There’s Nothing “Wrong” With Me
My kindergarten photo: Even smiling is sometimes just too much.
There’s something about quiet people that makes the rest of the world uncomfortable. I assure you, you are not paid in the end for each word used. But many leaders, from teachers to parents to coaches to bosses, don’t understand the power of quiet. I just started reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. The very first chapter just about had me in tears. Susan talks about how introverts are often criticized when they are young for how, well, quiet they are; how they need to “come out of their shell.” This criticism roots deep and they (we, for I am one of them), grow into adults thinking there is something wrong with us. The only thing wrong is that we’re living in an extroverted world. What caused me to feel so emotional about this revelation was the notion that I’m not alone in this suffering, for back then I was singled out repeatedly. Now I know there is a whole club of us!
In the fifth grade, a teacher I so admired called my parents in for a conference to tell them I was not performing well. I was daydreaming. (Oh, the horror!) My grades were solid, and her criticism of me hurt my little heart. This same teacher later called my parents about my brother, making similar claims. He’s smart and successful and super talented, so I guess we now know where the problem really lay in that classroom. She wanted us all to be front seat, hands raised, Ivy Leaguers. We were just not her kind of students.
I also began cheerleading in middle school. This was perhaps the most scarring of all. My coach would keep me in the gym after class and make me shout the cheers alone, trying to teach me to be “louder.” She would stand on the opposite side of the gym and yell back, “I can’t hear you! I can’t hear you!” I should have said, “I can’t be a cheerleader!” But then, all I thought was that I was strange and a failure. Later, I worked an internship on a team of sociable, flamboyant people. My work was solid and I was a great fit a position there, but at the end of the internship I was overlooked for the job because I didn’t “fit in” with the lifestyle the others lived. I even dated a guy who drove himself crazy by asking me what was wrong all the time. If I had a dime for every time I’ve been asked “what’s wrong” I could buy my own library and live there.
By high school I was performing in theatre, adored my public speaking classes, and was generally teaching myself to be a pseudo-extrovert. Those are skills I enjoy employing some of the time. If you know me now, you might have to pause for a minute to think about it. Many of us introverts are walking around with extroversion skills. But the truth is I am still an introvert. I still need time away from people to recharge. I still need to process things in my own head and on my own time.
Quiet states that one third to one half of all Americans are introverts. Even if you aren’t one, you surely know many. Maybe you’re married to one, or work closely with one, or are raising one. This was posted online recently and I think it should be placed in offices and classrooms.
I’ll share more as I get further into this book. For now, I’m excited that author Cain has begun this important conversation. Maybe the next generation of introverts will only feel as isolated as they want to feel.
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Ladies and Gentlemen, the “Loved” Book Cover Revealed!
I am so excited for you to see this! Here is the cover for Loved, due out this summer:
The next announcement will include info on how you can get involved with the pre-release of Loved, so watch for that. Also, a shout out to my fabulous designer Holley Maher at H Maher Creative for her work on the cover!
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What My Heart Looks Like Now (from “Loved”)
In the wake of the book title announcement and just a few days before the book cover reveal, I thought I’d share a little piece of the book with you. Here’s a little treat for you from Loved, due out this summer:
Regardless of why he contacted me, or what he expected to get out of it, I could officially walk away from that wreckage. My heart might be scarred, but the wound had healed and I didn’t notice the scars so much any more. Still, I was afraid that if I tried to use my heart again for romance I would feel phantom pains.
I felt ready to write another goodbye letter, one of those you never send but simply use to get out some emotions. In a way it had taken me years to write.
Dear Chad,
if i could show you a map of my heart it would look a lot different than you might think. if i remember correctly, you’re a pretty scientific guy. you probably think my heart has 4 chambers. it doesn’t. well, ok, my doctor might agree with you on that. but really it doesn’t. my heart has five layers. on the outside are fun things i love – sprite, rock climbing, rock music, oatmeal soap, cooking (half of those you don’t even know i love because they didn’t exist to me yet when i knew you). that layer is important to my personality, but doesn’t speak as much to my character. that’s the second layer. there you’ll find my passion for music and fashion and my eye for putting the right colors and textures together. here you’ll find my tendencies to love the planning of things more than the things themselves. you’ll find my loyalty, my excitement for steelers football, my calmness on rainy days, my talent with words. it didn’t take you long to get through all that the first time around, so let’s keep going. the third layer is where you’ll find my family and my dearest friends – people who are so important to me that i literally need them for my heart to continue pumping. i’ve lost people from here before, and though a devastating blow, i was able to survive it. when one of them goes away the others are able to step in and fill the space until the heart is strong enough again. the innermost layer, the absolute core of my heart, is where God is. No one will ever come near to Him, as He is my creator and my savior, my beginning and my end. but layer four, right between the people most important to me on earth and God himself, was you.
you might look at me as a girl you dated once. someone you cared about, maybe loved. you said you did, but i don’t know if that’s true based on the way it was so easy for you to walk away. but to me, you were the guy i was going to marry. you were my life here on earth. you were the closest relationship i had on earth to what our relationship to God resembles. that’s his call for husbands and wives, and for me you were that person. are you starting to get it?
yes, i am fine now. i am more than fine. i have added and added to my outer layer all kinds of things i never would have experienced with you. i added to the second layer all kinds of characteristics that i gained from surviving, and i am thankful for them. i added to the third layer of my heart so many amazing, loving, inspiring people i never would have met if you were here and i wasn’t the me i am now. there’s no one in the fourth layer, but there will be, and he won’t leave it. in the meantime, i recognize the miracle that i survived the collapse of that space. a miracle! God and the people dearest to me rushed to fill that void and kept me breathing. i do believe that is a loss no one should ever have to feel.
i tell you this only because i think it’s important for you to know that, while you can probably shrug off what you did, you changed me that much. although i’m thankful that i have become the person i am (and so thankful i’m not, in fact, married to you) i never should have had to become me this way. it doesn’t hurt anymore, but i’m scarred. and that’s what my heart looks like now.
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Life in NYC: Week One
Adapting to life in New York is like nothing else. Apartment hunting here is pretty much a nightmare, especially for someone as particular (ahempicky) as me. Props to my broker, Danielle, for her patience and her ability to “get me.” Here are some of my discoveries from life here so far:
1. New York is the most dimensional city on the planet. There is so much happening above you in the way of architecture especially. You miss so much if you only look at the street level of buildings. There is so much happening below you in the 5 million people layered through the subways each day. It’s unbelievable how much there is to look at and how many conversations, footsteps, lives are happening at once.
2. Everyone has a TV show that they reference in relation to their lives in the city. I’ve heard Seinfeld mentioned several times, How I Met Your Mother is a very relevant one, plus of course Friends and my favorite Sex and the City. And at any given moment a scene from any of these or other shows can flash through your head. I wonder if you cross a line where this stops happening but it seems like it doesn’t, as even well established friends here keep making these references.
3. The weather can be completely different in other parts of the city. It can be sunny and warm in midtown, and when you come up from the subway ten minutes later in SoHo it’s drizzling and chilly. Perhaps I should always, always carry an umbrella. Also, Hunter Boots will be my first big purchase here.
4. Speaking of the subway, when a train car is so full that you’re hugging three people just to hold on to the bar and you think no one else could possibly get on, seven more people will somehow crush into the car before the doors close. If you’re even remotely claustrophobic, New York is not the place for you. (That is, unless you can afford a chauffeured car.)
5. Pretty much the only cause for interaction between large groups of strangers are crazy people. Nothing will cause you to make eye contact with others faster than the need to reassure yourself that you’re fine and everyone else is fine and they see the crazy guy too.
6. I want to read more. Lots more. This isn’t new, it’s just intensified here. I could read like we eat meals: Something light and invigorating in the morning, sustaining in the afternoon, hearty and delicious in the evening. With a glass of wine. I want to read my way through the city.
It’s a pretty solid start to my new life here. Hopefully this week will bring warmer weather and a final decision on an apartment.
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The Scent of a Desert Night and a Million Stars
If you’re following my social media pages, (see twitter to the right if you’re not), you may have noticed I was recently on a month long book tour with author Rory Vaden. We covered ground across most of the country, from Ohio to Georgia, Colorado to California. Some places I’ve been before (Austin, San Diego) others were new to me (Kansas, Utah). I loved Washington, as the Pacific Northwest is my favorite region in the country; I loved Denver – such a cool city; and I loved Arizona.
Our Arizona event was in Mesa, just outside of Phoenix. We parked the bus at the base of a mountain in Apache Junction where we had a grilled dinner of fish and chicken and asparagus, wine, and wandered the property taking pictures of cactus shadows cast across desert sand by the setting sun. While posing for a picture, my wild gesturing grazed my hand across a purple low-lying cactus, sprinkling my right hand with tiny yellow spines, a couple of which are still working their way out of my skin like splinters do several weeks after the attack.
Once night fell, I pulled on my Uggs and a cozy sweater and headed out into the desert night on a 4-wheeler, just like when I was growing up on the farm. Except then we were deer spotting in green dewy fields and now I was breathing in the scent of the dust kicked up by the rider in front of my, marveling at the number of stars in the sky and praying I didn’t fall onto another cactus.
It was a night calm and fascinating at the same time, nostalgic and yet entirely new. I fell asleep in my bunk on the bus listening for the sound of coyotes but hearing only a glorious silence.
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A Loved Experiment
As part of preparation for the release of Loved, I’m collecting love stories. And I want yours! Tell me anything. Tell me how you found the person you’ve devoted your life to, tell me a heartbreak story that will rival Kate and Leo, tell me a story about how you showed yourself some love by standing up for yourself. Or how you and your mom are best friends now that you’re an adult and you realize how much you have in common. Or about that guy in the coffee shop who you see every morning and you’re afraid to talk to (a potential love story). I want them all!
Why? Because Loved is a celebration of the different kinds of love, good and bad, and how they all shape us. If you’re going to read mine, I want to read yours too! So ‘fess up!
How?
1. I’d love to hear you tell it. If you’re on YouTube, post a video of you telling your story. Make sure to say it’s your “love story for Kimberly’s collection” and tag me! www.YouTube.com/LovedANovel
2. Blog it! Many of you are writers to and I adore reading your unique voices. Link to www.theoohlalalife.com!
3. If you aren’t on YouTube, you can post on facebook or twitter and be sure to tag me there too! www.twitter.com/theoohlalalife or www.facebook.com/kimberly.novosel.
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Wake Up Older, Try to Move On
Eleven years and seven months ago I was a seventeen year old girl who pulled into Nashville in my daddy’s red truck, filled to the brim with little girl dreams. Dreams of working for a record company, of significantly influencing the world of country music, of discovering friends who were “just like me”, and falling in love with a man who loved music, or me, or anything as much as I loved music, or him, or anything.
In eleven years and seven month’s time, I didn’t necessarily change the music industry though I did work in it for quite a while. I’d like to think I may have changed the town, or at least my communities. I don’t work for a record company but I did start my own company, which is definitely better. I found friends who I wished I was just like, but then I didn’t. I needed them and they needed me and then we hurt each other and we were both left alone together. Then I made friends who were different from myself but were just the way they should be, and we don’t “need” each other but are part of each other forever. And I fell in love. A couple of times. With men who loved music, adventure, God, learning, drinking, winning, failing, lying, leaving, trying, and sometimes me.
I have a one way plane ticket dated for next week. As I prepare to move on to the next chapter in my life, I am remembering the girl I was when I arrived here so many years ago. Now, I am broken and rebuilt. I am stronger and surer. I am scarred but I am not scared. I am changed and unchanged. I am alone but I am not lonely. I am wiser but I still have mistakes to make. My time in Nashville, my entire adult life to this point, has been filled with more than a lifetime’s worth of memories, lessons, blessings, heartache and love.
I wouldn’t change a moment of it.
See: A collection of my favorite pics from “The Last Five Years“
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Mustang Sally
I’ve stolen a few days in California between the end of the bus tour last week and getting ready for the Big Move next week. Yesterday was sunny and cool, as opposed to the forecast of rainy and cool, which was just right for a chance to take my rental car, a red Ford Mustang convertible, up the coast. I picked up my friend Ad in Santa Monica and we hopped on PCH, cranked the music (Coldplay, Band of Horses, Cold War Kids), and hit the accelerator. Sun on my face, wind in my hair, music in my ears. I drove and drove, the blue-green coast a constant companion to my left. These are the days that are usually called “someday.”
We stopped just north of Malibu at a little market to grab bread and fruit and water and had a little picnic in a lifeguard tower on the beach. Then we got to do the drive all over again, stopping at the Getty on the way back into town.
There is such beauty in simplicity. My soul is fed.
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Loved Teaser Video
Check out the Loved teaser video, and subscribe to the YouTube channel to see more videos coming soon!
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Whole Hearted
Me and Jess, sans bracelets.
It was a strange twist of fate that caused my mom to flush the toilet the very moment I was clasping my silver half-heart Best Friends bracelet on my wrist. We were at Grandma Novosel’s house. I was in maybe the 3rd or 4th grade, and we were headed to my Uncle Jim and Aunt Patty’s house where I would see my cousin, owner of the other half of the heart, Jessie. Mom and I were getting ready together in Grandma’s bathroom. As I fiddled with the bracelet clasp and she flushed, my bracelet slipped and was gone forever.
I’d never cried so hard in my young life, not even when Mufasa died. I wailed all the way to Jessie’s house. Would she be mad? Hurt? How would I ever replace something that probably cost $7 at Claire’s and could be found at every mall in America?! Of course, that wasn’t the point. Another would be just that, a replacement. The lost bracelet is the one that held meaning. The one she and I broke apart, of which she wore the other half. Without the lost bracelet, I was lost.
Despite the accessory tragedy, and her move to South Carolina that followed, our friendship survived. When I had my tonsils out in the 6th grade and couldn’t go to school I went to stay with her. After a bad break-up in college, I ran away to her house to get some “perspective.” A couple of years ago, I was Maid of Honor in her wedding.
The difference between sentiment and being sentimental is the following: Sentiment is when a driver swerves out of the way to avoid hitting a rabbit on the road. Being sentimental is when the same driver, when swerving away from the rabbit, hits a pedestrian. -Frank Herbert
I’m still a sentimental person. I apply meaning and memories to the most random of items. But in the end, I always remember that they’re still items. The sweater I lost in a move, probably to a roommate? Sure, it reminded me of that trip to L.A. But it’s still just a sweater. Won’t I remember the trip anyway? The opposite works too. You can burn letters, tear up pictures, move away to a new place, but the memories that matter will remain. For better or for worse, with or without the charm, the worthwhile experiences you have and the people you love(d) will always live within the person you’ve become.
