Category Archives: Uncategorized

Uncategorized

Rebranding The Humblebrag

Leave a comment

Okay, people: show of hands. How many of you have engaged in a self-enforced social media moratorium for more than a week at a time? You know: “deleted” your Facebook (when you knew the whole time that the only thing standing between you and your next hit was the re-entry of your password)? Or “protected” your tweets (aw but this is no fun, how will all my potential new followers/bots know that they actually want to follow me)?

Photo by Rob Adams

Photo by Rob Adams

We “go dark” online (and in our hearts) for all sorts of reasons. I have done so on multiple occasions due to my complete and utter inability to A) assess the worth of, validity of, and reasons-I-even-give-a-shit about someone’s very publicly announced life milestone, which directly correlates to B) My complete and utter inability to say something awesome about my own achievements. Now, this is, of course, only applicable when and if those achievements actually crop up, which is another puzzle piece in and of itself. How come I feel like such a loserly asshole when everybody else is tweeting about their promotion or the fact that SHE SAID YES, but I feel like even more of a loserly asshole when I have my own great news to post about? This is where I start SPI-RA-LING. Enter the dragon. Enter THE HUMBLEBRAG.

But I hate that guy. That Humblebrag. According to Humblebrag, I must publicly admit that, fueled by pounds of goat cheese and the blissful clarity that only boxed Chardonnay can provide, I gave up yoga on weeknights so I could beast through my novel edits. Then, and only then, after I had gained ten pounds and stopped wearing pants, did I become worthy of praise. “I did this thing! This thing I worked really hard on happened! I’m really proud! But I am the very hottest of messes because of it, so don’t worry.” The humble part of that brag is probably NOT EVEN TRUE! I might have skipped out on yoga a bunch during that short era and my goat cheese consumption rates probably peaked, but it was as unworthy a footnote in my tweet/Facebook post as it would have been in the actual book. But Humblebrag tells us it’s wrong to simply state the glowing accolades without any humanizing self-deprecation to cleanse the palate.

There’s another school of thought that encourages those who are #adulting and achieving things to shed the ‘humble’ of Humblebrag and just… well… brag. Own it. Bask in it. And yes, I super duper respect this. Why indeed should you force your grand achievement to share the spotlight with an awkward drunk uncle who nobody invited to the party, like a mic crasher at the VMAs or some other comparably low-brow self-congratulatory goblin ball? Just brag, they say. You earned it, after all. But for me, that’s just as uncomfortable as fabricating a humiliating, silly “humble” aspect to my otherwise stellar announcement. So #Straightbrag is not for me either.

There does, however, exist a third option. And I want this one to stick. I want this one to come in and sweep Humblebrag off his humble-pie feet (his feet are made of pies, as we all know)! Please meet my delightful companion for the evening, #ThankYouBrag. Here’s the way this works: chances are, if you accomplished something noteworthy, you didn’t do it completely alone. Even the most solitary of activities (like, oh, here we are, writing) requires cheerleaders from time to time. This is your friend who went to the coffee shop with you and set up their laptop next to yours so you could help each other destroy your deadlines. This is your roommate, who contributed gorgeous concept art based on your new script for you to hang on your wall “just because.” This is your co-worker who wrote a novel of an email to your boss, encouraging her to let you “spread your wings and prepare to fly” and promote you (because obviously you work for Mariah Carey). When you go to make your big, exciting announcement across your social media platforms, you will tag these people and you will thank the shit out of them.

You didn’t have to debase yourself with a humblebrag. You didn’t have to pull any straight up unsolicited gloating either. You announced your big bad self. And you thanked everyone who helped you along the way. You feel great because you got to shout your fabulous news from the rooftops. They feel great (hopefully) because you tagged them and thanked them for being amazing. You don’t look like a self-deprecating Eeyore with his dumb bow-tie tail dangling half off (“Thanks for noticin’ me”). You look like a real adult who is proud of their achievement and grateful to have had the support of an awesome network of people.

Just maybe hold back on the #blessed. I mean, you’ve got to draw the line somewhere.  #sorrynotsorry

Originally published on the author’s blog at www.elizabethkerin.com

Uncategorized

How one person experienced loss and death

Leave a comment

Photo by Rob Adams

I can’t recall the first time I realized that everyone was going to die. In a way, I still don’t believe it.  It’s not something I dwell on—but on the loneliest days or the slowest weeks, I come to the realization that there is a clock ticking somewhere just for us. But just as quickly, I push it out, burying it somewhere in the recesses of my mind. And yet, despite this, I do think there was one moment in my life that defined death, and for me that happened when I was 17, when my grandmother died.

This was the first time that someone very close to me had passed away. Death had been around me before; I grew up with a 24-hour news cycle, after all. People die all the time: it’s a natural and inevitable part of life. But, until that day in January, I had not personally experienced the finality of it. My grandmother was in my life at one moment and then in the next, she was gone. It is such a weird and relative concept that it’s hard to put into words. My mom, dad and I were all in church, when we found out. I was rehearsing with the choir, when suddenly my dad appeared behind me. He told me she was gone and I just kind of stared at him. Then I remembered my mom and what she must be going through and I leaped into action—I had to keep moving so I wasn’t overwhelmed with shock.

My experience with my grandmother’s death was, I think, pretty average. Not to make it sound like it wasn’t a big deal, but my grandmother, at 88, was living in a nursing home and was getting ready to move to hospice care when she died. My family was “prepared” for it and we had been making arrangements for a while. But there was still a big part of me that couldn’t imagine a day when my grandmother wouldn’t be around. She had been a constant presence in my life since I was born. Her life was so interesting, and she was so interesting, and seeing that taken away from the world was heartbreaking. She lived through some of the more tumultuous decades of the past century and, growing up, she would alway s tell me stories about traveling through, and living in, Europe. We’d play cribbage and she would teach me how to throw classy dinner parties. She was my grandmother.

For me, the hardest part was seeing how difficult my grandmother’s death was for my mom. She was so sad. Even though I was still in shock, I focused on keeping myself together so I could make her mother’s death easier to bear. That day was a blur of documents and plans for the funeral, which was the easiest part of the whole experience, in my opinion. But then we went home, where there was nothing to distract us anymore. Nothing I had ever experienced could prepare me for the sheer emptiness I felt during that downtime. To cope with this, I did what I usually do whenever I feel sad: I retreated. The next day, I made a CD of depressing music, got in my car, and drove around for a while—stopping when I wanted to, but mostly just thinking. There were a lot of things that I wished I had asked my grandmother, wished I had told her. I wanted to know what she thought about growing old? Did time eventually slow down? What was her favorite memory? And I wanted to tell her I loved her. But mostly, I just wished I had spent so much more time with her.

Her death made me think about how I treat the people in my life and I’ve since realized that I approach my relationships selfishly. I seek out people who make me feel good, who make me want to be better, who inspire me to do good things. But I forget most of the time the effect I have on them and how our relationship is bigger than both of us. If you only pay attention to your friends when they are physically right beside you, you run the risk of missing important connections with them. By thinking and observing people outside of your relationship, you could potentially discover more about them and yourself as well. Taking time to listen and to cultivate my relationships has helped me connect on multiple levels. There are some people I would have never thought I could be friends with until I gave them the time to give them a chance and realize that everyone has something to give if you listen long enough. I truly believe we will have fewer regrets in life if we listen, interact, and forgive those we spend time with.

When someone you love has died, you miss everything—and I mean everything—about him or her. Playing, laughing, disagreeing, even fighting with them. It’s an ache that sits right on your heart. I do not say this to make it harder for those who are missing someone, but I do want you know that missing someone doesn’t go away. Missing that person who died will always hurt some part of you. But it doesn’t have to make you miserable, or make you retreat, or make life harder for you. By missing them, you can remember that the person you love, even in death, is making you a better person, simply by reminding you that life is short, and that we all want to leave this Earth, and our friends, a little better than how we found them.

Uncategorized

How to Turn 26

1 Comment

In the weeks before I turned 26, a tide of nausea briefly rippled through my stomach. It was equal parts vanity, regret, and mortal terror. Turning 26 is not as easy as turning 25, 27, or even the dreaded 23 (when nobody likes you, because, what’s your age again?). There are no more additional perks that come with age—renting a car at reduced cost came at 25, and there is nothing else coming down the pike until Social Security (hah) and being able to get the senior discount at movie theaters and Denny’s (assuming your digestive tract somehow grows an iron coating, or perhaps you stop caring about having to buy new underwear). When you turn 26, you leave the 18-25 demographic—meaning that advertisers now care less about what you think because, statistically, you act and buy and think like a young person no longer.

Photo by Sara Slattery

I began to think of all the things I hadn’t done, all the plans I’d made and failed to live up to, all the ambition that couldn’t measure up to the demands of reality. The thought popped into my head “…what if I am turning 30/40/65/on my deathbed, and I still feel this regret?”

Suffice to say, I got quite inebriated that night. But, there is really nothing quite like existential terror to shake you out of your routines or thoughts or beliefs that are, for lack of an accurate and more polite term, bullshit. There is nothing quite like existential terror to make you really step back and evaluate what you are doing, why, and whether or not it’s the right thing to do.

1. Vanity – “I’m too old for this sh*t.” – Roger Murtaugh, Lethal Weapon

You have to take a look at the things you do and the things you did. Some folks can line up shots on Tuesday night and be fresh and ready to go for round two at 5 pm Wednesday. If you are 26, chances are you are not one of those people—I certainly am not.  Put down the Keystone Light and the shot of vodka if you know deep-down you’d rather have a pint of a microbrew or maybe a nice glass of red wine.

At first, when I had this epiphany, I just thought that it was about me getting old and boring, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. It meant I cared more about the journey than the destination—less about getting messed up, and more about really enjoying a nice thing. Youth is turbulent and extreme, and this is just the curve of human experience normalizing. The volume on life doesn’t need to be at 11 all the time. Also, you may now come to understand that these types of volume-11 activities were stupid or embarrassing more often than you are comfortable admitting out loud.

2. Regret – “Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.” J. S. Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Life is a game in which you have a finite number of points to allocate to skills, and a finite amount of experience. You must understand that you cannot be both a cowboy and an astronaut—a choice must be made, and that pragmatism will do everything it can to micturate upon the rug that brings together the room that is your life. Money and your means of living will do everything they can to dominate your decision making, making them predicate to happiness—if you let them. It’s your job now, as a 26 year old, to carve out happiness from the charred husk of post–Great Recession America. This will require willpower, creativity, and periodic bursts of self-destruction borrowed from your youth (known prior to your 26th name day as “fun”). This project will take you roughly 30-40 years, so plan it out.

And speaking of “fun,” if you are still doing this stuff well into your 30s and it isn’t otherwise causing your life problems, then don’t listen to critics who’ve “grown up”—if you like doing it, find folks who also like doing it, and make them your friends. Don’t feel bad: remember, it’s keeping you sane and letting you live your life the way you’ve planned it. Unless it’s hurting your health or relationships, don’t be easily shamed by people, especially older critics. (If you feel particularly saucy, remind them that the economic meltdown was voted in by their generation, and that you are dealing as best as you can with the mess they made. It seems to be popular to hate on Millennials—don’t tolerate it. Stand up for yourself.) Eat. Drink. Be merry.

If you wanted to do something, take the time now. Nominally, you’re still young. Go on that adventure, that trip overseas, the road trip across America. Do that thing you always talked about doing, but never got around to doing. Do it now, and let no mortal stand in your way.

Most importantly, do away with the notion that you or anyone else in your peer group has this part of life figured out. If it looks like it, they’re only good at faking it. I’m pretty sure even Mark Zuckerberg went through a “what does it all mean” phase while sitting on a throne made of 100-dollar-bill bricks rubber-banded together and stacked like cocaine-stained legos. There is a relative scale, but more or less we all feel it. Don’t try to compare yourself to other people—they aren’t you. They don’t want what you want, and they haven’t been through what you’ve been through. I was surprised to find that some people I know who are happy on paper are filled with the same existential terror and they question themselves even harder than I did. If you still haven’t found what you’re looking for, go out and find it.

3. Mortal Terror – “Someday, I am going to be dead.” Everyone ever on at least one night, staring at the bedroom ceiling

Yeah, you’re going to die. Unless humanity manages to pull its crap together and invent clinical/biological immortality (which, awesomely enough, exists in lobsters), you are probably going to feel the icy grip of death wrap around your chest and squeeze out your final breath. Did that make you uncomfortable? Good, that means you’re paying attention.

Let it inspire you. Let it motivate you. That mortal terror you feel is a fire underneath you that you need to transition through this phase and accomplish what you wish you had already done. You are down two touchdowns in the game of your 20s, and you need to rally a comeback.

Let your life be worthy of a bard’s song. Hit each day like it’s a good day to die (as if you were a Klingon). Your days aren’t long, and they’re getting shorter.