I am clearly a shitty blogger.

It has been nearly three years since I have blogged. Why? Um, I dunno. I will say this, however: I have missed it.

So what's new with me? Nothing. Everything. Not to be dramatic or anything, but I don't think I'm the same person I was three years ago. I'm 32 years old now; I find myself saying "I'm too old for (insert item here)" more than I care to admit. But I love my thirties. Definitely better than my twenties. In the spirit of being that polar bear, I think I'm closer than I've ever been, especially due to recent events. Here, let me explain...

As a thirty-something woman, I have spent the better part of ten years trying to assert my independence and individuality. When I was in college, I had a serious boyfriend who I thought I was going to marry. The problem was that he controlled everything. Mind you, he wasn't controlling, but I definitely molded myself into what I thought he wanted. I made friends with all his friends; he thought my friends were rather obnoxious. He was (is) a huge Gopher fan, and I went to many a basketball game. He bought a place in Eagan and notified me that when I moved in I was going to have to get rid of a lot of my stuff. One day I looked in the mirror and realized that I couldn't marry him. Marrying him would mean essentially letting myself fall to the wayside.

So I broke up with him. I have never doubted that it was the right thing to do, but what followed that breakup was years of soul searching, grief, financial woes, and a few really dark moments. There were sweet times, too, but I was on a roller coaster. And for the most part, I rode that roller coaster by myself. I was deathly afraid of falling into the same patterns, so I avoided relationships. When I did get involved with men, they were usually unsuitable in one way or another, but it was better that way because I always knew how it was going to turn out. My friends shook their heads at me in bewilderment half the time, but in the long run my heart experienced minimal damage.

I actually got really comfortable being by myself until one late night not too long ago. I was lying in bed reading, and I kept seeing something out of the corner of my eye. It was two in the morning and I was convinced that I was freaking myself out, so I tried to ignore it, but finally I looked up, and there it was. A bat--a motherfucking bat--was circling the room. I froze for a full minute, trying to decide whether or not ignoring the problem was an option. After coming to terms with the fact that I had no choice but to deal with the critter, the thought crossed my mind that it would be nice to have someone there to help. Not someone to do it for me, but someone to commiserate with. I buried the thought as quickly as it appeared and hatched a plan, ducking into the kitchen to grab supplies. After successfully trapping the bat in an empty freezie pop box and releasing it into the night, I felt proud of myself for catching the bat on my own. There was a part of me, though, that wanted to laugh about it with someone, maybe share a high-five or something.

So why am I telling you all of this? Well, since the bat night, the thought of letting someone in became less of a fear and more of a desire. The problem is that as an adult I have a much more jaded view of love and what it really means. I came from a home where my parents stayed together, so my view of relationships was overly simple back then. You met someone, you married them, you had kids, and that was that. These days I am well aware of the...messiness that can (and will) ensue. Everyone has issues, a lot of people cheat, life throws curveballs, and nothing is perfect. But the thing is, I don't care anymore. I wanna try. I'm sick of thinking that I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life when I have to admit that I've never really tried that hard.

And I met someone. And we connected instantly, in a way that I haven't experienced before. God, I sound so girly, but it's true. And it hasn't been very long, but for the first time in my life, even though I'm scared as hell, I'm thinking that I can make the jump into the unknown. I feel in my bones that he's going to be in my life for a very long time, but I'm scared to be wrong. I'm scared that he's bullshitting me. But I don't think he is. I think this is for real.

I thought that once I took the plunge everything would be easy, but I still have a lot of anxiety about the whole thing. It actually feels good, though, because if nothing else comes of this, I'm proud of myself for trying (even if my friends will continue to shake their heads at me). Or maybe it'll be the best thing in the world. I don't know yet--and that's totally fine.

So that's what's new with me. Huh. I just wrote kind of a serious blog, which is unlike me, so I hope that's okay. I promise I'll be funnier later...

The jig is up, Marvin.

One morning I was on the bus headed to work, and at the corner of Franklin and Nicollet, I saw a message. It was written on the bus stop bench in front of the new CVS, and it said, "Marvin, I got evidence."


Jesus, Marvin. What did you do? I need to know. Was it something really bad? Did it involve murder?

The message has since been painted over, but I still think about it every time I go by that corner. I wonder if Marvin saw the message and just freaked out. I wonder if he knew immediately who wrote the message (i.e. an arch nemesis) or if he was caught completely off guard.

Sometimes I think my life would be much more exciting if I had an arch nemesis. I mean, no one has any evidence on me (I don't think), and that's a good thing, but it would be kind of fun to have someone like this in my life. In some cases, I think it's better to be hated than to be treated with indifference. The closest I ever came to having an arch nemesis was in college. I was in a poetry writing workshop class with this girl who thought she was an amaaaaaaaaazing writer. Whenever we would critique each other's writing, she was the worst when it came to being super critical of everyone else. I don't think she ever really had strong feelings one way or the other toward me, but in my mind, we were mortal enemies. To this day, if anyone ever mentions her name I get a little riled up. Unfortunately, I don't think this really counts as a legitimate nemesis.

Right now there's no one I would consider for the role of my nemesis, but I'm still relatively young and there's plenty of time for hatred to come into my life. I'm not going to commit crimes like Marvin, so I think I'll just have to be patient and let it happen naturally. I may be likeable, but I'm not that likeable. Sometimes I can be kind of a dick.

So there's still hope for me.

The Prodigal Blogger Returns

For those who may have been anxiously awaiting a follow-up to my debut blog, here we are. It has been about a month since I turned 30 and subsequently decided to become that polar bear.

I'm going to come right out and say it: I find my thirties to be lovely so far. I'm not sure if my deciding to be that polar bear has positively influenced my thirties or vice versa, but so far so good. It's not that I didn't have a lot of fun in my twenties--I certainly did. I have some great stories and fond memories. It's just that this past month has been more consistently happy and chill. I like chill. In fact, these days I'm most excited about all my favorite TV shows starting up again.

Basically I've become much more content to just be. That probably sounds cliche and perhaps a little new-agey, but it's true. And I don't think this is the same as being complacent. I think too many people are afraid of becoming complacent and as a result they have a hard time being happy with what they've already accomplished. Don't get me wrong--it is important to live to your full potential, but not everyone is going to be the celebrity or the rich guy or the incredibly good-looking one.

The danger with this thinking is, of course, to never truly live to your full potential. Ah, there's the rub! It's just another fine line all of us have to walk on this tightrope we call life. Now, I'll be the first to say that in some respects, I haven't lived up to my full potential in life. At the age of 30, perhaps I should have accomplished more than I have. However, I have come to the realization that 30 is actually pretty young and that I've got a helluva lot more life to live. In short, there's time.

A large number of my friends are in the arts, and there's this tendency in the arts to constantly talk about what you're doing, what projects you've got going on, and what recognition you've received. Any time I have a conversation with someone in this group, we always ask each other, "What are you working on right now? Do you have any shows coming up?" Any time I go to an audition there's always some ring leader in the waiting room who starts a conversation about what everyone's done, what theatres they've worked with, which agencies represent them, etc. Everyone's constantly scoping out the competition, and it always carries over into social settings. It's enought to make a person feel inadequate if they don't have a long list of accomplishments to rattle off. Sometimes I think it would be more efficient if we all carried our resumes everywhere and just distributed them to each other.

A lot of this is, I think, our natural tendency as humans to compete with each other. You know, the survival of the fittest and stuff. It's just that it shouldn't always be about other people. Sometimes it's a very good thing to ask oneself, "This is what I really want, right? This is truly making me happy, right?"

Look at it this way: does a polar bear sit around wondering whether he's going to be the coolest polar bear on the ice cap? Probably not. He is going to make sure that he's well-fed, safe from harm, and happy at the end of the day. He strives to be good at catching fish and at impregnating lady polar bears, but he's not greedy. He's not going to catch more fish than he needs and he's not going to spread his seed willy-nilly simply for sport. If he's had a bad day, chances are he's not going back to his polar bear lair and stewing about it. Most of all, he's not going to be comparing himself to the other polar bears and fretting if his polar bear friends caught more fish than him in a particular day (for example). This is what separates humans from other animals: we like to complicate. Something tells me that polar bears don't complicate.

So this is my first initiative as an aspiring polar bear. You know, I think I'm going to get a lot of mileage out of this whole analogy. I think there's a lot to learn from those polar animals, and I plan to share my findings with you fine folks. But I won't always be preaching about the polar bear. I promise.

Until we meet again...

Here I am on the eve of my 30th, and all I want to do is blog.

As the final hours of my 29th year slip away, I think about the camping trip I attended this past weekend and a pivotal conversation around the campfire:

"Laura, what's your favorite polar animal?" Emily asked out of the blue.

"Uh..." I responded, having already imbibed too much that evening.

"For example, do you like penguins, or polar bears, or perhaps the wooly mammoth?" Emily asked.

"Ooh! Definitely the wooly mammoth. Those things were crazy cool."

Emily scrunched her face in disapproval. I searched my cloudy mind for the correct answer.

"Well, after the wooly mammoth, I would have to say the polar bear. I remember going to Como Zoo not too long ago and walking through all the sad, sad buildings with the sad, sad animals, but when I got to the polar bear, he seemed so happy. He just dove into the water over and over again and lounged on his fake rock, and he was content. That's pretty cool, I think."

Emily turned to me matter-of-factly and replied, "Laura, be that polar bear." Then we continued to stare into the fire. The following day we laughed at the silliness of it all, but then I got to thinking...

After being told a long time ago that I should start a blog on one of these blogger sites, I am finally doing it. I've often thought that my desire to blog was a self-indulgent one that I should suppress. I mean, everyone's a special snowflake and all, but I don't need to add to the cyber clutter that is blogging. I did the occasional MySpace blog to get my fix, and recently I quit cold turkey.

Then today I decided that I am going to follow Emily's advice and I'm going to make 30 the year that I become that polar bear, whatever that means. My first step is to start this blog for no other reason than the sheer enjoyment of blogging. My next step is to figure out how to be that damn polar bear. I'd love for you to join me on this fanciful journey...

More to come!