my first year of being an English teacher, which was both exhausting and exhilerating with it’s joys and fears and ability to absolutely drain me.  But I wasn’t happy.  I moved out of the apartment I loved and in with a roommate to save money, and while my roommate was nice enough, I hated the area I lived in and hated listening to the laughter and love that she shared with her boyfriend.  The first boy I’d liked in months was ignoring me, claiming he needed “space” and I could no longer stay out until 5 am with my old friends because I was thrown into teaching, baptism by fire. I cried the whole way home everyday, wondering if I’d ever “get it” and be a good teacher, if I’d ever feel at home in the world again. 

The morning started out like any other: I left for work early, stopping to grab a coffee at the grocery store nearby as had become my custom.  The area in which I lived was busy in the mornings, with everyone streaming out of their homes to head to work and start their day. After getting my coffee, I pulled out of the parking lot, latte in hand, and  accelerated to 50 miles per hour, headed towards the freeway. 

Before I knew what happened, I was spinning, spinning, spinning across the road.  I heard brakes screeching and felt my head hit the driver’s side window.  What must have been 15 seconds felt like I lifetime as I careened across traffic, before coming to a stop.  As I looked out the window, I saw a car desperately trying to stop before hitting my door.  I could see the concerned face of the man driving, bracing to hit me.

But he didn’t.

He gently backed his car away from mine, so I could open my door, since his car had stopped mere inches from where I was marooned on the median, with a blown tire on the front right side, a stupid blown tire that could have killed me.  I came tumbling out of my car, gasping for air, crying harder than I knew possible.  I remember being so grateful to feel the cold air on my face, to get out and walk, to know that it could have been otherwise.

In my journal that night, I wrote only this: “I want to live.”

Hooray!  My giveaway was a success (at least I think so!) with 104 entries and I am so excited to announce my winners!  I hope y’all trust me enough when I swear on all that’s holy that I used Random.org…but didn’t take a screen shot of each one.  SORRY!  But, without further adieu, my winners!

• First, the winner of goodies from Kerri of Your Wishcake is…JILL!  Jill, as in @jimaro, who happens to be one of my offline best friends!
• Second, the winner of some goodies from Ashley of Joyful Star is Shannon, of Tattoos and Cupcakes!
• Last but not least, the winner of an adorable hairclip from Morgan of Little Lovelies is Stephany, of Stephany Writes!

Congratulations, ladies!  And thank you again to my lovely Etsy sponsors!  You ladies are the best!

Winners, I’ll be sending you an email so I can forward your information to my Etsy friends!

Good morning, friends!  How is your day going?

I wanted to pop in, say HELLO, and remind you that today is the absolute LAST day to enter my Blogoversary Giveaway…tonight, I’ll be picking names and winners will be posted bright and early tomorrow morning. 

Do you ever have those mornings when you think everything is completely under control only to have the world laugh in your face and say, “HA!  RIGHT!” before throwing you about 15 curve balls?  That’s been my morning thus far.  I’m holding on tight, trying to meet deadlines, finish important tasks, and come up with plans on the fly, all while smiling and staying relatively sane.  I wish I could spend some time out in the sunshine, reading a book and free of powerpoints, parallel structure and a million papers to grade…

The good news is that I am careening madly towards a two week Spring Break, so I know that if I hold on to myself the next few days, it’ll be worth it, come Friday afternoon when I am relaxing at Happy Hour with friends and NEXT Monday, when I can stay in bed as long as I’d like.

I wish you a Monday full of joy and I’ll be back tomorrow with winners and a “normal” post.

HOORAY!  Thanks for all of the sweet words and congrats yesterday…it was heartwarming and so touching to hear such nice words from all of YOU, who have come to mean so much to me.  I wanted to find a way to properly thank you, for all of the love and support and emails and other sweetness you have bestowed on me this year.

One of the best things about this blog has been the people I’ve met as a result of it.  The lovely Etsy artists listed above, Kerri from Your Wishcake (the blog and the Etsy store!), Ashley from the blog Our Little Apartment & the Etsy shop Joyful Star and Morgan from the blog Mrs. Priss and the Etsy shop Little Lovelies — all sweet friends of mine — have helped me put together a little giveaway!  Not only is it my blog birthday, it’s my first giveaway!

Without further adieu, here’s what you can win…

• From Your Wishcake, Kerri has offered up one of her adorable felt wallets and one of her Pretty Notebooks!  I happen to adore both of those products and everything I’ve ever received from Kerri has been absolutely adorable!
• From Joyful Star, Ashley has offered up to $10 in free product!  I don’t know what I’d choose…her earrings are sweet, and I love her coffee sleeves.  I would have such a difficult time deciding!
• From Little Lovelies, Morgan has offered a hair clip of your choice.  Again, better you than me, because all of those clips are downright adorable.

I am so grateful to all three of these girls for being willing to help me out and so generously make this giveaway so much fun!

Please go VISIT them, and buy something!  They are definitely worth supporting.

Here’s how to enter…it’s simple, because I am a simple girl.

1. Leave me a comment below! Say hi if you’re new, and if you’re a friend or regular visitor, tell me something I don’t know about you.
2. Tweet about the giveaway, and then leave me a second comment that includes a link to your tweet.

Winners will be selected at random, and I will keep this open until Monday night, and will announce the winner on Tuesday!

GOOD LUCK!

And once again, thanks for stopping by my little blog…it’s been a year to remember.  Here’s to many, many more!

364 days ago, I was putting the finishing touches on my blog layout.  I was nervously composing my first post, and thinking about all the things I hoped that my blog might become.  I fantasized about things that seemed nearly impossible at the time, like getting 5 comments on a post, and maybe making a few friends.  I thought that it’d be fun to have an outlet for all the writing I was doing, and decided having my own site would be a fun way to showcase that.

Fast forward to a year later.  This year, this little corner of the internet has become so much more than an outlet for me.  It’s introduced me to some of my closest friends.  It has connected me to people who share parts of my story I hesitated to share.  My blog has taken me to a backyard in Sacramento where I made indelible connections, to San Francisco for a sweet reunion, to Chicago to meet a roomful of new people.  It has connected me to people from my past who have found it, and in turn, me, by reading the things I post here.

This space has given me a place to publicly share a hobby I’ve had since I was seven.  It’s given me confidence.  It’s been an ongoing, public conversation: a place where I can articulate what’s going on in my head and my heart and hear that I’m not alone, or that at the very least, someone else has been helped or felt understood.

I am amazed and humbled at the response I’ve had to my writing, at the friendships that have bloomed, at the number of people who completely get me even if they don’t live geographically near me.  I’m amazed that in the next year, this little blog will take me to Vegas to meet friends, to New York to be part of a huge event, and to Chicago to see even more close friends.

It’s been a wild ride…and it’s only been a year.  I am so excited.

I don’t know if I say it enough, but THANK YOU.  Thank you for reading my drivel, for making me laugh, for sending me emails with your own stories, for becoming my friends via this little space.  It wouldn’t be the same without you, and I am so beyond grateful.

And?

Come back tomorrow for a totally awesome giveaway as a real thank you, beyond words in a post.

I think we can all agree that the gym is not the most glamourous, nor hygenic of places.  My germphobic self basically has to shut off in order for me to go in, touch all the sweaty, dirty equiptment and get a decent workout in, but I can definitely handle it.

Side tangent: what I cannot handle are these women who roll into the gym at 5 AM looking better than I will look all day.  Their outfits match, they’re wearing MAKEUP and their hair looks adorable.  When I am fumbling around at 4:45 am to go workout, I’m all, “Does this t-shirt cover my boobs and stomach?  Do these pants fit reasonably well?  Is anything showing?” and then I go.  I brush my teeth, attempt to wrangle my hair back and go.  I don’t look cute, and I am okay with that.  When I see these perfectly outfitted and coifed women, part of me wants to beat them and the other part of me wants to make them come shopping with me so that they can show me how to look effortlessly chic even at the gym.  This is a gene I am definitely lacking.

Anyways, let’s get down to brass tacks.  This morning, after I finished my 30 minutes of cardio hell, I headed over to the weights area.  Generally, I like the weights portion of my workout.  I feel stronger, and it doesn’t involve running, a win-win. 

Today, this was not the case.  I was nearing the end of my upper-body strength workout, groovin’ to Rihanna’s “Rude Boy” and generally feeling like a rockstar who can handle anything because I literally CANNOT stop mentally congratulating myself for getting into a workout routine that involves getting up before 5 AM.  As I sat down to do a chest press, a man comes bolting out of the spin class room and…

VOMITS. 

Like, near-ish to me.  Thank god my music was turned up loud enough that it was fairly muffled, but the rest of my senses?  Experienced it completely.

It was traumatizing.

In case you’re new to The Crazy That Is Amy, I don’t do vomit.  I have established clearly enough on this blog my deep-seated fear of vomiting.  It is intense and goes way beyond a general dislike or being skeeved out by it—like, it’s been discussed in therapy.  I check a website before I see a movie so I can PREPARE MYSELF for any potential vomiting.  I myself have not vomited in nearly 13 years, and please do not tell me in the comments to “WAIT ‘TIL YOU’RE PREGNANT!” because it’s something I’m not ready to accept and deal with yet.

Needless to say, this did not…sit well with me.  I managed to swallow my tears, calm my shaking and walk out of the gym without losing my damn mind.  I did my whole “Amy, you’re fine!” routine as I drove home and proceeded to take the longest shower ever.

The only upside?  Perhaps if this guy can’t hang in spin class, I can take his place?

Last week, my love Andrea blogged about someone she called the Unreal Woman.  She wrote that, “To me, she is perfect, despite whatever flaws she might have that I’m not yet familiar with.  She’s The Woman That I Intend to Become, when I grow up.”

Tell me that Andrea and I aren’t the only two ladies who have this fantasy.

When I think about the woman I want to be when I magically morph into a Full Grown Adult, I think of a million things.  I still see her as a teacher, but as the sort whose lesson plans are typed, standards aligned and neatly confined to a binder nine weeks in advance, as opposed to hastily composed a few weeks before, and occasionally altered the morning of.  Of course, the Unreal Woman is every kid’s favorite teacher, she never loses her temper and her classroom is all fun and games and joy, coupled with mind-blowing amounts of learning.  When she teaches parallel structure, she doesn’t sound like a hopeless idiot, and her students retain the information, as opposed to staring at her like she’s criminally insane.

When she’s not neatly grading papers, the Unreal Woman is writing.  And not the sort of writing I do, lazed on my couch in front of America’s Best Dance Crew, but at a desk, in a creatively decorated room that’s painted turquoise and manages to be whimsical but adorably organized.  Of course, the Unreal Woman is paid to write — and is paid well.  While she’s writing, she reaches for decaf tea instead of the coffee I tend to favor in large amounts.  Unreal manages to code her own website perfectly, her content is never uninspired and she takes her own lovely photos to accompany it.  Naturally.

Oh my, don’t even get me started on her wardrobe.  I’m sure this will be unsurprising, but the Unreal Woman is thin and fit and looks glowy-tan without appearing to be off the Jersey Shore.  The Unreal Woman is outfitted perfectly everyday in a style that looks like Anthropologie and Target are attending a tea party: cute, mature, perfectly suited without being too matchy or too stuffy.  The Unreal Woman would never casually refer to her work style as “fancy hobo” and certainly would never pull clothing straight from the dryer, or worse—her floor.

Not that I do that. 

And while her hair is curly still, because I’ve accepted that fact, it never looks as if she’s accidentally touched the toaster’s insides with a fork.  Instead, it’s shiny, well-contained and downright perky.  She never misses a spot with her product and certainly doesn’t resort to the messy “half up” look on the daily.  Her mani-pedi never chips, and she certainly never gnaws on her fingernails when she’s stressed out.  She manages to let her eyebrows grow out between waxes without looking like a wildebeast and her skin has nary a flaw.  Everyone who knows her knows “her” scent because she smells delicious all the time.

My Unreal Woman never worries about the things she’s said or hasn’t said, nor about the things she’s done, because she’s always said and done the “right” thing.  She doesn’t obsess over things being awkward or weird, because they just aren’t—and even if they were?  She has enough confidence to let it roll off her back.  Her laugh sounds attractive and playful—not like an asthmatic hyena, as one friend has likened my laugh to, when I’m really laughing.  Unreal Woman is loved and adored by all — she is never unfriended or excluded, and again, if she was, she wouldn’t care.  Because things like that do not phase this Unreal Woman.  It’s not that she’s unsensitive — she just doesn’t ever cry at her desk or when driving home listening to Sia or when things seem to just not work out her way or because those stupid pet adoption commercials just aren’t fair.

The Unreal Woman never misses yoga, bakes on the weekends, has a savings account that is ridiculously large, reads 2-3 books a week, has a record player and record collection that is awesome sans the hipster douche factor, vacations in Paris, throws dinner parties that are legendary, adores NPR, can tear it up on the dance floor on Saturday without having Ugly Hangover on Sunday and can do the New York Times Sunday crossword without using derivatives of the f-word OR Google.

The best part about the Unreal Woman is that she manages to do and be all this, but without making you feel bad.  She’s the sort of friend you know you can call because he hasn’t texted you or the friend who will SO go to hip hop class with you because you know that even though you’ll look ridiculous, you’ll have a good time.  She’s the friend that never makes you feel bad, that always returns your calls, that sends you cards and mails you little gifts “just because.” 

She is in short, the woman I wish to be, all the time.  And my, my—striving towards this keeps me busy.  

I doubt I’ll ever get there, but man…a girl can dream.

Who is YOUR Unreal Woman?  What qualities do you wish you posessed and hope to…someday?

{ via }

1. Nothing you do before high school really matters. I can think of few things I did or accomplished before high school that have impacted my life deeply.  I see my students freaking out over grades and boys and choices and I want to remind them to slow down, to make good choices, to build good habits — but also to relax, already, and enjoy the ride.
2. Good credit is vitally important. I didn’t understand this, and darn it, I wish I had made radically different choices with my finances.
3. No one expects perfection. For so long, I put pressure on myself to never, ever act a fool or show weakness.  The truth is, a little vulnerability goes a long way, and no one expects you to be good, perfect or strong all the time.  Asking for help usually endears you to people while relieving your burden at the same time.  A win-win.
4. You shouldn’t expect perfection from anyone else. For much of my younger years, I put certain people on pedestals.  I was horribly disappointed when they didn’t behave exactly the way I thought they should (or, more honestly, the way I wanted them to!).  The more forgiving I am with others, the happier I am because I’m rarely disappointed.  Let people be who they are, and be grateful.
5. You can’t please everyone all the time.  Sheesh, this is a tough lesson to learn.  I still spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to make everyone happy, but I’m slowly but surely realizing that you can’t.  I’m also continuing to remind myself that the person I should be most concerned with pleasing is myself.
6. Taking risks is necessary. I tend to be a bit of a scaredy cat: I’m afraid of making the wrong choice, of being injured, of looking stupid and of wayyy too many irrational things to list here.  Still, I’ve never, ever had anything less than an amazing experience when I’ve taken the leap and done something I was afraid of — and taking risks rarely disappoints.
7. Calculating and “keeping score” doesn’t help anything. I think it’s easy to get caught up in things like “Who called who last?” or tallying wrongs or trying to analyze the motives of those around you.  The less I worry about who sent the last text, what friend reached out last or wondering why someone is nice or not, the happier I am.  When I follow my heart in relationships, I’m rarely disappointed.
8. All that stuff they tell you about taking care of yourself is really true. The healthier I eat, the more I workout and the more nights I get adequate sleep, the happier I am.  I’ve yet to regret a trip to the gym.
9. There are few things a good song, a long drive or a hot bath can’t cure. These are the things that work for me — the things that uplift me on even my worst days.  Figuring this out has made lifting my mood significantly easier.  I think everyone should have good things in their back pocket that help them on a rough day.
10. Don’t judge. I can talk crap with the best of them, but more often that not, I am so pleasantly surprised by people who seem like they might not be my cup of tea.  Giving people a chance to reveal themselves before you make a snap judgment is so important, and holds so many gifts.

What do you hold as your own truths?  What do you know for sure?

{ via }

{ via }

{ via }

{ via }

{ via }

Feeling sort of quiet today, and thought these words and images were much more eloquent than what I’d have to say.

Happy Sunday.