January 2015 – Southern Wild

I know it’s almost February, but I’m still getting my Christmas movie fix in… So just bare that in mind when I use a Love Actually reference in…

Three

Two

One

👉 If you believe in the film Love Actually, you believe love is all around… which is a pretty sweet concept. But sometimes – it doesn’t feel like that. Sometimes you feel alone, and you feel completely separate from everyone, and you think you’re weird, and you think you’re a little too into that whole GIRLS series, and you think the fact you relate to the whack jobs makes you whack, and you really, truly think two-thirds of your friends have wondered why they chose you… because now they’re stuck with you.

Basically, without love you begin to question every aspect of yourself that you once had total faith in.

And I don’t just mean love from someone else.. I mean the hard stuff.

Love for yourself.

But when you feel that kind of real love. That kind of …

I know you, and I still love you love.

When you really know that you can be yourself (puppy rap and all), that you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to, and you can wear yoga pants even if you don’t plan on working out all day, and you can cry over the disease you don’t have but think you do, and you can bitch about needing to lose weight while you order an Iced Venti Green Tea Latte with Soy and a Vanilla Bean Scone, and you can span through your mind the thousands of possible life scenarios like:

What if I decide I don’t like water?

What if one day I forget how to use my ears?

What if I get in a car crash, suffer from severe memory loss, go into a drug induced coma, and wake up a republican?

What if Ryan Gosling and Joseph Gordon Levitt both confess their love for me on the same day… WHO WOULD I CHOOSE?!

What if people laughed at my dances moves??

Oh wait….

You see, that’s the tricking thing about love. IT’S REALLY EFFING ANNOYING.

And impossible to live without.

For me, falling in love with others is easy. I can almost love by default. I can love someone so much that I learn how to conveniently distort their true selves in my mind. I can look over your shitty-ness and your naivety, and I can totally see the good in you. I can act like legit, life changing events didn’t go down… Just because I’d rather us all go along being happy. (I still haven’t discovered whether this is a flaw or value)

When it comes to me, though…When I have to freaking like who I am – you’d think Hitler had just asked me to be the birth mother of the next race obliterator.

Which only aids in the frustration.

I don’t mean to group everyone together on this… But I will. Why are we like this? Why can we accept the flaws in others, but not ourselves? I realize this is considered narcissistic, but shouldn’t we love ourselves more than that?

***Insert real life story that corresponds with new life goal here 👇***

I was going through old moleskin notepads and came across something my sister said to me once.

Yea, I take notes on awesome things amazing people say to me. What of it?

Leah and I were walking around a H&M and I was bitching about my ass being huge or something along those lines when she said…

“Why do women sit around and talk about how fat they are? That’s not conversation.”

She’s pretty perfect and kick ass all around… So, the fact that she’s also crazy smart makes her frustratingly beautiful.

But really…

Why did I think that was ok? Why do any of us? No man would ever tell me they were frustrated with their side boob.. Or the way spandex clings to their ass. But how annoying would it be if they did?! I hate to get all feminist here, but I can’t help but think that I need to hone this shit down if I ever expect to be the next Anthony Bourdain. I mean, no ones going to trust a skinny bitch’s opinion about good food anyway. (ie: Giada De Laurentiis)

So.. Here’s to dropping that.

Here’s to seeing the beauty in every little flaw.

Here’s to fighting the urge to make the same “weight loss/healthy living” resolution the rest of the world makes.

Well, let me be truthful…

Here’s to more pistachio ice cream and less guilt.

-Cap

To my mother.

Writing about home is something I find myself doing quite frequently. I often fear that I am boring readers because after all… home is really only special to the person who calls it that. I told myself this Southern Wild blog would not be personal. I told myself I would stay on the surface with all matters that directly affect the people I love, but that’s hard to do. Because the people I love make me who I am, and I can’t very well write about any one else.

Every time I visit home I realize I’m not the Cap that left. There is an ache in my heart for all of the wonderful things I’m missing in the daily routine at home, but there is a love for the obliviousness in being away. There is something so painful about going home. I won’t go into detail, because I’m saving the juicy stuff for my big New York Times bestseller (kidding), but there is a heartache so deep that only seems to surface when I cross over Louisiana territory.

Youth seems to grant each individual the convenience of moving forward – something I’ve always found charming. But adult life, especially at the root of the pain, is a constant tug-a-war with progression. You see, I believe we are all allowed to make our own futures, but sometimes the things we hoped our futures would cover up make up too much of our foundation and the battle between growth and personal substance is too much to overcome.

Getting to my point..

I was a caring kid, but between my mother guarding me from the harsh reality of our life and my father lying about every aspect of daily interactions – it was hard to get a real grip on the interpersonal relationships within my family unit. For a large part of my life, I thought my mother was too saddened by her past to focus on the future. I grew up thinking my father, when sober, was the glue that held my family together.

How wrong I was.

Over the holidays, I watched as my mother set out every single item from my niece’s Christmas list under her tree. I watched her stress about the barbies and the books she purchased. I helped her mark off each item, and I even signed Santa’s name on Addie’s list. For the first time, I understood the magic in Christmas. It was like a spotlight suddenly beamed on my little heart, and I was no longer a Grinch. I’d venture to say my heart even grew a few sizes that day.

Yet, after the warm, fuzzy feeling came over me and covered my body in goose bumps, I wondered why my mom was in charge of playing Santa. So I asked her, because that’s what adulthood has taught me. I asked why she did the shopping, and why she arranged the gifts, and why she sprinkled glitter streamers all over the house.

“Well, who else was going to?”, was her response.

My body nearly doubled over from the realization. My mother had been covering up everyone else’s screw ups her entire adulthood, and she’d done it quite successfully.

Here I am, nearing Senior Citizen discounts, and I’ve only just been able to grasp the amount of roles she plays on a daily basis. I left shortly after Santa’s workshop exploded in her living room in a desperate attempt to hide the waterworks that were about to flow from my tear ducts. I think loads of people attempt to put into words the love and respect they have for their mothers, but I’ve never felt as though I understood that depth prior to her uttering, “who else was?”.

She’s been my everything even when I didn’t see it. She’s the foundation that makes looking back not quite so hard. She’s the reason I still call Louisiana home.

That’s the kind of woman I hope to be.

-Cap

Month: January 2015

The Thoughts She Thinks: A late new year proposal

A sappy love story