Well, two chairs if I am being honest, but if you get the reference above then we are automatically better friends than we were before you opened this post. More on that, later.

Two years ago, just after we closed on our new home, I went with my parents to the Rago Arts Auction in Lambertville, New Jersey, for their unreserved auction of modern pieces. I had my eye on a pair of white leather Barcelona chairs, and I cannot even tell you how exciting it was when my dad raised the panel for that final time and the auctioneer banged his gavel. “We won!” I exclaimed. My dad laughed. “You didn’t ‘win’,” he said. “But you are buying the chairs.”

And oh how I love my Barcelona chairs. This is a very old photo of my living room, as the decor has changed, but you can see the cool white leather chairs named after my sweet city.

Last year, my parents went back to the auction for us, as I was home with a new baby, and probably slightly out of my mind by that point.

We had seen a few items that we were outbid on, but found an incredible settee with beautiful upholstering and it found a new home in our living room. I “won” again.

Two years in a row, I was lucky enough to get fabulous, unique and special seating pieces from the Rago Auction.

What does this have to do with anything, you might ask?

Well, this past weekend was the auction, once again. My parents went up to check out the pieces, and I spent a good (embarrassingly long) time watching the live feed of the auction, all 700 lots. And I had my eye on one of the very last lots, 1192, a pair of Hollywood Regency silver chairs. Amazing.

I placed an absentee bid, refreshed my browser and held my breath.

And I was outbid by $50.

I was disappointed. “But every year I get a chair from Rago,” I complained.

And then it hit me; perhaps this is a good sign, in fact. The past two years I started off my Januaries by buying seating at this auction, and the past two years have been supremely awful. So, in an effort to make lemonade, I decided that my “loss” was, in fact, a good sign. That no Rago chair=better year.

This is what it is like to be a superstitious person.

I have written time and time again about my incredibly superstitious nature; I come by it honestly, as it was passed on to me by my dad, who got it from his mom. I have written on here about the obvious things, like my thing for feathers, and lucky pennies, salt, purple underwear…

but I don’t think that I really share how much these “superstitions” actually control my life.

To me, superstitions are equated with some sense of control, and therefore, are also equated with anxiety.

I am extremely ritualistic about some things. I have weird habits. And when someone last week asked me if I had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder I told them that I did not, but then started to wonder. So I looked it up.

According to a Health.com article on OCD I do have some obsessive compulsive traits, but I do not think that I have OCD.

For instance, I do not engage in obsessive hand-washing, nor overzealous cleaning. I do, however, count things (like steps) and I am obsessed with numbers. I am not a perfectionist or particularly organized, but I do have a disproportionate and abnormal fear of violence. As the article states, “Everybody has fleeting thoughts about the possibility of being affected by violence or other misfortunes. The more we try to avoid thoughts like this, the more they pop into our heads.”

This is how my brain works (and I cannot believe I am telling you this) in normal, day to day situations. I will give you a recent example:

My family and I took a recent two day trip to Hershey, PA to experience the holidays at the park. Hershey is a very happy, clean place with wonderful hospitality. During our first meal there, lunch at a nice Italian restaurant at our beautiful hotel, I saw two college-aged kids walk into the restaurant. They were clean cut, dressed the way my college-aged cousins dressed, and, frankly, could have been my cousins. But I noticed that one of the guys didn’t take off his coat upon sitting down. This scared me. My mind began swirling with elaborate fantasies of their plan to hold up the restaurant, with no intention of actually eating there. My husband saw me look obsessively, and saw the fear in my eyes, and he tried to calm me, but I was legitimately scared. And do you know what assuaged my anxiety (besides the glass of Prosecco that I decided to order)? When I saw the guy in the jacket pour olive oil onto his plate so that he could use it to dip his  bread. I reasoned that if he were planning on holding us hostage inside this restaurant, inside this hotel, in “The Sweetest Place on Earth”, he probably wouldn’t be focused on his foccacia. That, I realize, is insane. But is it OCD? I don’t think so. I think it is anxiety.

I also looked it up on The National Institute of Mental Health, and while there are some overlaps between the behaviors they describe and my own anxious ones, again, I don’t think I could be officially diagnosed.

So, in the spirit of my quest for a better new year, I have decided to try to let go of some of my rituals, paranoid thoughts and idiosyncrasies.

For example, when I microwave things, I do not just press the 1 or 2 minute quick heat buttons. Oh no. I have a number for everything. Milk, depending on the size of the bottle, gets microwaved in a mug for either 44 or 1 minute and 11 seconds.

Hot chocolate gets microwaved for 2:36.

When the box of chicken nuggets instructs me to microwave four of them for a minute, I microwave them for a 1:01 second.

So, this week, as silly or inane or insane as it may sound, I microwaved milk for 52 and 55 and 58 seconds.

This is my way of trying to let go of my anxieties; to relinquish some control.

The idea of this post actually came about last night as I was getting into bed and noticed that the bed had been made wrong;  the duvet cover was upside-down, so that the buttons were up, close to our faces, as opposed to our feet. And this made me anxious. I felt all of those superstitious feelings and longings for control, but I also felt extremely tired; too tired to get up and remake my entire bed at 11:00pm. So I decided to leave it. Consciously.

For my entire life, I have been ruled by phobias, apprehension, and a desire for some control over a world that is, whether I like it or not, out of my control.

So I used my rational brain last night as I sat in bed, contemplating the buttons and the duvet and the prayer-type-wishes that I say every single night and the fact that I have to check on my daughter in her bedroom at least once before I go to sleep, and I waited for my husband to come up so that he could talk me down, and tell me that we would be okay, despite the fact that the buttons were facing up. As it turns out, he had fallen asleep reading by the fire, so I went to bed by myself, and I woke up to my baby crying, my daughter clinging to me, just like every other morning. Even though the buttons were facing up.

Do you know what a relief it would be if I could let go of these ridiculous things? If I did not have to carry them anymore?

And I am sure I am not the only one.

So, as I said, it started with a chair, which is a nod to one of my favorite movies, Juno.

And back in 2007, when my sister was sleeping over with us at our townhouse, we decided to make a Juno cake. It looked like this:

Now, for someone who is in no way an artist, I think this cake is, as they say, “totally boss”. But really, it is quite imperfect, something that did not bother me then, nor does it now.

So instead of focusing on giving myself a diagnoses, I am going to try to focus on finding little moments in which I can let my superstitions (which are really just anxieties, hiding in a more legit sounding word) go.

There are some things that will always be with me, and that is OK. Some things are family traditions, and they weave the customs of the old into the present, like throwing salt over our shoulders, and for those things I am grateful. I am grateful that I can write my dad an email about something that I really want and he will reply with “Salt”. I am grateful for the bond that the salt throwing gives to us.

But I am going to use Sunday’s lost auction chairs as a fresh start. Because honestly, if I had gotten the chairs, I don’t think it would have made this coming year any different than it will be. Lord knows, for the past two years I have tried to abide by every trick I know, yet it didn’t make a difference at all. Because while there are some things that are in our hands

there are some things that we will never be able to control, as hard as that may be to accept.

So now, I really want to make hot cocoa (I am very lucky to have a friend who picked up a new box for me at the grocery store today so that I can get it at pre-school pick up, as I am fresh out) and I will microwave it for 2 minutes and see how the water feels, and then, maybe, if I have time later tonight, watch Juno and/or eat cake.

It ended with a chair.

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I know that I have some experience in writing hard posts, but this is a different kind of hard. Because although I have endured pain in the past year, there is unique, exquisite ache that comes with nostalgia, which is really the heart of this post.

Nostalgia is defined as “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.”

I keep writing words and then deleting them. There is no good place to start. So let me try to start with a song.

If you read this blog, you probably think that I am sponsored by Brett Dennen with all that I write. I am not. He is, however, my favorite musical artist. A lot of that is because I am enamored with his music and person–he is as generous as he is talented–but I also have an incredibly positive and palpable association with Brett Dennen, one that I haven’t shared before.

If you have been reading here for a long time, you know that a main character in my life is Twin. If you are new and do not know about Twin, you can catch up very easily; but if wading through old posts isn’t your thing, all you need to know is that Twin is my other half, she lives in another state, and I met her when we lived across the world. I will explain more in a bit.

First, let me get back to Brett, because talking about Twin gets me all tongue (finger) tied.

Back on November 20, 2011 we, sadly, drove Twin and her husband, Go Go, to the airport after a fabulous weekend visit in Philadelphia. As we pulled up to their terminal, my ears caught the song that was playing on the radio, on xpn and I was able to remember enough lyrics to type them into Google and I found out that this song I heard was actually called Sydney (I’ll Come Running) by a singer with whom I was not familiar; Brett Dennen.

When I got home, I listened to the song on repeat and looked up the lyrics. I was amazed to see that the song was about being there for a friend, and that this friend is someone for whom you would do anything in the world;

And if you ever need me, call me
I’ll come runnin’ straight to you
Straight from the airport
(I’ll come runnin’)
Cut through the customs line
(I’ll come runnin’)
Bust down the courthouse doors
(I’ll come runnin’)
Sydney, I will testify
(I’ll come runnin’)
Sydney, I will testify

What an interesting coincidence it was that I heard this song as I was with girl for whom I would do anything, dropping her off at the airport.

And that is how my Brett Dennen Story began. But not my story with Twin. Twin’s story started long before that car ride. It started this week, ten years ago, in Barcelona, Spain.

It is our ten year anniversary of our time in Barca.

I left for Spain on New Year’s Day, 2005, spent the night of the 2nd with family friends in Madrid, and then flew to Barcelona on January 3rd.

I was given keys to my apartment, where I had been randomly assigned four roommates from all across the country.

When I arrived at 433 Avenida Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes, Apartmento 31B, I found that I was the last of the roommates to get there, yet somehow, my key was for the only single bedroom in the expansive apartment.

It is a little bit of a blur now, a mixture of emotion and time, but I know that I met the other girls and that Twin had already gone to the local grocery store and that she had a huge smile and a tight hug.

The month before, Twin and I had started emailing (or, to be more accurate, Facebook Messaging) because she realized that we shared the same birthday (hence our nickname).

It was winter break so I was sleeping at my parents’ house, on their old desktop downstairs, and I was so excited about my soon-to-be-roomie that I woke up my mom and said, “Guess what? My roommate and I are messaging and we have the same birthday! And she’s from Boston! And she is SO nice!”

My mom, lucid, despite being roused from slumber, said, “You two are going to be friends for the rest of your lives.”

***

Back to Barcelona. I have written about my time there before, and I will write again,

but I just needed to celebrate, or simply acknowledge the fact that it is our ten year anniversary.

Our building was (is) stunning. It has an epic marble staircase and an old fashioned elevator and our apartment was surrounded by other apartments occupied by study abroad kids. For the first few nights we spent time drinking wine out of the bottle as it was passed around the room of the boys who lived directly above us (which was legal for me as a 19 year old! Woo!) and having oh-so-European dinners that started past 10 o’clock.

I remember cab rides where I would have to sit on someone’s lap and have to duck down to avoid being fined for cramming five people into the car. I remember getting hit in the face by a huge beer glass that slipped off a server’s tray at a bar. I remember the big things, but also the tiny things, like finding one of those blue tins of assorted butter cookies at a shop around the corner. In a place that felt so new, it was nice to have a small piece of home.

But the real magic of those first few days was centered around the Three Kings celebration. I do not know a tremendous amount about this custom, so pardon me, but what I do know is that takes place after Christmas and New Years and is a festive time with parades and gift giving and vendors lining our street with booths lit with tiny white lights. It looked so enchanting.

And in thinking about those first few nights of my stay in Barcelona, I want to cry.

Twin and I talk in some way nearly every single day.

I can go downstairs right now and open any bottle of wine that I want.

Our next door neighbors are two of our best friends and we could easily have a wine night with them (though we typically don’t drink straight from the bottle. Okay. It happened once).

But there is something about that indescribable magic that I will never be able to put into words.

In the ten years since I have been home from Barcelona, Twin and I have seen each other a great many times in a handful of states.

She has held both of my babies.

I was the Matron of Honor in her wedding and she was a bridesmaid in mine.

We have shared luxurious hotel rooms and cozy dinners and dance parties and triumphs and defeats.

And we are bonded by so many things: Our values, our personalities, our similarities, our love of literature, our travels together, our care packages sent across the country dozens of times, our history…

But I think that one of the things that bonds us most, even after all of this time, is that we both know the thing that doesn’t have words. We know the magic. We know what it was like to walk down the street to the convenience store to purchase a bottle of rosé on an avenue that was  illuminated by strands of glowing bulbs.

Barcelona brought me a great many things. The tangible things, like the bottle of nail polish and Burberry scarf that I still have from El Corte Ingles and the strawberry print bathing suit from Blanco. And the intangibles; I became fluent in Spanish. I learned how to be more independent. I traveled across Europe (and even flew in the cockpit of a flight from Barca to Venice during landing).

But more than anything, it brought to me the girl

who is now a woman

who is my Twin.

One night, I believe it was towards the beginning-middle of our stay, she and I had a heart to heart in her bedroom that lasted hours. And it was then that I realized that we weren’t just Twins because we share a birthday or have similar features; more than that we have similar stories and similar hearts.

We have grown up together.

***

When Twin and Go Go got married in August of 2013, I was so honored to be the one standing next to her, holding her bouquet and making their toast. My daughter was the flower girl, my parents were guests, and it was one of the most special weekends of my life.

But one thing that sticks out to me is that during a lull in the dancing portion of the party, as a course was being served, Twin had gotten the DJ to surprise us by playing “Sydney (I’ll Come Running)” and though the rest of the dance floor was empty, we gathered and danced in a circle, my daughter leading the pack.

Whenever you feel unhappy
All you have to do is call me
I can make you laugh

Whenever you think you need me

call me up and I’ll come running

straight to you.

Happy 10 years. To my memories. To my city. And, most of all, to my sister, mi gemela,

My Twin.

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