Get Yours! The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed

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1 GET HAPPY The first and most important step to getting yours is figuring out what truly makes you happy. And this, girlfriend, is way harder than it seemsmainly because most of us have been conditioned to believe that our happiness is based on how much we can chip off our todo lists in a day. We're so used to bearing a disproportionate amount of household responsibility, and having people ask and not give in return. Society at large expects us to be plow horses that don't need praise or even rest. No wonder we see every aspect of our lives as work! We don't appreciate the good things we may already have and we certainly don't value the experience of adversity and the strength it gives us to make the life we truly want. I know because it took the most horrible event of my life, my mother's death, to finally teach me how to truly live and be happy. Growing up, home was not a place, it was one person: my mom. Because we moved around so much, people used to ask me if I was an army brat. After a while I began to identify myself as an "academia brat." Both my parents were college professors, so we would move from university to university. Most of my friends reminisce about growing up in Dallas or Oakland or Detroit. But I never think about towns; instead, I recall Princeton and Howard and Columbia universities, the look of the campuses, my parents' colleagues, being passed from student to student while my mom or dad taught a class. Throughout my childhood I was constantly adjustingto an unfamiliar environment, a new school, a different bunch of kids. The way I managed to function within our wandering way of lifeto make my passage easier and to develop new relationships quicklywas simply to give everyone else the upper hand, all the time. I kept my head down, my defenses up, and my expectations low. In my teens, I rarely made demands on a friendship, volunteering to be the designated driver, fakeID holder, termpaper writer. I was the new girl everyone turned to but no one truly liked (let's face it, no one actually likes a suckup). Fortunately, I had my mom. While I didn't have a lot of extended family, she was the one person I could always count on to be there, the stable force. Despite my confusion, I knew at my core I was valuable and talented because my mother instilled those feelingseven when I wavered, she believed in me. While I was at college, still unsure how to stand up for myself and make my own way, Mom became the president of the University of Houston, earning her place in history as the first black woman in the country to head a major research university. I was so lucky to have her as a role model, a smart, ambitious, funny, and loving woman who prioritized family but still managed to achieve every goal she set out for herself. Still, for years her example and words of wisdom couldn't penetrate my shell of insecurity. I spent so much time catering to everyone else, I had no idea who I was. I let my friends and boyfriends and, even though she meant well, my mom tell me what to eat, what to wear, what classes to take, whom to hang out with. In college, I majored in political science because my mom was a political scientist. And even though I'd fantasized about editing a magazine since I was a teen, I decided to be a lawyer. I hated my classes, but didn't switch my major. Boyfriends were unfaithful to me and I didn't leave them. Some of my friends took and never gave, but I was always there for them. I graduated from college and got a job in finance. I hated it from day one, but figured I'd stick it out for a couple of years, then apply to law school. Every morning, I trudged to the subway, and rode a cramped, sweaty half hour