Dear Clink of 1999: December 13, 2007

(A joint post with Molly and Peter. We are dorks. Clearly.)

I come to you from the not-so-distant futu-

Wait, are you wearing thigh-high socks? And a plaid skirt? And chunky Mary Janes?

Clink, step away from the Clueless VHS.

I know that your nickname in high school is Cher and all but really, you don’t have to take it so damn literally.

Moving on. So hi. It’s Future You. I’m in 2007 and we have better hair now (we finally figured out how to tame the waves) (shut up, waves are in now) (maybe you should step away from your straightening iron, too) and we have a kick ass job and we have something sparkly on our fin - nevermind. I’m not going to ruin that for you.

So, you’re probably ditching school right now. A straight-A student with a rebellious streak, how tragic. You probably drove to IHOP with Kirstin in your Ford Explorer while listening to, I don’t know, the Gin Blossoms? DMB? THE BACKSTREET BOYS? And right now you’re probably stuffing your face full of pancakes and an omelette and hash browns and toast and bacon and god, you’re such a bitch.

No, really, you are. Because I’m going to have to work all of that off in 2007 when our metabolism finally slows down and HATE.

You think you’re fat though, don’t you? In the immortal words of Jennifer Love Hewitt, “a size two is not fat!” (Remember, I come from the future. JLH is no longer that kind-of annoying girl who always wears a jean jacket and lusts after Bailey on PoF. She’s now a B-list celebrity who does Hanes commercials and recently got photographed in a bikini looking like a normal human being.)

So, do me a favor? Will you frame that size 2 pair of Abercrombie jeans because, no matter how hard I try, I don’t think I’ll ever see ‘2′ on the label of a pair of jeans again and excuse me while I go weep for the perfect body you currently inhabit but don’t appreciate.

Ok, ok, I’ll get down to it. GOD we are SO impatient. Here are some things to keep in mind:

-Don’t be such a bitch to that band dork who keeps asking you out. He will ultimately go on to become a pretty hot musician living in Brooklyn and the two of you will have some of the best. sex. ever. No, really. Stop making vomit noises.

-The girl that you think is your “omg, bff FOREVER” is not who you thinks she is. She will let you down when you need her the most. She’s a jealous, negative, spiteful bitch so stop talking about how she’s going to be your co-maid of honor with your sister - she’s not.

-The cops are getting kind of sick of finding you at parties they are in the midst of breaking up and driving you home because of who your father is. It’s not cute. There’s no need for a 17 year old to be partying. Go watch Newsies for the millionth time and behave yourself.

-You’re going to cheat on High School Boyfriend. I know that is unfathomable to you right now because you are in love - or something close to it - but you will do it. And it will be a mistake. And you will break your first heart. And you will end up sobbing on the floor of your dorm room for 12 hours straight.

-The good news is, he will forgive you. And you two are still friends in 2007.

-Going to London will initially be really scary, especially after 9/11 (you will find out what that is…soon), but it will ultimately be the best experience of your life and you’ll meet some of your closest friends. You’ll also get drunk and hook up with men with accents and spend all of your money at Karen Millen and travel Europe and it will all ultimately make you who you are today.

-Take more writing classes in college. They will be your favorite and you will find a professor that believes in you.

-Don’t, um, lose touch with that professor after you graduate. You’ll really regret it.

-Give it up with College Boyfriend, Clink. I don’t mean literally (too late!) but listen to your gut. You know he’s never going to come around. The on-off-on-off is going to suck. Big time. But you two will also remain friends and one day in 2007 you’ll meet his new girlfriend and you’ll see the way he looks at you and you’ll know that he wishes he had gotten his shit together way back when. And now he’s stuck with a boring waif. Sucka.

-Your first job out of college will suck. Your boss will sexually harass you and you’ll hate the work and the hours and you’ll question everything but - bonus! - you’ll lose a lot of weight because you basically can’t afford to eat. Also, you’ll start a blog.

-Dating will be fun, for a while. And then you’ll start to lose hope and wonder if you’ll ever truly connect with anyone in this city. Baby, you will. And you’ll know it when you do. And he’ll be the best thing in the entire universe and HI I AM CRYING WHILE I TYPE THIS TO YOU. Just trust me on this one.

-Buy some stock in Google. Please.

I don’t want to give it all away, but I just want you to know that you’re going to be alright. I know you worry all the time - you worry about what you’re going to do with your life, you worry about making your parents proud, you worry about someone close to you dying, you worry about finding someone you want to spend the rest of your life with…

You’ll never stop being a worrier (especially while flying - oh crap! You’re not afraid of flying yet, are you. Um, start stocking up on Xanax) but you’ll be fine. I promise.

Life from 2007-almost-2008 is pretty damn good. (Ok, can I just tell you this one thing? YOU FOUND YOUR WEDDING DRESS AND IT IS GORGEOUS. Squee!)

Buck up, little one. It’s going to be one hell of a ride.

Ok, I’m outtie. (Isn’t that what the kids were saying in 1999?)

Love,

You, circa 2007

Transition. November 25, 2007

This past Wednesday was the first night before Thanksgiving that I didn’t go out and get drunk with my friends from high school since…well, since high school.

There was a part of me - stronger than I’d like to admit - that wanted to go. A part of me that wished I was single, if only for a night. Single and free to flirt with High School Ex and Guy From High School I Dated a Few Years Ago and get sloshed and walk home in a pack along familiar streets, stopping to vomit or to stumble, only to pass out on my childhood bed and usher in Thanksgiving morning with a raging hangover.

This isn’t exactly fresh material - I write a lot about the transition I’m going through and I’m willing to admit that it hasn’t been so easy to hang up my former self in the back of my closet (right next to my ponchos - who ever thought ponchos were a good idea?) and forget about her.

Don’t get me wrong - I wouldn’t give up M for anything, especially not a pre-Thanksgiving drunkfest and flirting with my ex. But there was a part of me that missed that freedom.

M and I could’ve gone, of course, to the local bar. We could’ve made small talk and discussed wedding plans and oh yes, we live in Manhattan, yeah it’s so expensive but we love it, what are you up to these days?

It wouldn’t have been the same. Obviously.

Plus, it was around Thanksgiving just a few years ago - when M and I were relatively new - that High School Ex took it upon himself to plant a kiss on me as I mixed some absinthe at a party. The full story and resulting aftermath are somewhere in the archives.

So it wouldn’t exactly have been fair to thrust M into that kind of situation, and I wouldn’t have enjoyed it either.  Instead, we had a lovely, adult Thanksgiving. We watched the parade from our window and our roof, sucking in the sixty degree weather with the knowledge that it probably won’t be back until May. We spent the day with my insane, loud, awesome family and then spent the next day with his lovely, quiet family and we saw American Gangster and I finished an entire book in a day an a half and we ate out and went grocery shopping and talked about how we’re going to raise our kids and when we should start planning our bachelor/bachelorette party.

It was lovely. It is my life now.

But as I fell asleep beside him, the night before Thanksgiving, my mind drifted back to Thanksgiving Eve a few years ago, before I ever knew that M existed.

I ran into a former crush at the local bar, found out he lived in Williamsburg and played in a band. His family lives in my section of town so we walked home together, before last call, prompting raised eyebrows and whispering amongst our separate groups of friends (mine: the jocks, the preps, the overachievers; his: the band geeks-turned-cool).

We took a detour to the local park, sat on a rock near the pond and talked. And then made out. And then had sex.

I still can’t pass that pond without snickering.

That was magic. Being young - and free of everything, including, apparently, decency - was magic.

I still hang on to those days as they slip further and further away because just like thinking about my future with M makes me feel warm and contented, so does thinking about my past.

All along. October 29, 2007

Confession: I never thought I’d be married before thirty.

In fact, my idol when I was younger was my mother’s good friend Celia, a kick-ass forty-something litigator with an apartment overlooking Central Park and a string of men practically groveling to marry her.

I thought I wanted Celia’s life: the Big City, the Big Career, the Big Rock she bought for herself and wore on her right hand, the Big Apartment, the Big Bank Account, the Big Social Life.

When I first moved to New York, that’s what it was about. It was about moving up the ladder in the entertainment industry, about dark corners in small bars with strange men, about working my ass off and partying just as hard, about short skirts and high heels and numbers written on napkins stuffed into my clutch. Right next to the condoms.

I wasn’t a slut but I wasn’t exactly discerning either. When you’re not on the hunt for a husband, dating takes on a whole new spin. It becomes about who can give you the best time, not who will raise your children to be upstanding citizens.

M, of course, changed everything. I mean everything. It was like I was viewing the world through a kaleidoscope of hedonism and then he gently took the kaleidoscope away and suddenly everything was clear. And suddenly the hedonism? It didn’t look so pretty.

It’s hard now, sometimes, to continue to define myself as someone who is engaged, who is in a serious relationship as opposed to defining myself as the ambitious hot shot who danced on bars until 4am.

It wasn’t until my relationship with M that I became the Girl With a Stack of Hidden Wedding Magazines. Also, the Girl Who Would Rather Cuddle and Watch a Movie Than Go Out on Saturday Night. I can’t help but think that the Clink of a few years ago would roll her eyes and say, “so, you’ve become one of them. How pathetic.” Them being, of course, people in relationships.

She would, however, be very proud of how far I’ve come in my career. So suck it, Clink of a few years ago.

This past weekend I met up with a friend from the Old Days, a friend who still looks at New York as her own personal playground. A friend whose misadventures in dating had me open-mouthed and wide-eyed over brunch. A friend who still inhabits the universe that we used to inhabit together, before I departed for Relationshipville.

There is no keeping a foot in each world. I tried, for a bit. It’s damn near impossible.

Like I said, M changed everything. M made me want to be a better person. M made me want to be a wife. I look at him and I see a future quite unlike Celia’s. I see a lovely suburban home and adored children and an all-around wonderful existence that does not include dating a few men at a time and going out five nights a week, waking up hungover and unable to remember half of the night. I see happiness. Hell, I see a Mommyblog.

Sometimes I get jealous that M met me at 32, after he had gotten a whole lot of living out of his system. I met him at 23 and was a bit blindsided at how quickly my world took a turn for the domesticated. I actually think (caution: random logic at work here) that part of my jealousy issues stem from that. I was thrust from a world where I didn’t trust men as far as I could throw them (but damn, they were fun to be with) into a world where I was asked to trust someone completely, with my fucking heart. Conclusion: not easy.

I still miss my old self. I even thought of pulling out some of my old clothes and putting on red lipstick and going as 22-year-old Clink for Halloween. She was fucking fun and carefree and uninhibited and unconcerned about anything other than the moment. Right now, I tend to live in the future and go to bed at 11pm, even on weekends; planning a wedding will do that to you.

I miss her, and I’m glad I was her for a time. But, for the most part, I’m glad that time has passed.

“Who knew?” My friend said to me Sunday afternoon, as we sipped wine at noon (some old habits die hard). “Who knew that what you have now is really what you didn’t know that you wanted all along?”

Truer words have never been spoken.