Making the Cut

This past weekend I made yet another drastic change in my appearance.  Losing weigh took time and patience but everyone noticed the differences.  This change only took about half an hour and cost me twenty bucks (much less than my gym membership over the past year).  And this change probably took a pound or two off my weight.

“What did you do Jamie?” you are all patiently waiting for the reveal I’m sure.

And I will answer: I chopped off my hair!  With my long locks reaching past my belly button, and spring trying to poke through, I thought it was about time to make the cut. 

For the past few months, I’ve kept my mane in a long side braid for the most part.  An occasional French braid down the back or two on each side.  Very rarely I’d let it hang loose and it would tangle up within minutes.  I loved my long hair but I knew it was time to go.

So I researched some hair donation organizations and settled on Beautiful Lengths by Pantene.  When most people think hair donations, they automatically think Locks of Love.  This is a great organization even though they’ve had some controversy lately because some people have been upset by the fact that their wigs don’t necessarily go to kids with cancer, or the fact that they sell wigs in addition to their donated ones.  Although I don’t know all the facts, I think Locks for Love is still a great organization and I’ve donated to it twice before.  This time I decided to switch it up a little and give to a organization created for women of all ages that have lost their hair to diseases: Pantene’s Beautiful Lengths.  I measured out my hair and decided to donate ten inches, a little more than the required eight inches to make a wig.

I printed out the information and drove up to my local SuperCuts, where they were happy to help me with the process.  I sat down in the chair and the hairdresser got out her ruler and divided my hair into four equal ponytails.  She asked me a few times if I was ready; it’s a strangely emotional thing to do.  In a very literal way, you’re giving up a part of yourself.  Something that has been a part of you and your appearance and your attitude for so long, that you work so hard to keep healthy and beautiful, and then you just say goodbye.  Put it in the envelope and send it away, hope that the next person loves it as much as you do.  Just like that.  It might seem silly, I mean, it’s hair.  But for me, and many other women I know who’ve donated, it can be a very emotional experience.

Ten inches went in the envelope towards Beautiful Lengths and another two fell to the floor with straightening out and styling.  Now my hair rests just above my collar bone.

I’ve gotten a lot of compliments so far.  People have told me that it makes me look older and more mature, and Jim the Boyfriend loves that he doesn’t have to dig through a lion’s mane just to kiss me. As for me, it’ll take a while to get used to the short hair, but as soon as I do it’ll start to grow long again.  And longer and longer until I’m ready to chop it off and do it all over again.

The Common Cold

So my last post was about failing at life as an adult, and some people took that to mean I was sad or upset with how life was going for me, which, although somewhat true, it was more frustration about the things piling up against me.  Well things got better for a bit… or at least evened out, but then I came down with a pretty bad cold.

It started with a cough that just kept getting worse and made it hard to breathe and then by Saturday turned into a full blown (literally) cold. Headache, runny nose, coughing, sneezing, the works.  There were cough-drop wrappers and tissues everywhere and the whole apartment smelled of Vick’s.  I took Monday off and attempted to work on Tuesday, but left early after blowing my nose between every customer.

Being sick as an adult can be tricky (for me at least) because it’s hard to decide whether or not to go to work.  At my job, if I don’t show up, someone has to pick up the slack.  On Monday someone had to go in half and hour early to open for me.  Luckily most of my coworkers would rather pick up my slack then have me get them sick, but for me it’s really hard to determine the extent of my sickness and I try to do whatever I can to not have to make people go out of their way for me.  I started getting better by Tuesday night and took some medicine and was back to it by Wednesday.  By thursday I was feeling much better.

Something else I realized during my brief illness: nothing makes you miss home more than being sick.  I made myself soup and tea and had orange juice and stayed in bed, but there is nothing as comforting as your mom handing you that soup or bringing you a new box of tissues when you run out.

I think everyone misses their mom when they’re sick.  Each mom has their own cure to make you feel a little bit better, and it’s never the same when you do it on your own.  My mom makes Hot Lemonade for me when I’m sick.  I know. You think it’s gross.  Pretty much everyone I’ve ever told about this thinks it’s the most disgusting sounding thing in the world.  Who doesn’t love a nice cold glass of lemonade on a hot summer’s day.  But heat it up for that sore throat?  NO WAY!

Well, my mom likes a lot of crazy concoctions.  She dips cheese-itz in cottage cheese and potato chips in pickle juice.  And I guess Hot Lemonade was just something she discovered on the way.  But if you remember this the next time you get a sore throat, I dare you to try mixing some lemon juice with steaming hot water and some sugar.  Basically, just drop the tea bag.  It’s delicious.  And the way the citrus tickles the back of your throat as the heat soothes it at the same time can cure that cough like nothing else.

I made myself some and it helped a bit, but it wasn’t the same as when my mom made it.  And it wasn’t the same without her there.  I video chatted with her a few times and she pushed me to snort some Flonase, and sure enough, after I started using that—I could breathe again!  Mom to the rescue!  All better now and I get to see my mom in a few days! Maybe we’ll share a nice steaming mug of Hot Lemonade!

Fail

I have failed my new year’s resolution already.  And it’s only March!

For some reason, I haven’t felt up to writing the past couple weeks—partly because there’s not much to write about, and partly because I’ve just been completely unmotivated to do anything.  I have felt so unproductive these past few weeks and it seems like things just keep getting worse.  Being an adult is not what I had hoped it would be.

I take you back to one night in college when I was deep in the boring studies of Literary Criticism (I’m sorry, but it was boring).  I remember thinking to myself how much I wish I had a boring desk job (even if I hated it) where I could at least be making money for spending my life tediously passing the time away with useless meaningless tasks.

I look back on that moment frequently now, as I make transfers and withdrawals for customers at the bank—things that could easily be done online or at an Automated Teller Machine (that’s an ATM, in case you—like it seems of our customers—don’t understand what it stands for).  But I’ve learned a one important lesson since becoming “an adult”—even though most days I don’t feel worthy or wanting of that title.  All of that “extra cash” I earn while repeating the same menial movements day after day just disappears—rent, groceries, insurance, electric, internet, etc, etc, etcetera…

And then tax time rolls around and oh, how excited I was to treat myself to some new mugs and maybe go out on a date.  But sure enough, life caught up with me. Apparently, past-Jamie (pre-adult-Jamie) made a mistake when filling out my W4 paperwork for work.  And now, instead of my new mugs and a date night, I owe a chunk of money to the good old U S of A.

But if that wasn’t enough to get me annoyed with adult life, my brand new (to me—certified used) car decides it doesn’t like to start in the cold weather. Personally, I think that’s a load of horsey doo-doo. I grew up in Mass and have been through my share of bitter cold winters and never heard anything like that. Then I move down south to the slightly less bitter Virginia, and people talk about it like it happens all the time… seems a little fishy to me.  With my car not working I’ve been late to work a couple times and Jim had to skip a few hours of work one day when I took his car (he also used it as an excuse to get out of class early, so at least someone is benefiting).

When I finally got my car to the shop, after it had been working on and off (and jumped when not) for a week and a half, the mechanic told me there was nothing wrong with it.  Frustrated, I explained to her that it had not started multiple times now and had needed to be jumped.  So there must be something wrong with it.  She told me it was probably because of the cold.  I got audibly upset with her, but she insisted they had tested the battery and everything and they couldn’t find a problem.  I left the shop and parked across the street to call my mother and leave her a half-screaming/half-crying voicemail.

And now, almost a month since my last blog post, I am failing at the one thing that might actually bring me happiness someday.  Other than a semi-monthly technical editing gig, this blog is the only way that I keep myself writing.  I say that I want to be a writer and that I love writing, yet I can’t even force myself to write a weekly post about the nothingness that is my life.  If being an adult involves following your passions and trying to make a living doing something you love, I am most definitely failing at that.

But I haven’t stopped trying.  This post is proof of that… and I have already emailed HR to fix my tax withholdings.  So, as long as my car starts on Monday, hopefully I can work myself up to a C- on the adult report card.

Homesickness

As most of you know, New England got hit hard with a blizzard recently—my family in the Boston area got almost 3 feet of snow.  And as I was watching the statuses on facebook flip between “thank god I’m not in Mass” and “Travel Ban” “2 feet and still coming down” or “not leaving the house for days!” all I could think about was how much I wanted to be there.  Crazy right?  Why would you want to be in a blizzard when you’re in a place where the sun is melting away the 2 inches that fell on your car?  But snow always makes me homesick.

I actually wanted to feel that cold air on my skin and work myself warm again shoveling snow, all to be rewarded with a creamy hot chocolate by the fireplace.  I want to make snow angels in the front yard and sled down the hill in the back.  Now, my parents’ back yard is overgrown with trees and bushes, so there is no path down the hill, and we’re all “too old” to make snow angels (not that that would stop any of us).  But that won’t stop me from remembering.

I remember a time not too many years ago when the electricity went out and we made a fire and sat around playing board games by candlelight.  I have a rare fortune of being close to my family and I actually enjoy spending time with them, which, as I understand it, is not the norm.  And like most families, we have our difference and we all need some time away… but sometimes I wonder if maybe I went too far away.

After moving to Virginia, I got to go home twice last year, once in July, for my sister’s birthday, and once for thanksgiving.  My mom came to visit me a few times, but my sister and my dad only got to come down once during the whole year.  Sure, we video chat and talk on the phone once or twice a week, but it’s not the same as sitting next to each other and spending time with each other.  I didn’t realize how much I would miss my family or my hometown.

Even little things that wouldn’t normally bother me have started to make me homesick.  When my dad told me that they were getting Chinese (from my favorite place) and my sister was going there to watch “the game” (now infamously known as the deflate-gate game) with them, I actually got jealous.  Now if you know me, you probably know that I have zero interest in sports.  I never played sports, I never went to sports events.  I think I went to one football game throughout my high school career—and none in college.  Football has no interest to me.  But the fact that my whole family was going to be together enjoying Chinese food—without me!  Well, that’s just not fair.

It’s the little things that I miss the most; going to Disney movies with my sister and and analyzing them on the drive home.  I miss watching late night TV with my dad as he falls asleep in his recliner, waking himself up at the sound of his own snoring.  I miss jumping up onto my mom’s bed while she’s watching TV or playing on her computer.  I miss her showing me all the “cool stuff” her friends posted on facebook… even though I saw it on my news feed 3 weeks earlier. 

I miss standing on chairs in the kitchen with brownie batter in hand, belting along as The Foundations ask: “Why do you build me up buttercup baby…” 

I miss my dad my dad making a pun out of every-single-thing—and then when we don’t laugh, repeating the joke again just in case we didn’t understand it.  We got it the first time… still not funny the second time Dad.

I miss my mom blurting out totally inappropriate comments in like “you creamed yourself” in front of my friends when I dropped ice cream on my jeans’ zipper.  And then after my friends telling me how awesome my mom is.

I miss spending hours on the couch playing scrabble and watching movies with my sister, too lazy to get more cheese-itz, but not lazy enough to jump into warrior mode the moment someone decides to change the channel.

I miss my family.  I miss those unexpected moments that you never plan but quickly become stories you tell over and over again until they are the details that make up your life.  I miss the little things that make up my family, and that make my family my home.