In the end, I couldn’t make this line fit into the post, but I wanted to share it here:

Writing is unlike many professions in many ways. But it is exactly like most professions in this one very important way: You will get better the longer and harder you try.

There is nothing weird or shameful about that.

…

As a society, we tend to give birthday cards, send holiday greetings, and mail gifts or notes when we travel. But what about the rest of the year? The little celebrations, or the unexpected times of difficulty? What about my favorite occasion: no reason at all?

In college, I constantly left random notes for people in my hall. I tried to highlight things they had done that made me smile, or tell something cheerful if I knew they were down. This was doubly true when I became an RA.

This is a bit harder to do in “real life” (i.e., after you’ve graduated). Okay, not harder, but perhaps considered weirder. Fortunately I don’t mind being a little unconventional.

To that end, Michael’s has these dollar bins that I love. There are always stationery sets (8 cards and matching envelopes) in varying designs, and I try to pick up a couple nice-looking, all-purpose ones to have on hand.

Also, a friend recently gave me a box of a hundred or so postcards, each depicting a different old book cover. (They mostly look the same.) I like to match the titles to the reason or person I’m sending them for. “Vile Bodies” as a get well card, “The Odyssey” as congratulations on a new job.

Like I said, I don’t mind being a little weird.

…

Football. I cannot believe how much I’ve come to love this game. Flag, fantasy, and pro. I’ll have to write a post/column on it sometime. For now, I’ll just say that even though the Texans lost by basically giving our opponents 17 out of their 20 points today — grumble grumble — overall it was a good football year for me and my teams. And from now until August, I’ll be running on dreams of an even bigger, brighter next year.

In this post I talked about the repetitive strain injury I get in my wrists, and the dictation software (a.k.a. Dragon) that Andy bought me to help relieve/avoid the pain.

A week before Christmas, I attended a work holiday party with Andy. I was nervous for a variety of reasons. (We would be the youngest couple there, people were going to ask about my writing, etc.) But one person managed to put me completely at ease: Andy’s boss’s wife. I’ll call her C.

Only a few years older than us, C made the best first impression of anyone I’ve met in a long, long time. Born and raised in Spain, educated in America, the daughter of a pilot, and an avid reader, she was worldly, warm, and well-spoken. When I told her that I write “books for teens,” she said, “Oh, you mean Young Adult?” I think my girl crush started right then and there. We talked at length about books, culture, and travel, and by the end of the night I pretty much wanted to be C when I grew up.

(This is all related and going somewhere, I promise.)

Part of what I admired in C was her eloquence. She didn’t hurry to speak, she didn’t add unnecessary thoughts, she didn’t stumble over her words. I’m kind of the opposite. I speak before I think, my jokes and anecdotes come out all jumbled, and sometimes I even forget what I’m trying to say in the middle of saying it. Because it’s fueled by enthusiasm, sometimes it can come off as cute. But I’m 26 now and (unfortunately) only getting older. Cute won’t work forever.

Part of what my dad was trying to get me to do — besides just not annoying him — was to arrange my thoughts ahead of time. Figure out how to say what I wanted to say in an interesting and effective manner. That was probably too much to ask of someone who still played with Polly Pockets, but it’s a skill I would very much like to have — or at least develop — now.

Enter the Dragon.

Dictating e-mails, blog posts and comments, etc. isn’t so weird. I just kind of pretend that I’m talking to whoever is on the receiving end, as opposed to my shiny MacBook. But stories are, well, a different story. I don’t naturally think out loud. Or rather, when I do, my thoughts come out rather clunky and rambling. Not exactly the words you want applied to your manuscript.

But maybe this is a good thing. Maybe using my Dragon more will not only prevent my RSI, but also teach me to think before I speak. To be able to edit my words in my head as well as on the page. Maybe I too can seem as worldly, warm, and well-spoken as C.

Or maybe I’ll just look like a crazy person talking to myself. Only time will tell.

Now it’s time to ring in a new year. I might write a more detailed year-in-review post later, I might not. Bottom line: 2011 was a leap of faith, and then the freefall. In 2012 I hope to fly.

The Fishbowl, we called it. It was supposed to be a study room. Just a conference table and a whiteboard, enclosed by a glass wall. Hardly anyone used it during the day, though there were always textbooks and papers strewn across the table. (Or the floor.) But at night, two, four, six, sometimes a dozen of us would jam in, mouths full of dirty jokes and vending machine snacks. Unlike the lounges, the Fishbowl had a door, so you could keep the noise in, not disturb those who had gone to bed. After all, you know how loud studying can be.

2.

I got the letter on Valentine’s Day. “Thank you for your interest, but…” I had to move. The next year, I would not be allowed to live in the dorm that I thought of as my home. Numb, I walked into my room, looked around, dropped my backpack, and left again. I couldn’t stay there. Not as a sophomore, and not for the next few hours. So I walked. Out the door. Down the icy street. Up a steep hill of broken sidewalks. For half an hour, I wandered, weeping openly, with Avril Lavigne blasting through my iPod. My nose ran. My ears turned pink from the cold. I was homeless. I was heartbroken. I was the queen of melodrama.

3.

Every Sunday night, six of us gathered from all corners of campus and met at the intersection of Morewood and Forbes. These were my closest friends, people I’d met on the first day of college, and would hug goodbye on the last. A lot of things had changed between us over the years, but this had not. This was a ritual. This was our thing.

It was a 15 minute walk down to Fuel and Fuddle for half-price food, past the museums and the Pitt gift shop. It was a 30-40 minute wait to get seated, standing outside with the frat boys and the smokers. Then it was 60 minutes of drinks and conversation, reliving the best and worst of our college careers.

After the bill was paid, it was another 15 minutes back to the dorms, 5 minutes of lingering and chatting on the street, and then 2 minutes to get upstairs to the fifth floor, where I often found my freshman residents creating their own bests and worsts. Usually I would sit with them for a while, before finally showering and going to bed. With their voices filtering through my door, I closed my eyes and fell asleep, smiling.

So, it’s your birthday. You’re 26 today. Congratulations.

Me, Age Adorable.

What, you wanted more? Sorry, dude. This isn’t a milestone. You can already smoke (didn’t want to anyway), can already drink (didn’t want to anyway), can already rent a car without paying a premium, and already had your insurance rates reduced (25 = lame). No new perks, plus now you’re closer to 30 than 20. Scary, huh?

Here’s the thing: I know what you wanted. You wanted to be an established author. Heck, you wanted that for your 18th birthday. And your 20th. And pretty much every birthday since you wrote that terrible synopsis and 15 pages for the Scholastic “first novel” competition in high school. You wanted to be the Taylor Swift of books.

But you’re not. Do you want to know why? Because you weren’t willing to make the necessary sacrifices.

Now before you run off to a corner to cry, listen: I don’t say that to be mean. I don’t say that to belittle or discourage you. You do work hard. You are talented. You will make it.

But Taylor Swift? She’s one in a million. She put music before everything. She gave up a normal life in order to pursue her dream. You didn’t.

Me, Age Ridiculous.

And that’s okay. It’s okay that you went to high school, and worried about grades, and got a college degree, and then a job. It’s okay that you watch a few TV shows, and have a boyfriend and a dog, and take time to travel. It’s okay that sometimes you do the laundry when you’re stuck on a sentence, or that you get nervous/embarrassed when people ask what you do and you have to explain that you’re an unpublished, unagented writer. It’s okay that you like to nap.

Because here’s what this birthday DOES mean:

It means that, at 26, you’ve been writing seriously for almost a decade. In that time, you “finished” your first ever novel (which needs a lot of revision). You experimented with a web series that nearly got published and is now available as an ebook. And soon you’ll be querying your first YA manuscript, which is definitely the best thing you’ve ever written. You’ve been blogging for several years, have made many good online friends, and even went viral once. You’ve gotten work experience, life experience, love experience. You’ve done things on your own terms, and you won’t have any regrets.

(Not that T Swizzle regrets her choices. I’m sure she’s quite happy with her sparkly clothes, bajillion awards, and famous, fodder-for-lyrics boyfriends.)

Rarely do things work out so neatly as JK Rowling’s 1-story-per-school-year structure, but I do feel like each November since middle school, you’ve managed to reflect and to learn something important. If there’s anything I want you to learn from this, your 26th year, it’s to throw your plans out the window. Don’t try to predict what will happen, or put your life on a schedule. Just work hard, have fun, and be kind. If you do that, everything will follow in its own way and its own time.

Love,
You

For months we prepared care packages like it was our job, like our soldier’s life depended on it. Every other week we filled a Support Our Troops box with flavored sunflower seeds, white tube socks, lighthearted DVDs, and lots of deodorant. We wrote letters filled with the most inane details — about dogs and gardens and sports and celebrities — because we wanted to help him stay connected with “normal” life.

After half a year, we got the good news that our Marine was coming home. (“So please stop sending boxes, because by the time they get there, he’ll be gone!”) His first tour was over, and he arrived safely back in the States at the peak of an August heat. After spending months in the Afghani desert, marching for miles under the scorching sun, our soldier didn’t mind the “hot spell.” He barely even noticed it.

To celebrate his return, Andy took his brother, parents, and me to Chicago for Labor Day weekend. We visited Sue the T-Rex at the Field Museum. We shopped the Magnificent Mile. We laughed until we cried at the Second City comedy show.

But the highlight of our trip was a quiet dinner at Joe’s, the renowned seafood and steak house. After making reservations (several weeks in advance) Andy emailed to ask if they could do anything for his brother. He specified that we weren’t looking for freebies; we just wanted a special night. The manager replied that they could only give us their best server, an offer we happily accepted.

And our server was indeed fantastic. Attentive, friendly, knowledgeable, accommodating, and funny. We had a lovely evening, thanks to his witty banter and many excellent recommendations.

At the end of the meal, we decided to order a couple desserts to share. Our server got a twinkle in his eye and said he knew just the thing. A few minutes later, he wheeled out a tray of nearly a dozen desserts, which we figured were for the tables nearby. As it turns out, every single dish on that cart was for us. Andy’s brother was fairly embarrassed, but his mother and I both got tears in our eyes as our server and the manager came over to thank him for his service.

Although we were already full, the five of us ate as much of those cakes and pies as we could. Not because they were free, or too delicious to waste, but because they were all our fears put to rest, all our hopes confirmed, all our pride, gratitude, and good fortune baked into chocolate and iced with sugar. Those desserts were what our trip was all about. Celebration.

We savored every bite.

Unfortunately, when we got to the marina, we found several inches of water inside the cabin. Somehow our sailboat had partially flooded! So instead of a leisurely night enjoying the surf and the breeze, we spent two hours with a plastic bucket and a leaky pump, bailing out the stale and murky water.

By the time we finished, we had mosquito bites on our ankles, our clothes were spattered with dirt, and our skin was covered in a fine layer of seawater and sweat. Anyone in their right mind would have been miserable. And yet, my parents and I smiled and joked as we headed to the bathrooms to clean up.

Upon reflection, I realized that in a weird way, I actually enjoyed that night of gross, sweaty work. Because my parents and I were spending time together. Because I was helpful to them.

As an only child, I’ve always had a close relationship with my parents. But now that I live so far away, I see just how much we did as a family, and how hard it is to do that kind of stuff now. Thanks to technology, my parents are never more than a phone call or an email away, but it’s not the same as hopping in the car for ice cream at Dairy Queen, or going to see a movie on a whim, or just hanging out at home with the TV on, all of us sitting in our “reserved seats” on the couch. Things that I used to take for granted. Things that aren’t so easy anymore.

Whenever I visit home, my mom asks if I want to do anything, and my dad asks if I want to go anywhere. Favorite restaurants, new museum exhibits, the beach at Galveston, even Austin or San Antonio. I know they just want me to have fun, but I always tell them not to go to any trouble. They can’t understand why.

That night, after our decidedly not-relaxing evening on the boat, we put our swimsuits on, rinsed off, and then hopped into the community pool at the marina. Beneath a dark sky filled with stars, we floated on our backs and kicked our legs. We sat on the deck chairs and ate cherries. We talked and laughed and talked some more.

I guess that’s the real reason that night didn’t feel miserable to me. That’s why we don’t need to go anywhere or do anything special. Because we’re together, spending time as a family again. And that’s enough.

Sometimes it feels like Andy and I have been to a million weddings and should, as a different cousin once said, be “married by proxy.” Sometimes it feels like we are.

Of course there’s no way to know exactly what the future holds. We can only hope and dream and talk and plan. And when things change, we adapt. Together. That’s how we’ve gotten through 6+ years. It isn’t magic.

Or maybe it is.

…

The other day I read someone’s Twitter bio and laughed. Then I thought, Maybe I should change my bio to something funnier. But wait, I’m not good at funny! “Sorry, I don’t do funny.” Would that be funny? No, it wouldn’t… I guess my Twitter bio is okay. I mean, it’s friendly. And honest. And that pretty much sums me up.

This happens from time to time. This desire to be funny — or pretty — to be memorable, really — creeps up on me occasionally. But I’m not that person. I’m not Rachel Green, the fashionable, sexy girl that everyone hits on. And I’m not Chandler, with his sarcastic jokes, or Joey and Phoebe, with their silly quirks. I’m not the instant or usual favorite.

No, I’m Monica and Ross. I’m a Geller.

I’m a little bit nerd, a little bit weird. I don’t always say the right thing, and when I’m passionate about something, I can come on kind of strong. (Or awkward.) I’m close with my family, borderline spoiled, proud of my intelligence, yet surprisingly dumb/dense about things.

I also have shiny brown hair.

Basically, I’m someone you have to get to know in order to love. But once you do, we’ll probably be friends for life! That’s just how I roll.

And I’m okay with all that. Because contrary to what it sometimes feels like, life is NOT a popularity contest. At the end of the day, your happiness and self-worth are not going to be determined by the number of Twitter followers you have, or Facebook friends, or RSS subscribers, or daily pageviews, or whatever. Those are not the measurements that count. In fact, most of what counts can’t be measured at all.

(For example, it’s not the number of real life friends you have either. What matters is the quality of the relationships in your life, not the quantity.)

So embrace who you are. Even if who you are isn’t funny or pretty or retweet-worthy. Be memorable in your own way. Be you.

(For the record, both surgeries went well, and Andy has already flown twice since the CAT incident.)

The thing about the internet is, it’s forever. And also, it’s full of strangers. And though I may think I’m saying something harmless, I don’t really know who’s reading or how they might interpret my words.

In general, I’m not one of those people who fears that what they say will get twisted and shoved back in their face. I believe in the goodness and rationality of mankind. I figure that if someone misunderstands me — or even if I really do mess up and say something stupid — I can clarify and be forgiven. Life will go on.

Furthermore, who’s really listening, right? I’m not John Green or Heather Armstrong or Ashton Kutcher. I have my little circle of friends (you guys ROCK, btw) so what’s there to worry about?

Well, that’s where the “forever” part comes in. In real life, when we have late night conversations with our friends, where we ramble for so long that we start to forget what we’re saying even as it comes out of our mouths, it’s no big deal. We’re expressing a single thought in a single moment. Then the moment passes. Like a footprint in the sand, the thought has made it’s impression, and then it gets washed away. Harmless.

On the internet, moments don’t pass. They can be stumbled upon or searched for, days or weeks or years later. Even deleting your words doesn’t guarantee that they can’t be found. (Thanks, Google cache.) Maybe I’m not famous now. Maybe I don’t have enemies or “haters” yet. But maybe someday I will.

Look, I don’t believe in living my life in fear. But I also don’t believe in living in ignorance. So all I’m trying to say is, sometimes I don’t know how much to say.

(I realize that for something like health scares and traumatic plane rides, I’m probably safe. Short of crazies or trolls, no one’s going to attack me about that stuff. But this issue of “what you say online” has been on my mind for a while. And not just for my own blog, but also for comments, and discussions boards, and Twitter, and everything.)

It’s funny, because this is part of why we all blog, right? We want someone to read our words, to connect, to respond. It’s not about agreeing all the time (because wow, that’d be boring). It’s about sharing experiences, ideas, and opinions. It’s about learning and growing and feeling. It’s about adding our thread of life to this vast digital web.

So I’m not going to stop blogging, and I’m not going to stop getting personal. But I guess I just wanted to say that it’s not always easy. That there are valid concerns, and I don’t always know what to do about them. So I have to proceed as I would with anything else: the best I can, and with good intentions. Hopefully that’s enough.