Normally, I just let it all go, but I took a stab at the being blessed thing. “Or maybe I worked really hard.”

She thought about this.

“Lots of people work really hard. But not everyone is successful.” (Translation in case you don’t fluently speak the language of my mom: she works really hard. So hard! And yet why is she broke all the time?!) And anyway, she asked me, don’t I like what I do? Well then. I can barely count it as working. Most people aren’t so blessed as to enjoy their work.

I just took a drink of my margarita in response.

I got off lucky though. Hannah Montana didn’t fare so well.

Hannah arrived at my niece’s sixth birthday party with hula hoops, a karaoke machine, pom poms and face paint. You can imagine the excitement of all the little girls, right? They gathered around her with anticipation. As did my mom.

“Wow, great job. You look just like her. Last time I saw you, you looked just like Snow White!” Hannah and I both gave her the same look. That look was “what the hell is wrong with you, you crazy woman?”

I explained to my mother in front of THE EXCITED GROUP OF SIX YEAR OLD GIRLS that the reason she looked like Hannah Montana was that that SHE WAS HANNAH MONTANA. My mom looked confused. “But the girl we talked to before..?”

“You must mean my friend,” Hannah explained, clearly bewildered by a grandmother trying to destroy her own granddaughter’s magical birthday surprise and replace it with the hard, cruel reality of our cold and bitter world. Should Hannah tear off her clothes and start singing about how she can’t be tamed while we’re at it?

My mom wandered off and found my sister. “Did you know that’s not the same girl we hired? They must have sent someone else.”

She approved of Hannah’s blonde wig though.

A friend told me a few days ago that he wasn’t going to feel sorry for me as I’m incredibly fortunate and have virtually no problems, comparatively speaking. He’s absolutely right. And I don’t feel sorry for me either. That would be ridiculous. But I still have those moments of weakness.

I’m only an ordinary person. Who wishes I had superhuman strength. But I don’t.

At my turn in line, I start to walk towards my cab — the cab designated for me based on my place in line — and the taxi line keeper, the one who hands out the fare flyers that I always shun, stands in my way. “Where are you going?”

“Why do you need to know?”

This is what I actually say.

He keeps at me and some stubborn bitchy part of me doesn’t want to tell him where I’m going, just wants to get in my cab, away from the line and the heat and the noise.

He won’t relent.

“Why can’t I just tell the driver where I’m going?”

He goes off on a rant about how that cab doesn’t go to Virginia, just to DC. I tell him I’m not going to Virginia, I’m going to DC. He lets me go.

Maybe it’s some chip on my shoulder, angry every time someone assumes I’m in the wrong place or thinks I don’t know what I’m doing. This happens a lot at airports. Recurring scene: I’m standing in line at the ticker counter. The line minder asks me where I’m going. I have no idea why this is relevant. “This line is for business class for international flights.” “Yes. So says this sign I’m standing directly next to. I can read.”

One guy, understandably irritated at my lack of any shred of politeness told me he was only trying to help. “You’re not helping me.”

So maybe it’s that and maybe it’s that if I feel like I am constantly worn down by the noise. By people wanting things from me, needing things from me, relentless. My phone chimes again. More email. Please schedule a call with me tomorrow. I laugh. There’s no room in my schedule, not even for a call, for two weeks. I can’t even be left alone to get into a cab?

I know. I’m a jerk. There’s no part of me that thinks my reactions are justified.

I’m sitting in a hotel bar. The waitress says I should try the red velvet cupcake. They’re so good, she’s been known to eat three for dinner. But the other people in the bar are loud, inescapable. I close the browser tabs with my email. Log out of instant messaging. I feel too constantly accessible. It feels intrusive every time someone wants to be my friend on Facebook, on Foursquare.

This morning, at my apartment, before I left for the airport, before I was nonsensically rude to someone just trying to do their job in the humid, oppressive heat outside an airport, I saw a huge seal laying on one of the little boat docks. A baby has been hanging out the last few weeks, but this is the first time I’ve seen one of the parents.

But I had a plane to catch.

I spent the weekend laying on the beach in Rio. As you lay there and watch the water, locals come by offering to sell you anything you might want: sunscreen, hats, sarongs, magazines, water, jewelry. They’ll bring a portable mini-grill over and make you lunch. You can get a massage. A new bikini. On Sunday, I stood at the base of Christ the Redeemer, wearing sandals I got in Jerusalem.

Then yesterday, I stood in my living room and watched the sun over the water and all I wanted to do was cry. What the fuck am I doing? Am I doing it all wrong?

Today, I drove to the bank . As I parked, I saw a crow on the ground, clearly dying. I didn’t want to look at him. As I opened my door, the sound of birds was deafening. I looked up, and hundreds of crows were circling the air, perching on wires and trees and rooftops. All crying, screaming. It was a little terrifying. They all were looking at the dying crow. By the time I left the ATM, the crow on the ground wasn’t moving anymore. The air grew quiet.

(It’s not true, of course. The don’t need anyone stuff. That I changed my own oil in college is indeed true. Our garage had this scary, spider-filled pit that you could drive over and then work on your car while standing up. In the pit. My car broke down a lot. I didn’t have any money. Also, even then, I wanted to be independent, not relying on anyone, blah blah blah, so I knew my way around an engine. Except, did you know that buying your own oil and filter supplies is just about as expensive as just bringing your car somewhere to have the oil changed? Yep. Plus you need that special tool to get the filter off. And also, it’s messy. Plus, the spiders. So, I really recommend against this method of gaining independence.)

But that person (who I mentioned way back before that rambling parenthetical) would be wrong. Mostly the title is about the horrifying fact that I really like this new Miley Cyrus song. That it’s Miley Cyrus would be bad enough. But she’s 17. So it’s ridiculous that she’s singing about how she can’t be changed and every tomorrow is a day she never planned. OF COURSE she didn’t plan it. No one has any idea what their world is going to be like when they’re 17. And yet, there it is. It’s shameful, honestly. If I were 17, it would be fine if I liked this song. But not now. And yet I do.

What makes it worse is that on that album, she does a cover of “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”. Like, seriously? That’s just like when Britney Spears remade “I Love Rock and Roll”. What is wrong with people?

In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit I also kind of like that “Your Love Is My Drug” song by that girl with a dollar sign in her name, especially the beginning part where she says “maybe I need some rehab, or maybe just need some sleep”. And also that song about my milkshake bringing all the boys to the yard. Which I realize now is about a million years old but it still IS AWESOME.

So what did I do? What else could I do? I picked up the latest issue of Cosmo. Maybe I’ll find it’s gotten good too. Think of how much easier life would be if I could be more easily entertained. The cover of the July 2010 issues looks promising. 99 new sex facts! Who knew that many things were new about sex?! The #1 love instinct I should ignore! What men find hot! (Wait, I know this one already. Blow jobs, right?) 20 naughty things to do in the dark! (Cosmo readers need someone to tell them this?) Let’s dive in!

You will be shocked to hear this, but the 99 new sex facts were really disappointing. For instance, “women place a higher importance on looks than men do when looking for a casual sexual partner.” Millionaires feel having money gives them access to better sex. More interesting: the chemical ocytocin, released during sex, reduces pain by about half.

Here’s something weird. One “fact” is that the average time sex lasts for Americans is seven minutes and another is that that women want sex to last about four minutes less than it does. Um, women want sex to last for three minutes? Clearly these women are not having good sex. Good sex should last as long as possible. Longer really.

And what about this? 95% of women consider penile-vaginal intercourse sex. What? What exactly do these other 5% of women consider to be sex? Where do magazines find these people?

So Cosmo has given us a collection of random surveys with no attribution from a sample size of women who want three minute sex, in some crazy bizarro world of what sex is. Awesome.

You understand I couldn’t read the rest of the magazine right? Even for science? And anyway, I have go to listen to that song about taking a ride on your disco stick. Or maybe the one about how what I want want want is what you want want want so give it to me baby like boom boom boom.

But I draw the line at that creepy Bieber kid.

A friend stayed with me this weekend and ended up driving through some small towns nearby to go for a hike. She came back with photos of fireworks stands. She grew up in California where such a thing was unthinkable. They were a novelty to her. I showed her the photo. It was a world she couldn’t fathom.

If I look back objectively, I was a mixed up kid.

Every part of my being was fixated on the one goal of my life: to get out. To not squander being smart. To not be stuck in a small town my entire life. To accomplish something. The only way I knew to do any of this was to go to college, so I focused all of my energy on that. I wanted to go to a good college but I didn’t have any money and my parents didn’t believe in college, so I’d need to get a scholarship. To do that, I’d need good grades, lots of extracurricular activities, to be in lots of school clubs. But I also needed money to pay for things like the SATs and college admissions so I’d need to balance all of those things with a job.

I so looked forward to the day I turned 16 so I could get a job that paid minimum wage. In addition to the fireworks stand, which was not, strictly speaking, a money maker, I worked at my parents’ antique store for a dollar an hour. I turned 16 at the end of that summer and excitedly got my first job at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Our small Oklahoma town didn’t have a lot of choices.

As you might imagine, I was a conscientious student. I did all the homework, got all As, aced all the tests. I made due with what the school system could offer me. We bounced around between Oklahoma and central California when I was growing up, and high school was no different.

More was available in California. I took algebra in summer school before my freshman year to get a head start. I took 0 period trigonometry my senior year and took all honors classes. In Oklahoma, where I was my sophomore and junior years, my high school didn’t have honors classes or trigonometry so instead I enrolled in a concurrent program at the local college the summer after my junior year and took college Chemistry. I was in mock trial and spirit club and any other school club I could add to my college application (Oklahoma, ironically enough, had a large Mothers Against Drunk Driving group.)

And yet, I was still a teenage girl. I wanted to be liked. I wanted to have friends and do fun things and kiss boys. Even though (or perhaps because) I didn’t grow up with anyone I went to high school with and was the “new kid” three times between freshman and senior year, I somehow managed to be on the edges of just about every group in school. I was always perplexed when the popular girls invited me over to their houses to hang out. (Especially since my mom cleaned their houses.) I would find myself at a party, making out with one of the cool boys or playing quarters with all the boys and drinking them under the table.

I somehow juggled perfectionism at being a student with going to a lot of parties, drinking a lot, skipping school (I was great at forging notes from my mom), and spending a lot of time with boys. I don’t know how I managed this with strict, religious, and crazy parents, but a combination of sneaking out my window at night, lying about spending the night with friends, and leveraging the nights my parents were out late at auctions for their antique store seemed to do the trick. I used being smart in ways other than just to get good grades.

I think back to when I was happy in high school and I’m not sure. It’s all a blur. I remember the days when boys broke my heart. When I listened to the same sad pop song in my car over and over again and cried until I thought I would die. I remember the horrible fights with my parents. The bad moments stand out to me as black and white in their awfulness. No ambivalence.

Was I happy being invited to all the cool parties with the popular kids, hanging out at the lake with them, getting over a hangover by drinking a beer for breakfast? Kind of. But it was always against a backdrop of wondering what I was doing there, sure I would be found out at any moment and chased away. Maybe we’re all like that in high school. I always thought it was because no one knew me well enough and as soon as they did, it would all be over.

I’m reading Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip With David Foster Wallace right now, and Wallace says something about shy people that really resonated with me.

If I’m hanging out with you, I can’t even tell whether I like you or not, because I’m too worried about whether you like me.

With that one sentence, he managed to sum up just about every social interaction I had until I was 30. My greatest happiness in life right now might be that I don’t live my life that way anymore.

“It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us.”

Sometimes it seems pointless to write when it’s been written so much better before. Sometimes I don’t have words. They’re just beyond my grasp and I can feel them, but I can’t write them down. Some moments are wonderful even as the world burns around you.

This is what I’ve been thinking about today: someone told me a few days ago that the fear of saying no (and passing up great opportunities) is a fallacy. That every time we say yes to something, we’re saying no to something else. Maybe I need to reframe things. When I start to inevitably say yes to something else, I should consider what I’m saying no to.

But some things are worth saying yes to.

As Billy Joel once sang, “dream on, but don’t imagine they’ll all come true”.

This happened to me today.

Well, sort of. No actual cows ran over me. And it’s not even that I realized something momentous I didn’t know before. Instead, I just thought about something I already knew, had already thought through, written about, pondered, internalized, understood in the context of my life. And then I thought. Oh. So that’s what that means. Right.

It’s just this. I don’t want to rely on someone else.

Yes, that’s not new. Yes, I write about it here all the time. But I thought about it differently today. Really going all in on relying on someone else (counting on them, expecting them to be there for you always, no matter what) is more than just giving up independence, it’s more than just giving up control and being helpless and weak and non-capable (although yes, I know it’s not really any of those things; it only seems to be, to me). It’s asking for your heart to be shattered in a billion pieces so small that you can never find them and put them back together again.

And it’s not that I think that it’s sad that I can’t be vulnerable and close to people, because I think I can. And am. And it’s not that I’m waiting to find just that right someone who can make me believe in trust again or something else from one of those sappy romantic comedies. I don’t think that’s going to happen. I don’t want that to happen. I wouldn’t let that happen. (Why expect so much of people? It’s too much.) And more importantly, I’m happy now.

I was talking to a friend who said that for us to have joyousness, the human experience has to include real engagement, real vulnerability, real moments. I agree. I have those. But I’ve architected my life in such a way to have them without blind and absolute reliance. Or as another friend said, she optimizes for genuine moments.

So, I’m faced with this new realization, but I don’t know what (if anything) to do with it. I think, actually, that I’m happy about how I’ve built my life. With meaningful connections but without setting up those connections in ways they can let me down. And break me.

And even that sounds like a Taylor Swift song. Or maybe Paramour, swearing to myself that I’m content with loneliness. But that’s not it at all. I’m not lonely. I’m just content.

Earlier tonight, I was talking to a friend of mine on the phone. She realized, she said, that it’s not about changing, about hiding your flaws, your weaknesses, about being more appealing, more attractive, more what someone would want. It’s not about any of that at all. It’s about finding someone who wants you exactly who you are. Who thinks that what someone else would call your flaws are some of the best things about you.

We say, “be yourself” to someone who is feeling lost and alone in the world, but we don’t explain what that means. It doesn’t mean that being yourself is being the best you that you can be (although that is, in fact, the case). It doesn’t mean that you can’t sustain being someone else (although that is also true). It doesn’t mean that by being yourself, you will be more attractive to more people and make more friends (and it likely doesn’t mean this at all).

Instead, it means that you will be more attractive and make friends with the right kind of people. The people that you don’t have to try to sustain being someone else for. The people who like every last part of you exactly the way you are. Who love that you sing off key to the radio rather than tell you to be quiet. Who get just as absorbed in your rambling tangent as they did the origination conversation. Who think that getting lost is just as much an adventure as getting to where you originally planned.

My journal’s turned into an after school special. But fuck it. Freedom isn’t a lack of weight from complication. It’s a lack of weight from trying to be what everyone else wants you to be. How fucking exhausting.

This hit me today on the plane. I was sitting in first class and the man who sat next to me gave all the signs (I thought) of the self-entitled. Once he got to his seat and realized the overhead was full, he handed his bag to a man just boarding the plane (who was headed for coach, of course) and asked him to put it in the overhead next to him. Then he sprawled out and took up as much as space as possible and ordered two Jack Daniels with Sprite. (Seriously.)

So there I was with my laptop and my headphones and my bubble of privacy and as we were descending, he, reading the flight magazine, turned to me and started talking. My first thought was: am I not in my bubble of privacy?

But then.

And this is how people surprise you.

He told me how much he was enjoying reading the in-flight magazine. And he showed me all of the winning photos from the photography contest and wasn’t it wonderful? The photos were amazing — he went through them one by one: have you seen a fish like this? A glacier this beautiful? And he started winning me over a little.

But then he showed me all the notes he had taken on a piece of paper from the ideas he had gotten from the articles in the magazine. He works too much (he looked as though he should be long retired), he said. He forgets about all of the great things in his hometown. He showed me his list.

Look, he said. I have this boat. I could dock it in the bay and invite friends over and we could just hang out and watch the water and the sky. And I haven’t been out to these falls in a really long time. And they’re great. And look at this crazy word. I love words like this. Maybe it’ll be my new computer password. I wrote it down.

And it amazed me that this person who I had made this snap judgment about. Had turned into a one-dimensional cardboard cutout. Was human. As we all are. And was excited about the wonders of life. And was having trouble, as we all do, figuring out how to make it all work.

I told him I would read the in flight magazine on the way back. And maybe I’ll make some notes of my own.