The real heart of “Beauty and the Beast”

©Disney

I’ve always loved “Beauty and the Beast.”

It was an obvious choice for my favorite Disney movie growing up, since I had brown hair and a serious reading habit. I, too, was the girl with the “dreamy far off look” and “my nose stuck in a book,” and if I ever starred in a musical there would absolutely have to be a song where everyone talked about how weird they thought I was. I was also insanely curious, and just like Belle would have immediately investigated the creepy, shut-up part of the house I had been forbidden from going anywhere near.

I identified with the Beast just a much. No, I wasn’t extremely tall and furry, but I was angry and brooding and almost completely lacking in social skills. It was hard to see him as a monster when I could sympathize so completely with him, and it wasn’t like Belle needed the defense – when he roared at her, she yelled right back at him. And he was so eager to learn how to be a nicer person, even though he stumbled sometimes.

The only part of the movie that really tripped me up was the end. As much as I loved the Beast, I had zero interested in the human he turned into at the very end. I didn’t see anything that connected him with the guy I loved – he had a pretty face, and a soft voice, and he was never onscreen long enough for us to see any sign of the anger and awkwardness that had been so much a part of the Beast. Even though he’d been working hard to become a better person, things like that don’t just disappear the moment you get a makeover.

A lot of people see the transformation as the entire point of “Beauty and the Beast.” For them, the moral of the story is that love “fixed” the Beast, making him the metaphorical handsome prince instead of the supposedly scary monster. In its more dangerous aspect, it’s the idea that a good woman is enough to “save” a man (“Fifty Shades of Grey” is really just “Beauty and the Beast” in its most annoying form).

For me, however, I wish the transformation never happened. Or if it did, that the movie made it clear we were getting the same angry, awkward man in a slightly different body. The change that mattered had already happened, the slow transformation of an isolated man into someone who cares enough about others to put their needs before his own. That was the man Belle had already fallen in love with, the man that the weird, awkward dreamer inside her had recognized and responded to. She had been just as alone as he was, surrounded by people who couldn’t see past how different she was.

They were both beasts, in their own way, just like they were both beautiful where it mattered. What they looked like didn’t matter – the fact that they had found each other at all was the real happy ending.

Resolve to survive the January blahs

January is a terrible time to resolve to do anything.

Yes, I know that it’s the start of a new year, and the whole new year=new you mythos is what started the whole New Year’s Resolution mess in the first place, but there’s literally nothing else to recommend it. It’s the calendar equivalent of a ditch, a cold, empty stretch of time that we all fall into after the bright, delicious fun of the holiday season. People’s bank accounts are still recovering from the expenditures of Christmas, school starts back up, and nowhere has anything fun planned because people need to actually get some work done after all that time off they took in December.

In short, January is absolutely the worst time of year to try to scrape enough of your willpower together to make any kind of significant changes in your life. Not only is your willpower completely out of practice because of the holidays, but there are some days in January where you need every shred of willpower you have left to get through the dreary grayness of an average day. The third Monday in January is actually referred to as Blue Monday, and is officially recognized as the most depressing day of the entire year. Look it up if  you don’t believe me.

And when you add New Year’s Resolutions on top of this, things somehow manage to get even worse. Because the kind of resolutions that end up getting capital letters are always big, serious resolutions with a lot of moving parts. I’m going to lose 20 pounds. I’m going to go to the gym every single day. I’m finally going to write the novel I’ve always dreamed about.

These things are hard enough to do when you’re at your best, and in January literally no one is at their best. But the unrelenting gray of the weather is getting to you and you’re desperate for some hope, and you charge ahead like you can magically fix yourself if you just want it badly enough. You’ll push ahead toward your goal for a few days, maybe even a few weeks if you’re feeling really determined.

Sadly, most of your internal resources are devoted to just making it through January and you don’t have enough to deal with how overwhelming your resolution suddenly feels. You’ll give up, if not in that moment then soon after, because not only are you tired but your goal suddenly seems even further away than when you started. Then, of course, you’ll feel even worse about yourself because you’re now one of those dreaded “quitters,” and will possibly try to drown your sorrows in some indulgence that will cause you to fall even further behind on that great scale of becoming a Better Person (TM).

So if you’re going to do any big resolutions, wait until spring. It’s got even more symbolic juice behind it that the new year – nature is restarting, plants are growing, everything is waking up and renewing itself – and a general atmosphere that’s way less depressing than January. Anything you start then will have more of a chance.

And if you insist on beginning your self-improvement project in January, start small. Pick one fairly simple thing you can do in a day. If you don’t accomplish it, don’t worry – that’s now officially become your goal for tomorrow. When you do accomplish it, find another small goal you can achieve in 24 hours. It’s fine to even make it the same goal, if that’s what helps you.

These are the kind of resolutions meant for a month like January. Good luck out there. 

Cut emotional baggage out of your life

There a lot of ways to be good to your heart.

 The physical aspects, of course, are important. Eating right, exercising, and getting regular check-ups can add years to your life, and improve the quality of the years you do get. If nothing else, getting a new model is nearly impossible (and costs a lot of effort and trouble even if by some miracle you do manage it).

But there are more subtle ways to take care of your heart. Stress can also take years off your life, forcing your heart to do a lot more work than it would normally have to. Some stresses can't be avoided – work and bills, for example – and we're forced to turn to de-stressing techniques from yoga and meditation to taking long, relaxing walks and thinking about the positive elements in your life. 

One of the best de-stressing techniques, however, is surprisingly simple. We're taught from when we're young that we should just cope with emotional stress, powering our way through sadness and swallowing anger or worry. Men aren't supposed to be allowed to cry, and women aren't supposed to make a fuss. Adulthood, we're always told, is about growing up and just accepting the mess that life sometimes insists on shoveling at us.

But just swallowing our emotions causes its own level of emotional stress on our hearts. If nothing else, it can lead to one of those awful moments when we "snap" – suddenly screaming at a child, spouse, co-worker or other driver over some relatively small infraction. Often, moments like that happen as the result of a bunch of tiny stresses, piling one on top of the other until the entire load becomes overwhelming.

We hear a co-worker's comment and let it eat at us, or we second-guess a decision we made until we drive ourselves crazy. Recognizing those smaller moments and working through them rather than letting them eat at you, can do wonders for lowering your overall stress.

The best way to do this is to talk through your feelings with someone you trust. If it's a problem with a co-worker or a family member you can go straight to them, but even if you're not ready for that another friend can sometimes help you get a different perspective on whatever happened. Someone outside the situation can always see it more clearly, and without the emotional coloring that you inevitably feel. And even if they can't give insight on the situation itself, there's pretty good odds that they'll say something that can make you feel better.

(It's important to find someone who respects your feelings, though. Having your emotional reaction be completely dismissed will only increase your stress, as well as your chances that you'll punch whoever dismissed you).

No matter what anyone says, being an adult doesn't mean it's your job to carry around unnecessary emotional baggage. Talking your feelings out, rather than just suffering through them, is one of the best gifts you can give your heart.

Celebrate Yourself this New Years

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

My mother has never liked New Year’s Eve.

Oh, she has no trouble with the fireworks, or eating a special meal, and she’s always happy for any excuse to have the family get together. But she feels like New Year’s exists solely to celebrate how fast time slips away from you, and while she accepts that she’d rather not think about it too hard.

While I understand where she’s coming from, I’ve always been more philosophical about it. I try to see the holiday not so much as a celebration of time lost as a chance to sit back and reflect on where I am after the year that’s past, and if I want to keep going in that same direction. Admittedly, that’s not really celebration material, but it’s a nice opportunity to pause and reflect.

And that doesn’t mean you can’t party. Even if you don’t want to celebrate the time that’s past, celebrate everything you’ve accomplished. It doesn’t have to be big, it just has to be something you can look back on and feel good about. You don’t have to compare your accomplishments to anyone else – whatever you’ve done is worth appreciating if you feel like it is.

If it’s been a tough year, celebrate the fact that you made it through without breaking down or attacking people with a chair. Yes, 2015 might have been a miserable time for you, but the fact that it’s behind you means that it didn’t win. You were strong enough to get through whatever happened, and if that doesn’t deserve a few fireworks in your honor than frankly I don’t know what does.

I know some people see the new year as a time of hope, imagining that what's coming will be better than what's already happened, but it's important not to just sit back and wait for some picture in your head to materialize. Not that you can't imagine better things are coming – if 2015 was terrible for you, you almost have to in order to avoid going crazy – but you're probably going to have to give that hope a little help. Do what you can to make things better today, whether it's taking better care of your health, being kinder to yourself, or finally ending a toxic relationship.

Even if it's just a first step, taking action now will make you feel more in control of your life and may actually even increase that sense of optimism. More importantly, the start of a new year isn't the only time you can make positive changes in your life – if you're not ready to tackle everything now, just pick one thing and work on it. When you feel you've got a handle on it, move onto the next thing, no matter when it is. March or May or August or whenever is still the perfect time to celebrate the hope of a brighter future.

Any time is also a perfect time to celebrate you, no matter what the reason. So when you see those fireworks, or listen to the people cheer, tell yourself they're not for some set of numbers on a calendar. They're all for you. 

Disney, "Man from U.N.C.L.E." and adding your own twist to the story

Photo courtesy of Disney

“That’s not how I would do it.”

How many times has that thought crossed your mind? Whether it’s a movie you watched, a meal you ate, or a work project you’re involved in, we’ve all come across things we would have done differently if we were the ones in charge. No one’s tastes are the same, and it’s part of human nature to want things to match our own tastes instead of someone else’s.

But what if you actually got the chance to redo whatever it was? It’s rare that we get the opportunity to remake something according to our exact specifications, and even if we did we’d risk the same scrutiny we gave the original whatever it was. There’s also all the work it would take to create a new version of something that’s already been made. Would it be worth it, just to be able to experience a version that’s absolutely perfect for you?

Answering that question has made me take remakes a lot more seriously.

Because yes, there’s a certain element of marketing and cash grab when it comes to latching a movie to an already established property, but money is the ultimate goal of everything Hollywood does. There are also remakes that are flat-out terrible – the shot-for-shot remake of “Psycho” is one of the better-known examples – and ones that have hit their remake limit. (Please, Hollywood, give us like 15 years before the next “Spider-Man.” We need a break.)

But you know who else does a lot of remakes? Disney. The majority of their best-known movies, from “101 Dalmatians” to “The Little Mermaid” are simply their versions of stories someone else has already done. They just made their own tweaks – changing a depressing ending here, enriching an emotional relationship there – until they had a version of the story they liked. Even “The Lion King,” one of the most successful Disney movies ever, is just “Hamlet” re-told with talking lions instead of people. Speaking of “Hamlet,” even Shakespeare’s stories were mostly just revisions of stories that had already been written.

I’m not saying that the remakes Hollywood has given us in the last 10 years are anywhere near the level of Shakespeare or even classic Disney. But that doesn’t mean that the creators didn’t have a legitimate vision of their own for the material. When Guy Ritchie brought “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” to the screen, he shifted the focus from the spy hijinks to the banter and growing bond between the main characters. That was the part he was interested in, and didn’t feel the original had enough.

“The Transporter: Refueled” seems at first like a knockoff of every European action movie ever made, but the fact that the hero is trying to save his father is actually quite a twist for the genre. Historically, it’s the token female who gets to have a father involved in the movie, usually as a powerful figure that the daughter is being used as a pawn against.  The hero is usually involved to protect the helpless female, and if there’s no sex scene there will be at least one heated look.

But getting the hero involved because of his own family? Someone who isn’t female, or in a traditionally “protected” category such as a younger sibling, romantic partner or child? Having the emotional motivation not be romantic or sexual in the slightest? I don’t know if the movie will be any good – it’s not being screened for critics – but that’s still the kind of remake I can respect. 

Older and wiser vs. younger and dumber

If a genie came along and offered to make me young again, I'd say no.

Admittedly, I'm not yet as old as I could be. I don't yet have to worry about aching bones and strange sleeping schedules, but gray hair is already a significant part of my life. My metabolism and energy levels are pale imitations of what they were in my 20s, as are my sense of adventure and opportunities to meet new people.

Your world starts shrinking when you graduate from college, right around the same time your waistline starts expanding. I stopped being anything vaguely resembling "cool" a long time ago, a fact that the use of the word "cool" no doubt confirms.

Technically, rewinding the clock would give all that back to me. I'd be skinnier again, with bright eyes and smaller shirts, and when I looked in the mirror I'd only see dark hair. I wouldn't have to worry about my blood pressure, cholesterol levels, or squeezing some extra exercise into the day. I wouldn't feel time looming over my head, reminding me every day that there's less and less of it left to accomplish the things I want to do. The world would be awash in a sea of possibilities.

I would also be clueless about what to do with any of them. I knew exactly nothing when I was 20, either about myself or what life was really like. I didn't appreciate my smaller waistline or my hopeful young face, always comparing it to the girls around me who were skinny and pretty and everything I thought I wanted to be. I had boundless energy, but not the slightest idea of what I really wanted to do with it. I was scared of things that I later learned didn't matter at all. I made myself bleed wanting things that I later realized I didn't really need.

There is nothing in the world that would tempt me to trade the mind I have now for the one I had when I was 20. The years I lived between then and now were full of irreplaceable lessons, experiences and insights that ended up changing my view of the world. They reshaped me into a smarter, happier person, more at peace with myself than I ever imagined I could be when I was younger. All of those lessons only came because I was in the right place at the right time to understand what was being taught. All of those lessons built on each other, reshaping me as they went.

Even if I could go back in time and tell 20-year-old me everything I've learned since then, I suspect  she wouldn't believe any of it. Even if she did, she wouldn't have known how to use any of it. Only time, and living, can teach you things like that.

So, even if someone could turn back the clock, I'd have to pass on that particular miracle. It took long enough to get where I am today – the last thing I'd want is to have to do it all over again.

More important than being “tough”

As far as I can tell, it’s not easy being a guy.

Yeah, I know they have it better in a lot of ways, but they’re really not very good at taking care of themselves. Society tells men that they’re supposed to be tough to the point of being invulnerable, and any hit of weakness or needing help should be avoided at all costs. They’re told never to acknowledge that they’re slower than they used to be, or they have a worrying cough, and heaven help the man who dares to wonder if they might be depressed.

Men, I’m here to tell you that society is straight-up lying to you.

Trust me – society lies to women all the time, so we know what we’re talking about. Living your life in order to satisfy the expectations of the media, complete strangers, or even casual acquaintances, leads to nothing but frustration, disappointment, and potentially a heart attack. None of these people have enough investment in you personally to be worth listening to, and won’t even notice if you are listening to them.

Besides, have any of them given you proof that they know what they’re talking about? The media, for example, thinks that the Kardashians are worth obsessing over, which isn’t the best sign of either their intelligence or their good judgment.

On the other side of the equation, there’s this little thing called science. Science’s opinion on the matter is that men are human beings just like women are, subject to every infirmity, illness and medical condition. Having something wrong with you doesn’t mean you’ve failed; it means that biology is holding all the trump cards. There was nothing you could do to stop yourself from getting sick.

What you can do, however, is focus on getting better again. If your car breaks, do you drive around on it until it collapses or lights on fire somehow? No, you figure out what’s wrong and fix it (or you take it to someone who does). Your body is a lot more valuable than your car, and there are a whole bunch of experts who can help you get it running smoothly again.

Mental health issues are a trickier situation, but in some ways that just makes them more important. Having depression is just the same as having any other illness, including cancer, and if left untreated it can mess up your life just as much. Being depressed doesn’t mean you’re weak – it means the chemicals in your head went out of whack. Talking to a professional, and maybe getting medication if you need it, can absolutely change your life for the better.

I know it can be tough to admit you need help, no matter what the problem is. But the people who love you don’t need you to be Superman, no matter how much you wish you could be that for them. What they need is for you to be there, for birthdays and weddings and graduations and everything else that will happen for the rest of their lives. They need you to be healthy a lot more than they need you to be “tough.”

So go to the doctor for regular checkups. Get some help if you need it. Because it might be scary to admit you can’t do it all on your own, but doing something scary for the people you love is pretty much the definition of being a superhero.

Ask them. They’ll back me up on this. 

The body inside my head

Photo courtesy of Microsoft Office

Here’s the thing about weight loss. It doesn’t change the body you have inside your head.

Honestly, I didn’t even really mean to lose weight in the first place. I’m a bit of a pessimist, so I didn’t think it was even possible. But a few years ago I realized that I was so out of shape I no longer had the strength to take the short walks I used to enjoy so much, and I was horrified. I had always been proud of the strength in my legs, and I wanted that back.

So I started walking, which is about the only exercise I knew I would reliably keep up with. Slowly, my route increased as my energy did. Later, I realized I was probably eating enough for two people, so I tried to be a little more reasonable about my portion sizes. I found I could walk even further. I would start walking places just because I knew I could, proud at how much easier it had become.

It was a surprise when I realized I could once again fit into t-shirts and tops I had stopped wearing a long time ago. It was like I had been re-gifted with an entire half of my closet again, and I enjoyed it in much the same way I would have a surprise shopping trip.

Having people tell me I looked good was even more of a surprise, and even now I’m still not entirely sure if I believe it. I’m panicking about the shirt I’m wearing now – even though someone just complimented me on how good I looked at it an hour ago – because it touches my ribs.

It’s only the lightest touch, the kind of top people wear all the time because apparently it’s normal to want to give people an idea of what your general body shape is. This is, I’ve recently discovered, a normal thing for clothes to do. In fact, less-than-skinny people are told to gravitate towards these kind of tops, because big, baggy things only make you look larger.

But I didn’t care about looking larger, because I had given my body up as a lost cause. I had decided there was nothing I could do to make my body match the normal expectations of beauty, so I wrapped myself in large shirts as if they were protective blankets. I wanted only to hide.

Even now, when I have been told time and time again that I should be proud of what I’ve accomplished, the feel of fabric tight against my ribs feels like staggering out into the world without my protective shell.

The thing is, though, I have nothing to hide. More importantly, I never did.

So, in addition to exercise, I’m spending an equal amount of time learning to appreciate my body. I’m learning decorating it in ways that appeal to me, much the same way I take careful time finding just the right spot for the butterflies flying on my walls.  I’m enjoying not only the t-shirts that have come back into my life, but the fact that I look pretty darn good in some of them. I’m teaching my brain that feeling that fabric against my ribs is nothing to be scared of.

It feels like running into someone I’d thought was a childhood enemy, only to discover after spending time with them that they’re actually a really nice person. It’s not an easy process – old instincts die hard – but I’m finally starting to realize that my body might be a friend worth having.

There’s no amount of weight loss in the world that can make you realize that. You have to find it out for yourself. 

One consonant the more, one vowell the less

Hardly anyone spells my name right. The truth is, I can’t even blame them for it – I’ve never run into another Jenniffer who’s rocking both two ns and two fs. It’s a small naming flourish – if I’d been born now, my dad might have tried to name me Apple – but it’s marked me as different since the moment I was born. My name stood out from all of the other Jennifers that filled my elementary school classes, and my quiet insistence on making sure people remembered every one of my additional letters made me stand out as well.

My name isn’t the only thing that makes me different, but over the years it’s become a subtle but important symbol of the individuality I cling to so fiercely. In a way, that second f has helped make me who I am.

So when I discovered my editors subtly changed the name of one of my characters, it felt very odd. They were right to – apparently, when you shorted Jonathan it’s got to be Jon, and John is an entirely separate name. But I’d been calling him John for years, and something of that very common, solid-sounding name had leached into how I viewed him. John doesn’t sound very flashy, and I imagined
he probably got dismissed a lot.

When you take out the h, however, the name somehow becomes more modern. Even more elegant, at least in my eyes. Though it’s ludicrous, I think just a little bit differently about someone who spells their name Jon instead of John (this is probably Jon Stewart’s fault, now that I think about it). My Jon, a prince, is the kind of person that deserves the more elegant version of his name. Had I been dismissing him myself by saddling him with the more boring version?

Even if I was, Jon luckily forgives me. And from now on, I’ll give him the samecredit my second f  gives me.

Fairy Godmothers, Inc. short story: The Elf Question

I have no idea when Walgreens got into
the elf shoe business.

The Elf Question

By Jenniffer Wardell

Shoemaker Elves were a completely different species than their taller, more elegant cousins. It was never a good idea to confuse the two, particularly within earshot of a representative of either species who had been drinking heavily. Shoemaker Elves were actually more closely related to fairies, and sorting out who had started calling them elves usually took a good working knowledge of linguistic history and the willingness to tolerate a lot of shouting.

Neither species tended to show up in the Fairy Godmothers, Inc. offices, generally preferring to sort out romantic matters among themselves. This news had no effect on the young Shoemaker Elf sitting on the other side of Kate’s desk, her traditional blue cap clutched to her chest. “I know, ma’am. It’s also not very normal to have clients pay you for themselves. But I’m desperate.”

Kate leaned forward, eyeing the girl carefully. “But you don’t want one of the packages we have available.”

“No. I want you to come to my mother’s party and whisk me away to dental school.” She smiled hopefully. “It’s the only way they’ll let me go.”

“What I’m confused about is why the say-so of a Fairy Godmother would help the situation any.” She noticed the girl’s hunched shoulders, a very unusual gesture for a Shoemaker Elf. When you were short, you generally held on to every inch of height you could get. “I would think Shoemaker Elf parents would approve of dental school. Working on teeth has the same kind of craftsman spirit.”

“Well….” Clearly, the girl hadn’t thought her story through as well as she should have. “They’re very traditional, and though they’ll look at me kind of funny a Fairy Godmother will cause just the right amount of fuss. They’ll have to let me go, because making that kind of scene and then not doing anything about it will just make people talk more….”

“And finding out that their Elven daughter is pretending to be a Shoemaker Elf won’t cause enough fuss?”

The girl sighed. “I’m sorry, but people get so disappointed because I’m really bad at the whole snooty Elf thing. I thought you’d like me better if I seemed like I whistled while I worked.”

“That’s dwarves, kiddo, but it’d probably be a good idea not to mention that particular stereotype to any of them.” Taking pity on her, Kate pulled out a new client form. “And I’m fine with however you want to dress. But if you go around in that outfit, people are going to start asking you to fix things.”

As if conjured, one of Kate’s co-workers chose that moment to pop her head around a corner. “Hey, are you a Shoemaker Elf? I have this desk chair I’d really like you to look at….”

A kid in a grown-up’s body

I don’t think I ever really grew up.

Honestly, who would want to? True, it’s always fun to be able to stay up late, and at first glance the toys of adulthood seem far cooler – speeding along an open road in a real car beats Hot Wheels every time. But when you’re an adult you also have to pay for all your toys, and the sheen of a good imagination is always going to make something more impressive than my bank account could match.

And oh, man, there are some cool kids toys that no longer fit my arm. I saw a little girl with a set of claws that actually had a sword attached. While I restrained myself from asking if I could play with it – like I said, it no longer fit my arm – I really, really wanted to.

Which is why I’m pretty sure I haven’t managed the whole “grown up” thing yet. I hold down a job, yes, but that’s really no scarier than school used to be. And I pay bills, but I was also pretty good at turning in my homework. In exchange I still get to happily go to kids movies without worrying about stealing a child for cover, read comic books without trying to argue that they have socio-political subtext, and take advantage of any and all swings I come across.

Sometimes, there’s even someone on the swing next to me. There are fewer grown-ups out there than most people realize.

Learning to appreciate August

August is the most bittersweet month of the year for students, a desperate attempt to slow down time so those last few days of summer freedom can be appropriately savored.

Even if you liked school you find yourself hating the thought of going back, and so you start trying to partition each moment down to a trickle so you don’t miss anything. At the same time, that first day back in school looms over the top of every moment, making it sweeter and reminding you it’s going to end. It’s passionate, intense, and in the end completely exhausting. 

Summers aren’t nearly so exciting when you have a real job, since bosses and the need to pay bills keep you attached to your desk no matter what month of the year it is. One thing it has done, however, is give me back August, which is a perfectly pleasant (if hot) month when I’m not dreading September. The skies are blue, school crossing zones/speed traps haven’t been turned back on yet, and my schedule is starting to clear out. It’s almost relaxing.

Of course, I don’t mention this to the students or teachers I still know. I don’t think they’d appreciate the sentiment.

Proving my worth

The kanji for worth (with thanks to about.com)

I forget things.

Sometimes, this is where on earth I just put the cordless phone I was holding five seconds ago. Other times, it’s the fact that, when I was in jr. high, I was so terrified about getting a good grade in a class I already had an A+ in that I seriously tried to steal my mother’s books to get extra credit. It’s survived now as a funny story, but at the time I was so desperate to get an A that the fact I already *had* an A didn’t console me in the slightest.

Looking back from the peaceful vantage point of relative well-adjustment, I can see that I was so desperate to be the smartest because I was absolutely desperate to prove my worth to the people around me. I couldn’t fit in with the other kids, and felt that the fact I didn’t even really want to – I was lonely, but they were stupid – was another flaw in me somehow. But I was smart. I was smarter than any of them. And if I could keep stacking up those As, I could show the world just how wrong they were to dismiss me.

Now, I’m not nearly so desperate anymore. I’ve found people who can see my worth without me having to prove it to them – not many, true, but as many as I need. More importantly, I can see my own worth clearly enough that I don’t doubt it anymore. And I wish more than anything that I could reach back in time and convince my teenage self of that very thing. Maybe even hug her.

She’d deserve it.

No more “If only”

Do it now. Whatever small but terribly important thing you’ve been promising yourself you’ll do the minute you get a few spare minutes – call someone you haven’t spoken to in far too long, tell someone you love them, have that crazy adventure you’ve always dreamed of – go do it right this very second.

I know how busy we all are, scrambling to keep afloat in an economy that seems more determined than ever to pull us under, and that even the most well-meaning heart sometimes can’t do anything but put off the things that matter most. We’ll get to it, we think. As soon as I find a moment I can breathe.

And then something terrible happens, and that moment never comes. You’re the one who gets a call, telling you the last news you wanted to hear, and that item on your to-do list spins forever out of your reach. Someone’s died, or you’ve lost your job, or a fire has eaten up everything you ever owned. You lose your chance, and that item on your to-do list will haunt you no matter how small it was. If only you hadn’t put it off for so long. If only you’d known.

So go do it. If you won’t listen to me, listen to your own mythical future self, who wishes more than anything that you’d done it when you had the chance.

A gateway to anywhere

I truly love airports, despite the fact that admitting this generally makes people question my sanity. True, the security lines are clearly secret government experiments on how extreme stress affects the human mind, but there’s still nowhere better than an airport for that sheer, concentrated sense of potential.

If you’re the one getting on the plane, being in an airport usually means you’re traveling someplace far enough away from home that it automatically qualifies as an adventure. Vacations, naturally are the best – either to someplace new or a beloved spot you haven’t seen in too long – but even business trips can give you the taste of a new city. Afterward, being in an airport means you’re heading home again to a familiar bed and people who at least like you quite a bit.

If you’re not leaving or coming back, odds are you’re welcoming someone you love. Either it’s a family member coming home after experiencing their own adventure, or it’s distant loved ones who you don’t get to see often enough because there are so many miles between you.  No matter how annoying they can be, heading to an airport generally means that something significant is about to happen. It’s a controlled surprise.

In my own life, I’m generally the one leaving and coming back, since there’s too much I still want to see and none of my beloved beaches anywhere in my home state (the ocean is a terrible thing for a desert-dweller to love). In college I had one of my two best friends on each side of every plane ride, and now I have the whole wide world on one side and people I love on the other (and generally in the seat next to me). To keep that opportunity in my life, I’ll take disapproving TSA agents and terrifyingly small airplane bathrooms any day of the week.

Every little ending of the world

There’s something terribly wrenching about sudden endings, a small but permanent shift where you step out of one world and into another one. Even if the difference between the two is relatively small – a new apartment building instead of the old one, a breakup you hadn’t seen coming – there’s something disorienting about being cut off from the life you’ve been experiencing until just recently. Even though most of the important parts are still firmly in place, it can never quite be the same as it once was. Something that was enough of a part of it to be almost instinctive has ended, and as such is now forever out of your reach.

You wish you’d been warned somehow, because surely a chance to say goodbye would have made the loss easier. You could have made a plan for what you were going to do without whatever it is you lost, or simply taken some time to become accustomed to the thought of letting go. To try and figure out who you are now. But the truth is, there’s never really enough warning. That last step will always feel too final, and you will always wish you had just one more day in the life you’d gotten so used to. It’s in human nature to always want one more goodbye.