I already moved five times this year and have lived in three different countries. Every time, you start from zero; you meet new people and try to make friends. I have to admit, I feel at home pretty fast. This time it took me a day (thanks to my amazing hosts). However, while building new friendships, you also have to take care of your loved ones at home. That is the hard part.
So here is what I do to maintain relationships with my friends and family back home.
Read MoreA lot has changed over the past few months. I moved into an apartment, and I have a job where people continue to congratulate me on having a job. (Is it written on my face that I’m an English major, I don’t know…).
It wasn’t a huge, sweeping move. But it takes great courage, I think, to go anywhere new, to separate yourself from what you’ve once known and who you once were.
Read More“I can’t be a wizard; I’m just, I’m just Harry!” she quoted, with a bemused smile as she walked into another room.
This was Madeline’s response when I asked her to provide a definition of magic. Now, before you read into Madeline’s response too deeply, I had better assure you that she is confident, hopeful and quite capable of becoming a wizard herself. So my analysis of this quoted statement and the following connection have really nothing to do with the quoter and more to do with society at large. Just so you can fully understand the context.
So now, on to Harry. Harry’s very modest insistence that he cannot be a wizard can be seen in the parallel (and less modest) way adults claim to have outgrown magic.
Growing up can be perhaps less lovely than we’d imagined as children, if we imagined it at all.
Read MoreA few weeks ago I had a co-worker kindly mention, “You only have a month or so left ‘til you are unemployed right?” My initial reaction was an eye roll and, “Gee, thanks for the reminder; it must have slipped my mind…” but what he said resonated within me and slowly the uncomfortable twinge from deep inside me started to sound the sirens.
Read MoreIf you would have told me a year ago that for my first job I would get to travel all across the United States for an organization I care so deeply about, I wouldn’t believe you. I desperately wanted to travel for a living, and I’m actually doing it!
I travel with one suitcase and one carry on and visit a new city about every week. My elevator speech actually includes the line, “My office is my suitcase.” As I write, I’m realizing that my job is the real deal and I absolutely love it.
I also want to acknowledge that it’s a lonely job.
I get to meet absolutely amazing, inspiring women every day, but I only have one week to get to know them, then I’m off to a new city. I am around people all the time, but I am hardly, if ever, around people who know me... people who know my habits, my past and my passions--the friends who know that I am not a morning person and never will be and the mentors who see my strengths and appreciate that I am a competitive person.
Read MoreOver coffee one weekend, my friend poured out her thoughts in the vein of frustration with her first full-time gig after college. Her angst was stemming from the general discontent of routine and the initial feeling — 3 weeks in —that her job was meaningless and seemingly dead-end.
As I listened, I felt the ping of familiarity with these sentiments — feeling discontent with the present and frustration of waiting for the future.
She asked me, “How long does it take for this to go away?”
I couldn’t give her a concrete answer. What do I tell her? That this will all go away soon? At the end of the month? Year?
And there lies the root of our frustration: there’s no timeline.
Read More"Peace is always beautiful."
I have that hanging on the wall in my bedroom, the quote from Walt Whitman printed across baked clay, a piece of art I found at a market my sophomore year during a somewhat rough period in my college career.
Peace has always been something I've craved but never quite known what exactly it was or how to find it, as though it's some mysterious ancient treasure that only a select few manage to unearth.
And I - the one with an anxious mind and penchant for meticulously thought-out life plans - clearly was not one of those select few.
Read MoreAt the risk of sounding like a bad Cosmo article, have you ever imagined residing in an exotic locale, lounging in a hammock while a tanned and buff Fabio (or Fabiana, whatever floats your boat) fans you with palm leaves?
Blame it on growing up with such classics as The Lizzie McGuire Movie, but I presumed that if I ever lived abroad my romantic encounters would closely follow the previously mentioned fantasy. Upon planning my year in Argentina (when I was not milling through government documents or googling “Why do you people not flush toilet paper in Buenos Aires?”) I was quick to jump to images of Fabio. Absolutely none of this makes sense considering I am deeply shy and renowned for my lack of flirting prowess. Just one glance from a suitor and I will break out in an itchy red rash. I spent a greater part of my junior year wearing turtlenecks and scarves because I frequently saw the boy I liked on campus.
However, this was before I moved to South America. For those of you who have not traveled this far south of the equator, let me tell you one thing – prepare yourselves. The men of Argentina (while I hate to generalize, this has been my experience so far) make Italians look shy. They will pursue you, they will want to wine and dine you, and it will be bizarre though occasionally wonderful. I’ve found that the strange experiences can be justified simply for that random, golden “perfect” date. Here are some tips I’ve garnered from three months of rom com-worthy experiences, meeting less-than Fabio’s in the search for my true Fabio.
Read MoreI am of the opinion that life’s smallest moments are often life’s most profound. It’s in these seemingly simple intonations that the best sort of change occurs.
I recently cried at a wedding.
Lest you be fooled into thinking this is unusual and possibly profound, it is not; I often cry at weddings. Deep expressions of familial love, well-executed personal details and concentrated statements of beauty and commitment overwhelm me, usually to the point of tears.
In the hopes of being honest and transparent, I did cry for all of those reasons at this wedding; many tears were shed. But the brightest moment among a night saturated with light didn’t have to do with the wedding at all. It revolved around a gin and tonic.
Read MoreAbout a month ago, I got a job offer (miracle in itself that anyone would even consider me for any position…). And I reacted the way I normally would: I ran away.
Actually, the trip I was going on had already been long planned out, and it just so happened to fall on that very same weekend. Since my favorite activity is ignoring all responsibility, it couldn’t have been a more perfect time to go. I won’t get into how obsessed I am with traveling considering I feel like I do this in every post/somehow find a way to bring it up to total strangers I meet in the grocery store, but there is a certain clarity I find that I never knew how to find here, the way I toss and turn all night at home but sleep straight until morning when I’m anywhere else. To me, wanting to see and do so much and knowing there are boundaries to that is heartbreak. Maybe the biggest heartbreak I’ve ever known.
Read MoreIt’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.
Read MoreTwo weeks ago I realized that I was an introvert.
I know. As one who LOVES personality tests, I probably should have sorted this out long ago, but I didn’t. I probably had other stuff to do, like sit in my room by myself and read a book on the Supreme Court or sleep through someone’s birthday dinner (that has happened multiple times). I used to be able to fake extroversion but at the ripe old age of 23, I’m tired of the bullshit.
If I want to sit home by myself and read Jane Eyre, then by golly I will! I don’t want to go clubbing, I don’t want to be in the same vicinity as people who are talking loudly over bumping club music, and I don’t want to go to a party with strangers. At all. It literally suffocates me. I don’t think it’s social anxiety so much as the realization that I could be hanging out with my friends drinking wine and watching a movie instead at some bar in DuPont Circle hating every moment of my life.
Read MoreBack 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.
Read MoreSo, I finally moved. I'm living in Tucson, Arizona working at a preschool through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. And it's hot. Like, sweat-through-all-your-clothes-and-lie-on-the-floor-not-moving hot. I'm starting to adjusting to life with a swamp cooler (i.e. NOT air conditioning), "monsoon season," my work schedule, riding a bike to and from work, and living in community.
Read More"Why are you going to Boston?” asked the middle-aged couple sitting on the plane next to me, their Massachusetts accents heavy and bright smiles welcoming.
“Oh, no reason, really!” I answered.
One Direction. I had bought a $300 plane ticket to Boston to see One Direction.
Spending hundreds of dollars to see four British boys/angels may not have been the most financially-conscious decision, but these periodic weekend runaways are my attempts to put distance between myself and the maddening life questions that come along with young adulthood. Because as I wrote in a previous post, I’ve been having a bit of a tiff with my current life’s circumstances. I’ve been bitter against Nashville for reasons unfair to lay against such a fair and lovely city as this one. So I keep running away.
But I come back. I have no choice but to come back. I have responsibilities in Nashville, obligations that keep me tethered to her Tennessee moors. The anchor is heavy and it’s sunk deep in these city limits. For now, I must stay.
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