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On becoming who you will be….

/ micahdl / 3 Comments
It seems that back-to-school season is upon us. I don’t have kids, but I know plenty of people that do. “First Day of School” photos are running rampant on my Facebook feed right now. My cousin’s first day of Grade 1 is today…she’s starting a new school in a new state on the opposite side of the country. And she looks all kinds of adorable in her Arizona-style clothes. I bet North Carolina’s winters are going to be a little bit of a shock (invest in some Ugg boots, kiddo…you’ll be glad you did!).
So this is a special edition of Use The Clutch, for all the little ones starting school this week.
School largely defines and shapes who you will become. Like an office for us grown-ups, it’s where you’ll spend almost all your time and energy. Work hard. Play hard. But the most important thing I can offer you is this: Be yourself. Be kind. Be the person about whom your teacher says, “I sat the new kid next to you because I knew you’d be friendly and helpful.” But above all else, and most importantly, don’t let anyone else decide the kind of person you should be.

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On the necessity of sleep….

/ micahdl / Leave a comment
Vulnerability is a funny thing. It can hit us at the most unexpected moments. For some, it happens on an anniversary of an event. Or maybe passing by a certain restaurant or coffee shop. Scents are a good trigger for other people.
Me? I feel most vulnerable when I’m tired. And not just, “Oh, I could use a nap” tired, but completed exhausted. Absolutely worn to the bone. That’s when I start having doubts about anything and everything. Nothing triggers my vulnerability more than sheer exhaustion. It’s part of the reason I try (though sometimes in vain) to get at least seven or eight hours of sleep every night. I make better decisions and life choices when I’ve had a good night’s sleep.
Being that tired makes me feel like crying, like not getting out of bed, like the only thing that can comfort me is snuggling my dogs. And even they don’t normally like to hang out with me, making it that much worse. Exhaustion makes me question every decision I’ve ever made or should make. I start thinking insane things and on top of all that, my iPod seems to know when I’m vulnerable and chooses to play the most heart-wrenching and/or depressing songs. Can’t a girl catch a break?!
So I guess I’m interested…when do you hit your breaking point? What makes you feel at your most vulnerable?

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On unintentional side-effects….

/ micahdl / Leave a comment
As is probably obvious at this juncture, I’ve been thinking about happiness a lot recently. And I’ve been having very Phoebe-esque reactions to it.
Remember that episode of Friends when Phoebe want to find a good deed she can do that DOESN’T have the unintended side effect of making her feel good? I wonder if I’m reacting to happiness in a similar (though backward) fashion. Is there something I can do (or am allowed to do) just because it makes me happy?
I’ve been getting manicures from the same woman for over 15 years. I love getting manicures. I love seeing this woman who, over many years, has really become a friend. So do I get manicures purely because it makes me happy? Not exactly. I like that it’s HER that I get manicures from. I could get a manicure from anyone, anywhere, anytime I want. But I keep going back to the same person because she’s the person that’s been doing my manicures for 15 years and frankly, I’d feel terrible if I just stopped seeing her.
Baking makes me feel especially wonderful. It’s a very happy place for me to be, the kitchen. But the alterior motive is that, well, I know I kick ass in the kitchen and I love to make things for other people. I can’t really remember the last time I baked something and actually ate it myself. It’s the process that makes me happy, not the result. The result usually makes other people happy. Which reminds me: I need to make some cookies for a girl friend sometime this week.
So when I think about doing something, anything, that makes me happy, I wonder what the unintended results might be. Will someone else end up unhappy? Will someone else end up happy? Will something I do cause a string of events that I have no way of predicting, thus no way of altering or stopping or whatever?
Sometimes, doing something that makes you happy has the distinct possibility of also making you feel pretty crappy. I feel that way, sometimes, when I go shopping. I like buying things for myself (specifically bags and jackets), but when I’m spending money on me, it means that there’s a debt to be paid. It means that as soon as I sign the receipt, someone will call me to go for dinner or drinks and I can’t. I have kind of intense guilt over spending money sometimes.
Similarly, when people tell me to “just do what makes me happy,” I want to ask them if they’d still feel that way if they knew that what would make me happy has the possibility of making them UNhappy. So how does that work? I honestly have no idea. But apparently, I’ve been told, I’m the only one really, truly looking out for myself.

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On letting go and feeling alive….

/ micahdl / Leave a comment
Most of the time, I’m a pretty reserved person. I don’t get all that excitable, as a general rule. Even when I’m doing things I absolutely love (like singing or baking), I don’t really just let loose and go crazy. Karaoke, you’d think, is a pretty safe place to just go nuts with the singing (just watch my friend, Jill, and you’ll understand) but I never really let go. She’s a performer; I’m simply not. When I’m baking, I like things to be in order and clean…the idea of getting flour all over the place gives me a little anxiety because I know what a pain it is to clean up. Ugh. It turns into cement, if you’re not careful.
But dancing? That’s when I can really let my hair down (sometimes literally) and just be in whatever moment I’m in. Whether I’m ghetto-booty dancing with LT and JPB, or losing my head to pop music with Edubs (and sometimes Steph, if I’m lucky), or spinning around a ballroom with whomever my partner is at the moment, that’s when I feel like I can forget everything around me and just live. I never thought I’d experience that feeling of having everything around me disappear, but when I’m dancing, that actually happens. It especially happens when I’m on a ballroom floor. Until I started learning “real” dancing, I didn’t know how alive I could really feel.
Dancing, especially the waltz and foxtrot, makes me feel feminine and beautiful. Being spun around a dancefloor with a partner that knows that he’s doing? Exhilarating. My dad and I do this Father-Daughter Ball thing every year and we’re usually asked to teach some style of dance to everyone there. I like the teaching part, but dancing with my dad is something I never thought I could love as much as I do. He’s a beautiful dancer, and ever-so-patient when I screw up a move. He loves teaching me new things and sometimes, like with the Viennese Waltz (one of the hardest I’ve ever done), we just make it up as we go.
Ballroom dancing seems rather counter-intuitive to everything (or at least, most things) I believe in. I’m a pretty independent person, probably a feminist (nah, definitely a feminist), I don’t want to be treated like I’m going to break…these sorts of things. With dancing, I’m almost entirely dependent on my partner. After all, as the woman, I’m in a pretty precarious position, being the one moving backwards about 98% of the time. I have to trust my partner intrinsicly…that he won’t let me fall, won’t bash me into another person, won’t break me or step on my feet.
Other than my dad, there’s never been a single man out there that I’ve been completely dependent on for anything, ever. It’s just not my style. But dancing? That makes me feel the way I think so many girls want to feel: protected, cared for, showed off, beautiful.
There’s not much in life I’ll let loose for. I’m just a reserved, fairly collected person (not to mention a sucker for etiquette). But get me in a swirly dress on a dance floor and you’ll see just how crazy I can get…

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On the over-use of vocabulary…

/ micahdl / Leave a comment
For as much as I love words, there are definitely phrases and words that I tend to use rather frequently. I might even over-use them. The two phrases that come to mind are:
“No worries!” and
“Thank you!” (which often goes hand-in-hand with “No, but thank you for asking!”)
The “No worries” thing came from when I was living in Canada. It was just a common phrase that I picked up. Other lingo from that time in my life that still sticks around are “A-boat” (which most Americans pronouce “about”), “bunny hug” (Canadian for “hoodie”), and “touque” (Canadian for “knit wool ski cap”…the Canadian version is just more efficient, if you ask me). “No worries” stuck around for various reasons, but the biggest one is that I never want someone to think they’re inconveniencing me. I’m a master planner and with that comes a great ability to cancel, re-schedule, re-organize, generally work things out. So it really isn’t ever a huge deal to me. Really…it’s no worries. Simply stated: doing something for someone else isn’t causing me great stress (if it did, I wouldn’t do it) and having to re-work my schedule, also not a huge deal.
I have also been told, many times, that I tend to over-thank…especially at restaurants. I guess I always just want people to know that I genuinely appreciate the work they do. I hate when I do something for someone and I don’t even get a simple “Thanks.” I mean, honestly: how hard is it to say “Thank you”? It’s not. I promise. Yes, at restaurants, servers are simply doing their jobs by clearing my dishes and filling my drinks, but c’mon. It can be a pretty thankless job…that, and they’re basically being forced to act like dancing monkeys for a tip. If even one thing goes awry, they can sometimes kiss a decent tip goodbye. Sometimes I think that’s really crappy; other times, I think, “Well, it’s not like it was a secret what they were getting themselves into.” So I try to at least make sure they know that I appreciate their help and work. And it’s not just at restaurants. It’s anywhere, anytime someone does something for me. It just feels like the decent thing to do, thanking them.
But outside of the phrases that I tend to over-use, there are plenty of words out there that are among my favorites:
Scintillating
Remarkable
Allegedly
Ostentations
Antidisestablishmentarianism (which I don’t get to use nearly as much as I’d like to)
Charlie-Foxtrot
Uber
This list could get really long, really quickly….

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On the guilt of happiness….

/ micahdl / Leave a comment
At what point does it become necessary to concern oneself with personal happiness? And on the same token, does personal well-being ever intersect with personal happiness? I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness lately. What makes me happy, what I can do to be happy, that sort of thing.
I grew up in a world where personal happiness was a relatively secondary emotion. In my world, doing the right thing – regardless of how it makes you feel – is paramount. It’s not only an important thing to do, it’s THE MOST important thing to do. So when it comes to being happy, I often brush my own feelings aside in favor of either doing the right thing or making sure that someone else is happy before I am.
This M.O. has brought a lot of quizzical looks my way. People tend to wonder why I do certain things when it’s clear that I’m either miserable or just plain not happy. When I quit my last job, my giving two-weeks-notice was called into question on more occasion than one. Why would I stay there for any longer than absolutely necessary when doing so basically resulted in self-torture. “Because it’s the right thing to do,” I’d say. “I don’t want to screw anyone over because I wouldn’t want anyone to do that to me.”
My own happiness has always sort of taken a back seat to me giving the perception of perfection. I don’t like people to think that anything is wrong with me. I’ve always been the strong one. I’m always the dependable, together one. I feel like if I’m not happy, I’m letting people down, in some weird fashion. We all have moments when we’re not happy and we’re all allowed to unleash that on our friends and people we trust. So why does it feel like I’m burdening my friends when I do that? I had a conversation with a friend the other day about how my life is going and I actually felt selfish for even talking about myself. Why? Because she had something happen to her that was far more painful and intense than my seemingly-petty issues could ever be. Yet she wanted to talk to and about me. I’m still not sure how to process that.
So do I think about happiness? Sure. Do I think about my own happiness? Not really. So maybe it’s time for me to start. It just seems like there are a few issues that come along with that. It feels really selfish. Concern for my own happiness could result in hurting another person. If I’m truly happy, that probably means there’s someone else out there that isn’t. Happiness almost seems like a good v. evil kind of thing. If I’m happy, that must mean someone else somewhere isn’t, right? Probably not, but sometimes, that’s what it feels like.
So I wonder why I often feel guilt for wanting to be as happy as I know I want to be?

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On losing sleep (but only when it matters)….

/ micahdl / 1 Comment

I’m a huge fan of sleep. Like, I really, really love to sleep. The problem is that I’m a bit of an insomniac so I don’t get to do the sleep thing nearly as often as I want to. Even when I get to sleep in, particularly on a weekday (like today, for example), I just can’t seem to do it. Sleep is very elusive for me. Once every couple of days, I get the best night’s sleep I could possibly hope for. I fall asleep at a normal hour, I don’t have creepy dreams, I don’t wake up at 3am worrying about something stupid at work that I can’t change. I just have good, solid, wonderful sleep. I love sleeping like that.

So for someone like me, that loves sleep as much as I do, is there ever a time when getting to little (or even no) sleep is totally, completely, and without question worth it?

I certainly hope so! If not, there are several things in my life I’ve been losing lovely sleep over.

Christmas morning.
Leaving for vacations.
Much needed shopping dates with girl friends.
Remembering a great hug.
Simply being excited about life.
A birthday (I mean, who doesn’t get excited about that?)
Seeing my sister after way too long.
Having a brilliant idea and not being able to do anything until the idea is on paper.

Sure, there are plenty of times I’ve lost sleep over stupid stupid things. Mostly work things. Things that I can’t change or just don’t care about. If there’s one thing I learned about my last job, it’s that, at my new job, I won’t let myself lose sleep over anything unless it’s really worth it. Unless it’s something good. Unless it’s so life-changing and exciting an event, that to sleep would be to waste time.

If I’m going to lose the precious little sleep that I do get, it had better be over something fantastic, not over something worrisome. There are things I can change and things I cannot. So when I start to lose sleep, I will wake up only to figure out if it’s worth losing sleep over. Frankly, I just love sleeping way too much to be bothered with things I can’t do a thing about.

On holding on to the past….

/ micahdl / Leave a comment

There are certain things that we all have from all periods of our lives, whether they be physical “things” or simply memories that we refuse to let go of. For me, there’s a stuffed toy I’ve had since I was nearly 3 years old that I just won’t ever get rid of or give away. No way. She’s this tiny little yellow baby doll my parents got for me right before my sister was born. I got it because I was relentless about the name I wanted to give my sister. I just wouldn’t let it go. Bothered my parents endlessly about the name. So I got the baby doll in order to satiate my baby naming desires. The name:

Siffy See Soo Shalarina

Seriously. Don’t ask me where the hell a 3 year old came up with that name, but I did. And I proudly bestowed it upon that yellow baby doll. I’ve kept that doll ever since I first got it. She’s come with me to Canada and Minnesota. She’s made a bazillion different moves to a bazillion different houses. For the longest time, she held the prime spot of my bed…the very center of the six pillows I typically had. I’ve gotten a lot of awesome stuffed animals and toys since Siffy (I kind of love stuffed toys)…a fish, a lobster, an elephant, a kitty, a buffalo, and probably a million more that I can’t even remember. But none of them will ever top Siffy. None of them will ever be as special as she is.

And my parents chose a much better, much more normal (and pronounceable) name for my little sister…phew!

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On the destruction of stores to save the world….

/ micahdl / 4 Comments
 If there is one way that my inner-traditionalist fights most with my inner-environmentalist, it’s in the books department. I love books. LOVE LOVE LOVE them. I love having them and reading them and finding out about new ones. The only thing I don’t do with books that I wish I did more is mark them up. My friend, Jill, does a remarkable job of marking up and generally loving her books to death. It’s quite fun to read a book after she’s read it simply because of her markings (and don’t even get me started on how enjoyable it is to flip through one of her Bibles).  The one phrase I hate more than any other phrase is, “I just don’t read.” What?! Who doesn’t read? You mean to tell me that you have no interest in learning something new or understanding the rest of the world or simply immersing yourself in another reality for just a few hours? I mean, who doesn’t enjoy escapism from time to time? I digress…

So this whole e-reader trend really threw me for a bit of a loop. See, I’m a closet-technophile and also somewhat concerned with environmentalism. So it seems logical that I’d be one of the first to jump on the e-reader bandwagon, but nope. I pretty well ignored the gadgets for a long, long time. I stare at a computer screen for 9 hours a day, so why would I want to go home and stare at another one, just to do something I enjoy…read? On top of that, you don’t get the feelings and smells with a computer the way you do with a real, live book. You don’t have to wander through stacks and stacks at a bookstore when you have access to iBooks or the Kindle/Nook store.

But here’s the thing: I’m a pretty avid recycler. I bring my own bags to the grocery store. I bike or walk wherever I can, whenever I can (mostly because it’s fun, but saving on gas is a good bonus). I deplore wastefulness. You’d think I’d be all over this e-reader thing, but nope. I really just love paper books. It actually took Todd buying me a iPad for my birthday (I’ll have you know, I asked for a yoga mat) for me to really start embracing digital reading. It is nice, honestly, to be able to cart about 500 books and all my New Yorkers and Vanity Fairs wherever I go. It saves SO much space in my carry-on luggage when I travel (which means I’ll never be bored on a long flight or car ride again) and for that, I am definitely on board with e-readers. Plus, the iPad allows for a great deal more mobility and organization, two things that are remarkably important to me.

So while I think it’s a travesty that book stores in buildings are beginning their slow deaths, I think (hope?) this whole e-reader thing will really take off. Books will be cheaper, kids and adults alike will stop being so bored while traveling. They’re lightweight and huge, as respects storage, so college kids someday will stop having to buy $200 8-lb textbooks (so the medical advantages for e-readers are probably going to become more and more evident). And they do their small part is helping the environment. It seems, if you ask me, the benefits of e-readers far outweigh the disadvantages, but I’m open to discussion on that…

What do you think?

On loving some of the things I love….

/ micahdl / 2 Comments
I have a mere three days left at my current job. I’m excited for the changes and opportunities that lie ahead of me, both at my new day job and through Use The Clutch, but it is a little weird leaving behind something that I’ve been a part of for over five years. 
I resist change pretty mightily so when I got the offer for my new job and accepted, I had a brief moment of “buyer’s remorse”…had I done the right thing? The answer, so far, is “yes.” I’ll miss some of my co-workers and clients, that much is for sure. But the one thing I’m going to miss the most? 
The buffalo.
 

Seriously…how is that not the cutest thing in the entire world?

There’s nothing quite like driving up to the office seeing that view.  It amazes me just about every morning. In the summer and spring, the grass is crazy green and the Continental Divide is this wonderful blue-purple color and the mountains are always snow-topped. The fall bring a myriad of colors. And winter? Regardless of how much I hate (and I mean HAAAAATE) driving up the hill in the winter, seeing the snow-crusted pine trees and those lovely Rocky Mountains somehow makes it all worth it. I guess that’s what makes me a Colorado girl. The mountains and wildlife never cease to amaze me. It’s incredible, really, that every spring for the last five years, I’ve been able to watch the buffalo and deer and elk grow from babies to adults. One year, we even had twin fawns that played tag in the office lawn. It was absolutely precious. But the buffalo? Oh man…those tiny baby buffaloes are the cutest things you will ever see. I just want to take one home and snuggle it!

So now I guess I’ll have to fight the weekend traffic to come up here, sit in the Park and watch those adorable buffalo…and secretly wish I could ride one…

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