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Last week was the two month-iversary of graduation, and now that the initial shock of it all is finally beginning to settle in (although the nausea still hasn’t…), I find myself back to where I started from: a place that has been there through both kickball and keg-stands, both diapers and diplomas, and now is where I’m currently enrolled in the class “What-Am-I-Doing-With-My-Life-101.” Just like that, I am home again, back to my old bedroom walls who heard my oh-so-sassy-preteen self rant about how my mother wouldn’t let me wear darker eyeliner. I was lucky enough to learn and grow in a home that allowed me so much love and laughter, somewhere I once thought I could stay forever if the option was given to me.

So when I first came back for good, I didn’t want it to be different, wanted my home to rearrange itself back to the way I had always remembered it to be. But we painted the walls, and we got a new remote for the television. There are hardwood floors where carpet once used to lay, and there are new curtains hanging loosely over the kitchen window. Things are changing. Things have always been changing. And it felt like all at once, the home that in so many ways shaped me, made me who I was, wasn’t the home that I once knew.

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The Golden Age of Adulthood

I always imagined what it would be like to be 23 when I was younger. The Golden Age of Adulthood, you could call it.

I pictured myself living in a big city, in the heart of downtown, drinking lattes in little cafés on my Sunday mornings. I saw myself being kissed goodnight on a stoop next to a trash can that stayed on the sidewalk. I would walk through an office building made entirely of glass, Devil Wears Prada style, in my high heels and pencil skirt, on the brink of missing my morning meeting, if only because my morning cup of joe I drank on my building’s rooftop captured my heart for a little too long.

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Sh*t Happens, Also Not a Lot of Sh*t Happens

I turn 22 at the end of the month. I feel like no one ever tells you that this is what 22 looks like. Or maybe that's all they tell you.

Either way, my middle-schooler brain held a very cosmopolitan idea of what 22 would look like and this wasn't it. Cleaning up the shit of another person's child was not it.

I expected 22 to be its own kind of hard. But, like, in a sexy, Taylor Swift way. I expected long hours at an entry-level job. But again, like, in a sexy, Taylor Swift way.

I just didn't expect literal shit. And this much free time.

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You Are Not Alone

Let’s all take a step back down memory lane of what was our lives just a few short months ago, shall we? In college you are blessed and cursed with being constantly surrounded by friends: living with them, sharing the same classes, working with them and enjoying Friday night shenanigans together. We are just floating along on a social high and maybe even yearning for some alone time.

Fast forward to present day: My daily social interactions consist of yelling at other Dallas drivers on my hour-long commute, chatting with my co-workers in the office (S/O to the cube), hanging out with my family when I return home around 5 pm each evening, and nightly snuggles with my cat who I’m fairly certain suffers from severe attachment disorder.

I’ll be completely honest: I have been throwing quite the pity party for myself.

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The Making of Milestones

I cried in the backseat of an Uber the other night.

Somehow our conversation steered into the dangerously-open territory of life stories, wherein our driver shared with us that her husband of 21 years had just left her.

"Your 40s are the roughest," she explained.

"Our 20s don't seem much better," I responded. "What about your 30s?"

"You'll spend most of it sacrificing everything for your kids and husband who will later get bored of you and leave. It'll be somewhat happy."

So this is life, then?

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What Happens in Vegas

I have many friends who recently graduated and have taken jobs, internships and opportunities far from home. I, on the other hand, recently accepted a job working in a kindergarten classroom as an assistant at a private school in my Louisiana hometown, Shreveport.

I have to be honest, though: I’ve been struggling lately with wondering if it was the right decision.

Not because I don’t think I’ll like what I’ll be doing. Not because it’s one of the best schools in this area. Not because the people who work here seem to be professional, helpful and wonderful people whom I can’t wait to work with. No, it’s none of those things.

Really, it’s because I’m afraid of getting stuck.

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It's Nothing Personal

Dear friend,

I flake out easily on plans. I know I do. 

Most of the time I really do have every intention of going out, but I just don’t. It’s something I need to work on: just say no from the beginning and quit giving you hope. 

I’ve been trying to figure out why I have been extra flaky these past few months - I mean like Parisian croissant flaky - and I still can’t put my finger on it.  I’m not going to sit here like I have an excuse. I make the conscious decision to go somewhere or not, but I know there’s a root cause to it all.

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Age of Easy

But I quit that, too. “Too hard” was my excuse. Again.

In fact, I’ve quit - or put off - pursuing a lot of things because I’ve deemed them too difficult: learning French, improving my art skills, learning to cook, following through with my goal to write daily.

So instead, I relegate these things to my “wish-I-could” category and carry on with the easy stuff instead.

We always go for easy, don’t we?

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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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On Finding Your Calling

When I was in elementary school, I desperately wanted to be a teacher. For hours on end, I would stand in front of my four-legged whiteboard easel, writing out various math problems for my imaginary students to solve. When friends came over to play, they'd sit at my feet with a pile of coloring books and puzzles, ignoring my every attempt to teach them the vocabulary word of the day. To put it bluntly, I was a nerd. The kid who begged their parents for a pair of reading glasses and read the Children's Dictionary for fun. (I still remember the first word on Page 1—aardvark—because I was fascinated by its ridiculous double-A spelling. Why not just name it an ardvark?)

I might have been a bit eccentric as a kid, but by the time I was ten, I had found my calling.

At least, for a little while.

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The Worst & Best Year of My Life: A Comeback Story

A few weeks ago, I stood on a sidewalk in New York City at 3 AM, smoking a cigarette.

I watched the glowing ember and smiled.

Sometimes, after long stretches of a remarkably steady life, I forget this part of myself. The part that tastes like gin and dances so very close to complete strangers. The part that lets her hair spill over her shoulders and sways to the rhythm of twenty-three. The part that gets her phone stolen and--when offered a cigarette to cope--laughs. Says yes for the first time.

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I Am Just A Writer

I am just a writer.

My elementary school teachers always commented on my natural knack for writing. I was the token essay editor in my apartment in college. I laced bits of lyrics together in my schoolgirl notebooks. I imagined miles of dialogue for characters who had yet to see the light of page.

But I have a confession to make: if you ask to see my writing, I’ll show you my “best material” that was written almost a year ago. And please don’t ask to see my recent material or you will be severely disappointed, because there isn’t any recent material good enough to present, because my recent material doesn’t exist.

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And That Has Made All The Difference

“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is a poem that I have heard at several graduations and events as a motivational addition, often including the lines from the last stanza: “two roads diverged in a wood, and I / I took the one less traveled by / and that has made all the difference.”

When I first heard this poem, I was completely oblivious (like always) to the true meaning of it. I thought: “what an amazing message: you should choose to be different from everybody else, I like, totally get it!” It wasn’t until later that I realized that I’m an English major who can’t understand poetry, and it’s tragic.

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