Dana, The Platypus

How do I start to describe my life and I?  Ever heard that song "One Hand in My Pocket" by Alanis Morrisette?  Read these lyrics.  If there is one song that describes everything that I am...it would be this...

I'm broke but I'm happy
I'm poor but I'm kind
I'm short but I'm healthy, yeah
I'm high but I'm grounded
I'm sane but I'm overwhelmed
I'm lost but I'm hopeful baby
What it all comes down to
Is that everything's gonna be fine fine fine
'cause I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is giving a high five
I feel drunk but I'm sober
I'm young and I'm underpaid
I'm tired but I'm working, yeah
I care but I'm restless
I'm here but I'm really gone
I'm wrong and I'm sorry baby (this especially is me)

What it all comes down to
Is that everything's gonna be quite alright
'cause I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is flicking a cigarette
And what it all comes down to
Is that I haven't got it all figured out just yet
'cause I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is giving the peace sign
I'm free but I'm focused
I'm green but I'm wise
I'm hard but I'm friendly baby
I'm sad but I'm laughing
I'm brave but I'm chickenshit
I'm sick but I'm pretty baby

And what it all boils down to
Is that no one's really got it figured out just yet
'cause I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is playing the piano
And what it all comes down to my friends
Is that everything's just fine fine fine
'cause I've got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is hailing a taxi cab

Essentially, I've decided to start writing a blog because I have way too much to say and writing with just my right hand is too slow and I forget all of the things I wanted to say.  I'm Dana, or Danny, depends on what you prefer.  I am everything in that song (aide from flicking a cigarette).  I am my own contradictions.  I don't really know what to believe in, yet.  I am trying to find it. It's funny because I know exactly who I am, or I at least have the gist of it, but I'm still finding things out.  I do not know it all, and as hard as that is for a 21 year old to admit, it's true. It's hard too really fully grasp that one can be as neutral as I am, but it does occur in nature.  I don't know exactly where, but I guess a platypus is a good example.  It's a mammal, but it lays eggs.  How did that one get by God?  Did one of his little workers (comparing him to Santa Claus) make the platypus and God was just tired when he approved it?  Either way, a platypus is unique in a beautiful and strange way.  I guess you never really know what to make of such a creature because it's so strange and cool at the same time that you just accept it for what it is.  I'm definitely strange, maybe cool, hopefully beautiful and I know I'm pretty damn unique.  So does that make me a platypus? Figuratively? Probably.  Great, I'm a platypus.

I would like to say that I have one thing in my life that is super-duper important and above all the rest...but, in reality, everything around me is important.  All of the little things and the little influences have a say in the bigger things. My sisters and my best friends, who I am pretty sure are my legitimate soul mates, have done everything to keep me believing in real love.  Without them, I have no idea what I would believe in at this point.

As a little girl/ bitch-in-training, I believed in fairy tales to no end.  I was convinced that one day a prince would come and swoop me off my feet.  I was much younger than my two sisters, so while I played "Charming Prince saves Princess from evil-doers" my sisters were out playing "the game", so to speak.  I was the youngest girl in the family, always the damsel-in-distress.

Fast-forward to high school in Fairfield County, CT, where being a "platypus" in a pond of geese and swans, was interesting, to say the least.  I found solace in music and painting mostly.  That was my niche.  I rarely dated anybody in high school, because nobody really shook me.  Towards the end of high school I dated somebody for a while, who changed the damsel-in-distress/ fairy tale dream i once had.  i don't know if that was a blessing or a curse, but either way, I accept it with open arms.  However, I did not become a pretentious hipster or dickweed, who cannot talk about anything else besides bad indie music and my lack of deodorant. On the outside, I look like a normal human with eclectic choices in clothing, on the inside, I just enjoy my own personal world of wanderlust and color. 

So..."love"...is that the topic I have stumbled upon as my first ponder-ance? Wow, can i be more_______...well someone fill in the blank?  Lame? Silly? Hopeful?

I believe in love more than I let people perceive. Mostly because I have experienced many types of it already, and I am still very young, and in a lot of ways, naive. I have experienced unrequited love.  That shit hurts.  I tasted real-ationship love, mutual and romantic, the kind where both parties would do anything for. I have experienced unconditional love, due to my close family, which I must say is still my favorite. However, my close second is the love I get from my best friends/ soulmates.  I don't know what you would call that kind of love, it borders with unconditional and real-ationship.  Well, technically, it is a relationship, and in some cases, it really can become unconditional.

After my first real-ationship love ended abruptly, I cut myself off, not knowing how it would effect me in the future.  I stopped opening towards the guys I dated, and most of them turned out to be fleeting interests anyway.  Nothing hooked me back into trying a real-ationship again.  Single-life had me by my frizzy hair and I took it and rode it like the wind!

Time has healed me, but time can only take you so far without the knowledge and advice of wise people around you.  There are some who do not tell you what to do, but who have showed you what not to do (or date) like my oldest sister.  That was an odd way to give her a compliment, but at least her years she spent dating (for lack of better words) losers and dicks did not completely go to waste. 

Then, there are the soulmates.  If there are 3 people, I can really thank for keeping my hopes up for a fairy tale ending, I have to hand it to Meredith, Marisa, and Garrett.  Meredith for her commitment to me.  We are our own type of love.  While both of us are completely straight, we are in love with one another.  We hate each other some days, and cannot be parted on some others. We get jealous when the other one finds a significant other and have opposing and conflicting ideas of a good relationship.  Deep down, we both know that the only lasting relationship we have both had (yet) is each other.  Together since 1995.  Our meet-cute: playground swings.  We've broken up a few times in between due to... immaturity and angst.  There was even some bloodshed, but we won't get into that.

Marisa needs to be commended for her undying efforts to find the real thing.  She has faith in people, who on some levels, do not deserve her faith in them. We trade off our ideas on the opposite sex.  I say, it's all about games and intrigue (at least at this age) and she believes a bit more in fate.  Which I must say, it is rubbing off on me a bit, and I'm positive I have rubbed off on her. The girl doesn't give up! DON'T STOP!!! BELIEVING!!!!

And Garrett. Dear lord, there is way too much to be said about Garrett.  Garrett is living proof that there are men out there who are not only beautiful, but true and worthy.  I usually do not have this much passion about one human being, let alone a dude. I dug through my soul and my heart to try and figure out if I was actually in love with Garrett, but as it turns out, I am not.  Somedays, I wish I was, just so that I could decode and name the kind of love I have for him.  It really is unexplainable.  Perhaps this is what having a brother feels like?  It was not until he left for the Navy, when I could not call him or talk to him everyday, like I normally did, that I realized he felt like more than a friend, but not anything like a boyfriend.  So what does a platypus do when she finds someone who is worth it but isn't in love with him?  Discover a hybrid of that love. It works for me.  I think it's quite amazing that I channeled something like this.

Put that in your juicebox and suck it.  I have lots of types of love in my life, some of which cannot be named or explained.  I am an Alanis Morrisette song.  I am a platypus.  I am possibly insane. Wait, no...I'm sane, but I'm overwhelmed.

Until next time, stay classy!

(who am I talking to?)