Posts in Graduation
Now & Then: Advice to Your Past and Future Self

Because I’m still not over the fact that a new year has already fallen upon us (and I’m also not over the fact that it’s been almost a year since we graduated… NO),  I still can’t help but reflect on 2015 out of the pure shock that it’s behind us now. What a major year this was for me: I (somehow) graduated college, moved into an apartment, got a big-girl job and experienced infinite laughs, loves, let-downs and lessons. So like every other year before this one, I found myself mentally making a list of all of the things I wanted to change about myself after the ball dropped. Past resolutions include eating healthier, exercising more, volunteering more, everything you've already heard before and everything I never actually do, etc.

But then I started wondering; if I could go back, to 2015 or 2014 or 2011 or 2006, what would I tell myself then?

In the end, would I have done it any different?

So I decided to put my senior-year newspaper class experience to the test and use my hard-hitting journalism skills (just pretend…) to ask the same question to those around me: What would you tell your past self?

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30 Lessons After Graduation

1. After a hard day, there’s nothing better than lighting a fancy candle and taking a hot bath. Indulge in a little luxury.

2. Assume that everyone in your yoga class feels just as vulnerable as you do.

3. Keep going to yoga. (Or your chosen equivalent.)

4. If you want something badly, tell someone about it. Your best friend, your mom, the cashier at the grocery store. You’ll be ten times more likely to reach for that goal if someone else is quietly rooting for you. Bonus points if that someone calls you out on your excuses.

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Fear is Not the Enemy

One time in a counseling session, somewhere deep in the trenches of an emotionally unruly summer, I was hating on fear. I was going on and on about the need I felt to uproot it from my life and unchain the extra bondage that I thought it wrapped around my ankles. Fear is ugly. Fear is seemingly chastised by God. Fear is the gateway drug to weakness and complacency and always having your parachute strapped on but never jumping out of the plane. Fear is the enemy.

When I finally let up my counselor posed this question—“Do you want a pilot who is afraid or unafraid?” I immediately understood and hated the metaphor. I knew she wanted me to say afraid. She was cradling fear after the blows I had just inflicted on it and attempting to offer me a picture that would convince me to be kinder to it.

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What to Expect When You're Expecting (to Graduate), Part II

In the first post I wrote for this series I talked about not wanting to leave Nashville after I graduated at the end of this semester. I talked about my fear of losing comfort and the home that I have built in a city I didn’t have to be convinced into adoring. I even emphasized the point by writing three times in italics—I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave. When I went back to read this post five minutes ago, I almost laughed out loud into my mocha.

Since I wrote that post I have decided to stay in Nashville and the voice of fear that screamed loud about not wanting to leave screams even louder about not wanting to stay.

I don’t want to stay. I don’t want to stay. I don’t want to stay.

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One Year Later: A Reflection

It’s been a year since That First Year was launched. 365 days. And in those 365 days, more than 30 people (33, to be exact!) have contributed 131 posts to this li’l blog; more than 30 people have willingly put figurative pen to figurative paper to write about just how messy and confusing, yet oh-so-beautiful that first year after college can be. We’ve had posts covering the gamut of topics: from life to love to friends to travel to dreams to some of our favorite things.

“These posts are getting too relatable now.”

Someone said this about a post recently and I wanted to give ‘em a big ‘ole hug through the computer because that’s exactly what I was hoping this blog would be: a place where people can relate to the stories this community has shared. 

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Don't Quit Your Daydream, Part III

In a short couple of months, I will officially be one full year out of college. There’s still a lot of things I wish I would’ve done by now and a few that I wish I hadn’t done at all. For better or for worse though, this year has happened and it’s turned out to be so different than I anticipated.

One of the things that I’ve really loved doing this past year is just sitting down and taking the time to create something.  I found a pen pal group called #confetticourier that was started by one of my favorite Instagramers, @peytonfrank.  The way it works is that each month that you want to participate, you sign up by a certain date in a private group created by Peyton on swapbot.com. The website then automatically generates someone from the group for you to send snail mail to.  You don’t receive mail from the same person you send to, so you never know what you’re going to get! I’ve received some really amazing packages so far with unbelievably stunning calligraphy from all over the world. My calligraphy was mediocre at best so I recently decided to step up my #snailmail game.

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What to Expect When You're Expecting (to Graduate), Part I

It’s 7 pm. The white Christmas lights that are lined with postcards from my semester abroad and the ones that are wrapped around my headboard are twinkling against their respective walls. There are two kittens curled up on top of each other at the foot of my bed and I have set up camp in the chair that barricades me into my “reading corner.” I just finished a short story I was assigned in creative writing that dug its claws deep down into my writer’s soul and as I type a Bath and Body Works candle spits fumes of vanilla marshmallow out into the air.

I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to leave.

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Not A Student, Not Yet An Adult

Back at college, students have moved in, classes have started, football games have been won (and lost), and I’m sure many all night study sessions have already occurred. From the outside looking in, it’s the same as every other year.

Except there’s one thing: I’m not there.

No longer being a student has its good and bad moments. Can I just say how nice it is to not have homework or paper deadlines hanging over my head? It’s VERY nice. But sometimes I do miss college. I miss my roommate who now lives thousands of miles away. I miss constantly being surrounded by friends, many who have graduated and moved. I miss my professors. (I know, I’m weird.) I miss the familiarity of it all.  

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The First Fall of Adulthood

It felt eerie because of how familiar the scene was: trying to figure out who was asleep on the couch because they were sleeping face down, everyone coming out of their bedrooms looking for water and answers, eating cold pizza that was left out all night and washing it down with an open Bud Light that was completely flat.

People say that you actually feel like you graduated when you don’t go back to school for the first time in your life in the fall. While I did feel a little off at the beginning of the month, it was being on campus last weekend that I really felt it.

I teared up on my drive home. How could this part of my life be over? Don’t get me wrong, I hate being hungover and am glad I wasn’t in as rough of shape as my friends, but they don’t know how good they have it. The only priority they have on weekends is to eat something and shower before it’s time to go drink all over again. I had to go home to do my laundry and grocery shop (I miss the dining hall) and get my life together.

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Fall

Ironically, change seems to be the only thing that’s truly constant right now, and I can’t put into words how strange this transition is to me, this confusion and this clarity, this first year. I find myself worrying as I look back and worrying as I look forward, never fully accepting the now because right now is the now and I can handle that just about as much as I handled the Friends finale (which I didn’t handle at all) ((“she got off the plane” … don’t even tell me you didn’t cry over that)).

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Facing the Unknown

Is there anything worse than the unknown? In this world that we live in where we can see if someone has read our texts, there is still so much that we can’t see, that we don’t know.

I think it makes it harder to not know things, when it is so easy to in fact know things.

I know that I personally have a love/hate relationship with this technological world. On one hand, there are the advantages that it brings. We can get information anytime but it has also made a twenty-something’s life so much more difficult.

Why hasn’t he texted me back? He read it. What could he possibly be doing? I’m sure we’ve all been there.

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My 23rd Year

There are three photos of me at my college graduation.

1)     I’m coming in with the rest of my class, capped, gowned and wearing my mother’s pink and black polka dotted sunglasses. Everyone else is marching with gravitas, but my arms are high in a victory V, my mouth wide open and excited. I love that picture.

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The Great Wait for "Real Life" to Start

Since this is a blog about the year after college I figured it's best to be honest. I have no summer job. I have no car. I sit at home with my 14 year-old brother Monday through Friday. But, hey, I'm not complaining. I've never been more relaxed. I've made some positive changes so far - and it's only June! I decided to go gluten-free, discovered I needed glasses, and embarked on an 18-hour road trip with my best friend. In case anyone was wondering - and I highly doubt anyone is - here's my life. (You're welcome.)

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Preparing for Your Gap Year

This is it. You’re done with school. Now is the perfect opportunity to get the wild hairs out of your system before you get settled into a typical "adult" routine.

There are a lot of outlets for young people to gain real-world experience in non-traditional ways after college, like teaching abroad, becoming an au pair, or volunteering across the world. 

I took the teach abroad route for my first post-grad adventure, and you don’t have to have any teaching experience to be accepted. You generally only need a four-year degree from an accredited university and speak English as your native language.

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True to Your Heart

Why is it so hard to follow your heart? Is it just me? Surely not.

We hear people telling us all the time to follow our hearts. I mean, I grew up listening to the lyrics of 98 degrees and the great Stevie Wonder from the Disney classic Mulan.

The older I get, the more I realize that Stevie has left me with a difficult task.

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