How Do You Cure Nostalgia?

     I love winter. There's three main reasons why: My birthday, basketball season, and Christmas.  It really is the most wonderful time of the year. When I was little it was about the gifts, but even then I associated it with visiting family that I don't often get to see and with free time and cookies and music and laughter and family traditions.  Now, I still think of all of these things when I think of Christmas, but when the season itself creeps up on me, I go through the traditions reflecting on what they were like when I was younger, on memories already formed rather than creating new ones.  My sister is weirdly obsessed with our traditions and would probably have a mental break down if we ever changed them too drastically. As it is this year she had to compromise more than she wanted to.  I, however, want to grow and adapt our traditions.  I want the ones we had as children to remain sacred in my memory and not be tainted by the less enthusiastic and more nostalgic ones that have been more recent.
      I spend a decent amount of time every December, at least for the past few years, engulfed in an inescapable nostalgia for the Christmases when I had to get out of my bed at 2 AM to tell my parents to stop wrapping their presents so Santa could come.  The days when I would go through the enormous struggle of putting on my snow pants and snow boots at recess just so I could play in the snow for maybe 5 minutes. When I could sit on my mom's lap and ride through Lights in the Park, wondering in awe about the real reindeer and what they would think about their imposters jumping over minivan after minivan. Falling asleep in front of the fire to the sound of my dad reading The Gift of the Magi on Christmas Eve. Pouncing on my sister a short 8 hours later with all the excitement in the world.  Times when I was too naive to feel guilty about all the presents under my own tree, and too young to wonder about others on this magical holiday.
      A favorite ornament of mine is about the size of and weighs less than a quarter.  It's a little girl with brown pig tail braids, bundled beyond necessity, making a snow angel.  I don't know why, but it makes me inexplicably happy and unreasonably more sad than an ounce of plastic should be able to.  All the bliss of Christmas is captured on her face, reminding you both of what Christmas as a child is like, and that you will probably never feel that innocent joy again.
      But then I look at all the other ornaments on out tree -- I see my parents' first Christmas together, my sister's birth, then mine, and all the milestones the two of us have hit since.  Our earliest birthdays, our licenses, our first jobs. All the family vacations, the sports we've played and the teams we've played on, and now college.  I like that I can see my growth from that innocent little kid to who I am now through one of our most sacred traditions.  My ornament collection. It's the one that expands by exactly one every Christmas Eve while we drink hot cocoa to the crackle of the fire. One day, I'll take that collection and hang it on my own tree and start my own traditions.  I like the idea of keeping parts of what all my fondest childhood memories are made of and adapting them into something more relevant.  As it remains, there's too much longing in my heart for dreams of sugarplums and simpler days.
       I've never been able to sleep on Christmas Eve.  Even now, at 18, well aware of what is really going on in the living room below me, the magic of Christmas manages to weave its way under my door and into my mind.  My pulse quickens giddily at the very thought of sharing a narrow stair with my sister Christmas morning while my dad videotapes his now grown daughters.  I smile at the thought of the two of us and my mom gathering around our nativity and singing happy birthday to baby Jesus, to remind us of the true reason for the holiday.  My heart lurches at the thought of visiting family that I haven't seen for a whole year and telling them all about my new life in a new city and how amazing it has been.  This, at least, is something I can cling to.  I can take comfort in knowing that one thing about this season hasn't changed, because from my corner it sure seems like everything else has.

Lessons via Lipstick

     I've officially finished my first semester of college. *deep breath* It went by terrifyingly fast.  Sitting in my living room with my group chat blowing up in my hands, I can't help but flash back to the first day my parents left me and I cried myself to sleep at 5pm. That was the first time I've cried for a non-movie or book induced reason since my dog died in the spring, and its the last time I've cried since. I've come a long way over these past 4.5 months, and I've learned so much. My classes were fine and I actually really enjoyed some of them, reaffirming what I already knew; that the path I've chosen for myself is the one on which I am meant to travel. My best grade was in my American Literature class, and it also happened to be the one I enjoyed the most.  In college writing, my third essay was so good that my professor is submitting it to the American University Journal of College Writing to potentially be published. (!!!!!!!!!!!). And though I enjoyed classes and did relatively well,  I upheld the family tradition of not letting my schooling get in the way of my education.  If I thought I grew a lot as a person last year, and I definitely learned a lot about myself back then, in these past months I've learned where I stand in relation to the rest of the world. I've learned some very important lessons about life and my bubble of privilege has been popped more times than I can count.  I learned that a long hot shower usually holds the answers to life's toughest questions. That a phone call to a close friend on a Saturday morning can cure a hangover and the overwhelming embarrassment that was Friday night. I've also learned that it is frighteningly easy to steal stuff from frat parties. Most importantly though, I learned that a tube of red lipstick can announce your presence before you even know you have one.
     My main goal in life is to be a recognized force.  Not a terror, and hopefully not a bitch (I'll do what I have to), but someone who is known for their drive and their ability to get things done. I want to be the person people turn to when they need help, and I want to be known for my accomplishments.  I want people to know. I think I took the first steps to becoming this woman- the one who I envision in my wildest fantasies about Park Ave penthouses and book deals and success- when I accepted my love for red lipstick.  I know this sounds tacky and probably really shallow, but underneath all that, its really true.
      There's a photograph of my Grammy, my Mom's mom, that sits on a book shelf in our living room.  It's black and white, but you can tell she's wearing lipstick. After all, that was the style. I was only eight when she passed away, so I never really got to know her the way I wish I could get to know all of my grandparents.  I've always been told I'm her spitting image, but I never saw it until I got my senior picture back and held the two up next to each other.  I'd always had a fascination with 'the Classics' - Marilyn, Audrey, etc.- so when this whole "red lip classic thing"  (thanks T-Swift) came back, especially after seeing Grammy slaying in hers, I was very much on board. However, high school is a tough time to change your image.  You're surrounded by people you've know your whole life and they aren't always willing to accept change, as much as you want to make it.  I love my basketball team to death, even now, a year removed, but they always teased me when I wore red lipstick. I know it was all in good fun and they didn't mean anything by it, but it can be hard to keep convincing yourself to do something in the morning when you know the only feedback you'll get is negative, no matter how harmless the intentions.  So after about half way through senior year, I took a break from the red lips.
     Once I got to American, I realize it was a fresh start. No one there knew if I did or didn't wear red lipstick, or maroon, or pink, or if I wore oversized flannels, or that I hadn't had short hair since that one awful time in 5th grade (aka my ugly phase-- we all had it, don't lie to yourself).  I could be who I wanted-- I could transform into that girl I see in her Park Ave penthouse.
      I've never really not been confident, but I've never felt the way I do now either.  Completely comfortable-- not really second guessing too much about myself. Obviously I have concerns, after all I am female and I still live in this horrid society that has unrealistic ideas about what a woman should look like. However this goes deeper than image. I lie in bed at night and think about all the things I did that day-- the work I turned in for class, or the way I interpreted that Whitman poem in Lit, or the way I joked to some customers at work about the snow (or lack there of, DC is dreadful for snow lovers like me), or the advice I gave to a friend about a problem they were having, and I'm happy. And isn't that all we can hope for in life anyway? To look back at the end of the day and not have any regrets?
     This in no way means I will stop trying to improve.  I think it's a good place to start though.  It's hard to make small improvements if you hate everything about yourself and wish you could just start new.  From here, I can take baby steps.  I still hate that I bite my nails, and I hate that I only feel comfortable writing about myself or things I know about really well.  I hate that I'm afraid to take risks because I'm so afraid of failure and I hate that I procrastinate everything until the last possible second.  I hate that I don't read enough and I hate that I can't do latte art consistently.  But these are all things I can improve on rather easily.  I love who I have become over these last 4 months -- I love my job and my friends and my school and my potential career path.  I love my black booties that I wear everyday, I love my oversized maroon flannel that I wear too much and don't wash enough. I love how there is usually an abundance of people in my room or in my bed. But more than anything, and most importantly, I love my red lipstick.