I Can't Even: Life Lessons I Literally Didn't Want to Learn

By Alison DeTella

This witty and charming memoir is chocked full of life changing moments accompanied by relatable anecdotes that will leave you feeling not only inspired, but also understood. This is an entertaining story about life’s little lessons through the eyes of, thirty-one-year-old, Alison DeTella. It explores various stages of her life, but really delves into the past few years where she’s experienced more change, happiness, and heartbreak than ever before.

Alison relays her messages with such passion and tenacity it’ll leave you feeling unbelievably empowered. She adds humor in all the right places and will have you laughing along with her as she finds her place in this life. Her overwhelming heartbreak will make you feel the devastating losses as if you had lived them yourself and her eye-opening revelations will give you hope and make you think twice about your own life. The message is clear though, Alison ultimately just wants you to know that although life could always be worse, your stuff still matters.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365172793

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I Can't Even: Life Lessons I Literally Didn't Want to Learn

I Can’t Even: Life Lessons I Literally Didn’t Want to Learn

By: Alison DeTella

Copyright © 2016 by Alison DeTella

THIS EBOOK IS LICENSED FOR YOUR PERSONAL ENJOYMENT ONLY.  THIS EBOOK MAY NOT BE RE-SOLD OR GIVEN AWAY TO OTHER PEOPLE.  IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE THIS BOOK WITH ANOTHER PERSON, PLEASE PURCHASE AN ADDITIONAL COPY FOR EACH RECIPIENT.  IF YOU’RE READING THIS BOOK AND DID NOT PURCHASE IT, OR IT WAS NOT PURCHASED FOR YOUR USE ONLY, THEN PLEASE RETURN TO LULU.COM  AND PURCHASE YOUR OWN COPY.  THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE HARD WORK OF THIS AUTHOR.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to the serious, censored, pantsuit wearing adult I thought I had to be in order to publish a book and to the funny, light-hearted, asshole I actually got to be.

Chapter 1: Fuck It

As I sit here watching my husband watch college football—Central Michigan at Michigan— periodically scratching his balls, then his head, then his balls again, it occurs to me there must be a better way to spend my time. It’s Saturday afternoon and I currently reside thirty minutes from Chicago, one of the most beautiful and exciting cities in the United States. I should be at the beach, but it’s too hot and it keeps raining on and off. Mother Nature just can’t make up her mind today. I should be organizing the Tupperware, but who the fuck wants to organize Tupperware? I should be working out, but that would mean I would have to go outside, so my earlier comment still stands. Instead, I pick up the book The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. Two sentences in and I put it down. I can’t relate. I can obviously grasp how someone can have so much and not be appreciative or totally happy, but that’s not me. I skip ahead to her twelve commandments. Number ten states, Do what ought to be done. Well Gretchen, I’m pretty sure you’re not talking about the Tupperware cabinet that I ought to get organizing so what exactly does this mean? Wow, I really seem to have an attitude today. Maybe Mother Nature and I are just having an off day. Now I am almost positive she goes on to explain this throughout the book with words of wisdom like Let it go, commandment number two, and Be polite and be fair, commandment number five; I feel like these are things I already know though. Maybe it’s not Gretchen or her commandments that have me feeling a little miffed. Maybe this is bringing up something within me—something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Something big.

Until now, I hadn't purchased a book in a long time—a long time meaning like a couple weeks. That’s a long time for me. I am a huge fan of memoirs, oddly enough NOT famous people’s memoirs though. I can’t relate to them so I rarely buy them, plain and simple. I do however love inspirational stories. They get me every single time! The problem is, every time I dive into a new book, I get to the point where I can barely finish the first chapter because I think to myself, My life is so much more interesting than this shit. Vain party of one. So I immediately put down the book and start writing my own book. Ten minutes later, I am sitting in a pile of Skinny Pop watching a Bravo re-run I have seen at least twice before. I am a quitter. I don’t finish things for numerous reasons. I hate deadlines. I hate competition. I don’t want to set myself up for failure. I’m not as funny as I think I am. I have to make dinner. I have to walk the dog. I have to go get the mail. God, I have so many reasons to quit and I always do. So this time it’s going to be different. Maybe. Let’s see if I make it past the first chapter. This time, I'm saying fuck it. Ugh... I already want to quit. I am having major anxiety at the thought of anyone I have previously worked for or any of my very religious relatives, reading the words fuck it in my book. My husband calls me a word pirate. He describes my writing as coherent, quippy, and extremely crass. Well if this book is going to be one hundred percent authentic, then yes, it’s going to be a little crass. It’s also going to entertain the shit out of you, maybe even piss you off, and probably make you cry. Who am I kidding? You’re going to cry like a baby. I am simply sharing my experiences with you hoping that you will be able to relate because I think that’s what we all want in life—to be understood. Let’s rewind a bit and talk about what brought me to this moment in the first place.

I always knew I wanted to be a writer. I remember when I was in the sixth grade and my English teacher, Mrs. Smith, told us her husband was an author. I thought that was the most amazing thing ever. That night, I went home, sat on my light pink floral bedspread, and sifted through years of work. I am that person who keeps everything I have ever written, which is quite impressive for an eleven-year-old. I ended up putting together a binder with some of what I thought was my best work. I was going to bring it to her the next day and ask her to give it to her husband. I used a bright yellow post-it on each story to give a little summary and to inform my reader, Mr. Smith, how old I was when I wrote it. Thinking about this now makes me cringe, but it also makes me think of how adorable it actually was. If my daughter did that, I would be like, Yes girl, get it! I don’t know what eleven-year-old Alison expected though, I think I am still just as naive to this day, but I really believed something may have come of it. Maybe I just wanted validation that I should keep pursuing my passion. I pictured her husband coming to school and talking to me, telling me how much he loved my work and how he would help me get some of it published. I would be the eleven-year-old girl famous for her children’s novels. I would be able to put my academic career on hold and begin my career as a writer.

So, I marched right up to her the next day at school, handed her the binder, and asked her to please give it to her husband to look over. With a blank look on her face, she took the binder, put it on the shelf behind her, and began class. I didn’t know if that was a yes or a no, so I quickly hurried back to my seat without a straight answer. I never heard from Mrs. Smith or her husband about the matter again. Lesson number one in rejection. I am pretty sure she eventually threw the binder of my most prized works of art in the fucking garbage. On the flip side, I am also pretty sure that a kid in another class threw a chair at her the next period, so she got hers. That’s horrible—I shouldn’t say that, but again, fuck it. I have a feeling I am going to be saying fuck it quite a bit, hang onto your hats guys. I have always been afraid of writing about my life because I am such a Goddamn people-pleaser. My mom will be mad because I brought God into this. Sorry, Mom...and God. The thing is, I am not going to spend this entire book apologizing. This is who I am. My entire life I was scared and quiet and now that I have finally found my voice, I am not going to silence it. So no more apologies, and fuck it, here we go.

I am at a huge turning point in my life. I am thirty years old, although I act like I am twenty-one and feel like I am fifteen. My friends on Facebook are either posting pictures of themselves and their giant diamond engagement rings with the hashtag wifelife or they are whoring out their toddler in a some kind of Cutest Kid in America contest. I don’t fall into either of these categories. I just bought my first house with my husband, Kyle. We have been married for seventeen blissful months—blissful meaning we haven’t killed each other yet—just kidding...kind of. We recently adopted our first child; he’s a 100 lb. Great Pyrenees-Lab mix—yes he’s a dog, not an actual child. I am one of those people who feels like I birthed him from my womb after only having him for a month. I have all these amazing things happening in my life and then BAM. The day after Kyle and I moved into our first house together, I lost my nannying job. Not only did I lose my job, I lost my best friends and a second family.

You see, I used to commute anywhere from one hour to two hours (depending on traffic) to their house every morning. That’s how much I love their family. I would rather babysit these two little girls on a Friday night than go out to a bar and get completely shitfaced. Yes, that’s fun too, but I’m pretty sure either I was entering adult mode or these girls were just that cool. I actually think it was a little bit of both. When Kyle and I moved into our new home, I was literally a two minute car ride from their house. We were practically neighbors now, just another reason we moved out to the suburbs. A couple of days after we moved in, the girl’s mom and dad, Carrie and Brian, came over to see the new house. We gave them the grand tour and then as we were standing in the kitchen Brian explained that he had a job offer in Utah and he was planning on taking it. I said, Oh ok, congratulations! then immediately burst into tears, like ugly crying style. I couldn’t help it! I just love these people so much and the thought of them moving to Utah broke my heart. I couldn’t believe it. Naturally, my crying made Carrie start crying and we stood there sobbing and holding each other for a couple minutes while Kyle and Brian stood there extremely freaked out and completely uncomfortable. I couldn’t believe after four years of working for them, it was all over. I was completely heartbroken and wondering what I was going to do next. I am thirty, jobless, and my husband, as well as the rest of the universe, is pushing for us to have kids, like tomorrow. My only option is to find a nanny job for the next year and to get pregnant ASAP.

Or I could write a book.

I could say fuck it and not work. I could rely on my husband’s income, which sets us women back like a bajillion years, I know. But I could, for the first time in my life, do what I absolutely love and I could do it for a living. I am at that point—a point where I need to make myself happy and do what I love, and that’s finally writing this book. I remember the exact moment when I decided to change my major from Education to English. At my alma mater, we were required to write for either the newspaper or the humor magazine. Naturally, I chose the humor magazine. I wrote an article about what a hot mess Amanda Bynes was. Groundbreaking stuff, let me tell ya. It sounds so trivial, but I had the time of my life writing it. When the magazine went to print, I had never been more proud of myself. I knew I had always wanted to be a writer, but how do you make a living doing that? I was scared shitless. It’s not practical at all. I didn’t think my parent’s were going to be happy. I wondered if I were making a huge mistake. At the end of my long list of concerns was the only thing that mattered, this was what was going to make me happy. Finally, it was time to tell my parents about my decision. I waited until they got home from vacation, and I sat them down at the kitchen table. It was all very serious and I planned on choosing my words carefully.

Guys, I want to write. I don’t want to be a teacher anymore. I blurted out. Real smooth Alison.

My mom’s exact words were, We know, we were just waiting for you to figure that out. That was the moment that I decided to take a leap of faith, and I am taking one again now. I am going to write about things that are going to upset people in my life and that would align with the phrase airing dirty laundry, but I am doing it for a reason. Certain books I’ve read in the past have made me feel like screaming, Yes! I totally get it! I went through the same thing! I want people to have those moments as they read this book.

I want to write about how I got myself in some major debt, like hundreds of thousands of other college kids, to obtain a degree in English I am currently doing jack shit with. At the same time I also still have so much hope for myself and my writing in the future. I want to talk about how my brother’s girlfriend was such a bitch and how, one day, my best friend of fifteen years decided to to end our friendship for absolutely no reason. I want to talk about overcoming devastating losses and how important it is to be a good fucking person. I want to talk about the shit that everyone else is afraid to talk about. I want to write about my life with no apologies. Over the course of my thirty years on this Earth, I have learned that, yes, other people are going through worse shit, but that doesn’t mean that your shit doesn’t matter. I used to bottle everything up inside because, it could be worse so I shouldn’t complain. I thought I was being positive. Eventually, I realized that was wrong. Everyone has their own journey, their own battles, and their own demons—just own it. Besides the fact that this is all extremely cathartic, I think everyone can relate. You may not agree with me, you may not like me, you may not even be reading this anymore, but you, in some way can relate to something in this book. So fuck it, here I go.

Chapter 2: You’re Never Going to Make It

For about a month right after high school, I went to a private Catholic university, the same one my dad had attended. The first semester, I ended up getting mostly B’s and C’s and feeling like I wasn’t really fitting in. When you’re uncomfortable like I was, it becomes difficult to learn and even more difficult to become successful. I blamed it on the fact that I didn’t live on campus, so my parents, being the amazing people they are, allowed me to live on campus the next semester. Living on campus was meant to further my education, help me to make friends, and really have that whole college experience everyone was always talking about. The day I moved in, I immediately began making new friends. I made more friends in that first week of living on campus than I did an entire semester commuting. Unfortunately, I took it too far. I partied my ass off, made out with too many boys, and drank Skol vodka like it was going out of style. I tried really hard to go to classes here and there, always thinking each Monday was going to be my fresh start. New week, new beginnings, but it just never worked out. I wasn’t determined, I had no drive, and all I cared about was this new social climate that I had entered into. I didn’t have that in high school so unfortunately, like so many other kids, I took it too far in college. Socially, I was thriving, academically I was failing miserably. I wish I could have gotten it together. To this day, I still feel guilty about my lack of effort. The thing is, if I would have continued on as high school Alison would have, God only