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ME: So did we, like, sail around the island and stuff? DAD: Oh, no. The engine didn’t work on the boat. ME: The engine didn’t…? We lived on a giant floating bathtub that went nowhere?
I still find that, in general, having a plan is, well, a good plan. But when my carefully laid plan laughed at me, rather than clutch at it too tightly I just made a new one, even if it was one that didn’t immediately make sense. In blindly trying a different path, I accidentally found one that worked better. So don’t let your plan have the last laugh, but laugh last when your plan laughs, and when your plan has the last laugh, laugh back, laughing!
He asked for my phone number, and then didn’t call me for three months. THREE MONTHS. Of course, when he finally called, I told him politely that he’d waited too long and I didn’t appreciate being disrespected like that. AHAHAHAHAHA. NOPE, I went out with him anyway! I wanted to hold out for men with good behavior, but ultimately I gave in to less-good behavior because I was working all the time and wasn’t sure when the next chance to meet someone would be. One thing I learned: starting off with very low standards is a surefire way to ensure they’ll be met.
But ultimately you’re going to slip and show your house the way it is on a morning when you’re running late for work, or can’t find an outfit, and that’s a relationship. Ultimately, everyone who gets close to you is going to see inside your closet on its worst day, and their reaction to that is what will tell you if you’re going to make it or not. You can’t live an entire life secured in by Spanx.
Because here’s the thing: I was fine on my own, and so are you. But it can be hard when you feel ready for Happy Couplehood and you seem to have missed the train. As my friend Oliver Platt used to say to me about hopes and dreams I’d share with him: “It’s coming, just not on your time frame.”
But life doesn’t often spell things out for you or give you what you want exactly when you want it, otherwise it wouldn’t be called life, it would be called vending machine.
It’s hard to say exactly when it will happen, and it’s true that whatever you’re after may not drop down the moment you spend all your quarters, but someday soon a train is coming. In fact, it may already be on the way. You just don’t know it yet.
There’s more comedy in failure than in success, and it’s a much more universal language. At the party, the worst jobs also seemed to be the ones everyone felt
most proud to have endured. It’s an accomplishment to do something well, but maybe even a bigger one to do something well when you’d really rather not be doing it at all.
An important tool against self-doubt is just to ignore it. Forge ahead anyway. Just keep going, keep going, keep going.
I guess what I’m saying is, let’s keep lifting each other up. It’s not lost on me that two of the biggest opportunities I’ve had to break into the next level were given to me by successful women in positions of power. If I’m ever in that position and you ask me, “Who?” I’ll do my best to say, “You” too. But in order to get there, you may have to break down the walls of whatever it is that’s holding you back first. Ignore the doubt—it’s not your friend—and just keep going, keep going, keep going.
Instead, my mind meandered over topics such as “Do you ever wonder why people in Los Angeles cross the street so slowly but people in New York City always sort of jog-run?” But life can’t stay a Seinfeld rerun forever.
Sometimes the idea of doing something is the most fun part, and after you go through with it, you feel deflated because you realize you’re back to looking for the next thrill.
Spend some time with just yourself and your thoughts and nothing to do. How else will you learn who you are?
