Rose Colored Glasses

At HR meetings and any new group get-together, you will inevitably be asked the question "what is an embarrassing story about you?"  I think this small talk question should be thrown out (I mean, it is the worst, isn't it?! There are far better ways to get to know people!), but it's one that will forever be used as a get-to-know-you tactic.  Well, blog readers, let us begin by delving into an embarrassing story about me....

The story: In the midst of my teen angst, I vividly remember having a bad day and deciding to sit on my back porch by myself to watch the sunset.  So I got my iPod and a pair of sunglasses, and that's what I did.  I sat outside for at least half an hour watching the sunset, and letting the anger go.  Then I realized that since the sun had gone down, there was no longer a need for my sunglasses and  subsequently took them off.  Well, it was still a bright sun-shiny day.  My rose colored glasses had made it look like a sunset, and me feel a little foolish.  But I just put those bad boys back on and kept on watching my fake sunset, because I wanted to. 

Like most Americans in their 20s, I watched such popular shows as the OC, Laguna Beach, and the Hills in the mid-2000s.  The female characters on these shows taught me many pearls of wisdom (don't act surprised!), perhaps the biggest of which is the utility of huge Audrey Hepburn/ Jackie O sunglasses.  With these magical, stylish sunglasses, a woman can cry anywhere in the world in peace without anyone noticing.  I received my first pair of Jackie O Raybans as a Christmas gift from my Memaw circa 2006-2008, and if boots were made for walking, these glasses were made for crying.  Look...

Am I crying, am I not? Who's to say?

As it stands now, I have cried for 39 days in a row.  Not the kind of crying where you are still cute afterward... the deep intense cry of someone who has just watched the season finale of HIMYM or any episode of Grey's Anatomy ever (or, you know, experienced an actual personal life tragedy).  The kind of cry that makes you feel somewhat certain that if anyone in the world saw you crying that hard, they would probably run away in terror (it did happen once, I swear).  So after day 39, I am at an impass... to keep making my boss feel uncomfortable and crying at work (which is super professional) and wearing my stylish, severe Jackie Os, OR putting on some rose colored glasses and choosing to see the life I want instead of the life I have. And just crying occasionally in my new fabulously plush bed.

(Doesn't it look like the ideal place to cry?)

The silver lining, if we are going to be really honest about it, is that I still just feel so lucky to have been given something that was valuable enough to cry 39 days (and counting) over losing.  Worth every tear (even the ones in front of my boss, and that's saying something). 

So here we are... writing this blog is square one, step one, to getting back to trying to be my normal-take charge-productive self.  It was this, or making a series of very sad mixed cds (which I am still SO tempted to do).

My hope is that if you, too, are struggling between feeling sorry for yourself and trying to be bold, please find this message here... you are not alone!  (and neither am I).  I promise to provide you with lots of great anecdotes of the things that make my little heart the happiest, and lots of (mostly sassy) asides written in parentheses.