Just a little thought

As some of you may know, I have a weakness for haikus.  Here's a little one I thought of on my run today :)  Plus a song that won't get out of my head.  It hits kind of close to home and I find myself playing the whole Mumford and Sons album on repeat on my Ipod pretty much every day :)

Snowflakes sting my eyes
Clouds emerge to block the sun
Searching for the light

White Blank Page: Mumford and Sons

The sleepless ramblings of hopeless romantic

The Cave: Mumford and Sons

There comes a time in every young woman's life where she is forced to discover who she is and what she's capable of, willing or not.  I've found that I'm learning this more now than I ever did while living in Senegal.  To clarify, I absolutely learned the lengths to which I could go to "survive."  For example, I could go hungry, live without electricity or running water, be beat up and feel completely unappreciated by the country that I was trying so hard to help all in the name of making a difference in the world and working toward world peace.  But it hasn't been until just recently that I've had to reckon with the real forces of growing up.  Scary!

I find it amazing that while I can pretty much handle anything that the world throws at me, I am no more clear in the ways of love than I was at 17, sitting in my parents kitchen crying over my first broken heart.  The difference now, alhumdoullilah, is that while sitting in your mothers kitchen, teary-eyed and weepy, we have wine!  Hey 24 has its perks!  Wine, sweet nectar of the gods, seems to make the cruelty of life go down a little more smoothly... well, until that unforgiving hangover kicks in the next morning.  Gah! Can't a girl catch a break :)

Like any other girl, i've spent many sleepless nights over analyzing and wondering why it is that after you fall for someone, and then end up falling flat on your face, we still have hope for that "fairy tale" ending.  Well, through the insomnia, there must be a light bulb.  There is a part of every american's childhood, male or female, that is, in my opinion, completely to blame for this illusion of a happily-ever-after lifestyle.  Now brace yourself, this may come as a shock, for I cant be sure if many other people have discounted such a childhood staple in this way.  Disney movies.

Now lets take a look at this a little more closely.  The questions that so many women ask them selves: What is up with this macho man obsession we see so much in the American men our age?  Why is it that they feel they can treat us like crap and get away with it?

The easy answer to both of these questions can be summed up in three words.  Its a little something that I like to call "the Gaston complex."  Lets face it, Gaston is the tall, dark and handsom dreamboat.  He's incredible, he has three gorgeous ditzy girls who follow him around because of his muscles, ability to control a crowd and how can we forget that "every last inch of him's covered in hair."  Umm gross. Haha!  He can do basically whatever he wants and get whatever he wants. And seriously, what guy would not want 3 easy girls at his beck and call just because he's an uber-guy and has the ability to grow chest hair?!  And while he may be the epitome of manliness (according to Disney), the other characters are not much better.  Aladdin, for example, seems like a nice guy.  Poor little sewer rat earns the trust of a princess and lives happily ever after.  Except for one minor detail, he lies to her to get her to fall for him, and when she calls him out, he covers it up with more lies, but she still wants to be with him anyway.  Incentive to tell the truth?  Nope.  The beast, screams at Belle and locks her in a freakin' tower!  He uses her for his own benefit to break a curse he was put under for being selfish!  Prince Charming, in the Little Mermaid, completely blows off Ariel as soon as some slutty witch with a low cut dress comes around.  Furthermore, she is the one who is expected to change who she is to accommodate his wants and needs: legs.  This is unacceptable.  My personal favorite however, my childhood crush, Peter Pan the eternal child, kidnaps Wendy, treats her like crap and throws temper tantrums continuously.  And this was my crush, explains a lot lol.  The best part is, as I found out later, Peter Pan is usually played by a woman.  My love life as a child was just apparently all sorts of messed up!  And what does that say for me now?!  Oh Disney men, please sweep me off my feet.  I've been dying to be isolated from my family, yelled at, lied to forced to change myself and overall be treated like crap... sounds fantastic!  But to be fair, the women aren't much better, they will go back even after all of this crap.  Disney portrays the perfect woman as someone who needs to be rescued and will follow you around like a puppy.  A cute one, but a puppy none the less.  So much for the women's rights movement.

But, we're taught from these movies as kids that for the boys, its okay and totally excepted to treat girls this way because they'll just coming crawling back everytime they get hurt.  And girls, we think that the only way to find this happily ever after is to have your beast of a man magically change into a surprisingly unattractive (irrelavent) prince charming completely erasing from our minds that he locked us in a tower for god knows how long.  Ugh, seriously Disney?!  Its no wonder I worry about these things daily.  Dumb movies.

Anyway, despite my sleepless ramblings about the shortcomings of Disney movies, how is it that still find myself and trying to find the good in those people who hurt me and hoping that after all of this, things will work out the way I want and planned them to?  I suppose I'm just destined be a hopeless romantic.  Ah but now, at 10AM I am sleepy... wonderful :)

Ma Vie En Rose

"I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles."
— Audrey Hepburn

This transition back into a "normal" life is, to say the least, interesting.  I've laughed (mostly at myself), cried (for good and bad reasons), ate (more than any normal person should), learned lessons (those really hard ones that make you question everything) and experienced what its like to be a 24-year-old girl living in Chicago.  I stopped blogging shortly before I left Senegal; I felt that it was something people did when they were traveling, to tell stories about the crazy adventures I live on a daily basis for my friends and family back home.  But then it dawned on me, I am still traveling!  Well, I guess I do have a lease and all that jazz, so technically I'm "settled," whatever that means.  But, this is just another chapter in my crazy life, I'm only in Chicago for a season and I am sure as hell not ready to settle down.  Yikes!


So here I am, living the dream in the big city.  Kind of.  Readjustment has proved to be a little trickier than I thought.  Audrey said it exactly right, "I believe in being strong even when everything seems to be going wrong."  Things feel a little out of balance right now, it hasn't turned out how I planned or expected my life to play out, but I think its okay for now.  I'm doing the whole job search thing, which is more frustrating that I could have ever imagined.  I'm not the same girl who left two years ago.  So instead of being okay with just taking whatever job comes my way because it pays the bills, I have this overwhelming desire to do something meaningful and make a difference in someones life.  Alas, I've turned down some jobs that yes would pay the bills, but seemed sketchy and just really made no difference to anyone but the ones writing the checks (and accepting them).  Or, for example, I got called for an interview with PlayBoy for a PR/editor position and was going to go.  But then I remembered that everything that I stand for, and that is important to me, would basically mean nothing if I worked for their company.  Or at least it would look that way.  So the question is, jeopardize everything I believe in for a job or have my bank account hate me.  Needless to say, I chose to live on a budget.  And what have we learned here?  Sarah has a soul... but needs a job badly Haha!

I was going for a run the other morning, yes in the frigid arctic tundra, and I realized that I don't ever want to have a typical 9-5 job!  Well 1. You cant go running on a Thursday at 1pm 2.  I would be bored to DEATH!  Someone shoot me in the face if I ever find myself living out the real life version of "Office Space."  No Lumburg, I will not finish the TPS reports.  Seriously, I think it would actually kill me.  I need something exciting, that will challenge me and make me feel like I'm doing something worth while.... anyone know of anything? eh, eh?  Kidding.

All of this said, I have the travel bug again.  A need for that globe trotting lifestyle and some kind of new adventure has certainly moved in. I've been back for 4 months and am already restless, that cant be a good sign.  Oh well.

But its late and I am sleepy, so until next time (probably tomorrow), I will be looking at my bottle of wine as half full and trying to figure out the world from the perspective of a little blonde American African, one day at a time.