“STOP JUDGING ME!” I think, as I glare at her through my sunglasses, trying desperately to defend my actions. But it only bounces off the plastic that’s supposed to protect my eyes and hits me in the face…yet again.

I know she sees the truth: the only judgement that’s happening is within me. Worst of all, these big bad decisions I made, the only person they hurt is me. I know this because the pain I feel comes from someone else not feeling anything at all.

I know what you’re thinking, Old Woman: this happens to all of us. It’s how come we have poetry, and music, and chocolate.

But I have this day ahead of me, and it looms over me like a mountain. It’s icy tip glistening sharply, cutting a jagged edge into the soft blue sky, blinding me. And I’m at the bottom, unnoticeable to this giant piece of earth that doesn’t care about the night before or if I have the ability to climb it. It doesn’t even care that I don’t want to climb it at all.

It knows I have to.

But my heart groans at the thought of moving forward. It’s struggling before I even begin to move.

I don’t think I’m going to make it.

I dash from the train to my house as if I’m running for shelter – as if my the walls of my house will make all of this go away. I enter my room and lay my head on the pillow, unceremoniously smudging black ink onto the soft, white cotton. As I begin to cry, the pillowcase absorbs all the regret, the heartbreak, the confusion, the pain.

This day hasn’t begun and I already want it to end.

I fall asleep involuntarily, mercifully, and dream of the woman on the train. Only in the dream I am the old woman, sitting with me on the train. And the old woman/me is talking, but I don’t hear anything she’s saying, because I’m not listening. I’m just staring out the window, not paying attention to anything.

Then I just wake up, and the sun’s beating down on me through the window next to my bed. I feel it even before I wake up, hammering my sleeping body as if it can’t figure out whether it’s trying to wake me up or kill me in my sleep.

When I finally open my eyes, I know what I have to do: I get out of bed, fix my coffee, brush my teeth and take a shower. Then I dress, dry my hair, put on my makeup, and get my things together in a bag.

Then I put my sunglasses on, step out the door and board the train for work.

Yet with all the excitement our surroundings provided, what I remember most vividly is a postcard-sized painting that lived thoughtlessly in the corner of our small bathroom mirror. Sitting here now I can see it in perfect detail. A man and woman dancing in front of a busy outdoor cafe while a seemingly heedless public sit at small wooden cafe tables and chatter over coffee and cigarettes. For the longest time, I thought it was a painting of my parents on their wedding day. I remember standing in front of the mirror every night brushing my teeth, imaging their wedding day and fantasizing about the day I would put on a white dress and dance as gracefully as the woman in the picture.

The painting is Renior’s Le Bal a Bougival. Not that it matters, for what it represents for me is so much more. This painting, which is void of petty arguments and bad feelings, of jealousy or unrequited love, it’s always been a promise to me that such a perfect moment between two people can truly exist. It’s naive, no doubt, but with each brush stroke, Renoir painted for me an ideal that I have always longed for.

I smile just thinking about it – even now. The couple always seemed to be dressed so magnificently to me then, but in reality – particularly for the times – they are dressed rather ordinarily. The man in a weathered black suit, brown leather shoes and a yellow hat. He has a mustache and beard, just like my father did when I was a child. She wears a white tiered dress trimmed with red lace and a bright red hat. They are romantic in their stance, but their dress makes them look as ordinary as the patrons sitting behind them. Renoir may have made them the subject of his painting, but he refrained from making them the stars.

Yet there they are, she in perfect posture, and he slightly bent, holding her close staring intently at her as she tilts her head away, careful not to meet his gaze.

She gives nothing away – not in expression anyway. It is as if she knows something he doesn’t. What that is, I can only guess, but I have always liked to assume that she knows more about his love than he does, yet is merciful enough not to show it. She understands that he must come to it at is own leisure.

Standing in front of this painting on many occasions at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, I now know that this is not a depiction of my parent’s wedding day, as I once thought. But I have seen the photos of my parents wedding, and the resemblance is uncanny. My father in a modest dark suit and my mother in a similarly demur, flowing white country dress. Only they would dance and celebrate their union in a small barn in upstate New York.

Neither the painting nor the photos depict reality. My mother’s mother sat in the car, refusing to attend their wedding, because she did not approve of their marriage. Also, my parents were poor, and when they discovered they were pregnant with my sister and me, they were distraught with how they would care for us, despite their joy in our coming.

Yet no matter their plight, they have to this day shown my sister and I the kind of love that I have always seen in the painting – even after they divorced. In a way, their separation provided me with a more well rounded understanding of love, for they showed me how it can endure, even when the face of it changes: my parents fell out of love, but they never stopped loving each other, or us.

And with that – life, that is – comes a greater understanding of the painting itself. Looking at it today, the woman almost appears indifferent, as if she is merely passing the time with this fellow. Sometimes I think that her gaze reveals a bit too much thought, as if she is dancing with one man while dreaming of another. For she wears a wedding ring in the painting, and he does not.

Despite what my grown-up eyes now see, the child in me will always love this painting for one reason: this moment. I will never know what came before or after this idle dance, and as long as I live, it will never matter. Because against the idle chatter, in the middle of nothing remarkable, are two people enjoying each other’s company. And even though in real life, people separate and fall out of love, thanks to Renoir, these two people will stay together, for me, forever.

“Lizzie we obviously have a disagreement a about where this lives.”

“Well, I don’t know where it lives.”

“It lives right here, you see?”

“Ok fine, now I know!”

“Yes this is where it lives now, ok?”

“It didn’t always live there.”

“Where else did it live?”

“Well, I don’t know but it didn’t live there.”

“Alright, well now it lives here.”

“Ok!”

I realized there must be lots of people with this problem, so I asked my friends on Facebook what to do. Most of the respondents were women, and all of them shared their thoughts candidly, even though many of their significant others could see their comments. I came to the conclusion that snoring enrages people so much that they stop caring about sparing other people’s feelings (I can relate). Also, I was surprised to find that none of them mentioned breaking up as a potential solution. That was my first!

My favorite responses:
“WTF is that noise!”
“Are you f-ing kidding me?”
“Where can I hide the body?”

And this rather creative tactic:
“I’ve thought about pouring a small amount of water in their open mouth if they are on their back. Just enough to startle them, so I can have a chance to sleep.”

Of course, after these initial exclamations (often of disbelief), there follows the solutions. For those of you who do not have a snoring boyfriend, enjoy this as a list of reasons why you’re lucky. For the rest, I hope in here lies a good nights sleep!

Ten Ways to Avoid Killing Your Snoring Bedmate

10. Plug his nose while he sleeps
This is among the most peaceful options, so long as you can control yourself. If you get too excited remember this: it’s much more difficult to get away from a snoring inmate.

9. Cover his face with a pillow
See number ten: don’t go overboard!

Jennie: “[I thought about] putting a pillow over his head, holding his nose and mouth shut until he stops breathing…Er, I mean, I have nothing but loving thoughts all night long!”

8. Cover your face with a pillow
Again, don’t go overboard! After all, there are better solutions (see #4)

7. Fall asleep before they do
If that is impossible, see #2.

Caitlin: “Brief thoughts of homicide, wondering how they never wake themselves up. Also jealousy at their deep sleep, irrational levels of resentment, and always, always, always plots and ploys to get to bed and sleeping before they do.”

6. Light physical violence
Push, kick, slap, punch them until they wake up or better yet, become unconscious!

Stacey: “My immediate reaction is to kick him. Sounds mean, but it wakes him up briefly and he usually stops snoring. Best of all he has no knowledge or memory that he was ever kicked.”

5. Focus on other noises
Of course the only man to respond decided he’d try to make the best of it “Eventually this will be calming,” he said. The women were not so understanding:

Cortlandt: “I can handle this, I’ll just focus on the sound of my fan. 20 minutes later, it’s 5 in the morning on a Saturday, and I’m still kept up by Monstro over here! My eyes are so heavy they are going to bleed if I don’t get to sleep in the next 10 minutes!”

4. Sleep on the couch
Wait a minute, why should you suffer if they’re the ones making YOU suffer. See #3.

3. Make him sleep on the couch
Get that selfish, sleep-taker out of your dream sanctuary!

2. Drugs
Marijuana is becoming legal in an increasing number of states…

1. If you love him let him go
Because if you stay with him any longer you’ll kill him. If you don’t love him, then see numbers 9 and 10.

Sleep tight!

I’m not trying to be negative – things have been surprisingly bad! Odd fights that should never have happened, disappointing relationships of all kinds, things breaking, and a place I’ve never been in before: complete and total irrelevance at work. On top of all that, I’ve pissed people off and let people down when I was trying really hard not to.

Worst of all, I keep losing people.

Throughout all this, I’ll admit, it’s been hard to keep my head up. It’s like just when I’ve worked through one thing, another ball drops. Nothing ever happens one at a time it seems, especially when it’s bad.

Needless to say, I’ve been stressed as a result, which for me means I haven’t been sleeping. I’m just so worried! What if I never make anything of myself? What if no one ever loves me? It’s so easy to feel worthless!

It’s so easy to question all the decisions you’ve made.

Usually I’m not half bad in a crisis. Despite my dramatic general disposition, I’m actually quite determined and (gasp!) level headed when things actually get serious. The problem is, in this case, I haven’t known what to do. Besides just let it all happen, I guess. In absence of a defense plan, all you can do is throw up your white flag and hope for the best.

But after a while, I gave up that too and just stopped leaving my house except to go to work. It’s true, no one’s seen me except for my roommates. Even my friends have been wondering where I am.

Nowhere I want to tell them………………………………………………………………………….

The thing is, it’s so easy to feel powerless. Even in those moments when you know what to do, there are so many components that you can’t control, so even your best strategy can be botched. That makes it difficult to find the strength to do anything in the first place.

And negative feelings beget more negative feelings, so if you feel bad about one thing – say work – how do you put your best foot forward to try and make it better? The same goes for relationships. Sometimes I feel like all I hear about (and experience) are indiscretions or abuse from one partner to another, and it makes me wonder why I’d ever want to be in one in the first place.

But then I guess that’s just it: you’ve got to do it anyway. And then keep doing it, time after time, until you find what’s right. After all, bravery is simply the act of doing something despite the fact it terrifies you.

It helps to have help, though. Or at least some people to cheer you on along the way. Your people – the ones that love you just as you are, no matter what.

At least, that’s where I found the most peace I’ve felt in a while: in the apartment of a dear friend who invited me to dinner. And it was there that it all came out. Everything I’ve been holding on to: My fears, my disappointments, all the rejection from everyone and everything I’d been trying so hard to hold on to.

And my friend, she’s, like, tiny. But I felt like she had the biggest ears in the Universe. Like, no bigger ears have ever existed in the history of the world, because she heard everything – all of it – and somehow absorbed it all.

After a while, I didn’t even need to stop, we just moved on. Thankfully, there are way more interesting things happening in the world than the bullshit I’ve been dealing with. And anyway, a little wine, pizza and bad television have a way of putting things in perspective.

And I guess at the end of the day, that’s all I really needed: a little perspective, some wine to wash down the tears and a whole lot of laughter to help me move on.

Onward and upward, that is, one step at a time.

It’s not what you think: I didn’t do it on purpose. Believe it or not, I was actually trying to improve it. But somewhere in the process, I broke it instead.

And I had no idea how to fix it.

I tried contacting WordPress, but I knew I’d probably never hear from them. Then there were my coworkers, but that was my last resort. Working with developers has taught me something: asking them for help takes bravery. You have to muster all your most technical vocabulary and hope that it all comes out right. It usually doesn’t, which means your bound to get a response that makes you feel about the size of a mouse.

In a moment of desperation I Tweeted: ”Everything in 3′s: broke my computer, phone and now my blog! Hopefully #wordpress can help!”

WordPress couldn’t, or didn’t, but someone else did. A young man from India who saw my call for help and answered it. I didn’t know him, but for some reason he wanted to help me.

The funny thing is, even before it was fixed, I was giddy. Just the offer of help made me feel better – like everything was fixed already. It was like all the shame I felt for breaking something so important to me was washed away when this stranger took an interest in helping me put it back together. And it was no small task: it took a lot of work!

And in the end, he was successful, because I’m posting on my blog here today!

This whole thing got me thinking: You know how so many people say that all these platforms for communication have made us less connected, not more. I disagree. Sure there is a never-ending stream of information on Twitter, and most of my “friends” on Facebook I hardly even know. But yesterday, my “world” became really small, because my call for help did not get usurped into the masses of updates. It was seen by one person: Vajrasar, and he didn’t sit passively by, scrolling to the next update in his feed. He stopped, reach back out, and offered to help.

In 2010 I went to Bali Indonesian to volunteer for a birthing clinic, and from the second I stepped off the plane, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. The only problem with that was I thought I knew exactly what I was doing, so I basically walked around really confused but thinking that I had it all figured out. This all changed on the day I helped to deliver a baby.

I went to the clinic as a non-medical volunteer, so i assumed i would be spending about 0-1% of my time in a birth room. Pretty much if I tripped and fell into one, that would consistute my 1%. My mother, however, had other plans.

In fact, she was the reason I was there. She is a midwife and long time volunteer at the clinic. She is also best friends with the founder, Robin Lim. It turns out, they decided behind my back that I would attend a birth while I was there so I could “fully understand the mission of the clinic.” And me being young and arrogant, I was like “yeah, sure I can do this!”

6 weeks after I got there at 4 in the morning, I get the call from Robin to come down to the clinic. I hang up the phone, look around my room and wonder, “What do you wear to a birth?”

In the end, I oped for yoga pants and a t-shirt and ran the 30 seconds it takes me to reach the clinic

It’s really quiet at the clinic, and robin’s sitting outside the birth room, so I take a seat next to her. All of a sudden i hear these noises that sound like this: “ooohhhhh, uhhhhh” and I’m thinking, Are they having sex??

They weren’t. And the reason i know this because shortly thereafter we enter the room and there is Eriya laying on a twin bed, her feet planted and knees in the air looking really uncomfortable, and her husband looking equally as uncomfortable and then me of course probably trumping all of them.

Robin sits down on the bed with Eriya and I sit on the adjacent bed. There’s two other midwives in the room and everyone’s talking, moving about the room and i have no idea what’s going on, because not only do I not speak Indonesian yet, but I also don’t speak medical.

But I don’t have much time to think about it, because suddenly Eriya lets her knee fall to the side and projects this fluid across the room and on to my foot. And I don’t know what to do, because I don’t want to look grossed out and I don’t want to wipe it off in case that’s offensive or culturally inappropriate, so I just kind of cross my leg and try to pretend like i don’t think it’s weird.

Things start moving fast now, and robin turns to me and says here, put these on, and she hands me these rubber gloves. I put them on wondering what i’m putting them on for, and then she’s like “Sit down here” and points to her bed, so I obey and then look up to see that I’m suddenly sitting directly in front of a laboring vagina.

Now, I always thought that if I ever saw another vagina, it would be in a moment of pleasure. But this one was gooey, bloody and it was like undulating in the strangest way, and this things about to come out, which seems impossible given the size of it.

And it’s at this moment that everything comes crashing down for me. I realize that not only did I not know what I was doing in this room, but i didn’t know what I was doing in Indonesia, or in my life. And I’m like “oh my god!”

But I don’t have time to think about it because suddenly Robin’s like “Get Ready!” and I’m like “For what??” But it becomes clear very quickly because I look back at Eriyas vagina and there’s this head pushing its way out.

And I don’t know what to do, and I’m afraid to ask, so I take a look at the head, and it’s round and I think ball….I know how to catch a ball! So I put my hands like this like it’s a basketball and I’m like i’m gonna catch this thing! Then the mom gives a push and the baby suddenly lurches part way out up to it’s neck and and I think i’ve got it only i’m grabbing the sides to the head kind of flops down. And i’m like “holy shit, I’m gonna break his neck!” So I re-strategize and think “ball, ball….football!” so i put my hands on either side only that doesn’t work either because this head just came out of a hole that was way too small for it come out of so I’m afraid to squeeze it any more.

But then Eriya gives another push and she squirts the rest of the baby and all i can think is it IS like a football! Only it’s this lubricated football that doesn’t want to be caught! So I kind of fumble it but it’s ok because robin and the other midwives are there to help me catch the baby. And together we place the baby on the mom’s belly and the mom’s smiling and the dad’s smiling and the babies crying, which turns out is a really good thing.

I look down at the goo on my hands and I see this happy family and the midwives and I realize that this is what I’m doing here: learning what life is really about. It’s about helping each other out. It’s about all the beautiful things that love makes and the richness that mistakes bring to our lives. And in the end, it’s all about new beginnings. And I realized that I’m one of the luckiest people in the world, because during my new beginning, I had a whole bunch of people there to catch me.

I’m getting real good at breaking things.

The things is, I hate breaking things. It always happens so suddenly, and there’s never any time to prepare or change the outcome. Like, you can’t almost break something, because before you know it, it’s just broken.

I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong: when you almost break things but don’t, they weren’t ever almost broken. Like those times when something almost drops but you catch it. That doesn’t count, because it was never going to break in the first place.

Broken happens when your reflexes aren’t available; when your brain doesn’t have time to think; when it never occurs to you that something could break. That’s when things are broken.

Like the relationship (or whatever it was) I had – it’s broken. I broke it. Like I break everything. I just let it die. Because, yeah, you can break things even when you don’t do anything, too.

Especially when you don’t do anything.

The more I think about it, even the word broken seems harsh. It’s like just saying it breaks something: your feeling of safety, your confidence, your ego, your heart.

I can handle one broken thing: A computer, A phone, A relationship. But all these things together, they make me feel like nothing ever stays together. Like everything always breaks. It’s like everything comes predisposed to being broken. Even those things you buy that have to be put together, they should come with a warning: your efforts are fruitless, because this thing is just going to break.

And now I wonder what’s next? Because now it feels like it’s easier to break things than it is to keep them whole. I feel like broken is just waiting for me everywhere. Like maybe something is already on its way to being broken, the timer just hasn’t gone off yet.

The funny thing is, when you break something on purpose, it always feels so good. I remember as a kid I used to get so angry that only breaking things made me feel better. Now I work so hard to keep things from falling apart that I’m devastated when they break.

I know what you’re thinking: they’re just things – even the relationship – and they can all be replaced. That’s true, and the $300 I just dropped on a thing I already owned is proof. It’s just that knowing you’re capable of breaking something without intending to is really scary. It means that I can sabotage my myself without ever really wanting to. It means that I can take something to be fixed and on the way, I can break something else.

And the thing is, Apple Care may cover broken, but they don’t cover loss. And lost and broken, there’s a reason they go together…

Because, in a way, they’re kind of the same thing.

It’s a real struggle because Tom is trying to remember how he saved YouTube videos on his iPhone 3 but he doesn’t even know what a Gmail account is. They’ve been trying to figure it out since last night, but I’ve long since given up.

But my dad, he’s worried about Tom’s privacy and whether Google can track what he does from his phone. This is confusing to Tom who doesn’t use the Internet for much more than browsing, so I try to temper my dads paranoid rant. But I’m unsuccessful.

“Devin be quiet and let your father talk!” My mom shouts at me, so I go back to making breakfast.

It’s my fault really, I made the choice to come to my mom’s, passing up the chance to spend christmas with my sister and her friend in Boston. What I didn’t consider is that without my sister here, I’m the only young person and I’m beginning to feel outnumbered.

At first I thought it would be great because I’d get all the attention to myself. Instead I’m at the whim of three adults.

Like, my mom is on a diet this year so dinners have been real healthy. I had to fight tooth and nail to keep her from serving the same exact dinner two nights in a row and even then we still had chicken both times with tons of vegetables.

Like it or not, I’m getting through the holiday without a single extra pound.

Then of course there’s our navigation of the kitchen. My mom and I have never been in much agreement of what to do there, so we’re deep into Christmas Eve dinner and arguing about where things go and which serving platter to put the carrots in.

But despite our typical family bickering, Christmas is calm and beautiful. I miss my sister and can’t wait to get back to the city, but there’s that pause to dance the Charleston in the kitchen with my mom, and the quiet walk in the snowy woods with my dad, and Tom’s old train set wizzing around the Christmas tree that keeps me in the spririt and feeling grateful for all of it.

Even the steamed broccoli.

Today I got the call no girl wants to get.

“Hi this is Nancy calling from Dr. So and So’s office, is this Devin Bramhall?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“I’m calling about the results of your recent PAP.” 

I take it back, it’s NOT me. The Devin Bramhall you are calling for is someone else. You must have the wrong number. I don’t even know Dr So and So!

The pit in my stomach turns into a full on battle scene as she continues.

“Blah, blah, blah, blah. CERVICAL CANCER. Blah, blah blah. COLPOSCOPY.”

“What does this mean?” I ask her desperately. “I have no idea what you are saying. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?”

The helplessness washes over me and makes me feel very heavy. To make matters worse, I’m at the office, which is this cavernous old building that echoes in even the smallest corner. I’m trying to hide in the hallway, yet I feel totally exposed, like the walls are backing away from me.

I curl myself in tighter hoping it will comfort me. But it doesn’t. And neither does Whatserface from Dr. So and So’s office.

“What it means is that they found abnormal cells on your cervix, and we need to go in and take a closer look to see if they are potentially cancerous.”

“Does it hurt?” I ask, but what I really want to know is “Does this mean I can’t have babies??”

“Not at all, we’re just putting a microscope in there to take a look.”

A look? A look is worth a thousand words, but the only one I care about it Cancer.

The whole thing feels ironic to me, because just the night before I was at the Nutcracker with my friend Stef talking about how when we have children, we want to bring them to the show together.

Now I’m wondering if I’ll get the chance.

The thing is, this procedure is not special. Lots of women have to do this in their lifetime, and most of the time, it’s nothing. But sometimes it’s something, and what if that’s me? 

Suddenly it all feels so possible. Likely even. Suddenly I feel like it’s already here – the Cancer – and it’s already killing me AND my future babies.

I’m overreacting and I know it. The odds are on my side. I’m healthy and there’s no history of cancer in my family.

But all I can think about now are those kids at the Nutcracker, and how much I want one of my own. This thing I’ve taken for granted my whole life – this ability – suddenly relies on what a total stranger sees on the other side of a microscope.

And I’m terrified that I’m not going to like what she sees.