"Even after all this time the sun never says, 'You owe me, Earth.' Look what happens with a love like that, it lights up the whole sky."

“We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4am of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.”
Joan Didion

You can't make this stuff up.

"When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." -the Queen of Hearts



I don't claim to know everything. In fact, I claim to know close to nothing, which can come in mighty handy sometimes. This afternoon I finally met Deb. Deb is the newest character in my life, introduced at a pivotal time in my story. Recently, my plot has thickened, and I know that she is here for reasons both essential and unexplainable.

Deb is a psychic, a life coach, a holistic healer, an unconventional counselor, a mother, a wife. As I write these silly letters on this silly page, I know they don't do her justice. As I took the turn up her long driveway this afternoon, I didn't know what I should be expecting. I got so much more than I could have hoped for.

She met me at the white door which she told me led the way to her office, and as I followed her, I realized I was holding my breath. We sat down across from each other, and she just looked at me. The words that came out of her mouth next made my jaw drop, my head go fuzzy, tears come to my eyes, laughter escape my lips, my mind to go blank and my heart to open:


"You're adorable, you look just like I envisioned. Just like Alice from Alice in Wonderland. You know, Lewis Carroll's character?"




You just can't make this stuff up. I'm still speechless.

I've been waiting for you to come to me.

"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?" -Alice



My program at school has a few essential focuses for their students. They want us to know ourselves. They want us to be the best selves that we can be. They want us to understand that our life, our choices and decisions, our minds and bodies, our passions and desires, our mistakes and failures are not random happenings on our way to getting our diplomas. They want us to enjoy our journeys. They want us to be in touch with nature, and all it has to offer us. They want us to understand that the journeys we each are on are cosmically and universally destined. There is a reason we are here. There is a reason YOU are THERE.

I haven't updated my blog in a bit of time. It's been a long couple weeks. I guess I should have started this entry out with saying I'm hypocritical. I sit here in front of my laptop and claim that I don't believe in coincidences and that everything happens for a reason, and I give everyone in my life the advice that I should probably be taking myself. Once again, the universe has taught me a big lesson. The lesson this time around was trust. But DAMN universe, you certainly put me through the ringer this time.

Without boring whoever reads this little blog with the dirty details, 2 weeks ago I was emotionally sucker punched by someone that I was supposed to trust. More than trust, I was supposed to depend upon to help shape my image of what a therapist says and does. For the sake of my "uncensored" quest, I'll just say it: I go to a therapist. Well, went to a therapist is more like it. In my ideal, perfectly compartmentalized mind, I decided to take the advice I give to EVERYONE and go to therapy. I'm going to be a therapist, right? Well, who would go to a teacher who has never been a student before? I hope no one.

I began seeing her in December, and I convinced myself we were the perfect fit. I was the naively eager, highly motivated graduate student ready to soak up everything she had to tell me about my future profession. She was a PhD-wielding, ugly sweater-set wearing doctor with a corner office 10 minutes away from my house and bad hair. Perfect fit, right?

She was nice up until the moment she wasn't. And when she chose to not be nice anymore, she was cruel at best, and at worst, she was Satan's daughter brought to earth to personally torture me for the 3 minutes it took her to insult, degrade and humiliate me. I walked out of her office into the brilliant sunshine, hobbled to my car, emotionally crippled, and lit up the best god damned cigarette of my entire life. Fuck the sun.

I really am all about lessons. I think every situation you are put in offers you the opportunity to work on yourself in at least some small way. I am NOT going to pretend that I was searching for any lessons in this situation. I was furious, devastated and broken. I ping ponged between desperate neediness and rageful anger for about 3 days. I couldn't understand how the universe could have let this foul, wretched bitch try to destroy me. What the fuck did I do to deserve that? Well, nothing. I've said it before and I'll say it again, people can truly be assholes. And this woman was just that. An Asshole.

But what next? I couldn't stay in this pathetic and dark place for the rest of my life. I couldn't continue to exist remembering her words, BELIEVING HER WORDS. Later that day I had a gut instinct to contact someone that I have believed was put in my path for a reason since the moment I met her last September. All who meet her love her, and I am no exception. I emailed her, set up an appointment, and held my breath for 6 days waiting to find out why I felt this desperate need to talk to her. Well, I certainly found out.

It was as if she knew why I was there before I even told her what happened. When I arrived, she had a book, a phone number and tissues in front of her already. I left with a direction, a path, a fierce, new outlook. I received the number to another woman, who happens to be a life coach. But not just any life coach, dear friends. A PSYCHIC life coach. (I've already set up an appointment.)

How did this woman that I went to see because I listened to my intuition know my perfect fit? How did she know that this is exactly what I wanted, searched for, and needed so desperately? She put it far more perfectly than I could have hoped to: "I've been waiting for you to come to me. It didn't take as long as I feared it would."


Thanks, Universe. You certainly do work in mysterious ways.

Tip-Toes

“Everything has a moral, if only you can find it.” -the Queen of Hearts



I do lots of awkward things on a pretty day-to-day basis. I unknowingly make weird and creepy facial expressions until someone points it out in bold and embarrassing ways. I sing passionately and do the "upper-body-dance" at the steering wheel until I notice the passengers in the car next to me joyfully laughing at the preppy chick belting out Sir Mix-A-Lot's Baby Got Back on the highway. My lips move silently along with TV characters as I sit in front of the tube (I have no idea why, and it creeps A LOT of people out). I lose my balance. I always hit my funny bone. I have recently began snorting when I laugh. As awkward as I am on a daily basis, there is one awkward secret that I have kept forever. Not many people notice it, and the people that do are extremely astute indeed. I walk on my tip-toes.

This plagued Claire when I was learning to walk. She brought me to my pediatrician, always with the same complaints, always fearing the worst: Were my leg muscles not growing correctly? Was I on the Autism spectrum? (Gee, thanks mom.) Would I need surgery to correct this obscene deficiency in my development? No, no, no. I just wanted to walk on my tippy-toes, damnit. Sheesh, can't a girl get a little support as she's learning how to teeter her chubby little behind around her playpen? Well, Claire finally let it go. She assumed I'd grow out of it. She assumed wrong.

To be honest, I didn't realize until college that this wasn't the way everyone walked. Someone noticed my mismatched, sock-wearing tippy-toes as I was walking to the lounge, and called my ass out on it. What the F? Sheesh, can't a girl get a little support as she walks to the lounge to scope out hotties? After this interaction, I called Claire up and told her to fill me in. Sure enough, I had been walking on my tiptoes for my entire walking-existence. Now things made sense. My insanely toned calf muscles were not just gifts from the heavens, unknowingly bestowed upon a gal who would rather call a cab for a 30 second walk than actually exert any energy. My staggering ability to wear KILLER high heels for upwards of 6 hours at a stretch without so much as flinching wasn't a talent I abruptly acquired when my addiction to ridiculous shoes manifested itself at age 17. My near-constant ankle/knee injuries made a little more sense now; I was simply putting the wrong emPHASis on the wrong sylLABle. Or rather, the wrong emphasis on the wrong muscle group that the normal person does when they walk. Innnnneresting.

This blog was born as much from Austin's pleas that the ridiculous happenings in my life be publically recorded as it was for my need to stop censoring myself. Lately, I've been struggling with doing and saying things in ways that conform to an image that I portray. Through an intensely beneficial conversation with Allie (another leading character in my life), I have realized that not even I can live up to the near-impossible standards I set out for myself. Perfection is boring, and plus, the idea of it gives me a stomachache.

When I was dabbling with the idea of blogging, I promised myself that I would let this be a platform for what I was going through at the moment that I sat down to write. When I was unloading groceries an hour ago, I was standing in front of the fridge, and noticed that I was standing on my tippy-toes as I was sorting through the bland produce that I've promised myself I'm going to eat this week. Of course I was standing like that, I always do. But in this instance, I saw my usual walk as a metaphor for something bigger than just an awkward way to get from point A to point B. How can I be surprised that I've literally tiptoed my way through life, when I have figuratively been tiptoe-ing through life as well?

My inability to express negative emotions has always gotten me into trouble. I don't like confrontation. I don't like hurting people's feelings. I don't like letting people down. But, what happens when my feelings are hurt and I'm let down? Usually, I swallow it, suppress it, ignore it until I forget about it. And I'm going to be a therapist? Yikes. But alas, this has been my choice for many years, and it has led to many frustrating lessons. Lessons that I probably would have learned much quicker and much less painfully if I had learned that it was okay to express crappy feelings in a healthy way.

This is what I mean when I say signs and symbols and guidance can be found in the oddest of places. Who would have thought walking on my tiptoes could have given me any insight into my present struggle that I'm trying to overcome? So this brings me to the promise I'm making myself to become more assertive. No more tip-toeing through life.

Figuratively, of course.

An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.

I find it coincidental* that my last post was about my bad temper, and today at my internship I spent 5 hours with my students comforting them about a dear friend that was shot and killed this past Friday night due to USELESS VIOLENCE. Anger is one letter short of Danger. Lessons learned today.







*I don't believe in coincidences.

Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight.

“I warn you dear child, if I lose my temper, you lose your head. Understand?”
–the Queen of Hearts


My mother tried in vain to raise my sisters and I to grow into delicate, proper young women. Her attempts, through lists of forbidden television shows, movies, words, behaviors and even friends, went entirely ignored and overlooked. Poor Claire. When I was younger, it seemed like everything posed a threat to my mom’s difficult job of keeping us sheltered, over-protected and literally in the dark to any of life’s harsh realities. Now that I’m older, and my mom has entirely given up on her dream of proper young women, I’ve realized how hard this job was. And how hard we made it for her. In our defense, my mom should have taken a good look at the three disheveled, loud and sassy chicks she had eating fruit loops at the breakfast table with her, and given up then.

But give up, she did not. I remember vividly my childhood attempts of getting my mom to break out of her blazer-clad, pearl-wearing shell. The first attempt, when I was six, went something like this:

Me: “Mommy, what’s the difference between a boy and a girl?”
Mommy (looking shocked, disgusted and appalled): “Caitlin, don’t be crude, you know that answer.”

A couple years later, my attempts were getting bolder:

Me: “Mom, what’s a hooker?”
Mom: “A lady of the night! Keep walking!”

These colorful memories are the things we belly laugh about together around the dining room table now. I’ve asked my mom many times if she realized that for a large part of my childhood, every time she took my sisters and I out at night, I thought the four of us were hookers?

I can’t blame my mom for trying her hardest to shelter us from reality. Just like she can’t blame us for growing into opinionated, strong-willed, vivacious girls. And why would she? It’s probably the happiest mistake of her life. Unfortunately, there is one tiny aspect that I don’t think either of my parent’s banked on when raising us: our tempers. More specifically, our crappy tempers.

My mom is a fiery redhead. There are only a couple things in life she will lose it about. These include someone leaving an almost-empty container of chocolate ice cream in the freezer, messy bedrooms and anyone fucking with her kids. Just one of these assaults on my mom’s world is enough for the air in the room to turn chilly, and make you run for your cardigan sweater. (Just don’t fuck with one of her kids, while eating the majority of her chocolate ice cream, in the middle of a messy bedroom.)

Otherwise, Claire is one calm, cool and collected chick. In fact, she loses her cool so rarely that I only consider her fiery because of her gorgeous red hair and the deep love she has for the people in her life.

So this leaves me wondering, where the FUCK did I get my temper?

Gee, thanks Dad.