It’s just a text. A normal weekend text from your dad, who happens to double as one of your best friends. As I waved goodbye to a colleague on a Friday afternoon, leaving for a work lunch, I had decided I would walk home, even though it was a long walk and the sun was blistering. But it was the start of July Fourth weekend, and I was excited.
Except the text from my dad wasn’t the normal “what are you up to tonight?” or “have a great weekend and we will talk Sunday.”
Read MoreLast year I graduated into a world of uncertainty. My life at the time was not looking the way I wanted it to look. I couldn’t find the coveted full-time job. I had just gotten out of a long-distance relationship.
I was nowhere near ready to face the world without school in it.
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 MoreThinking of going the law school route? Here are 5 important things to know before you apply.
Read MoreIf you’re going to grad school, want to in the future, or have a concerned friend, please treat this post as a kind of advisory on some things you might want to know.
Read MoreMy last college deadline was to be completely packed up and checked out of my on-campus townhouse by 4 pm on graduation day. Yes, after the nervous excitement of placing my cap just-so, figuring out how the mysterious hood was supposed to sit uncomfortably around my neck, waiting to be called to claim my diploma, successfully navigating my way across the stage without falling, and after waiting through another speech and another send-off, I had to rush back to my room and leave my four-year home in two short hours.
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 MoreThe funny thing about getting engaged is that life doesn’t stop and grant you sufficient time to plan a huge event, workout for the dress, go through pre-marital counseling, get engagement pictures done, etc. Nope, life moves forward at a relentless pace, continuing to require your time and energy per the usual. Here are 3 keys to planning your wedding even when life won't slow down for you.
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.
Read MoreGraduation day is over. My dorm room is packed up. I have said goodbye to my best friends, the ones for whom “goodbye” doesn’t really ever apply, even if I’m not sure when I’ll see them again. I am in the backseat of the car and I have cried myself into a nap; when I wake up, my parents are pulling into the parking lot of our favorite deli off the highway. We sit at a table in back, order soda and sandwiches and even dessert. As we talk, I become once more hyper-aware that something in my life has undergone a seismic shift. I am going home, but I am not in college anymore, so I don’t yet know what “home” means.
Read MoreI saw the finish line. It was close. I never thought I would make it but there I was: six weeks from wearing that awkward too-small cap and oversized gown. I was pages away from closing the book yet with the strongest desire to call it quits and throw it away.
I felt lost. I was anxious and ready to move somewhere new and exciting. I was ready to walk away from everything I worked to build and everything I chased after just for something new. I wasn’t secure in myself, where I was going in life, or the standing I held with the people around me.
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