on falling too fast and being perfect

One of my dear friends is falling too fast for a boy. 

Her words; not mine. 

As far as I'm concerned, I love seeing my friends fall fast and furiously. She deserves the best kind of love - wild and romantic - and I tell her, every time we talk, just to enjoy it. But she can't. She's scared because she hasn't known him long enough to feel this way. Should she really be this excited? This sure? This comfortable trying on his last name?

She's shoulding all over their new relationship to the point that she can't enjoy it. 

Her stress and worry are taking all of the fun out of it - and she knows it. Yet, she can't stop because she's so scared she will break it.

Golly, I've been there. I know how it feels when you accidentally think you might be in falling - inches away from free fall, really - and you want to stop - grab on to something, anything to keep it from happening. When you worry about asking too much from him, because you're scared it might be more than he's ready for. 

The ride from the airport. 

The dinner with your mom. 

The wedding with ev.er.y.one you know. 

When you're so scared you're going to break it. 

And what I'm trying to help my sweet friend believe is what I wish I'd seen then. That you don't have to apologize for your needs. That the right guy won't be afraid to say what you need to hear or care for you in the way you yearn to be cared for. That you're not too demanding or noisy or too, too much. 

I see girls all around me trying to diminish their needs. 

I see girls trying to be smaller. 

Quieter. 

But in these last few months, what I've learned is that we shouldn't apologize for who we are (one should to which I'm willing to adhere). Sometimes I'm loud, because my voice carries. And sometimes I have to ask for crazy amounts of help: money for Africa, a car to borrow when mine gets stripped, a new vacuum because mine caught on fire. 

And it's OK. It doesn't make me a failure. It doesn't make me high maintenance. It just makes me human. And being human doesn't ruin a relationship. In fact, I've often found that when I finally let my guard down - when I stop playing the perfect game and admit I need a little help - is when things really get good. When I let someone see that I'm pretty quirky and I like to play games everywhere I go. When I admit that I get lost all the time and can't map my way out of a box. When I let someone see my [not so] sexy dance moves...

Is when they start to see me.

When we let people see everything we call a flaw is really when we are letting them see our vulnerabilities. It's when they see us as a person, not an act. It's when we make room for them to give us grace.

And you know what? I've often found that it's when they start to do the same. They start to show you that they get lost a lot, too. Or maybe they have a bad singing voice. And snore!

But our imperfections are part of what make us beautiful - they make us real.

And, as far as I'm concerned, two real, real people falling for one another too quickly sounds a lot more fun to me that two people pretending to be perfect. In fact, it sounds like the perfect adventure. GPS or no GPS. 

it can wait

I don't normally blog about things like this, but I feel it too much not to share.

Last week I was at home and my parents were really pushing no texting and driving to Sam and me. I heard them but it wasn't until Friday, when my mom and I pulled into the driveway that I really heard it. We were pulling in and two little blonde boys - probably three and four - ran out in front of us. My mom braked and it was in that moment that it clicked for me. I try not to text and drive but have my "safe zones," where i feel like it's OK to look at my phone. The red lights, stop signs and that last ten feet before I'm home. Had I been pulling into our driveway texting, though, I would have hit those sweet kids.

I decided I had to fast - really fast - from it, because texting and driving really is an epidemic. I took the pledge and am promising myself that no matter how important the email, text or (shamefully) Instagram feels in to moment, it can definitely wait.

pesto. the besto! (three-ingredient recipe)

You guys. I promise I will stop blogging about my time at home soon. But not yet. There is just so much to share!

My uncle and aunt, Mikey and Betsy, have this awesome garden in their backyard. It produces beautiful, huge vegetables that make my mouth water just thinking about them. Tomatoes with crazy flavor - neither too tough, nor too soft. The kind you want to bite like an apple. 

And there's basil. So. Much. Basil.

I can still smell it.

Partially because they let me fill a grocery sack up with it, which I put in my suitcase. Total basil party in my bag. I opened it after the flight and let the herby goodness wash over me. 

Because it goes bad faster than spinach (which is really, really fast), I had to do something ASAP. This party of one can only eat so much basil. 

And so, I made pesto!

Because I didn't know how real people make pesto and because I only had so many things in my pantry, I made up my own recipe. And it worked! So, without further ado, healthy pesto, for you...

Ingredients:

3 T Extra Virgin Olive Oil
4 C. Basil
Salt and Pepper to taste

Yields about two servings of pesto

To make:

Put basil and olive oil in Food Processor
Add salt and pepper to taste
Blend until creamy

Enjoy. Freeze. Laugh because you're so happy you'll have basil all winter (assuming you made more than two servings...).

Happy eats!

on waiting.

Last week when I was home, it was just my parents and me Wednesday through Friday. And being there reminded me of when I first graduated college and got a job in Indy. I lived at home to save money (medium successful...) and it was just the three of us.

Together, we moved out our my childhood home into our new one. We broke it in together, learned the new neighborhood, developed new-house routines. 

It was fun - really fun. It was the first time I'd lived at home as a grown up. It had never been OK for us to have a glass of wine together. I'd never had job stuff to talk to them about instead of school stuff. It had never been just me and them - it had almost always been the seven of us, or at least always five of us. Never just three. 

I look back on it as a really sweet time I had with them and I'm so grateful for it. It changed my relationships with them and helped us see one another in a new light. 

But you know what? While I was living there, I was so stressed. I couldn't relax because I felt like I should have been living in my own apartment. Failure to launch. That's how I felt every day. Silly for living with my parents, when everyone else had houses in Broadripple and apartments in Indy. I was in the suburbs replacing high school framed pictures in my bedroom with college ones, while everyone else was hanging cool prints in their freshly painted kitchens. 

Comparing, comparing. I was so stressed.

I thought of that when I was up early Wednesday morning. I was brushing my teeth, so excited to go get some of my mom's coffee before work. And all of those feelings came rushing back. I was in my old routine and it felt like barely anything had changed - like I'd stepped back in time just for a moment. 

And I looked in the mirror and told myself what I wished I'd known then: calm down, Whitney. You'll get there. You aren't stuck - it's just not your time yet. Be grateful for the right now. Be grateful for what you're learning; what you're living. The next step will be taken, but right now is so important. And it's so sweet. Don't rush it. Take a deep breath and enjoy it. 

I write this as I sit in my house in Atlanta. Melissa is in the other room and I'm on the couch, blogging away. Our place is clean. It has cute decorations. It has wood floors and things I didn't even imagine having back then. 

Because the future is so often sweeter than we could have imagined. 

But we have to wait. We have to embrace the now in order to get to the future. So today, I'm not rushing. I'm not stressing. I'm enjoying it, carrying my head high, my heart filled to the brim with joy. Because the future is exciting, but the right now is so worth living. Every minute of it.