online dating: day one.

a very young man emailed me and three men have "winked" at me. i've winked at more men than that. i don't really know what any of this means, but it feels like i'm being too aggressive, and it's a bit of a dance, do i email first? do i wait for him to email first? how flirty is too flirty? but i am having fun. and i have to approach this "thing" with an attitude of, just have fun with it. if nothing else,  hope and expect to have some fun. anything extra is gravy. i think that's a good way to go through life; i'm going to give it a try. 

i'm hoping that because i'm using a site you must pay for there will be more men who are serious about dating. but there are weirdos everywhere, like people with user names that reference what good kissers they claim to be. sir, do you think i'm going to call your bluff? NEXT!

in other news, the white sox are on a roll and i'm writing a letter to my 16 year-old self, thanks to a push from a really lovely woman with an amazing blog. i can't wait to finish this letter and share it. 

i'm in love with this song. it's the "pick of the week" at starbucks! go and get yourself a free song code. go now!

cutting out the nonsense. and being hopeful.

i'm an "all or nothing" person, always have been. for a while i've been telling myself, you don't need to worry about dating anyone right now. just worry about you. you can't possibly fall more in love with yourself and find contentment with a man. there's no way you can do both. 

i no longer believe this.

it's okay to want to go on a date. and kiss a man. these are normal things, rhi. and wanting them doesn't make you less of an independent person. it makes you a woman in the dating world. 

i’m usually the third or fifth wheel when i’m out with my friends, but i always have fun, mainly because i know a lot of amazing people. i don’t want to get married tomorrow or one year from now, but i do want to meet people. i want dates, actual me-in-a-dress and him-in-a-collared-shirt dates.  i want to meet grown men and go to dinner and movies and flirt and be kissed in cabs at one o'clock in the morning. i’m not looking to fall in love, but i’m not going to say no to the possibility either. i want to take a chance. i want butterflies. i want all of it. 

i won't lose myself again because i know what to look for now. i know what i want. and what i refuse to tolerate.

so this afternoon, i had a drink, just one, and with molly's encouragement, created an online dating profile. 

yup.  

and because i said i'd share everything on here, here you go. (it's a bonus that it feels good to be brave and tell the truth. it feels good to share my life.)

between work and school and the gym the only places i go to be social are bars and restaurants (usually by me.) let’s call a spade a spade, the chances of me meeting the love of my life or even a normal guy my age at the bar down the street are pretty slim. so i’m cutting out the nonsense. i know there are no guarantees, but there are no guarantees sitting on the sidelines either.

i am treading in completely foreign waters here and it's exciting and ridiculous and funny and scary. and full of writing material. my Lord, the things i already want to write about and i just created the profile at 4:30. i’ve already thrown my hands up twice and proclaimed, “what?!” and proceeded to burst into laughter. 

it feels good to be brave. remember that if nothing comes of this. you're putting yourself out there, and that is far from nothing.

i made a note of how important baseball and my white sox are-to help in the weeding-out process. 

it’s a long summer and i can’t wait to see what comes of it. 

my sunday, in pictures.

lovely, hot, with a few hiccups. but a good day. also, it was hot.

a list of letters.

dear downton abbey,

good.lord. i want the third season and i want it now.

dear john mayer,

i like your new album, a lot. i didn't want to because, frankly, you're a bit of a shmuck. also, please do something with your hair. 

dear legs,

thank you for the 22.11 miles on the bike and the 2.3 you walked after spinning. 

dear ice cream truck that seems to park itself outside my building,

go the eff away. your music is unpleasant. 

dear pancho's waitress who told me queso fundido has a lot of calories,

no shit. 

dear netflix,

thank you for having dawson's creek. i will enjoy feeling thirteen years-old again. 

dear chris sale,

way to be a boss. thanks for the motivation.

dear chicago boxing club,

i got my gloves. i'll see you at 9:00 tomorrow morning. 

this is how you love yourself.

i will show myself kindness and love.
i will show myself kindness and love.
i will try, try, try to do this every day of my life.

i will go to yoga on the days it's the last thing i want to do, the days i'm running late because i left work late and the train is late and the bus is late and i show up to class five minutes late and have to sit in front which makes me more stressed. the days i'm so tired i just want to use my navy blue mat to sleep. i will go to class and keep my eyes closed to keep from judging others. and myself. i will keep my eyes closed until i learn to use them with more kindness and patience towards everything i see, especially myself. i will focus and breathe and bring myself down when it's been the kind of day that takes deliberate effort to shake from my bones. this is how you love yourself.

i will buy myself boxing gloves. and use the crap out of them. this is how you love yourself.

i will take a different walk to work, a long walk down busy streets that early in the morning afford me the luxury of being the only person on a sidewalk for an entire block. this is a tiny gift. i will look and see what is in front of me: men planting bright and colorful flowers, happy dogs chewing their leashes, construction workers, people smoking while waiting for their accordion-style buses and how all of these smells mixed with flowers and freshly-watered sidewalks make me smile. this city, my city. my home. this is how you love yourself.

i will stop looking in mirrors and windows. i will stop standing on scales. time-i can't get any of it back, so i'm going to stop throwing so much of it away. numbers do not determine your worth. they are one part of this great big puzzle. this is how you love yourself.

i will make a conscious effort to eat like i did in italy. healthy, indulgent, light. everything in moderation. i never felt guilt eating a meal during those five weeks. i didn't stuff myself. i ate ravioli and bread and roasted chicken and coffee gelato and savored all of it. i will recreate this in chicago. this is how you love yourself.


when i wait for an elevator next to a man who looks exactly like someone i dated a long time ago and he smiles at me i'll wonder why the universe thinks it's so damn funny. when this man looks at me and i look away we'll make eye contact again. both of us will smile. when he lets me on the elevator first and holds the door open so i can leave first i will say thank you. when i see the same man outside that same elevator the next day he will look at me and smile. i will look down and up and all around and finally return the gesture. it will feel good. i will remember that people look at things they are drawn to. i will try very, very, very hard to give myself more credit. this is how you love yourself.

when i sit with myself and take the time to ask, "rhiannon lenore, what do you want?" not just for lunch or how to spend my evening, but tomorrow, next month, five years from now. asking questions means i acknowledge that i am worth the effort the answers will require. i will remember that it's okay if my list has dozens of things on it. this is a good thing. wanting a beautiful life with adventure and romance and travel and reading and writing and cooking dinners for one and talking to strangers and forgiveness is not selfish. ask yourself questions. take a breath and start walking. fortune favors the bold. recite this as often as necessary. be bold, brave girl. be bold. it's your right. this is how you love yourself.

i believe.

adverbs are useless. use stronger words to begin with and you won't need anything extra.

never date a guy who, on the first date, says, "i hate the beatles." this is a sign.

it does not matter if you get sick after running nonstop for two weeks. if you have an editor then you have a job to do. do the work, but plan better. you know, for things like sleep.

always re-stock your wallet band-aid supply. girl, you get blisters like it's your job.

always re-stock your diet coke supply. you also get headaches like it's your job.

sometimes $5.00 flowers and a long nap feed me more than food.

when you feel like you're right at the edge of something that's about to happen or something you think really could happen, sit still and feel it. all of it. if you feel it's something you can almost touch, say a prayer that it will be good and beautiful and will change you. and that you'll have patience for whatever it is.

i miss yoga. therefore, it's working.

going to a baseball game on a monday night is the perfect way to start my week.

this song is pure summer. i love it.

on sitting with yourself.

sometimes the nights you go to sleep in the clothing you wore during the day add up. sometimes all you can do when you walk in the door is feed your cat and crawl into bed. sometimes you want someone to be waiting up for you, a man who can't help but smile at the fact that you toss and turn and shift your legs half a dozen times before you're finally comfortable. a man you secretly hope is taller and bigger than you, mostly so you can wear his shirts to bed. and the whole heels thing. and because you can imagine how it would be to feel both safe and lost in the arms of a man. 

but sometimes you cherish the fact that you don't have to share your bed with anyone else. and you don't have to worry about waking someone because your body doesn't know how to sleep past five o'clock. 

sometimes you'll be sitting by yourself eating lunch, usually tacos, and loneliness will creep in. for a moment you'll be desperate for someone to talk to you. you look around and see couples, friends, mothers and daughters, and an older woman sitting alone by the window. she isn't reading, listening to music, or talking on her phone. she looks relaxed. she is her own company. 

you sit at a desk for eight hours with your thoughts and love it, most of the time. and the moments you feel lonely aren't as often and you feel blessed because the moments you realize how much you love being alone are much, much more frequent. 

being alone does not mean you are lonely. people lucky and determined to know themselves know the difference. 

on telling a lie.

i came home tonight to quiet. my apartment is always quiet, but tonight i let myself feel it. this is the only night this week i have nothing happening/nowhere to be. i'm not used to that feeling. in reality i do have things to do, i always do: articles to finish, books to read, miles to run, but tonight, with looming rain, i'm pausing. 

i stood in my kitchen while cooking myself dinner and caught myself smiling. quiet, this is quiet. this is how it feels to stop and not rush.

this morning my friend latrease said something  else that forced me to stop, literally. we had made plans to volunteer at the printer's row book fair next month and after politely hounding the coordinator it didn't look like we'd be paired together. we've volunteered here in years past and we wanted to do that again. i always have fun with that girl, whether it's in my kitchen or dancing at a club at 2 in the morning. after about a dozen emails between latrease, myself, and the coordinator, i threw my hands up and just said, "let's make up an excuse and email the woman." 

i felt bad about this. i don't like lying. 

she almost immediately responded with, "rhi, we don't have to lie. we can tell her the truth: that we changed our minds and we will try again next year."

reading those words felt both freeing and guilt-inducing. 

i had this believable story: i had a family party i had the wrong date for and could no longer volunteer. latrease shut me down.

"i can say that...i forgot my wedding was on that date. maybe that i'm allergic to the rain, and i feel rain in the forecast?"

point taken.

she went on to say, "i was laughing when i wrote those. i hope you laughed when you read them. but as a friend, i want you to try telling the truth as much as you can, even the little white lies...tell the truth...good, bad or ugly. and definitely tell the truth to yourself, always. you will feel better, i promise, and stronger. i learned that from oprah's life class."

oprah. oprah until the day i die.

tell the truth: i came home tonight and watched old, old episodes of real housewives of nyc. i had two (three) rosemary chicken pita pizzas on 90-calorie tortillas. soundtrack to my week: the lumineers, any and everything country. and adele. always adele.  

i was happier at the white sox game last night than i've been in a long time. sitting in that seat, in a park i grew up in, combined with the article i'm writing on women sports writers, all of it is doing something to me. i'm grateful. and i'm paying attention.

spending all day saturday with my best friend made a stressful situation easy. lingering over coffee in a diner helped me relax. catching up and feeling loved helped me relax.

the whole point of therapy is to be honest with myself, to face things i've buried my entire life. things i've lied about to others, things i've lied about to myself. 

you will feel better, i promise, and stronger. she's right. i always feel better after seeing jim.  i always feel stronger after writing about the things that keep me from sleeping at night, the things that make me tense my body on the train or in the shower. it's always the quiet moments of life when the universe is giving us signs. the things that we can't shake and can't ignore are signs. everything is a sign. pay attention.

my sunday in pictures, lots of 'em.

I read the paper in this order. 

This book is changing my life. 

Real Simple and O. I am my mother's daughter.

Be grateful and kind; there is nothing more important than that.

You are entitled to make a mess of things. Be whimsical, reinvent yourself, and take a lot of pictures.

Amen.

Find something that brings you joy... Learn to say yes anyway.

Makin' plans...

I want a love like this one day. 

the woman you want to be.

in jim's office on thursday, it was around the fourth time he asked why are you so angry that i snapped. 

"you know why i'm angry," i said.

"yes, i know why you're angry. you need to say it," he said. "at the base of everything you do is anger. why are you so angry?"

"jim, there's not enough time in the hour, not enough time in this day."

he looked at me, and with a face that screamed you will not move forward until you answer this question, he said, "be the woman you want to be, not the woman you used to be."

the woman i want to be. 

i want to be the kind of woman who is diligent about flossing and extra diligent about sunscreen. a woman who says yes to dating. a woman who dances barefoot in her kitchen to sam cooke while she makes herself dinner. i want to be the kind of woman who travels much more, especially within this city. i want to be the kind of woman who spends more time on her building's deck reading and drinking coffee and staring at the skyline, especially on the days she forgets how far she's come. i want to be the kind of woman who has sunday dinners with her girlfriends: roasted chicken, potatoes, and wine. a woman who keeps learning italian. i want to be the kind of  woman who continues to say yes to other people, but learns to say yes to herself just as often. the kind of woman who does not shake off compliments, but accepts them with grace. 

a woman who keeps moving forward even when it feels impossible. it's not impossible. she's pushed through impossible. she will do it again.

a woman who knows how lucky she is because she gets to witness moments like this and they remind her how beautiful the future is going to be. 

the woman you want to be.

on letting things change you.

i look at the clock a lot while i’m at yoga. i don’t do this because i want the class to end. i’d like nothing more than to sit on my $15 navy and white-striped j.crew clearance mat and focus on my breath (unless i start to wheeze like i did last night. thank you allergies/asthma/unstable chicago weather.) i constantly check the clock because my favorite part comes at the end of class, shavasna. sometimes those are the best fifteen minutes of my week. i called it vinyasa a few weeks ago; thanks for not calling me out, yogis.

it’s very "simple." you’re supposed to lie on your back, close your eyes, and focus on your breath. you’re supposed to be still and not think. last night, i kept starting out the window. and thinking. this is what i do.

i didn't have a running to-do list in my head this time. i just stared at the sky as the sun started to set, noticing how pink the parts were that i could see.

the days are getting longer. summer is coming. things could settle down a bit, if you let them.

very few things in this world make me slow down enough to not think.

i’m going to keep trying to relax.

i’m going to keep trying to relax. so ridiculous. i know it’s not a coincidence that the teacher makes eye contact with me when he talks about ego getting in the way and how stress consumes us. note to self: listen to the teacher and stop opening your eyes.

stop scoffing at the guy who comes late every week and sits in front of molly and breathes in and out like a wind tunnel. stop silently judging the minnie driver look-alike who was almost thirty! minutes late last night. you aren't in that class for those people. but the thing is , these people come late and bust out the moves like it's their job. i sit in the back of the room and curse. myself, my arms, the instructor, and the women more than twice my age who move like water.

i want to be those women. i'll get there one day. i have faith that i will get there. this faith comes from the moment i stop fighting myself and do the pose the way it should be, the way that won't make me feel pain. those seventy-five minutes are slowly, very slowly paring down the pain in my life.

i just need to remember to let them do that for me.

"i'm determined to love it. i'm going to love it." i told my friend mark at work this morning.

"honey, you're wound a bit tighter than others. it takes time." he said.

yoga brings awareness. it brings calm and quiet, what are those?, so people can feel focused. and centered. as type a and tracy flick as i am about things, i rarely feel calm. i am wound, very tightly, but i'm trying to work on that. i have the awareness that i need to change this about me. and this awareness is everything.

moving mountains.

(from)

sunday night list of gratitude.

before i go to bed tonight i'm going to say the following prayer of thanks:

thank you for the rain and thunder that came and went all day. thank you for the smell on my morning walk and the even lovelier smell on the one i took after dinner.

thank you for the strong legs that carried me all day. 

thank you for girlfriends who let you cry, curse, scream, whisper, cry some more, and then bring you back to reality. for women who remind you of how strong you are when you forget.

thank you for the newspaper vendor who had my morning paper ready for me. and thank you for the kindness of him asking my name, and his smile when i responded.

thank you for a league of their own. never gets old.

thank you for the afternoon nap that was the definition of heaven: fresh air, rain tapping on the window, and ruby curled up next to me.

thank you for the sleep i so desperately needed to catch up on. when you don't sleep enough, the smallest thing can make you cry. that's a sign. pay attention, rhi.

thank you for this. this will carry me through the week.

(from the lovely)

on healing.

today was a bad day. this week was a bad week. sometimes life catches up with a person. but lately, i feel like i've been trying to catch up with my life. 

i had a conversation in the parking lot of a barbecue restaurant on tuesday that made me feel amazing. more than that, it lightened my load. 

it takes a lot for me to feel that. 

i sat down this morning to write about it. and i did. in between laundry and revising an article for my editor, i began to write about this five-minute conversation. and it made me feel calmer and lighter. so i kept going. and going. and going. 

i was ready to post it. it was long and involved and heavy and sad and infuriating. and honest. and i really wanted to share it because "if i post it, then it's out in the universe and i'm done with it." that's what i told myself. 

actions have consequences. putting things on this blog creates questions from people who don't know the whole story.

so i called my friend cristina and before i could say anything i cried. 

i have to put this on my blog. i have to let go of this.

she listened.

i can't keep being this angry with myself. 

she listened some more.

i'm trying to protect myself from things that have already happened to me.

she talked me back to a place of quiet. she told me," there is no one pushing you on this except for yourself, so give yourself a little break, at least on this, at least for a little while. go walk. get away from the article and your blog and your emails and walk. you'll feel better." 

what heals you? truly heals you?

walking. walking heals me. i walked everywhere in italy. i lost four pounds in five weeks. in italy. when in doubt, leave your chair/bed/home and walk. leave your phone, leave your music. just walk. 

talking to strangers while waiting for the bus. this heals me. 

going to bed early with the windows open. this heals me. 

waking even earlier. this heals me.

flirting with that really nice and sexy guy who lives too damn far away, but loves baseball as much as i do. counting this good-hearted man as a friend. this heals me.

bob marley. bob marley heals me, especially no woman, no cry. 

eating chicken fajitas and spanish rice, and drinking lime margaritas in a quiet kitchen, with a lilac candle on the table as the only light, and a cat glued to the windowsill next to my right arm. this heals me. 

cancelling plans heals me. when the thought of one more thing makes me tense my body, it's time to reschedule that breakfast/coffee/dinner.

i can't wait to wake early and walk into that quiet again. tomorrow will be better. 

things i've been wanting to write about.

it's been a few (five) days since i've written anything on here. if i'd had any extra time this week i would've spent it writing. i would've spent it talking about the following things.


how this woman called me at 10:00 last night from new york to tell me what this felt like. how this sports writer is twenty-two years old and just graduated college. how writing this article about women sports writers in this city has lit a fire under me. how one of the editors at the tribune broke up a meeting to take my call on my lunch break yesterday and how that reaffirmed my faith in men in positions of power. how the amount of notes i have from my interviews is absurd, and yet, i keep contacting people. and how i am equal parts excited and terrified for this article to come out.


the disgusting amount of reading i've needed to do. 


i ran seven minutes without stopping tuesday morning. i always let myself stop. i don't want to do that anymore. i lasted seven minutes before i started to wheeze uncontrollably. leave me alone, asthma.


how i've loved all the rain this week and how storms always make me feel better.


how tired i felt when jim asked, "why can't you be nice to yourself?"


the guy at mitchell's on sunday who looked like opie from sons of anarchy and how i am a fan of that look. and how i froze when he came by me to order another drink.


how much i love this show and there's only been one episode. i can't wait for tonight's with portia de rossi.


but it's been a long week and i'm tired and this coffee is finally starting to kick in. 


also, how much i love every version of this song i can find.

change this feeling under my feet

change the sheets and then change me

this is my anthem right now. so grateful for this song. and this woman.