Nothing can prepare you for feeling unprepared in the “real world.” There’s no glossary, no professorial advisor, no syllabus, and, perhaps the most disorienting, no grades. I don’t know how I did during my last tutoring session. I’m not sure of my strengths in my last interview (although, I can confidently report many weaknesses).
Read MoreLast Thursday, I got an email from my company’s CEO.
“Congratulations,” it read, “on the most important decision of your life thus far. You’ve been with us for an entire year!”
The email was a little presumptuous; I found it a little off-putting. But it reminded me of a milestone I would have marched right past had it not been for a standardized company email and nice little bonus gift in my paycheck—I’ve been living this adult life for 365 days.
Read MoreI sat in the corner of the empty bedroom in my apartment trying to get that perfect picture for Instagram. It was my last chance to take in the view before I subleased it to someone else. It had been my home for over a year and a place where many happy memories were created.
Read MoreIt's just about midnight and I'm a teeny bit past my deadline for this post. I'm sitting on the sidewalk and my bright orange volunteer shirt is hardly hidden under my sweater. I'm trying to cover it because I'm crying.
Read MoreI’m disappointed in myself for slipping into the darkest place I’ve ever fallen into, becoming bitter and cynical. Being told a hundred times that “I’m going to be okay” and listening to such words as a broken record of defeat. I guess it took some pita chips and a glass of wine to remind me that things can be half-full once again.
Read MoreThe truth is, I really didn't imagine myself here in this small town a few months after graduation. If you told me a year ago I'd be living in my boyfriend's grandparents’ basement and working at a winery, I'd have been a little disappointed. But regardless, it's good for me right now and truthfully, I am happy. I still have nights where I feel guilty for being happy with my life here; I sometimes feel like a failure for being here in the first place, for not living a flashier life.
Read MoreOn a Friday afternoon on a sticky day in August—summer break for teenagers—in a two-story bookstore in the biggest shopping mall in the largest city in Canada. That’s where I finally did it; something I had been thinking about doing for weeks but was only now at the point where I felt I really had to.
Read MoreThere is a tattoo on my left foot that says “be.” Tiny little letters, inked into my skin when I was twenty years old, at a (well-researched and highly reputable, mind you) Spanish tattoo parlor, with two of my best friends getting their own ink beside me.
I’d heard there might be a little bit of regret. I’d heard I might wake up the next morning, see my new mark in the mirror, and think, What have I done? I’d heard of the minor panic that accompanies permanent, tangible change. So when I woke up the next morning, those two best friends and I texted each other to ask, “How are you?”
Read More“So what are you doing? Like, why are you here?”
“I’m taking some time off, you know, waiting until the end of the summer to find a job.”
“But like… what are you doing?”
I don’t know, okay? I don’t know.
Read MoreI recently started a new job that’s had me up before I’d like to be and at home on the weekends catching up on work-related duties. It’s an opportunity and a half but my poor anxious heart is struggling. It’s not exactly what I want to be doing (lounging on a beach being fed grapes paid for by my fat book advance) but… it’s cool and I’m working on it.
Read MoreI wasn’t prepared for the high-speed film reel of memories to hit me the second we drove off the 405 onto the 101 highway.
Two hours of driving through my tears on the day I said goodbye to a boy my brain had grown accustomed to telling “I love you,” when my heart just wasn’t there yet. An entire CD of Lady Antebellum Christmas songs my sister and I played on repeat on our way home for winter break. A 40-mile trek with three girls who shared my apartment and the label “best friend” just to walk into a Target.
Read MoreIf you grew up with pets and then transitioned to living on your own without pets, you’ll understand the slight twinge of sadness you feel when you come home after a long day and there’s no puppy to lick your face or kitten to brush its soft fur against your legs.
Read MoreThey change.
Flights change. Book release dates change. Dinners with friends change. Sometimes, however, when you think you’ve made perfect, unbreakable plans that you truly want to work, it’s hard to realize, remember, and accept that some plans change.
Read MoreNew things, better things.
That’s been a go-to phrase for me for the past several months, a reminder in a rather transition-heavy and emotionally-turbulent time in my life to keep my eyes set on the good things to come rather than the worries I usually burden myself with needlessly.
And in the spirit of new things, better things comes along That First Year getting a makeover.
Read MoreThings need to be done, decisions need to be made, reports need to be turned in, resumes need to be updated, dresses need to be dropped off and you also have to eat lunch and feed your dog and grab drinks with your friends and do your laundry and decide what to do about that guy you’ve been texting, and you haven’t made your bed or grocery shopped in two weeks and you definitely should shower today because you’ve put it off one day too long and now you’re pushing it.
And it’s only Tuesday.
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