When I was younger I was the kind of person that was never fully happy for my friends when something good happened to them, because I was jealous. I wondered why good things were happening to them and not me; I became bitter.
But this year I've grown, both as a person and a professional. I've learned what I want out of my career, and I've learned what it means to be a good friend. With that said, it's been a big week for the people in my life and I am so excited for them.
Read MoreNot getting hired on full-time where you spent eight months working hard can be a pretty big slap to the face. It’s like breaking up with your long-term boyfriend when you still live together. It’s the whole bit of “it’s not you, it’s me…” Not an easy pill to swallow that you just weren’t quite good enough. I have and will always hold myself to a very high standard personally and professionally and tend to struggle with rejection. As someone who has such high standards for herself and who puts a lot of self-worth stock into her job, I had never experienced a heartbreak quite like this one in any of my relationship breakups (pretty sure a psychologist would have a field day with that fun fact). As soon as I heard the word “unfortunately,” a part of me retreated, wounded. What did I do wrong? What could I have done better? Was it something I said in the interview? I was riding a rollercoaster of emotions for the week following the news. I was sad, angry, confused, content, lost all at once. I am an obsessive planner and this was not following my post-grad plan at all. I was supposed to work my butt off in an incredible internship following graduation, get hired full-time for my first big girl job, move out of my parents’ house and live happily ever. Instead, I was eight months into the real world with not much to show for it and even more confused as to my life’s path.
Read MoreThe moment has arrived. After months of near neuroses, you’ve narrowed down your options and you’re ready to submit your completed graduate school application(s). To anyone who has not reached this point, the idea of actually being finished with your GRE and having gathered everything to submit an application may seem too good to be true. It also might seem downright unrealistic. Our undergrad applications were essentially a joke, seeing as how Jesus Christ Himself gifted us with websites like Common App that made submitting applications into the distant memory it is today. However, forget everything you know about applying to college. Take those sweet, sweet memories of meeting with your high school guidance counselor out of that back slot in your brain and erase the files. You’re on your own now, friend.
Read MoreI recently stayed on a date longer than I would have liked. The night began with dinner, a dinner that was three hours long. “That’s so great!” you the reader might be thinking to yourself. “Laurel really connected with that guy and they had so much to chat about.” I so wish that was the case. The dinner lasted three hours and then the after-dinner drinks lasted another three hours because the person I went on a date with moves/speaks/blinks at the speed of Friday afternoon. The pace is certainly friendly. But you don’t want to cruise in the speed of Friday afternoon when greater things pepper your horizon. So when he asked me if I wanted to tour art museums with him - (FYI this is a wonderful date idea. It’s classy and fun.) - I knew I had to say no. And my heart sank in my chest a little bit.
I go on a lot of dates. This is not meant to be a bragging right; it is a simple fact. As a young, social human in a vibrant city bustling with single people, dating is somewhat commonplace. And there are so many wonderful pieces of advice about how to recover from rejection or a breakup that could combine to make a world full of pies. And a world full of pies would be a better place. But what I have not heard/read/listened to on a podcast is how to let someone down and how not to feel a million emotions yourself. I feel everything all the time. So, since they (someone at some point said this) say feelings are best processed with others, I have decided to share them with you.
When I have decided I no longer want to date someone, I usually travel through 5 stages.
Read MoreEurope’s youth is known for its love for traveling. Groundbreaking remark: Wanderlust is not just a hipster tattoo on millions of arms and shoulders but an actual word to describe people’s desire to go to different places and just “wander around the world”. Students take a break from college for a semester to interrail through Europe, become an au-pair in the US, work and travel in Australia. Why finish your degree during the standard period of study? Life will put its chains on you sooner or later anyways. And here is where my struggle begins: I want everything possible and all at the same time: Great degree. Successful work. Money. Time for travels.
Read MoreI was at the beach last summer whenever I could have been, because even though everything around me was changing, the way that I felt there never seemed to. It was a temporary escape from all of the things (so many, many things) that I had no idea how to handle, and all of the things that I had no idea how to let go of. Last year was the first time that I ever actually dreaded the summer, because I knew that when it came, everything had to change. Naturally, instead of dealing with these problems head on, I decided “um, no” and completely lost myself there, like I was waiting for a message in a bottle filled with all of the missing answers.
Read MoreEvery day since I’ve graduated, I’ve woken up with the nagging feeling of stagnation. Without school, it’s hard to get through the everyday when you have no real end goal anymore. School is easy in that sense; the end game is of course graduating and then utilizing what you just spent so much time and money attaining. When that end pans out, when even seeing the words “entry-level” or “five years’ experience required” start to haunt you, what is your end goal then?
Read MoreWe're big kids now; it's time to responsibly manage our very own credit card. Here's your basic guide to credit cards.
Read MoreThree years after their self-titled debut album, these British lads have released their second album, I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it. And. I. Love. It. I won’t attempt to convince you to like the album title, but I will attempt to make you love the album itself. Or if not love, at least give it a listen.
Read MoreI didn’t necessarily expect the whole “adult” thing to be easy, but I also didn’t expect it to overwhelm me the way it did. Granted, I was also in a long-distance relationship that was quickly tanking, so that definitely didn’t help me navigate life in the aftermath of graduating. Along with having roommates with very different personalities than mine who brought a tense atmosphere to my home life, post-grad life dropped a whole new concept into my path: being intentional.
Graduating from college changes who you are—one moment you’re a student like you’ve always been, and the next moment you find that your identity has shifted. For me, the combination of a failing relationship, an uncomfortable home life and the loss of the built-in college community I’d had for 3.5 years made for a whirlwind season of life. If you’re not careful, all of a sudden you realize you haven’t seen your friends in two months and Netflix keeps asking you if you’re still watching your show because you fall asleep on the couch every night.
Read MoreLast summer, my beloved grandmother, Joyce, lost her short but very heartbreaking battle with brain cancer. She was my best friend, and to say that I miss her every day in an understatement; I’d give anything in the entire world to hear her voice or see her smile again. But the lessons I learned from her are what keep me moving forward on the days when all I want to do is fall apart.
Here are a just few of my favorites.
Read MoreHave you ever had those moments when your thoughts unexpectedly go from a slow, Sunday-driver pace to an absurd, Fast and Furious velocity? This, of course, often happens to me just as I’m peacefully drifting off to sleep.
The most recent time my mind-engine revved was a couple days ago on International Women’s Day, which, to my chagrin, I just found out was a thing. The Google Doodle for the occasion showed women of various cultures and backgrounds finishing the sentence “One day I will…” with their career and life ambitions, and it made me feel inspired and proud, yet simultaneously panicked. After watching the Doodle, the souped-up hot rod in my brain—a Lamborghini, obvi—skipped the first several gears and squealed out of the driveway.
What is my ‘one day I will’ dream? Why don’t I know all of these languages? What if I’ve missed an opportunity—or several— to really pursue my dreams? Am I living up to my potential as a human and a woman? Am I even adulting/womaning correctly?!
Read MoreSome days are harder than others in this post-grad world. Some days I think to myself, “I can and I will do this,” and other days I think about taking some time off from reality and traveling, maybe becoming a flight attendant for a while so I can see new places and still make money doing so.
Then I remember the more time I take off from doing what I want to be doing, the less likely I'm going to land the dream job.
So no, I’m not at peace with where I am.
I'm living at home, I'm beyond broke, I am single for the first time in six years, I don't like working five different jobs that I don't feel challenged at, and I just don't know what to do about it. I apply for jobs constantly, follow up and still get rejection emails and phone calls.
Read MoreI gave up alcohol for Lent. But it turns out, I didn’t give up the reason I normally drink alcohol. This is, of course, due to the fact that my love life is akin to post-meltdown Chernobyl. Lent happened on Ash Wednesday, as Lent does, and I stopped drinking. No happy-hour Shiners, no Friday afternoon margaritas, nothin’. Just iced tea, water, and hot cocoa. Additionally, Ash Wednesday was the day I flew to Texas for a weekend wedding. Now if you know me at all, or even if you don’t, you know that I love my friends, and I love that they have found love, but I often do not love weddings. This is probably because I don’t like wearing dresses. It’s also because weddings are expensive. Especially for bridesmaids. Particularly for Maids of Honor. Groomsmen have it so damn easy: just a bunch of college buddies getting together for a weekend of debauchery, breweries and golf for the bachelor party and then a weekend of wearing a suit they may or may not already own on one Saturday. Groomsmen are the men that will marry you and bury you.
Read More
