Amber L. Carter's Blog, page 18

{Prehistoric Amber} Candida overgrowth, which (not to be dramatic) is pretty much the worst thing ever.

Goodbye, sweet loves.

It was just supposed to be a regular, annual physical exam.

In my quest to love my body more, I was also making a point of taking better care of it. I figured a good benchmark of that was getting a routine physical at the beginning of the year: The kind where you walk in, submit yourself to some questions about your health and lifestyle, maybe endure some minor poking around on the ol’ bod, and then you get to walk out an hour later, feeling like the empowered, confident, “I take care of MYSELF!” woman from the Salon Selectives commercials of my youth. Quick. Easy. Feeling better leaving than you did going in.

There’s a dirty joke somewhere in that last line.

Anyway! Sitting around with my doctor, we were talking about some minor issues I was experiencing…sluggish metabolism, inflammatory responses to certain foods and drinks, a resurgence of ol’ dizziness, weird stomach pains, some digestive issues, this weird mild depression that comes and goes depending on what I eat, and most recently, waking up congested, which had never been a problem for me before. I told her I suspected I might be developing an intolerance to gluten, but that I was ignoring it because I loved beer (I could still drink one full pint with no issues…it was the second pint where my body seemed to swell up like Violet Beauregardein in Willy Wonka and I would begin to as if I were coming down with a cold). I stayed away from most carbs on my own, anyway, and besides, I also seemed to have an inflammatory response when I had too much yeast or dairy. Last year I had done this thing called The Plan, I told her, where you do this 3-day cleanse to baseline your body and then you “test” certain foods to see what you might have an inflammatory response to. I had found it incredibly challenging but also fascinating, and discovered that I had a severe reaction to cabernet, malbec, and pinot noir, and then whenever I paired any red wine with chocolate.

I should have just kept my big dumb mouth shut.

“Hmm. Sounds like it’s more yeast than gluten. You’ve heard of leaky gut syndrome?”

Fuck. “Yeah. I worked with children with autism for almost a decade, so I’m fairly familiar with the term, but all I really remember about it is how hard it is to have it.” HAHAHAHA! Please don’t let me have it.

She told me that candida albicans is a form of fungus (gross!) that also grows as a yeast. A very small amount of it lives in your mouth and intestines, and its primary job is to aid with digestion and nutrient absorption. Typically, the good bacteria in your gut usually keeps your candida levels in check. However, certain things – like processed sugar and refined carbs, lots of alcohol, high stress, or even stuff like taking oral contraceptives, eating too many fermented foods like Kombucha and saurkraut, or getting too many rounds of antibiotics – can make the candida freak out. Then, like a total freaking jerk, it starts to break down the wall of the intestine and penetrate the bloodstream, releasing toxic shiz into your body and causing leaky gut, which leads to inflammatory issues and a myriad of health problems….kind of like everything I mentioned above.

Mah doctah then shared that candida overgrowth is kind of like gluten allergies of five years ago…it’s still not super common to hear about it, most people don’t even know they have it (or it gets misdiagnosed as a gluten allergy…HAHAHAHA! Those people are kind of lucky) and a lot of doctors still typically only associate it with kids on the autism spectrum. But apparently there’s a recent study that showed that one in three people probably have it (which, kind of like the surge in most food-related allergies, makes some sense due to people like me and my peers who have spent the majority of our lives eating processed and refined foods) and there’s finally some really good information out there about it and how to treat it.

“Like what? What would I need to do to get rid of it?”

Oh, barely nothing, you guys! I only have to abstain from carbs AND sugar, dairy AND fruit, alcohol AND coffee, green AND black tea for maybe six months OR MY ENTIRE LIFE, depending on how those things affect me after the candida overgrowth is conquered and my gut is healed. Such a BREEZE! Oh, and I’d have to figure out how probiotics work, too, and maybe go on a prescription to treat fungal infections (gross x a billion), and just basically change my entire life by stripping it of anything that brings me joy.

So anyway.

We did a couple of tests. “Results could take 1 to 10 days, depending on how busy the lab is, okay?”

“Great.” Take your time, I wanted to add, ‘Cause I want as much time as possible to say goodbye to all the things I love, first.

*****

After my doctor’s appointment, I went over to my friend Jen’s house for our weekly viewing of The Bachelor. I told her about the test for candida overgrowth and what testing positive for it might mean.

“It means no carbs, no sugar, no alcohol, no dairy, no fruit, no coffee, and not even black or green tea,” I told her, sitting down on the chair in her kitchen.

“Oh my GOD!” Jen shrieked, walking to her kitchen cupboard to fetch a couple of wine glasses. “So basically no fun. But you can break it occasionally, right? I mean for like special occasions?”

“Nope. You have to heal the gut before you add any of those things back in, which can take up to six months, and even then most people have to do low carb and low sugar diets.”

“And seriously no coffee?”

“Right?! That’s what I said! But no, because it’s a fungal thing and I can’t have anything that could carry or contain mold, so things like cheese and coffee are out.”

Shaking her head in disbelief, Jen poured a glass of white.

“Jen, what am I going to do?” I began to whine. “No wine or cake even on my birthday?! And I don’t even like dating people who don’t drink, much less being one.”

“Oh my god, I totally know what you mean. I even dated a guy who didn’t drink coffee and I was like, “Um, this doesn’t work for me.”

“Right? Coffee and wine are two of the greatest joys in life!”

She laughed and handed me a glass of wine. “So do you think you have it?”

I took a sip and rolled my eyes to myself. Feeling resigned, I told her, “Yeah, actually, I kind of do. Even though it would totally suck and ruin my life to test positive for it, it really would answer a lot of questions.”

“Like what?”

“Like why I can’t seem to lose any weight unless I cut out all carbs and sugar, or why I have an immediate reaction to stuff like cabernet and beer, or why I’ve been dealing with all these other little health problems that don’t seem to have any one answer except for this one.”

“Yeah,” Jen said, sitting down on the chair across from me. “It would probably be nice to finally have an answer to all that stuff.”

“And a plan of attack.”

“Right.” She poured a glass of wine for herself. “So when will you find out if you have it?”

“Not for a few days,” I replied, then smiled brightly at her. “Which is also why I brought chocolate tonight.”

We had white wine, Jen’s famous homemade mini thin-crust pizzas (omgtheyresogood), and dark chocolate while watching The Bachelor…and I started feeling this familiar taste at the back of my mouth, along with a roiling feeling at the bottom of my gut. Like, not sick sick per say…it reminds me of drinking a big glass of milk right before bed and waking up with that certain sort of taste in your mouth. And I only feel that way when I pair wine with chocolate or cheese or bread, I suddenly found myself thinking. Fuck.

Later that night, after coming home and getting ready for bed, I started to think that it might not be that bad. That night obviously serving as an exception, I usually eat really well…pretty freaking clean, in fact. And if I tested positive and went on the candida diet and it helped with my lack of focus and that weird, occasional funk and brain fog I struggled with – not to mention the extra weight around my gut that wouldn’t seem to go away, no matter how clean I ate – then maybe it would actually end up being a good thing. Maybe I could totally do this.

*****

I so do not want to do this, I thought to myself upon waking the next morning.

“Now I look back and think that I was super lucky when I still thought that Atkins was the solution, because at least on that you can have cheese, cream, and coffee…” I wrote to my best friend Katy in an email. “The alcohol thing is honestly not that big of a deal…I barely drink anymore, anyway, save for the occasional night out with Lacy or a glass or two at Jen’s on Monday nights, but it’s more the fact that now I can’t do it at all, you know?”

The coffee and the fruit were, quite frankly, the things that bothered me the most. I’ve given up sugar, carbs, and dairy before in quests for better health, and while each of those times were definitely a trip to sucktown, I already knew how to navigate myself down those streets. But I’ve also been able to do that thanks to knowing that I could still turn to coffee to get me through a hard day. It’s a joy for me, that first cup in the morning. And I love fruit…pairing grapes and almonds in the morning is one of my all-time favorite breakfasts. It makes me feel like a better person just to buy fruit.

But even I can only whine so much, so I spent the rest of the day drinking coffee (because I could) and researching this whole candida thing. I found that there was a lot more information on it than I expected, and the more I read about the causes and the symptoms, the more I started to feel pretty deeply that I was going to test positive for it (the only symptoms that *didn’t* match were any type of infections or autoimmune diseases).

Also, please, please take my word for it: You do not want to Google Image this thing. Not even out of curiosity, not even for research. SAVE YOURSELF THE HORROR AND DON’T FUCKING DO IT.

The information about treating it was the confusing bit. A lot of information out there directly contradicts other sources, and my doctor wasn’t far off the mark when she said that not many doctors know much about it yet – tons of people reported not being taken seriously when they came to their doctors about candida overgrowth, or they report being misdiagnosed for tons of different things, mostly gluten-intolerance (which can help clean up a lot of the symptoms, but doesn’t address the issues with yeast and leaky gut).

Regardless, I was starting to see that even if I didn’t test positive for candida or gluten intolerance, there was still a lot of stuff in my diet that I could and should probably cut out in a quest for better wellness.

(I still really wanted to keep the coffee, though. And the occasional glass of wine).

As if right on cue, I got the lab results back in the middle of the afternoon. On every test we did, the results were positive for candida overgrowth.

So it looks like this whole #BodyLove adventure is now taking a whole new direction!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT.

Written & Published January 16, 2014

The 2015 Fuck It List: #5. It’s Not Me, It’s You.

Back in 2014, I posted my 2014 Fuck It List based on and inspired by this most excellent post:

Welcome to my Fuck It list. Fourteen things I’m going to stop giving a fuck about in 2014. Because, as important as it is to push yourself to be a healthier, more compassionate person, that can be downright impossible. Refusing to give a fuck, however, isn’t just easy — it’s kind of awesome.

So fuck it. Here are the fourteen things I’m going to stop worrying about come 2014.

- 14 Fucks I Refuse To Give In 2014

This year, I’ve made a list of 15 Things I Refuse To Give a Fuck About In 2015 (capitalized, because it’s IMPORTANT). But instead of trying to write and post a huge massive manifesto all at once, I decided to instead break my list down into bite-sized pieces.

15 Fucks I Refuse To Give In 2015

 

So literally the morning after I wrote the journal entry that would become #2 of The 2015 Fuck It List, I stumbled upon this little gem:

I used to (and sometimes still do) take a lot of things personally. In fact, I was often mystified by the friends and acquaintances who declared that they don’t take anything personally. How is that even possible? It’s just wasn’t how my brain works. If you did or said something to or about me (or not, depending), it was fucking personal. To me, to tell someone “it’s not personal” was basically polite speak for “your thoughts and feelings and opinions in this don’t matter.”

(This might have had to do with the fact that I grew up with the very persistent belief that the world did, in fact, revolve around me. Even when I came to terms with the unbelievable fact that people who didn’t actually know all about me could still exist, I comforted myself with the consolation that their sole purpose in life, then, was obviously to serve as background extras in the Broadway play of Amber’s Wonderful, Musical, Tap-Dancin’, She-Ra Lovin’ Life.

You might think that’s funny, but my poor parents actually had to live through that until I was 10.

Okay. 19.

FINE. 30.)

And while I still don’t totally subscribe to the stance of not taking anything personally – there’s still something weirdly arrogant about that to me, plus it denies one an entire world of social learning based on people’s responses to you – it is really freeing to just finally decide to not let other people’s actions decide your self-worth.

Some people are able to float through life with an ever-constant high self-regard. And those people are often sociopaths, so for the rest of us, keeping our self-worth at a cool-to-be-me-and-you level is a lifetime maintenance type thang. When the self-worth is on the downward slope, it becomes easier to translate other people’s actions and words into infalliable pronouncements of how valuable we really are. For instance, whether or not that new person you just met at a party followed you back on Twitter: If they did, great – you’re obviously amazingly attractive with a sparkling personality and a quick, amusing wit. If they didn’t, shit – you’re obviously a slovenly-looking troll who talked too much and got super annoying and now they’re telling all their friends – and probably your friends, too – how much they never want to be at another party with you ever again.

But here’s the thing I’ve learned: Other people don’t know shit about you. My family almost never gets to see the public speaker or project manager side of me. My friends get a different “funny” than my blog readers do. Nobody knows about my charity and service work. People who follow me on Twitter don’t know that I love my baby brother so much that I am literally planning on moving across the country because, just in case someone cuts him off in traffic or turns him down for a role or breaks up with him or does anything to hurt him, ever, then I want to be within driving distance of LA so I can find them and kill them. Professional colleagues probably don’t know that if you’re my friend, I will have your fucking back to the very end. People on Instagram don’t have the first clue that I cry over everything because I have a dumb, soft, and melty heart that breaks especially for kids and pit bull rescues and friends going through a tough time and every single one of those goddamn Apple holiday commercials.

These are all things that I like best about myself, and they’re all things that build my self-worth, and there’s a lot of people who don’t know shit about one or even all of them.

Especially not the barista from a certain local coffeehouse who sneered over my t-shirt choice and then made me feel weird and awkward when I asked what the wifi password was.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is – even though I’ll still find it a bit impossible to rule out other people’s responses to me, in 2015, I’m done with letting other people’s actions or reactions define my self-worth. Easier said than done, I know. But it is really super freeing, when you just kind of decide that, until you hear differently, everything other people do is about them, not you.

YA HEAR THAT, BARISTA FROM A CERTAIN LOCAL COFFEEHOUSE? YOUR PRETENTIOUSLY SNOBBY STUPID FACE IS ABOUT YOU, NOT ME.

Also, fuck you. This t-shirt’s way cool.

//

 

Tell me: What do you refuse to give a fuck about in 2015? 

Pssst: Everyone who comments on any and all 2015 Fuck It List posts will be entered into a drawing to win a $15 Gift Card from Amazon. Because fuck not being able to buy that new Kindle book you’ve been eyeing.

{Prehistoric Amber} Remembrance.

 

I almost never look at these photos…I could probably count on one hand the number of times in the past ten years I’ve taken them out. I still have the mental snapshots, and they are clearer and more precise than any of these. I could measure out for you, with my hands, the exact span of his hips, the width of his chest, the circumference of his arms. I can still exactly remember the timbre of his voice as if I had just heard it yesterday. I still catch myself imitating his body language, his mannerisms, and even some of his sayings…they’ve become such a part of me by now that sometimes I have to remind myself who I got them from.

Today his sister Heidi posted on Facebook that she’s making the blueberry muffins that he always loved. A family friend commented that that was such a nice way to honor him, and that she was sure Hansel was smiling down from heaven as Heidi whipped them up. And for the first time since we lost him, I felt…happy, at that thought, instead of the old rage and despair that would ordinarily have risen up because he is no longer a part of this world. Not that I haven’t been weeping all day…it gets easier in some ways and it never gets easier in others, you know? Because out of everything, that is still the thing that can bring me to my knees the way it did ten years ago: I just want him to still be somewhere in this world. Even if it’s all the way across it, even if I never got to see him or talk to him again…I just want to know that he’s here, somewhere, still living a life.

It took a long time to get to the point where I could be anywhere around his sisters or parents and not want to burst into tears with every other word…but this December, I finally reached it. And I’m so grateful for it. I used to be terrified that hearing their voices or seeing their faces would plunge me back into that deep, dark abyss, but it doesn’t, anymore. I ran into his parents at my favorite coffeeshop in the middle of a Saturday afternoon a handful of weeks ago, and was struck by how much they still feel like a second family. And his sisters… I will always be grateful for them, and for the bond we will always share. But this last time, when I met up with them over Christmas, it felt more like we were old friends instead of fellow survivors. And I’m really happy for that. I’m grateful.

Ten years ago today, my life changed forever. Cataclysmically. There is nothing, besides my family and my two best friends, that would look the same if we hadn’t lost Hansel that day. And every anniversary since, I’ve been anticipating this one with a mix of hope, dread, and relief. It’s only been ten years. It’s already been ten years. But ten years seems to put a sort of cap on it, if that makes any sense. For the first half of the ten, this day meant that things were still getting worse instead of better. Then, in the last half, it was getting better, so I didn’t want this day to make it worse. The past couple of years have been remarkable for healing and gaining peace, and now, finally, I can feel happy for things. I can feel happy for blueberry muffins. I can feel happy for old pictures and my ring and his notes. I can feel happy for how handsome he was, and how fun, and all the ways we fell so deeply in love with each other. I can feel happy for people’s comments about him smiling down from heaven. I can enjoy his family and friends for the good memories they bring, and for both the old and new meanings they hold in my life.

Ten years ago plus a day, I told my mom through my sobs that I didn’t think I would ever be okay again. I’m glad that I was wrong. I will always wish that he was still here, and I will never not cry when I realize that wish will never come true. But I’m glad that I was wrong.

Written and published January 27, 2014

Very Damn Essential.

Sometimes the best part about starting your own thing is getting to change stuff whenever you feel like it (this is going to be a recurring theme for 2015…you just wait).

Bliss Bombs was the name that came to me right away when I started my essential oil business with döTERRA, but I was just…never really all that in love with it. The gentle and flowy spirit stuff…I love it in others, but it’s just not me.

For years now I’ve been writing pieces that I’ve categorized as Very Damn Important…sort of in-your-face, fucking-love-yourself-already type stuff. This past week, while working on a new product that I’m ÜBER excited about, I realized that kind of sensibility was the exact same attitude I wanted my company to have. Fun, edgy, ballsy, and bold.

So today I’d like to introduce you to Very Damn Essential. Very Damn Essential is about creating the raddest life possible through a thing called better natural wellness. Basically: Essential oils are the shit and can change your life, so you should try them. Meditation and yoga defragments your sweet, sweet brain + removes gross toxins from your hot bod. A wholeness approach to diet and fitness keeps you looking and feeling fresh to death. And you can kick life in the balls way harder when you give yourself some bombass self-love every once in a while.

Or, like Greg Behrendt once said: “You deserve to have the things in life you want, that’s why you were given a life in the first place. But those things will only come from making good choices and setting the bar high for yourself. And we only know this, not because we set the bar high, but because for a long time we had both set the bar very low and were determined to learn from it.” 

Basically, it’s about being cool to yourself.

(Also, it’d be cool to me if you’d check out the new Facebook page, where I’ve posted a sweet giveaway for these babies below)

 

Anyway: I’m super jazzed about this new shakedown. You know that thing where things start to fall together and it just feel right, so much so that when you’re watching the Screen Guild Awards on Sunday night you find yourself realizing that you’re floating and happy and all shades of content right now, and when you get distracted by House of Cards and Game of Thrones getting fucking robbed by Downton Abbey again, you momentarily forget why you’re so happy until a little voice in the back of your mind answers, “Because this shit feels good” and you’re like “oh yeah!”?

This is that.

Lookin' for me, gorgeous?

I don't live here anymore!



Come see me at my new home!

Just think of An Amber-Colored Life as a 10-yr old child that I'm giving up for adoption in favor of a new, better-looking, and more talented child. Does that make you feel better? Okay, good!

Ten years ago, on whim one fall night (Sept 14, 2004, to be exact), I started a silly little blog called An Amber Colored Life. It first began as a way to amuse myself during a hard, lonely year in a small town in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Instead of writing all my friends their very own personal email novellas filled with deep musings about whom I felt was skankier, Brit-Brit or X-tina, I thought, "Hey, why not just write out my personal musings about celebrities on a central place that all friends can check out at their leisure?"And thus, the central theme and purpose of An Amber-Colored Life was born.Over the years (and a lot of feedings after midnight) the blog morphed into a many-headed beast. It connected me to a hugely entertaining community of new friends and cohorts; brought me creative and professional opportunities (Online Dating Diaries, Chasing Windmills, Cyber Dating Sidekick, Groucho Sports Supply, guest panels, podcasts, and presentations); birthed books (Holiday Chick, all the things you never knew // certain things you ought to know); inspired countless creative projects (Girl from The Northwoods, The Dapper Dozen); and for ten years, it's been the driving force when it came to figuring out who I was and who I wanted to be.I actually still don't have all of that figured out yet. (But then again...what would I write about if I did?)It’s weird to look back and realize just how much - and then how little - the blog has changed over the years. It’s always been a mix of silly life stories and serious literary pieces, but I’ve also played around with it quite a bit in terms of content and focus. The advent of social media had a severe impact on what I posted, how much I posted, and where I posted, and not always for the better. My blog used to be a sort of collective for all my favorites - snarky sayings, nerdy images, hilarious clips from old TV shows, and amazing posts by other people. When Twitter and Facebook became A Thing, it didn’t make much sense to keep posting those things on the blog. I started to feel like, because of that, An Amber-Colored Life lost a certain playfulness. Every once in a while, I kept trying to bring back the old way of doing things, but it just didn't seem to make sense to things that way, anymore.Then, about two years ago, the desire to build a new internet home began to grow. I still loved An Amber-Colored Life, but it no longer seemed to fully fit who I was. I began to feel a pressing need to either build separate platforms for all the different things I was writing about - dating and relationships; lifestyle design, natural wellness; reality TV recaps; etc - or create a place that was big enough and held enough white space to house and showcase all the things I loved.I decided on the latter.And thus: Welcome to Amber L. Carter.com.I know some of you will be super sad to say goodbye to both the name and the space of An Amber-Colored Life (a.k.a., Katy Roskam). And I don't think I'm being pompous when I say that it feels like the end of an era. That name, that blog, that community...the meaning it all had to my life for the last ten years...it was big. When I started that thing, I had absolutely no idea how it would shape the direction of my entire future. But if I've learned anything from 10+ years of writing about my feelings, it's this: It's important to allow ourselves the permission to shed our old, worn-out identities in favor of some shiny new things. An Amber Colored Life...it just didn't feel like me anymore. So I built a place that did.The fresh digs feature:My Portfolio*, a one-stop shop of my best work (writing, speaking, producing, and beyond). This is also a rad place for long-time readers to revisit some of their all-time favorite Amber-Colored posts.
Well, my all-time favorite Amber-Colored posts, at least.* Still a work in progress, because holy smokies, you guys...I wrote a LOT this past decade. A Books corner, where you can keep on top of developments and events regarding my full-length-feature writerly works (both already published books and - squee! - new ones coming soon**)** Relatively soon. My soon might mean your year, so. You know. Like I said...relative. The hook up on my (OMG NEW!) Podcasts. I have two regularly scheduled podcasts that are debuting this month: Making Good Choices with Amber L. Carter, which comes out TODAAAY, and Pizza Rainbow!, a super fun podcast that I'm hosting with my pal Jen Paulson, which debuts every other Monday starting on 11.14.A Bliss Bombs section for cool peeps who are into cool stuff like clean eating, essential oils, meditation, and general natural wellness.And of course, a Blog, where you will find popular topics - like Candida Diaries and Bachelor recaps - easily accessed by these fancy new things called "Categories." I'm also working on cementing a weekly schedule of regular features - such as Prehistoric Amber, a timely re-posting of old Amber-Colored favorites - that you'll be able to set your blog reading clock to. (However, being that we're in the throes of NaNoWriMo and I've set a goal of doing two books this year (cause I'm craaaazzzaaaay!) this might not happen until December***)*** I've also tried to institute this regular feature thing numerous times for myself at An Amber-Colored Life, and have only been consistent at failing at it. So. High hopes? The purpose of the Amber L. Carter blog was something that I battled with for a while. Initially, my idea of building a new internet place included a more narrow focus for the blog...I played with the idea of using that place as way to primarily feature new writing, or to keeping it as a sacred space where I honed my budding interest in writing about lifestyle design or natural wellness. Basically, I've read all the articles that have ever been written about how you should use your blog to develop a niche or have its purpose be to create a platform for a bigger online presence, and/or look it at as a way to build toward a passive income, more speaking gigs, etc.Which was confusing and frustrating to me, to feel lectured about needing to pick one thing and write only about that. I've never been a niche writer or a niche blogger, mostly because I'm not a niche person.  I’m a dorky pop culture nerd who gets psyched about stuff like Adventure Time, YA books, and trilogy movies...but I'm also a grown-ass woman who spends WAY too much money on lingerie, cries at all the movies (not just romantic ones), and writes thick books about feelings. The Brand New is basically my Writing Inspiration Well, but I also know all the words to all the songs by Air Supply. I’m super into meditation, essential oils, feeling great inside your own body, and caring about the earth, but I also really love reality TV marathons, live tweeting The Bachelor, and ripping through a new copy of US Weekly, and I own ALL that and will proudly engage in it without a single ounce of lame shame.See what I mean? It would be impossible to identify a single particular round peg for this square hole.(Insert sex joke here)So basically…FUCK ALL THAT NOISE. I don’t want to blog about just one thing because I’m not interested in just one thing. And, I'm guessing, neither are you. And fencing myself into just one thing, whether in life, writing, or even just basic conversation? Has never made me happy.So as we start a new era of blogging here on Amber L. Carter, I want to make a promise to you, dear readers, in regards to what I'll be writing about in the next ten years.I promise to write about whatever the fuck I want to write about*.* Swears included. 
It'll just be a little more organized, on here.And here's the thing that I'm kind of really, super excited about:Remember what I mentioned earlier, about how Amber-Colored Life used to be this collective of snarky sayings, nerdy images, hilarious clips from old TV shows, and amazing posts by other people, but that some/most of that was lost with the growing habit of posting that stuff on different social media channels? A few months ago, after I kept trying to figure out how to get that old nerdy-fun feeling back into the blog, it hit me...Use your Facebook Page for that stuff, dummy! Instead of using the Amber L. Carter Facebook Page to just talk *about* the blog, I'm now using it as a supplement *to* the blog. It's now my throwback to the times when my posts primarily revolved around snarky titles and hilarious photos of John Mayer and dumb musings about my new favorite songs and ridiculous updates on the mundane details of my everyday life. And I'm like, stupidly excited to have stumbled upon this revelation, so if you miss that stuff as much as I do (or even 40% as much as I do?) then come and join me on there and we'll have the internet equivalent of a Pizza Party!Except that now I want a real pizza party. With real pizza. And an actual party...not the "party" that your 4th grade teacher talked up, which made you envision balloons falling from the ceiling and kids dancing on desks, only to be disappointed when you discovered that all it really meant was that everyone got to take two slices of pizza and then eat them at their desks, quietly, while your teacher read a magazine. Which meant that your 4th grade teacher was either the worst teacher ever, or the most brilliant adult that ever existed.Anyway!At the bottom of all of this, I want to say thank you to everyone who has read, followed, and shared An Amber-Colored Life in the last 10 years. Even though this isn't really goodbye...there's just no words, you guys. I can't even put together how much it's meant to me, to be able to share my life and stories and ideas with you. So many of you started out as readers and, somehow, through the magic of the internet + the power of IRL meet-ups, turned into favorite friends. That's a pretty ridiculously great fringe benefit to this whole blogging shiz. Thank you for allowing me to have a space where I could entertain and be entertained. I've had a such a blast these past 10 years, and I hope you'll all join me for Round Two of Totally Rad Fun Times.And on that note: While An Amber-Colored Life will cease to host new posts by moi after the publishing of this one, it's not going quietly into that gentle night just yet, my friends. There's an Amber-Colored Life After-Party coming your way soon*, and you're all invited.* Again, "soon" is a relative term, but I feel pretty strongly that it's going to be worth the wait ;) Thanks, friends! See you all on the  Amber L. Carter  side!

My Favorite Essential Oils: A Journey

I especially like my oils with a side of Real Housewives.
I first got into oils when my meditation teacher, Gabrielle Bernstein, suggested using them for my practice. I bought a couple of blends at Whole Foods, and even though I kept insisting to myself that they were working, after a few weeks I had to admit that all they were really doing was making my wrists smell nice. Which totally bummed me out, but also propelled me on a mission to find some that actually made me feel more in tune and serene during my practice. 

Fast-foward to a few months ahead - I'm digging into my old friend Sara's blog, and I notice that she talks about doTERRA essential oils a lot. Sara's one of those types of whip-smart and discerning people where, when she recommends something? You listen. In a fun event of serendipity, it just so happened that a local friend was hosting a doTERRA class at the studio space I shared with my friend Meg in a week. So I went to the class, bought my first oil - Elevation, a.ka. "The Hopeful Blend" - and, thanks to that oil and a couple of the samples I took home from the class, I was hooked. (So hooked that when Sara announced that she was looking for leaders for her doTERRA team, I jumped at the chance...but we'll talk about that later this week). 

Since then, I've seen the oils work some serious, ridiculous magic. Seriously you guys: It's like having a box of potions in your house. Always wanted to be a wizard, nerds? Here's your chance. These things can pretty much do anything when it comes to curing ills, heightening happiness, and bending other people's emotions and thoughts to your own personal will. 

That last part is maybe not a doTERRA sanctioned use, but. 

Still true. 

And because I love the oils so much and they've become such a big part of my life, I obviously wanted to start sharing about them on here. We've created some intimacy here, you guys. It doesn't do our relationship any good to keep things from each other, you know? And I don't want to hide this from you. Not anymore! 

So here are my favorite tricks when it comes to using doTERRA essential oils: 


Sleeplessness
You've got a full day tomorrow (the kind that, if your six-year-old self were in charge, would include a mono-colored three-piece leather mini-skirt power suit, matching pumps, a Salon Selectives hairstyle, Ban deodorant, and Whitney Houston's self-titled album blaring out of your cherry-red Mustang convertible's tape deck) and you need to get a full night's sleep. But instead, you're lying in bed, wide awake and staring at the ceiling, trying to decide if Kirk Cameron really was the only boy on earth who looked good in a permed mullet. You need something to help you sleep:  masturbating isn't going to work this time (also because you already tried that, hence the Kirk Cameron debate), and you don't want to take one of those sleep aids because you're scared of oversleeping or waking up all "waahhh?" groggy. 

Like Sonny and Rico driving a boat in the opening credits of Miami Vice, Lavender and Cedarwood smoothly cruises in to save you from yourself. You give yourself a sweet little foot rub with the Lavender (how come no one else is ever around to rub your feet? NEVERMIND, don't think about it now, we can discuss this tomorrow) and massage some Cedarwood onto the back of your neck. Before you know it, you're making eyes at Ricky Schroeder while Kirk Cameron spins you around the dance floor at the Bayside Ball.  

Of course those are references from three different shows. Dreams aren't supposed to make sense, sillyface!

Hangover Cure
You know who likes to party all the time? You do, playa! And you know who partied a little too hard last night? You did! (high-five!). You wore your leather leggings and cutest heels out for a night of dancing with your girlfriends, because hello, there might be boys at the bar, and guess what? There were! Five really hot ones, to be exact, who all danced up a storm and kept buying you and your friends Rumplemintz shots. Which you threw back, despite your better judgement and the fact that you ran around all day and barely had time to eat anything. Which, according to science, means that you were Electric Sliding your way right into a fully drunken / dehydrated state. And the next morning? CONGRATULATIONS, YOU NOW HAVE THE WORST HANGOVER IN THE HISTORY OF HANGOVERS. This includes the worst headache you've ever experienced...we're talking more splitsville than Ygritte and Jon Snow after he shot her with his arrow (talk about bad boyfriends, yeah?)*. Even more bad news? You stupidly decided to plan a full day for yourself on Sunday, so now you gots to get up and grab at it. 

If you can manage to shuffle the distance from your bathroom to the kitchen, grab a glass (a real glass, not a plastic one, son), fill it with water, and spill in a few drops of Lemon essential oil. Drink it down. Next, grab your rollerball of Past-Tense and rub some on your forehead, temples, and the back of your neck. Take a few minutes to drink another glass of water, and BAM! You'll be over that hangover so quick you'll be able to stomach loud noises like BAM! before you can say "Hey, why don't you shut the hell up with your BAMs." 

*Spoilers! HAHAHAHA
Sore muscles/joints
You're all, "I'M GONNA DO THIS" when it comes to working out, so you start lifting weights and doing that Couch 2 5K gig (C U L8R, body fat) and doing a bunch of stuff that lazy people like me normally don't really understand. You're committed to your fitness, and you get on a streak - there's no stopping you now! One day you're doing squats with a kettlebell, and then that night you go for a run (which is crazy, tbh - why are you working out twice in one day? Do you not have a job?). Halfway through your run, though, you notice that your inner thighs feel really tight...so tight that you have to stop running. Looks like you just pulled a groin muscle, pro. 

WHAT ARE YA GONNA DOOOO? IF YOU QUIT NOW, YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO START AGAAAAIN!

Answer: You massage some Deep Blue Rub onto your inner thighs (haaaaay) before you go to bed that night, and in the morning, you stretch out to discover that all that muscle tightness? GONE, BABY. 

Also, your inner thighs now smell really sweet, and you can't help thinking about how it kind of reminded you of that KY His & Hers stuff that you and that one "hey, commitment doesn't have to mean boring" boyfriend used to break out during your love sessions. 

This stuff is versatile, yo. I'm not here to judge you on what you use it for. 

The Crimson Wave
So you're nannying for the week for a super cute and fun 7 yr old. You've planned a jam-packed of running around with this kid, and you've just started off on your adventures when you feel that familiar dull ache in the lower part of your abdomen. Oh god, you think, as the 7 yr old asks you her 50th billionth question of the day. There is no possible way you're going to get through this day if you have to deal with Total Sucktown Lady Time Cramps: They hurt like a motherfucker, plus they make you super tired and cranky...which is not conductive to an action-packed day with an energetic and constantly curious 7 yr old. Suddenly, you remember that you have some Clary Calm at your house: It's supposed to be super good for PMS, period, and menopausal stuff, so you figure today is as good a day as any to give it a shot. You make a pit stop at your house, answer another 50 billion questions from the 7 yr old, and then run up the stairs to your room, where you rip open that rollerball and smooth the oil all over your abdomen. Praying it works, you head downstairs and corral the 7 yr old back to the Escalade you're driving for the week ('tis a sweet nanny gig). As you're preparing to hop into the driver's side, you realize that your cramps? Are gone. TOTALLY GONE. So gone that you wondered if you just imagined them (however, you do have tangible evidence that proves that you did not). Nothing has ever worked for making your cramps totally disappear - even O.D.'ing on Midol or ibuprofen only lessened the constant ache. You're so happy that you want to roll down the window of the Escalade and shout, "I have finally found the cure for Total Sucktown Lady Time Cramps! Ladies of the earth, follow me and I shalt show you the path to Lady Time Bliss!" But you don't because that would be crazy, and also because now the 7 yr old is asking you about your house and why you don't have a family of your own, so the day is speedily moving on just as it should. 

Headaches

So you're tending bar and this lady keeps asking you where she can get really big cords of woods and if you know of any local loggers in the area, and you're starting to get a splitting (HA!) headache because A. You're a not a fucking Google Search and B. Do you LOOK like you know any local loggers? (Trick question: You did, because you dated them all, but you don't anymore, because you dated them all). And you absolutely cannot let this conversation or headache continue, because you've still got four hours of work ahead of you + plans to go out tonight...BIG plans. Plans that include live music, friends from out of town, and meeting up with your latest crush. So you dig out your Lavender if you're basic or some Past-Tense if you're a baller and you rub some on your temples and the back of your neck. 10 minutes later, your headache is gone, you feel calm and serene thanks to the bonus of the sweet smell of the oil(s), and you're ready for action.

Just as soon as you tell this lady to go get herself a Yellow Pages and then get lost. 



Mosquito Repellant
You've been personally invited to a campfire party by this super hot guy that you dated last summer who's now back for another summer, and even though you doubt that there's any relationship potential left for you two, there's still maaaybe a chance that you might make out again, which you would be totally down for (it's been a long and slow winter) so you want to make sure you look as "campfire" hot as possible. Which means your favorite jeans and this one black tank top that is super flattering and also offers just the right amount of "Remember these?" cleavage. However, this party is in the middle of the woods and near a huge body of water, and thanks to the long-ass winter that skipped right over spring and jumped into summer, the mosquitoes? Are a nightmare (the dragonflies haven't hatched yet, and the bats are nowhere to be found. Bet you didn't think I was good at nature stuff, did you? WELL I AM, SO NAMASTE, BITCHES). You dig around for the Lemongrass oil you had procured a few weeks ago after someone told you it was good for insect repellant, and you slather it all over your arms, neck, face, and feet. When you arrive to the party an hour later with your friend, you exit her vehicle only to see a massive horde of mosquitoes begin to descend on your skin...and then STOP. They literally just hover right over your skin. "Oh my god!" you yell to your friend. "This Lemongrass stuff literally repels mosquitoes." However, she doesn't hear you at first because she's too busy swatting away and slapping the mosquitoes that are swarming her. The night ends up being a bust -  the super hot guy from last summer gets really drunk and kind of dumb, and you end up leaving early with your friend - but you feel like you still gained something valuable because now you know the secret to being totally mosquito-free for the rest of the summer.

I mean, that doesn't really compare to the value of making out with someone super hot, but it's still cool. 

Cold/Flu/Sore Throat
So you're working when suddenly there's a weird tingle in your throat. A weird sort of grogginess starts to fill your brain, and then you notice that your muscles are feeling all achy. "Oh god...am I getting sick?!" you wonder. Which, on any other day, you'd be all, "YAY! Screw you guys, I'M GOING HOME", but today is different because you have a billion things that you actually want to get done for work, and also, you have a date tonight with someone so devastatingly attractive that every time he goes in for a kiss, you kind of feel like you're going to die from a heart attack (but that's a risk you're still willing to take). If you guys were in that place in your relationship where you could be all, "Oh noes! I'm sick :-(" with the viable expectation that he'd offer to come over and make you feel better with movies and ice cream and back rubs, then game on. But you've only been on enough dates yet where you're still pretending to be flawlessly perfect and he's pretending to believe you, and you're pretty sure that if you don't keep up the momentum that you two have built up over the last couple of weeks, you're never going to get to see this guy naked. So you need to find something that stops that sickness in its tracks, STAT. So you grab a glass of water, shake a few drops of both Lemon and On Guard essential oils into it, and gulp it down. Your lips feel tingly from the cinnamon in the On Guard and the Lemon soothes your throat, and with every drink, it feels like the flavored water is flushing away the illness in your body. You drink a couple more glasses, and by the time you're done with work, you're in tip-top shape and thinking about which one of your bras is going to look better on your floor tonight after he rips it off of you. 

Low Energy
So you're at work (AGAIN. Ugh) and it's the middle of the afternoon and all you want to do is lay down and take a nap, but instead you have to work plus deal with the 500th question from the new girl about how to do this thing that she's already asked about and done 500 times before. And snapping, "How did you even manage to stay alive this long? Like, how is it possible that you haven't been picked off the herd of the human race by now?" is not something that you wish to do as your best self, so instead you dig into your bag for your doTERRA keychain, which contains a 1/4th dram bottle of your personalized mix of Frankincense, Peppermint, and Wild Orange, which you've aptly named "2nd Wind." Like an 80s Legal Eagle dying for her next coke fix, you hurriedly shake that little dram so a couple drops spill into your palm. Then you rub your hands together, cup them around your nose, and inhale. And inhale. And inhale again. And then literally exhale with a huge "Ahhhhhhhh." The Wild Orange clicks into your brain's happy epicenter like your favorite middle school Snap Bracelet, the Peppermint makes your energy rocket into David Lee Roth air splits, and the Frankincense gives you that peaceful "Oh please, I gots alla dis" serene, collected feeling that you need to get through the rest of your day with your coworker (who is, by the way, now marveling at the miracle of the knowledge bomb you just dropped about limes growing on trees. #TrueStory). 

Emotions/Meditation/Yoga
So even though you might come off as a snarky and loudmouthed when you write and tweet and stuff, you're actually a pretty zenned-out person in real life, and your meditation and yoga practice is all part of that. Howevs, because it's a practice, that means it's not perfect. Sometimes you feel so scattered and sporadic and negative that you don't even want to meditate (even though you know that's exactly *when* you need to do it), and sometimes yoga is hard and exhausting and you just want to end your session in the middle of your practice so you can go back inside and check Facebook. So first you try Serenity when you meditate, because it's quickly become your favorite oil, and you literally feel like a cool drug user when you put some in the palm of your hands and then inhale - it feels like it immediately triggers a total serene high, which you definitely dig during meditation. Then you read about putting Frankincense on your heart space and third eye to help you "tune in" during meditation and yoga, and it totally changes everything - you feel super blissed out and present all at the same time. (So much so that you're like, "Maybe I should do this all the time...maybe I should go in for my yoga certification and teach classes!" But then you realize that that would be crazy and kind of boring and so you decide to just stick to using the oils and looking really good in yoga pants). You also start to put Breathe and Balance on your wrists, shoulders, chest, and knees, so that whenever you're in a pose, you can breathe it in and let the Breathe open up your heart center and the Balance create better...um...balance. And THEN you learn that, much like a daily meditation and yoga habit, using those oils a little bit every day actually strengthens their affects, which you had been wondering about because you're starting to feel a lot more zen and blissed out during your entire day and not just right after you practice. Plus, now you feel like the word "practice" doesn't so much necessarily mean "gotta do it even when we don't want to" but more "Hey, I'm getting so much better at this and pretty soon I'm going to dominate the whole world with my meditational mind power + bless my future boyfriend with my bendy acrobatics." Everything zen, indeed. 

Dental Health
You never really given a shiz about your dental health until you've had to. Actually, that's not true - you didn't give a shiz about your dental health until you saw this commercial of this really beautiful woman whose face was falling apart as she was trying to put make up on it, and then you cut to the end where she's brushing her teeth and spitting blood into the sink and then she smiles and she's missing, like, 15 teeth because she has gum disease.  

Yeah. That freaked you the fuck out. 

So even though you hate buying toothpaste almost as much as you hate buys tampons because it's money taken away from your New Boots Fund, you start paying attention to the toothpaste selection in the grocery aisle. Then you get annoyed, because all the toothpaste you see in the grocery store says that they only prevent gum disease...what if you already have it? What if, maybe, because you traveled around a lot and moved a lot and were kind of a starving artist at one time and then worked for a really shitty company that didn't have benefits, you skipped going to the dentist a lot? And even though you brushed your teeth two times a day and flossed daily, that still wasn't good enough to prevent gum disease? You don't wanna lose your teeth!! So what good is a toothpaste that prevents it when you need one that will fight it? Enter in the doTERRA On Guard toothpaste, which came with your starter kit and that you weren't exactly psyched to use (because it's toothpaste), but after investigating, you learn that On Guard totally fights gum disease...doesn't just prevent it, but fights it. So you start using it, and you love it. You never ever thought that you would ever love a toothpaste, but you love this one - it tastes great, it makes your teeth whiter, and your mouth just looks healthier. And then you get kind of scared, because now are you going to turn into the kind of nerd who buys their own dental kit and talks a lot about gum health and tooth decay at parties? Nah, you decide. You're just gonna be a really hot older lady who still has all of her teeth. 

And knows how to use them. #haaay

Deep, Restful Sleep
Let's just be honest: For you, sleep is a spiritual practice. Tyra Banks once said that, "Everybody says that sex feels so good, but I think sleep feels better", and even though that sounds slightly Crazy Town, even for Tyra, you also kind of get it. Nothing compares to the way you feel after a good sleep. But lately, you've been waking up a lot in the middle of the night, or you've hit the snooze button a billion times because you're still super tired after sleeping for 8 hours. Which, like, just does not work for you, because poor sleep makes you cranky and emotional, and before you know it, you're crying over that Honey Maid "This Is Wholesome" commercial. So you do a little research and find out that adding a few drops of Serenity and Balance to your diffuser is supposed to help with deep, restful sleep, so even though you haven't really used your diffuser since you got it because you feel like all it's gonna really do is make your room smell good, you decide to give it a whirl. That night, after you climb into bed and turn the diffuser on, you immediately notice how amazing the air smells...that Serenity, man. You could smell that stuff forever. Also, the subtle sound the diffuser makes is really calming, and before you know it, you're waking up the next morning, feeling so relaxed and well rested that you almost can't believe how blissed out you feel. If you had had sex at any point in the last 6 months you'd probably compare it to a really great trip to Pound Town, but you haven't and so this is all you have right now and we're all going to be really okay with that, okay? Hoping the diffuser thing wasn't a fluke, you try it the next night: Same thing. Soon, laying in bed and reading the newest New York Times Bestseller (okay, US Weekly) while letting the diffused Serenity and Balance relax and calm you before you drift off to join the Dream Team is one of your favorite parts of the day. 

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Ready to try some of this magic for yourself? I'm here to help you with your wellness wizarding needs: There are so many rad starter kits to take the guesswork out of ordering, and if you wanna learn how to get your grubby little paws on some awesome oils for a sweet price (and maybe even earn your oils for free)? 

Then click on over here, babes!
You can also check out my website or message me with any Q's you might have.

I love helping people with this stuff, and being email communicators will also be helpful when you're ready to take me out to a nice steak dinner to thank me for making your life so amazing.
See? This gig works for the both of us. 

The Candida Diaries Pumpkin Spice Latte: 'Cause You're Anything But Basic

Here's the thing. 

I love Pumpkin Spice Lattes. 

Love them. 

I loved them before they were a thing to be loved. I am that old (and also that trendsetting). I can remember loving them before there was anything on the internet about them being a Girls Love Fall thing or a Basic White Girl thing or a hilarious Twitter thing. 

(Also, I find it hard to believe that *just* white girls love Pumpkin Spice Lattes. C'MON. Pumpkin Spice Lattes are like pizza parties - do not deny their universal power. To do so only makes one weaker.)

But, as feared and dreaded last January when I was first diagnosed with Candida overgrowth, Pumpkin Spice Lattes from Starbucks? Not on my protocol, son. While anyone with half a brain already knows that there isn't any actual pumpkin in a Pumpkin Spice Latte, the sad truth is that the drink is laden with tons of other not-so-stellar stuff - toxic food coloring, TONS AND TONS of sugar (like, seriously, TONS), lactose, caffeine, etc. There's probably not one single ingredient in the Starbucks version that I could/should have. 

I know. My life is dark and sad sometimes. I get through it by buying boots. 

BUT. Because my favorite color is September and fall is my religion, I shalt not give up thine worship to the autumnal gods, and have instead created an alternative deity at which to give thine thanks. 

I call it: The Candida Diaries Pumpkin Spice Latte (trademarked). It's lactose free, (almost) sugar free, caffeine free, and has minimal food coloring or additives. 

It's also goddamn delicious. 




The first step is to pick up a carton of Silk AlmondCoconut Blend (make sure it's the unsweetened kind...trust me, you won't taste a difference and it's much better for you). If you want to be a total purist, you can make your own coconut and almond milk (and I'm working on a tutorial for you guys on how to do that), but this is the best and easiest alternative I've found. I will say that, since it's not totally sugar free, I wouldn't have more than one or two servings of it a day...especially if you're like me and your body goes batshit crazy over even a tiny bit of sugar and suddenly you're addicted to AlmondCoconut milk and greek yogurt on the daily the way you formerly were to ice cream or chocolate. It's best to look at this stuff as a treat. 

While your (decaf) espresso or coffee is brewing, fill your cup with the AlmondCoconut blend about halfway: 



Stick it in the microwave for about a minute (or steam it if you're fancy):



Next, add Pumpkin Pie Spice to the milk. (I like to do this before frothing my milk so that the spice blends into the milk nicely):


Then, I like to use a milk frother I got from IKEA for $2.49 that works FANTASTICALLY for creating easy lattes (you can find similar ones at Williams-Sonoma and other specialty kitchen goods stores). 



Next, add your (decaf) espresso or coffee. I like to use the darkest decaf espresso I can find, and for those on the Candida protocol, it's best to pick up a bag of beans from a local roastery that are relatively fresh from the roasting process (you want to stay away from the mass-produced brands at grocery stores, etc, because you don't know how long they've been sitting on the shelf and coffee beans are super susceptible to mold, which can exacerbate your Candida overgrowth).



Final step: Enjoy the sweet smugness that comes from making your very own Candida Diaries Pumpkin Spice Latte. Namaste, bitches. 

This is my smug face. 

The Summer of Suck.

It’s been The Summer of Suck. And I’ve got to get out of this place. 
In the early and mid summer mornings, I would break out of dreams due to the sun burning hot on my bare legs, white light pouring in from the skylight. I’d open my eyes and stare at the ceiling, feeling as if a two hole punch had been taken to my heart. Two tiny punctures, that I kept trying to heal with heat and light and sand…or cover up with alcohol, cigarettes, and avoidance. It kept me restless and bored during the day, listless and quiet through the night. Maybe I should talk to someone, I would think, just to make sure that I’m alright. Maybe this is finally the time to go on something. Or maybe I should just have another glass of wine, go out for another cigarette.
After a year of being a quitter, I started smoking again in the beginning of June. And drinking. A lot. I told people it was just something I did when it was summer - cocktails, campfire, and cigarettes, The Summer Trifecta - but really it was because I had Too Many Feels and didn’t want to go to bed. Or write, or think. I didn’t write - not really, not anything substantial - all summer. I didn’t want to go deep, and I felt like I had nothing to say. So instead I’d stay out on the deck all night, smoking and sipping cocktails, listening to music. 

It was the music that was my first sign. I kept getting frustrated with it…nothing seemed to correctly capture how I felt. I couldn’t find that one song that matched, the one with the perfect lines to describe exactly what I was going through. And then I realized that I was frustrated because I couldn’t find a song that could make me cry. A weird thing about me: When I am happy, when I feel normal, I’m a total bawl baby…I cry at happy things, sad things, funny things, at the way the light pours into my window on a rainy afternoon. When I’m depressed but do not yet fully realize it, I can’t cry. I want to, because I know it will somehow make me feel better, but the water works are stuffed up, shut down. No matter how much I try to make them, the tears just won’t come. 
And the boredom. And the loneliness. Sometimes it was hard, to differentiate between whether I really was tired of this town or if I was just genuinely depressed. If I really was painfully lonely, or if I was just craving another type of distraction. Nothing created excitement anymore. When I’m happy, when I feel normal, I will literally bound out of bed in the morning. There Are Things To Do, I will think, and I’ll race through my shower and breakfast because I’m so anxious to get going on all these great ideas and plans. Yet this summer, I struggled to think of even a few things that I’d be excited about doing. That would make me happy, that I would like. Nothing tasted good, nothing sounded good, nothing felt good. I began to understand why people get addicted to drugs or porn or alcohol: Those things can become your best friend when nothing else seems to make you feel steady. They’re reliable, you know? You know that, eventually, you’re going to find that high and get to come or at least have the edge taken off, a little bit, of how you feel right then. For me, it was knowing that when I got off from work, all that there was to do, all that I wanted to do, was sit on my deck, put my earphones in, light up a cigarette, and drink a beer. I didn’t want to go out, because I knew I would just be searching the room for the kind of new face I’m never going to find here. I didn’t want talk to anyone, because there never seemed to be anything new to talk about. I didn’t want to have to listen to or engage in what someone else was saying, because it all seemed so uninteresting. Sitting on my deck by myself, I didn’t have act or work at pretending that I was happy and things were good. I could just be quiet and smoke and think about nothing. And if I did think about something, all I wanted to think about was getting out of here. Here: Physically, emotionally, metaphorically. About the day when somehow things would change and I would feel better than I felt right then. 
***
It was when I was having a conversation with my friend Jen that I remembered. Sitting on the sun porch, she was telling me a story about her weekend, and I found myself struggling to affect the proper expressions - interest, engagement, Oh that’s funny tell me what happened next. It wasn’t that what she was saying was boring…it was just that I felt so numb and empty of emotion that I had to force myself to demonstrate facial affect. And I suddenly remembered the last time I had felt that way: A handful of years ago, the summer after I had first moved to Minneapolis. I had just arrived at my best friend Katy’s apartment, and was waiting for her and our friend Kim to finish getting ready so we could head to P.D. Pappy’s to see our favorite cover band perform. I remember sort of laying my head down on the arm of Katy’s couch while she chit-chatted about her day, and feeling like I just didn’t have the energy to say anything back. Our beloved friend Kim was in town, we were going out to our favorite waterside bar to hear one of our favorite bands, it was going to be a beautiful summer night, and I just felt…nothing. Blah. Like someone had sucked all the energy and enthusiasm and emotion out of my body with a straw, and I had nothing left. I spent the rest of the night struggling to pull myself out of it, but it felt like trying to swim at the bottom of the ocean…every gesture heavy, every small motion a struggle. Kim and Katy noticed that I was too quiet, that I didn’t seem to have much to say, and I didn’t know how to explain it to them…I was glad I was with them, I didn’t really want to be anywhere else, but I couldn’t seem to find that chatty, enthusiastic, smiling girl that I usually was. I didn’t know how to be her anymore. 
The rest of the summer was more of the same. It ended in a serious intervention by Katy (and a lifelong avoidance of The Fray’s “How To Save a Life” by the both of us). I didn’t want to admit how bad things were. I had had all of these awful things happen the year before, and when they finally caught up with me, I still wanted to keep pretending to myself and everyone else that I was okay, that I felt totally normal (even though it was probably more normal to not be okay). Except that, if I wasn’t engaging in destructive behaviors, then I was giving absolutely no fucks about my life in general. I didn’t care if I did or did not call or email my friends for weeks on end, I didn’t care if I barely ate all day, I didn’t care if I was bouncing checks, I didn’t care if I screwed up at work. It was just too much energy - energy that I didn’t seem to have anymore - to care about that stuff. 
If it’s like that again, then we’re really in trouble, I found myself thinking, as I shifted in my chair and absentmindedly nodded at Jen once more.
***
On a particularly nice summer Wednesday evening, I hosted a campfire party for a bunch of coworkers and friends to say goodbye to one of our favorites, Tom, who was leaving at the end of the week to go off to college. A guy that I had been kind-of-sort-of flirting with over the middle of the summer came to the campfire around midnight. He showed up baked, proceeded to get even more mind-numbingly stoned over the course of the evening, and then, at the end of the night, after everyone had gone home and it was just us, he told me that he wasn’t going to kiss me because he didn’t like doing things that people expected him to do. To top the bullshit cake with some fuckery icing, after battling with him for almost an hour about wanting him to sleep on my couch (alone) for a couple of hours instead of driving home high, I stood in my front yard and watched as he literally sprinted away from me to his vehicle, then started the jeep up and drove away. 
This is not the caliber of life you are seeking, I heard a voice say. 
It’s that moment when time freezes and you realize that you’ve dropped so far below of what you used to accept for yourself that you hardly even recognize yourself anymore. Danielle LaPorte has the line right: While I professed to suffer no fools, I was, you know, suffering some serious fools. If I were happier, if I felt better, I probably wouldn’t have even invited Smokey Jackson to my party in the first place. But I did, because I was bored and wanted a distraction and was so desperate to feel even just a little bit of excitement that I was starting to not even care who it came from. I had been in this place before - I had even written a novel about it - and I knew where that place would take me, if I let it. And I never wanted to go there again. 
That is not the caliber of life I am seeking. 
So a few nights later, I sat on the steps of my deck and thought about all the things I was doing - right in that moment, even - that I didn’t really want to do, and how those things were keeping me from all the things I wanted to do. Depression is a tricky bitch. The normal/feeling part of my brain wants to kick in the door of that motherfucker with guns blazing, while the other part of me - the depressed part - is all, “You know what would be really great right now? If we took another nap.” It doesn’t want to go away, and it definitely doesn’t want me to muster up enough energy to make it go away. It wants to camp out in my backyard - in a tent it borrowed from me - sneak into my house while I’m at work and steal all my snacks, and then act all incredulous when I ask it to leave, insisting that this is the best possible thing that’s ever going to happen to me, so why fight it?
And for most of the summer, I didn’t want to fight it. Zoning out in front of the TV was a lot easier than working on my new book. Getting drunk and letting boys who shouldn’t be kissing me kiss me was a lot easier than getting some self-respect. Communing with cigarettes and alcohol was a lot easier than dealing with The Feels head-on. Sleeping for 10+ hours every day/night was a lot easier than getting up and taking care of myself. 
So the summer fucking sucked, basically. But would fall be any better? I wondered. 
***
Sitting on the floor of my bedroom, I dug into the journals and blog posts I kept through that first long dark summer, and the autumn after it. I remember the fog lifting in the fall, and I wanted to figure out if it was merely situational - I moved to a new place and changed jobs that early autumn - or if it was something in particular that I had started doing differently. The first thing I remembered was that I started working out regularly, every day. Katy, a habitual gym goer, had told me I should, citing the thing about endorphins, etc, and at a loss of what to do to feel better, I decided to at least give it a try. In my journals and in a blog post, I had recorded - at first begrudgingly, and then gratefully - that she was right, that it did seem to help. That if I went to the gym in the morning, I seemed to feel better throughout most of the day. 
And I started seeing a therapist, because that had been part of the ultimatum that Katy had given me that early fall. We had fought the night before when she didn’t show up at The Shout House, effectively ditching me with a bunch of new coworkers and leaving me feeling stranded in the middle of a downtown that was still foreign and bewildering to me. She had never ditched out on me like that before, and it was the first time in our long friendship when I didn’t try to cover up or excuse my anger towards her. I was fucking pissed. The next morning she showed up at my new place with two Starbucks lattes and a well-prepared speech about how her fear and worry over me was causing both exhaustion and frustration for her. She could no longer stand to keep her mouth shut about what we both knew but I wouldn’t admit, even to myself: That I was depressed, brutally so. It had grown to the point where I secretly considered it to be a valid and ever-constant question, whether life was really worth living anymore. I even found myself engaging in this sort of subconscious ritual, where every Sunday I would go to the Minneapolis Institute of Art, climb up to the third floor, and eventually find myself sitting on the bench in front of the painting Lucretia by Rembrant. I would stare bainfully at her and the gash in her dress, and feel, without wanting to judge it, this sort of kinship, this part inside of me that hungered for the relief of what would come next, if I were her. It scared me that it didn’t scare me, how much of a reality that choice became…how safe it had started to feel; comforting, almost. It’s hard to explain that to those who’ve never been in that place before. I didn’t want to die. But I didn’t really want to live anymore, either.
So I had to start seeing someone, she told me. I needed help, and it was time to stop acting like I was fine and could get through everything on my own, because it obviously wasn’t working. I thought of Lucretia and nodded, agreed to do what Katy said. 
The therapy sessions were at first a disaster, and then (possibly literally) a life saver. At first it sucked because this person didn’t know me, and so I felt like I had 20+ years to catch her up on, which felt like a monumental task that I did not have the energy for. And then she started pulling things out of that life story that were both true and brutal, which basically ended up making me feel worse leaving her office than I did going into it. But slowly, gradually, it started to feel like a relief, to get to talk to this person about my feelings and my life and actually get some qualified answers (or at least some qualified opinions). It was a place where I was allowed to get pissed off and allowed to bawl my head off and allowed to complain and allowed to say things that I had been waiting my whole life to say, and I wouldn’t get judged for it or be accused of doing things wrong too, or commanded to suck it up and stop being so dramatic or emotional. So it helped. It helped. 
During that time I also made some new friends, which made me feel more at home in the city. I started feeling successful at work, and I wrote a TON - that year is probably my most prolific to date in terms of blog posts, and that, on its own, ushered in new and exciting experiences and opportunities into my life. 
So it was a storm of things, I decided, as I wrapped up my journal and blog post digging. It was a combination of situational changes for the better, and active efforts to do things that would make me feel better. 
So, as I do, I began to craft a plan. 
***
It started with cutting my hair. 
Sitting on the deck of my porch, staring at the stars, I thought about this mini-fantasy I had begun crafting in the middle of the summer, created in response to the cause of one of the heart punctures. It was this peaceful scene of me strolling down a beach boardwalk with my hair a different color, a sleeve of tattoos, a nose piercing, a completely different sense of style. It felt…cathartic. “She’s completely different,” I imagined one of our mutual friends saying. “You wouldn’t even recognize her anymore.” For a large part of the summer, I had wrapped myself up in that vision, in that fantasy, like you would with a warm comforter on a cold night. 
That evening, I examined why I kept going back to that. First, it was a light at the end of the tunnel: This Is Where I’ll Be When I Get Out of Here. Not just geographically, but the peace part of it, the contentment. The sun is shining and I’m comfortable with myself again. The appearance part felt like it symbolized the fact that what I was currently doing - outwardly and inwardly - was no longer serving me. I was trying to - I needed to - morph into something else. 
And cutting my hair felt like the best first step of that. I’ve had long hair my entire adult life, and I resisted changing it because it had always felt like such a part of my identity. But the moment I thought about that, while sitting on the deck that evening, that long hair suddenly felt really heavy. Like it was holding me down, holding me back. And I wanted something I could point to, something I could think of, when it came to changing the somewhat destructive patterns I had fallen into that summer…this girl with the new hair, she probably didn’t hang out in dive bars all Sunday long. This girl with the new hair? Most definitely did not suffer serious boy-type fools. And this girl with the new hair knew how to take care of herself…I mean, after all, just look at that hair.
So in the morning, I strapped on my resolution like a solider, dug out my shears, and lobbed inches off my locks. Then I sat down and figured out what else I could do to match that vision in my head, of Where I'll Be When I Get Out of Here.  
The first part of it was just admitting and accepting that this was what was going on right now. It strikes me, now and again, that I’m really good with encouraging people on Twitter to seek help and to tell others that they trust when they’re struggling with depression, but it’s incredibly difficult for me to take my own advice. Just fucking admit that you’re depressed. It sounds so easy, but it's actually the hardest part of it all. I’ve struggled with depression throughout my entire life. It’s like a sleeping monster…it’s not always stomping through my life, but every so often, a jarring orchestra of events and emotions will awaken and lull it over to the happy, docile village of my everyday life. And admitting that it’s a thing for me - to both myself and others - always feels like I’m giving the monster extra legs. Or that I’m stamping a THE END onto the story of my life, present and future…that’s all that people will remember of me, will judge me by. Despite two books and a zillion blog posts to the (seemingly) contrary, I don’t like to talk about my feelings. This bewilders my mom and a few select others: They doesn’t understand how I can write a blog post or a book about the hard stuff, which hundreds of people will read, but I don’t want to talk about it face-to-face. And it’s because I don’t want to have a conversation about it. My feelings are not up for debate. If you want to seriously piss me off, tell me why I do or do not feel a certain way (because I may not ever master algebraic equations - sorry, Mr. Larson - but when it comes to the correct analysis of my feelings? I GOTS THIS). And it’s fucking true that there are people out there who will make your depression about them - that now, all of a sudden, you have to make them feel better about you feeling better, even if you don’t actually feel any better. Or worse, they’ll try to justify why you shouldn’t feel the way you feel, or why the way you feel isn’t actually real. 
So I don’t like talking about it. But this summer was scary enough that I knew I had to tell a couple of my best friends what was going on. A symptom of the worst phase of  my depression is abject loneliness…it’s the kind of loneliness that feels so unbearable that I find myself thinking that I don’t know if I want to deal with it anymore. And that’s when my depression is at it’s most Tricky Bitch-iest: It tricks you into thinking that you’re depressed because you’re lonely, and when you’re lonely because you don’t have a partner or you live far away from all your friends, it feels like there’s never going to be an answer to your loneliness, you’re always going to feel this way, and so there’s really no hope, so maybe we should just give up, eh? And when it gets to that point, I know I need to talk honestly about it to a couple of my closest friends…even if it’s just to say, “Hey, so I’ve been dealing with kind of a sucky thing right now. I’m working on feeling better, but I just need you to know that that’s what’s going on right now.” 
The second part of it was committing to the mini-steps of sanity and self-care. A few years ago, when a friend of mine was going through a divorce and having a really hard time of it, she sat down with another friend who made a list for her. “Keep it basic,” this friend told her. “Just focus on the basics of self-care…drink water, get eight hours of sleep, eat three healthy meals a day.” To the uninitiated, it sounds so easy and simple. When you are in the throes of The Dark, though, small acts of self-care don’t just feel tedious and annoying…they can feel like monumental tasks that you just don’t have the energy for. I actually begin to resent them - why can’t my teeth just magically brush THEMSELVES? Why can’t someone ELSE pick out my outfits? 
But the first act of battle against my depression starts with this stuff. When I start making myself take out my contacts before I go to bed, even when I don’t want to, even when I’m so tired (#whine) that’s me sounding off the first shot. I am still going to take care of myself, even when this mental bullshit tries to tell me that I don’t want to. If nothing else, I am going to be well rested, well hydrated, well fed, and have clean teeth and clear eyes, even when it’s a total drag to do and be all of that stuff. 
The third part of it was heaving a few roadblocks off the path of feeling good again. I threw away my remaining cigarettes. I don’t need ‘em, I don’t want ‘em, and I already know that I only really smoke when doing two things: 1) Attempting to numb my feelings 2) Drinking to drink. When also brought me to my next bit: Going Drinks Free for a while. Alcohol is the gateway drug for me: When I drink to drink, it leads me into doing all sorts of things that I don’t actually want to do. I turn into Bizarro Amber, basically. And like with smoking, I’ve never felt like I had a full-blown addiction to the Dranks in that I can’t function without them…it’s just that it's so much harder for me to have fun without them, and once I get started, I don't want to stop. And that, lately, has become a problem. So I decided to go Drinks Free for a while, or at least under certain circumstances (for instance, if I’m drinking a glass of wine with my family during dinner, it’s severely unlikely that I’m going to be engaging in any self-destructive behaviors such as calling a boy I broke up with five months ago and leaving him a voicemail of me drunkenly singing “Careless Whisper”. #TrueStory). 
I also decided to go back to full-throttle when it came to the Candida Diaries (again. For the 50th time). I do suspect that my non-Candida eating habits most likely played a large part in causing this last bout of depression. Sugar and processed carbs, whether I want to admit it or not, do seriously fucked up things to my brain. It may have taken The Summer of Suck to finally scare me into the realization that sticking to a Candida protocol is no longer about weight or physical health…it’s also a mental health issue. 
Which does not make sticking to it any less sucky, but. 
The fourth part was adding in some simple things. For instance, exercise is a must. I just gotta fucking do it. And I gotta do the stuff that gets my heart rate up, that releases the endorphins. Yoga is nice and great and it zens me out, but it’s not enough to trip the trigger on the happy brain chemical high that I so desperately need to lift me out of the throes of the sinkhole and into the clouds of “Oh hey, happiness.” If you look at the timeline of my life, you might discover that the times that I’ve picked up running and stuck with it were also times when I was struggling through or coming out of a severe depression, and I didn’t even realize it, until a couple years after. I just knew that it was one of the few things in my life that made me feel strong, in control, and somewhat elated. 
Essential oils were also cool. Using them this summer was kind of akin to the Candida stuff - I did it sporadically, but kind of felt like using them was a waste in the face of all the other crap I was putting into my body. But now that I wouldn’t be smoking or drinking or eating All The Bread, I was ready to start using them on a consistent, daily basis. (I started that night by using Serenity and Balance in my diffuser, and had the first restful night’s sleep of all summer). 
New and novel was also important. Ultra lame boredom is a symptom of my depression, but it’s also not a total bad idea to treat that symptom with some new and fun things, experiences, and people. I’m planning a trip to Ireland in March. I had a moment of genuine homesickness for Erica and Dan and L.A. the other day, and thinking about going there again soon was the first time in months that I felt genuinely jazzed and elated about something, so I’m also planning a trip out there in the next few months. I’m also throwing more parties and making a point to go to more events here, because I want to meet more people and make new memories and have new experiences. 
The fifth part was lifetime maintenance. First, therapy: I gotta go back in. Even if it’s only as a gesture to myself that I take my own mental health and happiness seriously. Therapy is a little like dating - sometimes it takes a few first sessions to find someone you can jive with, but I’m committed to going to that dance. Hopefully I'll find someone I click with, and soon. 
And if I do all these things and the depression is still sticking, then I suck it up, talk to my doctor, and figure out if medication is now the answer. It might be. Before it always felt like it was mostly situational, a response to some past trauma or repressed emotional event. Lately, though, I’ve started to suspect that it’s more circular, these phases, or like waves…which makes me wonder if it’s a chemical imbalance thing. At the end of the day, I don’t want to go on something, but I will if I have to. Because I love myself, and because tricky bitches like depression should only get to win one thing: A big kick to the face with a (super cute) Frye boot. 
***
This post is the first part of that whole admittance/acceptance thing I talked about above. Like I said before…by putting this out there, it doesn't mean that I want everyone - or anyone - to gather 'round me and have a conversation about it over a cup of coffee (you know who you are, and if you bring it up the next time I see you, I’ll walk out and leave you there), but I also want to put my money where my mouth is when it comes to talking about this stuff. And for me, that’s talking about it through writing. When we talk about depression and suicide, we often talk about the people we knew who gave us absolutely no clue of what they were going through. I’m not exactly the type to answer with, “The WORST! Did you know that, the other day, I was thinking about how nice it might be to be done with this damn world?!” when I run into friends and they ask me how I’m doing. I know there will be friends who will read this and be surprised by it. But it’s a reality that sometimes I go through stuff like this, and there are a lot of other people who do, too. It's stupidly scary to be honest and open about it - this shit can make people feel fucking uncomfortable - but I also feel like…the more we talk about it, the more honest we are about how this is a thing, the easier it will be for others when they go through it, too. 
I know I'm going to get better. I’m going to feel better, do better, be better. I also know that it won’t happen all at once - because, you know, still feeling kind of brain-lazy and like I’d much rather take a nap and zone out than do anything else - but I’m feeling pretty good about stuff so far. Plus, fall is here, which is always, you know, nice. 

So fucking GOODBYE, Summer of Suck - I hope you always change and never reach for your dreams, and I hope you don't make it to the reunion that I'm also not going to. C-ya, stay uncool, & never keep in touch. 

Bachelor In Paradise Recap, Episode 7 / Season Finale: Heartbreak Station, Relationship Consummation, & Proposal Frustration!

Welcome, Bachelor Babies, to the season finale of  Bachelor In Paradise ! It's been a glorious season of female-legs-slung-around-a-males-waist make-outs (confession: I have always wanted to have this type of make-out, and I once tried to re-create it with one of my first boyfriends when we were at the lake at my parent's house, but he pushed me off of him and told me that my parents might see, to which I replied, "My mom once found one of our condoms after their dog fished it out of the trash. Pretty sure they know what's going on." Which horrified him even more. GOD he was a prude), cabana hook-ups (the threesome that everyone says didn't happen but I stubbornly insist DID happen, mainly because I just want to annoy all parties involved who keep insisting that it didn't happen. It totally happened), balcony jumping (SEE THE END OF THIS POST), jungle crying, tearful heart-to-hearts with raccoons, and contemplative horizon gazing. I have to say that this season was a little bit less dramatic than Bachelor Pad (and, sadly, less skanky) but it also kept the focus on the inherent purpose of The Bachelor franchise, which is to put people in totally unrealistically romantic settings and then pressure them to "fall in love" and commit their lives to total strangers they only met 6 weeks before. 

Well done, Bachelor In Paradise! 

In the beginning of this week's episode, Chris announces to our "couples" that each one of them has a decision to make: Do you want to live, OR DO YOU WANT TO DIE? J/K, that was what I was hoping he would say, but it really ended being some variation of "Hey, you guys have been making out for free on our tropical beach here for, what, 7 weeks? Time to put up or shut up." Each couple must decide whether they're ready to commit to each other "in the real world" (what is "the real world" to a Bachelor franchise star, exactly? Paid vacations to sunny locales, cruise ship excursions with other cast mates, occasional guest spots on new Bachelor series, paid club appearances, and highly visible blogs based on shaky business premises? How is that different from this show, exactly?). If they're not ready to say "I love you" or can't see themselves spending the rest of their lives with that person (it's at this point in the show that I'm praying that Chris has arranged forced marriages for all of them at the final rose ceremony. "What?! You SAID that you guys could see yourself with each other for the rest of your lives! Is that not true? Then it shouldn't scare you to make this legally binding agreement with them in front of 10 million people, now should it?") then, Chris tells them, it's time to pack their bags and get the fuck out of paradise, losers. If the answer is yes, then in lieu of a mental health screening, they will be sent on a Fantasy Suite date where they will be allowed to bang each other without the producers all watching them on hidden cameras and high-giving each other in the control room. 

After Chris' announcement, AshLee, Michelle, and Lacy are sitting around on the couches, having gal pal time. Except! They're not really gal pals, because Lacy and Michelle hate AshLee. Except! They don't actually tell her this to her face, preferring instead to say bitchy things behind her back to the confessional and, in Michelle's case, to Graham. Which, normally, would make for some juicy TV, except that, this time, it kind of goes too far. AshLee makes some Bible Camp Cliched speech about wanting to serve Graham more than he serves her, blah blah blah, and Michelle gets irritated with the platitudes and decides to go talk to Graham - literally announcing to the room that she needs to go find him. Lacy is all like, "AshLee, doesn't that make you nervous that Michelle is going to go talk to Graham?" And AshLee is like, "No, Michelle has been such a great friend to me." 

And this is the point where I get kind of mad, because AshLee is crazy and we all know that, but watching Michelle run to Graham and pretty much convince him to break up with AshLee...that's the lowest common denominator of the term "frenemy." This especially bugs me later when we see AshLee literally crying in the confessional about how Michelle has been so good to her and has been such a great friend to her. That is just straight up cruel, to allow someone to think that you've been a good friend to them and then betray them in that way. Why couldn't Michelle just talk to AshLee and say, "Look, I have a hard time believing that you're genuine, and this is why"? I bet The Lord Our Beyonce would never play somebody like that. 

So Graham finds AshLee and they go off to The Famous Picnic Table ("Remember the first time we came here?" AshLee says, and you immediately feel bad for her, because it's like finding out that the girl at work that your boyfriend always said he didn't have feelings for is now his new girlfriend, and now you know that the whole time that you thought you two were in love he was probably thinking about her and how he couldn't wait for Monday to come so he could go to work and tell her all about that annoying thing you did over the weekend, and so now you're just all NOW I DON'T EVEN GET TO KEEP MY GOOD MEMORIES OF YOU, YOU LYING FUCKFACE) to talk stuff out. He tells her that he doesn't feel good about where the two of them are at and that he worries about "us after this." AshLee states that she doesn't think they need to be as intense as Chris made it sound, and that she thinks that they have what it takes to make it in "the real world." Graham tells her that he doesn't think he can continue on. Stunned, AshLee murmurs, mostly to herself, that this was way too good to be true. I'm momentarily terrified that we're going to have hear her "I was abandoned" speech again, but instead she make a remark about him leaving the relationship, which is kind of the same thing but not quite as Lifetime Original Movie awful. Graham cops out by protesting, "We're leaving the relationship. There's no me, you, etc" which is a TOTAL copout - that's like saying, "This wasn't anybody's fault" when you break up with someone because you've developed feelings for the girl at work, which invariably leads your ex-girlfriend to fantasize about running you down with her car while yelling out the open windows, "This wasn't anybody's fault!" AshLee, to her credit, doesn't back down: "No, you're leaving, because I still wanna be in this." 

Later, Graham tells us that he feels sad. "I thought I would feel a little more relief, but I just feel really sad. I don't really feel any relief right now. I feel 100% that it was the right thing to do for both of us, but it sucked. For me, this is paradise lost."

PARADISE LOST, everybody. I find myself incredibly impressed when anyone on this show knows to use that phrase and in a context that actually makes sense.  

AshLee packs up, and then sits at an outdoor table and cries. And honestly you guys...that bitch is crazy, but it kind of broke my heart, because this wasn't crazy tears: This was sincerely heartbroken tears. Also, she's a really pretty cryer, and it's also at this time that I notice just how subtle her honey brown to light blonde ombre is on her long hair, which makes me want to Google search her to see if she's dropped the name of her stylist anywhere, because I will fly my hot ass to that stylist if that's what it takes to get that kind of perfect color.  Another girl with great hair, Jackie, comes over to talk to her, and seems genuinely concerned about her, cementing my belief that Jackie is seriously on the most genuine people to cross the Bachelor threshold, not to mention the fact that she has one of the most banging bodies EVER. 

I mean, seriously. Look at that hair. Meanwhile, Lacy tells us, "I would be really embarrassed if I were AshLee. I think she's just delusional. She made it out to be this great fairy tale relationship, but I don't think that was real." And that makes me want to grab Lacy by the hair and yank her to the ground (GOD, even the thought of that is so satisfying), because talk about kicking someone when they're down. And it's not like Lacy is any smarter or more deserving than AshLee - she was just lucky to pair up with someone as desperate to have the idea of falling in love as she was. 

AshLee climbs into the van, and as it drives off, she tells us that she's walking away...walking away hurt. "But I was still the lucky one, because he liked me." 

Like I said, the bitch is crazy...but just that remark, right there? If that doesn't tell you that her feelings for Graham were real, nothing will. And it makes me really sad for her that someone whom she thought was a friend deliberately went out and wrecked that for her. 

Christy and Tasos, for their part, have the most amicable, laid-back break up ever. It basically goes like this: 

"So, should we just break up then?
"Yeah, I think we should." 
"Cool. See ya later."

Jackie, meanwhile, tells Zach that the timing just isn't that great for them - they started later into the season, and haven't had enough time to really cement their feelings enough to want to be committed for the long term. I'm actually kind of bummed - I liked Jackie and Zach, and I really want Jackie to find someone great, but you also gotta respect a girl who's willing to let a hot-ass guy like Zach go because of logic. 

And then there's a bunch of back and forth about Michelle not being sure about Cody, blah blah blah. You know how, on The Bachelor, they do a lot of filler in the last episode regarding how each couple first met and the highlights of their time together, etc? For this one, it was a bunch of filler with Michelle staring contemplatively at the horizon and walking along the beach, trying to sort out whether or not her feelings are strong enough for her to want to take the next step with Cody. 

Cody, for his part, just raps about it, "If it's meant to be, it'll be, so just let it be." 



So, to help her with this dilemma, Michelle calls her daughter, who, tbh, sounds like a pretty smart girl. She tells Michelle to chill already, maybe just relax and get laid tonight (she doesn't really say that last bit, but if I had been her, I totally would have). 

So Michelle and Cody, Lacy and Marcus, and One Armed Sarah and Robert gather on the couches and wait for Chris, who arrives and is basically like, "Good going, guys, on not breaking up yet...to reward you, we're going to send you to a ridiculously beautiful suite for you guys to bang it out in." 

Probably the funniest part of the show is how ready the girls are for some serious deep dickin'. Like, we don't see the guys talk about it AT ALL, but all three girls are like, "I CAN'T WAIT to sex it out with my psuedo-paradise boyfriend tonight." 


One Armed Sarah is practically shaking with giddiness: "There are implications that come with an overnight date," she tells us, and as she walks out with Robert, I can't help but wonder at the implications of grooming oneself with one hand? I mean...it's tedious enough to shave your legs with two hands, but getting your prize rose bush ready for some pollinating? Sure, having a handicap makes a lot of things difficult, but these are the things that I would be fascinated to know about. "Tonight is the perfect opportunity for him to get to know me in every way possible. And I hope he goes there...I hope he digs deep."


Lacy, who is done up like a drag queen, continues with the Harlequin Romance Hints at what's going to really happen in the Fantasy Suites: "We've definitely been looking forward to this," she tells us. Marcus and Lacy tell each other "I love you." - omg, you guys, Lacy finally told Marcus she loved him! It's the moment that none of us has been waiting for -  "Marcus has my heart. And more." 


Meanwhile, Michelle and Cody, the only two people that I can even stand to think of having sex, are busy yapping about what their future would look like if they left paradise and continued "in the real world." Apparently something Michelle's daughter said convinced Michelle that she was all in - sorry guys, I stopped paying attention, because YAWN - and she tells Cody that she's excited to stay in the Fantasy Suite with him. 

"Does that mean we're doing this?" Cody asks. 
"Yeah." 
"Good. I'm looking forward to doing this." 
"Did you know you were getting laid tonight?" 

Michelle, to us: "Maybe his dick is very muscular, like the rest of his body. Like the HULK. 

HAHAHA. The best. 

Sixty-niiiiiiiiiiine!The next morning, Michelle and Cody walk into the living room of the resort where all the other couples are waiting, and Michelle tells us, "After spending the night with Cody, I am very sore." HAHAHAHA. Cody, for his part, says, "I'm marking things off my bucket list after last night, I'll tell you that right now." 

Uhhh. Like what? What the fuck happened in that suite? 69'ing? Anal? WHAT WAS ON THAT BUCKET LIST.

Robert and One Armed Sarah look super awkward as the two other couples basically brag about popping each other's cherries. Sarah tries to be all, "HAHAHA, I got a great night's sleep", but then she notices the hicky on Marcus' neck (dude, gross. Except, not surprising...Lacy is totally that girl who thinks that stuff is hot) and suddenly she realizes that the whole time she's been talking about "French kissing" Robert in the jacuzz, her friends have been busy getting finger-banged in Jesse Scofield's basement during "movie parties." Apparently, according to Sarah, after they "French kissed" in the jacuzz and then slow-danced to some Jodeci at the 6th grade dance, she walked into the bedroom to find the lights out the candles blown out, and Robert in bed with his jeans still on. Robert barely touched her all night, and when she reached to unbuckle his belt (with one hand? this girl's got some serious dexterity going on. I wonder if guys with one hand are really good at taking off a girl's bra in one swift motion, too? THEY SHOULD ALL HOLD A WORKSHOP SO PEOPLE WITH TWO HANDS CAN LEARN FROM THEIR HANDICAPABLENESS), he stopped her. 

Find out what happens next by picking up my newest YA Teen Novel, "Why Doesn't Robert Like Boobs?", available through Putnam Books this winter! 

Now, there's a couple ways you can go with this. My first thought was that Robert is impotent. Or, maybe Robert's a virgin? OR, maybe he's just the type to go really slow...they have only really known each other for 6 weeks and have been dating for what, maybe 4 of them? And if you're anything like me, you like to wait at least 3 months before you sleep with someone*. But I can't help thinking about this guy I dated last summer who wore his jeans to bed, too, which I always thought was weird...but whenever I reached over to unbuckle his belt, he was all about it, which made just assume that he didn't like to appear presumptuous (although, guys...if a girl's all, "hey, let's get into my bed", pretty sure you're clear to take your pants off) and/or liked the whole slow-build thing that happens when you have to undress each other. 

So it's a mystery. One that, unfortunately, isn't solved for any of us, because Sarah basically pulls him aside and tells him that last night was not at all what she was hoping would happen, and that he seemed like he didn't have any interest in touching her at all. She also said some stuff about wanting to be with someone who wants to stay up until the sun rises, talking and getting to know each other (blegh), and he's like, "I know, I wanted that, too." And it's this huge roundabout conversation where he apparently thought they had an amazing time, and she tells him that she didn't, but she doesn't demand any explanation from him for why he didn't want to be intimate, and then it ends with them essentially breaking up. 

Robert, for his part, tearily tells us that he kept using the phrase, "I like you," because "I'm a little scared, too." He's crying as he leaves, and it's actually really sad. Sarah feels like she maybe didn't make the right choice, and I kind of want to scream at her that she didn't. Also, I want to know how long it takes her to pack her bags with having only one arm...it's gotta take her hours, right? (I wonder if one of the producers just jumped in and was like, "Lady, Chris is due to appear in three hours, so let me just do this so we can get you out of here by then."). "So now I'm wondering if I let one weird night go to my head," she says, as she drives off in the van. And I kind of feel like she did? I feel like they really needed to talk about it more and sort out what each of their expectations were and why they didn't connect on that stuff. Like, mainly: "Hey, do you maybe like boy bodies instead of girl bodies?" and "If we were in bed together and we were both naked and the world was going to end tomorrow, what would you do?"

Meanwhile, back at the Island, Couples of Bachelor Past show up to give the remaining two couples some advice for taking their relationship from paradise to the Real World. Those couples are Jason and Molly (YAY), Des and her finace (BOOO) and Sean and Catherine (YAAAY!). They basically all interview the couples couple-on-couple, and come up with the verdict that both couples are really into one another and are really great couples. 

Look at how dumb Des looks.Then it's the last rose ceremony! Cody and Michelle go first, and they both make long speeches to each other. 



Then it's Marcus and Lacy's turn. Marcus is sweating all over the place and literally dabs at his forehead with a tissue like he's a Southern Matron, which is hilarious. They go to stand at the rose station, and Marcus is like, "I can haz a minute?" Chis, acting like he doesn't know what's going on, is like, "Sure! Take alllll the time you need to do the thing that we all know you're going to do but are trying to pretend like you're not going to do."

Marcus tells Lacy he just needs a moment alone with her, which we quickly realize to mean, "I'm going to make the worst decision in the history of the universe and going to propose to you, right here, right now." 

Lacy, of course, says yes. "I will be the greatest wife to you, and the most amazing mother to your children." 

So then everyone comes out and starts cheering, then Chris kicks everyone out (seriously, he was like, "Okay guys, it's time to go."), and they all walk down the beach, with Lacy screeching, "I'm engaged! Oh my god I'm engaged!" which makes me hope that it all crashes and burns so I can record my own "I would be really embarrassed if I were Lacy. I think she's just delusional. She made it out to be this great fairy tale relationship, but I don't think that was real." confessional statement. 


But THEN: The show totally redeems itself with an amazing montage set to Elise's dumb speech about having to go through a storm to get to a rainbow, complete with updates on the Paradise People (everyone's still single except for Michelle and Cody...and Marcus and Lacy, amazingly, are still planning to have their wedding this spring). 

All in all, 'twas a fun season. To end it, let me leave you with one of the most amazing moments of the show, which you absolutely must watch if you didn't see it the first time around. I give you...

The Ballad of Ryan Putz


See you in January, Bachelor Babies, for The Bachelor: Chris Is a Farmer!


* Just in case my mom's reading this.