one thing a day

Everyone has that friend.

The friend that is always checking up in people asking them "how are you? really?", cleaning up the red solo cups at their party while people are still indulging in the froth-water light beer, and planning functions with a myriad of people you'd rather not hang out with that night.

The photo book friend.

I’m that friend. In college, some repressed gene emerged mid-way through my first semester of second year, a gene that exposed my love of hostessing and an overwhelming need to bring all of my friends around the same table. The friend that makes the photo-book for everyone bef abroad , the friend that constantly checked in with the others and the girl that created a premature Facebook group to keep our eleven friends, all of whom lived within a mile radius, connected. 

I’d made a commitment to myself after a selfish first-year that I would put my friends first, and I savored being the connector.  This would have been all fine and dandy had I not took it personally that, sometimes, sophomores in college do not want to be told what to do nor be cleaned up after. Like my own parents, I quickly realized that taking the actions of fun-chasing, free-spirited, twenty year-olds to heart was exhausting and a waste of time.

One of the things that I forced upon my poor friends was the "family dinner". Once a week, I sanctioned a "fam din" at one of the four dining halls (keeping it classy), asking whoever was available that week to show up. Some of my friends, the friends that were grappling with their own sense of identity and naturally inclined to resist any forms of constraint, grumbled and complained, making rare but worthy appearances. 

But the majority of my friends made the effort every week to show up to a robust conversation over god-awful, southern-inspired cafeteria food. As soon as we all crammed into a corner booth at Colonnades or the round table at the fancier 1889, we were giddy like kids, anxiously relaying stories from our school week. The catch-up sessions (I took to calling them Heinz 57’s) were laugh inducing, tear jerking and thought provoking, sometimes in that order but typically cycical throughout the hour or two the dinner lasted. It was our chance to decipher that strange text message from Duffy’s on-again, off-again fling, to celebrate the achievement of Chelsea being inducted into an honors business society or erupt in laughter at Jessica’s awkward class presentation story.

I’m not sure my friends will ever understand how much those meals meant to me. Bringing all the people that I loved into one place made me feel complete; I naively believed that because I felt connected to them, they would all naturally feel connected and hit it off, always. Growing up, we placed a high importance on family dinners; it was basically the only routine in our household. Conversation that is sparked over good food with good people is unprecedented and irreplaceable. I believe that people’s truest selves shine brightest from the dinner table, a place where they feel at ease because, after all, it is a consistent action- they sit at some form of a dinner table every single day.

So when it came time to celebrate my first Canadian Thanksgiving, it was only just that a proper dinner connecting some of my newest and closest friends was to happen. With two Australians, a Peruvian, an American and a Canadian, we had the recipe for an interesting dinner from the get-go.

This was our first time ever cooking a real Thanksgiving meal on our own, and it was scary. Several times leading up to the day I questioned Carling, “are we seriously going to cook a turkey? Isn’t that like, really, really, hard?” Throw in three people who have never eaten a stuffed bird or candied yams and this challenge became downright terrifying.

Luckily, after the idea was born, my friend Carling took the lead on this, actioning and executing everything from stuffing the bird to setting the table. I acted as a sous-chef to her, completing any and all minute tasks as she took control. I watched with amazement as she whipped her way around the kitchen, much more knowledgably in the kitchen than her 20 years gave off. Her first time cooking a bird, she was just as nervous as I, and the two of us buzzed around the kitchen like bees as our other friends watched.

The entire meal took over ten hours to complete, from shopping to thawing to serving it all up on a silver platter. We did not hold back; it was equally important with Carling as it was for me to bring this massively important tradition to our friends who had never experienced it before. What is Thanksgiving but a family dinner on steroids, the truest form of connecting awesome people over an awesome meal? Both of us the photo book friend, we made it a priority that our hosts, Chelsea and Xav, walked away with the understanding and appreciation of the dinner as we did.

Once completed and laid out, I felt my heart swell with pride- we’d done it. It wasn’t just cooking the food that was scary; it was the entire action of bringing people together over a formal dinner. I’d brought this love for connecting people over the table with me to a new country, and somehow, in two short months, I’d found people to fill the seats, seats that would be empty had I not embarked on this journey thirty days ago.

    _______________________________________________________________

These thirty days have forced me to get outside my comfort zone and commit to things I normally never would have, which in return has granted me with incredible opportunities and caused me to form amazing new, honest relationships. 

Here’s the crazy thing: after thirty days of challenging myself to leave my comfort zone, this perspective shift has become permanent. People say that it takes thirty days to make a habit stick, and I finally understand it. I say yes without a second thought now, I make bold requests and ask for forgiveness rather than permission. I feel like even though I’m tempting fate and putting myself out there in an extreme way, I’m more in control of my life than I’ve ever been.

So what’s next? Trust that I’m doing one thing a day, even if I’m not sharing it here. My commitment is now to share one scary thing a week here, the “best of” from the week, if you will. 

My ask? Join me. Stop thinking about it, telling me you want to do it, or saying “once I graduate/work settles down/ I have some free time/ my children go to college” you'll do it. Do it now.

Scary shit awaits.

I grew up in the same house that my mom did.

A quaint, green-shuttered, ivy covered house on Powell Street. She spent the latter half of her childhood in the house, moving in when she was in high school, avoiding the creak in the dining room floors when sneaking out and throwing parties in the classically retro, fishbowl-like indoor porch. I spent the better half of my childhood in this house, moving out when I was nine, fearing the monsters in the crawl space and taking extreme joy in the screams that followed from my sister after flushing the toilet while she took a shower.

The house had a lot of character, but the best part of it was the kitchen. Albeit a biasly infused statement, in that red-and-white accented room with green placemats and a telephone attached to the underside of the Island, most of my earliest memories were formed. The highlight of this kitchen, however, was the table. This lightly stained wooden table featured a booth that was seemingly carved right out of the wall; later, I found out that this was called a “built-in table”. The booth that became harder and harder to scramble in to as the pencil on the opposing wall marking my height grew higher and higher heard the best of the Cragin family conversations.

Every night, the three of us girls slid into this booth in our respective order, our skinny thighs sticking with sweat to the lightly-stained wood in the dog days of August and our knobby knees chattering together in the frigid days of February. Depending on the day of the week, we had different delicacies, ranging between Mac n Cheese with cut up hot dogs on Mondays to chicken tacos on Thursdays. Given that our family consisted of a traveling salesman father and three busy girls from the ages of 3-12, my mom had difficulty instilling any semblance of routine into these dinners.

But one part of these meals was always consistent. My father insisted, regardless of the season, the meal or that night’s attendants, we were to share “two good things”. These were “two good things” that had happened that day; two stories, sentences or statements that forced us to reflect on our day in a positive light.

In retrospect, this activity was most likely born in order to get any other response other than "fine" when our parents asked us how our days were; have a conversation with anyone under the age of thirteen and you'll quickly discover how one-sided it is. These two things could be anything; they just had to be "good". Typical responses varied from scoring a goal in a soccer game (my eldest sister) getting a 100% on a spelling quiz (my middle sister) or getting picked to speak a line at the school’s assembly (me).

In later years, when I tried to implement this into dinners with my friends, they insisted they’d done the same thing in their households; only it was called “rose and thorn”. However, in the Cragin home, thorns were strictly prohibited when sharing our two good things. This wasn’t an opportunity to complain about our days nor was it a time to bring even more negative energy to the dinner table than is naturally brought in by two pre-adolescent girls.

Rather it was a time to be thankful for the good things that we either created or others created for us in our day, drawing on the positive to allow for animated conversation and friendly arguments. We were not allowed to judge each other for our good things, nor were we allowed to repeat eachother. Only my dad was allowed to use the same thing every night: “tonight's dinner with my four favorite girls in the world”.

I am extremely grateful for this practice that I frankly resented most of the time, especially after the age of 14. However, I have seen the impact that this simple activity has made on me; whether it is during yoga, on a run or over dinner with others, it is instinctual for me to reflect on the good that was in my life that day. I am also appreciative of this as a conversation topic; I have spent many-a-meal with new friends, old friends and acquaintances prodding them for an answer to this question. The genuine responses that bubble up after some thought are always like a skylight to the soul and create excellent conversation.

For today’s challenge, I decided to ask everyone I came into contact with what they were thankful for, the “good thing” culmination of their year. The check-out lady at Safeway, the lead guitarist playing 70’s rock classics at a small bar in Banff, even some friendly patrons on the street. Striking up conversation with strangers is, well, strange in general, but asking such a personal question is even harder. Forsaking all normalities of small talk that we are all accustomed to, I approached these unassuming people without an introduction, just asking a seemingly simple question.

“Excuse me, what are you thankful for this year?”

People got scared, nervous, and confused, as if I was a lawyer asking the last question that would determine the verdict on their sentence. The answers they gave varied depending on their amount of reflectivity before answering as well as the number of drinks they were deep. Some people were overwhelmed and disgusted with my bombardment, offended and shutting me off with a close-lipped smile and one word answers- “this beer.”

But others, others delved into deep, personal secrets, as if they’d been waiting for someone to ask them for this Good Thing all year. Eager to talk and expand on their stories, I caught glimpses of people’s personalities simply through one question.

I’m thankful I get two times to reflect; being a quasi-canadian I will be stuffing myself with Turkey not once, but twice. I’m thankful that I have so much to be thankful for and so many people to ask what they are thankful for. But mostly, I’m thankful for that kitchen table in the white panelled-house on Powell street- the first place I learned how to be thankful.

The more time that passes after graduation, the more I've realized one astounding fact:

College prepares you for none of the actual stuff you need to know for the real world. 

Dating, for example. College is a breeding ground for mediocre relationships, relationships that seem like the end-all-be all for those four years and are forgotten about as as soon as those pointy hats are thrown in the air on that sticky humid day in May. I could never understand why my Grandmother was so baffled over the fact that I was single for the majority of my college career until I started dating in the real world. I truly believed that men just didn't take women on dates anymore, that chivalry had died and we were in a new age of getting into relationship, until I left the bubble that is University. Grandma, I don't blame you for thinking I had turned asexual in college; that was not a real stage of life as far as the dating aspect goes. I wish that included in our orientation package was a flier that read "these next four years do not bear any resemblance to how your love life will look the rest of your life". 

Another big secret no one lets on until you've graduated is that "down time" dies with your diploma. I have yet to go on Pinterest once since I've started work, and that whole "homework ends after college" piece is a load of crap as well. I am lucky if I get in ten pages of reading of Divergent in before I pass out; and I fully consider my life balanced. 

Finally, a big secret no one tells you about post-college life is this: making new friends in your twenties is weird. No matter if you are 22 or 32, moving to a new city and attempting to get close with new people your age is a straight up strange time. In college you are naturally bounded to people around you; you're all in the same boat and you all easily rock that boat together. But post-fake-life/college, acquiring new friends is work. It takes an absolute effort to get a new friend's number, much less a solidified plan of the next time you will hang out. Also something no one tells you: making friends is much like the first component on this list- it is literally like dating. When is the right time to ask for your new friend's number? How soon is too soon to text "thank you" after getting drinks? What do you wear to the first house party your new friend invites you to? I am 100% straight, but I have been on more girl dates in the past few months than I have my entire life, all just to find a few friends.

However, for every person that it took a lot of effort to get to know, there has been a few people that the friendship forms naturally. So naturally, in fact, that you wonder if you'd previously been old ladies sitting in rocking chairs drinking wine and gossiping together in your previous lives. 

That was the case with one of my close friends in Vancouver, Carling. The friendship happened easily, so easily I don't even remember how it even began. On the third time we hung out, we agreed to road trip to Banff to visit our other (and my newly acquired) friends, Chelsea and Xavier AKA the gorgeous Aussies.

To be fair, at the time I'd thought Banff was a mere 3 hour drive from Vancouver. I was conditioned to say "yes" to everything, even offering to drive my car out of gratitude for being included in such a trip. It wasn't until about a month later when I realized the drive would actually be 10 hours, 9 if we were speeding, which I did for the first half due to my inability to convert kilometres to miles. My first proper road trip aside from trekking to North Carolina form Chicago with my mom, I was giddy the entire time. 

The crazy thing no one tells you after college is this: you can still make friends post-graduation. Not just friends; hollywood has created a stigma that you have three groups of friends, your high school friends, your college friends, and than your neighbors whose children yours play with and therefore become your friends, but this is not true. You can make genuine close friends, friends that can fill the void of the two older sisters you've left behind, friends that open up their home to you for a long weekend after only knowing you for a couple of weeks and friends that you can be enclosed with in a small car for a day's drive and not have one awkward silence.

If I was able to reveal everything I did during this challenge on a public forum, than I wouldn't have been doing things scary enough.

Keep your mind out of the gutter, dirty dog. Nothing of that sort; today's challenge encompassed something personal, a confrontation that forced me to be bold, brave, and ask for forgiveness rather than permission. I stepped up to the plate, set my stance, swung, and... 

well, for right now, the ball is still floating mid-air. 

It all started with water, a computer, and a broken screen error.

No, scratch that, it started before that. It all started with an awkward encounter with someone who I did not want to see before I could get my morning coffee in me. 

Actually, it wasn't even then. It was last night, at the soccer game.

I have been consistently terrible at my soccer games. Four weeks in, I have tripped, slipped and rolled my way through each of my Tuesday night soccer games. Somehow I managed to score one goal, a total mistake on happenstance that was the consequence of a ball ricocheting off the edge of my sneaker.

Last night, I had one of those moments that you cursed apple for not yet creating a "backspace" button for life. I got a break-away, or at least I was broken away from the pack for a millisecond long enough to realize I could look up and see the goal. My body surged forward, the ball underneath me. In that moment I realized my momentum was carrying the top half of my body forward at a disproportionate rate than my lower half. What resulted was an acute pain accompanied by some sort of pop followed by my eyes welling with tears and then me hobbling over to the sidelines to ask for a sub.

A post-game beer and icing session later, my pride was more wounded than my knee. This morning, however, I swung my feet to the right side of the bed to stretch, and felt extreme pain upon standing. 

This is when the evolution to Eeyore begun.

Next stop: coffee shop. At this particular coffee shop, of which I've become a regular in the past three weeks, there is this fruit-infused water in a jug which you can help yourself too. Filling up my cup as quickly as possible to avoid a conversation that I did not want to have, I haphazardly twisted on the lid and threw it into my bag.

I should have suspected it before I heard the sloshing noise in my bad that something was off, but it wasn't until I unzipped my bag when I found the next surprise. My laptop was, quite literally, an Apple bobbing in the water/juice mixture. The screen resembled a post-apocalyptic Wall-E by the looks of its blinking and sputtering screen. 

Game over. I'd checked out of the day by 9AM. I lived the rest of the day through the Shitty Day lens, a cloudy, dark-hued Brannen filter had it been instagrammed. I carried on though the motions, not willing to accept the day as anything more than ruined.

When I walked home, I passed three homeless men without even noticing, the fog of gloom surrounding me. I turned to enter Whole Foods, tripping over a sign that I hadn't noticed. I went to kick the sign in frustration, my knee screaming in pain as I wound up, when I noticed a homeless man on his knees, his hands in prayer and his eyes closed. The signs around him, the sign I was preparing to punt, were asking for help. These signs were meticulously crafted using multiple colors and types of paper and were quickly soaking through, though he didn't seem to notice. 

Not to over dramatize this, but I had a "doh!" moment. It dawned on me that my troubles were really not that bad, they were minuscule in the grand scheme, yet I had refused to get off the "woe is me" train the entire day. I went inside the grocery store and purchased my meal as well as an extra for the man outside. My heart raced I walked right up to him and asked how he was doing that day, feeling stupid as soon as the words exited my mouth. Obviously not awesome, Mattie, you idiot.

But he took me by surprise as he enthusiastically replied, "great, thank you, how are you?" 

Great. Soaking wet, kneeling on hard concrete for hours on end, nothing to his name except for the bag next to him, he was great.

To be completely honest, I felt like an asshole when I handed him the soup and bread I'd bought him. I was acting selfishly; I needed a little piece of his life to enter into mine to gain perspective. I needed to complete this act, an act others regarded as "selfless", to feel better and get me out of this rut. What is that saying, no good deed goes unpunished? Here I was, feeling like the clouds had finally parted, all because I'd tripped over a sign asking for food that forced me to come out of the toilet that was my day. 

However, this man was so genuinely grateful for the food, that a part of me let go of this feeling and just accepted that, at the very least, this was an equal exchange. It may not have been selfless, but through the currency of food and feelings, we had made a transaction.

One of my closest and wisest friends, Chelsea, said to me after I apologized for venting over something trivial when she herself was dealing with a major medical diagnosis,"never undermine your own problems, in your head they are taking up just as much space as a problem in someone else's head; no one is allowed to say their problem is more or less important because equal space is being filled."  This will stick with me until the day I die; we're allowed to have shitty days and let the space in our head be engulfed by it, no matter where they sit on the spectrum of severity. 

When I went through my yoga teacher training, I had no intentions of ever teaching.

Confession: I was only one year deep into yoga during my yoga teacher's certification. The training had happened almost as a fluke; a five year goal that'd been posted on a wall and forgotten about, until it wasn't any longer. I'd already laid the foundation of January- I was taking Winter Term, the one-month, compacted study-abroad session offered to all undergrads, to go to India. Kerala, actually, a small town on the southwestern coast where we would teach science to young students of all social and economical backgrounds.

The trip fell through, not on my university's part but rather in a rare case of my parents refusing to let me do something due to my safety. I was okay with it, as I know I'll fall visit India one day, but was not ready to be on the Ghost Town of a campus for a month. 

So, yoga teacher training it was. 

I intended on bettering my practice; a week spent in the mountains of Costa Rica, flowing and twisting and inverting for sixteen hours a day would do both my mind and body good. I figured that if I was to go on a yoga retreat for a week, I might as well get certified as well- if it led nowhere other than my own mat at the back of the studio, than so be it. 

I had no intentions of teaching yoga upon my return.

Looking back, it is amazing that I had the confidence to enter into such a commitment with so little knowledge of what it was. I envisioned coconuts with dainty straws, long hours spent soaking up rays and some luxurious yoga classes in between. Instead, I was fortunate enough to endure seven days of hours on hours in a heated studio practicing powerful, sweat-inducing yoga, memorizing sanskrit and learning the body's alignment. It was incredible, inspiring and exhausting, and upon boarding the plane, I realized that I couldn't let this teaching bit only live in Alajuela, Costa Rica. 

I've had some amazing mentors in my life, but none as great as my first yoga teacher at a small studio called Om Shanti in Burlington, North Carolina. When I tell people here that my yoga practice bloomed in a small town in rural north carolina, they are amazed and amused. However, I owe this teacher everything for getting me excited about the practice. When I returned, I was having a conversation with the two owners of this studio when they asked if I had interest in teaching. Did I ever, I responded.

The first class I taught was hilarious and uncomfortable like a dog wearing a sweater. About ten of my closest friends trotted into the studio, it being many of their first yoga class, unrolling their mats and temporarily forgetting their own insecurities in order to support me. I stuttered, stopped and made inappropriate jokes, but came through the other side of that hour an official teacher. I have never in my life felt such unconditional love than after teaching that class; nothing compares to seeing my friends utterly blissed-out in savasana, a temporary peace from the hectic college life, a peace that I'd helped guide them to.

I grew stronger as the weeks went by, finding my voice and my confidence with each class I taught. Different friends trickled in and out, each staying long enough to have an impact on the way I saw yoga. The image of some of my tallest guy friends dripping with sweat, cursing me as they made their way into their very first pigeon pose will forever be ingrained in this series of memories.

Those once-a-week classes were the highlight of my senior year; I found more connected to the best version of myself in that tiny, purple-walled studio than at any other time.  However, once I touched down in Vancouver, I was amongst the all-stars. Like Dorothy without my ruby red slippers, I was lost in a yogi land that I didn't yet have the caliber of experience to be in. I decided to forgo teaching until I could acquire more training. 

But God, I missed it. This Mattie version 2.0 was laying dormant inside me, yet occasionally rumbling, threatening to surface at random times. I voiced this to my teammates, and they insisted that I teach a class at the office. 

Teaching on the floor that some of the most prestigious yoga teachers in the world have taught on was my own version of singing at the Grand Ole Opery. Don't get me wrong, it was downright terrifying to show this vulnerable side of myself to those who'd only seen me as the intern-turned-coordinator. They had taken yoga classes from the greats and I was a new teacher; I opened myself up to judgement and ridicule, which of course they would never give, but I made it possible should they have a change of heart.

But it was simply magical. The rush I got from the students in savasana was identical as all those classes I'd taught in the tiny, humid yoga studio in North Carolina. It became apparant how necessary it was for me to allow this side of me to enter back into my life, stat. 

When I went to a showing of my apartment for the first time, my future landlord tried to talk me out of it.

"You're young, you party, you loud" he said.

I told him that I just moved and I did not have friends in this city. I told him that after three years of living in essentially a fraternity house, I was ready to have my own place where my shoes didn't stick to the floor and I didn't find mice poop on my pillow. I laughed when he relayed a story of another young immigrant to Vancouver who had moved into the building singing the same tune, only to be evicted three months later due to a series of loud parties. I shrugged my shoulders and told him that even if I wanted to have a party, I wouldn't even have the bodies to fill the space. 

His reluctance, however, was understandable. First time apartment-owners can be messy. The first apartment I lived in sans supervision during college resulted in an angry email from the landlord citing each reason why he was keeping the security deposit, images attached. My parents were less than pleased to recieve emails of a hole in a wall, a clogged toilet and paint on the couches.

However, that was when I had friends. One week into my move to Vancouver, I was a bit near sighted, convinced that I'd left anyone who'd ever loved or would love me behind, thousands of miles way. There would not be parties, I insisted, and I love to ideally get in bed by 10Pm every night. 

After much insistence verging on bribery on my part, he eventually allowed me to sign a lease. I moved in two months later.

As I got settled into my apartment over the past few weeks, I have realized the little amount of time I've spent in it. It has become much like a college dorm room; only visited to change, sleep and maybe watch TV. This is due to the fact that I have, believe it or not, made some friends. They are not one group of people, but rather scattered around the city in clusters and pockets. I've been fortunate to have been invited to workout classes, dinners, drinks and house parties by people from different areas. I am extremely grateful for all those who have included me, and the hostessing side of me is dying inside, yearning just to have ONE get-together with all these new people who have helped me fall in love with this city and my new life here. 

Only one problem- I'm not allowed to make any noise. Issue one.

Issue two: this is the first time I've lived alone, meaning there are many questions I need assistance in answering. Such as, what happens when I am making art avec my hairdryer and crayons (thanks pinterest) and I blow a circuit? And/or, why don't quarters fit into the slots of the laundry machine? My parents are three hours ahead, and given my dad's penchant for an 8:30PM bedtime, these people, whose faces I hadn't even seen yet, are my real life google for #aptprobs. 

Not only this, but this is my first ever apartment. I feel the innate need to make friends with the people that share my walls, despite if their lease is ending in the next two weeks or they do not speak a word of english. If not for the concrete/plaster walls, we would practically all be sitting on the same couch every Wednesday during Modern Family. 

To hammer home just HOW important neighbors are, I'll throw one more factoid into the mix, issue number three: I'm a scaredy cat. I was the 15 year old that babysat with all the lights on and the first and only scary movie I've ever seen is the Blair Witch Project and I still have nightmares of it.

So, when it came to this challenge, it was between knocking on doors empty-handed and shaking hands, or showing up with cookies. I was raised better than the former, plus, should any scary noises come from my apartment, I'd love the people residing next to me to think, "huh, those screams aren't normal... better call 911, definitely don't want the weird cookie lady perishing." Instead of just kocking on the door and starting the conversation, enough to make me queasy in the first place, I buckled down and made my best choco chip cookies for the six neighbors surrounding me as well as the neighbor underneath me (for those infrequent nights I wear heels).

Apparently, Halloween came early this year to the Seaside Plaza; my neighbors opened the door and looked like they'd just seen a ghost. I gave my spiel, tapping into my girl scout cookie selling days of yore, introducing myself and offering up the platter I'd made them. 3/7 doors opened, the others reamained shut, the footsteps slowly pittering away after looking through the view finder and not recognizing the bug-eyed stranger holding treats outside their door. 

I gathered more confidence with each of the three doors that opened, the last being the neighbor downstairs who had not, so far into my stay, loved having me as her upstais neighbor. A light sleeper, she had not appreciated my unpacking at 11pm nor my total un-canadian move of wearing shoes inside the apartment. But she was delighted by the plate of cookies and we had a great conversation for over a half hour, pressing the refresh button on our relationship.

I get high through conversation.

In college, my friends would say goodbye to me before heading out. "Text me when you get home," Brooke would say as we schlepped up the stairs to the party as gracefully as our 5 inch heels would allow. Pause here: this was NOT because I was some scandalous, burgeoning co-ed relishing in the sexual independence that is college- far from it. It was because my friends knew that as soon as I walked in that door at a party, I was all "out of sight, out of mind".

Now, let's lay down some foundation for your better understanding. My university had about 6,000 undergrads, 40% of whom were greek. There were 8 fraternities on campus, so it was rare to see an unfamiliar face when out and about at night.  We all either knew each other or knew of each other, the latter typically the more dangerous in a small, crammed basement full of rowdy young adults.

The reason behind the Houdini act at parties was because of this high obtained through conversation. A typical saturday at say, 12:30AM, I could be found having a "life talk" with an acquaintance who I normally crossed paths with en route to class without saying a word. My thought process behind it was that I got to converse, learn and spend time with my best friends all the time during the day; those wee hours in the morning were an opportune time to meet, talk and befriend some people that I normally wouldn't or couldn't have in any other setting other than the fuzzy keg beer-induced friendliness. The times I held back and avoided conversation with people other than my best friends, I felt constrained and unhappy, like a puppy tied to a leash outside the grocery store. 

I do not like to hold back in conversation. This has gotten me in trouble multiple times (see: list of thirty things I love about myself post), but my friends have told me they appreciate my bluntness and honesty. If you and I were to get to talking, I would probably have told you enough information to pose as me on an online dating site within the first twenty minutes. 

So, when I was asked for "coffee and conversation" with someone I'd met once and of whom I'd had a mutual friend, I happily obliged. Although extremely nervous- who isn't when meeting a handsome stranger for coffee on a sunny afternoon- I was excited to be able to pick a new person's brain and gain perspective. Like reading a good book or watching a provocative episode of Homeland, good, honest conversation with new people gets my mind's wheels spinning quickly. I'm not talking polite small talk or elevator greetings- I'm talking good ol' coffee shop magic chats, the conversations that you can't help but eavesdrop on when passing them by. 

Three hours later, my coffee cup was long since empty but my mind was filled to the brim with new perspective, ideas and respect for this person who took a polite interest in me because of this 30-day challenge.

The fear is real people.

The single most suggested scare was this: 24 hours with the iPhone powered down.

So, today, I embarked on the challenge. I shut down my phone at midnight last night, laying it to hibernate for a day. 

The outcome may surprise you.

Whenever I've traveled out of the country, my phone has remained off for the majority of the time. It has been refreshing, albeit moderately frightening, to rely on maps, animal instincts and other humans to get me from A to B. Without a yelp app, I would read actual menus and order take out by going to a restaurant and waiting. Without instagram, I would take the time to take real photos, quality photos with my camera that I would later print and get blown up without the pixels blurring together. And, most importantly without a device connecting to my network of friends, I would partake in conversations with those around me, or, better yet, read a book on the bus rather than catching up on my feeds. 

This is what I expected from a day with out my phone- a blissful break from modern technology to clear my head and get refocused. 

"It'll be liberating, you'll see," my coworker suggested.

"Generation Y is addicted to their cell phones," every newspaper ever dictated. 

"What if something happens to you?' my mom asked with concern.

Although parts of all of those are true, the most biggest truth from this experience is this: by turning off your phone you turn off your connection to some of the better parts of yourself.

Stay with me here. 

I have been lucky enough to have lived in multiple places around the world, and therefore I have clusters of friends in many locations. From Santa Monica to New York, across the pond to Florence and back to Fort Lauderdale, my friends are as scattered as skittles after a rainbow. I have a long list of places to visit and a longer list of people I need to skype. 

Texting my my best friend in Pennslyvania for boy advice, snap chatting my almost little sister who just broke her arm and dialing in on long distance calls to California with the girl who will be standing by my side at my wedding; this is how I fill those pockets of lonliness that sneak in now and again. 

A group of punk rockers in a catchy one-hit-wonder told me that "all you really need are a few good friends". I tend to disagree. Each of my friends brings something different to the table, and a part of me grows, changes and prospers through every one of them. Each interaction with these people, whether it be a heart-to-heart conversation with my recently dumped guy friend after a few too many beers or an inside joke that is still funny despite our forgetting what it actually means with a sorority sister, are what allow me to be my best self. So, by taking away my communication with all these wonderful people, you are cutting off my energy supply.

As the majority of my friends know, I have become one of those people who are "terrible with their phones". No one is terrible with their phones, 5-month ago me thought. This is that person just being lazy, not wanting to respond to my text. That school of thought bit me in the ass as soon as my daily routine changed from attending one class, watching Friends and eating frozen yogurt to work, exercise, sushi, repeat. 

However, messages in the morning from my friends from afar are literally what get me out of bed in the morning. Like being plugged in and charged, the kind words and updates from the people I love most are my batteries. 

The day I turned off my phone, I didn't feel lonely per say, but I did feel as though I was doing myself an extreme disservice. Not only did I shut off my connection with those outside of Vancouver, but I also lost touch with those within the Vancity vicinity. My new friends here, the friends whom have already become my support system, are the ones who suffered from this challenge more than I. Their texts went unanswered and their calls ignored as they recieved radio silence from my end for 24 hours. My friend Caroline had to literally intercept me when I was going to pick up my sushi, waiting outside the restaurant until I arrived, in order to get ahold of me.

And, of course, there was that climatic moment in which I had to break my challenge. Wine night at a friend's, 8PM. Arrive to this. What are you going to do?

There is a reason technology exists. Don't get me wrong, I am all for cleansing from the phone for a while, but the more important thing is being cognoscente of the phone. This does means being aware of basic social cues like texting with complete words (nothing kills a convo like "u"), turning off the "read" function on your iphone if you aren't immediately going to respond, and avoiding any winky faces if you're of the male gender. However, more importantly, it means being aware that there is a time and place for the phone to take a nap. 

So, after having 24 hours to reflect on my phetiquette, I am committing to the following:

If I am at dinner and/or drinks with someone, my phone must remain in my purse for the extent of the interaction unless to a. take a photo or b. answer a text of someone that is meeting us

Responding to texts within two hours. This would be much more obtainable if Apple would finally get around to adding a "mark as unread" or flagging function to text messages like emails. C'mon guys.

day twenty one: Pussycat Dolls hip-hop dance class.

Clearly dancing, like french and good conversation, flows better after a few drinks (see: beyonce moves). This class did NOT come easy.

Part II of this challenge: Posting this video. 

Warning: cringeworthy secondhand awkwardness will immediately follow post-watching this video. 

A part of my heart lives in France.

For four months, I lived an adventure by studying abroad in a tiny town in France where I knew no one. My classes were all taught in French, the writing I did at my internship at the local newspaper was all in French, and the conversations at the dinner table with my host, Madame, was in complete, albeit mumbled, French.

Yet, here I am two years later and I seize up and shudder like a water logged computer at any attempt I make at speaking French. My thoughts tumble around like shoes in a washing machine, my palms get sweaty and I suddenly develop a stutter. My brain doesn't work well under pressure, which is probably why we relied on those pre-test glasses of rose to pass our oral exams.  

I consider myself extremely lucky that I now live in a city where there is an abudancy of French speakers. Two of the people on my team at work alone speak French, and my boss (hi Mar!) even studied in the same, tiny village of Aix en Provence when she was on exchange. 

I long for the french culture; my ears perk up when the French translators in the office converse in French and I find myself  dreaming about bringing yoga pants to the South of France. However, the language barrier is a real issue, and I realize I've been doing myself a disservice by not speaking it on occasion. 

So today, I invited Audrey, the Internal Comms Manager to a lunch en francais. The rules were:

1. We would converse in only French from the moment we entered the restaurant until the moment we left.

2. We would eat at a French restaurant (obvi)

3. I would pick up the tab- all she had to do was show up and be patient with my French.

When we entered the restaurant and Audrey switched into rapid french, my heart mimicked the the speed of her voice. I switched into nervous mode, remembering all too fast how difficult it is to listen to and process French in the moment. 

Like the first time out on a run after a long weekend of vegging, drinking and watching football, I felt that extreme frustration that anyone who takes a break from an acquired skill feels after an absence of using it. 

I relaxed a bit as the lunch went on, us taking a momentary break in speaking French when realizing that the waiter did not understand us and we had to order our omelettes in english (really, dude?). We talked about our adventures in france, relaying stories back and forth like a ping pong game, me typically sitting there like a dumas for a second before realizing Audrey had asked me a question.

Tornadoes are by far and away my biggest fear.

Growing up in Illinois, severe thunderstorms and tornado threats were as common as cornstalks. When I was very young, I would get physically sick if there was a tornado warning in our neighborhood;  there was more than one time where I threw up at due to the siren. Anytime I heard that gut-wrenching sound, I would begin crying, shepherding my family, my dogs and all my favorite stuffed animals down in to the basement. I'd turn on the tv and glue myself to the screen, anxiety welling in rounds in conjunction with the "BEEP BEEP BEEP" of the scrolling warning message.

As I got older, the fear only slightly subsided. Anytime the tornado siren alarmed, even if just a test on the first Tuesday of the month at 10AM, the familiar gnawing feeling in my stomach would grow. When the sky turned green and the world lay still, I would absolutely break down, regardless of where I was or who I was with. 

I'm not positive when it developed, but I do have a distinct memory of watching Twister in my basement with my sisters before I was of the age to grasp what natural disasters were. To this day, I have reoccuring, god-awful, wake-up-screaming nightmares of tornadoes. 

I do know that what scares me the most out of tornadoes is the sheer force that something created out of, literally, thin air (plus thick air... I've done my research) can do so much damage. There is no avoiding forces of nature- they are beyond us, something we can never control, only run away and hide from. 

No, I didn't run into a tornado for this challenge, but I decided to tempt another force of nature.

Last year, through my company, I learned to set goals. Goals are created from your vision, or what your ideal best life would look like in 10 years. The sky is the limit here- removing all constraints, your vision can include anything from owning a yacht in Cannes to walking the moon. 

I originally didn't take goal-setting seriously. I was afraid of being judged, or worse yet, letting myself down. I also didn't want to "jinx" anything- why were the same people who were encouraging me to add a goal about being in a serious relationship within the next five years also telling me that "you fall in love when you're not looking for it"? The entire thing was confusing, frustrating, and frankly a lot of work.

But, as last summer progressed and I saw how incredible the outcomes were from my goal setting coworkers, I coudln't help but jump on the train. I went to workshops, talked to anyone and everyone I could about setting up my future, and sat down and wrote my goals. 

Since finishing my internship and entering back into college life, I've updated my goals several times. These were my updated  goals in April of this year. I have not changed them since. (By the way- sharing these in itself scares me mucho.)

Here's the crazy thing about goal setting: by writing down some of my seemingly-impossible goals (honestly, this canadian visa thing was a miracle in itself) on paper and telling a few friends and family about them, sh&* started to happen. On the third day of my yoga teacher training, a one week immersion in Costa Ria that fell into place due to a cancelled service trip to India, I started laughing during final savasana. I realized that at that very moment, I was accomplishing a five year goal I'd written down during one of my first goal-setting sessions and had since forgotten about. Just now, rereading these goals I've realized the challenge to abstain from added sugar/ sugar alternatives for a month is aligned with my goal of giving up artificial sweetners, something I hadn't thought about before.

The universe is a sly dog, and the forces that work within it are even more cunning. Stay with me while I hippy-dippy it for a second as you read this thought: 

Just by putting a goal out into the universe, you are already setting it in motion. You are acknowledging that it is in hands bigger than yours, and now you just are left to make the daily tasks of getting there.

The forces of nature are stronger than us and we cannot hide nor run from them. Eventually, they will come back and greet us, if not in reality than in our dreams (or in my case, nightmares). 

Because I put these ideas into motion via ink to paper and communication to others, I have been lucky enough to see through almost all of my 1-year goals. Looking at the empty frame on my desk today, I knew it was time today to re-evaluate, but I didn't know where to start. I am so content about where I am and though I enjoy looking to the bright shiny future, I'm having a hard time looking away from the present because it is all happening so damn fast.

Enter: Jacki Carr, goal coach extraordinare. Since joining the lululemon family, I've seen her name pop up everywhere; this girl is the Steve Jobs of goal setting. Thanks to good ol' social media, she had reached out to me about beginning her own #onethingaday challenge (how cool is that?), and I took the opportunity to ask her for something in return. Via phone, the first time we "officially" met, I asked her if she could provide me some assistance in updating my goals. Scary in itself, as I am inviting someone I'd just met to have a personal one on one about my future with me, but scarier still, due to the fact she is an in-house celebrity at our company. 

In June, one of the top storm chasers in the US died while chasing a tornado. The thought of this is petrifying albeit intriguing; while the rest of the world was hiding underground, he was uprooting himself for his love and passion of storms, pursuing the thing he was willing to risk his life for.

I'm a prisoner of sugar. 

Back in the day when I was a wee one I existed on sugar, shooting down tubes of pixie sticks before playing running bases, munching on oreos with peanut butter after soccer practices, a ring pop attached to my finger all the while. 

Everyone warns you about the unhealthy lifestyle, which I acknowledged, appreciated, and experienced, but the real kicker is this "real world" thing. 

Anyone working in an office knows that birthdays happen far too often and there is always an excuse for a scone. The chocolate cakes, the cookies, and even the morning pastries are the silent killers of the twenty-something in an office. 

I have personally become addicted to the sugar kick, as much as coffee. Late night group study sessions in college were always accompianed by an onslaught of snacks, whether it be a run to cookout for a Peanut Butter banana fudge milkshake or running to the dining hall for some candy. It is no different in the working world; the feeling of "deserving" some sugar in the afternoon after five hours of hard work along with the notion of group think leads to the same sort of indulgences.

Now please note that I am ALL for treats, everything in portions. However, when I found my eyelids drooping, my eyes bluring, and my body grabbing haphazardly for anything containing sugar at 3pm, I knew I'd jumped on the addiction train, and it was time to nip it in the bud. 

Bring on: the 30 day "no added sugar" challenge. Since I have the attention span of child, it is important to keep things interesting, but just agreeing to another challenge within a challenge terrified me. But no sugar? I need that sugar fix at 3pm, I need my post- dinner chocolate, as much as I need those artificial sugar boasts: anyone who knows me well understands that I have trouble concentrating without gum and hate coffee that isn't sweetened with some sort of lab-created artificial sweetener.

Since I have a big girl job, it is probably time to give up both the gum-chewing and 5-dollar-latte habit anyway, so I, along with a few others in the office agreed to start the challenge. 

Here's how it works:

30 days, sans added sugar. Starting October 1 and ending, conveniently, on Halloween.

This does NOT include naturally occuring sugar; my sister (hi heather!) had warned me against doing this sort of clean eating as she'd literally passed out when she'd tried this. She also eats frozen pancakes for dinner and has a metabolism of a 9 year old, but I still was not willing to risk it. So, fruit and other naturally occuring sugar souces are on limits.

Second on limits: wine. Although wine is very high in sugar, I am 22 and just moved to a new city; I am trying to escape the prison of sugar but not enter the prison of solitary confinement by axing any bit of a social life I may have. However, we set a cap: 5 glasses per week. 

Final on limits: Canadian thanksgiving. If we do not cheat the other days, we are allowed to eat a piece of pie on thanksgiving. I oblige, mainly, because I'm a new canadian and my visa is up to the discretion of the government- don't want to be that american that doesn't participate in Canadian holidays... 

On the no list includes:

cookies

pastries

cake

candy

tomato sauces with added sugar

thai foods with added sugar

pumpkin spice lattes (major bummer)

cereals

most breads 

and almost everything else...

Sugar is scarily everywhere, and it is my 30 day obligation to avoid it. 

One of my coworkers said she read that the withdrawals from sugar are just as bad as those from heroin. Although I lack the frame of comparison, I am already having day dreams of pixie sticks and baby bottle pops. 

P.s. anyone know the law for the oldest legal age you can be to trick or treat in Canada? 

I will try any form of exercise once. Crossfit? Sure. Squash? Sign me up. Brazillian Jiu Jitsu? I'm game. 

And usually, I end up liking it.

But spinning and I, we had a bad first date a few years ago, and I never was able to connect with it since.

My team knows how much spinning and I dislike each other, and they are always encouraging me give it another chance. I agree that the people that teach at the spin studio in Vancouver are absolutely awesome and the studio itself rocks, but even Ryan Gosling on a bike next to me could not even get me to love it.

I have agreed to go now four times since I landed here in August but I've always found an excuse to back out. Of course I knew as soon as I agreed to the thirty days that spinning would be one of my things. I felt bad for trash talking spinning so much; it wasn't spinning's fault that I disliked it so much. Truth of the matter was that I didn't like how I showed up on the bike: I was a rookie, and as I said after the soccer challenge, I feel vulnerable and scared when I'm the class newbie.

Today I looked to 6:15PM with both dread and anticipation, the same feeling in my stomach that I had on lacrosse game-days in high school. To make matters worse I was accompanying the resident Spin and Cycle master herself, my challenge partner, Karen. The hours passed by and the doom of the class approached like storms rolling slowly over the mountains towards the city. When we arrived, I hopped onto a bike in the back and was being told to pedal my legs before I could even think about the fact that I was wearing shorts... on a bike... in a sweaty spin class.

As my legs took off underneath me, I peered out into the dark room. The music's beat took residence in the shaking walls, and I found my body becoming a medium for it as I picked up speed. Suddenly I was encompassed in this feeling of total sweaty devotion, and for a brief moment, I got it. I understood the hardcore spinner's love and how Karen and others looked to Spin as their meditation. 

Albeit fleeting, I understood. I tried to grasp onto that feeling and recreate it again as the rest of the 45 minutes passed, but truth be told, the class was just so damn hard. The instructor was spunky and played incredible tunes that were motivating, but had I not been strapped in I quite possibly could have passed out onto my face. 

I'm not giving up on spinning and I am happy I gave it another chance. Despite blacking out and nearly loosing my 3pm dark chocolate and tea all over my shoes, I did find enjoyment in it. The music, the energy and the darkness all created the allure of a unified and sweaty cult- the type of cult you want to be in.

Let's be honest- I'm competitive. I've never been one to let a sport rest until I'm one of the regulars, or better yet, a leader of the cult, so I don't believe that that was my last spin class ever.

Growing up, I adored experimenting in the kitchen. As an 8-year old, my specialities included:

flying saucers- Sandwich a bunched up piece of american cheese between two pieces of salami. Microwave until crispy.

cinnamon toast- Butter bread. sprinkle pre-bought cinnamon sugar mixture on top. Toast.

Homemade mac and cheese- Take leftover pasta that mom cooked the night before out of the refridgerator. Add shredded cheese, milk, and butter. Microwave.

My cooking took a hiatus once I realized that metabolisms existed, and I stuck to whatever my mom was cooking that night. However, as I ventured off to college, I discovered my late-night alter ego: Mattie Stewart.

I should have seen it coming long before that first 3 am late-night session. My mother takes extreme pride in hosting; it was from her I learned that you cannot simply throw potato chips in a bowl, but rather you must unfold two decorative napkins and place them into the bowl perpendicalur from eachother, laying them out like a table cloth, but inside the bowl.

And my father? Well his nickname is Captain Morgan for a reason. Anytime a new boyfriend is brought home for Christmas, he sees to it that they stumble out the door hours later, enticing them with his German schnopps and his Irish ability to outdrink anyone. 

Like I said, I should have seen it coming. A group of 20 college kids were gathered in my apartment in the early morning hours after the party we were attending had broken up. They were hungry, they said. Is there anyhing to eat, they asked.

Despite my practically empty pantry, I jumped off my feet and got to work.

I spent the next hour creating combinations that only one with both my inherited skillset and several drinks in her could craft- grilling peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the stove and putting together out the sole box of cheez-its with an accompanying mustard, an obvious choice for a "dip". I provided folded napkins and offered up any and all beverages I had. The ravenous group ate up everything, tossing out compliments on my cooking, and despite the burns all over my hands, I was on top of the world.

Can someone PLEASE explain to me why cheez-its do not exist in Canada?

Once I learned to really cook, meaning, look up a recipe on pinterest and follow it to the tee, I got less experimental with my combinations. I was both too hungry and too poor to waste money and time on a failed concotion, so I left it to the experts. Of course after a few drinks, my inhibitions loosened and I was a regular Iron Chef in the kitchen, but normally, I was too fearful of messing up my meal to go rogue. 

Fast forward to today: I decided as soon as I woke up today that I would make chili. The rain was absolutely coming down today, the wind howling, my new apartment shaking. In an episode of How I met Your Mother, Canadian Robyn calls the weather during Hurricane Irene "golf weather". I never got it until I moved here- Canadians do not even bat an eyelash at the weather that we in the states would have declared a natural disaster over. 

 I wandered around like a lost puppy at the grocery sore. I picked 15 spices because I figured that owning spices was another big step to "becoming a real adult". I threw some of my favorite vegetables in the cart. I got some tomatoes (canned or paste? both?) some chicken broth (do you just put the whole cube into the pot?) and some turkey (does this get cooked before or after?) because I figured that was a good place to start.

I have absolutely no idea which spices were for what- I have used rosemary accidentally on ice cream before because it smelled good. The whole thing was like a science experiment without a textbook, and the anxiety rode heavily on me. Chili does not come at an easy price, especially up here in expensiveland, and I didn't want to mess it up. Frustrated, I threw whatever I could into the crockpot (a little bit of this this, a little bit of that-that), and left it to cook.

Hours later I returned home to an apartment wafting of excellent smells. The chili turned out well, it certainly was not my dad's, but it was pretty good. I admit I am pretty type- A at times and I found that this challenge was an opportunity for me to loosen those inhibitions and accept that it was OK if I failed.

There is only one rule I've found to be true with all humans: the best way to connect with strangers is through laughter. This is the easiest and most effective way to connect with people you've never met, and breaks down any barriers of gender, race and age.

Don't believe me? Think about the last time you connected with a stranger. Perhaps it was with the businessman sitting next to you on the subway, both of you giggling nervously after a man sitting adjacent to you burst out in song. Or maybe it was with the middle aged woman, both of you unable to hold in your laughter after you got stuck in the revolving door at Whole Foods.

In my experience, I've found that people inherently trust one another when they share a laugh. We see each other as relatable, and the intimidation of an unknown, scary stranger lessens.

I discovered in high school that using humor in the expense of myself was an easy and fast way to make friends, or at the very least, allies. I was lucky enough to be on Varsity lacrosse and cheerleading teams my sophomore year, but also dumb enough to start dating a senior at this time. No need for the play-by-play, you can imagine how much older girls loved me.

However, I was determined to prove to them that I wasn't the conceited b!#*% they thought I was; I truly wanted their acceptance and was willing to go to all stops to get there. I am absolutely terrible at being fake; it is one of those double edge swords that has gotten me both out and into trouble, so sucking up was not going to cut it. Plus, that gets you no where- if you know anything about prison, it is to never show weakness. Since high school is basically prison, same rules apply. (No, my pen pal didn't tell me this, I learned through a very qualified source... orange is the new black).

The first time I was thrown into a scenario where I could really prove myself with the cheerleading squad was at cheer camp. The fact I'm admitting I went to cheerleading camp itself on this blog is a scary thing, but I'm doing it for the greater good. Cheer camp is a weird, weird place where 500 girls and precisely ten men are thrown together for a week and told to cheer about anything and everything. There was an award, an inflatable banana, that went to the most "spirited' squad at the end of the week. We were the reigning champs, so you can bet your bottom dollar we screamed "lets go devils" every morning when we walked into the dining hall for breakfast.

If you want more of an idea what that whole thing was like, watch Bring it On.

So, we're taking the much anticipated forty-five minute afternoon break we're allotted, about ten of us squished into a dorm room eating Jimmy Johns. I sat on the linoleum floor, 3/4 of my body facing a wall, eating g an italian grinder. Halfway through the silent meal (there is no need for words on day four of cheerleading camp), one of the scariest seniors exclaimed "who the f*&% is eating salami?"

Because everyone else was eating non-smelly Turkey Toms, nine sets of accusing eyes turned turned on me. I immediately grew red: I had felt like I'd finally made it, I was in the cool girls room and they even let me order a sandwich with them, and I ordered the smelliest, meatiest sandwich. What do I do?

I made fun of myself. I said a self-deprecating dirty joke to get them to laugh, which I will not repeat here, but it was so ridiculous and so self-inflicting, that it worked. 

They called me salami until they graduated that May. One of the girls, who later became one of my close friends, still to this day calls me "salams" (love you manda!).

I was approached with a similar situation when I moved to Vancouver. I was lucky enough to be sitting with an incredible team and working my dream job right out of school. I naturally felt like I had to prove that I was not only grateful for this opportunity, but also that I was not self-righteous nor entitled. My generation has worked ourselves into a corner; most people even just a few years older than us believe that "we all" think we're entitled to the best jobs without doing the dirty work. But that is a whole other challenge beyond these thirty days- check out more on that here.

So this sentiment, along with my feeling that I had a lot to prove in my first post-grad job, caused me to begin the self-deprecation spiral once again. I joked on the behalf of myself, mostly when people looked at me quizzically with the, "wait you're 22?" look.

Please understand that I do truly enjoy getting people to laugh with me and I don't mind poking fun at myself at the expense of it. Making people laugh makes me happy. However, there is something to be said about being positive. All the bringing myself down in the name of laughter and relation was starting to ride on me. It was making me feel better, as I found the laughter to be the dynamite to the walls people put up when meeting people, but also worse, because some of the jokes I made stung. I decided it was time to do something super scary.

I'm truly, undeniably terrified of others thinking that I'm cocky or entitled. It makes me sick to my stomach to hear someone say "Mattie is so full of herself"; even just writing this give me the bad kind of butterflies. I hate, hate, double hate, loathe entirely the idea of someone thinking this, and, as seen by the aforementioned story, I will go to great lengths to counter act it. 

So, you can imagine my fear in posting this list. However, it needs to be done, as I learned a while ago that I needed to love myself first before anyone could love me, but it doesn't make it any less scary. So here it goes:

30 things I love about myself:

my willingness to try new things

my love of reading #nerdalert

my legs

my ability to adapt

my sense of humor

my desire to make others happy

my need to be a good friend

my knowledge of sports

my eyes

my independence

my writing skills

my love of change

my compassion

my wit

my priority of making people smile :)

my feet

my inability to settle

my dance skillzz

my yoga practice

my storytelling

my weirdness

my openness/lack of secrets

my yoga teaching

my dimples

my enthusiasm

my ability to laugh at myself

my french sills

my willingness to try anything once

my athleticism

The other day, as I was sorting through samples and picking an outfit to send to a  major fashion magazine, I was struck with a thought: I am working in retail. 

I have worked for this company for over a year now. I have sold clothing in the store, helped sell and do visual merchandising in the showroom, and now doing PR and communications for the same organization. I always regarded it as "athletic lifestyle brand", but standing knee deep in samples and fulfilling media requests, I realized that I am indeed in the business of fashion.

I don't know how a girl who prefers tube socks, lacrosse jerseys and fuzzy fleeces wound up working in a sample closet, but somehow I did. I'm surrounded everyday by fashionistas; my coworkers are constantly ahead of the curve and straight mavens when it comes to trends.

These are the girls who not only Pinterest, but are pinterest-ed. 

Maybe it is because of my spending more time looking at pictures of food on Pinterest than fashion, or maybe it is my growing up in 80's hand-me-downs as a child of the 90's, but I've never been "trendy". I've certainly copy-catted trends, but never set them. 

I've always played it safe in my outfits. With one exception of wearing white calf-high socks in Vancouver when the style does NOT exist here, I've always just worn what ever is easiest and quickest. I've never been able to justify spending over 100$ for a blouse, usually just taking a mental snapshot and heading over to forever 21 in search of something similar. 

Many of nights in college, my roommates and I would take a glass of wine to the closet as we got ready for a night out- insecurities thawed a bit after a drink. The amount of times my roommate Ally would have to convince me to actually wear an outfit I put on out are countless, and it was not rare when it took the whole household to convince me to go out in something I wasn't completely comfortable in. 

When I bought my tickets to the incredible event submiT Vancouver, a pop-up art show and party that benefits Imagine 1 Day, I was extremely excited. My best friend from last summer's internship would be in town, everyone in the office was going, and, most importantly, I was excited that I finally, FINALLY knew of an event in Vancouver before I saw everyone's pictures on Instagram. 

The rumblings around the office about the event were consistent the days leading up. Because my office is comprised of around 70% women, the majority of the conversations were around what people would be wearing. I knew then and there that my college wardrobe would not cut it; this was my first legit post-college event and I needed to show up in a big way, and it would be scary.

My heart took residence in my throat once again as I shopped with my self-proclaimed yet totally validated "fabulous" friend Mollie. As I slipped on the outfit she picked out for me, I felt sick to my stomach. All the negative thoughts that could easily be avoided by wearing stretchy pants ran through my head like a robber through a bank. If you're a girl, you know exactly the thoughts that creep in anytime you're under the unforgiving, harsh light and the wide mirrors of the dressing room.

If you're a boy, ask your nearest girl- they'll tell you, it sucks.

Finally after some coaxing turned coaching turned stern demanding by Mollie, I stepped out of the dressing room. She squealed in delight and clapped her hands together, looking at me with the same adoration as you would a piece of pottery you'd sculpted and and just taken out of the kiln. This was beyond me, and there was no going back. 

As we got ready, I was filled with that same nervous anticipation I've had a love-hate relationship with the last two weeks. Was I seriously wearing leather pants? Had I not watched this episode of friends many many times? FYI- the majority of my moral standards can be attributed to what I learned by watching Friends. 

"SOMEONE comment on the pants!"

But, there I was, walking out of my new apartment in leather pants.

The event was as incredible as I anticipated, and I received many compliments on the pants. We had a great time, and I was increasingly confident as the party went by (and the wine was drank). I forgot that I was even wearing anything out of the ordinary.

The biggest learning of this challenge can be summed up in one of my favourite quotes:

We're all just throwing shit up at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Strangely enough, google is coming up short in delivering who actually said this quote. Most likely because most of the best quotes I hear are from regular ol' joes like you and me. 

However, there is a lot of validation in this quote. No one really, truly knows exactly what they're doing; we're all just faking it until we make it. Which is an interesting truth, when you think about this: isn't half the reason we get so nervous about trying new things is because we are worried others will judge us? 

I'd even venture to say that Anna Wintour has outfit doubts at times. The trick is to just rock what you've got, no matter how uncomfortable you are.