From My Childhood Bedroom...

I had the fortune of taking over my parents' basement when I was a sophomore in high school. I had a bedroom and a living room, and I was pretty much the coolest kid ever.

Before that, I had an upstairs room facing the backyard. This room has gone through a couple phases. When we moved to Buffalo when I was 6, it was pink with some wallpaper border that I can't remember. It was my fortress of playtime where I preferred to play on my own with American Girl dolls, Polly Pockets, Barbies, you name it. I had an awesome imagination. It was the bedroom where I got ready for little league games, then came back after to make myself look like a girl, only to go running around outside barefoot and get dirty all over again. It's where I stood in the mirror smoothing out the bumps in my hair from my ponytail during the phase where I was really into those snappy clips, which were later replaced by every butterfly clip you could possibly imagine.

Around 10 or 11 years old, the room went purple with a wallpaper that had yellow and green flowers. I changed the setup and got my first TV - that I won - which completely changed that place. I no longer had to suffer through the news channels and boring shows that my parents watched. I could toon into Nick or Disney or even MTV all I wanted. That was also the room where I experienced my first childhood heartbreak, and all heartbreaks since have been handled the same way: find a comfy pillow, lay on the ground and stare at the ceiling until you can figure out all your feelings.

Though the colors and designs stayed the same through middle school, I moved my bed and convinced my parents that it was a great idea to put these dreamy, see-through curtains around my bed as if I was some sort of khaleesi. I loved this so much aside from the nights when the curtains would crash down and scare me awake.

In high school, the purple became covered in band posters. The curtains concealed my late night phone calls to friends when my parents thought I was sleeping. The heartbreaks were handled the same way. And then I moved down to the basement.

As I sit here in what is now the guest room, I try to think about what little me would think of older me. She would probably first want to know if I was happy. She wouldn't understand what a difficult question that is to answer, even though my answer should just be, "yes, I have a lot to be thankful for." She would want to know if I'm having fun. I'm pretty sure that would be a yes, if you're able to forget some of the stress that adulthood brings with it. She would then want to know if I was learning something new everyday and if I was still the most curious person ever. I would tell her about the internet and how it makes being curious the most rewarding and time-wasting trait you could ever have. And I can honestly say that yes, I am still learning something new everyday.

The lessons I learn now aren't nearly as fun as what I would learn as a child. In fact, I learn most of them the hard way. I don't know if I would tell little me how painful lessons can be when you're an adult. Why would I try to curb that intense curiosity I was known for so early? But at the same time I wish I could warn her of and protect her from the things that will hurt her in the future that some people deem as "character building."

But you can't protect everyone from everything, and you can't go through life being constantly worried or scared. That's the current lesson I'm learning, and I'm not even really sure how to feel about it. In high school and college, I learned you can't change people no matter how much you intervene in their lives. I've been trying to be good about keeping my mouth shut when it comes to others' decisions, because more often than not they still do what they wanted to do regardless of my advice. So I thought I could at least be the protector for those that I love. But now as an adult, I'm learning that you can only protect someone if they want you to. It's hard because I go in with the best intentions, but more often than not I'm the one who ends up looking like an idiot.

If I was saying all this to little me, she definitely would've asked for a snack at this point, because I'm really just going stream of consciousness style at this point. I think if I really were given the chance to warn my young self against anything, I wouldn't. Everyone has to learn things their own way and experience it for themselves. And I really just need to let go.

On Self-Doubt, Over Indulgence, and Strong Umbrellas...

So I did something stupid the other day.

I started writing a blog post that had an actual theme and sense of direction...and then I thought it was stupid and I erased it. And then I thought about it today and realized there are many more stupid things on the Internet than my thoughts on inspiration (which is what the blog was about).

Yeah, the Internet is full of useless, unwarranted opinions and ideas, but unless I write a blog post that says, "sigh..." or "I wish I wasn't sick," then I'm really not doing any harm, right? And I suppose if I'm not making it any worse, then I should just post what I want?

What I'm getting at is that self-doubt is one of the worst deterrents to creativity...and it's kind of my downfall. If you're going to pursue something creative, you have to put yourself out there and not everyone will agree with you, or like what you do, or find any value in it. But I think there's value in taking that plunge, because a lot of people aren't willing to do that.

The Internet is the biggest audience available to everyone, and it's so easy for people to be critical on here. Not that anyone is going to come across my little personal blog, but I guess it terrifies me to think that someone would come on here and call me out on being wrong/stupid/wrong/uninformed/wrong....yeah I really don't like when people flat-out tell me I'm wrong unless it's some concrete fact that I've flubbed. It comes from past experience of trying to put my two cents in on forums and comment sections that I didn't know were unofficial exclusive clubs. I digress.

I realize that everyone won't find what I say interesting, but I guess they don't have to read then? And so that's why I thought I would give you all this super important vital information tonight.

If you ever visit me when I haven't planned to have people over or didn't plan on staying in with visitors, then you'll know that I rarely have snacks in my apartment. I always tell people it's because I'll eat them all very quickly, and they laugh and say something like, "don't we all!" No, I don't think we all do like I do. I decided to indulge during my last Trader Joe's visit figuring it's better to treat myself to a snack rather than going crazy (even though it's been a LONG time since I've bought snacks), and when I saw their caramelized onion dip sitting there looking delicious on the shelf (and it reminded me of this dip that I make using reduced-fat items rather than fat-free ones that can make things taste fake), I had to do it. You can't have dip without chips, so I opted for their crinkle-cut salt and pepper chips.

I bought these on Sunday...that BIG bag of chips I bought is now halfway gone...I ate most of them tonight.

You know, if you have to stay late at work for an event and don't feel like cooking when you get home, it's not a good idea to just go at that bag of chips like they're Ryan Gosling (even though I'm pretty sure he would say, "Hey girl, I can tell you've been working out, why don't you take a night off and treat yourself"). Because as you eat them faster and faster and add more and more of that delicious onion dip to each chip, you'll start to realize that you've eaten so many that they're starting to make you ill, and then you'll be thankful that you're not expecting any company because your breath definitely smells awesome now.

You also shouldn't follow up that chip fest with something sweet, especially if that "something sweet" is a package of pink Peep hearts, even if they're also delicious, because you WILL regret this combination. Seriously, I just brushed my teeth and stuck out my tongue and found it to be cartoon pink. And then I thought about the mixture of all the things I ate and once again felt ill.

Other things learned tonight: don't paint your nails if you don't have time for them to dry before you take a shower. In my defense, it was a dire nail painting situation. I have this gross nervous habit of biting my nails unless they're covered in polish, and I must have been really nervous about something (perhaps that I wouldn't get enough chips in my diet?) because my nails are dang short. So I took a break from writing this, watched a DVR-ed episode of New Girl and painted my nails without really looking at my nails because Zooey Deschanel is so damn charming, and it resulted in some gloppy looking blobs at the tips of my fingers. I fixed it up, added a gold accent nail to each hand of freshly painted black nails, added a top coat and then brushed the dirt off my shoulders because I was pretty proud of it all. Then half an hour later I took a shower and it all went to hell.

So now my nails look like I had them done by a five-year-old. Don't get your nails done by a five-year-old.

Another lesson I learned today, but in a positive way? If you're going to live in New York, get a sturdy umbrella. I have the best umbrella of all time, and it's from Wal-Mart of all places. It's clear and bubble-like, so I can pull it down to the point where it touches my head and still see where I'm going. It also doesn't get annihilated by the wind, and it proved itself tonight while I walked to the train in freezing rain and strong wind.

That pretty much covers all my important life lessons for the day. Hopefully you can all learn from these egregious mistakes. Oh, and don't forget to put yourself out there. We can only grow from it.