Dating did not come easy to me. I was (and am still) a late bloomer. I watched my teen girlfriends embrace the dating game with ease while I fumbled around desperately. Cheerleader Natalie played the cute card and knoodled (sp?) with John through 8th grade. Athlete Kelly leveraged her wholesome, girl-next-door card through 9th. Forensic Chris and Journalistic Carol played their sensible cards through junior and senior year.
I was a sophomore in college before a series of unfortunate events landed me in relationship. Alison died in a car wreck and the floor fell out from under my feet. Alison, the coolest freak with a rat tail I'd ever met that didn't have to pretend to be my friend. Alison, who lived life out loud and wrote naughty little stories with her boyfriend and passed them around the school. Alison, who demonstrated the proper way to eat a slice, experience the City 110 stories up and start from the top in the Guggenheim. Alison, who helped me pass algebra and who loved Sting more than anything else in this world. She was going to write for Rolling Stone. Instead, she took a road trip to Chicago and overturned her car while trying to change out a CD.
I received the news Sunday night after it happened and I immediately called Sean who drove me to KC to hear Alison's mother say it wasn't so. But it was "so" and I was drowning in denial.
Death draws a circle around those of us left behind. It unites us in a club none of us ask to join and gives us shared experiences with those we might not otherwise engage. Sean had been my friend since the start of school, but the drive home that Sunday night revealed our mutual loss and grieving became bearable as friendship evolved into something more.
There will be more to say about Sean, so suffice it to say that our story eventually (and dramatically) came to an end. Dating awkwardness -- temporarily diminished in college -- rebounded with a fury upon graduation and the search for "The One" resumed.
In my Definitions post (January 25th), I posed the question, what is a drama queen. Since its inception, I have struggled to reconcile whether "Drama Queen's Guide to Dating" is a book about drama queens or a book about dating dramas. The latter certainly offers the promise of a NY Times Best Seller with its seven-step, self-help structure.
Dating has been awkward in the best of times and dramatic in the worst. Everyone has their path toward enlightenment and mine has more often than not been the path of romantic adventure and finding "the one"... you know: the knight, the soul mate, the one who would complete me. I stand by my January 25th post and declare that being a drama queen is less about suffering with some borderline personality disorder than it is about living my life in the fullest and loudest pursuit of consciousness. It is about living my life in the most colorful pursuit of connection with a man.
The dating dramas are a pathway to relationship, marriage and family. They are the houses dotting the landscape toward partnership.
Showing posts with label drama queen's guide to dating. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drama queen's guide to dating. Show all posts
Friday, February 5, 2010
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Transition to ~ Drama Queen's Guide to Dating
Events from last month's annual meeting remind me of marriage's inherent upside: stability. In my mind the scene from Mr. Meditteranean's room plays out again and again, sitting in my stomach like a raw donut. Any day now I will move on, get over it and delegate it to a trunk of memories past, but a question pulls at my attention: he knew I was married before inviting me to his room, so why the invite?
Uhg ~ such misery. We take, create or force opportunities to get to know those with whom we'd like to be connected. Sometimes they reciprocate and sometimes they pass. In between there is that moment that hangs in the air... will they feel the same? And sometimes that suspended tension is better than the answer itself because it exists without judgment, without rejection. It is perfection if only momentary.
Perfection passes, gravity wins and even the most intagible falls back to Earth. If the moment passes with an unhappy ending we're back out the following weekend donning our sexiest shoes and accoutrements. Will the next connection transform into something beautiful?
Dramas unfold in pursuit of our happy ending. We date in an endless search for "The One" wondering why it has to be so hard yet failing to realize we're the ones making it hard.
Uhg ~ such misery. We take, create or force opportunities to get to know those with whom we'd like to be connected. Sometimes they reciprocate and sometimes they pass. In between there is that moment that hangs in the air... will they feel the same? And sometimes that suspended tension is better than the answer itself because it exists without judgment, without rejection. It is perfection if only momentary.
Perfection passes, gravity wins and even the most intagible falls back to Earth. If the moment passes with an unhappy ending we're back out the following weekend donning our sexiest shoes and accoutrements. Will the next connection transform into something beautiful?
Dramas unfold in pursuit of our happy ending. We date in an endless search for "The One" wondering why it has to be so hard yet failing to realize we're the ones making it hard.
Drama Queen Definitions - Addendum
Someone with a [pathological] need for attention (maybe):
Look at me!
Like me!
Love me!
Look at me!
Like me!
Love me!
Monday, January 25, 2010
Drama Queen Definitions
Here's the thing: funny though it might sound, I know I'm selling myself short when I describe myself as a drama queen. I sometimes qualify it with a dash of humor by saying I'm in recovery but regardless, it's self-deprecating.
Most people consider a drama queen to be some version of a high-strung teenager, a Jewish American Princess (Shelia's words - not mine) or a desperate 30-something-year-old watching Bridget Jones for the 27th time. None of these are the image I want for myself so I want to expand a bit on my January 10th entry and paint a bigger picture.
When the teleconference wrapped seven years ago I went right to work and cranked out a synopsis, chapter outline and marketing plan to promote my book, "Drama Queen's Guide to Dating." I booked a flight to LA and spent two days pimping my book proposal with my good friend Melinda.
If you ever want someone to walk beside you and sell your wares then Melinda is that person. I was talking to yet another chick-lit publisher when I heard Melinda talking to a rep from Adam's Media Corporation. "Have you heard of S.K. Karlsson?" Her light, professional style engaged them immediately and I turned to make the close. They liked my angle, they liked my proposal and they wanted to see my first draft.
Maybe it was my own lack of clarity around what a drama queen was. Maybe it was that my concept was born out of a moment of self-pity. Maybe it was that I was trying to write a book to fit Adam's parameters for non-fiction. Whatever the case, my writing was pedantic at best and the publisher eventually passed on the project.
I started over, returning to my original idea and pounding out a rough draft within ten months. I sent copies to my girlfriends, setting up a sort of focus-group where I'd throw a little happy hour in exchange for feedback. They were kind, but something was missing.
Around the same time my then-boyfriend was tired of bearing the financial burden for our two-person family. He asked me to contribute more to our household doing something... anything. He wouldn't say the words, "return to Corporate America," but what else could I do? Each creative project sat in a binder with rejection letters and exotic dancing was not my forte. I swallowed my pride, updated my resume and returned to work within three months.
Seven years later I make excellent money at a job that utilizes many of my quirky talents (excluding writing). I'm fortunate because if I'm going to work in a corporate environment then I work in a place where it's like "peas and carrots." In other words, I like my job. But as I said earlier this month, something is missing and I yearn for something more. I yearn to be fully me, to not filter my words through the corporate machine nor supress the loudest expressions of my sexuality and twisted sense of humor. My job may feel like a second skin, but only because I'm working incredibly hard to make up for lost time and money.
On one hand it's frustrating to wake up seven years later with a balance in my account, but no Oscar or million dollar paycheck. On the other hand, what I've found in the past six years is my voice. Finding my voice took finding my audience and finding my audience took having children... it took having daughters.
What is a drama queen? Is it someone who's over reactive, addicted to their emotions because they cannot control them? Is it something you can pen on an ethnic group as Shelia did in my focus group? Is it a filter through which someone -- me -- sees the world? Is a drama queen a victim who sees anyone who opposes her as a villain? Is it a label found in the anals of DSM-IV? Is it nothing more than a tension (or unity) of opposites that on its best day is the source of great fiction?
Maybe for me, being a drama queen is living life in the fullest and loudest pursuit of consciousness. It's being the type of woman my daughters might one day look up to and find inspiration as they navigate their own road to self-awareness. If I succeed at one thing in life it will be that my daughters know themselves. That they will not rely on others to define them and they will reach this place of acceptance earlier in their lives with me as their mother than they would have had they chosen otherwise.
Most people consider a drama queen to be some version of a high-strung teenager, a Jewish American Princess (Shelia's words - not mine) or a desperate 30-something-year-old watching Bridget Jones for the 27th time. None of these are the image I want for myself so I want to expand a bit on my January 10th entry and paint a bigger picture.
When the teleconference wrapped seven years ago I went right to work and cranked out a synopsis, chapter outline and marketing plan to promote my book, "Drama Queen's Guide to Dating." I booked a flight to LA and spent two days pimping my book proposal with my good friend Melinda.
If you ever want someone to walk beside you and sell your wares then Melinda is that person. I was talking to yet another chick-lit publisher when I heard Melinda talking to a rep from Adam's Media Corporation. "Have you heard of S.K. Karlsson?" Her light, professional style engaged them immediately and I turned to make the close. They liked my angle, they liked my proposal and they wanted to see my first draft.
Maybe it was my own lack of clarity around what a drama queen was. Maybe it was that my concept was born out of a moment of self-pity. Maybe it was that I was trying to write a book to fit Adam's parameters for non-fiction. Whatever the case, my writing was pedantic at best and the publisher eventually passed on the project.
I started over, returning to my original idea and pounding out a rough draft within ten months. I sent copies to my girlfriends, setting up a sort of focus-group where I'd throw a little happy hour in exchange for feedback. They were kind, but something was missing.
Around the same time my then-boyfriend was tired of bearing the financial burden for our two-person family. He asked me to contribute more to our household doing something... anything. He wouldn't say the words, "return to Corporate America," but what else could I do? Each creative project sat in a binder with rejection letters and exotic dancing was not my forte. I swallowed my pride, updated my resume and returned to work within three months.
Seven years later I make excellent money at a job that utilizes many of my quirky talents (excluding writing). I'm fortunate because if I'm going to work in a corporate environment then I work in a place where it's like "peas and carrots." In other words, I like my job. But as I said earlier this month, something is missing and I yearn for something more. I yearn to be fully me, to not filter my words through the corporate machine nor supress the loudest expressions of my sexuality and twisted sense of humor. My job may feel like a second skin, but only because I'm working incredibly hard to make up for lost time and money.
On one hand it's frustrating to wake up seven years later with a balance in my account, but no Oscar or million dollar paycheck. On the other hand, what I've found in the past six years is my voice. Finding my voice took finding my audience and finding my audience took having children... it took having daughters.
What is a drama queen? Is it someone who's over reactive, addicted to their emotions because they cannot control them? Is it something you can pen on an ethnic group as Shelia did in my focus group? Is it a filter through which someone -- me -- sees the world? Is a drama queen a victim who sees anyone who opposes her as a villain? Is it a label found in the anals of DSM-IV? Is it nothing more than a tension (or unity) of opposites that on its best day is the source of great fiction?
Maybe for me, being a drama queen is living life in the fullest and loudest pursuit of consciousness. It's being the type of woman my daughters might one day look up to and find inspiration as they navigate their own road to self-awareness. If I succeed at one thing in life it will be that my daughters know themselves. That they will not rely on others to define them and they will reach this place of acceptance earlier in their lives with me as their mother than they would have had they chosen otherwise.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Drama Queen Expert???
Picking up the trail from where I left off in December, here is my Drama Queen saga...
I sat on my couch feeling sorry for myself. "Everyone is the expert of something," the teleconference coach stated. Enrolled in a 8-week course to launch my "infopreneuring" career, my goal was to write a non-fiction book and marketing plan I could take to Book Expo in LA. The problem was that I had neither a topic nor an area of expertise. It was 2003 and I was creeping up on 34 with as much clarity on my career as I had had at 20.
I graduated from college with a Bachelor's of Science in Journalism. Majoring in advertising, I landed my dream job as a media buyer three years after graduation. Three years after that I was an account executive and could not care less about advertising - so I left the safety of my paycheck and health insurance to pursue writing. Except that I soon discovered a penchant for comedy and took the route of performing instead. A few years later I wrote, produced and starred in my own short film which then lead to the creation of two screenplays and a brief involvement with a cult (more on that later). To pay the bills I donned the hat of project manager meets sales consultant. It barely paid the bills which brought me back to the worlds of waitressing and temping until I finally met a man who would work a real job while I watched Oprah and dabbled in "being creative."
So here I was on the couch and as I reflected back over the previous 12 years I concluded that I had blown it. I had wasted a dozen years resenting Corporate America, procrastinating on any number of good ideas and distracting myself with romance. It seemed that by their mid-thirties any number of people had pulled their act together to produce a decent living - be it at a job or even at writing. Not me though, and as I sat there facing the culmination of my choices I felt the urge to cry. Except I didn't. At that moment when I could neither beat myself up nor feel sorry for myself any further a subtle realization crept over me. These thoughts... these emotions... they were familiar. They were identifiable and fixable. I knew they'd pass and I knew then that I was the expert of something. I wasn't the expert of feeling sorry for myself so much as I was the expert of drama. I could take the smallest passing thought, the slightest comment or casual look and spin it into a three-movie franchise called, "What About Me??????????????"
And that is how I finally identified myself as the expert of something. I was an expert drama queen and could see all the phases of my life bleed into each other with the fullest sprectrum of emotion one can experience without being bipolar. I hung up from my conference call and the seeds of my realization took root in a book called, Drama Queen's Guide to Dating. The book I eventually wrote remains unpublished and I dare say that copius amounts of drama have continued to unfold in my life over the past [gasp] seven years. Life is as stable as it can get (knock on wood) with a great corporate gig, loving family and fabulous house, and yet there is yearning for more.
I sat on my couch feeling sorry for myself. "Everyone is the expert of something," the teleconference coach stated. Enrolled in a 8-week course to launch my "infopreneuring" career, my goal was to write a non-fiction book and marketing plan I could take to Book Expo in LA. The problem was that I had neither a topic nor an area of expertise. It was 2003 and I was creeping up on 34 with as much clarity on my career as I had had at 20.
I graduated from college with a Bachelor's of Science in Journalism. Majoring in advertising, I landed my dream job as a media buyer three years after graduation. Three years after that I was an account executive and could not care less about advertising - so I left the safety of my paycheck and health insurance to pursue writing. Except that I soon discovered a penchant for comedy and took the route of performing instead. A few years later I wrote, produced and starred in my own short film which then lead to the creation of two screenplays and a brief involvement with a cult (more on that later). To pay the bills I donned the hat of project manager meets sales consultant. It barely paid the bills which brought me back to the worlds of waitressing and temping until I finally met a man who would work a real job while I watched Oprah and dabbled in "being creative."
So here I was on the couch and as I reflected back over the previous 12 years I concluded that I had blown it. I had wasted a dozen years resenting Corporate America, procrastinating on any number of good ideas and distracting myself with romance. It seemed that by their mid-thirties any number of people had pulled their act together to produce a decent living - be it at a job or even at writing. Not me though, and as I sat there facing the culmination of my choices I felt the urge to cry. Except I didn't. At that moment when I could neither beat myself up nor feel sorry for myself any further a subtle realization crept over me. These thoughts... these emotions... they were familiar. They were identifiable and fixable. I knew they'd pass and I knew then that I was the expert of something. I wasn't the expert of feeling sorry for myself so much as I was the expert of drama. I could take the smallest passing thought, the slightest comment or casual look and spin it into a three-movie franchise called, "What About Me??????????????"
And that is how I finally identified myself as the expert of something. I was an expert drama queen and could see all the phases of my life bleed into each other with the fullest sprectrum of emotion one can experience without being bipolar. I hung up from my conference call and the seeds of my realization took root in a book called, Drama Queen's Guide to Dating. The book I eventually wrote remains unpublished and I dare say that copius amounts of drama have continued to unfold in my life over the past [gasp] seven years. Life is as stable as it can get (knock on wood) with a great corporate gig, loving family and fabulous house, and yet there is yearning for more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)