But difficult classes, loneliness, discontent, and failed experiments quickly overshadowed the idyllic concept I had of this season of life. What had once felt so solid in my mind began to crumble and it's only now, one year later, that little buds of insight are poking through that shattered concrete of some of the blocks I'd built upon my foundation.
Read MoreOn Monday, I am happy because I visited my college this past weekend. I walked around campus and remembered lots of little things—who I sat on that bench with, where I ate the most deliciously unhealthy meals, what sidewalks got to eavesdrop on my heartbreak. It’s all still there and so are my friends and everything about it is as beautiful as I left it.
And then I am sad, because I had to come back here and wake up early and go to work. College has gone on existing. It is difficult to fathom my campus without me, me without it. There used to be a hole in the Boston College atmosphere where I fit perfectly, and I am afraid that pockets of me are still left behind there, in those gaps. I’m afraid that there are holes in me now that I won’t know how to fill.
Read MoreTwenty-three has been the hardest year of my life, straight up. And I say that with zero melodrama and with the common sense that there will be years ahead that are worse and years ahead that are better. I know many of you can relate. Maybe this is just our early 20s, or maybe this is just life—this pendulum swinging between the dark and light, wandering and arriving, wondering and knowing, grief and joy.
Read MoreI step inside the duplex, the one I had been living in for the last year with four of my best friends, and immediately notice the new coffee maker in the kitchen. The duplex looks a bit different now with three new tenants. Two of my best friends still live there and every time I visit I notice a new way the interior has changed in my absence. I feel almost cheated on by that house before I remind myself that houses don't have feelings and it's not personal, Maddi.
Read MoreMy five-year anniversary as a coordinator in academia arrived this month, and with it came a reality check. I graduated six years ago, and the goals I set out with are not the ones I have met since then. This can be a terrifying thing to realize, as though your ride in life took a detour and you only noticed at the end destination. The truth, however, is more complicated than that.
Read MoreI have about a thousand memories of fall tucked away in my back pocket—any one of them, if pulled out at the right time, would have me spiraling into a fit of nostalgia. Fall is a special time of the year. Even if you weren’t the first in line to grab a pumpkin spice latte on September 1st, I’m sure there is something in your spirit that this statement resonates with.
Read MoreI bought a painting today to help my room look a little more homey, to help ease the tension of being here and wanting and waiting to be home. It’s the New York City skyline looking towards Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge. I walked across that bridge in the pouring rain last year; I looked up into that skyline on the anniversary of 9/11, so scarred with pale blue lights marking what used to stand tall. I flinched as planes roared over the hundreds gathered around the memorial. I bought books and drank coffee and rode the subway; I fell in love with a new city, unexpectedly.
But I knew the feeling deeply, as if written in my DNA, because I had felt it before, six years ago, walking much different streets, drinking chai, not coffee, and taking autos and overcrowded buses.
Read MoreI have a new job, which is why I now wake up before the sun. It’s a nonprofit job, an Americorps job; I don’t get paid much (read: like, below minimum wage), so I have a second part-time job on top of this new full-time job. Throughout the day, my inboxes fill up with my other two “jobs”— freelance work for another nonprofit and running That First Year.
I’m busy.
But I know this busyness isn’t unique to me. You’re busy, too. We all are.
Read MoreNothing 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.
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