Life Lessons – Page 3 – Chloe J Sayers

Bah Humbug.

For the first 21 years of my life, I transformed into the Grinch every December. I liked Christmas, of course, but I didn’t love it. At least not the way everyone else around me seemed to.

From a young age, I had a natural distaste for knick knacks and clutter. So why in the world would decking the halls with snowglobes and messy tinsel and paper snowflakes be a good idea?

And of course it never quite goes away after Christmas. I threw innumerous death glares at my neighbors tacky Santa still living in their front yard in March.

On a more philosophical level; it bothered me that everyone put so much significance and pressure on one day. As if this one day of the year had to be the most special and the other 364 were just leading up to the one day worth living for. In my opinion, I’d rather have 364 really nice days instead.

Then I graduated college and Christmas wasn’t handed to me anymore. And I found myself inclined to hang up some (tasteful) decorations. And maybe bake a dozen Christmas cookies or two. When Christmas isn’t something that’s just guaranteed to happen whether you like it or not, I began to realize how wonderful it really is.

Fast forward to this afternoon when I got teary-eyed walking through the post office. And no, I wasn’t crying because of the absurd inefficiency created by one of the government’s largest beuracracies, but because the place was packed with people and their packages, all wrapped with care and being sent to the far corners of the country to loved ones.

And while I still aim to make the other 364 days of the year as pleasant and joyful as possible, I know now that special days and excuses to celebrate don’t come around all that often and we should take advantage of the time with loved ones while we can.

So this Grinch’s heart is slowly growing 3 sizes too. A very merry Christmas to you!

Happiness, Marriage

Meet Luke.

I’ve been waiting a long time to write this. But it never felt right until today, which is Luke’s birthday. Today is the perfect excuse to gush about my incredible husband, without having to apologize for it.

I’ve come to realize over the past 525 days that I have married the best man in the world. I had my suspicions long before we were married, but I think 12,600 hours of observation and empirical evidence seals the deal.

Now you know why I couldn’t write this earlier. Telling the world that I have the best man is natually going to be disappointing to everyone else. Men like Luke only come once in a generation and since I’ve claimed this one, it’ll likely be another 50-60 years before anyone else has a chance.

There’s not enough room on the Internet to explain each and every thing about Luke that makes him so incredible, so I’ll focus on the most obvious case study: myself.

Since knowing, dating, and marrying Luke, I am so much more myself in so many better ways. He focuses my natural competitive nature, dislodges deep set insecurities, and keeps this prone-to-take-life-way-too-seriously girl laughing every day.

He’s taught me that it’s okay to slow down and rest while at the same time explemifying a hard work ethic and dedication to one’s responsibilities.

I have a slight allergic reaction to all Christanese but I’ll risk it to say that Luke truly brings me closer to Christ as we learn more about God together. He’s also slightly allergic to Christianese which is great so I don’t have to worry about any pithy sayings cross-stiched on pillows showing up anytime soon.

Luke has woken up the brave soul inside of me. He’s taught me that life is the greatest adventure (and Hook is one of the best movies of all time) and that I do like a lot of foods that I’d been habitually avoiding for 20+ years. He inspires me to run faster and lift more and actually stretch after a workout.

Luke is also good for the environment. He’s taught me that recyclying isn’t just for hippies (oops) and was the first in our family to pioneer the capsule closet journey (which in his case, is the same 5 grey t-shirts that he’s had since high school).

Luke has shown me how to be kinder to others, especially store clerks. In return, I taught him how to avoid eye contact with kiosk people trying to dump lotion on you.

I could keep going, but if you’ve read this far, you’re probably going to have a sugar crash soon from all this syrupy sweet stuff. It’s not my normal blog fare, but days like today only come once a year.

With a warm heart and cold toes,

Chloe

Change, Life Lessons, Maturity, Pain, Writing

The World Is Too Much With Us

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;

–William Wordsworth, The World Is Too Much With Us

It feels like that alot nowadays, doesn’t it?

At least it does for me. Life is good. Really good, actually. I remind myself of that often when I have gray days. I write out my lists of gratefuls and count my blessings and I’m blown away by all the wonderful things in my life

a loving husband
delicious food
a great job
a caring church
family
friends
flowers
chocolate milk

The list goes on and on. And yet, the world is still too much with us. The daily drudgery of waking up, driving around, doing work, making food, eating food, doing dishes, and then doing it all over again can be slowly exhausting.

Without real problems in my life, I find myself obsessing over small insignificant decisions. Do I go to the gym or run errands during my lunch? Stir-fry or spaghetti for dinner? What does “crisp-tender” actually mean? Are my vegetables simultaneously crispy and tender? Have I been making stir-fry wrong for the past 18 months?

These are the kind of questions that can make you stare aimlessly at the ceiling for whole minutes until you start worrying about yourself staring aimlessly.

This post is untimely, because we’re facing a lot of political change which many people would classify as a Big Issue and here I am complaining about lots of little tiny issues. But personal energy and outlook doesn’t sync perfectly with political cycles.

My husband is great at these small problems. Usually, he reminds me that the exact problem is that I’m thinking about everything in regards to optimizing my schedule perfectly or more generally, interpreting life with myself at the center.

Most of my problems in life do circle back to an unhealthy focus on self. Which is why I’ll start this blog the way it began–with a poem:

So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.

–Robert Frost, Choose Something Like A Star

Change, Friendship, Life Lessons

Living with Ghosts

Every single time I drive to work, Bad Blood plays at least twice on the radio. And every time I 295591 hear the sad saga about the inadequacy of Band-Aids to cover bullet-hole sized wounds, I try to gather up those “I hate my back-stabbing friend” emotions (it’s a long drive and it gets boring) but I can’t think of a single friendship that ended with knife scars. I almost wish I could, partly so I could empathize with Taylor, but mostly because even a angst-filled relationship sounds good right now compared to __________ (I’ve got a blank space and I’ll write your name).

We joked about getting all of life’s transitions (graduating college, getting married, moving away from home, moving across the country, starting new jobs) out of the way in two months but the reality of that drastic upheaval is wishing you were part of a T-Swift video just so you’d have some friends nearby. To the many friends I do have, thank you for keeping up. Thank you for the texts, calls, letters, and e-mails that remind me that I am loved and in a way, who I am. I know we shouldn’t define ourselves by who we are to other people, but we do and I have learned how much I depend on those coffee dates and conversations to help me process life and determine who I am and where I’m going.

Taylor Swift may be ubiquitous but there are so many things in Southern California that are new to me. My runs around the neighborhood are a full aromtheraputic experience, ranging from roses to delicious Mexican dinners. It’s different working full-time instead of being an eternal intern. It’s far different to be a wife than a fiance and much more wonderful. I can see palm trees out my bedroom window and the work break room and everywhere else.

Adventure, Books, Happiness, Life Lessons

A Happy Weekend

As a social media specialist, I spend most of my working hours browsing feeds. And I’ll be honest, it’s a little depressing. I haven’t run any stats but it does feel like 87% of posts are predominately negative.

In an effort to balance out that ratio, I wanted to quickly share 3 wonderful things that happened this weekend and 2 silly ones.

3 Wonderful Things

1. I had a chance to read in a coffee shop and this sparked a conversation with a girl and her grandma about Russian literature and wedding planning. If you’re hesitant to start a conversation with a stranger, go for it. It might just make their day like it did mine.

2. I went into a local gift store where I had a gift card to use. The name of the store had changed and I found out when I got inside that the entire ownership had changed, and thus the current owners didn’t have the money that was paid for my gift card and would basically be giving me free merchandise so they couldn’t take it. As a business-minded person, I completely understood, we had a pleasant conversation, I said I would make the purchase anyway, went to grab my item and when I came back was told they would honor the gift card anyway. Customer service for the win.

3. My husband and I made our bi-weekly trip to the library used book store and realized once we got there that we didn’t have enough cash for the awesome new (old) classics that had come in. Before we realized what was happening, a sweet elderly lady pushed a $20 bill into our hands and told us to buy all the books we wanted. Since our bill was way under that, we passed the book money on to the girl behind us.

2 Silly Things

1. We went to Costco on Friday and the receipt checker said “Thank you and see you tomorrow!” as we departed. I died laughing but almost felt bad we didn’t come back on Saturday to say hi.

2. A man was brushing his teeth in the Home Depot parking lot when I dropped Luke off for work. Weird, but funny.

How was your weekend? What made you smile?

Happiness, Life Lessons, Marriage, Personal Finances, Writing

Marriage | The First Year

As of today, we’ve got 365 days of married bliss under our belts and while that doesn’t quite make us marriage experts, it does give me the authority to comment on the dreaded “First Year of Marriage.” Cue the dark lights and sad faces.

Real confession time: the first year of marriage was great.

I’m 100% speaking only out of my own experience so if you’re first year of marriage was the worst or just so-so, I’m truly sorry & hope things got better. But since I have so many friends that are getting married this summer (as evidenced by the growing number of bridesmaids dresses in my closet), I wanted to share this ray of hope.

The first year of marriage does not have to be horrible. Contrary to what every well-meaning marriage book and article will tell you, the first year of marriage does not HAVE to entail:

Fights over money
Time battles over friendships
Arguments over where you spend the holidays
General despair
No more fun
Battling over how you squeeze the toothpaste tube (does anyone actually fight over that? Buy separate toothpaste tubes people. Problem solved)

Those are the common issues that a quick Google search will show you. Or just read the first chapter of any marriage book. Most of the ones we read started with: “You thought marriage would be great. But it’s actually super difficult and painful. Say goodbye to happiness now.”

That might be a bit of an exaggeration and while I completely appreciate the effort to set realistic expectations, but I fear that going into marriage with this deluge of fear-mongering propaganda about how much you’ll fight, the dark secrets you’ll discover, and just how generally miserable marriage can be won’t exactly set you on the path to success.Thankfully, Luke and I were blessed with great premarital counseling, wise older friends, and an innate love of budgeting. I’d highly encourage you to read those marriage books because they have a lot to offer after the first chapter. Here’s my summary of the advice from books, the Bible, and mentors that helped us have an awesome first year of marriage:

Discuss as many unspoken rules as you can find before marriage.
Embrace the money talk. Budgeting can sound scary, but it also can be super fun to set saving goals and get creative with a food budget.
Over-communicate. Girls, we love to get offended when guys can’t read our minds. “But shouldn’t they know exactly what I want to eat for dinner without me telling them?” Or worse: “He should know that xyz would make me upset! By doing it anyway, he clearly doesn’t care for my feelings.” Actually, it’s pretty uncaring to get mad at someone for not being able to read your mind or your hints.
Don’t keep score. I learned this one the hard way, which you can read about here.
Know which battles to fight. If I wanted to, I could probably get annoyed with Luke about pretty much anything. But I don’t have to. I can choose to take a page out of Queen Elsa’s songbook and simply let. it. go. It’s beautiful. And my out-of-tune warbling rendition of this overplayed mantra always lightens the mood 🙂

I’m beyond excited to witness the many marriages that are forming this summer and have loved learning from the other newlyweds and not-so-newlyweds in my life. As I reflect over this past year and sentimentally sob my way through the many wedding cards, notes, and kind advice given to Luke and I, I mostly want to say: Thank You. Thanks to the family and friends that made our wedding day so special. Thanks to the new friends that helped us move across the country and settle down in the foreign land of California. Thanks to the old friends who have stayed in touch and encouraged us every step of the way.

Change, Cooking, Life Lessons

365 Days Later

If I’m reading my Facebook news feed correctly, everyone graduated this weekend. Congrats! I personally had the pleasure of jetting up to San Francisco and watching my talent sister receive a well-deserved Bachelors of Fine Arts. Pretty sure she exerted more energy in a week of dance classes than I did in my entire 4 years of scurrying across my square mile campus.

It’s cliche, but true, that it’s hard to believe an entire year has passed since I too sweated in a black hospital gown and tried to keep my cap from escaping off my head (my hair has a mind of its own and didn’t like the competition).

Other than telling you how awesome my sister is, I don’t have a great thesis for this blog post but I’ve been in a reflect-y mood lately and figured other recent alums might be in the same boat.

Side Note: I’ve noticed lately that I over-hyphenate. See last 2 sentences for examples. Not sure when this started, but every time I read something I write I find at least 5 unnecessarily hyphenated words. I’m considering removing the worn-out punctuation mark from my keyboard. Just did it again. Unbelievable.

Post-college life has been far better & far worse than I imagined. Off the top of my head, below are my top unexpected life lessons from the last 12 months.

1. Keeping yourself alive (without spending a fortune) isn’t as easy as it seems

Most recent college grads don’t have $500 to blow on food each month. Limited grocery budgets means a lot of planning, home-cooked meals, and leftovers. Some weeks, getting food on the table EVERY SINGLE DAY takes more strategy than a pro chess game.

2. Evenings are the BEST

In college, there is no clocking out. Study, sleep, shower and repeat dominate your schedule. Once other people start paying you to do work instead of you paying to volunteer your free labor, you can actually stop working. In fact, it’s recommended if you want a working lifespan of longer than 3 month stints.

3. Everything changes but then it doesn’t.

The first few months out of college were a Wizard of Oz level tornado. Getting married, moving across the country, new job, car insurance, realizing you grossly overpaid for car insurance 3 months later, the list of “real world” acclimating to-dos felt endless. Until it ended. And then you feel sadly nostalgic and wonder why your life doesn’t change dramatically every semester anymore.

Three?! That’s all I could come up with after moving cross-country, new jobs, weddings, innumerable finger cuts from bulk slicing onions, and dozens of conversations with post-grad friends?!

I need your help, guys. What have you learned in this past year (or years) of finding our own little corners of the world?

Economics, Life Lessons, Organization

The Choice Is In Your Hands

Almost all of Luke and mine dates start or end with a bookstore. Preferably used ones, with dazed looking shopkeepers who rarely look up from their book when you enter. We started one of our first forays into San Diego with such a stop.

While Luke enjoys browsing the classics sections potentially indefinitely, I’m looking for one of three things: a business leadership book with a witty subtitle, a cookbook published in this millennium, or anything by Rand, Hayek, or Mises. The book I walked out with fell into the latter category, “The Road to Serfdom” by F. A. Hayek. What really sold me on this particular copy was the handwritten note in the front cover, “If you’re thinking about voting for Bernie Sanders, read this first.”

I wasn’t Feeling the Bern, but I’m always good for some Austrian economics. This particular quote is most powerful when applied to economic freedom, but it applies to our lives in general as well.

“That people should wish to be relieved of the bitter choice which hard facts often impose upon them is not surprising. But few want to be relieved through having the choice made for them by others. People just wish that the choice should not be necessary at all.”

One of my most annoying habits my senior year of college was constantly reminding friends, fiance and self that, “You can’t have it both ways.” For some reason, having to choose between 2 good things seems to go against everything in our DNA. We desperately fight against it.

We try to squeeze two social engagements into one night, end up hurrying out of one, being late to the other, and not enjoying either. We don’t want to limit our hobbies or extracurricular activities, so we sign-up for everything and end up more stressed than enriched. We want to have time with our loved ones but not miss any e-mails from work so we cheapen our conversations with distracting notifications and then wonder why we always feel overworked.

The reality is, not only are hard choices between more than one good thing inevitable, they are beautiful. Having the ability to choose is a precious gift that shouldn’t be taken lightly. We have the freedom* to make choices about our future, where we live, what work we do, how we worship, and what’s for dinner tonight. Even though that last one can irrationally stress me out to no end, I don’t want to take for granted the beautiful gift that is choice.

So next time I catch myself spending all my free thoughts on whether I should go to Pilates or take a walk during lunch, I’ll be thankful for choosing. Time, money, and life is scarce nowadays. Use it wisely.

*For the time being–I told you I read Hayek, right?

About Me, Life Lessons, Writing

The Mutually Exclusive Self

If you haven’t guessed already, I process through the written word. Which is basically the reason for the existence of this blog, and my old one (guys, I’ve been blogging for SIX YEARS. I’m not old enough to have a half-dozen anniversary for my blog!). Anyways, I also process through extended e-mail conversations. It was during one of these electronic epistles that I found myself typing this absurdity:

“If I don’t do something perfectly the first time, I feel like I failed. Even if I go back and make it better, it still doesn’t feel good enough because it wasn’t PERFECT. THE FIRST TIME.”

When I see my words staring back at me, I realize I’m probably certifiable. Because I would also eagerly and honestly tell you that at 22 years of age, I don’t know everything (or much of anything), and I love learning new skills and perfecting old ones, and I want to be a life-long learner. Which is mutually exclusive with viewing imperfection at the first try as failure.

This isn’t a new internal paradox, of course. I was that sickeningly annoying college student that actually wasn’t happy unless I got 100%. It didn’t matter if I got an A, I wasn’t satisfied until I could prove that I had absolutely mastered (or memorized) the material. And once I hit the 100% level–I wanted more. See, this sick cycle NEVER ENDS. If there was extra credit on the table, I’d better get over 100%, otherwise, I was a failure. I’m sharing this in the hopes that there are others suffering from the same incompatible mindsets: trying to learn and grow while accepting nothing short of perfection.

If you’re like me, can we make a pinky promise together? That the next time we aren’t perfect in our first attempts, we’ll stop telling ourselves we’re failures? We are learners. We are brave souls willing to make mistakes to do better next time. Even if better isn’t perfection.

Life Lessons, Marriage, Maturity, Organization

Beady Eyes

Every since my first encounter with Office Depot, I’ve been in love with all things organization. Now that I’m a bit older and have something of an aesthetic sense (I still wear mismatched socks, so don’t be too impressed), my passion for post-its has grown to include pretty key holders and paper stackers and things called “Catch-Alls” which is the prettiest way of saying “Junk Drawer.”

Our apartment came furnished. This meant my husband and I were able to move across the country for under $300 (including gas) and walk into a lovely little studio apartment with more lamps and bookshelves than we could ever need. And stuffed pheasants. And silky curtains. And doilies and some kind of branchy bathroom decor and fake plants and mismatched floral prints and did I mentioned the stuffed pheasants? These aren’t complaints, because this apartment is quite possibly the best thing that has ever happened to us, but I’m not winning any decor awards anytime soon.

And that’s okay. Because this is where our best and worst moments live; often simultaneously.

I hear our landlords’ TV and dogs through our thin connecting wall. I can choose to hear the disruptive sounds of yet another made-for-TV movie or I can hear the hospitality of a generous couple that shares their life with us.

I see the gross sticky remains of spilled hot chocolate in my Tupperware drawer. Or I can see mercy personified in my husband as he patiently cleaned up my spill and then offered me his own warm cocoa.

I groan about dirty dishes that will always exist forever or I can remember that these are ghosts of meals prepared with laughter and dinners eaten in good company.

I see dead stuffed pheasants watching me with their beady black eyes as they perch atop my closet or I can see dead stuffed pheasants. No romanticizing my way out of that one.

So much of life is perspective. And it doesn’t have to be Pinterest perfect to be beautiful.