I don’t think G and I were even halfway through our New Zealand wanderings before we were plotting our next adventure. Machu Picchu itself took some time to land on, … Continue reading decisions
Category: Growing Up
in the time after college
Is my life supposed to be complete, fulfilled, satisfactory, now that I have this expensive, shiny piece of paper?
on the heart of complaining
One was a blog about simplicity and the art of being free. I shrugged the last one off – my life was fine, I thought.
Now I’m not so sure.
On turning 24, and then some.
December is often a time for reflection – it’s the end of the year.
For me it’s always been doubly so – with my birthday at the end of the month it’s the end of my personal year as well.
This year is even more – I graduated in December a year ago. Hashtag baccalaureate, k?
Since before I can remember, the my hometown church has ended its Christmas Eve service with Mannheim Steamroller’s rendition of Silent Night while everyone stands in a circle around the darkened sanctuary with candles flickering. As I stood there tonight, I pondered the shifting of generations. Girls I went to high school with now stand with fidgeting munchkins, stepping into the role of wife and mother. Meanwhile the children we babysat are now the high school leaders, singing boldly, volunteering often, and carrying the community on their shoulders.
It’s been a ridiculous year.
Traveling the world, traveling the United States. Getting promoted, my work shutting down. Independent to dependent to independent. Painting and crocheting. Writing and reading and being on three different phone plans. Everybody moving. Also, Reddit. It’s a thing.
I move to Denver, CO in a week. A new year, a new state, a new bout of trying to figure out this life after college. I’m on the cusp of something big, the edge of growing up as I leave my college town.
For once, I don’t have much to say. My ponderings have all been written in journals, or discussed with friends. I’m at peace.
’twas the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…
Blogging, a question mark
What is the purpose of blogging?
The last several months I’ve noted that more and more of my Facebook friends have taken the proverbial pen in hand to broadcast their thoughts and lives to the world in the form of a blog. I am by no means a regular writer in my own, but take pleasure in reading from others.
I also am constantly searching for new blogs, seeking validation in the emotions and questions that I have – how do other people in my stage of life handle situations, make decisions, move from one day to the next? Although I suppose I qualify as a “digital native”, I am lost in the tangled world wide web, using rudimentary search functions to try find my far flung peers.
I was complaining about this to my roommate the other day. “I can’t find blogs about twentysomethings just trying to figure out what they’re doing with their lives! College students, young mothers, business professionals, sure! But what about those who DON’T know what they’re doing with their lives? Who have graduated, are not married, and are not working for a multi-million dollar corporation? Where are we represented? Why can’t I find their daily ponderings about how to survive?”
She looked at me, and bless her heart, said, “Why don’t you write it?”
Well, the reason is: I’m an external processor. I write when I have something to say. That’s usually when I’m processing something. It’s hardly professional to write about wrestling with the decision of whether to stay at my current job or move on, publishing my thoughts for the world to see before I’ve had that conversation with my boss. (For those of you keeping track: I’m staying.) Nor is it kosher to write about the frustrations and victories at work or in relationships.
I can’t write in an abstract way. I can’t discuss in real time what I’m learning, how I’m changing, what questions I’m trying to answer. It is only after the coals have cooled that I am able to speak with clarity, fairness, and quality.
But frankly, that doesn’t help the next person searching for answers. The thought process I think is just as important as the answers. It’s messy, it’s ugly, and no two people can ever follow the same road map. Viewing a situation through someone else’s lens, and understanding their reflections, can reveal more angles and ideas in ones own world, even if the final outcome is completely different. The journey is the destination, after all, isn’t that what has always been preached?
I do not have the ability to write about my journey. I can only stand on the plains and look around me, sometimes euphoric, sometimes just introspective. I can talk about where I have been, but I can’t talk about how I got there. Forgive me, but I can not write the blog I so desperately want to read.
Growing pains
Today, I felt angry.
Today, I felt curious.
Today, I basked in the sun.
Today, I laughed.
Today, I missed someone.
Today, I got excited.
Today, I felt afraid.
Today, I felt emotions.
Not all of them were good. Not all of them were bad. The point is that I felt something.
Fall semester was rough as I learned that depression takes many forms. For me, rather than actively being sad or lonely or upset, I was… nothing. I felt nothing. I cared about nothing, no one. If I made plans, I hoped people would cancel. I discovered delivery, spending more money on Papa John’s than I think I’ve spent on fast food in my life. I became glued to my couch, apathetic. I shut down the supper club I had once cultivated with joy. I withdrew from friends. I thesised without passion. Wake, work, school, Netflix, sleep, repeat.
I became nothing.
The lack of emotions, lack of style, lack of interest, lack of anything… That was who I fell into.
It took flying half way around the world for my soul to finally revive, and as I stared at the stunning blue lakes of New Zealand, I felt the last wisps of depression slip away in the breeze.
To feel emotions today, even as cruel as they can be, is a beautiful thing. I feel alive, even if I am unhappy. I feel growth, even as I look at my immaturity and know that in two years I will look back and cringe at this moment in my life. (Literally, I think that I will recall this day and roll my eyes – it’s been one of THOSE.) But I’m learning. I know that as slow and painful as this is, I AM learning. I AM growing. It’s frustrating now, trying to sort out adulthood and learn how to take on this new position in life. But you know what? I can feel it. I’m alive. And that is a beautiful thing.
Rainy days
It’s a rainy, dreary day, much like the days before and the days to come.
Did you realize how many forms of “rainy days” there are?
I’ve spent the last decade or more running myself so ragged, I never had time to notice. Rainy or sunny, relatively cold or relatively hot. That was all I cared about as I threw on a weather-appropriate outfit and dashed out my front door.
There’s silence in my life now.
As a baccalaureate, one would think I’d be busier than ever or in the midst of applying to grad schools.
Instead, I’m slowly unveiling the gift of quiet.
There’s a joy in coming home after a full day and work and having nothing else to do. No thesis to research, phonology problems to solve, or mock business plans to write.
If I work at 6am, I know that I can occasionally stay out late the night before and take a nap after work. No classes to go to immediately afterwards or group projects to coordinate.
When I have two days off, I can go on an out-of-state adventure, or just go back home and visit my parents. I can teach myself a new recipe or take a new path around town.
There’s silence.
There’s quiet.
I can watch the skies.
Adjectives that used to be used only when people asked “is it raining out?” now I pay attention to in real time.
Is it misting? The moisture seeping from the sky? Is it slow and steady? A monsoon in the midwest? There’s hail – is it the size of a penny or the size of a golf ball?
It’s not that I’m gaining a new obsession.
I just see.
I know that this a rare period in my life where I can slow down, where people aren’t dependent on me, my responsibilities are limited, and I am allowed to breathe.
I’ve always used my half-hour walk down town as a means of mentally processing, usually skipping songs on my iPod to provide a soundtrack for my emotions and in that manner blocking out the world around me.
With time to breathe, I take time to see. And now I take time to listen.
I take out my earbuds. I listen to the cars blasting their music as they pass me. I listen to the heavy breathing of the runners passing me as they master the hill. I listen to the chatter of the birds arguing across the street. I listen to the turning of the cranes at the construction sites, to the laughter of the freshmen as I pass by the dorms.
In the early mornings, though, there’s something special.
I listen to the silence of the morning.
I listen to the quiet gurgle of the river as it falls over the dam.
I listen to my footsteps on the bricklay of the ped mall.
I hear.
It’s a new experience for me to see the world in my own city, to allow myself to move slow enough.
I feel like this is the first step in a new stage of life.
For the first time, I am quiet.
Now it is time to allow both questions and answers to seep into that silence without distractions or a place to run and hide from them. I have no idea what I will find, what is around the next corner. But as I’m stepping into this adult world with all its changes, costs, and duties, it’s time to embrace it all and still hear the rain outside my window.
When I have two days off work, I can travel out of state. Or I can stay in my bedroom and paint for hours. Or I can drive twenty minutes out of town and find myself isolated with nature spreading her wings out before me.
It’s really, truly beautiful.
Burning Bridges
April 19, 2014
Liz and I became friends when I was about 19 years old. I’d briefly met her and to be perfectly honest was intimidated by her. She was a pastor’s daughter at the church I attended at the time and was, in my opinion, a bit of a celebrity. All of my friends talked about her: oh, Elizabeth might come to DMACC, Elizabeth is so great, Elizabeth this, Elizabeth that… How was I ever going to measure up and have this slightly younger all-star be a part of the world I was carving out for myself?
Well, easy. Because Elizabeth actually was great. She wound up in my small group and spent many evenings hanging out in our cat-dominated apartment. As she struggled with the transition between high school and college, and I struggled with feeling suffocated in Des Moines and wanting to flee without it actually looking like that, we formed a strange bond. It wasn’t difficult to soon call her “friend”.
A year or so passed. I moved to Iowa City, then on again to Berlin. Liz and I didn’t stay in super close contact, but she was always a delight to run into when I passed through home, and even once came to visit me at my parents’ farm.
It’s a funny thing, time. It’s a funny thing, growth. Over time, we grow and change. Generally, if we are with people – be it physically or just have strong, regular emotional bonds, we can grow together. But with distance, two people who were once very close will change differently. Not that its necessarily a bad thing, but they will never be able to meet at the same point again, never be able to connect on quite the same level. Maybe it’s better, maybe it’s worse, but never the same.
More time passed. The changes in my life put me at odds with many people who I loved deeply and missed dearly. I was terrified to move back to Des Moines for a summer, fearing being ostracized for how I’d changed. Conversation after conversation proved that these fears weren’t entirely unjustified. I made mistakes, putting up walls and daring my friends to break them down, blaming them when they avoided the walls altogether. Mistakes were also made on others’ behalf – the emotional turmoil of being ignored rather than embraced wrecked havoc on me.
Bridges were burned, friendships so sweet turned sour. Memories brought sorrow instead of joy, bitterness instead of nostalgia. It broke my heart to see friend after friend disappear from my life, even as I saw them across the street.
Fast forward about four months. I’m back to my home in Iowa City, happily graduated and coffee-shopping. I travel back to Des Moines for a wedding and find myself talking with Liz. Tired from the day, tired from a semester of battling depression, tired from the weight of unforgiveness, as we catch up, I confess that one of our conversations from summer had scarred me deeply. Liz, dear, sweet, gentle Liz, ponders this for a couple of months.
And then she begins to fight back.
Bridges had been burnt.
Trust had been lost.
Lives had been changed.
A few weeks ago, Facebook excitedly proclaimed with a red notification that I have a message. Liz asks me if she can come visit me in Iowa City. Not long after, I find myself strolling through downtown Des Moines and almost stumble over Liz. She again asks when would be a good time to come visit.
Do you want to know the funny thing about moving? Shifting friendships. The ones from Des Moines whom I consider friends are those who came and visited me. Laurie fought for my friendship from the day I moved – choosing to remain by my side despite changes in geography and purpose. Stephanie and Matt became my friends as they for one reason or another found themselves in my vicinity on repeated occasions. Mariah made it a point to stop in as she would pass through town on her way home.
When Liz offered to drive two hours out of her way just to hang out with me… Well, that meant a lot. When she met me in the city I call home, I was able to show her my life. We strolled around campus, and I pointed out buildings where I had wiled away the hours. We paced downtown, and I elaborated on funny stories and historical events. We people-watched on the ped mall, basked in the sun on the Old Capitol steps, and curled up in my apartment beneath my paintings.
And through it all, we talked. Frankly. We talked about burned bridges. We talked about growing up. We talked about questions and answers and being in our twenties. We talked about hurt and healing and acknowledged that we’d made mistakes. When time drew short and Liz climbed back in her car to drive off into the sunset, she asked what she could do to show that she cared about me. “This,” I said. “Come see me, or if six months down the road you think of me, text me. Show that you remember I’m alive. That’s all.”
Bridges may catch fire, after all. But not all rivers need one. Sometimes, all you need is to step in the water and wade across. Don’t worry, though, friend. I’ll meet you halfway.
to be a twenty-something
April 6, 2013
I’m a twenty-something.
Well, probably not yet. I’m still in school, so socially it is probably still okay to state my age. But still.
A little girl wandered up to me the other day, grandfather trailing close behind, and told me excitedly, “Guess what! I am four-and-three-quarters!” She was rather unimpressed when I told her I was 22, and regarded me suspiciously until I added “and a quarter”.
I don’t remember how old I was when I stopped adding those qualifiers. Probably somewhere in elementary school where “quarter years” stopped being important, then middle school (oh dear, did I stretch it into high school?) when “half years” faded away. (Oh, don’t judge! I know exactly when my half birthday is– being so close to Christmas, my parents definitely let me celebrate something in June to make up for it!)
Now, as the culmination of my education creeps closer, I find that even the whole year is becoming irrelevant. I am a 20-something: approaching the age when the college bubble bursts and reality begins. I’ll become a young professional, working 40+ hours a week, being stable enough to get a business card, likely moving into an apartment and knowing I’ll be there for more than a year.
I overheard someone relating how they knew they were growing up:
When I was a kid, if glass broke, my daddy was always there. “Stay back,” he told me. “I’ve got this. You’re safe.” But now, if glass shatters, I’m alone. There’s no one beside me to protect me from the shards. I sweep it up myself, and if I cut myself, I clean up the blood and try fix myself best I can.
We’re growing up.
I’m a twenty-something.
What does that even mean?
It means I’m afraid.
It means I’m excited.
It means I’m about to be lonely– again.
It means I’m about to make new friends– again.
I can’t say that I’ve ever super related to a Taylor Swift song. But I finally heard one that wove itself into my mantra.
It seems like one of those nights
This place is too crowded too many cool kids
It seems like one of those nights
We ditch the whole scene and end up dreaming instead of sleeping
We’re happy free confused and lonely in the best way
It’s miserable and magicalTonight’s the night when we forget about the heartbreaks, it’s time
I don’t know about you but I’m feeling twenty-two
22- Taylor Swift
I feel like I’m at a point in my life when everything is wide open.
When I’m alive and accepting of the fact that I’m weird. When I make friends in coffee shops, run into strangers on the street and walk away with stories, when street musicians play the soundtracks of our lives. It’s a time of transition– finally accepting that I’m letting go of childhood, but unsure about how to embrace adulthood.
It’s a time of late nights and early mornings. Long conversations and lots of chocolate. Deep questions and belly-bursting laughter. What is this crazy thing called “today”? Can I grasp that instead of fearing the future or mourning the past? Can I salsa dance and karaoke, serve coffee and write lab reports? What world is my own?
So many questions.
But I guess that’s the point of being a twenty-something: learning answers one mistake at a time. So raise your glass, fellow wanderers. Take solace that we’re all making this up as we go along. And in the meantime, anyone down for an adventure while it’s still socially acceptable?
To love at all is to be vulnerable -C.S. Lewis
March 8, 2013
My roommate is one of the most profound people I know.
One of our ongoing conversations is the idea that we live in a fanfiction.
You see, neither of us are what you would call “Main Character” material. People aren’t innately drawn to us. We pass quite peacefully under the radar and can be entirely invisible in the midst of a conversation. Perhaps we don’t even register as “supporting characters”. We’re simply the wandering minstrel, or the wise hermit, or even the local baker. (For pity’s sake, I’m a barista! It’s essentially the same character in modern worlds: everyone knows of me and depends on my craft to survive the day.) Our lives give depth and reality to the Main Character, but even the author doesn’t really care about our history.
Enter angsty teenager.
Perhaps in canon, the author mentioned us briefly. This teenager extracts us from our epic novel and plops us into the 21st century. Bewildered, we look around and try to figure out what’s going on.
She writes in adventures and impossible happenings, connections and unreal similarities. (Am I presenting too much of a stereotype, assuming that our fanfiction writer is female?) For a brief, wild moment, these side characters are thrust into the limelight. Seen. With dimension. With purpose.
And just as suddenly, as Angsty Teenager discovers a new topic, the fanfiction comes to a screeching halt.
Where does that leave these characters? Scrambling desperately. Fighting to keep striving in the direction they were headed. But that’s what it becomes. Every friendship is a fight: pursuing, initiating, trying. Reality weighs heavily. And the souls grow wearier and wearier.
Is it worth it? I just want to hide, says one, looking for a comfortable hole. I just want to flee, says the other, searching for a way to escape. “It’s all my fault,” they both sigh. “Not worth fighting for. Not worth protecting. Not worth chasing.”
The weary soul. Lonely. Afraid. Bitter. Angry at this Angsty Teenager for giving them false hope. The scars, so carefully disguised as beautiful tattoos, are ripped open. Not nearly as healed as we gave them credit for. The wounds, still infected, are so painful to clean out that we pretend they don’t need to be.
“What if we could build a time machine? Go back before it all began.”
Well, what if you could? Would those scars really go away? Or would your demons just bare another name?
It is at this point in our conversation that we look at one another. And the fear creeps in. Realizing that this, right here, is vulnerability. That without meaning to, we let someone in, past those walls. Those paper thin walls, painted to look so strong, but no one ever drew near enough to put them to the test. And that right here, if we had that time machine, we would give it away. For our own scars, painful welts smarting with new attacks, are nothing. But you… you don’t deserve this. Take this magical machine, go back, and be free. I’ll be fine: you, though, you need to be free.
If you dive in your hole, I’ll dig one next to you. For what it’s worth: don’t run. For you see, I don’t need you. But I want you to stay. I want you to come. I can survive without you. But that doesn’t mean I want to.
Maybe we are in the wrong story. Maybe it hurts, and we are weary. Maybe we’re tired of fighting for others when no one ever fights for us. Maybe it’s okay to cry. Maybe it’s okay to be weak. Maybe it’s okay to be lonely. Maybe it’s okay that this story has no plot. Maybe it’s okay that the embers are fading. Maybe it’s okay that Gaston really thinks he’s doing what’s best.
Maybe it’s okay. Because someday our angsty teenager will try again. She’ll scrape away all the stupidity and her pen will be fresh with new experiences, new skills, and new perspectives. A more mature writer, she’ll bring us back on track. And we won’t have to try so hard. We won’t have to die to feel alive. We can just be. We can be alive.
Friendships– relationships– are painful.
But maybe, just maybe… they are worth it.
Simply Eliska 