Often, when I wake up in the morning I am struck with a sense of urgency likened to the feeling I imagine one would experience if they opened their eyes only to find themselves hanging by their hood from Toronto’s CN Tower. Which is to say, my waking is somewhat violent. I hit consciousness with a hard kick in the back from slumber and blowing around in the windy beginning of each day I am overcome by the worry of what to do FIRST.
Read MoreSome people like to put tacks on a map of the places they’ve seen, whether through the window of an airport or up close and personal in the heart of a town that doesn’t belong to them. But what I like to do is hunt down the tackiest souvenir shop, browse through the shot glasses and T-shirts, and walk away with a single postcard that will never make its way into a mailbox.
I look at the pictures on the front, try to recall seeing those views from a much more personal point-of-view.
Remember that time when…
Read MoreToday I am on a plane.
I have just moved to New York City. I have listened to "Empire State of Mind" 7 times. I have had 2 mimosas. I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know how I got here.
Five days ago I was in Nashville, TN. My home for the past 4 years, my city, my happy place.
One day ago I was in Long Lake, MN. My home for the past 22 years, the only home I've ever lived in, my safe haven.
Today I am on a plane.
I have realized there is a difference between dreaming your dreams and living them.
I have also realized how hard it is.
Read MoreOne disappointing thing about getting older is noticing the mystique of things that used to excite you fade. Coming into the real world is met with its fair share of challenges, and the temptation to let this harden you is accessible; perhaps it’s autopilot to become jaded. To have a hopeful outlook towards the state of the world, towards your passions, even towards life at times, takes a conscious effort. The reality is you witness (and sometimes find yourself in the middle of) a lot of crash and burn scenarios as you grow up, and it is really easy to let ugly truths cloud your perspective.
Read MoreI wonder sometimes if I'm making a mistake by being so nomadic, if I should be saving to own my piece of real estate: something more permanent, something that validates my worth as an adult. Sometimes it's hard to feel like an adult when I have no husband (or even a boyfriend), a house or a kid. My reasons for moving so much aren’t even because I travel too much to have roots anywhere. The reality is that I float from place to place because things change so rapidly. There's no real constant in my life yet, but I don't know if I want there to be.
Read MoreTwo months from now, I will be living 3,700 miles away from home in a country I’ve never visited before.
My boyfriend and I have decided to move to Holland, where he is finishing his degree in The Hague. Several months ago, he asked me to come with him and after much deliberation, planning and money-saving, I’ve decided to take the plunge and come along for the ride. When he first asked me, I was terrified. I’ve never ever visited Holland, how could I move somewhere I’ve never been? I don’t speak the language, how would I get around? Or get a job? What could I do as a job? Where would we live?
Being the planner that I am, I started tackling my list of fears one by one.
Read MoreAt the top of a long list of things I’m currently avoiding doing is the task of packing up my room to move to a new apartment. After that on the list is a series of time and energy consuming projects — ranging in intensity from “make sure mom knows how to pay your bills” to “build an adequate team of donors so you can start your nonprofit job in August” — that have to be completed before I leave the country for a month in less than a week and a half. I am going to work at a summer camp in British Columbia, so not only am I being pulled far away from my normal routine for a month, I am being pulled away to a secluded location with no wifi or cell service, and there is not a more inconvenient time I can think of to do that than right now.
Right now I am worried about packing all of my belongings, not only for a month away, but to move across town. I am worried about having all my ducks in a row for the new job I begin immediately when I get back. I am worried about my bills getting paid and my emails going unanswered and all the toiletries I haven’t even thought about buying yet. Being pulled out of the routine of my adult life at this current moment is more than just a little jarring, it feels completely chaotic.
Read MoreThree days after my birthday I got dumped. Plain and simple. I was about to leave for a month in Germany, followed by a more permanent residence in Alabama for graduate school, when my boyfriend said he wasn’t prepared for the distance. It hurt, I cried, and then I drank more wine than I should have.
I spent the time leading up to my trip to Berlin thinking about the what if’s: What if I wasn’t leaving for half the summer? What if I could stay in Nashville? Would things change? Three weeks of driving myself crazy with questions made me realize that I needed to go to Europe, if only to provide myself with a distraction from neurotically checking my ex’s Instagram page. I packed my bags and in mid-May settled into seat 27C on a flight from Dallas to Frankfurt, thinking that maybe this was a good way for me to take a break from the breakup.
Read MoreWhen I graduated last spring, I was a complete jumble of emotions. I was more than ready to be done with school but nowhere close to being prepared for the real world. I didn’t have a job lined up as I had hoped and my near-future seemed seriously bleak. Not to mention it was 90 degrees and my hair was just not cooperating, so of course the irritability ensued.
Read MoreThough I run this blog, I can’t say that I follow an extensive list of other blogs regularly. Whoops. However, there are 4 blogs that are my go-tos when I’m in the mood to do some internet readin’.
Read MoreIt’s my first day on the job as a bike courier and when I look into the bag and see what’s happened, I’m sure it’s also going to be my last. Probably, I shouldn’t have put my metal lock in the same compartment as cans of soda. But also… why couldn’t he have just ordered more fries?!
One of the cans has been punched in the gut and is leaking from the corners of its now-bent frame. Actually, it’s just dripping now, it’s done leaking. My entire bag and its contents are soaked.
Did I mention I’m also lost?
Read MoreLike a dramatic and silent slow action shot in a cheesy multi-million dollar film, I watched in horror as the barista raised the whipped cream dispenser, taking aim at my beloved mocha. But I didn’t want whip. In fact, when ordering, I had specifically requested no whip, please. An internal battle raged within me on whether or not I should say something. Over whipped cream. I was literally contested over whether I should say something about whipped cream.
Because why rock the boat? Even if it’s as inoffensive as asking for no whip.
“Don’t say anything,” Fear instructed. Over whipped cream.
There are a few things that happen when you graduate college. You celebrate school being finished. You send out job applications with big dreams and starry-eyes. You get rejected and ignored. You send out job applications, and LinkedIn invitations, and cover letter after cover letter—you dream about cover letters—you start losing steam. You want a job. You want a job so badly.
You get a job. You celebrate. You go to your first day in a new pencil skirt with starry-eyes. You love it, for a while. Some days you hate it. Sometimes you wish you could go back to that time when you weren’t tied down to your desk, even though that’s all you wanted. You start losing steam. You want a new job, or to travel, or to do what that girl on Instagram is doing. You want that other life so badly.
And it’s not that what you have is bad, or that it isn’t what you expected. It’s that there are so many reasons to tell yourself that you’re doing something wrong. That you didn’t choose the right path.
Read MoreLast week, I broke my first bone.
Well, technically, I “acute fractured my elbow.”
I was biking down a busy Toronto street when another cyclist cut me off. When other people tell me about their bike accidents, they always say the same thing: “It happened in a split second.” I can now attest to the fact that it does happen in a split second. One minute I was cruising down the street, thinking about how nice the warm sun felt on my skin; the next thing I knew, I was lying on the hot black asphalt, a transport truck stopped a few feet behind my head. The cyclist helped me to my feet, apologizing profusely. Strangers stopped to stare. My legs shook. Tears streamed down my face. What just happened? Am I okay? Is my bike okay?
Read MoreI turn 23 at the end of July, meaning I was the baby of my grade all through my academic career. Being the youngest (among other things) somehow made me feel uncool and likely had an effect on my ridiculous effort to prove just the opposite. Self-expression was key here. I found identity in a flowy skirt, Converse sneakers and a Rolling Stones t-shirt in the 8th grade. “Woah, Lane, that look sounds way chill already—how’d you manage to make it even chiller?” you ask? Braces and a DIY hemp necklace, obviously! The universe had surely never seen anything this edgy. I remember feeling like a fraud but also a badass when asked, “Can you even name a Rolling Stones song?” and responding only with a panicked “yes—of course!” before fleeing the room immediately.
I can name close to 10 (lmao, boom) Rolling Stones songs now, but in many ways I still carry around that same confidence-meets-self-consciousness. It’s this stupid thing where I don’t care what people think about me so much so that I want them to know just how much I don’t care. I believe “caring” is what that’s actually called. So just to reiterate: sometimes it’s hard to feel like an adult.
Reflecting on the year, it bums me out to realize how hard I’ve been on myself. Whether that meant kicking myself for not living up to an expectation or kicking myself for being “too much” or kicking myself for not being enough, there was always a reason to kick. But the thing is, all we can do most of the time is try to exist as we are.
That said, I’ll keep this short and sweet with three pieces of advice for those entering their first year after college.
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